The recent focus on reaching herd immunity through vaccination may be overblown.

My modeling suggests that it is increasingly unlikely that the US will reach the immunity levels required for theoretical herd immunity in 2021.

https://t.co/7jDgND5vE1

(A 🧵 w/ my thoughts)

This conclusion is based on the following new developments over the past month:

- Remained high levels of vaccine hesitancy
- New variants that may lower vaccine efficacy
- Rollout of the J&J vaccine (efficacy ~70%)
- Delayed arrival of the children vaccine

That said, herd immunity does not have a hard threshold, and being close to herd immunity may be sufficient to prevent large outbreaks.

Our goal should not be to reach "herd immunity", but to reduce COVID-19 deaths & hospitalizations so that life can return to normal.

From my recollection, this was the goal last year, to have a vaccine that would reduce deaths and strain on our healthcare system.

But now the messaging has shifted to "getting at least X% of the population vaccinated in order to reach herd immunity".

I believe this new public health messaging that herd immunity means "X% of people vaccinated" is flawed.

It seems to ignore the fact that:

1) Vaccines do not provide 100% immunity
2) Nor do they stop 100% of transmissions
3) ~30% of population have already been infected

While the B sides of the Western phil canon wait here is a thread on The Pantokrator Xenon, the Byz hospital that you cannot hear a lot about at the usual places

The Pantokrator Xenon was established by John II Komnenos in 1136 as a part of the Pantokrator Monastery. Its purpose: to heal the sick of Constantinople

At the same time and the same place gerokomeion (home for seniors) was founded. Xenon and gerokomeion had diff functions

We know a lot about the functioning of the monastery and its charitable institutions thanks to the Typikon of the Imperial Monastery the Pantokrator: the constitution drafted by John II Komnenos

The facilities: no private rooms, 50 beds in 5 sections: fractures and wounds (surgical ward), diseases of the eyes and intestines, ward for women, and two wards for men with other illnesses

[Thread] Ok, I suppose I should talk a little about this whole Gina Carano/Cara Dune #Holocaust cancel situation.

She shared this image (among others) which led to her censure (not censor) by Disney, etc.

CW: sexual violence/violence

#CaraDune
#GinaCarano
#CancelDisneyPlus ?

A brief grading of her statements:
Jews were beaten in the streets by neighbors including children ✅
Not by Nazi soldiers❌
History is edited❌
Govts made neighbors hate Jews✅-ish
This isn't different from conservatives being criticized❌

Carano is a conservative known to post offensive right-wing statements (it's not the 1st time) and the suggestion that conservatives are in any way similar to Holocaust victims is certainly offensive. Interesting how she got some things right while missing her own absurdity.

BUT...I'd really like to talk more about this image which is graphic and shocking and is now flying around the internet with no context. As I am finishing a book on #Janowska that covers the local circumstances of this image, I thought I would take a moment to talk about it.

The image of the woman was taken in Lviv, Ukraine (Lvov/Lwow/Lemberg) in July 1941 shortly after the Nazis had invaded and occupied the city. The majority of those pictured later abusing Jews ARE neighbors (Ukrainian or Polish) and this July Pogrom was encouraged by the Nazis.

To be clear, I am neither ‘pro’ nor ‘anti’ vaccination. A vaccination is a medical intervention. In the old (pre-hysteria) days, prior to March 2020, any doctor would confirm that any medical intervention should be based on a risk -v- reward analysis.......

1/n

2/n

The overall IFR of Coronavirus is around 0.2%, similar to seasonal flu. It’s much lower for most people and you can assess your personal risk

3/n

For some reason, hysteria has taken over and we are now being held hostage to rushed, novel mRNA ‘vaccines’ which remain in Phase 3 trials and have not been fully assessed. Little, if anything, is known about potential iatrogenic effects.....

Cont......

4/n

And these products have not been assessed in relation to (for example) interactions with other medications; their potential effects on people with existing auto-immune conditions etc.

They have been granted Emergency Use Authorisation only.......

Cont.....

5/n

And it is arguable that the EUA should now be withdrawn as more is now known about effective therapeutic medications such as ivermectin and others. Nevertheless, the vaccination ‘push’ continues apace despite numerous eminently qualified people questioning the safety.....

