Suzanne Miller

@ick_real All the adults in my family and all my friends!

How many people actually have library cards as adults? 🥸

@michael_hoerger I think this goes back to #numeracy; people don't seem to understand what a Venn Diagram of reasons for stuffiness, etc. would look like- they only see one circle that's bigger than the others at the moment.

"Miserable pollen" is the new COVID-19. 1 in 98 people in Louisiana (the surveillance sites are both in New Orleans) are estimated to be infectious with COVID today. In a room of 25 people, there's approximately a 23% chance of exposure. Don't assume #MiserablePollen.

@cocomarvgrows @ann_mcnitt lack of imagination

@ann_mcnitt When will this garbage stop? “I don’t know what else it could be”? It makes me feel ill and wild and angry.

It's COVID.

This Saturday (12–1 PM) marks my first public #poetry reading! 📖 I'll be reading from "No Paper Today" and sharing a preview of my book with C.J. Prince(Sept 2026) Please join us on Zoom! Details and link below. #Writing @ModPoPenn @AuthorLachlan

@cocomarvgrows Oh, and wash his paws

@cocomarvgrows I doubt he'll want to swish CPC mouthwash

So, my dog just grabbed a dead bird in his mouth… He promptly dropped it when I screamed. Is there anything I can…do?

What started with missing @WSJ deliveries turned into a book - and now a @ModPoPenn virtual reading. March 28, 12–1 ET. Join us!

@michael_hoerger Might be cost prohibitive, but CO2 monitors to help participants assess indoor air. Maybe CPC mouthwash for use after places with more exposure risk. Isn't five masks too few? I see even CC people reuse excessively...

We're looking to conduct a pilot run of a COVID Defense Kit to reduce the risk of reinfections among people in the U.S. with #LongCOVID. Do you have any suggestions? Our prior pilot was specifically for people with cancer and published in JAMA-NO (link in next). That COVID Defense Kit included the following: -An educational booklet on airborne transmission and multi-layered mitigation (this will be a public website soon) -5 FlowFlex rapid tests -50 N95/KN95 masks tailored to the sizes/needs of the individual and their household/family/visitor needs -2 DIY air purifiers We could mail the kits anywhere in the U.S. To track the data needed to yield generalizable knowledge for academic research and push for program scaling and eventual policy change, we had all participants do a brief survey pre-kit and then a 1-month follow-up survey on what from the kit they used, what they liked best, etc. We compensated $100 for that time, in addition to the kit being free (about a $220 value, so about $320 total). Possible improvements: -We could include a DIY fit-testing kit -We could include fewer masks initially and then send a 2nd batch once the "best" mask(s) get identified -For a 1-month follow-up, 5 rapid tests seemed sufficient, but open to ideas on that -The booklet is very mitigation focused. We could add info on fundamental coping strategies (this is not psychologizing LC, just acknowledging ostracism is stressful for anyone taking C19 seriously), provide suggestions for how to talk to family, friends, co-workers, etc. I'm not sure if any of this is needed or what the greatest need would be. As noted, we're working on a website, so it's not a big deal to have "too much" info, and people can use what they want. -We could do a longer follow-up window (3 or 6 months), but this gets tough in a pilot project that's a limited total time frame -Other ideas? Sorry if any of that seems offensive. I've mostly steered clear of substantive LC work because the important priorities are diagnostics and treatments; there's also a lot of incorrect psychologizing of LC. That's not my intent. I'm increasingly concerned about the impact of repeat infections 6+ years into this with a pessimistic near-term horizon on the treatment front. I'm also seeing in our real-world data that things like mask fit discernibly matter in terms of cumulative infections, even in the CC community. Thanks for any thoughts! 🙏

@ellymelly today

Curious. When was the last time you picked up a real pen and wrote something on a piece of paper???

@danitasteinberg Told my Toronto folks who sometimes take some precautions. Thanks.

Toronto friends! This month's Masked at the Movies is family-friendly with a screening of A GOOFY MOVIE! It's on Sunday afternoon, and I hope to see you there! Registration and accessibility info at the link 😇 DM with any questions or additional needs. eventbrite.com/e/1983826064161

@michael_hoerger I would be grateful for any info you can share about whether chances of long Covid are diminishing as the population develops hybrid immunity. Also, any info re: optimal vaccine timing for preventing long Covid given the constraints of vaccine availability.

