Joshua Weitz
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joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz
@joshuasweitz.bsky.social
10K followers 3K following 2.1K posts

Professor of Biology & Institute for Health Computing, U of Maryland; explores how viruses impact human and environmental health; 'Asymptomatic' (JHU Press, 10/2024) & 'Quantitative Biosciences' (Princeton U Press, 3/2024) & 'Science Matters' substack. .. more

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Joshua S. Weitz is an American biologist. He is both a professor of biology and the Clark Leadership Chair in Data Analytics at the University of Maryland. Previously, he was a professor at Georgia Tech, where he was the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences. In 2017, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. .. more

Biology 28%
Environmental science 26%
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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · Sep 24
New from #SCIMaP - analysis of the White House’s Proposed FY 2026 National Science Foundation Budget.

Take-home: Slashing NSF by >50% will lead to ~$11 billion in economic loss and extensive job loss and reduced training opportunities in communities nationwide.

Report: osf.io/e8rnc

a 🧵
Economic loss from the White House's NSF FY 2026 Proposed Budget

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 18h
The false notion that COVID-19 was no worse than seasonal flu is a key reason why it has been necessary to launch a joint campaign: both against the virus and against flawed narratives."

You can find the book via online outlets & via @hopkinspress.bsky.social:

www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...
Asymptomatic
The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics
www.press.jhu.edu

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 18h
As I write:

"The reality of mild and asymptomatic cases also catalyzed a plausible counternarrative: that the disease was, in effect, harmless or at least no worse than seasonal flu. This counternarrative was flawed from the start...

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 18h
Not sure who this is directed to... but in my book, I dedicate a chapter to 'Mild Cases and Experiential Bubbles', addressing self-reinforcing claims that COVID was no different than the flu (including Bhattacharya & Ioannidis et al's flawed serological survey).

www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic...
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics: 9781421450483: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com
www.amazon.com

Reposted by Kate Starbird

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 19h
Macedo and Lee misrepresent what happened during the pandemic and are unable to confront Covid's actual toll, presumably because it undermines their premise. A longer take here w/my colleague Greg Gibson:

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/revisionis...
Revisionism in the Wake of Covid
A dialogue confronting the premise of revisionist efforts to diminish the pandemic's severity and dismantle public health institutions.
joshuasweitz.substack.com

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 19h
An alternative for those who want to dive in.

'Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics (JHU Press).

Addresses the roots of Covid grievances (hint: never the flu) & how to realign preparedness to control silent spread.

www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic...
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics, Joshua Weitz (JHU Press)

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 19h
As I have explored in depth, Macedo and Lee misrepresent what happened during the pandemic and are unable to confront Covid's actual toll, presumably because it undermines their premise.

A longer take here w/my colleague Greg Gibson:

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/revisionis...
Revisionism in the Wake of Covid
A dialogue confronting the premise of revisionist efforts to diminish the pandemic's severity and dismantle public health institutions.
joshuasweitz.substack.com

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 20h
Of relevance, I confront this core, confounding element in:

'Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics (JHU Press).

Addresses the roots of Covid grievances (hint: never the flu) & how to realign preparedness to control silent spread.

www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic...
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics, Joshua Weitz https://www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic-Silent-Spread-COVID-19-Pandemics/dp/1421450488

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d
Additional, long-form posts available on Science Matters substack; new posts every 1-2 weeks. Always free.

substack.com/@joshuasweitz
Science Matters - https://substack.com/@joshuasweitz/

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d
Welcome feedback...

and happy to engage down the road on my longer-form analysis of what made Covid so difficult to stop (i.e., silent transmission), analysis of the realized impacts (unlike Macedo and Lee), and prospects to confront future pandemics:

www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic...