What are old-school transsexuals?

They are the ones who made it into the media, or the front of a tabloid, the ones who had the juicy details of surgery that made people wince or cross their legs while reading it.... clickbait, before there was anything to click.

1/

What you hear about old-school transsexuals or 'OST's' is largely the witterings of cishet transphobes who have constructed a MYTH.
2/

If you listen to accounts from transsexuals in the decades gone by when trans care wasnt available for 99.9% of trans people, what is a recurring theme is that they made incredible sacrifices to forge a life for themselves with no other option but assimilation.

3/

What often goes hand in hand with these stories, is prostitution, sex work, risking their own life for basic healthcare and treatment, many never got that far, many were MURDERED, and swept under the metaphorical carpet.

4/

Thats before they even got to surgery, which was equally dangerous and precarious unless you somehow managed to raise enough money to go to one of the very places in the world where the operations were performed with competence and care.
5/

Yesterday, the CDC released new guidelines for schools. Clear, science-based guidance was long overdue, so everyone was agog all week.

Did they get what they wanted? This is a long 🧵, buckle in.

Before I dive in: I have no agenda here. I am not anti-kids, anti-schools or anti-teachers. The only thing I am is anti-virus. I follow the science, but despite what both sides insist, the science is not straightforward, or we wouldn't have this much division and dissent.

So, back to the CDC guidelines: Pro-opening advocates hoped for a sensible read of the evidence and teachers unions for strict precautions and vaccinations. Did they get what they want? Short answer: No.

There is no issue that is more divisive right now (ok, masks and vaccines). But kids of all colors are suffering, and the long-term loss of education and emotional toll might be devastating. OTOH: the rates in the US might be dropping but objectively they are still very high.

Schools should be the last to close and first to reopen, but many communities have not done that and probably will never. Those communities have not "budgeted" for schools by closing bars and restaurants. In fact, many are now reopening closed businesses before schools.

I have worked all day on the Holiday Inn Cluster timeline

The first case was reported late on Feb 7
This was the Authorised Officer who tested negative after a shift on Feb 4, returned to work on the 7th, developed symptoms and tested positive

A cohort of her colleagues were then required to test and quarantine

The next case to emerge was a guest at the hotel who left HQ on Dec 7 after completing their 14 days

They were tested as a result of the AO testing positive

That result came back on the 9th

On the 9th it was also determined that the viral genome sequence for the AO case was identical to a family of 3 who had been at the Holiday Inn

All had B.1.1.7 VOC

That family was transferred to a hot hotel on Feb 4

Feb 3 and 4 are now believed to be the exposure dates relevant to the beginning of the cluster

The father in the family of 3 was admitted to ICU on the 9th

As of Feb 14 there are 16 cases linked back to the Holiday Inn but there is a sub cluster linked to a Private Dining event in Coburg on Feb 6 for 5 of those cases

The intersection point is a hotel quarantine worker and it is a little confusing as the TLs overlap

I've gotten questions about whether to emphasize U-6 as the "true unemployment rate". It is currently 11.1%.

I don't because I think the concept doesn't add much, it misses how unusually bad the labor market is now, is analytically flawed, and can be misleading.

Thread:

The official unemployment rate is 6.3%. It is unemployed (people looking for work) divided by the labor force (working or looking for work).

U-6 is 11.1%, it adds in "marginally attached" (discouraged workers & would take a job if it came along) and involuntary part-time.

DOESN'T ADD MUCH. U-6 is one of several alternative unemployment concepts produced monthly by the BLS. They are all useful to look at. But they also all pretty much up and down together so they rarely tell much of a different story.

MISSES HOW UNUSUALLY BAD THE LABOR MARKET IS NOW. The last time U-6 was around 11.1% the unemployment rate was 5.7%. If anything based on historic relationships U-6 makes the labor market seem bad (like in 2015) but not terrible (like in 2012).

The reason is that a large part of U-6 is part time for economic reasons (aka involuntary part time). This is up but actually not up an unusually large amount given the increase in unemployment. We've seen a lot of jobs lost but people with jobs, on average, working longer.

