6) From Worldometer (yes, I *know* - I am pulling approximates here), the UK is around 2 150 -- roughly HALF the unofficial SA number

5) So that means, perhaps 250 000 Covid deaths since Autumn 2020. (cf: the official number of barely 90 000). Expressed per million, that is an 'unofficial Covid deaths' of around 4 200.

4) Excess natural deaths as of 11 Dec were 278 000 as per our weekly @MRCza report. https://samrc.ac.za/reports/report-weekly-deaths-south-africa?bc=254… We have also been of the view that between 85 and 95% of these ED, over the entire course of the epidemic, are related to Covid (https://genus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41118-021-00134-6…)

3) It really *does seem* as if South Africa, my country, will escape relatively unscathed in this wave. None of that is particularly new. But other things gnaw at me.

2) Despite massive number of cases (and incredibly high PTP: in the week to 11Dec, in Gauteng an ALL-TIME high of 38.7% - and an intra-week daily high of 41% when looking at PCR tests only), we have seen relatively few hospitalisations and deaths.

A series of mini-thoughts for a Sunday afternoon. South Africa vs. Rest of the World - the Omicron Edition. 1) We are pretty confident that Gauteng, the province at the South African Omicron epicentre is past its peak in terms of proportion of tests returning positive.

When I last updated this chart in September, the maximum y-axis value was ~120.

The number of suspected cases is insane: Denmark has completely lost control. Many of the hospitalized elderly will never leave the hospitals again. Many of those babies will live with long-lasting consequences all their lives. 3/3

Rocketing covid+ hospitalizations. ICU starting to trend up again. Not even commenting the situation in the psychiatric wards. 2/3

New epi data from Denmark - Denmark has lost control. Rocketing covid+ hospitalizations for the elderly. New record for hospitalized *babies* 1/3

And this one by @AndreasShruggedQuote TweetAndreas Backhaus@AndreasShrugged · 2 FebMeta-shmeta analysis. They claim they find that lockdowns reduced mortality in Europe and U.S. only by 0.2%. After browsing through their methodology and results though, it's obvious they aren't doing what they claim they're doing and their analyis is deceptive. /1Show this thread

Another great thread is this one by @whippletomQuote TweetTom Whipple@whippletom · 3 FebI'm going through this paper by Johns Hopkins economists, that assesses the efficacy of lockdown in the US and Europe - and concludes it was essentially useless. I'd love thoughts on something I've found, which may well be my misinterpretation 1/x https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf…Show this thread

@videnskabdk has translated their article into English.

I found a bit more information about the journal, MDPI Sustainability, which published the 91.8%-weighted article. Authored by @maoviedogarcia https://academic.oup.com/rev/article/30/3/405/6348133

Central point in the paper, which was weighted 91.8%, is the importance of NON-LINEARITY. The authors conclude: "interventions at higher levels of severity reduce deaths". The "meta study" ignored this and just extracted a linear term. That is "creative".

Turns out @videnskabdk wrote about this “meta study” before me, in which Mathias Heltberg (PostDoc at @uni_copenhagen) makes many of the same comments (in ). He also makes an observation about the MDPI study that I overlooked. It concluded the opposite!

What happened to the 17 = 24 - 7 other papers in the "meta analysis"? Well they are other Tables, such as this one, with some oddities, I might follow up on later.

Where was the study given 91.8% weight published? In MDPI Sustainability. MDPI is a controversial outlet, was classified as predatory journals. Median time from submission to publication is 39 days and MDPI Sustainability published 7,414 article in 2019. Impressive!

Weighting, is the answer. The only study to find lockdowns mortality is given weight 91.8% = 7390/8030, and then you get -0.2% to be the estimate. To summarize: -0.2% META-STUDY ESTIMATE is based on 91.8% ONE STUDY and 8.2% ALL OTHER STUDIES.

The 0.2% is not based on 24 studies, just 7 studies listed in Table 3. But wait a minute. The estimates ranges from -35.3% to +0.1% (highlighted in yellow). How do the authors end up with -0.2%?

