The recent focus on reaching herd immunity through vaccination may be overblown.

My modeling suggests that it is increasingly unlikely that the US will reach the immunity levels required for theoretical herd immunity in 2021.

https://t.co/7jDgND5vE1

(A 🧵 w/ my thoughts)

This conclusion is based on the following new developments over the past month:

- Remained high levels of vaccine hesitancy
- New variants that may lower vaccine efficacy
- Rollout of the J&J vaccine (efficacy ~70%)
- Delayed arrival of the children vaccine

That said, herd immunity does not have a hard threshold, and being close to herd immunity may be sufficient to prevent large outbreaks.

Our goal should not be to reach "herd immunity", but to reduce COVID-19 deaths & hospitalizations so that life can return to normal.

From my recollection, this was the goal last year, to have a vaccine that would reduce deaths and strain on our healthcare system.

But now the messaging has shifted to "getting at least X% of the population vaccinated in order to reach herd immunity".

I believe this new public health messaging that herd immunity means "X% of people vaccinated" is flawed.

It seems to ignore the fact that:

1) Vaccines do not provide 100% immunity
2) Nor do they stop 100% of transmissions
3) ~30% of population have already been infected

The ongoing Lincoln Project story reminds me that I haven't met anyone in politics yet who really understands how journalism works and how to handle a bad story. The Winning FormulaTM is also the right thing to do, but it involves a lot of humility and relinquishing some control.

First, don't lie to reporters. Ever. Even if you fool one, another one will find you out. And there are a lot of people who naively think they will fool ALL the reporters. This is just arrogance.

Don't try to intimidate people you suspect might be sources. It gives them more of an incentive to be a source, and it usually has the opposite of your intended effect: it encourages other people to talk to reporters.

If you know something is going to break, tell the story yourself, truthfully. There's a line from some Chris Matthews book that is actually applicable (and he did not do): hang a lantern on your problems.

Don't get defensive. It makes you sound like you don't *really* think you did anything wrong.

What are old-school transsexuals?

They are the ones who made it into the media, or the front of a tabloid, the ones who had the juicy details of surgery that made people wince or cross their legs while reading it.... clickbait, before there was anything to click.

1/

What you hear about old-school transsexuals or 'OST's' is largely the witterings of cishet transphobes who have constructed a MYTH.
2/

If you listen to accounts from transsexuals in the decades gone by when trans care wasnt available for 99.9% of trans people, what is a recurring theme is that they made incredible sacrifices to forge a life for themselves with no other option but assimilation.

3/

What often goes hand in hand with these stories, is prostitution, sex work, risking their own life for basic healthcare and treatment, many never got that far, many were MURDERED, and swept under the metaphorical carpet.

4/

Thats before they even got to surgery, which was equally dangerous and precarious unless you somehow managed to raise enough money to go to one of the very places in the world where the operations were performed with competence and care.
5/

I have worked all day on the Holiday Inn Cluster timeline

The first case was reported late on Feb 7
This was the Authorised Officer who tested negative after a shift on Feb 4, returned to work on the 7th, developed symptoms and tested positive

A cohort of her colleagues were then required to test and quarantine

The next case to emerge was a guest at the hotel who left HQ on Dec 7 after completing their 14 days

They were tested as a result of the AO testing positive

That result came back on the 9th

On the 9th it was also determined that the viral genome sequence for the AO case was identical to a family of 3 who had been at the Holiday Inn

All had B.1.1.7 VOC

That family was transferred to a hot hotel on Feb 4

Feb 3 and 4 are now believed to be the exposure dates relevant to the beginning of the cluster

The father in the family of 3 was admitted to ICU on the 9th

As of Feb 14 there are 16 cases linked back to the Holiday Inn but there is a sub cluster linked to a Private Dining event in Coburg on Feb 6 for 5 of those cases

The intersection point is a hotel quarantine worker and it is a little confusing as the TLs overlap

To be clear, I am neither ‘pro’ nor ‘anti’ vaccination. A vaccination is a medical intervention. In the old (pre-hysteria) days, prior to March 2020, any doctor would confirm that any medical intervention should be based on a risk -v- reward analysis.......

