Thread by @fetzert

Let me take you through the journey of writing this research paper that documents that #EatOutToHelpOut was causing more #COVID19 infections at a time when a vaccine was in sight.

https://twitter.com/fetzert/status/1322078576133525504

I usually dont do this because as an academic, the politics should be

"irrelevant" to me. The timing of all of this #whatsappleak is dubious. My interpretation as a "citizen" (in quotes because of #Brexit I cant become British without giving up my German nationality), is that this is an attempt to attack PM Sunak who found a #Brexit compromise

on Northern Ireland with EU. My comments are much more around the process of how as a society we are handling data/evidence/research. And we need to develop a more healthy relationship with research and evidence and "empower the experts". After we had a decade of ...

"we had enough of experts". But expertise needs to be free from conflicts of interest & we need much more transparency. We also need to properly train journalists. We need more transparency on incentive structure coming from those that serve as custodians of "public attention".

Journalists are "tools" in the game of power, stories are the trading currency. This is all I am going to say about the underlying politics. I let other people connect the dots. I am an academic. I just want to do research and be empowered to do so.

Now let me get to the paper, because it showcases this nicely. Is it the best version of the paper that could be written? No, because I had to rely on public data.
But the paper is robust & sound. You can find my tweets on it from Oct 2020 here:

https://twitter.com/fetzert/status/1322078576133525504?s=20

Surprise, surprise. The paper was attacked.
The first line of attack was to discredit the work by pointing to the use of quite "standard" language used in economics - "back-of-the-envelope" is a common term. The usual suspects such as Spectator piled on. spectator.co.uk/article/did-ea…

But also the "treasury" made that reference. I remember getting emails and some pile ons on twitter for using that term. The Treasury reaction I found incredibly hurtful because I would have thought a sensible engagement to come from there.

The @UKHofficial industry was also pushing back as they were lobbying for another run at it (and there was a bit of nasty stuff coming my way from them). My response dug even more evidence on the plain obvious effect of Eat-out-to-help-out

https://twitter.com/fetzert/status/1366002130553892866

I know the paper could be "even" cleaner, despite it being plain obvious and so I requested more data. Me requesting more granular data from HMT and/or HMRC via route of FOI as emails that I think were sent were not answered.
whatdotheyknow.com/user/thiemo_fe…

After raising it with ICO the UK Office for Statistics Regulation intervened. The offical letter was posted by Ed Humpherson
osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence…

I submitted the paper to one of the leading & new journals in the Economics profession that I thought was amenable to publishing relevant & timely research: the American Economic Review: Insights @AEAJournals. The paper got reviews after a few months but it was a rejection. Why?

A referee cherry picked one of the many placebo exercises that, for very understandable reason related to way that the measurement of the rainfall variable (serial correlation) was done had a non-robust marginally significant coefficient. The rainfall exercise itself was also ...

just a cute robustness exercise that we have to do in the "profession" to get past gatekeepers. It should not have been necessary at all to even do that. But the wider public understood and so it "served a purpose". I chose to not contest and submitted @EJ_RES next with detailed

responses & comment on the AER Insight submission, decision letters & said referee concerns pointing out why they had no merit. It was send to reviewers & quickly accepted for publication with revisions. I am grateful for the very efficient & professional handling of the paper.

There was more follow on stuff: @SirinKale did some nice reporting tracing out some stories of #COVID19 victims. I think understanding the "#policyvictims" or "accidential deaths" are much more important. theguardian.com/society/2021/m…

I wrote a few more papers that are immediately relevant to the public handling of the pandemic. There was this ridiculous contact tracing error that did not get the same level of coverage.

https://twitter.com/fetzert/status/1331139902965227520?s=20

A ton of money went into #NHS Test and Trace and I reckon that

consultants just build a crappy cheap shaky system extracting public resources. But @alexhern did a nice write up of this. This is literally "idiotic" deaths.
theguardian.com/world/2020/nov…
I know @TimHarford covered this extensively and apparently talked with @BillGates about this

paper or the analysis. At least its suggested in this write up here for the @FT: ft.com/content/18db20…. A ton of money was spend on such schemes but it produced non robust systems because people in charge dont have basic IT skills. Again, I tried to follow a similar path to...

get more data under the hood. Just look at my Freedom of Information requests. Then there was the #ImmensaLab #COVID19 testing error. @TheEconomist did a nice graphic detail of the paper here economist.com/graphic-detail…

I didnt even bother to submit the paper to a journal as I feel academic publishing is a bit of a "joke" and a time sink. @TomWhipple at the Times I think is doing great work chasing this up and so are a few other journalists.
Now with a year delay the "official" analysis

that was commissioned confirms my findings with using the same methodology but slighlty different data. This data is in fact data I had requested through a FOI but never got. whatdotheyknow.com/request/immens…

I also want to flag up the #NonCOVID excess deaths paper. This is important as the attacks on the #NHS #NHSCrisis are getting even more pronounced. Here is a thread about that paper

https://twitter.com/fetzert/status/1485891947403386881?s=20

Broader coverage of that paper was low because of the first Johnson party leaks. I did a @SkyNews interview early AM but it didnt get traction. The paper shows quite nicely how #NHS pressures due to #COVID19 & low vaccine take up were causing preventable non COVID deaths.

I am doing now some important work on the #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency. I also try to understand how the NHS and the growth in private health care may be causing harm. It is the incarnation of #ZeroSumPolitics. But I didnt get funding or institutional support for this in UK..

My research goes beyond the UK covering topics that are of transnational relevance (think climate change/terrorism/transnational crime). I won an @ERC_Research grant to do that. But guess what, #Brexit is messing with it: science.org/content/articl…

And now I am a "citizen" again. I do think we can learn a lot from one another. There is many more things that unite us than that divide us. Building knowledge requires "making gambles" and "trying things out", the question on what value system lies behind is important here.

The planet is burning. The #UkraineWar aligns now three societal objectives: saving money, saving the environment and standing up to autocracy. But this requires fixing the many issues right at home. Particularly, important is how we think about data and this is where we need to

get much better. We live in an ageing society, the planet is burning. Skills are a challenge. We need to tackle these. We need to get better at using all resources & that includes data. My preferred outcome to have MORE technocracy, less drama with strong & competent oversight.