🧵on the Toronto area SGTF (S-Gene Target Failure) study to detect B117 (UK variant). It looked at 11,485 positive tests over Dec 16 to Feb 3 and found 448 had SGTF* (3.9%). These charts show the growth.
https://t.co/5L8tF0MwDv

2. Note: Not every SGTF is B117 but almost all were confirmed with WGS (whole genomic sequencing). Rt for the SGTF was 1.17, non-SGTF were .82 meaning SGTF had an Rt 44% higher. This means that B117 is growing quickly (80% per week in recent weeks) and is projected to overtake

3. the old variants around Feb 20th in the Toronto area. Because the Rt (reproduction number) was only .82 without B117, we know the lockdown was working well in Toronto. It's only because the variant was a small share that infections and cases fell. If it had reached 100%,

4. then every infection would have infected 1.17 more infections and we would have had exponential growth EVEN IN LOCKDOWN where we have seen cases plummet.

5. This data is for the Toronto area. The projections have uncertainty - Feb 20 is approximate but once B117 becomes increasingly dominant over the next 6 weeks, current lockdown efforts would be hard-pressed to stop R from moving above 1, meaning an exponential growth in cases.

0/ When large eng orgs rely on metrics for both monitoring *and* observability, they struggle with cardinality.

This is a thread about “the two drivers of cardinality.” And which one of those we should kill. :)

🧵👇

1/ Okay, first off: “what is cardinality, anyway?” And why is it such a big deal for metrics?

“Cardinality” is a mathematical term: it’s *the number of elements in a set*... boring! So why tf does anybody care??

Well, because people think they need it, then suddenly, "$$$$$$$."

2/ When a developer inserts a (custom) metric to their code, they might think they’re just adding, well, *one metric*. …

3/ … But when they add “tags” to that metric – like , , or (shiver) – they are actually creating a *set* of metric time series, with the *cardinality* of that set being the total number of unique combinations of those tags.

4/ The problem is that some of those tags have many distinct values.

E.g., when I was working on Monarch at Google, there was a single gmail metric that became over 300,000,000 (!!!) distinct time series. In a TSDB, that cardinality is the unit of cost.

So again, “$$$$$$$.”

The ongoing Lincoln Project story reminds me that I haven't met anyone in politics yet who really understands how journalism works and how to handle a bad story. The Winning FormulaTM is also the right thing to do, but it involves a lot of humility and relinquishing some control.

First, don't lie to reporters. Ever. Even if you fool one, another one will find you out. And there are a lot of people who naively think they will fool ALL the reporters. This is just arrogance.

Don't try to intimidate people you suspect might be sources. It gives them more of an incentive to be a source, and it usually has the opposite of your intended effect: it encourages other people to talk to reporters.

If you know something is going to break, tell the story yourself, truthfully. There's a line from some Chris Matthews book that is actually applicable (and he did not do): hang a lantern on your problems.

Don't get defensive. It makes you sound like you don't *really* think you did anything wrong.

BREAKING: Big @TheJusticeDept move against #ProudBoys. 5 new conspiracy arrests for actions at #Capitol.

Mention of the use of fluorescent orange recognition tape, movement as a group. Developing story.

h/t @FPWellman
Story via @davidgshortell @CNN. https://t.co/lvCBe1QqOR

While we wait on docs, I recommend revisiting this excellent @WSJ visual investigation of the #ProudBoys coordinated role in the #Capitol

#NHSwhitepaper Thread:

Contrary to some of the headlines, the reforms are NOT the
‘end of privatisation’

(Will explain below)

The white paper wants to reverse legislation that mandated competitive tendering, which meant every contract had to be put out ‘to the market’....

1/

Which was a nuisance
Created unnecessary beurocracy And wasted a lot of money

This legislation was brought in under Cameron’s coalition government

(Against the advice of the unions, health think tanks, royal colleges...basically everyone)

2/

This makes me rage:

“San Francisco is about 48% white, but that falls to 15% for children enrolled in its public schools.

For all the city’s vaunted progressivism, it has some of the highest private school enrollment numbers in the country.”

"California is dominated by Democrats, but many of the people Democrats claim to care about most can’t afford to live there.

In California, we’re often symbolically liberal, but operationally conservative."

"The median price for a home in California is more than $700,000.

The state has four of the nation’s five most expensive housing markets and a quarter of the nation’s homeless residents.

