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A few weeks ago @ClareCraigPath, @RealJoelSmalley and I wrote a short piece on endemic Covid, and what it might look like.

It seems particularly relevant to current

 Consider the possibility that all our naso-pharynxes together make up a single ecosystem, in which only one predator can be completely dominant.

We are not saying that this has definitely happened with Covid - but it would explain the disappearance of flu this year.
Every winter, we see "excess deaths" in the sense that more (mainly elderly) people die in the winter than in the summer.

This is a worldwide phenomenon.
It is now thought that all or nearly all of the extra deaths in Winter are due to infection with winter respiratory viruses, mainly influenza:

https://t.co/xOHDcSRgGB
However, we do not - and never have - extensively tested for the presence of such viruses in the critically ill elderly population, so we really have no idea how frequently infection is present, or in fact what its contribution to death is.
In 2017, researchers at 2 morgues in Spain swab-tested a series of recently deceased elderly individuals and found respiratory viruses in 47% of them. In only 15% of these had a diagnosis been made prior to death.

https://t.co/PBUnIfLtaf
The death certificates for all these individuals featured the usual wide range of pathologies that would be expected in this age group, but viruses were detected (post-mortem) across all categories of causes of death.
For this cohort - presumably representative of similar cohorts of subjects across Europe - what would the mortality picture have looked like had we applied a policy of recording the detected respiratory virus as the cause of death, irrespective of other pathologies?
That is, in effect, what we might be doing now, to some extent - Covid taking the place of other viruses (particularly influenza).

In other words, might some of the Covid deaths we are now seeing be those that would have sadly died in a normal winter anyway?
As is usually the case, the picture is more complex and there are probably a number of other factors contributing to the current mortality picture.
Firstly, there will of course be some additional "pure Covid" deaths as the virus moves into its endemic rather than pandemic stage.

This was seen in the year following the Swine flu pandemic:

https://t.co/uIB5lF7CKU
Secondly, there is increasing evidence of deaths being caused by nearly a year of restricted access to healthcare.

In fact, given the nation's state of health and presence of multiple diseases, it would be more surprising if there was no such effect.
That attendances at A&E departments making up the Syndromic Surveillance System (currently covering 82 hospitals in England) are running below the same period last year is consistent with this:
Ambulance calls for cardiac/respiratory arrest calls are high, yet calls for chest pain appear to be lower than average.

This is worryingly consistent with a picture of reluctance to seek help in time.
This would be highly unlikely to result in no excess deaths.

The numbers involved are not small, the arrest calls appear to be ~50-75 more than expected (daily), but chest pain calls ~250 per day fewer than expected.
Surprisingly, attendances for acute respiratory infections are well below average for the entire Autumn and Winter so far; although rising recently they are still below average.

This is consistent with the point made above - ie could Covid be replacing flu this year?
Some have previously claimed that this category does not include Covid, but the notes in the report seem quite clear that it does.
Finally, it must be acknowledged that the emergence of Covid is currently causing significant strain on our NHS, although it is worthwhile acknowledging that several reasons must contribute to this.
Firstly, it appears that treating Covid patients is more complex and onerous than treating those who would previously have been patients with a variety of other
- mainly undiagnosed - respiratory viruses.
Secondly, the reduction in beds available for a growing and ageing population is a major problem; they fell from 240,000 in 2000 to under 165,000 in 2019.

The figure fell by a further 10,000 beds to allow for social distancing between patients in hospital.
The need to segregate suspected Covid from confirmed Covid and non-Covid patients has a detrimental effect of bed management, as does the need for smaller bay sizes to accommodate distancing.

A&E departments can easily become clogged up by delays in finding beds for patients.
In some hospitals patients are not being discharged until their Covid test returns as negative.

Clearly returning patients to care homes during the window of infectivity would be a bad idea.

Beyond that this policy is surely inadvisable.
It should be recalled that some patients continue to test PCR positive for weeks or even months after infection, as experienced by the unfortunate British students stuck in Italy last summer:

https://t.co/qaIsjDD5Mm
PCR testing has led to a staffing crisis, as asymptomatic staff - even those who must be immune through known prior exposure - are made to self-isolate for two weeks.

50,000 NHS staff are absent for Covid reasons, out of 100,000 total absences.

https://t.co/qgpc00Otie
Finally, it should be acknowledged that staff are having to work in PPE and change it frequently, adding a significant additional burden to an already heavy workload.

