Thread by @DrEricDing

MY GOD—Danish 🇩🇰 political leaders have completely lost their frigging minds releasing all #COVID19 mitigations — these are exponentially ⬆️ surging DEATHS not cases!!! This is what happens when a country’s leaders gaslights its own citizens. #CovidIsNotOver

2) there is complete “endemic delusion” going on right now in 🇩🇰 and many other countries. I’m not the only one that think Danish leaders are being completely irresponsible. Say what you will about ICU, but the hospitalizations and deaths don’t lie.

https://twitter.com/k_g_andersen/status/1491807696193949696

3) Finland 🇫🇮 mortality is surging too. But finish govt reports deaths by occurrence date—The "new" Deaths (red) data are mostly 1-4 weeks old on the reporting date. The final number of cases each day will not be known for weeks. Don’t be misled. Watch👇

4) I’m not the only epidemiologist who feels 🇩🇰’s strategy is based on “delusion”.

https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1491807700165939200

5) Danish media had been complicit on this too- ignoring that deaths overall are going up.

https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1491807699033419783

6) Yes I know some day many died “with”
COVID instead of died “from” covid. But Denmark truly has taken a risky stance that COVID is a not a serious disease—but they are ignoring total excess deaths and many pandemic indirect deaths — and the ⬆️hospitalizations.

7) Who’s heard this?

"It's over"
"It'll magically go away"
"It's almost over"
"It's almost over"
"It'll be over after Alpha wave"
"It'll be over after Delta wave"
"It'll be over after Omicron wave"
HT @K_G_Andersen

We need LONG TERM strategies—not be like ostrich head in sand!

8) Prime Minister @Statsmin - you should self reflect how history will remember you during this moment — history will not be kind if it leads to high excess cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and #LongCovid for your country. It will not end well. bbc.com/news/world-eur…

9) let this sink in—in just 2 days, the number of COVID deaths actually doubled in the most recent 🇩🇰 report from 21 to 41. It’s a narrow window but death numbers aren’t supposed to move that fast.
sst.dk/en/english/cor…

10) thankfully, Denmark is heavily vaccinated and even 61.6% boosted. For countries that are not so heavily boosted (cough, most of the world, cough)… I really worry.

11) Dear SSI—Your report suggests up to 2/3 are because of COVID (since causes other than COVID is 1/3). The 2/3 is seen in 🇬🇧 too & consistent. Also, when hospitalizations surge, many heart attack & other mortality known to increase too—indirect spillover

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1493511578171412480?s=21

12) Dear @SSI_dk — whoever is running your account is doing a big disservice to the citizens of your country and to the world. The “with vs of/from” is a well known old COVID denialism excused used in early pandemic. It is DELUSIONAL.

HT @_mbdr_

https://twitter.com/_mbdr_/status/1493128269255909379

13) Danish leaders need to remember that the “viruses don’t have ears” and don’t listen to any political propaganda that “COVID is over”. We need to use science of both vaccines and mitigations to get it back to normal. Hope & denialism are not valid strategies. #CovidIsNotOver

https://twitter.com/k_g_andersen/status/1492265608267796481

14) Also important to note that it is vacation time in 🇩🇰 — thus we could expect more cases potentially in the future after vacation lull (well known during Christmas and other holidays elsewhere).

https://twitter.com/baekdal/status/1493625264500314114

15) Also looking at excess mortality in 🇩🇰—it has been high throughout Omicron. More recent data is incomplete because of backfilling of deaths by date of reporting. Notice how recent deaths changed from last week (right figure) to this week (left) in just one week alone 👇

16) Also for excess mortality—note that an excess of 2-Z score (2 standard deviation) is ~95% confidence interval threshold — thus there is clearly significant excess mortality seen in 🇩🇰 already, even while waiting for delayed backfilling in death reports. No gaslighting please.

17) Others also think that the Danish “health authorities and the Danish press is misleading the public” about the “with COVID” vs “because of COVID” hospitalization issue. They are a state of seeming denial—haven’t you all heard of #LongCovid? Finland and many countries worried.

https://twitter.com/baekdal/status/1493658690313986051

18) what’s a better way to look at mortality? EXCESS MORTALITY. Is there EXCESS total mortality problem in 🇩🇰? Oh yes—even SSI reports admit it. There is both excess at the 2Z-score level (95% confidence) and at the 4Z level (99.994% level) recently. But SSI downplays/ignores 95%

https://twitter.com/_mbdr_/status/1493314060179456006