If Doug Ford does not cancel the $100M deal with Elon Musk he cannot be taken seriously about the rationale for his snap election.

Here's a reminder of my take on #COVID-19 (the disease not the pandemic). It's not what you think it is ... A thread 👇 1/23

I am very excited to announce that we are adding a new Peds EP position! Come and work at SickKids in a thriving, supportive, academic cardiology program, where you will get to focus on invasive EP! Contact me for more info. #PACES #EPeeps @PACESep @WOMENinPACES_EP

🔎 What are the risk factors associated with ventricular dysfunction in Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome? 🤔🫀🩺 Find out below👇 in a new study led by @sickkids Head Electrophysiologist Dr. @EStephensonMD published in @CJCJournals 👏🏼 👏🏼 👏🏼 cjcpc.ca/article/S2772-8129(…

Minimisers: "If Covid dysregulated the immune system, why aren't we seeing an increase in opportunistic infections, eh?!" The opportunistic infections:

Martin Sheen getting the crowd singing “America The Beautiful” before last night’s rally with #MichelleObama and ⁦@aliciakeys⁩ .

That speech Michelle Obama just gave was one of the best of this entire cycle. She is unbelievable. Here’s how she brought it home.

IMPORTANT! Check your ballots Pennsylvanians! Our ballots are MIA. When we called again today, the woman said her son mailed his on the same day we did (October 17) and his is also MIA. We have been offered remedy of going to courthouse to vote and they will toss our mail in ballots when/if they arrive. Check here 👇🏼 pavoterservices.pa.gov/Pages…

Canadian experts are calling for provinces to share data with the Federal government so we can have a clear picture of covid. Covid is one of the top causes of death. Monitoring it needs provincial data but that is now less forthcoming coming. thestar.com/opinion/contribu…

RT @MuellerSheWrote: John Kelly has confirmed, on the record, that Trump called members of the military losers and suckers. You've got to r…

Hey everyone. Twxtter gets darker and darker so I’m checking out bluesky. I’m not going to close this account right away but if you’re on bluesky please follow me there, I’ll try to find you all!! bsky.app/profile/estephenson…

Just my own observation, but pretty sure most of the folks I saw in the overrun underfunded emerge last night would have gladly taken an adequately funded public health system over a cheque to buy a couple hundred bucks of booze at the corner store.

This week in key Covid publications and preprints: —Increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events 3-years out, irrespective of severity ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/… —7T MRI showing brainstem inflammation months after severe Covid academic.oup.com/brain/advan… —Long Covid individuals twice as likely to have persistent #SARCoV2 antigens, correlated with symptoms clinicalmicrobiologyandinfec… —Self-amplifying RNA booster had higher levels of neutralizing antibodies 12 months out than mRNA shot (randomized trial) thelancet.com/journals/lanin… —The XEC variant (now 11% of US cases) is on the rise and a JN.1 booster offers protection biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… —A #LongCovid genome wide association study finds 3 significant loci medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/…

I would be more than up for doing a national show on COVID with @ChiefSciCan . Would be happy to provide whatever data @CBC would like in advance, so the graphics team can help me get the info across about why vaccines, masking, air cleaning and staying home when sick are still so crucial. People simply don't realize that COVID is still the number 3 cause of death in Canada, after all cancers combined (number 1), and all cardiovascular diseases combined (number 2). It causes more deaths than any single cancer, cardiovascular or any other single disease in Canada. Untimely "from" COVID deaths, not dying with COVID when someone would have died from something else. We're seeing nearly as many untimely/excess/from COVID deaths each year since 2022 as the number of Canadians who died in all 5 years of World War II. The number of untimely/"excess"/"from" COVID deaths each year is more than the total number of deaths per year in Canada attributed to smoking. People don't realize COVID is still the number 2 cause of hospitalization, or that there are about 3 million people living in Canada with long COVID severe enough to limit their activities of daily life. I don't know if we're going to keep experiencing this until the Canadian life expectancy drops as low as life expectancy in the United States or lower, but it does not look like it's slowing down. We need to keep communicating that it's a marathon, and that continuing to try to protect yourself and others is worth it, while we wait for longer-lasting vaccines and advocate for institutional and legal measures like improved air quality in work, school and public places, and mandatory masking in healthcare settings. My argument is always that if more people in Canada knew what is actually happening many would better understand why it's so important to vaccinate and mask. Not everyone, of course, but some.

ONE MONTH LEFT till our 2024 International SADS Foundation Conference for Healthcare Professionals, jointly provided by Lurie Children's Hospital and SADS, on Friday Nov. 8 in Chicago! Register at sads.org/get-involved/annual…. #EPeeps #CardioEd #GCChat

Babies whose mothers were vaccinated during pregnancy are DRAMATICALLY less likely to be hospitalized for COVID than are babies of unvaccinated mothers. The anti-vax narrative is dangerous. Literally. cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/m…

Personally, I have never felt at significant risk of experiencing severe acute COVID. For years now, *by far* my own main concern (aside from also caring about other peoples' health) has been the risk of long-term cognitive and/or physical effects for me or someone in my family.

Did you have a terrific birding trip to Iceland in May, but then lose your SD card with your 3,700 bird photos in Norfolk? I have it!

Noticing a lot of your relatives are just not the same, health wise? Relatives dying after surgeries that were relatively low risk a few years ago? Today, this report from insurance giant @SwissRe puts numbers on the ongoing excess death toll attributable to Covid-19. From the report: "Fluctuations in excess mortality tend to be short-term, reflecting developments such as a large-scale medical breakthrough or the negative impact of a large epidemic. However, as society absorbs these events, excess mortality should revert to the baseline. With COVID-19 this has not been the case and all-cause excess mortality is still above the pre-pandemic baseline. In 2021, excess mortality spiked to 23% above the 2019 baseline in the US, and 11% in the UK. As Swiss Re Institute's report estimates, in 2023, it remained significantly elevated in the range of 3–7% for the US, and 5–8% for the UK. If the underlying drivers of current excess mortality continue, Swiss Re Institute's analysis estimates that excess mortality may remain as high as 3% for the US and 2.5% for the UK by 2033." What does the percentage increase in deaths mean in real numbers? Roughly 3 million people die in the US every year of various causes (cancer, heart disease, accidents, etc). The 3-7% increase in 2023 represents a 3-7% increase in that 3m number, so roughly 90-210k more deaths. This places Covid-19 solidly among the top five killers in the US, with heart disease (700k), cancer (600k), accidents (200k) and strokes (150k), and it continues to stay there 3 years after mass vaccinations, and countless waves and variants since. While not the killer of millions and the destroyer of health systems it was in 2020-2021, it is a leading cause of death that we must continue to respect, and take active measures to prevent in especially the elderly and vulnerable. It continues to be a leading cause of disability in the form of Long Covid.