After hearing some underwhelming testimony last month at the #COVIDInquiry on the use of respirators, @trishgreenhalgh and I decided to write a rapid response to the @bmj_latest to set the record straight.
Here's what we wrote...
1/15
bmj.com/content/386/bm… "Respirators outperform surgical masks; fit-testing is desirable but not essential"

Professor Susan Hopkins (UK Covid Inquiry, 18th September 2024) claimed that evidence for the superiority of respirators (which are made to an industry standard and designed to fit ...
2/15

As the UK’s general election campaign enters its final few weeks, we’ve already seen numerous examples of dodgy declarations, substandard stats and graph gaffs.

So I thought I'd write about the importance of numeracy to the functioning of democracy.
🧵

https://x.com/FullFact/status/1801343764960547289

We can expect to see more questionable claims in the run up to polling day.
The factor that all these all these missteps have in common is that they involve the manipulation or misrepresentation of numerical quantities.

https://x.com/FullFact/status/1802685611138023631

Politicians will get away with the things we forget, so here is a list of things to remember about the government's record on covid:
1. Over 230,000 died from covid in the UK.
2. They partied while we weren't allowed to see our loved ones. Thousands died alone.
... 3. They were too late taking action in spring 2020.
4. They delayed again in autumn of 2020.
5. They waited until they had no other choice in winter of 2020/2021.
6. They funnelled cash to their mates through the VIP lane.
7. PPE provided to our healthcare workers was inadequate.

A water company released sewage into the stream that runs into the beach where we were holidaying. I didn’t like the idea of swimming in the sea after that, so I tried to sue to water company for spoiling our holiday. This is what happened…
1/21 First up, cards on the table, I am a keen outdoor swimmer. I swim with a group of friends most weeks in our local stretch of the Thames. Come rain or shine, winter or summer, there are usually at least two of our number bracing the river waters north of Oxford.
2/21

It's π-day (3/14 in US date format) - the international day of mathematics.
But people often ask me why π is important. Why do we care about calculating more and more digits?
In short, "What is the point of π?"
Well, here is the answer...
1/ 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510...
The number of digits after the decimal place in pi extend off into the distance (these are the first 50).
Truncating π's decimal expansion after the second decimal place (3.14) is sufficient to specify the date of pi day.

It's leap day - February 29th.

It's a special day - the rarest in our calendar.

But do you know why we have leap days at all and how often exactly they come around?

Read on to find out...
1/21 This exceptional day has been associated with weird and wonderful traditions over the years: from the wildly outdated notion that 29th of February is the only day when women can propose to men, to the Leaper Year festival held in Anthony, New Mexico.
2/21
vox.com/2016/2/29/1113…

Main points from the ONS/UKHSA Winter Infection survey.
TL-DR: There has been an increase in prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England and Scotland during the 2 weeks leading up to 13 December 2023.
1/8
gov.uk/government/sta… In England and Scotland, the estimated prevalence on 13 December was 4.2% (95% Credible intervals (CrI): 3.3%, 5.4%), equivalent to around 2,549,000 individuals (95% CrI: 1,996,000 to 3,236,000) being infected or around 1 in 24 people (95% CrI: 1 in 30 to 1 in 19).
2/8

On Newsnight I was asked what I thought the biggest mistake Johnson's government made during the acute phase of the pandemic.
I only got to give one answer, but if I'd had time I would have said:
1. Johnson missed 5 COBRA meetings. Didn’t chair his first one until early March.
🧵 Missing those COBRA meetings meant he was not up-to-date with the latest information he required.

2. SAGE warned against physical contact in early March – next day Johnson was boasting about shaking hands with patients (including covid patients) in hospital.

A huge error.

The Government’s CSA during the acute phase of the pandemic, Sir Patrick Vallance, gave evidence at the #CovidInquiry last week
Most of the news that filtered out was focussed on political failures like Eat out to Help out - but should we have been focussing more on science...
🧵 The headline-grabbing story was probably Vallance's testimony that SAGE was not consulted about the now infamous ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme.
2/25
bylinetimes.com/2023/11/23/eat…

I went outside to top up the chicken feed yesterday afternoon.
We’re usually pretty careful about putting the lid on the food bin, but I figured it had been left off by accident.
I was about to reach in and grab the scoop, but I looked in the bin first… And this is what I saw.

