@KatyMontgomerie @ElPolloDiabloX @AbigailShrier @chadfelixg Okay, so you haven't read the study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, you've read a Guardian story about it.

I have now read the study, and I teach critical appraisal as part of my job, so let's dive into it a bit.

A staple of anti-lockdown conspiracism in yoga/wellness is that public health measures are oppressive, authoritarian, and stifling what it means to be human. Masks suppress identity and speech. Vaccines assault the sovereign body. Influencers must rise up against tyranny! /1

Ironically, pandemic management in economies where yoga/wellness is lucrative has been a neoliberal, choose-your-own-adventure mess in which centre-right governments barter with public health to enact a patchwork of half-measures that punish the poor and marginalized. /2

The goal is not universal health rights, or protecting medical systems, or saving as many lives as possible. The goal is to return to business-as-usual, using public health as a pit stop on a productivity race off a cliff. The ice caps aren’t melting fast enough, I guess. /3

Right-leaning governments, like influencers, have assessed the COVID threat with the magical bias of limitless optimism. Then they work to normalize COVID casualties as a new cost of doing business. *This* is what alt-healthers and Qamoms call “socialist”, or “communist”. /4

Centre-right governments and wellness influencers share a goal: get back to the optimism of making productivity heroic and consumption virtuous, without any reflection on structural issues of injustice, or what universal health care funding and standards would look like. /5

During a normal pregnancy, oxidative stress enhances antioxidant mechanisms that are capable of reacting by way of enzyme activity and non-enzyme free radical deactivators. However, pregnancy is also a state in which this adaptation and balance may be easily disrupted.

There is strong evidence that a chronicin flammatory reaction combined with the presence of a local oxidizing environment may play a vital role in the etiology and development of complications during pregnancy.

In late pregnancy, damage to DNA (especially when it is caused by oxidative stress) is associated with pre-eclampsia(PE), intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), and the death of mothers in developing countries; it largely determines pregnancy – related susceptibility to diseases

The referential values of ROS and NOS and their minimal and safe concentrations or physiologically beneficial concentrations are yet to be determined.

The measurement of oxidative stress in vivo is perceived as controversial,

as the sen-sitivity and specificity of various oxidative stress markers is unknown.. .

1/23 We haven't had a lot to celebrate during this pandemic. But achieving the milestone of offering vaccine to the over 70s, health and care workers and the most clinically vulnerable just before target date is a huge cause for celebration, given the scale of the achievement.

2/23 When Margaret Keenan got her first jab in Coventry on December 8th last year, who’d have thought that, by Valentine’s Day, we’d have vaccinated over fourteen million people across the UK in just ten short weeks? Amazing, extraordinary and truly, really, world class!

3/23 I’ve been struck by how much joy and relief has been brought to those doing the vaccinations and those receiving them. A GP told me yesterday that nothing had given him greater pleasure in his long career. And that the patient's relief was sometimes overwhelming.

4/23 It's vital to recognise the extraordinary contribution of the staff and volunteers who have made this happen. One of my close family had their jab yesterday and was in awe of the volunteer standing outside in the freezing cold for a four hour shift meeting and greeting.

5/23 What I wanted to share in this thread was the slightly untold story of some of the extraordinary challenges the NHS has had to overcome to deliver this target. Requiring superhuman effort from NHS leaders and staff, way beyond the call of duty. Five challenges set out below.