The root of the crisis is simple:

It’s very, very hard to build homes in California. "

"In Los Angeles, Mayor @EricGarcetti persuaded Angelenos to pass a new sales tax to address the city’s homelessness crisis, but the program has fallen far behind schedule, in part because homeowners fought the placing of shelters in their communities."

"@toniatkins, Dem State Senate leader, sponsored a modest bill to allow duplexes on single-family lots. It passed the Senate, and then passed Assembly in slightly amended form, and then died because it was sent back to the Senate w/ only 3 minutes left in the legislative session"

Why did this young black man die after being arrested?

Mohamud Hassan was arrested, detained overnight, released from police custody without charge. The next day he was dead.

Support his family to help them find out why

#Justice4Mohamud

2/ In America, you're 5 1/2 times more likely to go to prison if you're black
In Wales, you're 6 1/2 more likely to go to prison if you're black

Mohamud's family are fighting for justice.
Watch the video & share it with the hashtag #Justice4MohamudHassan

3/ Mohamud's family are fighting for justice. You can support them by donating to their crowd justice fund to help them pay for legal representation and independent investigators. #Justice4MohamudHassan

4/ #Justice4Mohamud

On 09/01/21, Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, a healthy young black man, died shortly after his release from police custody with severe injuries. We want to find out why he died, and take appropriate action.

5/ How did our beloved Mohamud die?
Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, 24, was arrested by South Wales Police at his home on the evening of Friday 8th January 2021 for a breach of the

A little thread about language and #HumanRights...

Recently I shared an NHS letter (not mine) that started with the line 'The vast majority of babies are normal.' It meant 'normal' as opposed to babies born with particular conditions, including #DownsSyndrome

Regularly hearing negative language about your child is emotionally wearing. And surprisingly hard to challenge in the moment (for me anyway... which is possibly why I choose to try and challenge it by writing about it).

A fortnight before Rosa was born, a consultant explained the problem they'd spotted with her digestive system, and then went on to say "...and now I have to say something to you that's not very nice... this condition is often associated with Down's syndrome."

In hospital, nearly three weeks after Rosa was born a nurse repeatedly told me what my baby wouldn't do compared to a "normal baby".

In my first conversation with the Health Visitor her opening question was "Did you know she was going to be Downs?"

#HS2 locks #TreeProtectors 🌳in tunnels. The latest tactic employed by NET bailiffs is to install locked & barricaded doors within the tunnels beneath Euston Square Gardens, trapping those inside with no fire exit. Have they forgotten the Bradford City stadium fire?

Yesterday, one such barricaded door was installed by #HS2 a few metres into the tunnel known as 'Kelvin' & earlier today, another was screwed in & locked shut over the mouth of the tunnel known as 'Crystal'. This is a picture of it.

At around 8am on Thursday 11 February a #HS2 bailiff known as Dan entered Kelvin & wedged a door in place a few metres into the tunnel. He used a wooden brace to tightly secure it in place, preventing any outward passage by the occupants.

Over the course of the day, there followed an epic struggle between Desperate Dan the big bailiff and Blue, our brave nature defender, for possession of these few metres of tunnel leading to the downshaft, with Blue ultimately prevailing. #GoBlue #StopHS2

Battle commenced when Desperate Dan attempted to swap in a new door for the one originally installed. It is thought that the new door was one which could be screwed in and locked, rather than wedged & barricaded, much like the one now over the mouth of Crystal.

For everyone saying the current democrat party will improve systemic racism and racial unity I need to point this out.

Historically democrats have always been racist and even misogynist and this isn’t even ancient history it’s modern history too. Let me give you the list that I can pull from memory.

1. Democrats voted unanimously against ending slavery.

2. Democrats created the KKK.

3. Democrats were against the civil rights act of 1964.

4. Democrats voted against women’s suffrage.

5. Democrats instituted and enforced Jim Crow laws.

6. Democrats historically discouraged integration policies and encouraged segregationists.

7. 46 authored and sponsored the 1994 crime bill which was signed by then democratic president Clinton. This bill has been attributed to systemic racism in America.

8a. Margaret Sanger, the founder of PP and also democrat, instituted PP to cull the African American community. While it may have a mildly nobler purpose today, under the guise of women’s health it was intended as a racially eugenic operation.