This is the exact problem with our government's thinking & response- despite this strategy of 'tolerating deaths' and half-way measures having spectacularly failed, it's quite amazing that our govt still hasn't learned anything, & continues to promote a policy of death. Thread
U.K. needs to confront
— Esther McVey (@EstherMcVey1) January 2, 2021
\u2018The challenge that faces us is to decide - are we going to try to pursue the elimination of Covid-19 regardless of the costs or decide on a tolerable level of deaths (like we do with the flu) in order to return to a normal life?\u2019
https://t.co/9hWbHIPJUq
https://t.co/VPqJBbkFik
The govt has completely failed us & their continued pursuit of pseudoscience will cost many more lives.
More from Deepti Gurdasani
Questions have to be asked about the evidence Jenny Harries gave to the Education Committee today about the risk to teachers.
— Adam Hamdy (@adamhamdy) January 19, 2021
Was she aware of this data?
If not, why wasn\u2019t she properly briefed?#COVID19 #schools https://t.co/4wa1PyAJld pic.twitter.com/eqFjaA1zYC
data shows *both* primary & secondary school teachers are at double the risk of confirmed infection relative to comparable positivity in the general population. ONS household infection data also clearly show that children are important sources of transmission.
Yet, in the parliamentary select meeting today, witnesses like Jenny Harries repeated the same claims- that have been debunked by the ONS data, and the data released by the @educationgovuk today. How many lives have been lost to these lies? How many more people have long COVID?
has repeatedly pointed out errors & gaps in the ONS reporting of evidence around risk of infection among teachers- and it's taken *months* to get clarity on this. The released data are a result of months of campaigning by her, the @NEU and others.
Rather than being transparent about the risk of transmission in school settings & mitigating this, the govt (& many of its advisors) has engaged in dismissing & denying evidence that's been clear for a while. Evidence from the govt's own surveys. And global evidence.
Why?
I've heard a lot of scientists claim these three - including most recently the chief advisor to the CDC, where the claim that most transmission doesn't happen within the walls of schools. There is strong evidence to rebut this claim. Let's look at
The science shows us that most disease transmission does not happen in the walls of the school, but it comes in from the community. So, CDC is advocating to get our K-5 students back in school at least in a hybrid mode with universal mask wearing and 6 ft of distancing. https://t.co/dfvJ2nl2s4
— Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) February 14, 2021
Let's look at the trends of infection in different age groups in England first- as reported by the ONS. Being a random survey of infection in the community, this doesn't suffer from the biases of symptom-based testing, particularly important in children who are often asymptomatic
A few things to note:
1. The infection rates among primary & secondary school children closely follow school openings, closures & levels of attendance. E.g. We see a dip in infections following Oct half-term, followed by a rise after school reopening.
We see steep drops in both primary & secondary school groups after end of term (18th December), but these drops plateau out in primary school children, where attendance has been >20% after re-opening in January (by contrast with 2ndary schools where this is ~5%).
More from Government
The tl;dr is that for years right-wing media have been excusing Trump's violent rhetoric by going, "Yes, but THE DEMOCRATS..." and then bending themselves into knots to pretend that Dems were calling for violence when they very, very clearly weren't.
And in fact, this predates Trump.
In 2008, Obama was talking about not backing down in the face of an ugly campaign. He said "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
https://t.co/i5YaQJsKop
That quote was from the movie The Untouchables. And there's no way anybody reading that quote in good faith could conclude that he was talking about actual guns and knives. But it became a big talking point on the
In 2018, Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder was speaking to a group of Georgia Democrats about GOP voter suppression. He riffed on Michelle Obama's "When they go low, we go high" line from the 2016 DNC.
You May Also Like
1) UCAS School of physical sciences Professor
https://t.co/9X8OheIvRw
2) UCAS School of mathematical sciences Professor
3) UCAS School of nuclear sciences and technology
https://t.co/nQH8JnewcJ
4) UCAS School of astronomy and space sciences
https://t.co/7Ikc6CuKHZ
5) UCAS School of engineering
6) Geotechnical Engineering Teaching and Research Office
https://t.co/jBCJW7UKlQ
7) Multi-scale Mechanics Teaching and Research Section
https://t.co/eqfQnX1LEQ
😎 Microgravity Science Teaching and Research
9) High temperature gas dynamics teaching and research section
https://t.co/tVIdKgTPl3
10) Department of Biomechanics and Medical Engineering
https://t.co/ubW4xhZY2R
11) Ocean Engineering Teaching and Research
12) Department of Dynamics and Advanced Manufacturing
https://t.co/42BKXEugGv
13) Refrigeration and Cryogenic Engineering Teaching and Research Office
https://t.co/pZdUXFTvw3
14) Power Machinery and Engineering Teaching and Research
It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details): https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha
I've read it so you needn't!
Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.
The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.
Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.