A Canadian teen is currently critically ill with H5N1 bird flu.

The really concerning thing about this case is that sequencing has revealed several NEW mutations which improve the virus's ability to bind to human receptors & increases its potential to spread between humans…

🧵 You can read a more technical summary of the specific mutations in the H5N1 sequence in the thread below from @HNimanFC.

Lots of interesting (and concerning) comments on the thread also.

https://twitter.com/hnimanfc/status/1857797498703618258

MHRA have finally approved the updated Novavax (JN.1) formulation for use in the UK…

…HOWEVER…

…Novavax have confirmed that this vaccine will *NOT* be available in the private market for purchase or distribution for the autumn 2024 OR spring 2025 season in Great Britain.

https://twitter.com/_catinthehat/status/1857404181516018009

And the government also confirmed this week that Novavax won’t be offered at all as part of the NHS booster campaign either…

…even though it is now authorised by MHRA.

theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2024…

COVID VACCINE ELIGIBILITY 🇬🇧,
a thread🧵

JCVI have just advised that, going forwards, eligibility for Covid vaccination will be even more tightly restricted.

But the ‘bespoke cost-effectiveness assessment’ upon which this is based is heavily flawed…

gov.uk/government/pub… Before I dive into the issues, let’s just recap where we are…

In the UK, if you’re under 65 and not ‘at risk’, the last time you were eligible for a Covid vaccination was 2 years ago (Autumn 2022).

For most under 50s, it’s been 3 years since you were eligible (Autumn 2021).

.@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