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Dr. Deepti Gurdasani Profile picture
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Mar 9 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Really worth looking at what's happening in the 8-11 yr group- infections have continued to occur at a high rate (as per ONS data) in this age group- yet antibodies appear to be plateauing, and early declines being seen. This is well-described in the literature.🧵
Children *do not* develop sustained antibody responses- and the rate of seroreversion (going from antibody positivity to negativity) and antibody declines are faster than adults. Remember antibodies don't mean immunity in the first place (given the level of escape with omicron)
It is unlikely children develop lasting immunity to infection. The UKHSA data also shows this clearly, with re-infections being highest among children, with a significant proportion of BA.2 re-infections having occurred within just 3 months.
The evidence for this has been accumulating for a while. Yet, we're told by JCVI that vaccination of children is non-urgent partly because seroprevalence is conflated with at least medium term immunity. But sadly it doesn't guarantee it.
All we seem to have accomplished by delays in vaccination and lack of mitigations in schools is mass exposure resulting in educational disruption, long COVID (119,000 children estimated at 28 days), hospitalisations, and preventable deaths. And no long-lasting protection.

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Dr. Deepti Gurdasani Profile picture
Mar 8
A brief discussion on the impact of omicron we're seeing in some countries currently - e.g. HK - which may seem surprising given the impact observed in South Africa and even perhaps the UK - which while v. significant, seems lower on the face of it.🧵
Some of this will no doubt stem from different vaccination rates by age in different regions - but there is possibly another important factor that may not be immediately apparent.
I want to revisit the discussions on the severity of omicron relative to delta here. As many of us discussed earlier - there are two aspects to severity:
1. intrinsic severity - what is the severity if omicron compared to delta if they infected the same people
Read 22 tweets
Dr. Deepti Gurdasani Profile picture
Mar 8
As hospitalisations increase, it's worth again noting that testing has massively reduced as positivity has risen to 20% in England (similar to the Dec omicron wave). So cases are *massively* underestimated - and looking at dashboard numbers will underestimate risk.🧵
I worry that this is providing false re-assurance about where things are at. ONS data suggests infection rates remain high. And hospitalisations with COVID-19 are clearly rising across all age groups. BA.2, a more transmissible sub-variant of omicron has also gained dominance.
Vaccines will provide protection, but we know this protection wanes, and isn't absolute. So other additional layers are important to protect yourself
& others. While the govt no longer mandates any measures, it's important to continue to be cautious.
Read 8 tweets
Dr. Deepti Gurdasani Profile picture
Mar 8
I think it's undeniable that massacres, wars & famines in many parts of the world have been largely ignored by the west & western media- but the fact that this (keeping in mind the role of Putin in some of these) is being used by the Kremlin to distract from Ukraine is disturbing
It's clear that there's racism & inequality in reporting & responding to crises in different parts of the world. Some lives clearly have been assigned less value than others. While this is completely true, the Kremlin weaponising this to distract from their killing is wrong.
The fact that they're sharing a picture of killing that they themselves were involved in- the slaughter of civilians with chemical weapons in Syria makes them using the suffering that they themselves created all the more sickening.
Read 5 tweets
Dr. Deepti Gurdasani Profile picture
Mar 6
A key thread. As we face the shock of the Ukraine war, it's vital we also face up to the rot at the heart of UK government and erosion of democracy in the UK that continues to prop up the kleptocracy in Russia - which in turn delivered Brexit & Tory wins in our last election.
Democracies are only as good as the independence of institutions in them - vitally independent media, independent judiciary and law.. all these systems are being eroded in the UK. The information we see on the media is massively skewed - in line with vested interests.
We saw it during the Brexit referendum, during the election. During COVID-19. It's an information war, and the consequences are dire. As we're seeing in Russia at the moment, as the public gets more and more isolated by govt propaganda.
Read 7 tweets
Dr. Deepti Gurdasani Profile picture
Mar 3
Pretty shocking data from the ONS on long COVID released just now- the 4 wk long COVID estimates will include infection until end of Dec, so including the first two wks after omicron became dominant. There are clear increases in prevalence being seen already.🧵
Overall prevalence has increased to 1.5 million when considering 28 day definition - that means *2.4%* of our population. That's 1 in 42 people having persistent symptoms for 4 wks or more currently. If you consider the 12 wk definition it's still v. high- 1.7%.
685,000 people estimated to have now had persistent symptoms for *more than one year*. ~ 1 million say this affects their day to day activity to some extent. So very functionally relevant, and longstanding symptoms in a very large population.
Read 8 tweets
Dr. Deepti Gurdasani Profile picture
Mar 2
If you want to see how an 'any symptom' present or not comparisons between positive cases vs non-positive cases massively underestimates long COVID prevalence- just look at the recent ONS study that some paediatricians are astonishingly hailing as 'reassuring'. Short thread. Image
If you look at each symptom loss of smell/taste is *16%* in those who tested positive at 12 wks vs almost no one in the 'control' group which didn't have a positive test. So this would suggest that the prevalence of long COVID should be at least 16% of those infected, right?
After all if *one* symptom is present in 16% of those infected and almost none of those who didn't test positive, surely this is the *minimum* prevalence of the syndrome, right? When you consider more symptoms, this prevalence should increase not decrease.
Read 7 tweets

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