1/n

2/n

The overall IFR of Coronavirus is around 0.2%, similar to seasonal flu. It’s much lower for most people and you can assess your personal risk

3/n

For some reason, hysteria has taken over and we are now being held hostage to rushed, novel mRNA ‘vaccines’ which remain in Phase 3 trials and have not been fully assessed. Little, if anything, is known about potential iatrogenic effects.....

Cont......

4/n

And these products have not been assessed in relation to (for example) interactions with other medications; their potential effects on people with existing auto-immune conditions etc.

They have been granted Emergency Use Authorisation only.......

Cont.....

5/n

And it is arguable that the EUA should now be withdrawn as more is now known about effective therapeutic medications such as ivermectin and others. Nevertheless, the vaccination ‘push’ continues apace despite numerous eminently qualified people questioning the safety.....

Nobody is saying that trans-identified humans should not have human rights; what women are objecting to is the fact that trans activism is seeking to eliminate the following sex-based rights and protections that women have.

A thread.

Here is a list of the Human Rights of Women that trans activism is eliminating; it was written by Gallus Mag, who had her blog deleted by Wordpress after she published this.

1. Removing the legal right of women to organise politically against sex-based oppression by males.

2. Removing the legal right of women to assemble outside the presence of men.

3. Removing the legal right of women to educational programs created for women outside the presence of men.

I've gotten questions about whether to emphasize U-6 as the "true unemployment rate". It is currently 11.1%.

I don't because I think the concept doesn't add much, it misses how unusually bad the labor market is now, is analytically flawed, and can be misleading.

Thread:

The official unemployment rate is 6.3%. It is unemployed (people looking for work) divided by the labor force (working or looking for work).

U-6 is 11.1%, it adds in "marginally attached" (discouraged workers & would take a job if it came along) and involuntary part-time.

DOESN'T ADD MUCH. U-6 is one of several alternative unemployment concepts produced monthly by the BLS. They are all useful to look at. But they also all pretty much up and down together so they rarely tell much of a different story.

MISSES HOW UNUSUALLY BAD THE LABOR MARKET IS NOW. The last time U-6 was around 11.1% the unemployment rate was 5.7%. If anything based on historic relationships U-6 makes the labor market seem bad (like in 2015) but not terrible (like in 2012).

The reason is that a large part of U-6 is part time for economic reasons (aka involuntary part time). This is up but actually not up an unusually large amount given the increase in unemployment. We've seen a lot of jobs lost but people with jobs, on average, working longer.

BREAKING: Big @TheJusticeDept move against #ProudBoys. 5 new conspiracy arrests for actions at #Capitol.

Mention of the use of fluorescent orange recognition tape, movement as a group. Developing story.

h/t @FPWellman
Story via @davidgshortell @CNN. https://t.co/lvCBe1QqOR

While we wait on docs, I recommend revisiting this excellent @WSJ visual investigation of the #ProudBoys coordinated role in the #Capitol

[Thread] Ok, I suppose I should talk a little about this whole Gina Carano/Cara Dune #Holocaust cancel situation.

She shared this image (among others) which led to her censure (not censor) by Disney, etc.

CW: sexual violence/violence

#CaraDune
#GinaCarano
#CancelDisneyPlus ?

A brief grading of her statements:
Jews were beaten in the streets by neighbors including children ✅
Not by Nazi soldiers❌
History is edited❌
Govts made neighbors hate Jews✅-ish
This isn't different from conservatives being criticized❌

Carano is a conservative known to post offensive right-wing statements (it's not the 1st time) and the suggestion that conservatives are in any way similar to Holocaust victims is certainly offensive. Interesting how she got some things right while missing her own absurdity.

BUT...I'd really like to talk more about this image which is graphic and shocking and is now flying around the internet with no context. As I am finishing a book on #Janowska that covers the local circumstances of this image, I thought I would take a moment to talk about it.

