Kai Kupferschmidt

science journalist. molecular biologist. curious. contributing correspondent "Science Magazine" part of Pandemia (npub1h4p…7698)
 interested in #infectiousdiseases, #misinformation #disinformation and all things #blue

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Last Notes

2026-10-27 09:16:38 UTC

The Ebola outbreak in the DRC has now crossed 10,000 cases and is getting close to 5,000 deaths.
It is a staggeringly large outbreak and it continues to grow rapidly, with 96 new cases in the last 24 hours alone.
https://insp.cd/sitrep-n164-mve-bdbv-25-10-2026/
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/512/116/112/543/816/original/260a7e7b1580cbd7.png

2026-10-23 12:30:41 UTC

Some good news today: A clinical trial to test Ebola Bundibugyo vaccines candidates has started.
The first participant was vaccinated in Bunia in the DRC today.
I wrote about the plans and the background a few days ago in Science:
https://www.science.org/content/article/ebola-epidemic-rages-congo-bets-high-stakes-hope-vaccine-trial

2026-10-18 08:54:17 UTC

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Meanwhile, the epidemic in the DRC keeps growing fast with dozens of new cases every day. More than 9400 cases already, with about half of these deaths.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/461/066/500/168/706/original/1677307838a4bd51.png

2026-10-18 08:51:10 UTC

Kenya has announced four more Ebola cases, now 7 altogether. All of these are still tied to the 40-year old man who traveled from the DRC via Uganda to Nairobi. And all of these were already in quarantine when diagnosed according to Kenya's ministry of health.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/kenya-confirms-four-new-ebola-cases-bringing-total-number-seven-2026-10-17/

2026-08-06 08:24:40 UTC

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Great piece by Jason Okundaye arguing for a progressive critique of institutional diversity practices “capable of scrutinising how for many organisations and corporations symbolic representation has been a substitute for deeper reform, leaving it vulnerable to just this kind of backlash”

2026-08-06 08:23:39 UTC

“Arday was treated not as a scholar but as a mascot, one who was particularly expedient for an institution that had been regularly embarrassed by its historic record on race: too few black students (in my cohort at Cambridge matriculating in 2015 there were only 15 black males out of 3,449 students); single-figure black academics (which is still the case); allegations of institutional racism. Independent of the merits or pitfalls of his own scholarship, what success looked like for Arday in this role was limited; what accountability could look like if misconduct occurred was constrained by him being a vehicle for Cambridge to signal its institutional progress.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/06/jason-arday-dei-race-issues-university-of-cambridge

2026-08-01 15:07:39 UTC

It's been two and a half months since the Ebola outbreak in the DRC was declared and it is now the biggest the country has ever experienced and the second largest the world has ever seen.
Dozens of cases continue to be reported each day across three separate provinces.
https://insp.cd/sitrep-n077-mve-b_30-07-2026/
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/117/020/875/779/983/173/original/fcbd3eaeb3699bc6.jpeg

2026-07-24 09:26:22 UTC

Another massive jump in Ebola cases in DRC (reflecting new cases as well as "data harmonization").
Now 2,905 cases including 1,269 deaths.
I find it harder every day to square the size and speed of spread of this outbreak with the lack of attention it is getting.
https://insp.cd/sitrep-n069-mvb_22-07-2026/
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/974/233/203/591/660/original/224ec5cedb210925.png

2026-07-23 21:59:11 UTC

“Seven days after the girl’s medical team infused trillions of viruses carrying the recipe for the base editor into her spinal fluid, she died of a severe immune reaction linked to the therapy…”
This is an important and tragic story. (It’s also an incredibly well reported one.)
#genetherapy #trials #ethics
https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-death-girl-chinese-gene-editing-trial-was-never-made-public

2026-07-22 12:25:25 UTC

The recorded death toll from the Ebola outbreak in the DRC is about to cross 1,000 cases.
In reality there have likely been a lot more deaths already. Many new cases appear to have no link to known cases, suggesting much of the spread is still happening in the dark.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/963/611/622/381/315/original/079d27fec4776746.png

2026-07-02 17:22:47 UTC

Today the last person at risk from the hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius completed their quarantine, tested negative, and returned home, Tedros said in an @npub157u…0w8v presser.
"We are therefore very pleased to say that WHO considers the outbreak of hantavirus over.""

