26/42 Are there any national datasets that accurately capture what is going on? The brilliant @jburnmurdoch has highlighted number of admissions into ICU. The message from his animated chart (click on link) couldn’t be clearer – this winter is v unusual: https://t.co/76ZvHU2pmV.

27/42 Some sceptics arguing covid-19 tests are inaccurate. PCR tests not 100% accurate but hospital inpatient testing accuracy much increased by frequency of testing (typically admission, days 3 & 6/7, then weekly). This means very low numbers of overall false positives.
28/42 Some sceptics argue that the published covid-19 positive inpatient numbers include both those admitted with covid-19 and those who acquired covid-19 in hospital. And that there are significant numbers of patients who have acquired covid-19 in hospital.
29/42 Covid-19 positive test data has always included anyone testing positive, irrespective of initial diagnosis. And the NHS has always acknowledged that hospital acquired (nosocomial) infection is a big issue. Hospitals are working incredibly hard to control it….
30/42 …The NHS regularly and completely transparently publishes nosocomial infection data, by hospital. But neither issue affects the degree of pressure that hospitals are under. Every inpatient, irrespective of initial diagnosis/infection source, occupies a hospital bed.
31/42 Some sceptics using regular @ONS & @PHE_uk mortality data to argue that current death rates are just reflecting ordinary mortality rates for this time of year. Or that the covid-19 mortality definition and diagnoses are mixing up ordinary respiratory illness and covid-19.
32/42 This excellent thread https://t.co/J3CMsFVogj looks at these issues in detail. It shows clearly why it is too early for the current sets of this data to be showing increased levels of mortality from the current, new variant driven, surge of covid-19 infection.
33/42 In the words of this thread: “If you are using the ONS + PHE data to assess excess deaths that are happening *now* you are using the wrong data because of lags. The impact of this surge will only become apparent in future data from the ONS + PHE”.
34/42 The current covid-19 death definition widely accepted across medical profession. Doctors are required by law to complete death certificate to the best of their knowledge and ability. Covid deaths are running at an alarming rate – currently over 1,000 a day.
35/42 Some sceptics are arguing that the failure to use Nightingales before now indicates that the NHS isn’t that busy. They are not purpose built hospitals and would require staff to be transferred from other settings. Systematic use was always a last resort insurance policy…
36/42 …The NHS was always going to use every ounce of permanent purpose built capacity first. The fact that the London Nightingale is opening next week is a sign of how pressured the NHS in London has become. Other Nightingales – e.g. Exeter and Manchester – already in use.
37/42 Particularly loathsome are the videos of empty corridors and hospital areas. There are lots of good reasons why some areas of hospitals will be much quieter than usual. No visitors due to infection control. Outpatient clinics moved online. Films being done at night-time…
38/42 …Waiting areas not in use due to social distancing. Reduced levels of ordinary planned surgery. Most activity and staff in hospitals will currently will be concentrated on covid, intensive care and emergency areas. Areas where illegal filmers can’t film.
39/42 And, as this thread from @dpjhodges - https://t.co/nP5ZkQ87Fu - argues. If the sceptics are right, those charged with nation’s health – CMO, CSA, Ministers, officials, NHS leaders – all have to be unaware of the data problems sceptics have "identified"...
40/42 …And despite their decades of cumulative experience, they are making major public health decisions totally oblivious to the catastrophic misreading of the data that the amateur lock-down sceptic sleuths have uncovered…
41/42 ...or they are unaware of these catastrophic misreadings. And, for reasons no one has yet rationally explained, they are all carrying on regardless, day after day, month after month, perpetuating one of the greatest public health hoaxes in history.
42/42 Worth adding that the more evidence & data driven sceptics now abandoning sceptical camp: https://t.co/CURsykctdu. Still time for rest to follow! Particularly since everyone in NHS from frontline staff and trust leaders to @NHSEngland CEO is heartily fed up of this cr*p.

More from Health

1/16
Why do B12 and folate deficiencies lead to HUGE red blood cells?

And, if the issue is DNA synthesis, why are red blood cells (which don't have DNA) the key cell line affected?

