John Burn-Murdoch Profile picture
Dec 23, 2021 9 tweets 3 min read Read on X
NEW: weekly breakdown of hospital patients being treated *for* Covid vs those *with* Covid as an incidental finding is out.

Here’s London:

Though incidentals are still rising at unprecedented rates, there is also a clear and steep rise in patients being treated for severe Covid
Comparing the current rise to the Delta wave side-by-side, we can see that although there are far more "with, not for Covid" incidentals this time around, the number of patients being treated for Covid is rising faster than it did in the summer
But the summer Delta wave never came close to overwhelming the NHS, so key question is how this stacks up vs last winter

Numbers still well below last Christmas, and recent uptick is clearest on a log scale. Long way to go to approach Alpha wave, but direction of travel is clear
Here’s another way of looking at it:

The total number of Covid-positive patients does slightly overstate the severity of the current wave as far as hospitals go, but the "for Covid" line is still clearly bending upwards
We’ll have more on the hospital situation later today
All in all, I’d say this is a decent illustration of what people have meant by "a small percentage of a large number can still be a large number".

We’re still way off last winter, but numbers with severe disease are growing, and not especially slowly.
("for vs with" data only starts in Jun 2021, so for Alpha wave I’m assuming fixed proportion of patients were being treated primarily for Covid, and that it was in line with the share seen over autumn. This could be wrong, but is unlikely to change the overall picture shown here)
Another bit of context here for considering the Omicron hospital situation over winter:

Hospital staff absences due to Covid have risen very steeply over the last week in London.

(no historical data to compare this with, to my knowledge)
An important addition here from @VictimOfMaths [and the brilliant Dan Howdon, formerly of Twitter]:

These figures undercount the total number or "with Covid" incidentals. Doesn't change the overall message but adds important context

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More from @jburnmurdoch

Aug 29
NEW: Progressives have a birth rate problem

For all the talk of a general fall in births, the drop is overwhelmingly driven by people on the left having fewer kids.

By ceding the topic of family and children to the right, progressives risk ushering in a more conservative world. Image
There’s something of a paradox at play here.

On the one hand, pro-natalism often implies constraining individual liberty and setting back women’s progress. As such, the left’s aversion to worrying about birth rates is perfectly natural.
But: the consequence of this emerging ideological slant in birth rates is that each successive generation gets nudged rightwards, increasing the likelihood that conservative politicians (who want to constrain individual liberty and set back women’s progress) get elected.
Read 12 tweets
Aug 8
NEW: Is the internet changing our personalities for the worse?

Conscientiousness and extroversion are down, neuroticism up, with young adults leading the charge.

This is a really consequential shift, and there’s a lot going on here, so let’s get into the weeds 🧵 Image
First up, personality analysis can feel vague, and you might well ask why it even matters?

On the first of those, the finding of distinct personality traits is robust. This field of research has been around for decades and holds up pretty well, even across cultures.
On the second, studies consistently find personality shapes life outcomes.

In fact, personality traits — esp conscientiousness and neuroticism — are stronger predictors of career success, divorce and mortality than someone’s socio-economic background or cognitive abilities.
Read 17 tweets
Jul 18
NEW:

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about rising graduate unemployment.

I dug a little closer and a striking story emerged:

Unemployment is climbing among young graduate *men*, but college-educated young women are generally doing okay. Image
In fact, young men with a college degree now have the same unemployment rate as young men who didn’t go to college, completely erasing the graduate employment premium.

Whereas a healthy premium remains for young women. Image
What’s going on?

At first glance, this looks like a case of the growing masses of male computer science graduates being uniquely exposed to the rapid adoption of generative AI in the tech sector, and finding jobs harder to come by than earlier cohorts.
Read 14 tweets
May 15
NEW with @KuperSimon

The prevailing narrative around increased injuries and player workload in elite football is wrong.

Players don’t play more football than in the past. What has changed is a sharp rise in intensity of play.

Not more minutes, but each minute exerts more load. Image
Of course, that doesn’t mean a reduction in playing time wouldn’t help. But if one wants to solve the problem, it helps to know the cause.

Fixture schedules are barely busier than in the past, and squad sizes have grown to mean no rise in minutes per player regardless...
...But the recent evolution of much faster-paced gameplay both with and without the ball comes with elevated risk of soft-tissue injuries.

Here’s the full article: ft.com/content/36ebc9…
Read 5 tweets
Apr 11
NEW 🧵

The number of people travelling from Europe to the US in recent weeks has plummeted by as much as 35%, as travellers have cancelled plans in response to Trump’s policies and rhetoric, and horror stories from the border. Image
Denmark saw one of the steepest declines, in an indication that anger over Trump’s hostility towards Greenland may be contributing to the steep drop-off in visitor numbers. Image
Corporate quotes are usually pretty dry, but the co-founder of major travel website Kayak wasn’t mincing his words: Image
Read 5 tweets
Apr 4
NEW 🧵

A quick thread of charts showing how Trump’s economic agenda is going so far:

1) Trump has had the same impact on economic uncertainty as a global pandemic. Image
2) That was just the US version.

What’s particularly impressive is that he’s managed this on a global scale.

Starting to get the feeling that “Trump” annotation is going to be the chart equivalent of a layer of volcanic ash in the fossil record. Image
3) US consumers are reacting very very negatively.

These are the worst ratings for any US government’s economic policy since records began. Image
Read 11 tweets

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