I wanted to understand how automation hits white collar jobs so I went on a huge research trip into the last time it happened: the 1980s

We rarely talk about the mass automation brought about by the PC. But it was massive! Take a look at this map of the most popular job in every US state in 1978. With the exception of truck drivers – for now – every job on that map has been reshaped by automation The job that was hit the hardest is one that’s hardly ever mentioned in accounts of automation: the secretary
In 1984, there were 18m clerical and secretarial workers in the US, 18% of the entire workforce. Same in the UK.
One in five workers was some kind of secretary. Yet today, that precise job is on its way to extinction

Long covid has wrecked my life

It’s bad, very bad. But you knew that already

I want to tell you a hopeful story. A story about the things that can be done here and now to mitigate this terrible illness Eighteen months ago, I caught a cough. It was a little annoying, so I took a day off work, thinking that would be the end of it

The next morning, I woke up and everything was different

Don’t like putting personal things on Twitter, but I’ve just logged on after a while and found a load of DMs asking why I’ve disappeared, which is… a good question

If you haven’t seen me recently it’s because I’ve got a nasty case of long covid. Eight months and counting :( My main symptoms are fatigue and brain fog. Medically I’m in perfect health – none of the tests show anything – but I have *much* less energy. If I push myself too hard then I just collapse. It’s like someone has reached inside and turned me off. It's scary

EXCLUSIVE

A leaked Test and Trace document admits that data from check-ins at pubs, restaurants and hairdressers was barely used for contact tracing

Nor was data from hundreds of millions of check-ins with the contact tracing app
news.sky.com/story/test-and… It gets worse

On the rare occasions their data was used for contact tracing, businesses were encouraged to call customers themselves, a breach of data protection law

Test and Trace admits businesses could face legal action as a result
news.sky.com/story/test-and…

EXCLUSIVE

The global coalition for transparency and anti-corruption has put the UK "under review"

This is a body the UK helped set up and which it funds with £2m+ a year

@KevKeith told me it was "shameful"
news.sky.com/story/uk-gover… The Open Government Partnership is an international club which supports open government around the world

Its intervention means the UK will become the ninth of its 78 members to go under review, joining a list that includes Bulgaria, Malawi and Malta
news.sky.com/story/uk-gover…

Last week I reported on a trove of government emails which showed how Palantir wooed the NHS before winning its first ever contract

There were watermelon cocktails. It was a whole thing

But there was one set of emails I wasn't able to get into

🧵👇
news.sky.com/story/nhs-faci… The emails come from the Department of International Trade (DIT), whose top official arranged a meeting with Palantir in January 2020

It took place here, at Palantir’s pavilion at the World Economic Forum in Davos

EXCLUSIVE

Last week some of the most senior figures in public health met with staff to discuss their future

I was sent a recording of the meeting

Here's what ministers are planning once Public Health England is disbanded
news.sky.com/story/revealed… THREAD

Public Health England is set to be replaced by the new National Institute for Health Protection

But no-one knows what's going to happen to the bits of PHE that aren't about health protection. You know: mental health, obesity, smoking, air quality, health inequality...

We were told Test and Trace was going to stop us going into lockdown. It failed. More than once

For the last year I've covered its twists, turns and Excel accidents

This is what it looked like at the time
news.sky.com/story/covid-cr… To write this piece I went through all my coronavirus coverage for the last twelve months. A weird experience

Here's a thread of some of those pieces. Like one of those end of year threads, but (because time has lost all meaning) in mid-February

NEW: large numbers of contact tracers were suddenly fired yesterday by Test and Trace

A manager at Sitel, which runs part of the call centre operation, said it had been told “to reduce the numbers of staff as the number of cases reduces”

news.sky.com/story/covid-19… I'm told more contact tracers are being fired today. One found out it was going to happen from my article

@JonAshworth said: "This is the latest in a sorry saga and a shoddy way to treat staff involved"

Sitel and DHSC have not responded yet to my requests for comment

I’ve spent some time this week looking at the data on lockdown. Are people staying at home? And if not, why not?

I've got hold of some new data which presents a different point of view

But first, here’s a story about household electricity usage during a pandemic This chart shows household electricity usage by hour. It's collected by energy supplier @BulbUK from their network of tens of thousands of smart meters

It compares the last week of January 2020 and 2021

The silver lining of the pandemic: we're getting more sleep

What's going on with vaccine supply?

A THREAD on the current situation The UK's vaccination programme had a mixed weekend.
Saturday: a new high, well above the required rate to meet the government's 15m target by 15 February
Sunday: lowest reported total for some time

Amazing number of people on here who actively want the government to conceal crucial news. At least that's what I assume they mean by their calls for "more data" and "more science" Or maybe they think the problem in this pandemic is that we've not spent *enough* time waiting for the real picture to emerge. If only we'd acted slower, they say, as they fire off their tweets

Well this isn't great
bbc.co.uk/news/technolog… Don't get hung up on the Russian aspect. This is old malware so we're not looking at a sophisticated attack here

The real question is how the malware could arrive on these laptops. Where do they come from? If they're second hand, why aren't they given a security check?

I've spent the day looking at the data on the UK's vaccination programme

It feels dangerously optimistic to say so but there are strong signs that things are going to be.... not awful

A thread on where we're at Today was a good day for the vaccination programme. It's not just that more than 3m people have now been vaccinated. Yesterday was the first day more than 300,000 people were vaccinated in a single day

The government says the coronavirus rules are tough enough. The problem is compliance

I've been looking at the data and it says something quite different… sort of

A THREAD on what’s going on This chart comes from the UCL’s brilliant covid-19 social study, which regularly asks more than 70,000 people about their experience of lockdown

It shows that compliance is higher than at any point since the first lockdown

Something's up with the contact tracing app on Android. It's showing a "loading" notification that never goes away Lots of complaints. I'd say this is affecting quite a few people - possibly all Android users
twitter.com/search?q=%40NH…

A government map of every vaccine site in England

"Currently, 96% of the population in England is within 10 miles of a vaccine service. By the end of January, everyone will live within 10 miles of a vaccination centre" Link to the map here. I'm afraid to say it's a pdf
england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp…

EXCLUSIVE: in an extremely 2020 plot twist, the UK's biggest covid testing lab is now home to an outbreak

Three out of four lab teams at the Milton Keynes Lighthouse Lab have been affected, as have office and administrative staff
news.sky.com/story/covid-19… One lab worker blamed lax safety procedures and said rules were being broken in order to meet targets

However it happened, the outbreak has hit the lab hard. In one 70-person lab team, there are currently 20 scientists isolating
news.sky.com/story/covid-19…

What's happening with the data about the vaccine? Well, let's put it this way: there's a lot to sort out

A THREAD on my reporting today This is Dr Elliot Singer, a GP in Waltham Forest. If anyone can be called a community doctor, it’s him. He wasn’t just born locally, he was delivered by the GP who used to have his practice

He’s delighted to be delivering the vaccine, but the tech is causing “huge frustration“

I just wish I knew what an online harm actually was Funny to see the online harms bill positioned as a blow against big tech when it will give them the power to make sweeping decisions on enforcement while simultaneously making it much harder for smaller competitors

Cold take: mutations happen all the time. I would like more information on this new variant, especially before it's linked to the rise of cases in the south east The expert view on the variant is considerably more cautious than Matt Hancock's

As so often, @alanmcn1 puts it best. Catching this variant is a tremendous achievement, but study is ongoing, so *it is important to keep a calm and rational perspective*
sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reactio…