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Kit Yates

@Kit_Yates_Maths

Mar 15

There's a new paper out examining how public broadcasting in the UK represented scientific information and government policy making during the early stage of the covid pandemic in March 2020.
It's main findings are...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

- During this period BBC and ITV news accounts were dominated by the view of the government and government scientists whilst critics of the policies of herd immunity and mitigation – such as the WHO – were rarely featured.

Furthermore, journalists directly endorsed the government’s slow approach and its herd immunity policy.

Read 7 tweets

Kit Yates

@Kit_Yates_Maths

Mar 12

With the #GaryLineker row the focus has been drawn away from the government's illegal migration bill and even, ironically, their rhetoric around it.

To return to the original story, Suella Braverman's numbers on asylum seekers don't add up.

Here's why:
🧵
1/21

Last week upon unveiling new plans to allegedly deter people from crossing the Channel in small boats, Suella Braverman claimed that *100 million* people could already be on their way to seek asylum in the UK.
2/21

In her speech to the commons, the home secretary claimed: “There are 100 million people around the world who could qualify for protection under our current laws. Let’s be clear. They are coming here.”
3/21

Read 23 tweets

Kit Yates

@Kit_Yates_Maths

Mar 7

Seems like a good time to remind people why the herd immunity strategy wouldn't have worked.

We found critical flaws which meant shielding strategies, like the GBDs "focussed protection", would have failed in practice.
🧵
journals.plos.org/globalpubliche…

The unprecedented scale of the public health crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic forced governments around the world to impose restrictions on social contact to suppress transmission of the coronavirus.

2/16

An alternative strategy would have been to temporarily shield those who were most vulnerable to COVID-19 (the elderly and those with certain pre-existing conditions), with the aim of achieving herd immunity by allowing a largely unmitigated epidemic in the rest of the population.

Read 16 tweets

Kit Yates

@Kit_Yates_Maths

Mar 3

Buried in WhatsApp conversations between then-prime minister Boris Johnson, his scientific advisers and Dominic Cummings, is an exchange which is arguably even more worrying than this headline-grabbing stories.

Johnson's fundamental maths mistake...
🧵1/22

On 26 August 2020, Johnson asked the group:

“What is the mortality rate of Covid? I have just read somewhere that it has fallen to 0.04 per cent from 0.1 per cent.”
2/22

He goes on to calculate that with this “mortality rate” if everyone in the UK were to be infected this would lead to only 33K deaths
He suggests that since the UK had already suffered 41K deaths at that point, this might mean “Covid is starting to run out of potential victims”

Read 24 tweets

Kit Yates

@Kit_Yates_Maths

Feb 17

A quick update 🧵on the covid situation in the UK at the moment.

TL;DR After rising for the last couple of weeks things seems to be slowing down and covid incidence rate may even have peaked.

1/9

The ONS infection survey is just catching up with the latest rises

All nations (except NI) have seen rises

Remember it is around two weeks out of date (these data are for the week ending 7th Feb).

So we will expect to see these numbers rise for another couple of weeks yet.
2/9

The latest week saw rises in all regions of England...

3/9

Read 10 tweets

Kit Yates

@Kit_Yates_Maths

Feb 17

Apparently the government are planning to tell doctor's to "sign fewer patients off sick" to reinvigorate the economy.

Unfortunately, just telling people they are not sick, doesn't make them not sick, so I think this plan will probably fail.
Lets have a look at the data.
🧵
1/12

Firstly, we saw a sharp rise in the UK sickness absence rate from 2020 to 2021*.

This is the highest level since 2009.

*2022 data is not out until April.

2/12

The pandemic has had a number of different and potentially conflicting impacts on these data.

It's possible that measures such as furloughing, social distancing, shielding and increased homeworking may to have helped reduce other causes of absence in 2020...
3/12

Read 13 tweets

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