Thread on the recent report on the possible risk of increased death associated with the new UK variant (B117)- with a discussion of the evidence around this, and what this means.
Increased fatality rates also increase deaths- but do so linearly.
https://t.co/nqV3udZByu
How dangerous are the B.1.1.7 and 501Y.V2 hyper-transmissible strains?
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 11, 2021
by @AdamJKucharski @CFR_orghttps://t.co/aycWMN3b5h
h/t @Karl_Lauterbach pic.twitter.com/JlaFzzP06t
We don't routinely sequence all samples for the virus. We've found that the variant has a particular deletion which means that some PCR tests on samples with the variant give a different read-out when the variant is present.
Different analyses carried out with the data in slightly different ways suggested a ~1.3x increase in risk of death.
Unlikely. The people with the B117 variant were matched to controls by age, specimen data, and location - so they would've been compared with people infected at the same time, in the same area.
Possibly. A theoretical reason is that people who are infected with the new more transmissible variant are different in some other way- that makes them more likely to die anyway were they infected with any variant.
To me, this highlights the gambles we take when we follow an approach which allows high levels of transmission to continue in the community for long periods of time. The UK govt has consistently minimised the risk posed by COVID-19, which is why we're here.
Hoping for the best, and dealing with variants after they get out of hand doesn't work. We need to proactively contain these.
Australia imported the UK variant, but they acted aggressively to prevent it establishing in the community
More from Deepti Gurdasani
We've been falsely told 'schools are safe', 'don't drive community transmission', & teachers don't have a higher risk of infection repeatedly by govt & their advisors- to justify some of the most negligent policies in history. 🧵
data shows *both* primary & secondary school teachers are at double the risk of confirmed infection relative to comparable positivity in the general population. ONS household infection data also clearly show that children are important sources of transmission.
Yet, in the parliamentary select meeting today, witnesses like Jenny Harries repeated the same claims- that have been debunked by the ONS data, and the data released by the @educationgovuk today. How many lives have been lost to these lies? How many more people have long COVID?
has repeatedly pointed out errors & gaps in the ONS reporting of evidence around risk of infection among teachers- and it's taken *months* to get clarity on this. The released data are a result of months of campaigning by her, the @NEU and others.
Rather than being transparent about the risk of transmission in school settings & mitigating this, the govt (& many of its advisors) has engaged in dismissing & denying evidence that's been clear for a while. Evidence from the govt's own surveys. And global evidence.
Why?
Questions have to be asked about the evidence Jenny Harries gave to the Education Committee today about the risk to teachers.
— Adam Hamdy (@adamhamdy) January 19, 2021
Was she aware of this data?
If not, why wasn\u2019t she properly briefed?#COVID19 #schools https://t.co/4wa1PyAJld pic.twitter.com/eqFjaA1zYC
data shows *both* primary & secondary school teachers are at double the risk of confirmed infection relative to comparable positivity in the general population. ONS household infection data also clearly show that children are important sources of transmission.
Yet, in the parliamentary select meeting today, witnesses like Jenny Harries repeated the same claims- that have been debunked by the ONS data, and the data released by the @educationgovuk today. How many lives have been lost to these lies? How many more people have long COVID?
has repeatedly pointed out errors & gaps in the ONS reporting of evidence around risk of infection among teachers- and it's taken *months* to get clarity on this. The released data are a result of months of campaigning by her, the @NEU and others.
Rather than being transparent about the risk of transmission in school settings & mitigating this, the govt (& many of its advisors) has engaged in dismissing & denying evidence that's been clear for a while. Evidence from the govt's own surveys. And global evidence.
Why?
Brief thread to debunk the repeated claims we hear about transmission not happening 'within school walls', infection in school children being 'a reflection of infection from the community', and 'primary school children less likely to get infected and contribute to transmission'.
I've heard a lot of scientists claim these three - including most recently the chief advisor to the CDC, where the claim that most transmission doesn't happen within the walls of schools. There is strong evidence to rebut this claim. Let's look at
Let's look at the trends of infection in different age groups in England first- as reported by the ONS. Being a random survey of infection in the community, this doesn't suffer from the biases of symptom-based testing, particularly important in children who are often asymptomatic
A few things to note:
1. The infection rates among primary & secondary school children closely follow school openings, closures & levels of attendance. E.g. We see a dip in infections following Oct half-term, followed by a rise after school reopening.
