The Covid Inquiry coverage has hit me particularly hard today.
It made me realise why I've been tearing my hair out for the last fortnight.
There are so many people angry about what the conservative government and cabinet office did in 2020 and 2021.
They're angry about Johnson and Sunak's lies and incompetence **THEN**.
They're angry about how Sunak and Johnson would say one thing to the public while saying a completely different thing behind closed doors **THEN**.
They're angry about all of the information that was concealed **BACK THEN**
But the conservative government are incompetent and lying about Covid **NOW**.
And Sunak and the cabinet are saying one thing to the public and saying different things behind closed doors **NOW**
And they're concealing the information **RIGHT NOW**.
But the people who are angry about **THEN** aren't angry about **NOW**.
Because they want to believe it's over too.
But it's not.
It's still going on **NOW**.
And the deceit and incompetence is happening **NOW**.
And the tragedies that they cause are happening **NOW**.
And so I'm vibrating like a tuning fork, screaming my head off saying WHY AREN'T YOU ANGRY ABOUT THE NOW.
And I've been edgy and anxious knowing that any day those hospitalisations would start to rise.
And then the deaths and disability would follow.
And so much immune dysfunction.
And now the wave has started, and I'm just tired of all the stupidity and lies and incompetence.
I'm sick of the delusion and denial.
I'm going to go and eat some chocolate.
Some tony's chocolonely, which hopefully hasn't been made with the blood of slave kids.
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It kind of breaks my brain that a neurologist would split hairs over the definition of neurotropic while ignoring the undeniable truth that covid can be neuropathic, neuroinvasive, neuroinflammatory, and neurodegenerative.
Oh hello. 🧐🔥
Now this is very interesting.
Very interesting.
A quick thread about sickness, absence, covid testing in the NHS, and trying to figure out what is going on when you don't have much data.
The NHS has a huge number of staff.
Currently somewhere like three quarters of a million.
Yes, you read that right: 750,000.
This chart tracks their absence from work.
Blue: All absences
Amber: Covid absences.
Prior to the pandemic, sickness absence ran at about 4% of the workforce.
But as the pandemic has progressed, the number of days lost to sickness absence has steadily increased.
This graph has gone down a little since last year, but at its worst, it was up over 6.5%.
So some of the data from the winter infection survey is out there.
There are some grim highlights.
Like 1 in 37 young adults in England testing positive for Covid in the fortnight of 16/11-29/11.
That was supposedly at the **bottom** of a wave.
Like 10% of the population unable to do their usual or daily activities due to illness.
Supposedly during a time of "not much Covid" according to NHS testing.
Like 56% of people reporting 'any symptoms' of illness on the list.
Wow.
Astonishing news in the UK that the release of the winter infection survey data tomorrow is being cancelled because the rates it showed are so high that Downing Street have crapped themselves and hidden the results.
Highlights from just this morning's conversations:
"my 21 year old grandson is off to a friend's funeral today, it's the third this year"
"I just keep falling asleep whenever I sit down"
"No, they can't come, they're all ill"
"She's just been admitted for a throat infection"
"He's had a stroke thing in his eye, all he can see is like sparks the whole time"
"I'm getting better [from mystery infection], but I've now got pain in all my joints and they keep locking up"
"I'm just dizzy the whole time now"
"I've been for three appointments and it's been a different doctor each time"
"I've got these feelings of numbness and pins and needles in my legs and feet now"