COVID-19 direct and excess mortality represent the tip of the iceberg. #LongCOVID remains a pressing public health concern, as disability numbers continue to climb to this day. In underestimating case rates, the CDC model likely also underestimates high projections for LC.

As of today, the COVID-19 pandemic is now longer than WWII.

Scientists put kids through 100 hours of reading, then scanned their brains. New wiring had physically grown inside the language regions. Communication between brain areas sped up by a factor of 10. Kids who didn't read showed zero change. That was a 2009 Carnegie Mellon study. It gets wilder. In 2013, Emory University scanned 19 students every morning for 19 straight days while they read one novel chapter each night. Mornings after reading, the brain areas responsible for understanding other people's emotions lit up with new connections. So did the region that processes physical sensation. Their brains were simulating what the characters felt, as if it were happening to them. Those changes stuck around for 5 days after they finished the book. Now flip to scrolling. A massive review published in Psychological Bulletin last September pulled together 71 studies covering 98,299 people. Heavy short-form video use (TikTok, Reels, Shorts) showed a clear pattern: worse attention, weaker self-control, and more anxiety. Consistent across teenagers and adults, across every platform tested. Oxford didn't name "brain rot" its 2024 Word of the Year for nothing. A 2024 brain wave study found that people hooked on short-form video had weaker activity in the front of the brain, the part that controls focus and impulse control. Separate brain scans showed the same thing: heavy scrollers had less activation in the exact regions that deep reading strengthens. UCLA neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf has been studying this for decades. Humans were never born to read. There's no gene for it. Reading is something we invented, and it hijacked neurons that were originally meant for recognizing faces. Over time, it built entirely new brain circuits connecting language, vision, and emotion. But those circuits only survive if you use them. Stop reading, and they fade. Wolf's conclusion is simple: screens built for speed produce a speed-wired brain. Books built for depth produce a depth-wired brain. One honest caveat: most of these studies are snapshots, not long-term tracking. People who already struggle to focus might just prefer short videos. But the same pattern showing up across nearly 100,000 people is hard to shrug off. The tweet repeats the line seven times. The research backs it up with brain scans, EEG data, and white-matter imaging across tens of thousands of people.

@SalamonSMD @PaulaYScanlan Another argument for increasing #numeracy

@PaulaYScanlan The number of people i still see not wearing masks in 2026 after 6 years and half a million studies confirming that each infection cumulatively damages your health and intelligence is genuinely concerning. I am a leading medical researcher.

the number of people I still see wearing face masks in the year 2026 is genuinely concerning

@michael_hoerger It isn't even asymptoting

"After COVlD," a book on "the pandemic's legacy." Legacy (dfn): the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past. Can someone point to the place in the past where #AfterCOVID begins?

Preach it! It's this century's analog to indoor plumbing. #cleantheairweshare

We have almost 1000 cases of measles here #cleantheairweshare #CorsiRosenthalBoxesAcrossAmerica

@goodreads five

Be honest. How many books are you "Currently Reading" right now?

@Friesein It does and it doesn't- supply creates its own demand, so if people become aware that some buildings do this, consumers will start to seek such buildings and their businesses out, which encourages other buildings to do likewise... Econ 101

There are many things that can be done to reduce the burden of indoor viral transmission without a single change in behavior. Ask yourself why our culture has framed these interventions out of the equation and portrayed prevention as inevitable. Hint: it has to do with money.

@cocomarvgrows I think you have more CC people around than others of us do...

I love my Covid Cautious life. I love how it’s slower and smaller than before. I love its tight rigour wrt virus mitigations. I love that my kids aren’t sick all the time. I love our CC friends. None of this is less. It’s MORE.

@ethanjaack yes but a redesign...

@bitsy15CS maybe think about switching hosts with better support

@GoDaddyHelp No one(including your help desk) has been able to figure out how to get #AltText to display with my logo rather than a website in progress message. Tried to sell me SEO. Can you help? #ADA #Accessibility Seems to be a meta-data issue on your end