Oh great TB is back

@skinnylatte Holy shit. This is extremely serious.

Especially because high school students aren't known for their ability to stick to a drug regimen over months, which is what is required to cure TB

@skinnylatte
#PublicHealth #tuberculosis

@skinnylatte
Attn: @lizszabo.bsky.social
Subject: How it's going...
@drjudystone
@bicmay
@cstross

@skinnylatte time to get ready for the "tuberculosis glam" trend on social media. Our ancestors used to fethisize the TB look. In a way that's what gave us goth girls.

@skinnylatte We had a TB diagnosis of a student from SE Asia when I was in uni here in Japan. Word went out, and everyone with contact was called in for testing at an emergency response center downtown, which I learned was infrastructure maintained in part b/c TB is still endemic in the region.

@skinnylatte I initially took that comment personally. Tom Barkas

@skinnylatte back in the early 2000s I found myself involved in an isolated case in the UK completely out of the blue which was a portent for what I would be dealing with in my job over the next few decades (Swine Flu -> SARS and then finally -> Covid-19 completely disabused me of my complacency)

Sadly the BCG vaccine probably only lasts for about 20 years (some studies say longer or shorter) so if you were vaccinated in childhood it might not protect later in life, but the high rate of vaccination in the UK certainly helps prevent isolated cases turning into outbreaks

@skinnylatte something most of with sense knew was going to happen

@RunRichRun @skinnylatte @lizszabo.bsky.social @drjudystone @cstross

I hope families are cooperating with quarantining/isolation guidelines.

@skinnylatte "It only becomes active in about 5-10% of people, but it’s a higher risk for babies and folks who are immunocompromised."

I wonder if there's something that high schoolers are constantly exposed to which is known to damage immune systems. /s

#CovidIsNotOver

@skinnylatte
Polio is standing in the wings waiting for its cue