Thread by @PeteUK7

Dear @JamesTGallagher of @BBCNews,

You've written several articles about Covid in recent years. Do you ever look back & wonder if the previous ones proved to be factual?

You often ask the same people. Look back at what they said vs what transpired then perhaps ask others.
1/🧵

One of my faves from Jan 22:
"We're almost there, it is now the beginning of the end, at least in the UK," Prof Julian Hiscox, chairman in infection and global health at the University of Liverpool, tells me. "I think life in 2022 will be almost back to before the pandemic."
2/

But let me focus on Prof Eleanor Riley first.
Every year you've asked her and even for the most recent article where you say she:
"had her own "horrid" bout of Covid that was "much worse" than expected."
Why did she expect it not to be bad I wonder?
Perhaps there are clues?
3/

Well the clue is that she has been a proponent of using infection as a route out of this.
That vaccines blunt the harms but infections broaden immunity. She's quite possibly one of the reasons why vaccine boosters haven't been widely offered, She said this in Aug 21:
4/

Here is where she suggests using infection to broaden immunity. She goes on to suggest that we're just scaring people - almost like they should embrace infection - just get out there and live like normal:
5/

Perhaps the reason why she is surprised at how hard Covid hit her recently is because she thought that after Omicron, we'd all have lasting immunity. I assume she thinks antibodies and T-cells would provide lasting protection. This from Aug 21:
6/

You see, Prof Riley also suggests that the immunity from infection would be variant proof. It hasn't worked out that way has it James and yet I don't see any kind of retraction or adjustment to the messaging - just a return to the same folk for more comments. Aug 21:
7/

So in your most recent article she says:
"People's antibody levels against Covid are probably as low now as they have been since the vaccine was first introduced."
Hmmm. I thought they lasted "a while". It would have been good to be a little more precise, right?
8/

Why are antibody levels low? - well Prof Riley you may recall warned against boosters because we "might be digging a hole for ourselves".
But should we worry? Of course not /s
Because our T-cells will deal with it, right?
9/

But I will return to a quote from Prof Hiscox with a real blockbuster statement from your article of Jan 22. Is this the way it's working out James?:
10/

And we mustn't forget Prof Finn with this gem from Aug 21 where the case is made for this to be a real cost-saver for the Government to throw caution to the wind and just infect everybody as a way out of this. I love the "this isn't proven part".
11/

Now forgive me James but I seem to think all of your articles follow one single train of thought:
Infect everyone over & over again and this will be over & we'll all live happily ever after.
What about other methods to protect people?
What about the consequences of infection?
12/

Perhaps you could talk about the lack of masks in healthcare. The fact that schools are huge vectors of transmission and often have terrible air quality that nobody is addressing. Or maybe that hundreds a week have been dying of Covid throughout.
13/

Or that testing & surveillance are at all time lows when we need to be stepping up. Or that people could be protecting themselves with respirators & measuring ventilation with CO2 monitors & installing air filters.
I could fill pages & pages with stuff you've never mentioned.
14/

Harms from infection. This is an area that I could also fill pages about but your article says "sometimes making people quite ill and occasionally leading to having 'long Covid'"
Occasionally? Seriously. Look at the StatCan info from Canada. It's commonplace.
15/

No mention that repeated infection increases the odds of Long Covid.
What about strokes, heart damage, neurological problems, diabetes and a thousand other known impacts of the infection you are practically encouraging people to embrace & accept as inevitable?
16/

You could do more research. You could seek other people to ask rather than the same ones who have always been demonstrably wrong. You could actually save someone from dying or becoming disabled by providing more accurate info.
You have a reach that most of us don't. Use it.
17/

Give it some thought, please.
There's so much more to say.
Here are links to the 3 articles I've pulled all of these references from:
18/end


bbc.co.uk/news/health-58…
bbc.co.uk/news/health-59…
bbc.co.uk/news/health-67…