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: https://t.co/Wpfrk9qsHJ
6. In the US, the peak of severe disease came in 1952 when over 20,000 people in the US suffered paralysis. As this fascinating case report shows, mild illness as a child could be followed by severe complications many years later.

https://t.co/psnsLaHAZM
7. Did people focus only on the 99% who survived the disease? Did people seek to minimise the experiences and suffering of the unlucky few? No. The world came together to eradicate the disease. I’m not suggesting #COVID19 is as serious as Polio.
8. But I am saying there are many unanswered questions. Polio didn’t burst onto the scene. It took decades for the disease to reach its peak & for scientists to properly understand it. We’ve been living with COVID19 for less than a year. It seems cavalier to dismiss risk.
9. It also shows a lack of empathy to sideline parents who are struggling to understand what’s happening to their children. Until there is good data on prevalence of #LongCovid in children and evidence that explains the mechanisms of the condition, risk cannot be quantified.
10. And I say mechanisms because possible explanations for #LongCovid could be organ damage, neuro invasion, viral persistence, or the development of autoantibodies. Until we understand the condition better, I’m not sure why we’d celebrate ignorance.
11. Does this mean we have to hibernate until science catches up? No. But it would seem prudent to minimise risk whenever possible. The UK is almost alone in not mandating masks in classrooms. It has not implemented many of the aerosol mitigation measures seen around the world.
12. We’re not taking reasonable steps to protect children. Steps that would also benefit the community at large by slowing transmission. If we’ve learned anything from the past year it’s that precaution is the better approach.
13. For some reason the issue of child safety has become politicised, with fringe groups arguing against safety measures adopted in almost every other developed country. If we want our schools to stay open, we need to make an effort to make them safe.
14. Reduce risk as much as reasonably possible while science catches up on a new disease and medicine vaccinates or treats the problem into irrelevance.

More from Adam Hamdy

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.
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?

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