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Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡 Profile picture
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16 Jul, 4 tweets, 1 min read
As the current pandemic wave has grown more and more severe, case reporting has fallen further and further behind "reality".

A meaningful gap has opened up between the cases being reported daily, and the actual number of new cases whose test specimens were collected each day.
In other words, for the last few weeks, the ultimate number of new cases has always been higher than the figure reported that day. It takes a few days for the data to catch up (because tests aren't taken and returned instantaneously).

So today's 51,870 new case figure is low.
The gap seems to be about 1-2 days now. Presumably reflecting the time it takes to process and return tests.

So today's headline figure of 51,870 new cases broadly reflects the situation on Tuesday rather than yesterday.
But that means it's quite possible we've already passed 60,000 known new cases (and countless unknown cases) today. We'll see that wash out in the "Cases by Specimen Date" figures in the coming week.

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Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡 Profile picture
13 Jul
This current coronavirus wave has the potential to be far more devastating than the previous ones.

Why? Two words: long covid.

We may not see the same horrific death toll, but if we climb to 100,000+ new daily cases, that will mint thousands of new long covid sufferers a day.
As well as changing so many lives in a profoundly debilitating way, this will also heap lasting additional pressure on the NHS. It may be called upon to deal with the complications of long covid cases for years or decades to come.

So a rigid focus on the death toll is blinkered.
In fact, if you force yourself to adopt a coldly analytical view, a surge in long covid cases is much more damaging to the NHS than a surge in deaths.

One is a series of profound individual tragedies which are quickly over from a medical POV. The other is an enduring problem.
Read 4 tweets
Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡 Profile picture
9 Jul
This graph comes with a couple of important health warnings - please see later in thread - but it's still instructive.

It shows (approximately) what % of all deaths that occurred in England involved COVID-19.

So for example, it was present in about 10% of all deaths age 35-39.
Now for the health warnings. Both relate to a lack of suitable data sources.

HEALTH WARNING 1
I had to use the combined figure for deaths in England AND Wales for 2019 as a baseline for all deaths.

This overcounts all deaths by about 30,000 out of 530,000 (5.6% overcount).
HEALTH WARNING 2
The deaths with COVID-19 cover the whole pandemic, not just a 1-year period. Approx 4,000 out of 128,000 deaths fall outside of 1 year (3.1% overcount).

Those two overcounts almost cancel each other out, so the end ratios should be a pretty close approximation.
Read 4 tweets
Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡 Profile picture
8 Jul
Last time we hit 30,000 daily cases (mid-December) we were testing 325,000 people a day. Now, we're testing 1,000,000 people a day.

If COVID-19 is rampant in the community, 1,000,000 tests will turn up lots more cases than 325,000. And that will make the death rate "look lower".
Of course, more testing doesn't kill people! In fact, it can help to save them.

But if you're only comparing KNOWN cases with deaths, then if you find a lot more cases it will magically seem that the disease has become less deadly.
We can also look at the actual deaths.

Those are much lower now than back in December.

So the virus is less deadly now, because of the vaccine and better treatments.

But it may not be as "less deadly" as the headline stats indicate.
Read 4 tweets
Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡 Profile picture
8 Jul
On 19 July, we will have no restrictions in England for the first time since 23 March 2020.

Covid cases will be at or near record highs then. (And still rising - what stops them?)

It's like abandoning all fire-fighting efforts just as a fire spreads to every room of a house.
The weirdest/scariest part is, even Tories admit it openly.

They're quite willing to say that we could see 50,000 or more new cases a day.

That will bring an avalanche of long covid cases, even if we're very very lucky and see relatively few deaths due to the vaccine's help.
The argument this time around is different from the one that raged around all previous openings.

It's not "this will cause cases to rise" vs "no, it won't".

It's "this will cause cases to rise and that's a disaster" vs "this will cause cases to rise but that's absolutely fine".
Read 4 tweets
Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡 Profile picture
7 Jul
We sacrificed and socially distanced and masked and cancelled and stayed away and didn't see friends and family and gave up non-essential shopping and forewent events and films and concerts and trips, and so much more.

Boris Johnson will bin all that effort instantly on 19 July.
See, it doesn't matter how well we behaved, how many hardships we endured, how many sacrifices we made, when the new and improved strategy is "let the virus fall where it will". Because if Boris Johnson's wild eyes-shut bet is wrong, millions will catch it and many will die.
And nobody - not even the Tories - is pretending the situation is under control.

Far from it, in fact. They fully admit that cases could climb to 50,000 a day, even 100,000 a day - but that's ok because, well, it has to be ok. No logic, just empty circularity.
Read 5 tweets
Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡 Profile picture
7 Jul
More hilarious Brexit verbal contortions in the Express...

Compare the headline - which a casual glance might suggest was about the UK - and the article itself, which is about how Brexit has benefitted IRELAND hugely (while hurting the UK).

Strange sort of "win".
Why do they write such misleading headlines?

Because they know many (most) of their website visitors won't read the article, but they'll see the capsule summary embedded in the sidebar on other pages.

And that looks like this... Propaganda achievement unlocked!
Here's another example.

Grossly misleading headline? Check.

Article that's the exact opposite of the headline? Check.

Summary version that buries the truth? Check.
Read 4 tweets

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