.@lukethereporter, did you write this horrendous article?!

It’s packed full of misinformation. Please do better.

Read on and I’ll explain why… 🧵

dailymail.co.uk/health/article… In the article, you cite the Cochrane review as proving that masks make “little to no difference” to someone's risk of catching Covid.

Were you aware that the Editor-in-Chief of Cochrane confirmed that this is an “inaccurate & misleading interpretation”?

cochrane.org/news/statement…

Less than 8 months ago, back when the Tories were still in charge, a Labour MP stood up in parliament to ask a VERY important question…

He demanded to know what assessment the government had made of Long Covid on the workforce.

That MP was Andrew Gwynne (@GwynneMP)…

🧵 Less than 4 months later, Labour won the election…

…and that MP, Andrew Gwynne, became our Minister for Public Health.

He was recently asked to answer a very similar question to the one he had posed back in March.

His reply was utterly disappointing.

questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questi…

A TALE OF TWO STUDIES…

Two studies have assessed how the cumulative risk of developing Long Covid increases with each Covid infection.

Both studies independently produced almost identical figures, showing that the risk of developing Long Covid rises to ~37% after 3 infections. 1️⃣ STATISTICS CANADA COVID-19 HEALTH & ANTIBODY SURVEY (Dec 2023)

According to this study, the cumulative risk of developing Long Covid is:

🚨15% after 1 infection

🚨25% after 2 infections

🚨38% after 3+ infections.

www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-… x.com/_catinthehat/s…

Let’s cut to the chase here…

1️⃣ NHS Staff Sickness Absences are still SIGNIFICANTLY higher than pre-pandemic.

2️⃣ The waves of NHS Staff Absences align almost perfectly with the waves of Covid.

If you want to fix the NHS, start by mitigating the transmission of Covid.

https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1850638766081523773

These charts are courtesy of @1goodtern who, as usual, has done some excellent analysis of the raw data.

His first thread is attached above.

Here’s his second thread which takes a look at the correlation between NHS Staff absences & the waves of Covid hospitalisations.

https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1850909112499933648

SPECIAL MESSAGE TO JOE WICKS
(@thebodycoach)

Dear Joe,

You posted a question on Twitter yesterday:

“What’s your biggest barrier to getting fitter”.

I wonder if you were surprised about the overwhelming feedback in the comments…?

🧵

https://twitter.com/thebodycoach/status/1849758599607701604

Sadly, to those of us paying attention, it was no surprise at all.

No one talks about Covid anymore...

…but meanwhile, MILLIONS of people are suffering, many bedridden behind closed doors.

The GP-Patient Survey recently revealed that 4.6% of the population have Long Covid.

If you’re a UK healthcare worker who is appalled by the inadequate IPC guidance in healthcare, please sign this ‘Vote of No Confidence in Dr Lisa Ritchie, Deputy Director for IPC at NHS England.

✍🏻Click the link below to digitally sign the letter ⬇️

forms.office.com/pages/response… x.com/workingwithlc/… For details about why you should consider signing this letter, pls read my 🧵 below which contains a series of short clips from Dr Ritchie’s recent testimony at the Covid Inquiry.

The evidence she gave is extremely concerning & continues to have far-reaching consequences today.

https://twitter.com/_catinthehat/status/1842895616868786395

LONG COVID in HEALTHCARE WORKERS

A new study from KCL has revealed that:

🚨 34% of healthcare workers in England are now suffering from Long Covid.

In this thread 🧵, I take a deep dive into the implications of this shocking statistic…

kcl.ac.uk/news/long-covi… In July 2023, The BMA published a report which presented the results of a survey of doctors with Long Covid.

It concluded:

“The impact on doctors' ability to work is considerable & devasting, with nearly 1 in 5 responding doctors left unable to work.”

bma.org.uk/media/7318/bma…

⚠️NEW UKHSA DASHBOARD⚠️

Its prime purpose appears to be to minimise the impact of Covid.

Why else would this ⬇️ be your landing page?
▪️Positivity rate for flu & RSV
▪️Cases for Covid

Come on @UKHSA, this isn’t clever or funny.

Why not show comparable metrics?

🧵 …because when you *do* show comparable metrics, it’s not nearly such a rosy story in terms of the current Covid situation, is it?

Can someone please remind me what the point of a ‘Health Security Agency’ is?

Isn’t it to keep the public informed about potential health risks?

COVID PREVALENCE IN ENGLAND

A few folks have asked me what my best guess is re: Covid prevalence right now.

The truth is, we can’t be sure.

Covid surveillance has diminished so far that there’s no robust data anymore.

But there are at least a few clues from these two charts… These charts show the two most robust metrics available:
1. PCR positivity rate
2. Covid hospitalisations.

Now let’s compare where we are now vs the peak of last Winter’s wave.

▪️Last Winter’s wave is highlighted in purple.

▪️The orange line is where we are now (as of 12 Oct).

EXCESS DEATHS (England & Wales):

Whenever you see ‘excess death’ figures for 2024, remember that the ‘excess’ is calculated against an estimated ‘expected’ value…

…so if the ‘expected’ value is wrong, then the ‘excess’ figure will be meaningless.

And it *is* wrong…

1/

https://twitter.com/jneill/status/1846937459998757311

…unless you believe that there’ll be MORE deaths this year than the very worst & most deadly period of the pandemic in 2020?

(It’s actually quite worrying that the experts at ONS believe that the effect of the ongoing pandemic on mortality rates to be THAT significant).