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el gato malo
el gato malo
@boriquagato
global health policy in 2020 has centered around NPI's (non-pharmaceutical interventions) like distancing, masks, school closures

these have been sold as a way to stop infection as though this were science.

this was never true and that fact was known and knowable.

let's look.


above is the plot of social restriction and NPI vs total death per million. there is 0 R2. this means that the variables play no role in explaining one another.

we can see this same relationship between NPI and all cause deaths.

this is devastating to the case for NPI.


clearly, correlation is not proof of causality, but a total lack of correlation IS proof that there was no material causality.

barring massive and implausible coincidence, it's essentially impossible to cause something and not correlate to it, especially 51 times.

this would seem to pose some very serious questions for those claiming that lockdowns work, those basing policy upon them, and those claiming this is the side of science.

there is no science here nor any data. this is the febrile imaginings of discredited modelers.

this has been clear and obvious from all over the world since the beginning and had been proven so clearly by may that it's hard to imagine anyone who is actually conversant with the data still believing in these responses.

everyone got the same R
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Kelly Ellis
Kelly Ellis
@justkelly_ok
So, I want to talk about how sexual harassment and fair pay are linked at Google (and beyond), because I think that's an angle that isn't being highlighted enough in the coverage of these walk-outs. I'm going to frame it largely around my personal experience there. Thread.

When I was sexually harassed by the director of the area I was working in, I was afraid to report it because I was worried that "getting him in trouble" would result in the subtle retaliation of missed leadership opportunities.

I wanted to continue working on the team I was on, because I'd gained a lot of very deep knowledge and expertise in that area, as well as reputation and camaraderie with the other folks working in that area. I didn't want to make the situation more "difficult."

To get promoted at Google, several need to happen: 1. you need opportunities for ownership and leadership above your current level (basically, opportunities to show you're working at the next level you're trying to get promoted to). The work you're "assigned" has a big impact.

2. You need glowing reviews from peers, *at or particularly above the level you're hoping to get promoted to.* Basically, you need people a lot more senior than you to say you're doing awesome work.
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Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
Remember: Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's good.

Knowing whether old ideas are more likely to be good requires understanding whether conditions have changed in important ways.

Horse archery was an amazing method of warfare for over a thousand years...then people invented guns, and suddenly this great idea that had stood the test of time became obsolete.

Then again, when underlying conditions don't change much, tried-and-true approaches are probably better.

"Learning the lessons of history" usually just means assuming ergodicity and stationarity in an informal time-series model...

(end)
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Indian Rwanda Radio
Indian Rwanda Radio
@IND_RwandaRadio
Nearly a year ago, the Tablighi Jamaat controversy took over India’s media. Around 3,500 foreign nationals had visited India to attend the Tablighi Jamaat event at the Nizamuddin Markaz Mosque in Delhi.

With the lockdown being announced on March 24, 2020, several attendees had moved to different parts of the country to attend smaller gatherings in local mosques.

Around 960 foreign nationals were held at quarantine and in states like UP, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc. were sent straight to prison.

There was an outpour of Anti-Muslim bigotry in much of Indian news media with this event where it ramped up its demonisation of the community.

For weeks, the attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat event were named the “super-spreaders” of COVID and in several cases, Maulana Mohammad Saad was called a terrorist and “the maulana of death”.
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Pete Johnson \U0001f637 \U0001f499
Pete Johnson 😷 💙...
@pedrojuk
@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
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It is really very tough to match the brilliance and achievements of Vidyaranya. After whom came 15 - Chandrashekara Bharati [1386-1389].

The next Acharya was Nrisimha Bharati [1389-1408]. Harihara raya found a town for this Acharya - Narasimhapuram. Acharya helped the king by guiding him in political affairs. He also initiated the kind with mahamantras for spiritual development.

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One of the most important place for snake worship.
The murtis of Kartikeya and Narasimha are self-manifested.
There is an anthill which is opposite the shrine. Bhaktas pour milk on it as part of rituals.


Here Subramanya performed penance in the form of snake. He sought protection from Narsimha for Nagas from Sri Vishnu’s vehicle Garuda, known for his dislike towards serpents.
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1/OK, I should really write another thread about university-centric regional development, because I think people often make some (very understandable) mistakes when thinking about this issue.

2/The biggest myth, I think, is that universities help regions by educating locals as undergraduates.

Skeptics of universities say: "But most of the people who graduate end up leaving."

3/In fact, most of what a university does for a regional economy is NOT about educating local kids.

Educating local kids is good for the nation, but doesn't help a region much.

The way a university helps a region is through

4/Undergraduates usually leave town after graduation.

But university RESEARCH pulls in OTHER smart people from other regions, and they stay there.

Here's a paper showing that this is the main way universities increase a region's human capital:

5/Research also pulls in business investment.

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