Somewhat oddly the number is not 34, but 24. There are 34 studies listed in Table 2, but 10 of them are listed as excluded. Apparently based on some criterion that is missing in Figure 2. OK. But 0.2% based on 24 studies still gives a precise estimate, right? Sadly no.

A meta study often begins with a large set of studies (18,590) then eliminates irrelevant studies, duplicates, etc. This meta study ends up with 34 papers. Thus 0.2% is based on 34 studies, right? Well, actually not.

"Lockdowns only reduced mortality by 0.2%" claims (unreviewed) meta study, and it is getting much press in @FoxNews and the like. A #metastudy aggregate the entire body of evidence. This one is based on 18,590 studies. So, 0.2% must be a credible estimate... Well. No so fast. Quote TweetTimothy Caulfield@CaulfieldTim · 3 FebOdd how one (not peer-reviewed) analysis about lockdowns produced so many headlines. Did this media give same coverage to the many studies (and, to be fair, hard to study well) that have found non-pharmaceutical interventions ("lockdowns") had a big impact?

on inconsistency in discourse see e.g., our Vaccine Wiki:

and it's hard to think that isn't part of the goal: once consistency is no longer a requirement absolutely anything goes and public discourse aimed at truth or good outcomes is dead

man who contracted potentially disease and then violated public health orders tries to cross borders by providing incorrect info on key docs = just fine is not something I foresaw from this corner... once consistency is thrown out as a standard, rational debate is impossible...

Update. Note @UKHSA has revised recent RSV downwards.

Yup.

I don’t think it’s the time to stop masking yet but let’s not pretend the big line isn’t going down

Way too distracting. Can’t breath my ass. #MaskUp #COVIDisAirborne #CovidIsNotOver

SA is fortunate to have a network of genomics surveillance that can generate and analyze data quickly so this can inform public health response. Thanks to @rjlessells @houzhou @moir_monika @nicd_sa @ceri_news @krisp_news

At present, the Omicron BA.2 is not of great concern in South Africa. But our network is following very close and is alerted to its emergence. Anyone interested on why we are currently not concerned about BA.2 in SA, please see the recent FT piece.

Vaccines are equally effective against BA.2 and BA.1 No evidence of any difference in disease severity between BA.2 and BA.1 https://gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-sars-cov-2-variants-technical-briefings

Preliminary data from Denmark and UK suggests BA.2 may have higher intrinsic transmissibility than BA.1 - Lyngse FP et al. medRxiv 2022

But what we know about Omicron BA.2 - - BA.2 is increasing in frequency in several locations, including SA – but an increase needs to be placed in the context of case incidence (which is low for SA).

First, this comes on a background of decreasing infections. South Africa takes an approach of random and proportional surveillance. Below is a number of high-quality genomes per week which matches cases per week.

As expected, Omicron BA.2 takes over in South Africa, close to 100% of the new genomes. What does it mean?

Living here is pain. Every single day. If you're someone who is at high risk, it's a daily reminder of how little your life matters. But who gives a shit, right?

I feel grief for our children- they didn't even have a chance. No opportunity to get protected by vaccination that they'd have got had they lived in another country. While hundreds get hospitalised each week - entirely preventable- let's strip away the only protection they had.

And I fully accept that our media will help normalise this exceptionalism as somehow rationale. England descended into anti-science propaganda ages ago, and those with influence did very little. Many of screamed our hearts out but no one listened or cared.

This is what anti-science agendas do- ultimately this is social murder. And all we can do is watch helplessly, while those we love are put at risk, and get ill. Some will die, but I guess that's a cost our govt is willing to accept, because not all lives matter the same.

Feel free to tell me why this is the right decision - taking away the only protection we have because after all this is now 'endemic' or 'the flu' and isolation is just causing disruption, and we need to 'accept the risks' as a society - when you don't even understand them.

Yeah, sure, go on and tell me why we can't be anything like them because of 'our culture' and whatever you want to say to convince yourself that it's ethical or moral or okay to put millions of people including children at risk. Whatever helps you live with yourself.

