Thread by @karamballes

🧵This study sums up major issues with the Govs pandemic response, particularly in regards to schools

The study describes itself as weak and underpowered, the results unreliable with wide margins of error

Groundbreaking? I think not

https://twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1418649170265526273

The flaws are clear look at them yourself

https://twitter.com/karamballes/status/1418500683012218880?s=19

News outlets rushed out the governments interpretation that this was a great success. This is to be expected by the stenographers

My real concern are the number of highly qualified experts who have also been over selling the report

Did they trust the summary without reading it?

I really don't know how these experts all came out this morning to tell us how good this study was, that it shows exactly what the government wanted it to show, the people who didn't have any criticism for the study

They must see this was when we had low Alpha transmission

That schools didn't report all positives, that participation wasn't great, that trial schools were shut part way through due to PHE response to the rise of Delta.

I do not see how anyone can seriously look at this and think they have rigorous reliable evidence base for policy

So how come so many government advisors, paediatricians, and PHE ppl seem blown away with this study, out in force telling us how brilliant it it?

They are going to defend it to the hilt and be deeply critical of those raising issues about it

These are the ppl who almost always come down on the govs side

They sold us

Children less likely to be infected
Less likely to transmit
Transmission occurs in community not in schools
Schools have effective safety measures
Social distancing not needed
Masks not needed

Schools could stay open regardless of peaks and waves
Long covid is so rare its not a concern
Vaccination is more risky than infection

Everytime the gov needs a back up opinion, the benefit of the doubt these ppl are there

They are still claiming significant transmission doesn't occur in schools.

They produce and hold up flimsy studies and then make out anyone who finds fault is scaremongering or a zero covid fanatic, been quick to jump onto the labelling of iSAGE members

They are the false centrists.
Create a spectrum with skeptics and GBD on one side, set themselves up as being the centre and that means Zero covid supporters and general critics of gov policy can be labelled as fringe views.

"We are the centrists, we weigh up the balances in public but always end up coming down in broad support of the governments policies"

"We shift the scientific Overton window by creating a false centre,"

We will downplay every risk on schools, produce selective studies and dismiss any data that's inconvenient, our evidence base has been made use of by skeptic groups around the world.

Perhaps this is a groundbreaking study, unlike other studies that ended up mired in technical debate, this one is just a mess.

Makes it easier to identify dishonest voices, if they are selling this without massive caveats I don't think I can see them as an honest player

Thought I'd finished this, Bernadette Young who was involved in the trials has just been on @StephenNolan
"Its a safe way of managing close contacts"
"Shows for young people contact has a low risk of infection"
"Proves this is a potent tool in our toolkit"
No uncertainty shown

This is how we end up with the government claiming infection is better for children than vaccination, that we don't even need to worry about mitigations and get away with very little media scrutiny.

https://twitter.com/karamballes/status/1417865527578578945?s=19

Good thread on issues with the study and its reporting

https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1418919282256318467?s=19

We really need more ppl in the media to be bothered to read the study for themselves rather than just rewording the govs press release