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John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
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7 Apr, 4 tweets, 1 min read
EU regulator: AstraZeneca vaccine should continue to be used across all age groups theguardian.com/politics/live/…

UK regulator: under-30s should be offered an alternative jab to AstraZeneca (but those who have had first AZ jab should get a second AZ jab)
Both orgs are clear that the specific blood clotting side-effect is extremely rare, and the vaccine has been proven highly effective, so the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine still outweigh the risks for the vast majority of people.
So UK decision is based more on the other side of the coin: that Covid mortality risk is also very low for under-30s, so the balance of two low risks becomes less clear-cut.
Here’s our story: ft.com/content/3870ba…

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More from @jburnmurdoch

John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
9 Apr
NEW: big international Covid data thread, focusing on the contest between vaccines & variants

First to the UK, where things are looking very good. The vaccine effect is still crystal clear, with more than 10,000 lives already estimated to have been saved assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… Image
And critically, rates of cases, hospitalisations and deaths are all falling among both the most and least vaccinated age groups.

Those straight blue lines represent constant rates of decline among the most-vaccinated, completely unaffected by the reopening of schools.
It’s not just the very elderly who are benefiting, either. This chart (concept from @JamesWard73) shows that as the UK’s vaccination rollout has progressed down through the age groups, so has the vaccine effect. It’s amazing how clear the pattern is. Image
Read 24 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
6 Apr
NEW: just updated our excess deaths figures, including data into April

It’s abundantly clear that Latin America is the hardest-hit region in the world, with the five highest excess death rates globally. The UK is 21st out of 48 countries, and the US 24th

ft.com/coronavirus-la…
Note the underlying patterns. It can be easy for people in the US and UK to think Covid is almost gone, but excess deaths are climbing again in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru to name just three countries.

You can get all of the raw data here: github.com/Financial-Time…
The grim toll of Europe’s third wave is also clear. The Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Poland have all climbed above the UK into the global top 20.
Read 5 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
18 Mar
It’s rare to see a lorry complete the full bingo card of illegal & potentially lethal manoeuvres in one go, but this just might do it.

But sure, do go on about how cyclists are the real scourge of the roads...
And this comes just two days after another cyclist was killed in a hit-and-run collision with a lorry.

Your regular reminder that HGVs are involved in 15% of fatal crashes in London, despite making up just 3% of traffic.
Incidentally, one of the highlights of my third lockdown was a driver leaping out of his van and coming over to bump his forehead against mine, footballer style, because I had the temerity to walk across a side road that he wanted to speed out of.
Read 4 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
18 Mar
NEW: I saved this one up for the US morning, because it’s a big "good Covid news" moment for our friends across the Atlantic

A "vaccine effect" is now clear in US data, with hospitalisations falling faster among the old (mostly vaccinated) than the young ft.com/content/78bb2c…
This divergence can’t just be explained by the elderly being more cautious: we did the same analysis for the second wave last summer/fall, and back then rates among the old actually fell slower & less far.

Now they’re falling faster. What’s changed? They’ve been vaccinated 💉💉
Hospitalisations are clearest sign of vaccine doing its work, but we can see similar patterns in cases & deaths if we make the same comparison:

Second wave, no vaccines: rates fell slowly & less far among the old

Today, with vaccines: rate of decline among elderly has caught up
Read 5 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
10 Mar
@LyricalFalls Sorry but this take is so tiresome.

In dataviz, painting as honest & clear a picture as possible is about showing as much context as poss, not a zero y-axis.

Here, 20 years of context are carefully built up to show typical range, then we see how 2020-21 has diverged from that.
@LyricalFalls Extending the y-axis to zero would make the picture less clear. That’s all it would do. No added clarity. No added information.
@LyricalFalls Every tiny design detail in this chart is about maximising information and minimising risk of misinterpretation.

Gradually showing the context, changing the lower extent of the chart to make clear it’s not a hard floor, using light gridlines instead of a dark baseline.
Read 7 tweets
John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
9 Mar
Once again as I set out to collect Covid-related data for multiple countries (in this case vaccine coverage), I find myself marvelling at how much better the UK data is in terms of granularity, frequency & clarity. PHE & NHS really are world-leading in a lot of this stuff.
Plus a very big shout-out to the @opensafely team in this case, who are doing amazing work in this space that — from what I can see — is unrivalled elsewhere.
To be fair part of the issue here is many countries simply don’t collect data on race — in any context, not just Covid — which is ... quite something.

As someone once said, "what’s counted, counts". I guess if you don’t measure health inequalities, you won’t find any 🤷‍♂️
Read 4 tweets

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