Thread by @1goodtern

I read an article today that astonished me.
It said that doctors here are all just tired, and that's what's wrong with them.

I have fumed about it under my breath all the way through a bad day full of bad news about sick people.

And I got home and thought:

"Am I crazy to be thinking this is all caused by Covid? Maybe the man in the paper is right. Maybe doctors are just tired."

I thought "Maybe the doctors being tired is *nothing to do with covid* and I am just weirdly obsessed."

"Maybe wearing a mask is totally unnecessary, like that coughing nurse said yesterday."

So I did what the journalist should have done.

I went looking for some data.

We all know that doctors and nurses and everyone else in healthcare are *sicker now than five years ago*, right?

I mean, you do, don't you?
That across all the massive workforce of the NHS, sickness absence rates are now 25% higher than the pre-pandemic average?
Right?

But you also know that some staff groups have an even higher risk of being off sick now... don't you?

But that might not have been caused by Covid infections, of course, because the man in the paper never even mentioned them as being a reason for people being tired.

He said they weren't getting enough sleep.

So I thought that I would go and break down the actual data, like he should have done.

So... over the last five years, when were these staff more likely to be off sick?

Hmm. That's odd.
They all seem to get tired at similar points.

These similar points.

Gosh.

Some of them were much much more likely to be off sick at certain points...

Look at this staff group:
Foundation Doctors Year 1.

At points they were OFF SICK MORE THAN THREE TIMES AS MUCH as pre-pandemic levels.

They're still nearly TWICE AS LIKELY TO BE OFF SICK now.

It's just astonishing.

But wait a second.
These waves remind me of something.

Oh I know.

That looks quite astonishingly like...

... no it can't be...

... the man in the paper, that health editor, said that they were just tired...

Oh, no, it's an uncanny match for the timings of the covid waves in England.

Turns out that man in the paper is an absolute gibbon.

Because the doctors and nurses and ambulance staff and technicians and everyone are more sick when there are more covid cases around, right the way up to the end of 2024.

Why do they match?

Because it's covid infections that are making doctors and nurses and everyone sicker and sicker and causing them to take more and more time off work.

And that guy in the paper is a total [swearword].

I was a bit angry when I wrote that.

I've been angry all day with the liars.

They think you're stupid.

They really do.