Jon Read

Infectious disease epidemiologist, fascinated by networks, transmission, pathogen evolution & our responses.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@CalebLareau Very nice work. Another great example of the utility of making data available for secondary analysis. Will this apparent ubiquity of anellovirus make it the most abundant (by mass?) virus of humans on the planet?

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@TheLaurenChen Ah this old fallacy. Not true. For e.g., HIV and ebola are both able to spread very well despite having high infection fatality ratios without treatment -- for ebola, many documented superspreading events AFTER the person died.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@richardhirschs1 Modelling estimates based on historic outbreaks in China and Madagascar place R0 between 2.8 and 3.5, and more recent Madagascar outbreak higher still. Clear potential in absence of control. https://t.co/mPyrWDmifU https://t.co/kXujbEJmHX

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@cavepaleo This is a false dichotomy, both matter - ultimately if you aren't exposed you won't get infected. Don't forget, some viruses can lie dormant in the nervous system and can reactivate causing symptoms (eg chickenpox) & persistent infections without symptoms can also happen.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@1goodtern Or just discovered late with increasing case detection; there's no real information here about how fast the epidemic may be growing.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@AJamesMcCarthy Really great. Congratulations!

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@PaulNuki @AlisonTerf71r Or indeed HIV, ebola (post-mortem transmission common due to cultural practices), or anthrax in wildlife. There is no 'rule'.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@PaulNuki It'll be kettles next, and then there will be no going back.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@alexcdot @GoogleDeepMind @Meta @MIT @Cambridge_Uni You can't blame peer review entirely, the principal blame lies with the supervisors and PIs that either (a) allow use of genAI in this way or (b) fail to read their own papers carefully!

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@EricTopol @BMJMedicine Here's the BMJ link: https://t.co/w9lG3t8P3G

[Michael Levin @drmichaellevin]

A new, long paper on evolution - natural induction - split into 2:

https://t.co/dgfYDZ63Ip

https://t.co/85vYn7uKqh

@RichardWatson90 and Tim Lewens

"It is conventionally assumed that all evolutionary adaptation is produced, and could only possibly be produced, by natural selection. Natural induction is a different mechanism of adaptation. It occurs in dynamical systems described by a network of interactions, where connections give way slightly under stress and the system is subject to occasional perturbations. This differential adjustment of connections causes reorganization of the system’s internal structure in a manner equivalent to associative learning familiar in neural networks. This is sufficient for storage and recall of multiple patterns, learning with generalization and solving difficult constraint problems (without any natural selection involved). Various biological systems (from gene-regulation networks to metabolic networks to ecosystems) meet these basic conditions and therefore have potential to exhibit adaptation by natural induction. Here (and in a follow-on paper), we consider various ways that natural induction and natural selection might interact in biological evolution. For example, in some cases, natural selection may act not as a source of adaptations but as a memory of adaptations discovered by natural induction. We conclude that evolution by natural induction is a viable process that expands our understanding of evolutionary adaptation."

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@LongCovidHell It's common for most health systems to do further PCR tests to determine type/subtype of influenza (H1N1,H3N2,B), and anything that is negative for those would be investigated further particularly if causing severe disease. This is how most human avian influenza are picked up.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@adamjkucharski Classic shape, better than most outbreaks.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@AJamesMcCarthy @BlackGryph0n Incredible.

[Marc Johnson @SolidEvidence]

Help me out, I’ve got another wastewater virus mystery.

This one really blows my mind.
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[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@lenssketcher @mark_lj Eskdale, Lake District

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@BuDs_UK How are you estimating the community prevalence?

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@CHPhotography15 Great use of the format.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@overlandertheb1 Pronounce Milngavie.

[Jon Read @JonRead15]

@cakiepig @gina_scot Turf war, surely?