In light of the announcements about Xmas, many people are asking me whether meeting up with friends and family over the holidays is 'safe'.
The honest (and unpopular) answer is that, simply because the government have sanctioned it, that doesn't make meeting up indoors safe.
In these situation there is only managed and mitigated risk.

If you are going to meet up with relatives then it's best to try to meet outdoors, or, if indoors, to try to ventilate the space as well as possible and take other precautions like wearing masks and social distancing.
If you can pay for a test before going to see loved ones then this may help, but being aware that you can test negative and still be incubating the virus is important.
Isolation beforehand might also help to reduce risk, but the length of isolation changes its effectiveness.
I'm aware from previous tweets that it is unpopular to voice these sentiments, but I'm also conscious that indoor settings are ideal for spreading COVID and that it's important to be honest about the potential risks we face this festive period.

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More from @Kit_Yates_Maths

27 Nov
A summary of the data I presented at this afternoon's @IndependentSage briefing taking in the latest on Cases, Hospitalisations and Death statistics.
On cases and hospital admissions, it's largely been a good news week.
A thread. 1/13 Image
Cases first.
Across the whole of the UK reported cases have been falling for a couple of weeks now, and fairly steeply, although from a high peak.
We're down to a 7-day average of around 15,000 cases per day. Image
Across the country cases (per 100K) in most Local Authorities have fallen compared to where we were on lockdown day (3 weeks ago 5/11/20).
A few areas have gone backwards, but for most cases are coming down.
Maps by @TravellingTabby ImageImage
Read 13 tweets
10 Nov
Our letter in the Lancet today - outlines key recommendations for a sustainable COVID-19 strategy within the UK.
thelancet.com/journals/lance…
Thanks to @dgurdasani1 for pulling this all together.
In the UK we are currently in the middle of the second wave of the epidemic with cases over 20K per day and deaths averaging over 300 per day.
We are undergoing a second lockdown which is indicative of a failure of public health strategy.
We need to use the time bought by this lockdown wisely in order to prevent ourselves from being in the same situation in a few months time.

Here are our recommendations:
1. Urgently reform the find, test, trace, isolate and support system.
Read 10 tweets
9 Oct
A summary of the slides from today's @IndependentSage briefing.
Slides prepared by the brilliant @chrischirp.
First up testing has stayed relatively flat for the last couple of weeks. Not ramping up like we might hope. Only rising Significantly in NI.
The proportion of tests being returned promptly is dropping in almost all settings (bad) but rising in care homes (good).
Confirmed cases still rising steeply. Cases delayed by Excelgate earlier in the week have been spread evenly over the days when data was missing.
Read 16 tweets
8 Sep
I've noticed a consistent trend in people who like to pretend that all is well on the COVID front plotting graphs in a way which suits their purpose. This is the sort of graph they will show you for hospital admissions. Looks pretty good.
It's understandable they want to demonstrate that cases are low, but if you zoom in, you see a small, but appreciable rise in admissions over the last couple of weeks.
Here's the same trick but for patients curently in hospital. Looks like a rosy picture on this graph...
Read 8 tweets
5 May
Antibody tests have the potential to be a game-changer. But many of them aren't all they're cracked up to be. In this article (and this thread) I explore at the impact of false positve and false positives in COVID-19 tests. theconversation.com/coronavirus-su… @ConversationUK @UniofBath 1/10
Cellex have had a test approved by the FDA. If you have antibodies against COVID-19 their test will tell you this correctly 93.8% of the time (this is the test’s “sensitivity”). If you don’t, it will get this correct 95.6% of the time (this is the test’s “specificity”). 2/10
Getting the correct result more than 90% of the time sounds pretty good. But there's a catch. To find out why lets consider testing 10,000 hypothetical individuals. The WHO suggested recently that as few as 3% of the global population may have had COVID-19 and recovered. 3/10
Read 10 tweets

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