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
U.K. needs to confront
— Esther McVey (@EstherMcVey1) January 2, 2021
\u2018The challenge that faces us is to decide - are we going to try to pursue the elimination of Covid-19 regardless of the costs or decide on a tolerable level of deaths (like we do with the flu) in order to return to a normal life?\u2019
https://t.co/9hWbHIPJUq
Had we adopted an elimination strategy early on, rather than one of tolerating a certain level of infection, we wouldn't be here now. The reason we're here is because the govt never committed to elimination.
We eased lockdown in May when infection levels were much higher than when other countries in Europe did this. The govt was warned about this, but did this to 'help the economy'. Not only did this lead us into the 2nd wave, the need for further lockdowns harmed the economy further
It's very clear from global evidence that we cannot 'tolerate a level of community transmission' and maintain 'R at or just below 1', which has been our governments policy for a long time. This isn't sustainable & very rapidly gets out of control, leading to exponential rises
Coupled with late action to contain these surges, not only does this lead to many more deaths, and much more morbidity with Long COVID, it also creates a fertile ground for viral mutations to accumulate with a greater risk of adaptation, which is exactly what happened in the UK
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.
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
2/ Before this very publication, virologists were neither treated like superstars, nor were they considered icons or half-gods. In 2009, Drosten almost succeeded in installing the false premise virology could supersede holistic medical sciences as discussed in this thread.
3/ Drosten is a virologist. He neither has any background in epidemiology, nor has he ever worked in the civil service. He also doesn’t have a background in public health. Yet he and his colleagues affect our daily lives to the level of whom to meet up or how to flush the toilet.
4/ Before January 2020, Drosten and Corman were common virologists at Charité Berlin, whenever they were not involved in economic implications (https://t.co/UTDwG8U7Du). Other than that, they looked at coronaviruses in dromedary calves in the Middle East or Africa. 😍 #cute
5/ Finally in Jan 2020, the published paper laid the theoretical grounds for the current pandemic, the RT-qPCR mass testing-religion, for which he was awarded his second German Federal Cross of Merit (he received the first one in 2005 for developing the SARS-CoV PCR test).
(A thread for whoever feels like reading)
Neighborhood gents, what\u2019s something you\u2019ve learned about feminism (or gained a better understanding of) that you think other men should know?
— feminist next door (@emrazz) February 19, 2021
Note - the quoted is a friendly/good faith replier. https://t.co/048kuxxX6q
I have observed feminists on Twitter advocating for rape victims to be heard, rapists to be held accountable, for people to address the misogyny that is deeply rooted in our culture, and for women to be treated with respect.
To me, very easy things to get behind.
And the amount of pushback they receive for those very basic requests is appalling. I see men trip over themselves to defend rape and rapists and misogyny every chance they get. Some accounts are completely dedicated to harassing women on this site. It’s unhealthy.
Furthermore, I have observed how dedicated these misogynists are by how they treat other men that do not immediately side with them. There is an entire lexicon they have created for men who do not openly treat women with disrespect.
Ex: simp, cuck, white knight, beta
All examples of terms they use to demean a man who respects women.
To paraphrase what a wise man on this app said:
Some men hate women so much, they hate men who don’t hate women