BC HEALTH
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

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.

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In medicine, reckoning with racism includes reappraising the very syntax we use every day. Proud to add my voice w/ @J_Ikeme and @RWGrantMD in this @JAMAInternMed pub addressing:

Does race/ethnicity belong in the first line of the patient

Some background: I’ve struggled with this question since early in medical school

Medical syntax is designed to communicate information in a predictable sequence with key elements prioritized to facilitate efficient communication and formation of an assessment and plan

2/

From preclinical lectures to Qbank questions to clerkship rotations, race/ethnicity was often prioritized in the same sentence as age + gender.

I grew accustomed to reading/hearing: a 70-year-old Black man w/ history of x, a 50-year-old Hispanic woman presented w/ y.

3/

However, when it came time for me to use race/ethnicity, there was always tension. Race/ethnicity are self/socially-ascribed identities that in clinical practice are almost always assumed by providers based on appearance. I was also concerned about the potential for bias

4/

I wondered how my own care would be impacted or not impacted by my ethnicity (Hispanic) – I have light skin so I’m not sure if my doctors would even identify me as such – but how would my care be different if I was presented as a 30-year-old Hispanic male?

5/
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Eli Tyre
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I know some people who seem (to me) more concerned with receiving VALIDATION for their mental health issues than solving them.

They seem to care most about other people BELIEVING their problems are real.

I'm curious about this.

Like, it's more important to them that people know how debilitating their anxiety is, than to overcome the anxiety.

Or it's important to them that others believe that they're actually depressed, not "just sad."

Or they want people buy into the narrative that they've been traumatized, and might be something like offended if someone minimizes that.

What do we make of this?

1. One possibility is that if solving the problems seems hopeless or even just really hard, you need external support to be able to cope.

If no one cuts you slack because of your mental health stuff, maybe you're in a really bad place, so you need people to believe you.
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Nick Hinton
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@NickHintonn
A Conspiracy Thread: The Sentient World Simulation


In 2007, the Department of Defense worked with researchers at Purdue University to create SEAS, or the Synthetic Environment for Analysis and Simulations. SEAS uses data from the internet to create realistically detailed models of the world which are used to predict the future.


We’re told SEAS is now capable of running real-time simulations of up to 62 nations and that it’s been used by Fortune 500 companies for strategic planning, or in other words, manipulating the market. Nevertheless, there are plans to turn SEAS into something even more advanced.


Developers say their goal is to turn SEAS into a Sentient World Simulation, or a “continuously running, continually updated mirror model of the real world.” However, some conspiracy theorists claim the SWS is already live and running inside a network of quantum computers.


Researchers like Seth Lloyd have suggested that the entire universe could be simulated inside a quantum computer. According to Geordie Rose, the co-founder of D-Wave Systems, a company that creates these machines, they can even tap into parallel worlds and other dimensions.
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Celestial Emily
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@Celestial_Emily
Our conscious experience exists. In fact, it's the only thing you can directly observe, as everything about reality and how we perceive it is filtered through how our brains process stimuli and information. You are the only one who can define who and what you are.

Don't get me wrong, I am a materialist who believes the universe exists in the absence of beings who can observe it from an intelligence standpoint, but we are all collections of atoms, our function governed by chemical processes, not perfectly replicated by the process of birth.

Our means of DNA replication is imprecise because of billions of years of random evolution. We are on one branch of many, and there is countless variation in how all living beings are formed, and how we classify traits of those creatures, including sex and reproduction methods.

It would be an error to say that people who are intersex and/or transgender are the results of mistakes or errors in reproduction, because it implies DNA is "trying" to create a binary model of people and sometimes gets it wrong. It doesn't "try" to do anything; DNA != conscious.

Rather, our biological blueprints are not precise, and this is true for all living things. We can crossbreed plants and animals because of that imprecise nature, it's responsible for what we perceive as the "races" of people, etc. We can observe variation everywhere.
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Matthias Deutsch
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@Ma_Deutsch
No-regret #hydrogen:
Charting early steps for H₂ infrastructure in Europe.

👉Summary of conclusions of a new study by @AgoraEW @AFRY_global @Ma_Deutsch @gnievchenko (1/17)
https://t.co/YA50FA57Em


The idea behind this study is that future hydrogen demand is highly uncertain and we don’t want to spend tens of billions of euros to repurpose a network which won’t be needed. For instance, hydrogen in ground transport is a hotly debated topic https://t.co/RlnqDYVzpr (2/17)

Similar things can be said about heat. 40% of today’s industrial natural gas use in the EU goes to heat below 100°C and therefore is within range of electric heat pumps – whose performance factors far exceed 100%. (3/17)


Even for higher temperatures, a range of power-to-heat (PtH) options can be more energy-efficient than hydrogen and should be considered first. Available PtH technologies can cover all temperature levels needed in industrial production (e.g. electric arc furnace: 3500°C). (4/17)


In our view, hydrogen use for feedstock and chemical reactions is the only inescapable source of industrial hydrogen demand in Europe that does not lend itself to electrification. Examples include ammonia, steel, and petrochemical industries. (5/17)
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We're basically fucked.

The tech world has gotten so huge, self-reinforcing, and insulated from reality they can no longer even vaguely look at themselves (and their actions) as others do. They just live on a different planet than most people.

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Techies take weird, improbable visions, and make them realities: some BS pitch deck to a VC, mixed with money and people, really does turn into some novel thing.

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Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


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