Tweet

Anthony Costello

18 Jul, 9 tweets, 3 min read

@thesundaytimes

I don't mind public criticism but I do object to being misrepresented, in a major paper like @thesundaytimes without being consulted. Their leader writer Dominic Lawson has taken a pop at me so let me correct his accusations. (1)

He says I am not 'an epidemiologist', unlike Chris Whitty. He might have checked my publication record iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/pr… I would guess 80% of my 403 research papers are 'epidemiological', including numerous population trials.(2)

@campbellclaret

He takes a 2019 twitter quote from me about being "to the left of Jeremy Corbyn on economics and environmental issues." If you look at the context you'll see I was actually defending @campbellclaret from being expelled from the Labour party. (3)

In 2015 an article discussing narcissism and psychopathy among politicians was published and I lightheartedly suggested this might apply to the former Mayor of London, a tweet I later deleted. (4)

These insults don't really matter. What does matter is that a leading political commentator should seek to undermine Independent SAGE and ridicule serious debate around public health policies to limit the spread of this dangerous virus. (5)

@IndependentSage

@IndependentSage has consistently supported WHO advice on infection control, the application of public health principles, and the equitable roll-out of vaccines to all, including children aged 12-17, before lifting sensible restrictions. (6)

@IndependentSage

@IndependentSage has also repeatedly argued that failure to practice public health through local community control has led us into three over-long and economically damaging lockdowns. If we had followed the path of successful countries we would not have suffered 153,000 deaths(7)

The mess we are in is a consequence of failed governance, lack of investment in local public health, and an outsourced test, trace and isolate programme that the Treasury Permanent Secretary called "the most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time" (8).

I'm sure many Sunday Times journalists do check their sources + contact people they write about in advance. I've admired Lawson's campaigns against prejudice towards people with Down's syndrome. But on this occasion his high standards have slipped. (9) independent.co.uk/voices/comment…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @globalhlthtwit

Anthony Costello

@globalhlthtwit

20 Jul

I've heard three serious examples of misinformation on BBC programmes in the past 24 hours from Professor Robert Dingwall of JCVI, Lord Sumption and Sir Charles Walker MP. (1)

Dingwall, social science private consultant, who sits on JCVI (why?), was asked about Long Covid. He said the evidence was just 'anecdotal', the numbers of cases causally related to Covid was 'very small' and symptoms were due to people's 'minds' and 'stress'. He is wrong.(2)

Lord Sumption said deaths from Covid outside highly vulnerable groups is very small, 'in the hundreds'. Prof Spiegelhalter has since said he is wrong. (In India 2.2 million people are estimated to have died from Covid). Sumption should not be invited onto BBC to mislead.(3)

Read 5 tweets

Anthony Costello

@globalhlthtwit

15 Jul

Seven excellent reports in the FT from UNICEF and Children in All Policies-2030 (cap-2030.org) on what governments + companies should pursue to help the next generation overcome the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and economic inequity.(1) ft.com/reports/unicef…

Why investing in children is the most important economic imperative. ft.com/content/01eb69… (2)

Why cutting UK aid damages families, children and also our own international reputation.(3) ft.com/content/137490…

Read 9 tweets

Anthony Costello

@globalhlthtwit

9 Jul

On vaccinating children. UK data released today reports that over ONE Year 5,800 children were admitted with Covid19, 690 children admitted with a linked paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome(PIMS-TS) of whom 251 required intensive care. 25 children died from Covid19. (1)

For those who want to look at the US figures and an excellent review of the risks and benefits, see this article: (2) sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-19-and-b…

What about Long Covid? ONS figures: 14.5% (of children aged 12-16 have symptoms lasting longer than 5 weeks, and 5.7% (4.1-8.1) lose taste and smell. If half of all children aged 12-16 became infected we might expect >100,000 to lose taste +smell. (3) ons.gov.uk/releases/preva…

Read 13 tweets

Anthony Costello

@globalhlthtwit

6 Jul

The story so far. About the failure of public health. Not masks. Look at the death rates in China (pop 1.4bn), Vietnam (100m), USA (340m) and UK (68m). Yes, you cannot see the death curves in the first two because they are so low. (1)

Our leaders/advisers said you cannot suppress this virus. China and Vietnam did. Then they said these countries will inevitably face a huge second wave. They haven't - just smaller outbreaks that they jump on with good public health implemented by people on the ground. (2)

We were forced into prolonged national lockdowns. Hugely damaging to livelihoods, the economy and mental health. None of the Asian states had national lockdowns, only local ones. Their economies had ten times less damage. (3)

Read 20 tweets

Anthony Costello

@globalhlthtwit

4 Jul

On Children and Long Covid.
No. You are being disingenuous with these studies. We agree the Swiss study is worthless because of type 2 error. Let us now look at the Zoe and the Australia studies...(1)

People are rightly worried about Long Covid and possible effects on children's developing brains. The Zoe study shows 4.4% of 1,734 infected children (588 younger 1,146 older children) get headache, fatigue and anosmia (three neurological signs) lasting more than one month. (2)

Worrying. If children are now to be exposed to infection by the UK government failure with public health/vaccination measures, + say another 50% of children up to 16 become infected, we're looking at 8.8 million x 0.5 x 0.044 = 193,600 kids facing prolonged symptoms. (3)

Read 15 tweets

Anthony Costello

@globalhlthtwit

4 Jul

Several scientists are referring to an unreviewed short Swiss paper to support the idea that Long Covid in children is minimal. medrxiv.org/content/10.110… (1)

The authors correctly point out "limitations include the relatively small number of seropositive children, possible misclassification of some false seropositive children, potential recall bias, parental report of child’s symptoms, and lack of information on symptom severity" (2)

The paper reports on just 109 children picked up as seropositive compared with 1246 negatives. No conclusions can be drawn because of classic type 2 error: failure to reject a false null hypothesis because of an underpowered study. (3)

Read 6 tweets

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!