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d
bsky.app/profile/josh...
joshuasweitz.bsky.social Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d
Macedo and Lee misrepresent what actually happened during the pandemic and are unable to confront Covid's actual toll, presumably because it undermines their premise. A longer take here w/my colleague Greg Gibson:

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/revisionis...
Revisionism in the Wake of Covid
A dialogue confronting the premise of revisionist efforts to diminish the pandemic's severity and dismantle public health institutions.
joshuasweitz.substack.com

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d
Here's a longer take on the flawed premise (w/my colleague Greg Gibson):
joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/revisionis...

& an alternative, 'Asymptomatic' (JHU Press), on what made Covid so hard to stop and how to confront future pandemics:
www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic...
Revisionism in the Wake of Covid
A dialogue confronting the premise of revisionist efforts to diminish the pandemic's severity and dismantle public health institutions.
joshuasweitz.substack.com

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d
Consider an alternative.

'Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics' (JHU Press).

Addresses the roots of Covid grievances (hint: never the flu) & how to realign preparedness to control silent spread.

www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic...
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics, Joshua Weitz (JHU Press)

Reposted by Erol Akçay

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d
Macedo and Lee misrepresent what happened during the pandemic and are unable to confront Covid's actual toll, presumably because it undermines their premise.

Congratulations, I guess.

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/revisionis...

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d
An alternative for those who want to dive in.

'Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics (JHU Press).

Addresses the roots of Covid grievances (hint: never the flu) & how to realign preparedness to control silent spread.

www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic...
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics by Joshua Weitz (JHU Press) book on table

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d
Macedo and Lee misrepresent what actually happened during the pandemic and are unable to confront Covid's actual toll, presumably because it undermines their premise. A longer take here w/my colleague Greg Gibson:

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/revisionis...
Revisionism in the Wake of Covid
A dialogue confronting the premise of revisionist efforts to diminish the pandemic's severity and dismantle public health institutions.
joshuasweitz.substack.com

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 3d
Now that the 2025 US measles outbreak exceeds 2,000 cases, the vast majority due to *community transmission*, it is well past time to switch the risk image from airplane travel to schools, churches, hotels, restaurants, homes + ...

This is measles now.

In RFK's HHS.

www.cdc.gov/measles/data...
Measles Cases and Outbreaks
Find the latest numbers of confirmed U.S. measles cases. CDC updates this page weekly.
www.cdc.gov

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 3d
What HHS and NIH leadership does now matters.

Precisely so: how many times will professional organizations & journalists give them the benefit of the doubt, rather than believing them when they say who they are in MAHA events, OpEds, and policy decisions.

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/the-state-...
The State of Science: Moving Beyond ‘Good Faith’ Negotiations
Challenging an implicit assumption in ongoing dialogues on the future of American science: do we really want the same thing?
joshuasweitz.substack.com

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 3d
When the premier journal of Science in the United States has a profile of the NIH Director and does not mention his flawed science or his justification for shutting down mRNA research, then something is going wrong.

ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
New report sounds alarm on health fallout from mRNA vaccine funding cuts
A new report from the Yale School of Public Health warns that the U.S. government’s abrupt cancellation of funding for mRNA vaccine research could have
ysph.yale.edu

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 3d
As I write in 'Asymptomatic'

"In early 2020, Ioannidis and colleagues erroneously claimed that asymptomatic spread was so rampant that COVID-19 was no worse than flu or perhaps even more benign. They were wrong."

www.amazon.com/Asymptomatic...
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics
Asymptomatic: The Silent Spread of COVID-19 and the Future of Pandemics: 9781421450483: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com
www.amazon.com

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 3d
Yet another failure of 'good faith' reporting that quotes John Ioannidis as a 'longtime colleague and friend' without mentioning that Ioannidis & Bhattacharya co-led a flawed Santa Clara serological survey that falsely claimed COVID was 85x less dangerous than estimated.

very brief 🧵

Reposted by Joshua S. Weitz

markhisted.org
Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 4d
"One longtime colleague and friend, [John Ioannidis] who has kept in touch with [Bhattacharya], pleads for scientists—and reporters—to give him a chance. "

Ioannidis is part of the COVID contrarian crew.