/2

Government guidance tells parents that it’s totally fine to send children to school if they have Covid symptoms and that children should NOT be tested for Covid (unless specifically told to do so by a doctor).

Who thinks this policy will help IMPROVE pupil attendance rates? 🤔 Link to current government guidance for people with symptoms of a respiratory virus, including Covid-19:

gov.uk/guidance/peopl…

There’s a couple of interesting charts in this week’s National flu & Covid surveillance report.

1. This chart shows Acute Respiratory Infection incidents:

🟢 See that tiny green sliver at the top of each bar? That’s FLU.

🟣 See that huge purple band in each bar? That’s COVID. 2. This chart looks at the seasonality of Covid.

➡️ There is NO seasonality to Covid.

It comes in waves throughout the year, in any season - Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

The height of the peaks is just as bad (sometimes worse) in Summer vs Winter.

Back in Nov 2021, the govt released a campaign across digital channels, radio & newspapers highlighting how Covid particles are AIRBORNE & hang in the air like smoke.

The campaign was titled: “STOP COVID-19 HANGING AROUND”

Below is one of the short films from the campaign ⬇️ More details about this nationwide campaign to “STOP COVID-19 HANGING AROUND” can be found at the link below:

gov.uk/government/new…

COVID INQUIRY

I’ve posted a number of tweets from the Inquiry hearing on 16 Sept.

This was the day that Dr Lisa Ritchie took the stand. She chaired the IPC Cell which wrote the Covid infection control guidance for UK hospitals.

I’ve collated all the tweets in this thread 🧵

https://twitter.com/_catinthehat/status/1836117228757905689

Just to give a little background, Dr Lisa Ritchie is nurse who specialises in Infection Prevention & Control (IPC).

She is currently Head of IPC at NHS England.

Her title is Dr because she has a PhD, but she is not a medically qualified doctor.

dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-new…

Earlier this year, Economist Impact convened an international Advisory Council to reach a consensus on how Long Covid should be defined, understood & addressed globally.

The Advisory Council have now published their (unanimously ratified) Consensus Statement on Long Covid.

🧵 Introduction

Without a concerted effort to develop a standardised framework for long Covid, the global community's ability to understand and address this condition will remain limited, posing ongoing challenges for individuals, healthcare systems and society.

Riddle me this…❓❓

Anaesthetists & intensive care doctors working in the HIGHEST risk areas where aerosol generating procedures (AGPs) were being performed on Covid patients ended up being at far LOWER risk than other HCWs in terms of infection & Covid-related mortality.

Why? There’s an obvious answer to this…

…but obvious answers were not forthcoming from Dr Lisa Ritchie (Head of IPC at NHS England).

Somewhat perplexed by the answers he’s receiving, Counsel tries again to tease out a straight answer from her, but once again hits a brick wall.

This is the Pupil Attendance Ladder from a school in Essex, England.

Just read the words written alongside each attendance threshold. 🤬

Schools are making ZERO attempt to reduce the spread of illness and yet the children themselves are blamed when they are repeatedly off sick. Attendance data shows that the primary driver of pupil absences is ILLNESS.

In 2023/24:

▪️49% of all pupil absences were due to ILLNESS.

▪️Pupil illness absence accounted for 3.5% of all possible sessions in England.

▪️Pupil illness absence was 40% higher than pre-pandemic.

Schools from United Learning in England are forcing students & parents to sign an ‘Attendance Pledge’ which requires them to:

“ALWAYS COME INTO SCHOOL, EVEN IF YOU FEEL UNWELL”

🤯 This is unbelievable!

This will NOT reduce illness absence, it will just spread it to others.

https://twitter.com/AdamHighcliffe/status/1840040564105867522

Honestly, how did it come to this?

This attendance policy is so incredibly irresponsible and dangerous, especially to clinically vulnerable kids like my son.

But even for kids who aren’t clinically vulnerable, each Covid infection risks triggering new long-term health issues.

https://twitter.com/_CatintheHat/status/1783789111582638210

This is Prof Susan Hopkins, Chief Medical Advisor at UKHSA, explaining why she doesn’t think that FFP3 masks should be recommended (instead of fluid resistant surgical masks) in hospitals - even when there is an accepted risk of airborne transmission.

🚨Paging @trishgreenhalgh

https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/1793266317417439471

It’s then pointed out to Prof Hopkins that, in the IPC Cell Minutes for 22 Dec 2020, the representative from PHE had stated:

“Our understanding of aerosol transmission has changed. A precautionary approach to move to FFP3 masks whilst we are awaiting evidence should be advised.”

This is Dr Lisa Ritchie who was the Head of Infection Prevention & Control for NHS England & Chair of the IPC Cell.

In this video, she explains why patients should never wear FFP3 masks - even if they are known to be highly infectious or if they are clinically vulnerable…

/1 The rationale she gives is that FFP3 masks have valves which the infectious particles can ‘leak’ out through.

Surely the obvious next question is:

So why don’t they recommend UNVALVED FFP3 masks for infectious or clinically vulnerable patients?

/2

@NHSConfed Hi @NHSConfed @ConfedMatthew

Did you investigate the impact of Long Covid in driving the numbers of people dropping out of the workforce due to long term sickness?

There are 2M people in England & Scotland suffering from Long Covid…

…or 2.2M if you extrapolate across the UK. @NHSConfed @ConfedMatthew Of those affected by Long Covid, around 1 in 5 (19.2%) report that their symptoms are so debilitating that their day-to-day activities are severely limited.

That’s 381,000 people in England & Scotland…

…or ~412,000 if you extrapolate across the whole of the UK.