For answers, we'll have to go back a few billion years.


2/
RNA came first. Then, ~3-4 billion years ago, DNA emerged.

Among their differences:
🔹RNA contains uracil
🔹DNA contains thymine

But why does DNA contains thymine (T) instead of uracil (U)?

https://t.co/XlxT6cLLXg


3/
🔑Cytosine (C) can undergo spontaneous deamination to uracil (U).

In the RNA world, this meant that U could appear intensionally or unintentionally. This is clearly problematic. How can you repair RNA when you can't tell if something is an error?

https://t.co/bIZGviHBUc


4/
DNA's use of T instead of U means that spontaneous C → U deamination can be corrected without worry that an intentional U is being removed.

DNA requires greater stability than RNA so the transition to a thymine-based structure was beneficial.

https://t.co/bIZGviHBUc


5/
Let's return to megaloblastic anemia secondary to B12 or folate deficiency.

When either is severely deficient deoxythymidine monophosphate (dTMP*) production is hindered. With less dTMP, DNA synthesis is abnormal.

[*Note: thymine is the base in dTMP]

https://t.co/AnDUtKkbZh
Before we get too far into 2021, I thought I’d write a thread recapping some of the research that came out of my lab in 2020. Most of this work was led by my talented team of graduate students, Kerrianne Morrison, @kmdebrabander, and @DesiRJones.

Back in January, a news story was published about Kerrianne’s study showing improved social interaction outcomes for autistic adults when paired with another autistic partner.

A detailed thread about the study and a link to the paper can be found here (feel free to DM me your email address if you’d like a copy of the full paper for this study or any of our studies):


Another paper published early in 2020 (it appeared a few months earlier online) showed that traditional standalone tasks of social cognition are less predictive of functional and social skills among autistic adults than commonly assumed in autism research.


Next, @kmdebrabander led and published an innovative study about how well autistic and non-autistic adults can predict their own cognitive and social cognitive performance.
You gotta think about this one carefully!

Imagine you go to the doctor and get tested for a rare disease (only 1 in 10,000 people get it.)

The test is 99% effective in detecting both sick and healthy people.

Your test comes back positive.

Are you really sick? Explain below 👇

The most complete answer from every reply so far is from Dr. Lena. Thanks for taking the time and going through


You can get the answer using Bayes' theorem, but let's try to come up with it in a different —maybe more intuitive— way.

👇


Here is what we know:

- Out of 10,000 people, 1 is sick
- Out of 100 sick people, 99 test positive
- Out of 100 healthy people, 99 test negative

Assuming 1 million people take the test (including you):

- 100 of them are sick
- 999,900 of them are healthy

👇

Let's now test both groups, starting with the 100 people sick:

▫️ 99 of them will be diagnosed (correctly) as sick (99%)

▫️ 1 of them is going to be diagnosed (incorrectly) as healthy (1%)

👇

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A brief analysis and comparison of the CSS for Twitter's PWA vs Twitter's legacy desktop website. The difference is dramatic and I'll touch on some reasons why.

Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.

6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices

https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x


PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.

735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices

https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ


The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.

The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.
1/12

RT-PCR corona (test) scam

Symptomatic people are tested for one and only one respiratory virus. This means that other acute respiratory infections are reclassified as


2/12

It is tested exquisitely with a hypersensitive non-specific RT-PCR test / Ct >35 (>30 is nonsense, >35 is madness), without considering Ct and clinical context. This means that more acute respiratory infections are reclassified as


3/12

The Drosten RT-PCR test is fabricated in a way that each country and laboratory perform it differently at too high Ct and that the high rate of false positives increases massively due to cross-reaction with other (corona) viruses in the "flu


4/12

Even asymptomatic, previously called healthy, people are tested (en masse) in this way, although there is no epidemiologically relevant asymptomatic transmission. This means that even healthy people are declared as COVID


5/12

Deaths within 28 days after a positive RT-PCR test from whatever cause are designated as deaths WITH COVID. This means that other causes of death are reclassified as