1.THREAD on Covid, children, failure, bafflement and anger.

TLDR: English policy has failed children, and then everyone else, I am baffled why people aren't angrier. I am angry.

23 tweet rant.
2. By the time schools broke up in July, cases in children were incredibly high, there was mass education disruption and we were going through a massive delta surge (aided by the Euros).
3. US, Canada, France & Israel were already vaccinating 12-17 year olds to protect them from Covid *and* to protect their education in the autumn.

From June onwards, data was firming up, mainly from USA, about the v low risk of the vaccine & higher risks of Covid
4. Over July and August, almost all European countries followed suit - and most cited the need to protect education *and* the benefits to the child given the expected wave coming in Autumn.

Germany was one of the last ones to change its mind in mid August - on clinical benefit.
5. In August, the US saw large surges in child Covid cases - particularly in states where vaccination rates were low and school mitigations were few.

By September, US had clear evidence how vaccinated teens were 10x less likely to need hospital vs their unvaccinated peers
6. From US & Israel, it was obvious that delta could rip through schools.

It was obvious that that vaccines PLUS other mitigations (e.g. masks, ventilation) could address that.

Over the summer both US & European CDCs recommended vaccines+mitigations in schools.
7. Many people in the UK (and elsewhere) were begging govt to put mitigations in for the new term *and* vaccinate teens.



blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/08/20…
8. Meanwhile, JCVI released a series of vague statements - eventually ok-ing vax for 16/17 yr olds in mid August - *just in time* for school but did not recommend vaccination for all teens.
The CMOs did recommend vax for teens but not until 13 Sept.
9. I say "vague statements" because so far there is no detailed evidence or analysis provided for their recommendations.
Contrary to their code of conduct, there are no minutes of Covid meetings since Feb.
There is no evidence / analysis provided for the 1 dose strategy
10. These incredibly consequential decisions, contrary to global practice, remain shrouded in secrecy.

Our peer-reviewed paper in @EditorJRSM provided a detailed risk benefit analysis of full vax course in teens & showed large benefit at current levels.
rsm.ac.uk/media-releases…
11. We should demand no less tranparency from JCVI.

Instead, we had (and still have) high profile members of JCVI warning of vaccine risks but *not* covid risks and wrongly downplaying importance of vax in reducing transmission thetimes.co.uk/article/childr…
12. The upshot is that despite knowing full well of the risks of a large new wave in children in September, we did nothing.

Schools were promised CO2 monitors - where are they? where are the resources to *act* on poor ventilation?
13. Once vaccines were approved for teens, their roll out has been abysmal.

England is only offering vaccine through schools - Scotland also has walk in centres.

We are far behind. Neither supply nor demand are the issue - it's a failure of planning or lack of urgency or both
14. And we are seeing the costs right now. Infections have soared in our children - 8% had Covid in the week to 9th October.

Hospitalisations in 6-17 year olds are rising steeply, despite vaccination in 16 & 17 yr olds.
15. 2 weeks ago, ~200,000 children were off school due to Covid - who knows how many now.

Long Covid cases are already increasing in young people after summer surges. Kids will suffer too - Israel seeing high demand now for its child long covid clinics after high summer cases
16. We also still don't yet know the long term impacts of Covid on health - but we know it can affect other organs.

Covid can cause heart damage, it can cause long term breathlessness and it has been linked to increased risk of developing diabetes - inc in children.
17. Unions are begging for safer schools.
fenews.co.uk/press-releases…

The impact of vaccination in 16/17 yr olds vs 11-15 yr olds is barn door obvious from official govt data.
18. And not only are rates in 10-14yr and 5-9 yr olds rising again and higher than they've been, but all age groups are now rising.

In fact cases are rising *fastest* in the over 60s. And hospital admissions are rising a lot again.
19. And incidentally the booster programme is still going slowly - we are doing maybe 150K doses a day, compared to the 400K doses a day we were doing in Jan/Feb.
We're getting there but too slowly.
And inequalities in vax coverage persist. Of course.
20. So we are heading into winter with huge numbers of infections in children and glacial vax roll out, vulnerable over 60s where cases are already going up, increasing numbers of people living with long covid and a super stressed NHS.

What the fuck are we doing?
21. Absolutely none of this was inevitable - instead it was entirely preventable.

We needed to vax teens, put mitigations in schools and keep some mitigations for adults too.

Half term will help - let's use that opportunity!

ft.com/content/345825…
22. As we head into winter with v high cases I think we need to use half term to:
accelerate vax in teens
roll out CO2 monitors everywhere & HEPA filters where necessary
resintate masks in secondary schools
tell parents what symptoms of covid in kids are (!)
start govt plan B
23. Finally - where is the accountability? where is the anger?