2026-06-28 16:28:47 UTC

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Spread throughout are some great tips on what you can actually do. So went right ahead after finishing it, downloaded libro.fm and bought his new audiobook The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI there.

2026-06-28 16:28:21 UTC

Just finished listening to @npub1fdr…lvhs’s Enshittification (on my library app Libby).
It’s an insightful polemic, it’s fun to listen to him read it and even though I’ve followed some of these debates as a journalist I still learned a lot, including what the terms ‘chickenization’ and ‘reverse centaur’ mean.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/116/828/674/499/696/246/original/087fa2ee1e46850c.jpeg

2026-06-23 08:41:43 UTC

“Ohne zentralen Ansprechpartner mit wissenschaftsjournalistischem Hintergrund in der Redaktion in Hamburg droht ein Verlust an relevanten wissenschaftlichen Themen im redaktionellen Angebot der reichweitenstärksten Nachrichtensendung des Landes.”
Offener Brief der wpk (Berufsverband der Wissenschaftsjournalist:innen) zu den Umstrukturierungen bei ARD und Deutschlandfunk: https://wpk.org/blog/journalismus-braucht-wissen-nie-mehr-ohne/

2026-05-19 14:39:15 UTC

The contrast between the number of media requests I got when rich people on a cruise were facing a deadly, but contained outbreak versus now that some of the poorest people in the world are facing a deadly and devastating epidemic is just so so stark and it just really annoys the hell out of me.

2026-05-19 14:27:05 UTC

Update on #Ebola from WHO:
“There is significant uncertainty about the number of infections and how far the virus has spread. As of 19 May, more than 500 suspected cases, including 130 suspected deaths, have been reported by the Ministry of Health. So far, 30 cases have been confirmed in the DRC. The outbreak now affects ten health zones in Ituri province, and has reached North Kivu, with confirmed cases in Butembo and Goma. Uganda has confirmed two imported cases.”
https://www.unognewsroom.org/story/en/3124/un-geneva-press-briefing-19-may-2026

2026-05-17 07:14:13 UTC

WHO has declared the #Ebola outbreak in DRC and Uganda a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
First time this has been done without consulting an emergency committee.
Extraordinary move that speaks to how concerning the facts on the ground look right now.
https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2026-epidemic-of-ebola-disease-in-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-and-uganda-determined-a-public-health-emergency-of-international-concern

2026-05-15 09:27:46 UTC

While everyone is watching hantavirus I'm actually much more eager to learn more about the Ebola outbreak in DRC's Ituri Province that Africa CDC has confirmed.
Early information makes it sound very large for an outbreak that has just been reported: "about 246 suspected cases and 65 deaths"

2026-05-09 12:40:29 UTC

“Nearly 150 people from 23 countries have been at sea for weeks, some of them grieving, all of them frightened, all of them longing for home. Tenerife has been chosen because it has the medical capacity, the infrastructure, and the humanity to help them reach safety.”
https://www.who.int/news/item/09-05-2026-message-by-the-who-director-general-to-the-people-of-tenerife-regarding-the-hantavirus-response

2026-05-08 12:51:12 UTC

After 15 years of reporting on infectious disease outbreaks, what continues to fascinate me about them is the challenge of making high-stakes decisions under uncertainty. The hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius is a perfect example.
My story in Science is here (and a thread to come):
https://www.science.org/content/article/what-do-passengers-cruise-ship-hit-hantavirus

2026-05-05 17:15:17 UTC

I've spent yesterday and today talking to researchers across the globe trying to understand the hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius.
My story is here (and some threaded thoughts coming):
https://www.science.org/content/article/cruise-ship-s-hantavirus-outbreak-puts-researchers-uncharted-territory
#hantavirus #cruise #science

2026-05-05 08:56:44 UTC

“Established cetacean researchers refused to take part in the rescue, says Baschek, who calls the effort “animal cruelty.” Instead, key faces of the effort included Danny.Firstclass, a German influencer and far-right activist whose real name is Danny Hilse, and Sergio Bambarén Roggero, a Peruvian writer of spiritual stories about the ocean frequently described as a “whale whisperer.””
Must-read stoey by Martin Enserink that feels like an encapsulation of our times
https://www.science.org/content/article/chaotic-whale-rescue-shocks-marine-biologists

