You know why they didn't try anything like this in the 1970s? Because a generation which remembered WW2 & were still strong enough would not have let them. Politicians were scared of people's reactions back then. They were literally scared for their lives. What happened?

WHY MASKS DON'T WORK:
Coughing is NOT the issue.
Large droplets are NOT the issue. Breathing exhales MUCH MORE virus in fine aerosols than coughing. Finer aerosols bypass masks/nose & reach the lungs. Masks NEBULIZE. Solution is VENTILATION not face masks.
https://t.co/FMqYszHKVt

"Once direct measurement of particles containing viruses in exhaled breath was technically feasible, most particles (87%) with influenza viral RNA were found to be smaller than 1 μm."

"Influenza viral RNA was detected in the exhaled breath of 92% of adults. The fine particles contained 8·8-times more viral copies than did the coarse ones. Respiratory viruses have been found in both coughs (82% of participants) and exhaled breath (81% of participants)"

👉 "Human rhinovirus was collected more frequently in exhaled breath than in cough aerosols using a filter method." 👈

"The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus was isolated from seven room air samples from dedicated MERS units in two South Korean hospitals. All seven were positive by PCR and four of seven were positive on viral culture."

Let me talk about something
I consider myself qualified to discuss: a film director, Oliver Stone. OS is a great political director & a very clever man, one of the best in the industry. My view is that he did not simply take the Russian vx because he didn't want to wait for US 1

He's a very clever man, he made a judgement for his own life, for his family, & he chose the Russian vx instead of any of the Western ones, because he wanted the vx & considers Sputnik V the safest one.

I can see the logic:
1 No accountability for any of the Western vx, nobody can sue for any damage etc.
2 Those who made Sputnik V know they are always personally accountable to Vladimir Putin
3 S5 is based on a pre-existing vx with minimal changes so safety tried for many years

So if the Russians could find a safe way to adapt a tried & tested technology & only alter what is required, using adenovirus vectors, a technology in use for 50 years, experimented on for vx since the 1980s, why were Western Big Pharma so keen on something completely new: mRNA?

That is the question that Oliver Stone is indirectly asking us all to look into & answer: why were Western Big Pharma all at once suddenly so keen on using mRNA when there were much safer & tested directions available (adenovirus vectors), what is it that Western Big Pharma want?

BAYES' THEOREM: The basic reason we get so many false positives to COVID19. The disease is so rare that the number of false positives greatly outnumbers the people who truly have the disease: THE MATHS:
https://t.co/oLHyxYJW9H

"Suppose that you are worried that you might have a rare disease. You decide to get tested, and suppose that the testing methods for this disease are correct 99 percent of the time"

"Suppose this disease is actually quite rare, occurring randomly in the general population in only one of every 10,000 people. If your test results come back POSITIVE, what are your chances that you actually have the disease? LESS THAN 1% chance that you have the disease!"

"The basic reason we get such a surprising result is because the disease is so rare that the number of false positives greatly outnumbers the people who truly have the disease"

Say mass testing of the contagious virus was done to 1 million people. In that million, 100 will really have the disease, 99 will be correctly diagnosed as having it. 999,900 of the million will not have the disease, but of those about 9,999 will be false positives! #BayesTheorem

Unless we pass laws which support people to enable them to self-isolate properly, any improvements to test & trace will have marginal impact and cases will simply spiral out of control once again as we ease lockdown in December.

A short thread on what we can do and why 👇
1/

Improving the currently poor rates of self-isolation is actually the key point, which many scientists, politicians, & commentators do still seem to be missing.

This requires good public health communication, proper support for those who need to self-isolate, & trust.
2/

Massive testing and tracing will only significantly reduce
transmission if positive cases isolate effectively. Yet
currently fewer than 20% of those who should isolate are fully adherent.

I don't think I need to explain why it's so critical to improve these rates.

3/

Survey data shows intention to adhere to test/trace/isolate behaviours is higher than self-reported adherence: whilst 76% of people intend to share contacts, only 50% of people correctly recognise symptoms &
just 12% get a test, 18% isolate, & 11% of contacts isolate properly.
4

Self-reported ability to self-isolate
is three times lower in those who earn less than £20,000 per year or have less than £100 saved.

5/

There's been a lot of talk about the missionary killed by the natives of North Sentinel Island. They're probably so aggressive because of this weirdo, Maurice Vidal Portman. So here's a big thread about this creep and some facts from my decade-long obsession with the island.

The Sentinelese are often described as “uncontacted,” but this not strictly true. They had a very significant contact in 1880 with Commander Portman.

Portman, the black sheep third son of some minor noble, was assigned by the English Royal Navy to administer and pacify the Andaman Islands, a job he pursued from 1880-1900 with the full measure of his own perversity.

Portman was erotically obsessed with the Andamanese, and he indulged his passion for photography by kidnapping members of various tribes and posing them in mock-Greek homoerotic compositions.

During his 20 years in a sexualized heart of darkness, Portman measured and cataloged every inch of his prisoner’s bodies, with an obsessive focus on genitals.

I've been wanting to write this thread for a while. It has been inspired by hearing a common thought: why can't people just "listen"? If people just followed the rules, we wouldn't be in this mess. I think this is oversimplification of the problem with COVID: 1/

It is true, there are people who haven't been following guidelines (by definition that happened a LOT at Christmas/NYE in my region), but even before, we know transmission in private gatherings happens. 2/

These private gatherings are pictured to be big raucous parties, but in reality, even before lockdown, this is just people having dinner, watching TV, doing things we did before on a daily basis. These little ripples when added across the country make a big wave.. 3/

...and little can be done about this apart from positive messaging. You can't very well have police patrolling neighbourhoods across the country. 4/

Next thing is we keep hearing over and over and over, stay home. There are diminishing returns with this advice, but also, most people who can stay home ARE. So what's the issue? There are a HUGE # of people who can't stay home because they work in essential jobs 5/

Since a lot of my fellow Texans are going to apply for aid through @FEMA let’s talk about the agency and some of the barriers disaster survivors encounter and persisting program flaws.

First things first, @FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Here’s a blog I wrote about its history and shortcomings in how the agency is funded:

Many people will be applying for Individual Assistance (IA), but past disasters have shown us that help isn’t evenly distributed and frequently struggles to reach those in deepest need. This unpacks some of the class bias in accepted/rejected apps:

Of course, there are racial dimensions to this as well:

Documentation is seen as helping reduce fraud, but after a disaster many docs are destroyed. People who are denied assistance and appeal are often told to make small changes to the documents they provide or provide updated documentation b/c of how long the aid process takes.

@danielashby @AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd I'll bite. Let's try to keep it factual. There's a reasonable basis to some aspects of this question, that it might be possible to agree on. Then there are other, more variable, elements which depend on external factors such as transport and energy policy. /1

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd First up, we know reasonably well how much energy it takes to propel a high-speed train along the HS2 route. We can translate that into effective CO2 generated by making some assumptions about how green the electricity grid is. /2

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd Secondly, we have a reasonable grasp of how much CO2 is going to be generated by building HS2 - there are standard methods of working this out, based on the amount of steel, concrete, earthmoving, machine-fuelling etc required. /3

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd Thirdly, we can estimate how much CO2 is generated by cutting down trees, and how much is captured by planting new trees. We can also estimate how much CO2 is needed to keep the railway running and generated by maintaining the track /4

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd We know how much CO2 is saved by moving goods by freight train on the lines freed up by moving the express trains on to HS2, rather than by truck. /5