🧵👇

Earlier this year I found myself cooking for a woman I'd never met before who lived on a local estate. She was a single mother, her teenage son had picked up Covid from school,and given it to her. She had a zero hours contract, and had run out of money to feed her family /1

They'd been surviving on tinned soup for three days, but that was used up. So she put out a call on social media and I got in touch. I have never heard anyone apologise more, she was utterly humiliated to have to beg for help from strangers. As *you* would be. It was horrible. /2
Now,this woman happened to have become very sick with Covid too.And I often wonder-if she'd been one of the many who only had mild or no symptoms,what decision would she have made?Would she have isolated to the point she had to beg from strangers?Or would she have gone to work?/3
I mean,it'd be easy for me as an epidemiologist to bemoan the fact that not enough people are isolating after testing positive or being in contact with a positive.But I have money in the bank,I work from home,I can afford to have online shopping delivered.I can stay home, easy /4
We know how Covid works by now.We know the epidemic is being driven by close contacts,+we know that those contacts are very often driven by having a lower socio-economic status.People living in crowded households.People with public-facing jobs that can't safely be done at home /5
We see this being borne out in the data.People of low socio-economic status are more likely to be infected.More likely to be hospitalised. More likely to end up in ICU.

And if that's not something you find morally wrong-know that it affects you too.

https://t.co/hMwndulRPL

/6
Because it's these pressures on the health service,this lack of ICU beds,that is affecting YOUR freedoms. Because the current whack-a-mole strategy of business closures, school closures and lockdowns is a blanket response that fails to address the core factors driving Covid /7
And yet this point is almost entirely lacking from the national discussion. Difficult to know why - perhaps because control measures that address social inequalities are seen as "too political"?

https://t.co/QuVglV9jPA

/8
Even scientists don't seem to be massively pushing this point - with some fab exceptions like @mugecevik and @jackiecassell, whose work I'd urge you to follow.

https://t.co/QuVglV9jPA

/9
This needs to change. We need to be more creative in our thinking. We need targeted interventions that address the challenges at hand. Increased sick pay, supported isolation, a vaccine strategy that takes deprivation into account. /10
Without this, we are doomed to always be behind the curve, cursed with blunt blanket restrictions that don't work and leave us all in this mess for longer. And those had least to start with end up paying the biggest price.

It's time to start levelling up.

/End
Little PS - I meant to link to @jackiecassell 's excellent recent blog in tweet 9, but copied the wrong link over. Here it is https://t.co/lVhzNH2jjh

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The Nashville Operation - A Battle in the War

A thread exploring the Nashville bombing in the context of the 2020 Digital War (via SolarWinds) against the United States perpetrated by our enemies, likely China, Iran and/or Russia.


SolarWinds Hack

A digital "Pearl Harbor" moment for the United States, whoever was responsible had access to the keys to the kingdom for months during 2020, including sensitive military infrastructure. This is war!

SunGard + SolarWinds

SolarWinds software company is owned by same company that owns SunGard, which essentially provides data center services. A secure place to host internet servers with redundant power and "big pipe" data connections.

https://t.co/U3P3SrrkM1


SunGard Data Center

In Nashville, around the corner from their "big pipe" connection, AT&T. Like any data center, highly secure. Only authorized personnel can enter, and even fewer can access the actual server rooms. Backup generators are available in case of power failure.


If the SunGard hardware was being used to "host" critical command and control software related to SolarWinds, the US powers would be very interested in gaining special access keys that are stored on the hard-drives of specific servers.
I've seen many news articles cite that "the UK variant could be the dominant strain by March". This is emphasized by @CDCDirector.

While this will likely to be the case, this should not be an automatic cause for concern. Cases could still remain contained.

Here's how: 🧵

One of @CDCgov's own models has tracked the true decline in cases quite accurately thus far.

Their projection shows that the B.1.1.7 variant will become the dominant variant in March. But interestingly... there's no fourth wave. Cases simply level out:

https://t.co/tDce0MwO61


Just because a variant becomes the dominant strain does not automatically mean we will see a repeat of Fall 2020.

Let's look at UK and South Africa, where cases have been falling for the past month, in unison with the US (albeit with tougher restrictions):


Furthermore, the claim that the "variant is doubling every 10 days" is false. It's the *proportion of the variant* that is doubling every 10 days.

If overall prevalence drops during the studied time period, the true doubling time of the variant is actually much longer 10 days.

Simple example:

Day 0: 10 variant / 100 cases -> 10% variant
Day 10: 15 variant / 75 cases -> 20% variant
Day 20: 20 variant / 50 cases -> 40% variant

1) Proportion of variant doubles every 10 days
2) Doubling time of variant is actually 20 days
3) Total cases still drop by 50%

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