Had a longish chat to @markaustintv earlier on @SkyNews on this latest Omicron Covid wave. Covered: this wave, seasonality, "living with it", long covid, vaccines and my frustration at this cycle of repeated waves...
First off - yes we're in a wave 1/6
Secondly, Covid spreads perfectly well in summer. Yes, it tends to be worse in winter but it certaily has had no problems causing large waves in summer (whether northern or southern hemisphere).
2/6
Thirdly, the way we are trying to "live with covid" just... isn't really working out very well is it?
and yes we can do something about it. (clip is ventilation but also sick pay, supported isolation, addressing inequalities, global vax). 3/6
Fourthly, each wave is leaving more people with long covid and some are badly enough affected that they can't work - whether for weeks, months or years.
That's not sustainable. 4/6
Fifthly, we need more than vaccine tweaks - we need more research into even better, longer lasting, vaccines that are better at preventing infection.
In the meantime, we should stil take up all the vaccine doses we are offered. 5/6
Finally, this wave will pass but another one will come. Candidate variants are already being tracked. Quite likely there will be another wave in early autumn... we need to stop acting like each wave is the last. 6/6
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Quick thread on the Astra Zeneca (AZ) covid vaccine since it's been in the news today.
TLDR there isn't a new "smoking gun", the AZ vax was one of first and cheapest, it saved millions of lives globally, there are better vax out there now, adapted to new variants 1/9
the AZ vaccine was one of the first approved at the end of 2020, cheaper than Pfizer, and - importantly - easier to administer in lower resource settings as it didn't require super low temperatures for storage 2/9
In most countries it was first rolled out in older adults. As it was rolled out in younger adults, a *very rare*, serious, side effect was noticed - it could cause deadly blood clots
This was spotted quickly and studied. Vax monitoring did its job. 3/9
A short thread on why this is not a scary chart and why all the evidence suggests that there is not much Covid around right now. 1/6
the above chart is recorded covid hospital admissions / reported covid cases. It is close to 100% now *because basically only hospitals can report cases since Feb 2024*
It is to do with changes in case reporting and NOT hospital testing
2/6
The UKHSA have now published their modelled estimates of what percentage of English population has Covid. And as of a week ago it's high (4.3%) and rising.
It's highest in London, South East and East & in young and middle aged adults.
The main thing is it's going up and fast, so prevalence will already by significantly higher now than it was last week. 3/7
Short thread on what I said on Channel 4 news tonight.
1. Did I find Hancock a sympathetic witness?
A: I find it hard to have sympathy for someone who repeatedly claimed to have thrown protective ring around care homes, while discharging covid+ patients into them.
1/5
There were *28,000* excess deaths in care homes Apr-May 2020.
Harries thought it was "clinically reasonable" not to treat covid +ve residents in hospital. Even it was, it was NOT reasonable to return them somewhere they could infect so many other very vulnerable people. 2/5
2. Did I think scientists bear blame for not emphasising asymptomatic transmission?
A: No, because they very clearly did advise there could be asymptomic transmission before March 2020 - sources in next tweet. 3/5
Hancock: "there was no way we could allow the NHS to become overwhelmed"
Except, the NHS WAS overwhelmed
Here is what NHS staff said about that time - Pls read whole 🧵
"Heartbreaking"
"Horrific"
"It broke my soul"
"We cried, we came home exhausted. We were overwhelmed"
1/16
"Overnight we were told that all “safe working rules” were gone. There was no choice, we were forced to do it"
"It felt like a death sentence. It felt out of control"
"We were put on wards with no senior support, sometimes makeshift ... with little of the right equipment"
2/16
"Terrifying. A huge sense of duty ... but also terror. We were unprepared & ovt clearly had no plan"
"We had patients on wards on 19 litres of oxygen - this would never happen under normal circumstances - they’d have come to Intensive Care but we didn’t have the space"
TLDR: modest August wave with flatlining hospital admissions, but expect a bigger wave later this autumn 1/12
Hospital admissions with Covid in England are still quite flat for 3rd week in a row and at a level below previous troughs.
Number of people with covid in critical care & primaril yin hospital because of Covid also flat & low.
Deaths ⬆️, from case rises few weeks ago 2/12
However, Zoe symptom tracker app estimating significant increases recently. Very hard to know how reliable Zoe trends are, given far fewer people reporting, but it's worth bearing in mind.