Thread by @_johnbye

I wonder what @QMUL thinks of @profnfenton retweeting a post from an anti-vax conspiracy nut accusing colleague @dgurdasani1 of "misrepresenting the data" on covid deaths amongst vaccinated people?

Particularly ironic given Fenton's own record of mangling data...

Unsurprisingly, Dr Syed's claim that vaccination *increases* your risk of dying if you catch covid by 73% is utter nonsense.

A quick look at the ONS data shows the proportion of covid deaths in the oldest (most vaccinated) age groups has been falling. Exactly as you'd expect.

His whole argument rests on either ignoring the age of people who were vaccinated entirely or (in a later post) assuming that everyone who died was elderly.

Which, as I've just shown above, is far from true.

Even if he was right (which he isn't), it wouldn't mean the vaccines aren't working. Because they also make you far less likely to catch covid in the first place.

You can see the impact of this in Bolton. Compare the split between under and over 60s in this wave to the last two:

Given Fenton doesn't check his own workings, it's hardly surprising he didn't bother to check if the wild anti-vax claim that he amplified (and the attack on his fellow @QMUL lecturer, who is far more qualified in this area) is in any way credible.

https://twitter.com/_johnbye/status/1360916433400696833?s=19

Maybe the Professor of Risk Management should have considered the risk that Dr Syed is a crank?

A quick scroll through his timeline shows he's a climate change denier, retweets QAnon nonsense about the Clintons murdering people, and thinks vaccines caused the winter covid surge.

Of course, Fenton has previous in this area, thanks to his association through @hartgroup_org with Joel Smalley, who has repeatedly claimed that vaccination rather than the Alpha (Kent) variant caused the big spike in deaths over winter.

https://twitter.com/_johnbye/status/1365650853252771843?s=19

Now @profnfenton is just flat out spreading anti-vax disinformation, complete with conspiracy theory nonsense about the "mainstream media" looking for the "correct narrative".

There is no narrative. The story isn't true and has already been debunked.

https://twitter.com/profnfenton/status/1404505844373504003?s=19

Relevant background: some rando on Twitter claimed he heard on the radio that Eriksen was vaccinated recently. Thousands of anti-vaxxers spread the rumour.

But the radio station denies it said that.

And his club's director refutes the claim too.

https://twitter.com/RadioSportiva/status/1404073305158606853?s=19

The only source for the story seems to be a 2 month old Twitter account with 113 followers, who claims he heard it on a radio station that denies it said that.

But thanks to confirmation bias, far more prominent anti-vaxxers shared the rumour and refuse to believe it's not true.