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David Paton Profile picture
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19 Oct, 7 tweets, 2 min read
Lots of people that, as our case numbers & deaths are particularly high relative to the rest of Europe, England needs to reimpose restrictions & compulsory masks & start vaccine passports.
It’s a strange take …
…
Confirmed positive tests are currently relatively high in England but they are by no means the highest in Europe.

Further, high cases are partly explained by mass testing. Testing rates in England currently 9 x Spain, 8 x Germany, 2 x France or Italy.

And crucially …
…
deaths are actually about half the European average & just below the EU average

(note graph is from Our World in Data graph which shows the UK as a whole. Rates in England currently even lower) …
…
Deaths are increasing somewhat but still just 7% of the peak last Jan & about 25% below the mini-peak we saw in mid-Sept.

That we are in this situation despite positive tests not being far off Jan peak is actually a good reason to rule out reintroducing restrictions …
…
A further point is that European countries with particularly low current rates include those with:
• both mask mandates & vaccine passports (France)
• masks mandates but no vaccine passports (Spain)
• neither (Sweden, Denmark) …
…
Whilst some of the highest death rates are in countries like Lithuania and Latvia with strict vaccine & mask mandates.

As always, very hard to see a clear and consistent pattern between restrictions & outcomes.
Lots of people *are saying* that ...

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More from @cricketwyvern

David Paton Profile picture
8 Oct
The latest @UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance report now reports that the vaccinated are testing positive at a higher rate than the unvaccinated for every age group from 30-39 up ...
... The text accompanying this table says "The rate of a positive COVID-19 test is substantially lower in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated individuals up to the age of 39"
I think that is just a typo & should say "up to age of 29" Perhaps @UKHSA can confirm? ...
...
As noted previously, there is lots of discussion about whether UK HSA are using the most appropriate population denominators & if ONS estimates are used, rates would still be higher amongst unvaccinated for most (though not all) age groups ...
Read 6 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
6 Oct
Lots of interesting data in the latest ONS release.
First, reinfection rates continue to be low (though a little higher in the Delta period): they find 296 out of 20,262 (1.4%) people tested positive again, a rate of 12 per 100k person days (about 4 per year). However ...
... only 137 people (0.7%) had a Ct < 30 (i.e. high viral load) when they tested positive a second time.
Further only 88 people (0.4%) reported any symptoms (see Table 1d) ...
... Second, the chance of reinfection increases somewhat over time, but remains very low even after a year.
e.g. Table 2c gives estimated reinfection rates per 100k person-days = 10.8 one year after the 1st infection ...
Read 8 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
4 Oct
Vaccine passports are unethical, unlikely to lead to any significant benefits & will cause huge costs. But they have another significant problem:
Under the Govt’s Plan B, the conditions for bringing them in will only happen if (ironically) vaccines are not working well.
…
…
The Govt says vaccine passports are being kept in reserve for a situation in which the NHS comes under *unsustainable pressure*.

So what are the circumstances in which that might happen? …
…
In July England opened up at the peak of a pretty big outbreak: positive tests reached 80% of the highest ever point last winter &, for some age groups & areas, much higher than the winter peak...
Read 11 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
30 Sep
Important new peer-reviewed paper on lockdown cost-benefits by Professor Douglas W Allen of @SFU published in the International Journal of the Economics of Business (I am a co-editor) @Routledge_Econ

Currently free to access here:
...
tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.108…
…
Using the "mid-point estimates", Prof Allen finds a cost-benefit ratio of about 140 (i.e. costs of lockdown were 140 times greater than benefits).

Even with the most extreme & unrealistic assumption about deaths averted by lockdowns, costs still outweigh benefits …
…
Note the mid-point estimate assumes lockdowns reduced Covid deaths by 20%.
In fact, Prof Allen concludes we cannot rule out that lockdowns had zero effect on mortality, in which case, the cost-benefit conclusion would be much worse …
Read 7 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
28 Sep
Data from Scotland provides enough evidence to delay enforcement of high-cost low-benefit vaccine passport not just for 17 days but indefinitely …
news.sky.com/story/covid-19…
…
On 6 Sep, daily positive test rate was 117 /100k, 2.7 times the Jan peak.

Despite that, deaths peaked on 16 Sep at 20.4 /day, just 30% that in Jan & now dropping.

i.e. despite an unprecedented peak in cases, Scotland didn’t come close to Jan death numbers.… ImageImage
…
Note, there were record positive test rates (but not deaths) even for over 60s despite close to 100% vaccination rate.

Vaccination of vulnerable reduces deaths but higher vaccination rates are clearly not the magic bullet for preventing big infection outbreaks … ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
24 Sep
Let's not dismiss concerns that PHE report some vaccinated groups getting infected at higher rates than unvaccinated.

First, even if vaccines significantly reduce chance of infection (high vaccine effectiveness), real world data may not reflect this for several reasons ...
…
Vaccinated may behave differently to unvaccinated, e.g. taking more risks &/or ignoring low level symptoms.
Also, there may be population differences, e.g. previously infected with very high levels of immunity could be less likely to get vaccinated ...
…
Irrespective of the reasons, if real world infection rates among vaxed are higher (or not much lower) than unvaxed, vaccines may still be helpful in reducing hospitalisations & deaths but there should be serious questions about vaccine passports, sacking carers etc. ...
Read 11 tweets

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