University prof. on cyber risk & systemic risk | He/him | Posts/RTs lots on #Covid #LongCovid. Covid is sig. systemic risk. #COVIDisAirborne #MaskUp #IAQ #AirQ
Joined November 2008
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Christophe Veltsos retweeted
“We’ve patched every single vulnerability, we don’t understand why we’re still getting breached?”
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
Minneapolis still hasn't had its first freeze. It's 12 days late, and there isn't one in the forecast for the next week.
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
For those who think Long COVID is only the vax, something like Long COVID also happened to those with SARS-COV-1 in 2003.
With SARS-1, 40% to 60% of survivors had bad effects years out, and nearly 30% of infected healthcare workers still couldn't return to work.
With SARS-2, Long COVID hit 20% of early cases and 3% to 6% during Omicron, with about 15% of all versions averaged, are still being affected.
The data across both outbreaks makes it clear, that long-term disability is a predictable outcome for this virus family, not an anomaly.
So, please, if you are a family member/friend, or a medical professional, take it seriously.
BTW, I know people who it was the vaccine. So those disbelieving that it could be the vaccine, please do the same.
Help both!
ALT Fist in the air, drawing.
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
Even good MDs who use respirators and get annual mask fit testing can misunderstand how the fit testing machines work.
This popular ER doc, who's social media content I like, accidentally passed along a misunderstanding of how PortaCounts test mask fit, something they probably would have realized couldn't be right if they thought about it a bit because N95s filter particles, including viruses, not gasses.
Here's what I replied:
"The PortaCount mask fit testing machines do use isopropyl alcohol vapor. It is used inside the machine to condense onto submicron aerosol particles in the air to fatten them up large enough for a laser and photo detector to see and count them.
The PortaCount uses two sampling hoses. One samples ambient air from outside the mask. The other from inside the mask. The machine compares the concentration of submicron particles outside the mask to inside the mask which gives a fit factor.
If, as an example, the concentration of particles outside the mask is 1000 per cm2, and 10 per cm2 inside the mask that would be a passing fit factor of 100, representing a face seal leak of 1% or less.
tsi.com/getmedia/7b3b8ecf-76…
To increase the particle count in the room so there is a good sample size for the machine sometimes the fit testers will run saline solution through jet or ultrasonic nebulizer. The water evaporates from the nebulized water particles, leaving aerosolized salt particles hanging in the air. The same can work with tap water because of solids in the tap water, but with proper saline solution you know the only solids you are putting in the air are NaCl.
Alcohol vapor is a gas, which means it passes right through particulate-only filters like N95s. There are some mask fit testing methods that test mask seal using gases, but they can only be used on masks that filter gases, such as elastomeric masks fitted with VOC filtering cartridges. One method tests to see if you can smell banana oil through the mask - it can't pass through the VOC filters so if you can smell it that means you must have a face seal or valve leak. But the PortaCount particle count machine testing method is a more accurate test."
The important thing, though, is that the Dr. was getting their annual mask fit test and found an N95 that works well for them and passed the fit test.
Mask fit testing is really useful for helping you find your Goldilocks mask that gives you the best protection, and it should be made more widely available to the general public.
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
Something that the world is quickly learning in the age of AI:
If something can be hacked, it will be hacked.
This week has been a prime example of this.
Security has never been more crucial than it is now
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
When I was young
I heard some enterprising
and engaging captain
say that the future
could be a place wherein
“we work to better ourselves
and the rest of humanity,”
and though I knew
that I might not see that day
I always thought
it was up to each of us to
make it so.
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
the denial we are living thru is wild. If you just go to the wikipedia page on worst pandemics in history, it clearly lists covid19 as the 5th worst and shows the death count still rising as of 2026
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
Reddit's earnings call has exposed the new reality for thousands of companies.
"AI mode does not drive traffic. Not for us and not to anybody as far as I know. It used to be a traffic driver. Now it's not." - Reddit CEO.
The reality is that AI is fundamentally changing the way that humans access the internet.
Just 24 hours prior to this statement, Google's stock erased -$480 billion on the same issue: AI is disrupting the traditional search model.
For decades, the internet operated on a simple model. Search engines directed users to websites, and those websites monetized the traffic.
AI is destroying this business model, and it's happening at an accelerating pace.
The traditional model of internet traffic is rapidly becoming outdated.
The internet has entered a new era.
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
A good friend of mine has been an inpatient in a major Belfast hospital for the past few days, and I've been visiting every day. It's been heartening to see quite a few other visitors wearing masks - many well-fitted FFP2s. However, I have yet to see a single staff member masked.
Folks who have expanded their knowledge of Covid, LongCovid, NPIs, IAQ, and more will appreciate this🎯post👇
🎯🎯🎯👇
"Our health, our food, our economy, our security, our power, our liberty…they all depend on science.
Without it, we are poorer, sicker, weaker, less competitive, dumber, and unable to thrive. Attacking science is attacking society."
Science faces an existential threat from the Trump administration, which means that a lot of scientists are losing their jobs. Some of us have spoken up against that, at great personal & professional cost.
I am not sure how many of my colleagues truly recognize how much danger our fields are in, much less the broader community. Our health, our food, our economy, our security, our power, our liberty…they all depend on science.
