Latest UKHSA blog:
"With tuberculosis (TB) on the rise again, how can we prevent further spread?"
Well guys it's airborne so airborne precautions, right?
"The infection is spread when a person with TB in their lungs or throat coughs or sneezes."
Oh FFS
1/🧵 "How frontline healthcare professionals can help reduce TB"
Airborne precautions - respirators, improved ventilation and air filtration, right?
"It is essential that at risk groups and healthcare workers know the signs and symptoms of TB and seek out a timely diagnosis"
Oh FFS
2/

Most folk understand that HIV is very harmful long after the acute infection.
Most people think that Covid does nothing at all after acute infection.
The difference in understanding, I fear, could just be time.
It took many years for this to be widely acknowledged for HIV.
1/🧵 I'm not aiming to draw a parallel between the two viruses - just that of our decades-old understanding of HIV and the comparative novelty of Covid and the way it is ignored.
But knowing what you know, if HIV was airborne and there were no treatments, would you ignore it?
2/

Listening to a neuroscientist explaining that it's worrying seeing how covid affects vessels, cells & neurons in the brain; long term effects unknown.
A cardiologist talking about heart, blood vessel & endothelium damage.
Are you personally sure that Covid can be ignored?
1/🧵 If so, why?
It's absolutely clear that there is still more that we don't understand than what we already know. But what we know is reason for significant concern. Read up on it.
It bothered me greatly when pediatricians came out so quickly to say there's no risk to children.
2/

2.8M people with long term sickness.
"the do nothing trajectory is that it's set to rise to 4M; we have to act on this"
Well @patmcfaddenmp your party have expertise in doing nothing. You're creating more long term ill health by doing nothing to reduce Covid transmissions.
1/🧵 Perhaps instead of punishing people who have become ill through poor infection control everywhere but especially in schools as well as all health and social care settings, you could actually do something.
You know how to reduce infections.
Your party was very vocal about it.
2/

There was a webinar on school air quality yesterday.
It was attended by the teachers unions and had some excellent presentations.
There was one presentation I must mention though.
Herts council were suggesting using the machines they bought should be a blueprint for others.
1/🧵 Whilst it's great that they invested in air filters, the choice of machine baffles me quite frankly.
It's costly, noisy, has default auto mode, power hungry and unnecessary tech like UV (which has no utility at all in this set up) and an ioniser that cannot be disabled.
2/

In Jan there was a conference:
Breathing achievement into every classroom
This conference was designed to probe the link between Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in educational buildings and the health, wellbeing, and educational outcomes of students.
UKHSA presented & IAQ experts.
1/🧵 This was something of a surprise to me.
I'm faced with a presentation from @UKHSA and some of their Key Recommendations are:
• Use of air cleaners in naturally ventilated buildings.
• Ensuring provision of adequate classroom ventilation
This seems like quite a breakthrough.
2/

I don't normally spend time arguing on here but I have lately. I'm so fed up with misinfo. Thought I'd challenge some of it.
It's amazing how strong opinions are formed from such little knowledge or insight.
Often people are fooled by credentials; cos they must know, right?
1/🧵 However, when you consider how we ended up here, we have had no end of highly credentialed people who are just flat out wrong, 'helping' to direct policies.
Qualifications are all well and good but it doesn't = right.
But folk who don't know are guided by folk they think do.
2/

Health minister @GwynneMP got sacked today.
He was useless on Covid anyway.
Some say he has been badly advised by 'experts'.
I think those experts were selected because they tenaciously defend flawed science.
Govs hide behind these 'experts' to limit costs & liability.
1/🧵 It isn't just in the UK.
In Canada for example, people like John Conly are doing the same thing as Lisa Ritchie in UK.
They are demonstrably wrong.
For @UKLabour to have any credibility, they need a clear out.
If I'd been elected, my first job would have been a sacking spree.
2/

Thoughts on recent UCL study of ventilation & air cleaners.
I've seen a lot of negativity towards it and I think that's mainly due to the headline used, saying it can increase risk.
The study also found it can decrease risk.
It complex to study fluid dynamics in a hospital.
1/🧵 The authors are urging caution to ensure that HVAC/PAC give the desired result by using predictive fluid dynamics models.
That's hardly a bad thing.
There's almost no point trying to measure anything experimentally if people write off the findings because they don't like them.
2/

Relly: You're Aunt is very ill
Me: What with?
R: A very bad cold.
M: Has she tested to see what it is?
R: No, no point.
M: It makes a difference as to what steps you could take.
R: She's taking Lemsip. She caught it from her son who caught it at work.
1/ R: He's been extremely ill but is slowly recovering.
M: Does he take any precautions to protect her when he's out at work? She's only just getting over cancer.
R: Oh yes - he eats his lunch in his car.
M: But what does he do in the workplace to mitigate risk?
R: I don't know.
2/

