What an appalling interview from Sajid Javid starting a few minutes ago on @BBCr4today.

He is clearly incompetent, way out of his depth. I've seldom heard a minister say so many stupid things in a single interview.
@BBCr4today health inequalities are NOT caused by an unequal distribution of GPs.
@BBCr4today How, exactly, are you fighting the virus? Why are mask mandates not in place and rigorously enforced on public transport, in shops and other places, and in schools? Why is health and safety in schools and workplaces not ensuring good ventilation / air filtration?
@BBCr4today Are you not ashamed that, despite promises to increase GP numbers by your predecessors, GP full-time-equivalent numbers have, instead fallen? Despite "creative accounting" (counting heads rather than FTEs, counting trainees…?
@BBCr4today do you count the number of hours GPs work? What is the length of the working week for the average full-time GP?

Yet you call them "underperforming" and demand they work longer hours?

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More from @petermbenglish

14 Oct
1/ I couldn't find a link to the study in this BBC News report, but the report rehashes what we've known for a long time.

bbc.co.uk/news/health-58…

We know:
2/ PCR tests on throat swabs, done with good technique at the right time are only about 70% sensitive: 3/10 positive cases are missed.

PCR tests done late (eg a day or 2 after a positive lateral flow test) is even less sensitive.

Lateral flow tests are even less sensitive.
3/ Both types of test are extremely specific: fewer than 1% of people who do not have Covid-19 will get a false positive result.
Read 7 tweets
12 Oct
1/ . @jimalkhalili's Life Scientific on @BBCRadio4 this morning had a scientist (? @SirPaulNurse of @TheCrick ) saying:

"When [SARS-CoV-2 and the Covid-19 pandemic] arrived, we knew nothing about it."

Nonsense!

We knew a lot about Coronaviruses.
2/ We knew a lot about the immune system, how it interacts with pathogens, and how it can overreact to cause an acute (short term) overreaction (cytokine storms…); and about long-term autoimmune disease.

We knew a lot about treatments for autoimmune diseases.
3/ We knew a lot about vaccines and how they work. (Objections to sensible decisions - like extending the prime-boost interval - were based on the fallacy that "we know nothing…", and ignored decades of work on vaccination.)
Read 10 tweets
3 Oct
The tories claim to be the economically competent.

So why do they give visas to very high earners while deporting/preventing entry of people prepared to work for low wages?
1/
I don't know what happened to tweet 2 which I sent just after tweet 1… Will try again. It will be tweet 3, now.
2 /
That said, it pains me to agree with Johnson, but we have exploited low-paid workers for far too long.

Care and health care workers, pluckers and pickers, cleaners… particularly jobs typically done by women…
3/
Read 11 tweets
22 Sep
1/ Regarding infections in schools, a colleague has pointed out that it is Department for Education directives that require schools to stay open, not PHE advice.

I am aware of this.
2/ Before I retired in January a complaint was made against me by the education sector for refusing to change my advice that a school or section of a school should close because of an outbreak of Covid-19 that was putting staff, other students, and their families at risk.
3/ The complaint went nowhere - I was giving the right public health advice, no matter how awkward it was.
Read 7 tweets
21 Sep
Gross incompetence on behalf of BBC?

Bad legal advice?

Surely it wasn't impossible to make full vaccination a condition of employment eg on H&S grounds?

"Strictly chaos as 'third professional dancer refuses vaccine'" metro.co.uk/2021/09/21/str… via @MetroUK
@MetroUK who are the three vaccine refuseniks?

If the BBC won't replace them now, the public should know, so we can vote them off ASAP.
@MetroUK is there anything that would prevent it being a condition of employment that Strictly Come Dancing #SCD competitors are fully vaccinated?
@AdamWagner1 @BarristerSecret @davidallengreen
Read 4 tweets
5 Sep
Maybe the JCVI decision does make sense. Thread.

I've revisited their terms of reference. They're all about cost-effectiveness.

gov.uk/government/gro…
They appear to have framed the benefits of vaccinating 12-15-yos exclusively in terms of the short term healthcare costs that would be avoided.

They appear not to have considered the wider benefits to children's.

Such as a reduction in disruption to education.
Such as distress when parents or grandparents get ill, can't work/earn due to Long Covid, or die.

Or the harm to the 1 in 7 children who get Long Covid, or the minority with permanent organ damage.
Read 13 tweets

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