The image of the woman was taken in Lviv, Ukraine (Lvov/Lwow/Lemberg) in July 1941 shortly after the Nazis had invaded and occupied the city. The majority of those pictured later abusing Jews ARE neighbors (Ukrainian or Polish) and this July Pogrom was encouraged by the Nazis.

While the B sides of the Western phil canon wait here is a thread on The Pantokrator Xenon, the Byz hospital that you cannot hear a lot about at the usual places

The Pantokrator Xenon was established by John II Komnenos in 1136 as a part of the Pantokrator Monastery. Its purpose: to heal the sick of Constantinople

At the same time and the same place gerokomeion (home for seniors) was founded. Xenon and gerokomeion had diff functions

We know a lot about the functioning of the monastery and its charitable institutions thanks to the Typikon of the Imperial Monastery the Pantokrator: the constitution drafted by John II Komnenos

The facilities: no private rooms, 50 beds in 5 sections: fractures and wounds (surgical ward), diseases of the eyes and intestines, ward for women, and two wards for men with other illnesses

#NHSwhitepaper Thread:

Contrary to some of the headlines, the reforms are NOT the
‘end of privatisation’

(Will explain below)

The white paper wants to reverse legislation that mandated competitive tendering, which meant every contract had to be put out ‘to the market’....

1/

Which was a nuisance
Created unnecessary beurocracy And wasted a lot of money

This legislation was brought in under Cameron’s coalition government

(Against the advice of the unions, health think tanks, royal colleges...basically everyone)

2/

A little thread about language and #HumanRights...

Recently I shared an NHS letter (not mine) that started with the line 'The vast majority of babies are normal.' It meant 'normal' as opposed to babies born with particular conditions, including #DownsSyndrome

Regularly hearing negative language about your child is emotionally wearing. And surprisingly hard to challenge in the moment (for me anyway... which is possibly why I choose to try and challenge it by writing about it).

A fortnight before Rosa was born, a consultant explained the problem they'd spotted with her digestive system, and then went on to say "...and now I have to say something to you that's not very nice... this condition is often associated with Down's syndrome."

In hospital, nearly three weeks after Rosa was born a nurse repeatedly told me what my baby wouldn't do compared to a "normal baby".

In my first conversation with the Health Visitor her opening question was "Did you know she was going to be Downs?"

The @ONS have decided that it's no longer possible to ask people simply what their sex is, even though this has been asked in every census since forever. Women have used the resulting data to prove that we face ongoing and widespread discrimination, at large and small scales 1/10

The people making decisions about the census, however, have been persuaded that some (unknown number of) people won't respond to the census at all if they have to answer this very basic factual question. 2/10

They have therefore changed the guidance so that an unknown number of people are advised to answer it according to their 'official documents' - which may contradict each other. Since it's easily possible to change the sex marker on a passport or driving licence 3/10

just by asking for it to be changed, this guidance effectively means that (an unknown number of) people unhappy about their biological sex are advised to answer the sex question however they choose. 4/10

The most immediately damaging impact of this decision will be on trans people. It means the opportunity to gather robust data from the new gender identity question in the same census is lost. We will not be able to tell how many trans people are male or female. 5/10

#HS2 locks #TreeProtectors 🌳in tunnels. The latest tactic employed by NET bailiffs is to install locked & barricaded doors within the tunnels beneath Euston Square Gardens, trapping those inside with no fire exit. Have they forgotten the Bradford City stadium fire?

Yesterday, one such barricaded door was installed by #HS2 a few metres into the tunnel known as 'Kelvin' & earlier today, another was screwed in & locked shut over the mouth of the tunnel known as 'Crystal'. This is a picture of it.

At around 8am on Thursday 11 February a #HS2 bailiff known as Dan entered Kelvin & wedged a door in place a few metres into the tunnel. He used a wooden brace to tightly secure it in place, preventing any outward passage by the occupants.

