I’ve been quiet if late on the “virus that hath no name”.

Mainly bc I find the increasingly polarised debate depressing. It feels as vitriolic as Brexit all over again (albeit the cautious appear less numerous than remainers)

But there’s 1 thing I feel compelled to voice: I think a good chunk of the divisiveness would fall away if there were better acknowledgement of one fact:

‘The C-19 experience of ‘healthy’ people of ALL ages can be wildly divergent’

Over two years ago, I predicted that #LongCovid would be minimised and denied...but the ingenuity that has since directed put into airbrushing the mounting ever evidence of severe harm is really quite remarkable.

https://twitter.com/LucyofL/status/1355447806346059783?s=20

The true picture of Long Covid has proven even messier than I envisaged in early 2021. It's become clear that individuals don't want to identify as long-haulers, so they don't - unless they absolutely have to.

I’m scared.
Scared of something I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever need to be scared of.
It’s a fear my grandmother & great grandmother must have known.
A fear we all thought was consigned to the history books My 5yo kid is a bit ‘off’
2 viruses in rapid succession
He’s basically over the last one, but still a bit croaky & coughy
He’s run down
His immunity has clearly take a hit
Only I’ve got to send him back to school

A 🧵on Covid vaccines, global divergence, schools and equity, ethics and choice & a small request. Firstly - there's a growing divide in vaccine accessibility across the Western world.

In the US, everyone aged over 6 months can get vaxxed. In contrast Sweden has never offered it to 5-11s and both the UK and Denmark have recently withdrawn their offer to under 12s

There's been some discussion amongst 'experts' questioning that the numbers succumbing to LongCovid are significant. The essence is that whilst LC is real, it's actually rare, so we don't need to worry too much.
There's a great deal to unpick here, so it merits a🧵:
1/15 Pluck a number out of the air between 1 & 50, and you can probably find a study that pertains that's your number is the % of Covid infections that end in Long Covid.

Does that variability infer that the studies are flawed?

2/15

OK. Time for a 🧵 on that emotive topic of 😷.

Back in 2019, on a bitter, cold wintry day, I might have worn a scarf over my mouth & nose to protect my face from the biting wind

No one would have batted an eyelid Since then, we’ve been through varyingly stringent mask mandates, depending on where you live in the world, which have almost universally been lifted, despite high levels of virus

I'm wondering if we might be approaching an inflection point in terms of attitudes towards the pandemic.

A 🧵

1/20 In most of the world, bar perhaps China, we seem to have reached a consensus that we must 'live with the virus'.

I agree, in the sense, that the window for global eradication with the tools we currently have has probably passed.

But what does 'living with Covid' mean? 2/20

The last few days my head has been pounding with the word 'WHY?'
Why is it that the UK is SO aggressively pursuing a strategy of mass infection, to an extent that we've become the outlier of the Western world? And with a particularly disturbing focus on infecting children?
1/17 The easy answer is to lay the blame on the desperation of our morally bankrupt, incompetent gov who, faced with existential threat, put political survival above all else

Of course they are ultimately responsible and should be held to account, but I fear the roots are deeper. 2/n

So here's my promised thread on Covid & education that's been brewing for days....

It's been fuelled primarily by statements from various individuals in the the public eye, that essentially claim "education is untouchable; schools must operate as normal, come what may" 1/n There's a few aspects to this to unpick - but let's start at the surface: It's absurd absolutism.

Imagine a future variant kills 1/3 (deemed by SAGE a plausible long-term scenario, and in line with MERS, a similar coronavirus).

Would we still be debating nativities? 2/n

OK - A medium thread on what I think might happen over next few weeks as schools return. It's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. I'm not talking quantitative forecasts (I'll leave that to experts), I mean how it's likely to pan out in schools up & down the country Caveat: I have ZERO scientific credentials - but my brain kind of likes to triangulate information to elaborate potential future scenarios. It's probably a bit sad, but I do this both in my personal and professional life - it's kind of how my brain is wired

OK, Time for 2nd ever long thread. This one has been brewing for days. The topic is: "Fear-mongering"

This term appears to be the on-trend language to discredit someone you disagree with when you're too lazy to come up with a reasoned argument.

But let's unpick further: 1/19 What you're *really* saying that someone is 'fear-mongering', is that they're neurotic and paranoid - which is really quite a patronising and condescending assertion. My (admittedly unscientific) experience is that those accused of 'fear-mongering' are more typically women🤔2/19