Mike Honey

With BlueSky down for 18+ hours (and the issues with its ownership coming into clearer view) and Xitter a toxic hellsite, today is the day to show your appreciation (and if you can, your monetary support) for your Mastodon admins and moderators. Here’s mine:

@aussocialadmin@aus.social

IMO, Mastodon is the only architecture that makes sense for building and maintaining your social media connections in the long-term: decentralised, distributed, moderated by humans, open access and open-source.

Here’s the June 2026 update I just sent to my GitHub Sponsors. New this month was the project tracking Ebola in the DRC.
I continued to share results from these projects, here and on other social media platforms
https://mike-honey.github.io/sponsors/GitHub%20Sponsors%20Newsletter%202026-07-01.pdf
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Here's the latest variant picture for Australia, to early June.

NB.1.8.1.* "Nimbus" remained dominant, growing to 70%.

#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Australia
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Here's the latest variant picture with a global scope, to late April.
Data sharing has stalled from several countries, so it's hard to draw a global picture.
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RE: https://aus.social/@DenisCOVIDinfoguy/116577283227970060

Diphtheria cases have continued to soar in Australia since the figures were taken for this article, now well over 200 reported via NNDSS for 2026.

Note this outbreak started in late 2025, and AFAIK it is not "seasonal", so annual tallies are a somewhat bureaucratic viewpoint.

No sign of a peak in the NT and WA, where very steep growth is continuing.

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to early May.

NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" has been dominant for most of April, finishing at 58%.

BA.3.2.* "Cicada" finished at 29%.

#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #NZ
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Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to early April.

The XFG.* "Stratus" variant remained dominant at 67%.

BA.3.2.* "Cicada" fell to 13%.

#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #USA
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Here's the latest variant picture for the United States, to early June.

XFG.* "Stratus" remained dominant but fell sharply to 39%.

XFJ.* (led by RW.1.1.*) finished at 18%.

JN.1.* + FLiRT (led by RF.5.*, mostly from International Travellers) finished at 18%.

#COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #USA
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