Over the course of the day, there followed an epic struggle between Desperate Dan the big bailiff and Blue, our brave nature defender, for possession of these few metres of tunnel leading to the downshaft, with Blue ultimately prevailing. #GoBlue #StopHS2

Battle commenced when Desperate Dan attempted to swap in a new door for the one originally installed. It is thought that the new door was one which could be screwed in and locked, rather than wedged & barricaded, much like the one now over the mouth of Crystal.

1. It is not illegal in the U.K. to wear clothes described as for the opposite sex.

2.The GRA, the sex-role stereotype recognition Act, does not serve to right a legislative injustice but rather to entrench a world-view.

3. The sex-role stereotype recognition Act, this creed is one where women’s oppression is natural and desired, same-sex attraction is bigotry which can be unlearnt and individual men get to define reality based on their

4. The notion of sex-role discomfort disorder (gender dysphoria) presupposes that sex-role stereotypes are innate to all of us and is based on woo woo. Do you agree with Benjamin:

5. We need to stop approving their ideology and the idea that if you are uncomfortable with discrimination then you have a mental

For everyone saying the current democrat party will improve systemic racism and racial unity I need to point this out.

Historically democrats have always been racist and even misogynist and this isn’t even ancient history it’s modern history too. Let me give you the list that I can pull from memory.

1. Democrats voted unanimously against ending slavery.

2. Democrats created the KKK.

3. Democrats were against the civil rights act of 1964.

4. Democrats voted against women’s suffrage.

5. Democrats instituted and enforced Jim Crow laws.

6. Democrats historically discouraged integration policies and encouraged segregationists.

7. 46 authored and sponsored the 1994 crime bill which was signed by then democratic president Clinton. This bill has been attributed to systemic racism in America.

8a. Margaret Sanger, the founder of PP and also democrat, instituted PP to cull the African American community. While it may have a mildly nobler purpose today, under the guise of women’s health it was intended as a racially eugenic operation.

When she was a child, her dream was to be an artist. She would chew her lip, and grip her crayon far too tightly as she tried to stay within the lines.

“Be practical,” her father said.

“Enjoy art in your spare time. Work hard. Then, maybe someday.”

Maybe someday. 1/

She puts on the vest that completes her uniform. At her last job she had a name badge, but not here.

Just the words “ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES” in block letters.

Her granddaughter once asked her if that meant she was saving the environment.

“Sort of, mija,” she laughed. 2/

She has been “Janitorial Staff,” “Hospital Housekeeping,” and “Cleaning Crew” over the years.

The job remains the same.

She gets the equipment ready on her cart. She is detail-oriented. Everything in its place.

The little walkie-talkie on her cart crackles to life. 3/

Her first assignment is a room cleaning.

It will be the first of many.

She is often under immense time pressure, as rooms must be cleaned before a new patient can use them.

It’s a time-consuming process, even though she has become extremely efficient at it.

Laborious. 4/

She makes her way into the elevator, maneuvering her equipment cart and the trash container on wheels.

There are two other people on the elevator. She says “good morning.”

One nods hello. The other doesn’t.

She’s learned not to expect thanks, but a hello would be nice. 5/

@ondakondratiev @PlzBeSensible @mattyglesias Okay, as promised, some links. @Burgerfacemcta1

This is from Canada:

@PlzBeSensible @mattyglesias @Burgerfacemcta1 This was in Psychiatric Times:

@PlzBeSensible @mattyglesias @Burgerfacemcta1 This is from a uni counseling center, and is a good overview of gendered victim-blaming for male victims:

@PlzBeSensible @mattyglesias @Burgerfacemcta1 This is tangentially about male victims of sex crimes and discusses gendered bonding and what men can admit.

@PlzBeSensible @mattyglesias @Burgerfacemcta1 Finally, RAINN has a summary, similar in theme to the UTK counseling center above:

Diversity is America's greatest strength 🇺🇸

Diversity is Ireland's greatest strength 🇮🇪

Diversity is Germany's greatest strength 🇩🇪

Diversity is Australia's greatest strength 🇦🇺

Diversity is Belgium's greatest strength 🇧🇪