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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 22m

Actually I think you are closer. IIRC they estimated about 36k/year on average. That's fairly low compared to many estimates (~11 per 100k per year) and their methodology is a bit different. But again, there's no right answer. I am glad that post-pandemic we agree within a lot less than factor of 2!

Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 1h

Oh, I saw you replied! I will take a look when I get home. There is no "right answer, but the fact that different approaches lead to similar numbers lends support to the numbers being meaningful.

Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 1h

Yes I think that's right, for a short time the excess is large compared to the sine amplitude, so the exact baseline function doesn't matter too much.

Curious how your numbers compare to mine, I'd bet we're well within a factor of 2, probably much closer.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 1h

...or even know whether without respiratory disease, there be a sine at all?!

Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 1h

Yes, I understand, and there's no criticism from me of the approach!

Just pointing out that it is difficult to separate the sine (or whatever the actual function is) from the respiratory, and know whether the sine underestimates or overestimates other respiratory disease...

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Reposted by Prof. Michael Fuhrer

Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 4h

This is really an extraordinary claim, that right now in Canada, infections are running at half what they were at the peak of the Omicron BA.1 wave.

It runs against a mountain of epidemiological evidence on Covid-19.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 4h

Given that your estimates of incidence are at odds with epidemiological data from all over the world indicating lower covid incidence, and the model doesn't seem to be working the way you say it does, wouldn't it be prudent to just shut it down for a while until you figure out what's wrong?

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 4h

But test positivity is a poor basis for estimating incidence as testing practices have changed radically over the time period in question.

bsky.app/profile/mori...

Tara Moriarty @moriartylab.bsky.social · 16d

But, almost all publicly reported testing in Canada is now done in hospitals, where, by definition, people are sicker than the general population.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 4h

I previously showed that your model seems to base incidence on test positivity, not wastewater: It produces an output linearly proportional to test positivity over orders of magnitude range of inputs.

bsky.app/profile/mich...

Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 15d

Here are the average output new daily infections from 1 Aug - 22 Sept 2025, against the input TPR. They are almost exactly proportional to each other.

Doubling the TPR doubles the infection estimate, and halving the TPR halves the infection estimate.

8/

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 4h

You say again that the estimates are based on wastewater, but wastewater concentrations are 14 times lower now in Canada than they were at the BA.1 peak, but your infection incidence estimate is only lower by a factor of 2. That's a factor of 7 difference! Why?

bsky.app/profile/mori...

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 4h

This is really an extraordinary claim, that right now in Canada, infections are running at half what they were at the peak of the Omicron BA.1 wave.

It runs against a mountain of epidemiological evidence on Covid-19.

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Reposted by Prof. Michael Fuhrer

Marc Veldhoen @marcveld.bsky.social · 11h

The abuse of science: the anti-science movement using cherry-picking to pretend SARS-CoV-2 has similar effects to HIV

How the "World Health Network" and all associated have lost even the last bit of credibility

marcveldhoen.substac...
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The abuse of science: the anti-science movement using cherry-picking to pretend SARS-CoV-2 has similar effects to HIV

How the "World Health Network" and all associated have lost even the last bit of credibility

marcveldhoen.substack.com

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 7h

Using the "just asking questions" technique to get this into the literature, where they will then use it as proof that their answer to the question was justified. Peer review failure.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 10h

How many flu deaths did you find for each season in US? We can compare.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 10h

The UKHSA approach uses a separate parameter for each flue season, which is closer to your approach. They try to eliminate cold weather deaths with a separate variable, and are at least fitting to the shape of the flu epidemic curve each year. But I expect they tend to sweep in other ARIs.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 10h

My approach uses the high/low flu seasons to in essence estimate what a zero-flu season would be. BUT it assumes that everything else stays the same in high/low flu seasons which likely isn't true. (Probably more testing in a big flu year!)

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 10h

Nice! It's confounded to the extent that it includes other ARIs *above the baseline* (or negative, if below). The question then is whether a single sine function fits the average respiratory season excluding flu? Probably unknowable!

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 12h

I see Sweden is moving towards earlier covid/later flu which seems to be the case in most countries.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 12h

That looks good. It seems more difficult in Sweden's case to accurately estimate both flu and covid because there's little separation in time. US (and Australia) have been having two covid waves per year which helps separate the two contributions.

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Reposted by Prof. Michael Fuhrer

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 22h

In any discussion of food and farming, unless your solution can be scaled to feed 8 billion people, you shouldn't be taken seriously. Unfortunately, cottagecore fantasies that would feed only the richest consumers, leaving billions to starve, are all too common.
www.monbiot.com/2023/10/04/t...

The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

The astonishing story of how a movement’s quest for rural simplicity drifted into a formula for mass death

www.monbiot.com

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 4d

I think the big change is that we test a lot more for flu now, and probably detect almost twice as many hospitalizations and deaths.

Still, 2024-25 was worse than 2019-20 and probably had 2/3 as many deaths as 2017-18.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 5d

But generation time is very short (~2 days), so when it gets going it takes off fast.

They're really different viruses.

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 5d

That's more a product of "waning" immunity which is largely immune escape due to genetic drift. Studies comparing time to 1st infection in children to time between infections have concluded that R0 is fairly low for flu (2.5 or so).

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Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 5d

Thanks!

Prof. Michael Fuhrer @michaelsfuhrer.bsky.social · 5d

Acute covid really did cause a lot of deaths in 2020-2022 (5-10X average flu season!)

But in 2025 acute covid is causing far fewer deaths. It seems highly implausible that covid is associated with more excess deaths than flu in 2025.

36/36

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