1. I believe the government is about to make another huge mistake. Where is @UKLabour in all this? I have some questions @Keir_Starmer should be asking urgently. Please RT to raise awareness.

2. Where is the modelling or evidence to support a focused protection vaccination strategy? The government has chosen it as its preferred strategy but it must have considered other options. Will the government publish the data and the alternative options considered?
3. A responsible government will have modelling for 20%, 50% and 80% vaccine coverage, and projections for the number of infections, Long Covid and deaths in each scenario. Where are those models? On what basis has the government opted for the 20% scenario?
4. The government should also have modelled each of these scenarios against a backdrop of low, medium and high community transmission. What is the impact of each vaccination scenario against varying levels of community transmission?
5. There should also be some assessment of incidence of reinfection and likely evolution of variants given different levels of community transmission. What does this assessment tell us?
6. A responsible government will have done this modelling and used it to inform their decision on which strategy to pursue. Publish the models, the underlying data and the evidence that supports focused protection as the correct approach.
7. There is strong real world evidence to support the #ZeroCovid approach taken by China, New Zealand, Taiwan and others. Why has the government rejected this approach? What is the data that suggests it would fail in the UK?
8. Dr Fauci suggests 70% to 90% vaccine coverage is necessary for success and the safe resumption of normal activities. Why is the UK government taking a different approach? What evidence is the to suggest he’s wrong?
9. Chris Whitty says we need to have a national conversation about risk and an acceptable level of death. We need data in order to have an informed discussion. https://t.co/rcJSvdb3aZ
10. We need information and evidence to understand why the government has settled on this strategy, and we need to understand why it has rejected other approaches.
11. This is one of the biggest public health decisions in modern history. No offence intended, but the government’s pandemic response has been one of the worst in the world. We can’t take a leap of faith. The government must publish the basis of its decision & accept scrutiny. https://t.co/wHWHVefM8f

More from Adam Hamdy

1. I find it remarkable that some medics and scientists aren’t raising their voices to make children as safe as possible. The comment about children being less infectious than adults is unsupported by evidence.


2. @c_drosten has talked about this extensively and @dgurdasani1 and @DrZoeHyde have repeatedly pointed out flaws in the studies which have purported to show this. Now for the other assertion: children are very rarely ill with COVID19.

3. Children seem to suffer less with acute illness, but we have no idea of the long-term impact of infection. We do know #LongCovid affects some children. @LongCovidKids now speaks for 1,500 children struggling with a wide range of long-term symptoms.

4. 1,500 children whose parents found a small campaign group. How many more are out there? We don’t know. ONS data suggests there might be many, but the issue hasn’t been studied sufficiently well or long enough for a definitive answer.

5. Some people have talked about #COVID19 being this generation’s Polio. According to US CDC, Polio resulted in inapparent infection in more than 99% of people. Severe disease occurred in a tiny fraction of those infected. Source:
1. This thread has been given a new lease of life today. People keep saying, "We can't do #ZeroCovid, it doesn't fit with our way of life."

Look around.

What way of life?

The one we used to have?

The UK has been under varying degrees of restriction since March 23rd 2020.


2. Nearly a year of having our social and economic freedoms curtailed in one way or another. Nearly a year of muted economic activity. Nearly a year of mass death and disease.

#ZeroCovid doesn't fit with a way of life that doesn't exist anymore.

3. The question isn't whether it fits with our old freewheeling ways, but whether it would lead to better outcomes than the UK's current (poorly defined) strategy? Experiences in New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, China, Taiwan and elsewhere very much suggest it would.

4. #ZeroCovid isn't about what's possible. It's about what's necessary. Decide what's necessary and figure out a way to make it possible. We can't force travellers to quarantine in hotels for two weeks? Why not? Taiwan does. And if that's what's necessary, why aren't we doing it?

5. I've heard some odd things said about #ZeroCovid

Simple-minded clod Matt Hancock said Zero Covid is impossible because no country has had zero cases.

Zero Covid sets out an ambition. It signals a country treats any infections as serious
1. The problem facing Europe & the US isn't a scientific one. Scientists have been clear for months: public health and economic & social wellbeing are best served by policies that supress the virus. The #JohnSnowMemo cites evidence that makes this

2. Some media commentators seek to present the issue of how to respond to the virus in simplistic terms: Lockdown vs Herd Immunity. This a mischaracterisation. The countries that have tackled #COVID-19 best have used a range of public health


3. Almost every scientist acknowledges lockdown equals failure. It is a sign governments have failed to implement the measures needed to allow life to be lived more or less as normal, without risking exponential growth in transmission.

4. There is an active misinformation campaign that is being aided and abetted by certain sections of the media and some politicians. The campaign would have us believe that if we open up and shield the vulnerable, all will be well. This approach has been derided as inhumane...

5. ...by the WHO, and ridiculous by Dr Fauci for many reasons. It is based on faulty logic, and the proponents of this approach have submitted no evidence that it can be achieved nor any practical examples of how they would do so.

More from Government

Parents in cities, please pay attention to the reopening details from the Whitehouse.

Biden says "small classes". What we need to understand is how they plant to accomplish this.

Through "childcare programs in schools". We see this all over states w/ closed schools.


We need to grasp that the AFT, NEA, & local unions are systematically working to decouple education from childcare.

Their vision is your child sitting on a device all day, watched by a childcare worker, being "taught" from a Teacher working from

This isn't a paranoid conspiracy theory - it is already happening in the majority of districts across the US where schools are closed.

"Learning Hubs" open, supervised by childcare workers, sometimes in the same "unsafe" school

There is NO OTHER WAY to get "small classes" without Hybrid + wraparound childcare. Your child will spend 2-3 days per WEEK supervised by low wage workers and sitting on a laptop.

Here's

Fairfax,

You May Also Like

https://t.co/6cRR2B3jBE
Viruses and other pathogens are often studied as stand-alone entities, despite that, in nature, they mostly live in multispecies associations called biofilms—both externally and within the host.

https://t.co/FBfXhUrH5d


Microorganisms in biofilms are enclosed by an extracellular matrix that confers protection and improves survival. Previous studies have shown that viruses can secondarily colonize preexisting biofilms, and viral biofilms have also been described.


...we raise the perspective that CoVs can persistently infect bats due to their association with biofilm structures. This phenomenon potentially provides an optimal environment for nonpathogenic & well-adapted viruses to interact with the host, as well as for viral recombination.


Biofilms can also enhance virion viability in extracellular environments, such as on fomites and in aquatic sediments, allowing viral persistence and dissemination.