Conor Browne
@brownecfm
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Biorisk analyst
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Joined January 2011
1. Fundamentally, a significant part of what I do is the prediction of both the behaviour of pathogens in the future and our likely collective response to future pathogenic threats. I have an excellent track record in this regard for two main reasons:
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2. Watching the current scrambling response of many healthcare systems to H3N2 K, combined with the firmly embedded political and ideological resistance to masking, I can assure you all that if H5N1 goes human to human with a high CFR, we're in deep trouble as a species. /end
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Stir up the group chat with a "let’s go to Florida this weekend 😎”
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1. Like everyone else in the biodefense community, I've been watching H5N1 like a hawk since long before SARS-CoV-2 emerged. H5N1 could easily undergo reassortment with another influenza strain to create a reassortant virus with a significant CFR and efficient human transmission.
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Tomorrow is the earliest sunset of 2025 in Northern Ireland. To celebrate, please enjoy two seagulls watching the setting sun from Ramore Head, Portrush, earlier this evening.
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🦠 "Quite frankly, we're probably in a worse place now than we were in 2019" - @brownecfm 🔸 strain mutation behind surge 🔸 peak could come at Christmas 🔸 PHA urges more vaccination 🔸 Covid lessons not being learned 📰 | @BelTel
https://t.co/qzsDY0ps42
belfasttelegraph.co.uk
The early surge in a so-called ‘super flu’ strain of the influenza virus is going to “dramatically stress” the Northern Ireland healthcare service in the r...
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1. Delighted to have the opportunity to discuss the current influenza surge in today's Belfast Telegraph @BelTel ;the virus itself, what we should be doing to mitigate it - vaccination, ventilation, masks - and how infection control has become ideological. Link in next tweet:
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It was tough to pick a winner, but in the end, nothing beats the wisdom of Ken here.
@brownecfm No mate it’s not masculine to wear a mask unless you are a doctor conducting an operation or an industrial worker protecting yourself from dust and toxic contaminants. I saw enough alpha males masking up during COnVID and even had a mask wearing runner spit near me and tell me
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With influenza surging in the UK and Ireland, the fact is that the culture war nonsense surrounding masks combined with the lack of airborne mitigations in hospitals (itself a result of the political and social erasure of Covid) will lead to deaths that could have been avoided.
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I wrote this piece in @statnews because anti-vaccine rhetoric isn’t just “noise” — it’s taking a real emotional toll on clinicians and damaging the trust we work so hard to build with patients. This is happening every day in exam rooms across America. If you want to understand
statnews.com
“The rise of anti-science and anti-vaccine rhetoric has fundamentally changed the relationship between clinicians and patients.”
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Fair. This is why I wear FFP2 / KN95 or FFP3 / N95 - because they've been rigorously proven to work. My personal confidence in them is based on the fact that - to the best of my knowledge - I've never had Covid, and I've had a large number of confirmed exposures over the years.
@brownecfm A soldier wouldn’t wear a vest that has been proven not to work.
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Bob from London (unless this actually is Conor McGregor's alt account) proving my point beautifully. Thanks Bob!
@brownecfm My knee jerk response is BETAMALE. FFS when did we ever wear masks ? I’m a plumber. I’m around horrible shit every day and I never get sick also or very very rarely. It shouldn’t even be debated anymore. Wear a mask if it makes u feel better. Leave the men alone not to.
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I await the publication of Steve's peer-reviewed observational study of the behaviour of men wearing masks in public restrooms with bated breath.
@brownecfm Yeah, the Omicron is so so scary. The reason that mask wearers at this juncture are considered weak revolves around men that wear masks today also tend to sit when they pee - the dots are easily connectable. 🤡
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Recent discourse has really cemented for me that many objections to mask wearing are rooted in an insecure kind of masculinity. Wearers seen as 'weak' or 'scared'. This idea is as absurd as calling a soldier weak or scared because he or she chooses to wear a Kevlar vest.
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Thanks Grok.
@GeneralFluffyz @brownecfm Conor Browne has been recognized for his biosecurity expertise, including in MIT Technology Review as a "pandemic oracle." Views on COVID responses vary widely; some praise forecasting efforts, while others critique them. His ongoing work focuses on risk mitigation for
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This is right up there with the most stupid things I’ve ever heard any politician say. Give your fellow commuters a debilitating virus, add to the pressure on the NHS, put vulnerable people at risk - all because the Leader of the Opposition is “traumatised” by a bit of fabric.
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The situation in Northern Ireland was this 6 days ago: BBC News - Children hit hardest as flu cases in Northern Ireland surge - BBC News https://t.co/bYeS6oGr3Y And David here, also from Northern Ireland like me, is mocking infection control and flu vaccines. I'm embarrassed.
bbc.co.uk
Paediatric emergency medicine consultant Dr Julie-Ann Maney says it is a particularly virulent strain of influenza.
@brownecfm Conor this must be parody ... The same mask wearers are the same Covid and flu jab loving 🐑 🤦♂️
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Smart, because they understand risk and how to mitigate it. Independent thinkers, because they often go against the social norm. Highly resistant to social and / or peer pressure.
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'HSE Chief Executive Bernard Gloster has said this year's flu season has hit Irish hospitals hard and "we're nowhere near the peak". Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, Mr Gloster added that hospital emergency department attendance was at its "highest ever" last Monday' Highest ever.
The Irish Medical Organisation has warned that the flu had hit Ireland "fast and hard" and will add enormous strain to the already stretched public hospital system https://t.co/RohjqwLbIa
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