2026-04-30 09:21:41 UTC

I’ve spent the last few months talking to misinfo/disinfo researchers about how generative AI is changing the field. One takeaway: It’s not just changing the scale of the problem but also how researchers are studying it.
Story in Science is here and thread with some takeaways this weekend:
https://www.science.org/content/article/misinformation-researchers-ai-scourge-and-powerful-new-tool

2026-02-12 21:57:43 UTC

Ok, I know promised a thread on the fascinating and important new research explaining what happened with the rare, serious side effects of AstraZeneca's and Johnson&Johnson's Covid-19 vaccines.
So, Science story by my colleague Gretchen Vogel and me is here and 🧪🧵 is coming:
https://www.science.org/content/article/rare-dangerous-side-effects-some-covid-19-vaccines-explained

2026-02-11 22:24:41 UTC

Five years after the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines started, it seems the mystery of why the Astra-Zeneca and J&J vaccines led to a rare but deadly side effect of unusual blood clots and bleeding has finally been solved.  
It's a fascinating case of molecular mimicry that may help make vaccine safer.
https://www.science.org/content/article/rare-dangerous-side-effects-some-covid-19-vaccines-explained

2026-02-01 22:43:01 UTC

“At least 32 people have died in ICE custody since Mr. Trump took office for his second term last year, more than in the entire term of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/us/politics/ice-warehouse-detention-canada.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

2026-01-31 12:17:46 UTC

“In a divided country where many elections are close and congressional control could come down to a handful of races, a local disruption affecting turnout or vote counting could have national consequences. If you are somebody who has previously dismissed talk of election interference as overwrought, we understand where you are coming from. Yet we urge you not to assume that the past will repeat itself.”
#giftlink
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/opinion/trump-midterms-election-security.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IlA.4fkE.enfK2rNYjw2R&smid=nytcore-ios-share

2026-01-25 11:42:26 UTC

The story is not that there are two conflicting versions of what happened.
The story is that the federal government is lying about what happened.
There is plenty of evidence.
Your job, our job, is to sift that evidence and describe what actually happened ffs.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/955/554/441/857/074/original/5a6f311417031ae5.jpeg

2026-01-24 18:24:00 UTC

“My background is in international humanitarian response in conflict zones in Yemen, Haiti, Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine. What I've seen here is what I've seen there. A powerful entity violently and intentionally terrorizing people."
That was Rachel Sayre, director of emergency management in Minneapolis, at the press conference just now…

2026-01-23 21:20:58 UTC

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Also, when someone writes the definitive book about the US government’s descent into lawlessness and social media madness “The Memes will continue” will make a perfect title.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/946/504/704/458/863/original/a9694e63709fabf5.jpeg

2026-01-23 21:20:23 UTC

“Roughly a half-hour after Ms. Noem sent her message, the White House posted its own version of the arrest image, in which Ms. Levy Armstrong appears to be sobbing. Her skin appears to have been darkened.”
The war on Truth continues…
#giftlink
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/us/politics/nekima-armstrong-photo-white-house.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GlA.UoDL.YY8R42s-_44V&smid=nytcore-ios-share

2026-01-20 14:59:14 UTC

They really couldn't be any creepier if they tried...
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/928/015/201/734/461/original/28950f720a9c5d45.png

2026-01-19 12:47:47 UTC

Hard to overstate how deranged this message is. And yes, it's been officially confirmed to be real...
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/921/834/288/681/171/original/601667574e23a783.png

2026-01-19 11:01:24 UTC

Yes. This is where MAGA’s stances on measles vaccine and Greenland come together for me: In both cases there is a failure to remember/imagine how bad the past was, bolstered by this naive and cruel belief that a “strong” body/country can just go it alone. https://mastodon.social/@chrisstoecker/115920763516380940

2026-01-18 12:38:38 UTC

“The only way to keep the space from imploding is to fill it, to prop up the walls: to claim all the room there still is for speaking, writing, publishing, protesting, voting. It’s what the people of Minnesota appear to be doing, and it’s something each of us needs to do — right now, while we still can.”
Masha Gessen in the New York Times
#giftlink
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/opinion/trump-one-year-later.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FVA.jmoI._TkilYIBu07C&smid=nytcore-ios-share