Our govt, the JCVI & public health officials downplaying spread in schools, have failed our children and they've failed us.

And yes, I'm fucking furious. And no, I'm not sorry for swearing. /END

• • •

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

Keep Current with Prof. Christina Pagel

Prof. Christina Pagel Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

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

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @chrischirp

17 Oct
THREAD: Some numbers on Covid and kids since 1 Sept 2020.

For 5-14 yr old kids:
Whole of Autumn term (rise of Alpha) through to spring: 239K confirmed cases.
Summer term starts low, then Delta. April - August another 285K cases.
Since 1 Sept, 336K cases *so far*. 1/7 Image
Case ascertainment improved in March with regular testing for school kids - but even compared to summer term, numbers this term are *far higher*.

ONS infection survey (no testing bias) reported that prevalence in 2nd-ry school kids now more than 2x higher than winter peak . 2/7 Image
What will burden of Long Covid be in children infected since summer?
ONS estimated that in 4 weeks to 2 May, 23K children ages 2-16 had persistent symptoms from Covid caught at least 12 weeks before - ie infections before mid Feb 2021.
(June dataset: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…) 3/7 Image
Read 7 tweets
14 Oct
VARIANTS: Everyone knows that Delta is the dominant variant in the UK (almost 100% of cases).

But Delta has continued to mutate & there are several subtypes in the UK (all start with AY).

The most common is called AY.4 - almost 80% of sequenced cases in UK are this type 1/6
So far no Delta subtype has seemed to have had much of an advantage over the others & non-Delta variants aren't getting anywhere
news.sky.com/story/covid-19…

But AY.4 has developed a new mutation (S:Y145H) & that variation (AY.4+S:Y145H) has been growing here since July 2/6
It was spotted by @CorneliusRoemer and he suggested giving it its own designation: AY.4.2 (meaning it becomes an official subsubtype of Delta subtype AY.4).

This designation has recently been accepted github.com/cov-lineages/p…… 3/6
Read 7 tweets
9 Oct
Nick Triggle did his version of the article @martinmckee & I wrote in the Guardian about how UK has much higher case rates (& death rates) than West & North Europe...

Of course there are different views, but here are some areas I see differently... 1/9

bbc.co.uk/news/health-58…
That Europe is doing "vaccine plus" - high vax coverage and some measures such as masks indoors, school mitigations, covid passports is the entire point- it works much better than "vaccine just" in keeping cases (and all their bad consequences) down

And...
2/9
not clear that contact rates are higher here than in Europe - contacts in Europe are SAFER because they've take additional precautions.

In fact SAGE says we are still not close to pre pandemic contact rates in England. Many do not feel able to "be normal" due to high cases. 3/9
Read 10 tweets
8 Oct
Thread on Covid & UK (mainly England).

TLDR the two epidemics theme continues and the impact of summer infections on long covid is becoming evident... 1/13
On vaccination, we've started on 12-15s but roll out is slower than it was for 16-17s... and in younger age groups we are substantially behind Scotland who have been using walk in clinics for teens.2/13
For boosters, we've now given a quarter of 80+ their booster and rollout is progressing. When the programme started, 3.5m people were already elgibile for their booster - we've got a bit of work to catch up to all the eligibles as soon as we can! 3/13
Read 14 tweets
8 Oct
A conversation with @adamhamdy prompted me to look at how different home nations are dealing with reinfections (people testing positive with Covid more than once, at least several weeks apart)

There are differences that will matter more over time as Covid keeps going 1/7
England only counts the *first* time someone tests positive. So if I tested positive last summer and then tested positive again now, I'd only appear in last summer's numbers.

This means England is undercounting cases (but not by much as long as reinfections are rare) 2/7
Wales *does* allow for reinfections as long as they are 6 weeks apart. So if I tested positive last summer and again today, I would count as a Covid case twice - once last year and once again this year. 3/7
Read 8 tweets
7 Oct
This story by @samueljlovett about the lack of transparency around JCVI decision making is excellent - clearly the lack of transparency is worrying *JCVI members* too...

Meeting minutes should be published within 6 weeks - no Covid ones since Feb.
1/4

independent.co.uk/news/science/c…
We raised this issue in our @IndependentSage statement last Friday
independentsage.org/call-for-more-…

and wrote to the Chair this week asking for the minutes to be published
independentsage.org/independent-sa… 2/4
In the article, JCVI seemed to blame lack of admin support - although minutes of a June non Covid meeting are public.

There has also been a Freedom of Information Request to ask for minutes - this was denied but JCVI seemed to confirm that the minutes *were* available. 3/4
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

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!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(