Of course he says that. It's like a Big Oil exec asking to give EPA head Lee Zeldin a chance.
Bhattacharya, who was unhappy with the outcome of an earlier interview with this reporter, declined to speak to Science for this story. In brief responses to written questions, he said his term so far has been “profoundly rewarding.” One longtime colleague and friend, who has kept in touch with the director since he took the job, pleads for scientists—and reporters—to give him a chance. “I do worry that taking the stance that ‘Everything was perfect, and now comes Jay Bhattacharya and destroys everything’ is very problematic,” says Stanford physician-scientist John Ioannidis. “We need some shaking up and we need that to happen rigorously. If we don’t, it will be done with political means.” New man on campus NIH observers are still struggling to make sense of the agency’s 18th director, who jokes about being a Washington, D.C., outsider and buying suits for the first time since high school. In public remarks, he is relentlessly upbeat about his agency’s prospects. “I’m absolutely heartened by” bills in Congress that would keep NIH’s budget essentially level in 2026, he told an audience at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) in September. In response to a survey this year of early-career physician-scientists that found 45% were thinking about leaving the United States, he maintained that “the future is bright.” If someone talks about leaving for Europe, Bhattacharya said, tell them “you’ll take a 60% pay cut and you won’t have a garbage disposal. It’s a depressing thing.”

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 4d
Perpetuating a COVID-era grievance: priceless.

Reposted by Joshua S. Weitz, Scott L. Greer, Daniel Webster , and 11 more

yalesph.bsky.social
Yale School of Public Health @yalesph.bsky.social · 4d
A new report from researchers at the Yale School of Public Health warns that the U.S. government’s abrupt cancellation of funding for mRNA vaccine research could have devastating health and economic consequences for the nation.
New report sounds alarm on health fallout from mRNA vaccine funding cuts
A new report from the Yale School of Public Health warns that the U.S. government’s abrupt cancellation of funding for mRNA vaccine research could have
ysph.yale.edu

Reposted by Joshua S. Weitz

science.org
Science Magazine @science.org · 4d
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya has struggled to convince observers he has the agency’s best interests in mind—and is truly in charge. https://scim.ag/3MMXDSh
Will NIH’s new director reform his agency—or destroy it?
Jay Bhattacharya is struggling to make the case he’s in charge and has the agency’s best interests at heart
scim.ag

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 4d
Thanks to all have purchased a copy.

Asymptomatic is now #2 in Epidemiology. Please do consider posting reviews and sharing feedback; it's either that or I have to reread CH's one ⭐ review who claims I have "family and associate connection to big pharma (who are only into BIG PROFITS)"

Who knew!
Asymptomatic - available via Amazon, B&N, and JHU Press (and some independent bookstores). Screenshot via Best Sellers in Epidemiology, Gordis Epidemiology, Asymptomatic, and Understanding Environmental Health. https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/53730/asymptomatic

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 4d
Just as we need more frank talk about the likely threats of measles, hep B, RSV, and more, that lay out what is to come (in realistic terms) if we step away from our investment in life-saving science and medical research.

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 4d
There is always going to be a balance between assessment and forward-looking recommendations. Given the grievances that animate current policy decisions, my view: we need more frank talk about the realized impacts and how current leadership got things wrong from the start.

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 4d
The farther the emergency response phase of Covid 'fades' into the background, the easier it is for alternative narratives to conflate the risk of Covid now with the pre-vaccination period risk... and to discount the experiences of those w/elevated vulnerability to many respiratory pathogens.

joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 4d
There are many, forward-looking reasons to revisit Covid responses, the reasons increase by the day. False dichotomies persist. As the book also makes clear, there were *large* differences in risk across age groups. Policy responses are undermined when there is a gap between goals and evidence.