And this decision isn't inevitable - there are countries who are 'living with it' in very different ways than we are. Who haven't accepted these deaths, reductions in life expectancy, and long-term illness in hundreds of thousands of people. Japan. Singapore.

This is a political decision. Let's be clear. There is no basis in science. COVID-19 is nothing like the flu- the flu hasn't left >1 million people chronically ill, and spread like wildfire, causing disruption, mass suffering and death over the past two years.

Disproportionately in CV, elderly, minoritised, poor & disabled people who can do little to protect themselves - as they enter workplaces, transport, society with people who are infected. But who cares about these groups? Our govt never have, and they never will.

I don't even know what to say. There were 2.8 million people estimated to have prevalent infection in the last ONS survey. 1 in 19 people in the community in England. ~1,800 deaths/wk in the UK. Removing requirements for self-isolation will lead to preventable illness & death.

PS: All data from @OurWorldInData and using up to Oct 1st, 2021 data to avoid Omicron. Peak and half-peak detection is automatic and uses Python Scipy peak detector. Input for peak detection = smoothed cases using a Gaussian window of 14 days, std=5, centered. 11/11 END

Final message: Even if cases peaked and going down now in your area, watch out . Most people will get Covid19 at the post-peak days than at the pre-peak days... Stay safe! 10/11

So post-waves are longer - but do they generate more cases? The answer is YES! The histogram shows the ratio between total cases in the post-wave compared to pre-wave (notice the log10 scale). On average, post-waves generate 1.4x more cases than their pre-waves! 9/11

An intermediate summary: once the sh*t hits the fan, it takes longer to go back to normal* than it takes to get to the peak from normal*. *I say normal but our lives are anything but normal. 8/11

This density histogram (gray bars) shows the difference between the # days post-peak versus # days pre-peak (black: smoothed distribution). In 75% of the waves, the post-wave was longer. And it was significantly longer (p<0.02, t-test), by 11 days on average! 7/11

Many people expect that the waves are symmetrical. In other words, they believe that it takes the same amount of time to go from half of the peak to the peak and from the peak back again to half of the cases. Let's tests it empirically using 20 waves! 6/11

Back to the initial figure! The average wave takes 49 days (SD=27days) with a median of 37 days . Waves don't only feel long, but they are long... 5/11

Why are we interested only at ½ of the cases of the peak? 1. This is the time of last doubling. 2. As you well know, not all waves have strong valleys (here is an example from Italy). 3. In signal processing, pulse width is usually defined as ½ of the peak. 4/11

We define a wave to start and finish with ½ of the cases in the peak. For instance, here is an example from Cyprus . The peak () at about 1100 daily cases per 1M. The wave's start & finish are labeled w/ an line at ~550 cases. Gray: raw data Blue: smoothed (our input) 3/11

The figure shows the strongest wave (grey lines) in 20 countries around with the largest testing per capita. The peak is centered to be at day 0 and the cases are normalized to its height. Black: the averaged wave 2/11

What we can learn from 20 waves of SARS-CoV-2? A thread 1/11

... people don't care if a politician is a liar provided s/he is "their" liar: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pops.12586… 6/n

And here is another angle about the attractiveness of lying demagogues: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0003122417749632… . This paper (and previous one) provide perspectives on why ...

And for really global context, this article by @M_B_Petersen is cool. Evolution and demagoguery .... https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.02.003… It provides one angle on *why* politicians can get away with so much untruthfulness. 4/n

And this one showing that Trump diverts attention via Twitter from issues that are politically damaging to him--and how the media alter coverage in response: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19644-6… 3/n

To place into context, here are some related recent papers. For example this one showing striking linguistic differences between Trump's factually correct and incorrect tweets. Suggests the falsehoods were not mere accidents? https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09567976211015941… 2/n

This is an extremely important development. The main vector for misinformation are not fringe websites but "mainstream" politicians who inherit and adapt fringe material. So keeping track of their effect is crucial, and this is a very welcome first step by @_mohsen_m @DG_Rand 1/n

