Notices by katharine (thatkatharine@ohai.social)

The only surveillance worth supporting is wastewater surveillance.

Dude is 81 years old.

There’s a lot going on in this story.

https://www.tmz.com/2026/06/20/rod-stewart-uses-oxygen-tank-during-concert/

Dude is 77.

https://www.tmz.com/2026/06/25/lionel-richie-sent-to-hospital-by-ambulance/

Is there a thing where you can feed your website bookmarks in and it'll detect which ones are dead or taken over by casino/porn/scam sites and which one are still functioning?

I have added a filter for the impending international soccer/football event.

May the most I am made aware of it be the cars tooting their horns and waving their flags as they drive past my window.

RE: https://ohai.social/@thatkatharine/116664279981599361

I’m not doing scary waggle fingers over the possibility of the international sporting event unleashing an octo-demic or hybrid/combination covibolameashantapoxculosisnoroflu or the most surgiest Covid surge that ever Covided.

I’m just trying to encourage the few remaining Covid cautious to slow their roll right now before using the recent Covid wastewater data as permission to drop virus mitigations.

The official line from Canada, if you want to play along at home with your risk assessment abacus

https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2026/05/interdepartmental-media-update--hantavirus---may-10-2026.html

Right now, these nine people are potentially unfortunate as a result of someone else’s bad luck and poor decisions. Will they have the patience to wait and see how great their misfortune may be or get restless and subject others to their poor decisions?

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/news/2026/05/media-update-on-andes-hantavirus-situation.html

“The situation is evolving. We’re taking a precautionary approach. We don’t know if asymptomatic spread might happen and the virus can have a long incubation period and we keep finding out more people might have had some exposure, but we are taking a precautionary approach to letting them run loose before our country plays host to an international sporting event. It’s fine, probably. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/news/2026/05/speaking-remarks-for-the-chief-public-health-officer.html

“You gotta hanta to them” —the WHO, probably

There is some fumbling and bungling going on. Like, it seems like a real bad idea to keep sprinkling passengers from the boat around to different countries as more cases come to light. But Covid infections mucked around with brains in a bunch of ways and so real bad ideas are unsurprising. Also, Covid infections mucked around with immune systems so that more people are more susceptible to any sort of virus. The Economy is likely to be upset by it all one way or another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s probably fine. Nobody exposed to the infected cruise has plans to attend FIFA festivities or has close contact with people who have FIFA plans. And if they were, they would definitely be responsible and alert someone and take proper precautions instead of keeping quiet so they don’t have to cancel more expensive plans.

Everyone can definitely keep their gathering in confined spaces with large boisterous groups to watch some dudes kick around a ball on a field for several hours plans. It’s over a month away and surely this will all blow over by then. And if it doesn’t, you won’t even know if you’ve been got for a while. And if you do get got, it’ll probably be worth the warm fuzzies of throwing back some cold ones with yer mates and feeling camaraderie with strangers rooting for your home team. Rah-rah

There's a lot of past-tensing Covid this week in the effort to dissuade panic over hanta. And what we're probably going to find is that once you encourage dropping mitigation for one ongoing pandemic virus, it's going to be kinda hard to admit other viruses are pandemic-worthy ...until the body count is too high to ignore.

Every time we get to “hooray the lowest levels,” people use that as justification for dropping precautions and then we almost immediately get “oops line go up again weird” because people refuse to see the whole picture and cherry-pick what they want to hear. The lowest levels are still high and only the emergency funding phase ended, but here we all are.

https://mastodon.social/@plaguepoems/116438853030114458

Golly-gosh! If only there was a thing…, a non-pharmaceutical intervention, like an accessory, a wearable barrier of some sort, that could help filter particulates from getting into the nose and throat. It could have elastic straps and come in variety of shapes and sizes to accommodate different faces. Maybe they could come in different colours. Ooh, even a reusable form.

Oh, well! Just load up on drugs forever! That will surely be fine and reliable!

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/allergies-climate-change-pollution-pollen/

Dr. Hoerger is not having your past-tensing Covid nonsense.

Seeing enthusiasm for Covid line going down. You know when I’ll be enthusiastic? When that line gets down below the 2020 peaks and stays down for at least six months. As it is, line rarely stays down for several weeks before it starts zooming up.

Of course, the best way to make line stay down is the consistent wearing of respirators. So, my optimism and enthusiasm remain holstered for the foreseeable.

Covid turns seven while the public turns their back https://overmused.thatkatharine.com/covid-turns-seven-while-the-public-turns-their-back/

#CovidIsNotOver

Did they see the wastewater graphs before they decided Covid had been tackled successfully? What defines “success”? Is withdrawing funding and support at the height of the spread of the virus and letting it rip through the population considered a successful way to deal with the pandemic?

https://www.biv.com/news/commentary/mario-canseco-most-canadians-polled-still-back-covid-19-measures-but-question-leadership-12034551