2026-01-15 11:32:38 UTC

For non-German speakers:
“Dear media, I can’t stand the headline "No agreement between the US and Denmark” any longer. If an armed man storms a bank, you don't run the headline: "Robber and cashier can't reach an agreement on money transfer." Stop framing imperial aggression as normal diplomacy.” https://mastodon.social/@LorenzMeyer/115898707265759747

2026-01-13 11:06:22 UTC

Visited a hospital here in Berlin this morning and I will say, if I was deciding who to quote on the walls of my hospital corridor, Kafka would probably not be the first person to come to mind… 🫠
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/887/464/895/018/399/original/f64e158dbf7ad67b.jpeg

2026-01-05 09:34:34 UTC

„Never forget: whenever Elon Musk walks up to a podium to bullshit you about colonizing Mars or whatever, he is walking on the bodies of dead children. He yanked their food and medicine away while telling lies and cracking stupid jokes.“
Derek Lowe as usual not pulling any punches
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/last-year-and-year-come

2025-12-23 12:48:20 UTC

"It is going to get so much worse."
For the first of two end-of-the-year episodes of Pandemia, I talked to Demetre Daskalakis, the former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases who resigned earlier this year. We discussed what happened in 2025 at the CDC and how he thinks about the future of vaccines and public health in the US.
A quick thread
https://audio.podigee-cdn.net/2261030-m-bd8b2d4f4e95934e622aed48c9760c4f.mp3?source=feed

2025-12-14 09:16:36 UTC

Everytime I read something like this it makes me so angry.
The fact that a society has been letting this happen for so long and so often that there are now regularly people who live through a second mass shooting before even finishing their education is the most shocking indictment of US politics
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/717/163/933/919/237/original/b7a542e919f91c3c.jpeg
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/717/163/992/039/081/original/6f7079cf1ff82ec3.jpeg

2025-12-06 22:09:30 UTC

There is something so deeply disturbing about this:
Just the NYTimes checking in with ordinary Americans about whether the government killing people it accuses of a crime with no trial is okay or not.
That combo of quote and photo alone is some straight-up dark Stephen King fantasy
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/674/904/605/914/783/original/be2f43ac2842c1da.jpeg

2025-12-01 18:05:37 UTC

This time last year, I was on the South Lawn of the White House helping to lay out the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
This year the White House did nothing and the State Department instructed empoyees and grant recipients to “refrain from publicly promoting World Aids Day through any communication channels”.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/645/634/091/206/864/original/085dd8339dbd0734.jpeg

2025-11-24 20:03:24 UTC

In the good news category:
 After years of research and trials, the WHO this year recommended the first new tool to fight #malaria in decades: spatial repellents. They last up to a year and they could help fight malaria as well as dengue and other diseases - and protect refugees.
https://www.science.org/content/article/new-vapor-tool-fights-mosquitoes-slowly-releasing-insecticide-homes-will-it-catch

2025-10-12 14:50:12 UTC

Our future is being shaped to a terrifying degree by people who have just … completely lost their marbles…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/peter-thiel-lectures-antichrist

2025-09-18 22:06:05 UTC

NYTimes really driving me up the wall these days (and giving the New York Times Pitchbot a run for its money) with framings and headlines like this one.
So an article about the government stifling free speech is a story of “success” and “efficacy” is it?
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/227/567/150/093/951/original/dbb6b550cc75a388.jpeg

2025-09-18 10:53:35 UTC

“ABC and CBS are making a serious miscalculation. Their servility to Trump will not earn them peace, only greater pressure.”
That’s the German professional association of journalists, @npub1nn0…8ues, calling on major US media to support their journalists instead of preemptively silencing them.
https://www.djv.de/news/pressemitteilungen/press-detail/nicht-vor-maga-kult-einknicken/

2025-09-05 08:03:04 UTC

Sequence data from the new #Ebola outbreak in DRC suggests it is indeed a new spillover.
And just incredible to see the virus sequenced and publicly shared less than 24 hours after confirmation of the outbreak.
https://virological.org/t/the-16th-ebola-virus-disease-outbreak-in-bulape-health-zone-kasai-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-a-new-spillover-event-from-an-unknown-reservoir-host/1003

2025-09-04 18:15:55 UTC

The quote I come back to the most these days is Voltaire's "Whoever can compel you to believe absurdities can also compel you to act unjustly."
(That's a loose translation though not as loose as Torrey's common "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”)