Without it, we are poorer, sicker, weaker, less competitive, dumber, and unable to thrive. Attacking science is attacking society.
In her keynote speech at IDWeek, my friend & colleague @celinegounder honored those who have put their careers on the line as a service to science & to the world in front of thousands of infectious disease experts. She kindly included me in this extraordinary group. I am so grateful to Céline for everything that she has done & continues to do for science & public health. ❤️💪
And after the elections, I am going to have a lot more to say about my own story.
open.substack.com/pub/drceli…
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
This has been fueling my anger lately. It's like an evil force taking humanity down a dark path.
If that seems dramatic, it's because it is. Im looking at it in a bigger way. Not just a trivial sales pitch by a grifter in some random X space.
I see it everywhere. Every facet of society, every situation.
It's about human being choosing to do the wrong thing. more and more of them, more often, and being ok with it.
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
I’m still processing something that happened today, and I am fucking LIVID.
People with Long COVID have to be among the most ruthlessly exploited patients on the planet.
The grift is absolutely shameless.
These predators enter patient communities, listen to people describe their suffering, their cognitive difficulties, their desperation for relief… and see a BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY.
They hear “brain fog” and think “easy target.”
Let me tell you something: Some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met have Long COVID.
Cognitive impairment is not stupidity. Desperation is not gullibility. And chronic illness is not your fucking business model.
We’ve got people discussing serious medical conditions, including chronic kidney failure, and you’re swooping in to sell them $200 “frequency-infused” sugar pills disguised as a detox protocol?
Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?
These people need medical care. They need research. They need treatments. They need someone to actually listen.
They don’t need another parasite trying to monetize their suffering.
If you’re lurking in chronic illness communities looking for vulnerable people to sell your pseudoscientific bullshit to, GET THE FUCK OUT.
Go back to whatever cave you crawled out of, you fucking vampires.
Sick people are not your sales leads.
And everyone watching this happen should be calling it out.
🚨👇
Federal employees with Long COVID are reportedly facing revoked remote work accommodations, months-long delays, and repeated disability reviews.
Long COVID is recognized under federal disability law. Those protections mean little if patients can’t access them.
motherjones.com/politics/202…
Just tweaked my LinkedIn profile to better reflect my appreciation for the Science (big S) of IAQ.
Also liking how that last sentence sounds.
ALT Updated LI profile which now reads: Chris Veltsos, He/Him Cybersecurity & Systemic Risk | Grateful for IAQ & Far-UVC | Educator, Advisor, Mentor, Author, Speaker | Check your Semmelweis reflex at the door please
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
Hi Leo, greetings from Australia. I'm an anaesthetist, and I wear an N95 mask in all shared indoor air to protect my patients, my community, and myself. I also educate my fellow doctors about the science: covidfordoctors.org
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
Apparently some people need the same lesson every year.
No, the COVID vaccine does not create sterilizing immunity.
But in a 2026 JAMA Network Open household study, recent vaccination was associated with nearly a 50% reduction in transmission to household contacts compared with unvaccinated primary cases.
And the 2025–26 updated vaccine still reduced COVID hospitalization by about 53–55% in recent U.S. data.
So yes:
It can reduce your chance of getting sick.
It can reduce your chance of severe disease.
And it can reduce your chance of passing the virus to someone else.
None of those effects are absolute. No serious person claims they are.
The remarkable part is watching someone in 2026 announce, with great confidence, that a vaccine must either stop every infection and every transmission or it “does nothing.”
That is a toddler’s definition of efficacy.
Christophe Veltsos retweeted
In the early days, I had friends who were initially committed to protections and understood the risks. Then I watched as one by one, they each chose irrational talking points to cement their ‘back-to-normal’ needs.
One more bizarre story this week for the Covid Twilight Zone.
I have a longtime friend who I always thought of as my most grounded, logical and insightful one out of everyone.
She lives 400+ miles away. So I’m always so excited to hear from her. She called this week and I was thrilled! Whenever I need to have an objective opinion about a decision, I have always reached out to her.
We would share Covid information, me from a professional lens…and her from a community view.
She was a teacher who had to retire after being hospitalized for Covid and developing Ocular Paralysis in 2021.
Ocular Paralysis makes her unable to move her right eye. She has endured several surgeries over the past few years to regain movement. None of which have been successful.
This week when I asked my friend if there were any changes in her condition, she stated that “If I had unmasked sooner my eye would have improved.”
I asked “How can that be?”
She stated that “EVERYONE has an eyeball stuck because they had problems seeing over their masks.”
I said, “I still Mask and both of my eyeballs are still moving.”
She said, “Well you don’t live in Michigan.”
I asked her very slowly “Are you saying that Ocular Paralysis, a condition that originates from an INFECTION or disease state is somehow coming from Masks?”
She said, “Yes, and being in lockdown where your eyes are inside the house all day.”
The only thing that I could think was “Damn! YOU TOO!”
The only thing I could do was sit down in the “off limits” living room, poured a glass of wine, lit a candle, and played some Camden Stewart.
I’m beginning to think that No Interaction is the Best Interaction.