I freaked out. At first glance it looked like the food had grown mouldy, having been exposed to the rain, but when I looked more carefully I could see it was moving almost imperceptibly.

A short thread on covid hospitalisations in the UK.
TL;DR Admissions continue to increases across England and but it’s a mixed picture in Scotland.
🧵
1/11 Hospital admissions have now increased for the past three weeks -- increased by 12% week on week this week (was 25% increase last week).

A short thread on covid hospitalisations in England.
TL;DR - Although hospital admissions have been very low over the summer, they have risen significantly in the last few weeks.
1/6 Hospital admissions in England increased substantially this week - up 30% week on week.
2/6

There was something strange about the recent Women's World Cup in Australia.

If you were paying close attention, you might have spotted it.

Many of the international squads had players who were born on the same day of the year – they shared birthdays.

What was going on?
🧵 In maths there is a counterintuitive phenomenon known as "the birthday problem".
The problem is usually phrased along these lines: "How many people do you need to have at a gathering before the probability of at least two people sharing a birthday rises above 50%?"

It finally happened.
After 3 and a half years of avoiding it I finally got covid for the first time...
... and it was awful.
🧵 I haven't been very active on here for a while because I've been feeling so crappy.
Even relatively simple tasks (that I would previously have taken for granted) like reading have seemed like a lot of effort.

Phase one of the Covid inquiry has begun in earnest.
Its remit is pandemic preparedness.
The guiding ethos is to learn lessons from the mistakes made in preparing for the Covid pandemic so that we are better prepared for the next one...
🧵
1/23 The inquiry shares this premise with my book How to Expect the Unexpected. My focus in the book is to highlight the mistakes people have made when making predictions in the past...
2/23
geni.us/KitYatesBooks

We all enjoy it when we find an aptronym - a name that seems to suit the occupation of its bearer incredibly well.
It can make us think that the name is responsible for their having that job.
But is there any evidence for "nominative determinism".
🧵
1/23
(Image @gordmatheson) We're probably all aware of these high profile examples of aptronyms:
Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, Margaret Court, the former world-number-one tennis player, and ...
2/23

It is hot, hot, hot today.
The Met Office has issued a heat “health alert” for the weekend, with temperatures expected to reach 30C.

So it's important you protect yourself from the sun, but do you know what the SPF on suncream actually means?
1/25independent.co.uk/weather/uk-hea… Are you a 50, a 30, a 15 or a ‘chance it in the name of a tan’ oil lover? We all identify with at least one of these, but do you really know what SPF means – or how to use it?
Most of us don’t, actually.
2/25

Wimbledon begins today.

But do you know where the scoring system for Tennis comes from.

Here's a thread so you know your 'loves' from 'lets', your 'deuces' from your 'doubles' and your sets form your 'sexagesimal system'! 😂
1/25 Is there any event that heralds the start of the English summer more evocatively than Wimbledon? The oldest tennis championship in the world is famous for strawberries and cream, closely cropped grass, the threat of rain, Centre Court and, of course, the sexagesimal system!
2/25

Health Minister Helen Whately tells us that
"If you are diagnosed late with lung cancer your prospects of surviving 5 years are only about 4%. If your diagnoses early it's more like 60%"
But these statistics are misleading, and here's why...
🧵
1/26

https://twitter.com/Helen_Whately/status/1673618711159119874

First, for context, the UK is set to roll out a national lung cancer screening programme for people aged 55 to 74 with a history of smoking. The idea is to catch lung cancer at an early stage when it is more treatable.
2/26
bmj.com/content/381/bm…

A thread on Long covid, both here and in the US.

TL;DR Long covid is a big problem and it isn't going away any time soon.
1/11 The numbers of people living with self-reported long covid (>12 weeks after infection) in the UK* seems fairly steady at around 1.7 million.

*These latest data are from March.
(data from here: )
2/11 https://t.co/LhMbdmz1Phons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

A short 🧵 on covid hospitalisations and deaths.

TL;DR Despite changes in testing it does seem that the number of people with covid in hospital is genuinely decreasing. This is corroborated by the falls in the number of covid deaths.
1/6 There have been changes in testing policy, which mean that fewer people are being tested in hospitals, so we would expect to see fewer cases.
Nevertheless we have seen consistent falls in the number of people admitted to hospital.
2/6