2025-08-18 23:37:18 UTC

Former CDC director Bill Foege about current health secretary RFK jr.:
“Kennedy would be less hazardous if he decided to do cardiac surgery. Then he would kill people only one at a time rather than his current ability to kill by the thousands. …
Kennedy’s words can be as lethal as the smallpox virus. Americans deserve better.”
https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/18/rfk-jr-public-health-threats-william-foege-smallpox

2025-05-19 14:47:21 UTC

The amount of money that the World Health Organization is asking for an entire year in its already reduced budget, $2.1 billion, is what the world spends on its military every 8 hours, director-general Tedros says in his opening remarks at the World Health Assembly #WHA in Geneva.
#globalhealth

2025-05-13 18:15:58 UTC

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"Even scientists accustomed to controversy and the public spotlight acknowledge the fear factor. The threats are “so vast and capricious,” says Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale University epidemiologist and veteran of political struggles around AIDS research going back to the 1980s. “As I’m sitting here talking to you, I realize it’s not without its risks.”"

2025-05-13 18:15:43 UTC

“The lived experience of a scientist right now is terrifying”
My colleague Warren Cornwall spoke to
@npub1hhq…nesj,
@npub1gcy…7stq,
@npub1m7f…e3wz
and other US-based researchers about “the fear and self-censorship coursing through the nation’s scientific establishment today”.
https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-s-fear-factor-scientists-go-silent-funding-cuts-escalate

2024-10-31 19:08:34 UTC

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Final story is up now too. It’s about inoculation, its roots in Cold War psychology research and what if anything we can expect from this and other psychological interventions…
https://www.science.org/content/article/can-people-be-inoculated-against-misinformation

2024-10-31 13:17:31 UTC

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Second story from my trio on misinformation research covers what I see as the 5 biggest challenges facing the field. It is up here now:
https://www.science.org/content/article/five-biggest-challenges-facing-misinformation-researchers

2024-10-30 16:41:29 UTC

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The first story is up now: It’s a look at the work of Kate Starbird and her team, who study rumors at the University of Washington, specifically rumors around the US elections.
https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-election-looms-rumor-researcher-tracks-falsehoods-and-counters-them-real-time

2024-10-30 16:40:37 UTC

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It’s been an interesting experience in turns fascinating and frustrating and when I went back to full-time science writing earlier this year I decided to try and put at least some of what I’ve learnt into words.
Those stories are coming out this week in
Science Magazine and I will try and do something I haven’t done in a while and delve deeper in a few threads.

2024-10-30 16:39:29 UTC

I’ve reported on infectious diseases for 15 years, but during the covid-19 pandemic and even more during the global outbreak of mpox clade IIb, I was shocked by the amount of misinformation I was seeing. Misinfo had always been part of any outbreak, but this felt different.
I ended up spending almost a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow to try and understand misinformation/disinformation better, to - I hope - be a better infectious disease journalist.

2024-09-04 14:46:16 UTC

"We expect the first delivery of vaccines to arrive in DRC tomorrow", says WHO's DG Tedros in update on the #mpox situation. These are the vaccines donated by the EU Commission. "DRC's ministry of health plans to begin deploying the vaccines this weekend."

2024-08-25 06:28:15 UTC

I’ve read a lot of stuff about #mpox already that is wrong or at least confused. And it’s not that surprising. The situation is pretty complicated and confusing. I tried to disentangle a few things for Science here (thread to come later):
https://www.science.org/content/article/confused-about-mpox-outbreaks-here-s-what-s-spreading-where-and-why

2024-08-15 16:11:12 UTC

I'm seeing a lot of confusion already out there about #mpox and the differences between clades and lineages. I will get into this in more detail later, but for now:
We really don't know for sure whether there is any material difference between clade Ia, Ib, IIa and IIb

2024-07-31 10:01:32 UTC

Some view the result as a game-changer. “Imagine if you had a vaccine that was 100% effective in cisgender women, and you needed a booster every 6 months,” says Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist who runs the Duke Global Health Institute. “You would be saying, ‘That’s it, we finally have a tool that can end this epidemic.’”
https://www.science.org/content/article/landmark-trial-may-herald-new-era-hiv-prevention