26/42 Are there any national datasets that accurately capture what is going on? The brilliant @jburnmurdoch has highlighted number of admissions into ICU. The message from his animated chart (click on link) couldn’t be clearer – this winter is v unusual: https://t.co/76ZvHU2pmV.

27/42 Some sceptics arguing covid-19 tests are inaccurate. PCR tests not 100% accurate but hospital inpatient testing accuracy much increased by frequency of testing (typically admission, days 3 & 6/7, then weekly). This means very low numbers of overall false positives.
28/42 Some sceptics argue that the published covid-19 positive inpatient numbers include both those admitted with covid-19 and those who acquired covid-19 in hospital. And that there are significant numbers of patients who have acquired covid-19 in hospital.
29/42 Covid-19 positive test data has always included anyone testing positive, irrespective of initial diagnosis. And the NHS has always acknowledged that hospital acquired (nosocomial) infection is a big issue. Hospitals are working incredibly hard to control it….
30/42 …The NHS regularly and completely transparently publishes nosocomial infection data, by hospital. But neither issue affects the degree of pressure that hospitals are under. Every inpatient, irrespective of initial diagnosis/infection source, occupies a hospital bed.
31/42 Some sceptics using regular @ONS & @PHE_uk mortality data to argue that current death rates are just reflecting ordinary mortality rates for this time of year. Or that the covid-19 mortality definition and diagnoses are mixing up ordinary respiratory illness and covid-19.
32/42 This excellent thread https://t.co/J3CMsFVogj looks at these issues in detail. It shows clearly why it is too early for the current sets of this data to be showing increased levels of mortality from the current, new variant driven, surge of covid-19 infection.
33/42 In the words of this thread: “If you are using the ONS + PHE data to assess excess deaths that are happening *now* you are using the wrong data because of lags. The impact of this surge will only become apparent in future data from the ONS + PHE”.
34/42 The current covid-19 death definition widely accepted across medical profession. Doctors are required by law to complete death certificate to the best of their knowledge and ability. Covid deaths are running at an alarming rate – currently over 1,000 a day.
35/42 Some sceptics are arguing that the failure to use Nightingales before now indicates that the NHS isn’t that busy. They are not purpose built hospitals and would require staff to be transferred from other settings. Systematic use was always a last resort insurance policy…
36/42 …The NHS was always going to use every ounce of permanent purpose built capacity first. The fact that the London Nightingale is opening next week is a sign of how pressured the NHS in London has become. Other Nightingales – e.g. Exeter and Manchester – already in use.
37/42 Particularly loathsome are the videos of empty corridors and hospital areas. There are lots of good reasons why some areas of hospitals will be much quieter than usual. No visitors due to infection control. Outpatient clinics moved online. Films being done at night-time…
38/42 …Waiting areas not in use due to social distancing. Reduced levels of ordinary planned surgery. Most activity and staff in hospitals will currently will be concentrated on covid, intensive care and emergency areas. Areas where illegal filmers can’t film.
39/42 And, as this thread from @dpjhodges - https://t.co/nP5ZkQ87Fu - argues. If the sceptics are right, those charged with nation’s health – CMO, CSA, Ministers, officials, NHS leaders – all have to be unaware of the data problems sceptics have "identified"...
40/42 …And despite their decades of cumulative experience, they are making major public health decisions totally oblivious to the catastrophic misreading of the data that the amateur lock-down sceptic sleuths have uncovered…
41/42 ...or they are unaware of these catastrophic misreadings. And, for reasons no one has yet rationally explained, they are all carrying on regardless, day after day, month after month, perpetuating one of the greatest public health hoaxes in history.
42/42 Worth adding that the more evidence & data driven sceptics now abandoning sceptical camp: https://t.co/CURsykctdu. Still time for rest to follow! Particularly since everyone in NHS from frontline staff and trust leaders to @NHSEngland CEO is heartily fed up of this cr*p.

More from Health

Before we get too far into 2021, I thought I’d write a thread recapping some of the research that came out of my lab in 2020. Most of this work was led by my talented team of graduate students, Kerrianne Morrison, @kmdebrabander, and @DesiRJones.

Back in January, a news story was published about Kerrianne’s study showing improved social interaction outcomes for autistic adults when paired with another autistic partner.

A detailed thread about the study and a link to the paper can be found here (feel free to DM me your email address if you’d like a copy of the full paper for this study or any of our studies):


Another paper published early in 2020 (it appeared a few months earlier online) showed that traditional standalone tasks of social cognition are less predictive of functional and social skills among autistic adults than commonly assumed in autism research.


Next, @kmdebrabander led and published an innovative study about how well autistic and non-autistic adults can predict their own cognitive and social cognitive performance.
@73inlancs @janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 1/ The 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 government decided pediatric gender care in England would be a monopoly contract (a Labour minister, in 2008), despite all other NHS patients officially being entitled to a choice of providers, & second opinions on diagnoses & treatment, & gave it to GIDS, which has…

@janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 2/…always advocated that trans minors & their families must have no alternative source of care, & subsequent Tory ministers have personally put their signature on renewals of it, and even personally rejected proposals for improvement that have been put forward by NHS England…

@janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 3/…as a result of wider & public consultation. They & their civil servants listen only to GIDS on trans minors - it was GIDS advised against <18s being allowed #GenderRecognition in 2004, & since, on the basis that no one under 18 can be certain of their gender identity, just…

@janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 4/…as many other staff at their trust wrote⬇️ to the press in 2002 (when the first instigator of this case, psychoanalyst Susan Evans was on staff too) that no trans people should be allowed that recognition but needed

@janethooton_ @ErinInTheMorn @fifi_EY 5/…to "cure" us instead. Yet GIDS proved incapable of defending its super-conservative protocol in court - no doubt because GIDS has always expected challenges to be from patients seeking care more like that elsewhere, arrogantly ignoring that services in countries where the…
Now you know I love to sh-t in Harvard. But I also like accuracy. So I decided to go look at Harvard’s catalog to see its lack of military history that this article describes (they only teach history of pets it claims) and what I found shocked me! Shocked me! A thread: 1/


First off, Harvard students literally have multiple sections of military history that they can take listed. (It appears these ones are taught at MIT, so they might have to walk down the street for these) but... 2/


Say they want to stay on campus...they can only take numerous classes on war and diplomacy...3/


They have an entire class on Yalta. That’s right. An entire class on Yalta. 4/


But wait! There is more! They can take the British Empire, The Fall of the Roman Empire for those wanting traditional topics... 5/

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