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John Bye

31 Dec 21, 10 tweets, 6 min read

The Omicron wave in South Africa seems to be subsiding. The good news is that although case numbers (and positivity rates) were a little higher than their previous records from July, this caused less hospital admissions and a LOT less deaths.

So how about the UK?

Here in the UK we're now at DOUBLE the previous record number of daily cases (from January 2021), and still rising, certainly outside of London. And that *doesn't* include reinfections, as people are only counted the first time they ever test positive.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?…

This is NOT just down to increased testing (which seems to be constrained by supply rather than demand now). Positivity rates in England are now higher than they were in January, meaning a higher proportion of people being tested have covid.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testin…

Covid patient numbers in London are at almost half of their previous January 2021 peak. And most of them are there because of covid, not just "incidental".

If you're feeling optimistic, it's *possible* the last day of data shows the rise is slowing.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/health…

This surge is masked at the national level, as patient numbers were actually falling in many regions before Christmas. Not anymore. Every region is now rising, and it seems likely we could end up with somewhere around 20,000 covid patients nationwide.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/health…

But the good news is that (so far, touch wood) this hasn't caused a big increase in patients requiring more intensive care. The number of patients in mechanical ventilation beds is still at around the same level it's been since the summer.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/health…

There's also still no sign of deaths rising. There are many differences between our situation and South Africa's, but it looks likely that, as long as our health system holds up, we shouldn't see vast numbers of covid deaths again this winter.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths…

All of which seems to support the claim that Omicron (while still serious) is generally milder than previous variants, while vaccines also still seem to be giving good protection against severe illness and death.

Before we all get complacent though, the sheer number of Omicron cases is still causing problems. For example, around 100 children a day sadly ended up in hospital with covid after Christmas. Most of them too young to be vaccinated.

https://twitter.com/jneill/status/1476253591677587456?t=y6IyYC5Qn-UUcgUs5rZpLg&s=19

Meanwhile vast numbers of people being off sick or self-isolating with covid are causing significant disruption in everything from hospitals to hospitality, trains to theatres. It's likely education will be disrupted in the New Year too.

google.com/amp/s/inews.co…

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More from @_johnbye

John Bye

@_johnbye

23 Dec 21

https://twitter.com/toadmeister/status/1473915023386886146

How misinformation works:
- ONS report shows breakthrough infections in the vaccinated are more likely to be Omicron.
- HART's Will Jones writes a Daily Sceptic article falsely claiming "the vaccinated are playing an outsize role in the current outbreak".
- Toby Young: 2+2 = 541.

https://twitter.com/toadmeister/status/1473915023386886146

The ONS report *actually* says that if you're vaccinated you're LESS likely to catch covid.

But if you DO still catch covid, it's more likely to be Omicron. As you'd expect from a variant more able to evade immunity.

PS: The same's true for people who have had covid before.

The Daily Sceptic article admits this "doesn’t tell us how likely a person is to test positive in the first place".

But then falsely suggests that the Omicron outbreak is somehow the fault of the vaccinated! 🤨

Another HART attempt to "seed the thought vaccines cause covid"?

Read 4 tweets

John Bye

@_johnbye

19 Dec 21

@thelucyjohnston

Another Sunday, another wildly misleading article and tweet from @thelucyjohnston, this time cherrypicking one sentence from a 31 page study by @collateralglbl to claim 40% of excess care home deaths weren't caused by covid. That figure is only for the first wave, and it's wrong.

https://twitter.com/thelucyjohnston/status/1472531665230700546

The article does at least say this figure is only for March to June 2020. But it doesn't mention that many (possibly most) of those "non-covid" excess deaths are believed to have been undiagnosed covid, which in the elderly can look a lot like dementia.

https://twitter.com/_johnbye/status/1355842957837029380?t=n4M6noOfWYDRdSiEZhN6zA&s=19

We've long known covid deaths were under counted in the first wave. Concerns had already been raised in April 2020 that, in the absence of testing, care home death certificates weren't mentioning covid, even when it was suspected to be the cause of death.

https://twitter.com/C4Ciaran/status/1249787270292480000?t=n4M6noOfWYDRdSiEZhN6zA&s=19

Read 6 tweets

John Bye

@_johnbye

15 Dec 21

https://twitter.com/MartinNeil9/status/1466814347762671628

This paper by several HART members misses an obvious explanation for some odd looking ONS data, ignores the ONS' data definitions, then manipulates that data to falsely claim the vaccines cause a (non-existent) spike in deaths!

(Repost / update, as I broke the original thread)

https://twitter.com/MartinNeil9/status/1466814347762671628

The data oddity that caught their eyes is a bump in deaths per 100,000 in unvaccinated people in each age group, soon after that group starts being vaccinated.

But as the overall mortality rates show, there is NO spike in deaths during the vaccine rollout.

So what's going on?

The paper's authors wrongly believe the vaccines are killing us, so they present the data like this.

I replicated this graph from the raw ONS data, and it is correct. BUT it has an obvious explanation that doesn't involve claiming the ONS is deliberately miscategorising deaths!

Read 18 tweets

John Bye

@_johnbye

4 Dec 21

https://twitter.com/MartinNeil9/status/1466814347762671628

Anti-vaxxers have been going wild over this paper from several HART members. But it misses a blindingly obvious explanation for the odd looking ONS data, ignores the data definitions, then manipulates the data to falsely claim the vaccines cause a (non-existent) spike in deaths!

https://twitter.com/MartinNeil9/status/1466814347762671628

Read 15 tweets

John Bye

@_johnbye

28 Nov 21

@hartgroup_org

New low for @hartgroup_org crank @TonyHinton2016, who is due to give a talk tomorrow to a group that's openly threatening violence and claims to be recruiting serving police officers and military personnel.

This group seems to be the brainchild of Ian Clayton, who's also associated with Ivermectin pushers BIRD.

He's threatened violent opposition to covid restrictions, and has a noose in his Twitter profile pic.

Hinton follows him, so must know what he's getting himself into.

UK Citizen say they want to bring down the judiciary and "predict a grim future" for politicians.

They retweet messages implying officials should be hanged, and conspiracy theories about the government building prisons with crematoria as concentration camps for the unvaccinated.

Read 4 tweets