1. I believe the government is about to make another huge mistake. Where is @UKLabour in all this? I have some questions @Keir_Starmer should be asking urgently. Please RT to raise awareness.
It seems increasingly likely that, come March, the govt is planning to say to under-65s without pre-existing conditions: go forth and get Covid https://t.co/BhHNG3M2DR
— D_Shariatmadari (@D_Shariatmadari) January 10, 2021
3. And Chris Whitty shared his thoughts on why, how and when restrictions might be lifted. pic.twitter.com/YtERJzhavU
— Adam Hamdy (@adamhamdy) January 5, 2021
It was wrong to believe that 'saving the economy' was an alternative to 'saving people's lives\u2019.
— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) January 8, 2021
If anything it is the other way around and the two goals go together so that countries that kept the health impact of the pandemic lower suffered smaller economic consequences. pic.twitter.com/IbMsJPChnD
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2. Some media commentators seek to present the issue of how to respond to the virus in simplistic terms: Lockdown vs Herd Immunity. This a mischaracterisation. The countries that have tackled #COVID-19 best have used a range of public health
The Swiss Cheese model of #COVID19 defence, by @MackayIM.
— Dr Zo\xeb Hyde (@DrZoeHyde) October 24, 2020
No single measure is sufficient, but put together they can stop the virus.
I particularly like Misinformation Mouse, nibbling away at one of the slices. pic.twitter.com/c1gfTai2Hj
3. Almost every scientist acknowledges lockdown equals failure. It is a sign governments have failed to implement the measures needed to allow life to be lived more or less as normal, without risking exponential growth in transmission.
4. There is an active misinformation campaign that is being aided and abetted by certain sections of the media and some politicians. The campaign would have us believe that if we open up and shield the vulnerable, all will be well. This approach has been derided as inhumane...
5. ...by the WHO, and ridiculous by Dr Fauci for many reasons. It is based on faulty logic, and the proponents of this approach have submitted no evidence that it can be achieved nor any practical examples of how they would do so.
Look around.
What way of life?
The one we used to have?
The UK has been under varying degrees of restriction since March 23rd 2020.
1. \u201c#ZeroCovid is impossible\u201d
— Adam Hamdy (@adamhamdy) January 4, 2021
I\u2019ve been arguing for #ZeroCovid before it even had a name, so I\u2019ve heard most of the counter arguments.
It\u2019s too expensive.
If countries like Vietnam can afford it, why can\u2019t we?https://t.co/1XUyzOuHtc
2. Nearly a year of having our social and economic freedoms curtailed in one way or another. Nearly a year of muted economic activity. Nearly a year of mass death and disease.
#ZeroCovid doesn't fit with a way of life that doesn't exist anymore.
3. The question isn't whether it fits with our old freewheeling ways, but whether it would lead to better outcomes than the UK's current (poorly defined) strategy? Experiences in New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, China, Taiwan and elsewhere very much suggest it would.
4. #ZeroCovid isn't about what's possible. It's about what's necessary. Decide what's necessary and figure out a way to make it possible. We can't force travellers to quarantine in hotels for two weeks? Why not? Taiwan does. And if that's what's necessary, why aren't we doing it?
5. I've heard some odd things said about #ZeroCovid
Simple-minded clod Matt Hancock said Zero Covid is impossible because no country has had zero cases.
Zero Covid sets out an ambition. It signals a country treats any infections as serious
I find it remarkable that a section of society not rejoicing that children very rarely ill with COVID compared to other viruses and much less infectious than adults
— Michael Absoud \U0001f499 (@MAbsoud) February 12, 2021
Instead trying prove the opposite!
Why??
2. @c_drosten has talked about this extensively and @dgurdasani1 and @DrZoeHyde have repeatedly pointed out flaws in the studies which have purported to show this. Now for the other assertion: children are very rarely ill with COVID19.
3. Children seem to suffer less with acute illness, but we have no idea of the long-term impact of infection. We do know #LongCovid affects some children. @LongCovidKids now speaks for 1,500 children struggling with a wide range of long-term symptoms.
4. 1,500 children whose parents found a small campaign group. How many more are out there? We don’t know. ONS data suggests there might be many, but the issue hasn’t been studied sufficiently well or long enough for a definitive answer.
5. Some people have talked about #COVID19 being this generation’s Polio. According to US CDC, Polio resulted in inapparent infection in more than 99% of people. Severe disease occurred in a tiny fraction of those infected. Source:
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Ironies of Luck https://t.co/5BPWGbAxFi
— Morgan Housel (@morganhousel) March 14, 2018
"Luck is the flip side of risk. They are mirrored cousins, driven by the same thing: You are one person in a 7 billion player game, and the accidental impact of other people\u2019s actions can be more consequential than your own."
I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.
In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.
So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.
Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.