Thread by @FurnessColin

This brief thread is very specifically for journalists: some follow me & maybe still drop in?

We need to talk about how COVID burden/outcome measures are reported.

Counting hospital admissions & deaths WAS appropriate in 2020-21.

Now those stats badly misinform. Why?

1/6

Until Omicron, our frame was a respiratory virus that infected & killed rapidly.

Low population immunity and limited understanding of what the virus does to the body, meant that incidence rate, ICU capacity, and deaths told us when things were better or worse.

Not now.

2/6

B/c COVID is a whole-body disease w/ vascular, neurological, immune, & endocrine harms.

Less *acute respiratory* harm now, b/c:

a. the most vulnerable already died
b. we have some population immunity
c. Omicron is less severe than Delta

Much more diffuse harms instead ...

3/6

By reporting deaths and hospitalizations data, COVID continues to get framed as a problem only for really vulnerable people. "Just like flu". :(

So, no masking, no precautions, low XBB vaccination, and no thoughts about COVID harms. Politicians may like this but I don't.

4/6

I need you to report on the rise of vascular disease & death that happens in younger people months post acute.

I need you to report on kids disabled by COVID.

And FFS, we need real investigation into attributable elevated excess mortality and declining life expectancy.

5/6

Who is going bother with indoor air quality when the media focuses on what COVID isn't doing, instead of talking about what it IS doing?

There is a lot of Long COVID research coming out. Don't let it gather dust on the shelf. This is too important to be incurious.

Please.

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