1. Last NYE was a quiet one for @AmyMcLellan2 & I, after a busy year writing and helping @DavidHHeadley and @LizzieCurle organise @CapitalCrime1
Someone I follow on Twitter shared this story, and we jokingly said we hoped it wouldn’t be another SARS.
6. March 13th saw this mind-blowing Sky interview in which Sir Patrick Vallance clearly articulated the government\u2019s infection acquired herd immunity strategy. He set a target of 60% of the population. The interviewer challenged him about the deaths that would involve. pic.twitter.com/WW4sdLLTZ6
— Adam Hamdy (@adamhamdy) December 31, 2020
https://t.co/aluQ78ifmA
https://t.co/8mKkiAOB8C
And @SarahDRasmussen whose threads remind me why I love maths.
https://t.co/XhyeVl7Pug
https://t.co/qh1n147kYC
@itosettiMD_MBA for sharing useful info (and a sense of disbelief at how some governments are failing to respond to the pandemic).
I think we’ve all had enough of this pandemic, so I really hope our governments can get a handle on things. Half measures only make things worse & the new variant will punish inaction. https://t.co/Ou2VgaG4A5
The Imperial report on the new UK B117 strain is out. Very concerning findings, that highlight why we need to act on this *now*. These findings suggest that the situation within the UK is likely to get much worse than it is now. Here's why-
— Deepti Gurdasani (@dgurdasani1) December 31, 2020
Thread.
https://t.co/KPvONwwBqV
In the meantime, stay positive, keep safe and be kind to yourself and others.
More from Adam Hamdy
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.
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
The Swiss Cheese model of #COVID19 defence, by @MackayIM.
— Dr Zo\xeb Hyde (@DrZoeHyde) October 24, 2020
No single measure is sufficient, but put together they can stop the virus.
I particularly like Misinformation Mouse, nibbling away at one of the slices. pic.twitter.com/c1gfTai2Hj
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.
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?
It seems increasingly likely that, come March, the govt is planning to say to under-65s without pre-existing conditions: go forth and get Covid https://t.co/BhHNG3M2DR
— D_Shariatmadari (@D_Shariatmadari) January 10, 2021
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?
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:
I find it remarkable that a section of society not rejoicing that children very rarely ill with COVID compared to other viruses and much less infectious than adults
— Michael Absoud \U0001f499 (@MAbsoud) February 12, 2021
Instead trying prove the opposite!
Why??
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
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.
1. \u201c#ZeroCovid is impossible\u201d
— Adam Hamdy (@adamhamdy) January 4, 2021
I\u2019ve been arguing for #ZeroCovid before it even had a name, so I\u2019ve heard most of the counter arguments.
It\u2019s too expensive.
If countries like Vietnam can afford it, why can\u2019t we?https://t.co/1XUyzOuHtc
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
More from Health
this simple, counter narrative fact keeps cropping up all over the world.
hospital and ICU utilization has been and remains low this year.
it's terribly curious that so few of these monitoring tools provide historical baselines.
getting them is like pulling teeth.
we might think of this as an oversight until you see stuff like this:
this woman was arrested for filming and sharing the fact that their are empty hospitals in the UK.
that's full blown soviet. what possible honest purpose does that
this is the action of a police state and a propaganda ministry, not a well intentioned government and a public heath agency.
"we cannot let people see the truth for fear they might base their actions on real facts" is not much of a mantra for just governance.
90% full ICU sounds scary until you realize that 90-100% full is normal in flu season.
staffed ICU beds are expensive to leave empty. it's like flying with 15% of the plane empty. hospitals don't do that.
and all US hospitals are mandated to be able to flex to 120% ICU.
the US is currently at historically low ICU utilization for this time of year.
61% is "you're all going to go out of business" territory as is 66% full hospital use.
can you blame them for mining CARES act money? they'll die without it.
hospital and ICU utilization has been and remains low this year.
it's terribly curious that so few of these monitoring tools provide historical baselines.
getting them is like pulling teeth.
It took a Freedom of Information request but @Covid19DataUK acquired 2017-2019 averages for England hospitalizations.
— Yinon Weiss (@yinonw) December 31, 2020
2020 had 18% fewer hospitalizations than prior years.
All around the world, using hospital data without context of prior years is just a fear generating lie. pic.twitter.com/DJDpqhIQuw
we might think of this as an oversight until you see stuff like this:
this woman was arrested for filming and sharing the fact that their are empty hospitals in the UK.
that's full blown soviet. what possible honest purpose does that
this is the action of a police state and a propaganda ministry, not a well intentioned government and a public heath agency.
"we cannot let people see the truth for fear they might base their actions on real facts" is not much of a mantra for just governance.
90% full ICU sounds scary until you realize that 90-100% full is normal in flu season.
staffed ICU beds are expensive to leave empty. it's like flying with 15% of the plane empty. hospitals don't do that.
and all US hospitals are mandated to be able to flex to 120% ICU.
the US is currently at historically low ICU utilization for this time of year.
61% is "you're all going to go out of business" territory as is 66% full hospital use.
can you blame them for mining CARES act money? they'll die without it.
This is the $1mln question still without an answer: why were these workers cleaning bat guano from that abandoned mine?
Surprisingly we simply don't know.
China would have all interest in clarifying that point if for instance they were prospecting or selling guano. It did not.
What we know is that EcoHealth + WIV were sampling bat sites in the vicinity at the exact time of the workers being in that mine.
#DRASTIC wrote about this and about other oddities in the official story:
Maybe it's just one of these coincidences.
Then it gets interesting: about a year after the miners death, Olival & Epstein from EcoHealth Alliance co-authored a paper about the coronavirus risk infection from bat guano collection.
No mention of the
That paper oddly used some old bat samples collected by DARPA in 2006/7 at the famous Thai bat cave.
It never mentioned that the Thai monks have been doing this every Sunday for many many years without infection.
But most interestingly it never mentioned the Mojiang mine accident, even if the perfect timing and recycling of old DARPA bat samples seem to point to a likely knowledge of it.
Anyway, the idea was to ask for more money, as you correctly
Surprisingly we simply don't know.
China would have all interest in clarifying that point if for instance they were prospecting or selling guano. It did not.
The miners were tasked with removing bat feces. AFAIK it hasn't been established why they were doing this. Given that EcoHealth was collecting bat fecal samples in the same province around the same time, is it possible these miners were actually collecting guano for EcoHealth?
— The Great Gumbino (@gumby4christ) February 15, 2021
What we know is that EcoHealth + WIV were sampling bat sites in the vicinity at the exact time of the workers being in that mine.
#DRASTIC wrote about this and about other oddities in the official story:
Maybe it's just one of these coincidences.
Then it gets interesting: about a year after the miners death, Olival & Epstein from EcoHealth Alliance co-authored a paper about the coronavirus risk infection from bat guano collection.
No mention of the
That paper oddly used some old bat samples collected by DARPA in 2006/7 at the famous Thai bat cave.
It never mentioned that the Thai monks have been doing this every Sunday for many many years without infection.
But most interestingly it never mentioned the Mojiang mine accident, even if the perfect timing and recycling of old DARPA bat samples seem to point to a likely knowledge of it.
Anyway, the idea was to ask for more money, as you correctly
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I'm going to do two history threads on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). 🇪🇹
I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):
The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹
Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹
References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹
I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):
The famous \u201cLucy\u201d, an early ancestor of modern humans (Australopithecus) that lived 3.2 million years ago, and was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia, displayed in the national museum in Addis Ababa \U0001f1ea\U0001f1f9 pic.twitter.com/N3oWqk1SW2
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) November 9, 2018
The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹
Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹
References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