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Dominic Minghella Profile picture
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26 May, 4 tweets, 1 min read
FFS! BBC News at it again. 3pm headlines on Radio 4: "blood tests show 75% of people have antibodies". Absolutely not. The figures were for adults. They *keep* quoting stats which exclude children from the population, making the numberd sound misleadingly reassuring.
See also
I expect better from BBC, but to be fair to them, ONS hides this as note 6 in its dataset: "The England population used in this analysis relates to the community population aged 16 years and over. It is not the same as the total population of England..."
(And not sure what a "community population" is... Anyone?)

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More from @DMinghella

Dominic Minghella Profile picture
21 May
OMG BBC News at Ten just said 37.5 million first doses meant 71.2% "of the population" had been given a dose. The population of the UK is circa 68.2m, so that number represents 55%.
They meant the *adult* population I suppose, but they made the same horrendous mistake twice.
And by the way, if 55% of the population have had 1 or 2 doses, then 45% have had none.

Doesn't sound quite so good that way round, does it?
If you're looking for a number close to 70%, it's this: 68% of the population have had either only the first dose, or nothing. Herd immunity is further away than BBC News would have you believe.
Read 4 tweets
Dominic Minghella Profile picture
25 Apr
A non-binding referendum turned out to be absolutely binding.
A non-binding referendum turned out to be absolutely binding, and set in a tablet of stone - and to question it became traitorous heresy.
A non-binding referendum offering dramatic constitutional change - and disruption to a total population of half a billion people - was authorised without any requirement for a supermajority, and nevertheless turned out to be absolutely binding.
Read 30 tweets
Dominic Minghella Profile picture
15 Apr
The EU didn't want hard borders with us. We did.
The EU didn't want us out of the Single Market and the Customs Union. We did.
The EU had no need of a border on the island of Ireland, or down the Irish Sea. We did.
Read 13 tweets
Dominic Minghella Profile picture
24 Mar
Let's talk about patriotism, shall we? People who love their country don't sit on their hands and do nothing when they know an infection is sweeping across their country.
Let's talk about patriotism, shall we? People who love their country do not destroy their country's trading position with the world's biggest trading union, or promise "free trade" and deliver the opposite, or deliver barmy borders within their own country.
Let's talk about patriotism, shall we? People who love their country do not run down its health service for a decade, leave its staff hideously unprotected, promise them a reward in due course and then offer them 1%.
Read 6 tweets
Dominic Minghella Profile picture
24 Mar
This is me exactly one year ago, on the way to King's College Hospital with Covid. It's an anniversary I'd sooner forget, to be honest. But I'm sharing it for a reason.

1/10
Yesterday, Boris Johnson excused himself for presiding over our crushing first wave with suggestions to the effect that "We didn't know what we were dealing with back then", that it was a "novel" virus, etc. He wants us to buy his overall line, "We did everything we could".

2
But let me tell you about King's College Hospital. Exactly 15 days before this grim day, on 9 March, I attended King's for an ultrasound. One of London's biggest teaching hospitals, it was humming, busy as usual.

3
Read 10 tweets
Dominic Minghella Profile picture
1 Mar
Most people accept that, although lockdowns badly harm our economy, they are sadly necessary - and mean less economic harm in the long run.
But when it comes to schools, the argument is that school closures badly harm our children, so they must be opened.. 1/
The same tests - of safety and risk of greater damage to education and well-being in the long run - are not applied. This may be due to the myth that Covid doesn't affect kids. It does. Kids have the most infections (highest prevalence). And a whopping 12-15% get Long Covid.
2/
And of course all kids live among adults, to whom they spread the virus.
The discussion about kids is just a version of the overall lockdown debate, and the same rules ought to apply: reopen when prevalence is low; in phases; with partial occupancy, masks and ventilation.
3/
Read 6 tweets

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