We see steep drops in both primary & secondary school groups after end of term (18th December), but these drops plateau out in primary school children, where attendance has been >20% after re-opening in January (by contrast with 2ndary schools where this is ~5%).
I've heard a lot of scientists claim these three - including most recently the chief advisor to the CDC, where the claim that most transmission doesn't happen within the walls of schools. There is strong evidence to rebut this claim. Let's look at
The science shows us that most disease transmission does not happen in the walls of the school, but it comes in from the community. So, CDC is advocating to get our K-5 students back in school at least in a hybrid mode with universal mask wearing and 6 ft of distancing. https://t.co/dfvJ2nl2s4
— Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) February 14, 2021
Let's look at the trends of infection in different age groups in England first- as reported by the ONS. Being a random survey of infection in the community, this doesn't suffer from the biases of symptom-based testing, particularly important in children who are often asymptomatic
A few things to note:
1. The infection rates among primary & secondary school children closely follow school openings, closures & levels of attendance. E.g. We see a dip in infections following Oct half-term, followed by a rise after school reopening.
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eugo0vRXUAYnh80.jpg)
We see steep drops in both primary & secondary school groups after end of term (18th December), but these drops plateau out in primary school children, where attendance has been >20% after re-opening in January (by contrast with 2ndary schools where this is ~5%).
More from Society
The Nashville Operation - A Battle in the War
A thread exploring the Nashville bombing in the context of the 2020 Digital War (via SolarWinds) against the United States perpetrated by our enemies, likely China, Iran and/or Russia.
SolarWinds Hack
A digital "Pearl Harbor" moment for the United States, whoever was responsible had access to the keys to the kingdom for months during 2020, including sensitive military infrastructure. This is war!
SunGard + SolarWinds
SolarWinds software company is owned by same company that owns SunGard, which essentially provides data center services. A secure place to host internet servers with redundant power and "big pipe" data connections.
https://t.co/U3P3SrrkM1
SunGard Data Center
In Nashville, around the corner from their "big pipe" connection, AT&T. Like any data center, highly secure. Only authorized personnel can enter, and even fewer can access the actual server rooms. Backup generators are available in case of power failure.
If the SunGard hardware was being used to "host" critical command and control software related to SolarWinds, the US powers would be very interested in gaining special access keys that are stored on the hard-drives of specific servers.
A thread exploring the Nashville bombing in the context of the 2020 Digital War (via SolarWinds) against the United States perpetrated by our enemies, likely China, Iran and/or Russia.
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqJUW31XEAAxyDa.jpg)
SolarWinds Hack
A digital "Pearl Harbor" moment for the United States, whoever was responsible had access to the keys to the kingdom for months during 2020, including sensitive military infrastructure. This is war!
SunGard + SolarWinds
SolarWinds software company is owned by same company that owns SunGard, which essentially provides data center services. A secure place to host internet servers with redundant power and "big pipe" data connections.
https://t.co/U3P3SrrkM1
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqJVS1rXAAEbpBK.jpg)
SunGard Data Center
In Nashville, around the corner from their "big pipe" connection, AT&T. Like any data center, highly secure. Only authorized personnel can enter, and even fewer can access the actual server rooms. Backup generators are available in case of power failure.
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqJWbQ-WMAA35HE.jpg)
If the SunGard hardware was being used to "host" critical command and control software related to SolarWinds, the US powers would be very interested in gaining special access keys that are stored on the hard-drives of specific servers.
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqJW0JSXYAADR1p.jpg)
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Just added Telegram links to https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL too! Now you can provide a nice easy way for people to message you :)
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds6vdiiUUAA99Yf.jpg)
Less than 1 hour since I started adding stuff to https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL again, and profile pages are now responsive!!! 🥳 Check it out -> https://t.co/fVkEL4fu0L
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds65C4HU0AYTbjU.jpg)
Accounts page is now also responsive!! 📱✨
![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds7BXPlV4AAgR8q.jpg)
💪 I managed to make the whole site responsive in about an hour. On my roadmap I had it down as 4-5 hours!!! 🤘🤠🤘