When I discovered that UK Gov had a page on their website saying that airborne transmission is 'the main route', they ref'd a 2021 paper:
"Breathing, speaking, coughing or sneezing: What drives transmission of SARS-CoV-2?"
Linked in the next post but here's an excerpt:
1/🧵 2/
Here's a link to that paper:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jo…

I've been looking at the evidence statement submitted to @covidinquiryuk by Prof. Cath Noakes.
I'd highly recommend @GwynneMP does the same.
However, it would make it very clear how disingenuous you have been in the letter written to @timfarron.
Let's look at some examples;
1/🧵 It was clear in 2020 that airborne transmission was important:

I had reason to visit urgent care recently. Let me tell you my experience @AmandaPritchard.
First up, I was greeted with an eye roll from the receptionist when she saw my 3M FFP3 Aura 🙄.
I was the only one masked.
But listen to what happened next in my thread below:
1/🧵

https://twitter.com/AmandaPritchard/status/1877072570714874310

Doc: You may have Covid.
Me: I do not. I have been isolated.
Doc: You can catch it just walking past someone in the street.
Me: I am very knowledgeable about Covid and how it is transmitted.
Doc: What qualifications do you have?
Me: I have been studying it for 4 years.
2/

I wonder why we aren't hearing more from employers about sick & unproductive staff as a result of Covid on their workforce?
A friend of mine is very frustrated about an important staff member that's had symptomatic covid 3X in the last year & has just signed off sick again.
1/🧵 This time with chest, ear and eye infection after a cold (their second cold leading to a chest infection in last year too). They've totally lost their voice. This person has had 6 weeks off sick this year already and will need at least another week with this chest infection.
2/

UK Gov Statement:
"children will very likely be exposed to COVID-19 during their childhood and future generations are likely to become progressively more protected by the combination of vaccination and infection"
Does this look like being "protected by infection" to you?
1/🧵 Some of the so-called experts actually think this is required.
"Healthy kids have to be exposed to the virus, ideally earlier than later" says Prof Bollox.
Is exposure and subsequent hospitalisation of babies early enough for you Prof Bollox?
2/

It seems that most people infected with Covid don't really consider they may have been harmed.
Warnings of hidden damage & increased risks don't seem to be hitting home.
I wonder how many have worse health but don't perceive it or just don't attribute it to having had Covid?
1/🧵 We're not good at perceiving things that happen gradually.
It's surprising how quickly feeling less healthy than you were becomes normal and you can no longer quite recall what your baseline health was like.
I know this from personal experience; just not with covid.
2/

We demand clear air in school, hospitals and other public spaces.
But what exactly could be done?
First of all, the foundation of any change like this has to come from Gov. It starts with being truthful about the risk of infection and why it's essential to try to control it.
1/ We must move away from the idea that it should be down to teachers to take care of indoor air quality in classrooms. This notion is unworkable & about as daft as saying a nurse should be responsible for the air quality inside a hospital.
Let me lay out what I think is needed.
2/

I have made some sound measurements of the Air Fanta 3 Pro as people have requested.
Note: I have a home set-up and so these numbers will be approximate. Soft furnishings, hard surfaces, rebounding sounds etc all affect results.
But it will provide some idea.
1/🧵

https://twitter.com/PeteUK7/status/1837309489382309988

Notes:
The sound is slightly rhythmic from the unit. Measurements bounce a bit. Averaged and rounded to the nearest dB.
NB: Considerable changes to pitch are noticeable even when sound pressure measurements are similar. So acceptance depends on personal sound perception.
2/

I am now the proud owner of one of @Engineer_Wong's Air Fanta 3Pro air filters.
I Purchased from Amazon UK (link below).
A quick honest overview of first impressions follows in my thread of notes, thoughts and images.
1/🧵

https://twitter.com/Engineer_Wong/status/1836580824399122731

It was well packaged and goods well protected.
It's very lightweight.
The components are high quality, well designed & aesthetically pleasing.
It took about 2 minutes to assemble.
Takes a few moments to adjust the filters into position and seat them all correctly.
2/

I'm trying to think why the different public & also public health reaction to an E. coli outbreak in shop bought foods versus the ongoing Covid pandemic.
The number of people affected is way smaller and yet it hits the headlines like below.
Most people would avoid this food.
1/🧵 Obviously, I'd avoid it too.
I'd imagine if people were offered to these sandwiches, most would refuse to eat them.
That's because they don't want to put a dangerous pathogen into their body.
I wish they would apply the same logic to covid.
Try to avoid it entering the body.
2/

I'm sure many have seen mask bans in parts of USA.
My view is that as long as people stay silent & keep accepting high disease spread as normal, the more likely those in power will take more & more of your rights away.
Even if you feel unaffected, you must see this is wrong.
1/🧵 Think about it. Even now we have seen the most basic protections against airborne diseases removed from most healthcare settings.
Those who are clinically vulnerable etc have been left to fend for themselves.
Again, even if you feel unaffected, you must see this is wrong.
2/