CIRCLE WITH A DOT

Hello, these are the weekly #washingtonstate #kingcounty (that is, #seattle and environs) #COVID #COVID19 #wastewater toots.

A quick reminder that this King County respiratory disease data comes from Washington State, not the federal government.

The West Point (WSPT) sewage treatment plant's 7 day running average got updated this week, yay. It's pretty low, so another yay for that. The last 7DRA calculation was on 5/12.

WSPT is one of three King County(-ish) sewersheds in this dataset. You can find overviews, individual sewershed results, and a breakdown of variants for the state wastewater surveillance program, along with other metrics like case counts and hospitalizations for Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses, at https://doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistical-reports/diseases-and-chronic-conditions/communicable-disease-surveillance-data/respiratory-illness-data-dashboard#WasteWater. If you go to the page and click "learn more" in the statewide view tab, you can find out lots of details about how these data are calculated and how to interpret them. The dashboard gets updated every Wednesday (generally). The Department of Health is here on the fediweb, at @WADeptHealth

The FDA is blocking #COVID #COVID19 and Shingles vaccine safety studies. Good reporting by Christina Jewett. #GiftLink

nytimes.com

(www.nytimes.com)

Jeremy Faust got a copy of the censored paper and published it: https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/exclusive-heres-the-covid-19-vaccine.

Faust’s source says that they think RFKJr doesn’t want to publish the study because he wants to weaken CDC recommendations for the vaccines this year, including for high risk populations like older adults. The study shows that last season’s vaccine was 50% effective against ER visits and hospitalization for immunocompetent adults.

#COVID #COVID19

Jeremy Faust has a very good piece about some recent results about Paxlovid in our current #COVID #COVID19 environment: https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/the-end-of-the-paxlovid-era-why-two. The TL;DR is that two good studies show that this drug’s utility has decreased a great deal as individual immunity developed with vaccines and infections.

What about Paxlovid benefits for immunocompromised people and preventing long covid? These are good questions, and I suggest reading the entire article to get Faust’s assessment.

@mlanger I’m glad I finally went after passing by it so many times. Also, we saw no one outside our party while we were there!

But perhaps you would like to know some weird Vendovi Island facts. Here ya go:

The island’s reader board says it was named after a Fiji chieftain, Veidovi, who was being taken to New York to stand trial for the murder of sailors associated a 1840 South Pacific sailing expedition: https://sjpt.org/a-long-journey-home/. He died shortly thereafter and his skull was put on display at the US Patent Office?!?

For a while the island was inhabited by members of the Father Divine religious cult. After the death of its leader, Jim Jones tried to take the cult over by claiming to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. As the Wikipedia page on the cult explains, this was problematic from a math point of view, as Jim Jones had already been born before Father Divine died.

When you walk the trials you might happen on a clearing with an unexpected memorial to John Fluke of Fluke Instruments fame?!? Fluke bought the island in the 1960s, and his family sold the island to the San Juan Preservation Trust after he died. I guess there was some sort of understanding that the big memorial would remain.

I recently visited Vendovi Island, part of the San Juan Island Preservation Trust, for the first time. It is a small island between Guemes Island and Lummi Island with about three miles of easy walking trails to explore. The only way there is by boat/kayak. https://sjpt.org/visit-our-preserves/vendovi-island-preserve/

@huntingdon I guess the Russian that jumps out to me is Lysenko, mixed in with some eugenics. It's just nuts that the US gave this weirdo (pejorative) the keys to U.S. healthcare.

Lena Sun has a follow up story, saying that the CDC won’t publish the 2025-2026 vaccine effectiveness findings:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/04/22/covid-vaccine-report-blocked-cdc-mmwr/

#COVID #COVID19

The CDC was about to publish a report that the 2025-2026 #COVID #COVID19 vaccine cut the number of emergency room visits and hospitalizations for healthy people in half last winter, but acting CDC director[*] Bhattacharya has blocked its release. Excellent reporting from Lena Sun.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/04/09/covid-vaccine-report-delayed/

The WaPo app isn’t offering me a share #GiftLink button, so this is apparently outside the paywall?

[*] Fun fact, federal regulations for temporary appointments mean acting CDC director Bhattacharya lost his position last month, but he seems to be … just … not … leaving … anyway. ‍️