The heart of the problem remains that there are too many people who think that repeat Covid infections are going to have a net beneficial effect. I meet people daily who incorrectly think that catching Covid will be more good for you than bad for you.

A colleague came to me this week and, seeing as I'm always masked, he asked me for tips on masking.

He's off on a plane flight for a holiday of a lifetime, and he wants to reduce the risk of getting sick, which seems sensible to me.

Here's what I told him. Don't get surgical or cloth masks.
Get Filtering Face Pieces (FFP).
In the US they're N95 standard or higher.
In Europe and elsewhere they're FFP2 or FFP3.

FFP3 is better.

None of them will work if you're not wearing them.

It's worth remembering the *context* of Balloux's tweet in Dec 2022.
It had been clear that there was something very wrong with children's and adults response to Strep A in England that winter.
He was busy denying it was caused by covid.
Five tweet thread 🧵🔥 (Just a reminder of how awful the strep a outbreak was that winter: the ukhsa never released final numbers of how many children died in England from it that year.
They stopped releasing the data when the total was past 60.)

Every now and then it comes back round to that eternal question:
Why must we do nothing to stop airborne viruses? We're allowed to do things to stop airborne bacteria.

I've been supporting a family whose child has an *excellent* diet.
Just ridiculously healthy and well made and varied food.
But...
The child is suffering from malnutrition.

What? 🧵 It turns out that it's really simple:

The child is *eating* all the right nutrients, but their body is *not absorbing* them properly.

All absolutely totally flipping normal in England at the moment as hospitals start declaring critical incidents due to 'severe and sustained pressure' IN JUNE.

🚨THIS HAPPENS WHENEVER THERE'S A COVID WAVE🚨 It doesn't happen in numbers at other times.

A quick incomplete summary reminder of Sunak and Johnson's 'leadership' on Covid: Ignored warnings

Covid waves don't just come as waves of acute infection here in our local community.

There's very much an extended pattern to them.

Each one is a cycle. These are my observations and impressions of how it works here in our English town, so this is anecdotal comment not measured scientific research.
I'm just dropping it into the mix for people to consider.

Look.
Covid doesn't even have to have damaged your immune system to make you more vulnerable to Whooping Cough.

Let's just run through some stuff that covid infections can do to you that make you more vulnerable. Your lungs have a function called the mucociliary escalator that shifts gunk up out of your lungs.

Look.
This is *really* serious.
The ukhsa and the press have been talking about this whooping cough outbreak as if the *upper limit* of the outbreak is the number of people who are unvaccinated. (Or who weren't exposed to it in 2020. Obviously that one doesn't make any sense at all. It's the vaccination one that is the worrying one)

⛔⛔
Another Holy Shit moment.
My Spanish is rusty, but this chart of whooping cough cases in Madrid seems to say that 90% of the kids with whooping cough there had been previously vaccinated against it.
The implications of this may be devastating.
⛔⛔
H/t @JohnFin39760730 "Por grupos de edad, el 97% de los casos entre 5-9 años y el 98% de los casos entre 10-14 años estaban
correctamente vacunados."
😮

So many illnesses are rising so dramatically in England.
We need to talk about the current complete abject failure of the UKHSA as an organisation. Here's what it's supposed to do.
"UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) prevents, prepares for and responds to infectious diseases, and environmental hazards, to keep all our communities safe, save lives and protect livelihoods."

If you take a glance at an 'AIDS defining illnesses' list, you'll see somewhere on the list "progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy".
👀🧵 You can go away and google a list if you like, but here's the CDC's list (from the US Veteran's Affairs website).
There's Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy down the bottom.

Masks and respirators are a clear visible sign that someone is actively taking steps to stop airborne pathogen transmission. If you see someone in a mask (and even better, a respirator), you know that
a) they think there's something to protect against
b) they know it is spread by inhalation and exhalation
c) they are taking personal responsibility for taking action

It's starting to drive me a little nuts that people think we can find "the cure" for Long Covid.

Have you ever had a car back from the bodyshop after it has been in a crash?
🧵 It's like saying there's 'the cure' for the damage.
The frame is slightly off.
The steering pulls just ever so slightly to the left.
The rear left door doesn't shut so easily.
There's a weird whistling noise from the vents.
The headlights are misaligned.

We're going to need a bigger graph.

Whooping Cough in England.

This is the fault of the people who think sickness makes you well.
Anti-vaxxers. Natural immunityers. Pro-infectioners. Anti-mitigationers. Immunity Debtors. Most Peoplers. Anti-Maskers. We-Have-The-Toolers. The anti-vax crowd have driven the rejection of child hood vaccination with false claims of danger.

I've had a few friends catch covid for the first time in the last few weeks.
They're feeling a bit rubbish because a) they have covid and b) they thought they might manage to keep their run going longer.

If you're in a similar boat, here are a few thoughts... Risk reduction is not the same as risk elimination.

>Holy Shit<

Whooping Cough cases in England

😮 The last two weeks' notifications in red.
The growth is stratospheric.

You're noticing the increased lack of morality now, aren't you? The loss of compassion?

On a mass scale. And both from the ground up and the top down.

It's got a few more years of worsening to do still. I don't think it's just caused by the damage to the brain that covid infections do.

There are loads of factors.

Do you use lateral flow/rapid antigen tests to test for Covid?

Do you know how a positive or negative should be used to change your behaviour?

A quick quick thread: If you test negative on a single LFD/RAT rapid test, it means nothing.

Ten ways in which we're not ready for the next pandemic: 1
Most people now think that the way to deal with a pandemic is pretend there is no pandemic.