Whitty's excuse about upscaling testing is wrong. He should have set up an advisory group to get this moving from day one. The excuses about lack of infrastructure compared with S Korea is a retrospective excuse and misleading. (1) THREAD S Korea and the UK developed a test on the same day in January. S Korea had managed to get up to 6-18,000 tests per day during February 2020...see below. (2)

On the Today programme this morning Sir John Bell echoed the official story that in the first six months of the pandemic we faced a new virus with little evidence to guide us. Nothing could be further from the truth. THREAD (1) We can’t compare death rates between countries say statisticians. Sir Patrick Vallance wrote to the Inquiry that “a 'zero Covid' strategy could have been pursued, but required a national lockdown and border closures by the end of February.. (2)

One reason why climate change doesnt energise politicians and the public is because we describe heating in terms of temperature. Saying the world has warmed by 1.2 degrees seems like a nice pleasant weekend. Here are some other ways to describe it... (1) We pump 1,337 tonnes of CO2 into our thin and fragile atmosphere every second... (2)

How does poor family purchasing power in 1734 compare with Universal credit in 2023? Jacob Vanderlint in Money Answer’s All Things in 1734 gave a budget for a laborer, wife+4 children in London of 16shillings per week to cover meat, bread,milk, salt, sugar, butter, cheese and beer (to avoid perils of water), coal, soap, candles, thread and rent for two rooms.

A short thread on the huge scale of hunger and food insecurity in the UK from a large survey in January 2023 by the @Food_Foundation (1) One in six adults are experiencing periods of hunger. (2)

Banks are nervous. They are rushing to borrow cash. The FTs Robert Armstrong has looked at three sources of cash lending to banks (or big depositors) in recent days in the US (1) First, the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB) considered the 'lender of last resort ' for small banks. (2)

Lets look at some facts on migration in and out of the UK. First government figures. (1) Since 2004 net migration into the UK was around 220,000 per year into a population of nearly 70 million or 0.3% per year. The pandemic pushed that rate right down and there has been a rebound since restrictions were lifted. (2) commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-brief….

'Which' has launched a new report on how supermarkets can help poor people get access to affordable food. Supermarkets, please follow their ten point plan. which.co.uk/policy/consume… (1) Here is their list of the most vulnerable food access areas in England, all in the North or Midlands (2)

Malhotra spreads gross misinformation about the Covid vaccine. Here are reliable scientific data on the cardiovascular risks of Covid infection and the power of vaccination to prevent Covid deaths and hospitalisation (1)

https://twitter.com/DrAseemMalhotra/status/1584955998229647361

Vaccination and Covid deaths (2)

The Telegraph is in turmoil. (1) Nick Timothy (2)

The world economy has been on heroin since 2008. Artificially cheap money is created by central banks buying their own bonds (“quantitative easing”) to keep bond prices up and interest rates down. As soon as the drug stops, economies go cold turkey. (1) Cheap money creates a stock market boom, a housing boom and an economy of zombie companies borrowing beyond their means. And central banks the world over just kept shooting up. (2)

According to the International Food Aid Network there are at least 2,565 Trussell Trust and independent food banks operating across the UK. Plus a further 3500 food aid outlets not operating as food banks. Plus Salvation Army, NHS and university food support. (1) Food insecurity is defined as experiencing hunger, the inability to secure food of sufficient quality and quantity to enable good health and participation in society, and cutting down on food because of a lack of money.(2)

The cost of living crisis is directly related to Russia. Reports in the media that Russia is profiting from the gas crisis are wrong. The recent Yale analysis by Sonnenfeld and colleagues shows their economy is crippled by sanctions. (1) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… Energy revenue represents 60% of total Russian government revenue
US liquid natural gas has rapidly replaced Russian gas in Europe. (2)

@timcolbourn Your tirade against Independent SAGE was against our seven principles for good public health to reduce the risks of Covid. I asked you why you opposed support for vaccines, ventilation, isolation, masks and test. You didnt reply. (1) Now it comes down to your opposition to free tests and how this will stop money being spent to prevent pneumonia in children in low income countries? (2)

On Wedn I had the privilege to chair a joint Royal Colleges of Paediatrics + Child Health, and of Obstetricians + Gynaecologists parliamentary roundtable “The air we breathe: putting women and children at the heart of the debate on air quality in the UK”. What happened? (1) They'd invited MPs, civil servants + parliament researchers to hear evidence on why we must tighten regulation on air quality to protect women + children.
Attendance:
MPs 0
Civil servants 0
Parl res. 1 (frm shadow Min of Health). So here's some evidence for the 650 MP noshows (2)

The government claim that up to 3 April 2020 it was “unlikely” that there was pre-symptomatic and/or asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19. Let us consider the evidence. THREAD (1) 24 Jan 2020, article in The Lancet, “A familial cluster of pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus indicating person-to-person transmission: a study of a family cluster” (Chan et al.), was warning that asymptomatic infection was possible. (2)

The weaponisation of health care. In Syria more than 1,500 medical workers have been attacked and many more threatened, injured, kidnapped and tortured. (1) manchesteropenhive.com/view/journals/… The Russian military deliberately targeted health facilities. "In Syria, Russian military strategy echoed that of the Govt of Syria with attacks against healthcare almost doubling in 2016, the year after the Russian military joined in air offensives." (2)

In the UK Covid cases, hospitalisations and ICU admissions are up. Deaths are up in Scotland. England will no doubt follow. Watch out for @chrischirp 's summary soon. (1) Worse, our appallingly slow vaccination rates mean virtually all primary school children are unvaccinated. And Omicron has caused much higher hospitalisation rates. Why has JCVI been so slow to support vaxx for our children? (2)

Panorama report that in 1992 aged 25 Roman Abramovich stole a shipment of oil which he resold in Riga. He was arrested but not prosecuted after political pressure. They report that as an oil trader Abramovich joined up with Berezovsky to pay off a government official, a security General with a $10 million bribe.

Why we should be vaccinating children over 5 much faster against Covid in the UK. (THREAD) (1) UK vaccination for children was delayed much longer compared to the USA/Europe. Rates are lower inEngland:
Ages 5-11: almost 0%
Ages 12-15: 59% one dose, 23% second dose
Ages 16-17: 74% one dose, 53% second dose.
Vaccine approved by MHRA June 2021, roll-out started Sept. (2)

New WHO report says contact with health professionals are contacted regularly by formula milk companies around the world. (1) THREAD And look at Saatchi's analysis for the WHO report (2)