If you had #COVID19 once you can get it again (and again). Risk of reinfection in England with #Omicron was ~5.4 fold higher compared to #Delta The relative risk were 6.36 & 5.02 for unvaxxd & vaxxd cases - implies protection against reinfection by Omicron may be as low as 19%

This paper is not published..not reviewed...and has serious problems that will hopefully be fixed during the review process. The lead authors know this. See posts by me @linseymarr @jljcolorado .

the study quoted here looked at an 18 month time interval. In our Covid19 FB group of 34.5k, we have reports of recovery after 18 months—2 years is not unknown @Dr_Ellie⁩ ⁦@MailOnline

Some more context, digging beyond face value:

In other words, above estimates (taken at face value*) would suggest this particular evidence for cloth masks is in situation (A) below and other two are in (C)... https://twitter.com/TAH_Sci/status/1490701257769734145?s=20&t=Y5CfhYro_R3nSG1eb_WjrQ… *no pun intendedQuote Tweet

Below figure being widely shared (from: https://cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm…), but think it's important to include uncertainty (i.e. 95% confidence intervals) when reporting estimates: Cloth mask: 56% (-17%-83%) lower odds than no mask Surgical mask: 66% (10%-87%) N95/KN95: 83% (36%-95%)

An announcement from @allthecitizens:

Here is the study on severity of Omicron versus Delta in UK

And what about the next variant causing damage by reinfection accumulating organ damage? Variants can form much more rapidly than by mutation when someone is infected by both Omicron and Delta mutation because the virus can combine parts of both. 5/

And children are much more severely affected by Omicron than Delta, which was much more severe for children than prior variants. Children should surely be protected from Omicron. Everyone should be. 4/Quote Tweet

A just released study shows that the virus remains active in many organs of the body including many places in the brain for months after infection. The "acute" phase of the infection is only the beginning.

Also the medical definition of "mild" continues to mean "not hospitalized". Both so-called mild cases and long covid that can follow can be devastating and life changing. 2/Quote Tweet

UK data: Omicron is as severe as Delta for cases that would be infected by Delta, and infects people who would not be infected by Delta (due to immunity of prior infection or vaccination). Those cases are less severe. By Simpsons paradox Omicron seems less severe, but is more. 1/

NEW: Daily #COVID19 admissions among U.S. children are twice as high as they were during the peak of the Delta wave source: HHS, https://healthdata.gov/Hospital/COVID-19-Reported-Patient-Impact-and-Hospital-Capa/g62h-syeh

Friday report is now out. https://covidactuaries.org/2022/01/07/the-friday-report-issue-58/… I am struck that perception of a “mild” Covid situation is relative. In SA natural deaths were >30% higher than predicted in Dec. The last time weekly death rates in E&W were more than 30% above 2015-19 levels was in Jan 2021.

Apart from (e.g.): 1. Severe disease in clinically vulnerable (they are people too); 2. Long covid in many; 3. Strokes / heart attacks / kidney failure from micro-clots; 4. New-onset diabetes and MIS-C in children; 5. High potential for recombinant mutations.

Manaus, Brazil Hospitalizations - Herd immunity attempt #4665 - What do you see?

While #Omicron BA.1 leads the race, the little sister BA.2 is catching up in numbers. They are rather different with likely functional implications. BA.2 might be more immune evasive in RBD, less in NTD. And due to reduced mutation load in NTD maybe different fusion properties?

A call had to be made very early on about whether BA.1 & BA.2 (the most notable) would be given one name or two. There was a lot of discussion of options among scientists. In the end, @WHO decided that all 3 would be called Omicron.

The first sequences identified were BA.1 - spreading quickly & now coming to dominate. BA.2 & BA.3 looked a bit like 'little sisters' who weren't as quick - they didn't do much. BA.3 is still not doing much, but BA.2 is now catching up on her sister's heels.

Just to clarify some confusion about what 'Omicron' is. 'Omicron' has always applied to the whole family (BA.1-3 - we've known about them all since late-Nov/early-Dec). But the prevalence of BA.1 meant that it got shorthanded as 'Omicron' - that's causing some confusion now!

8% of UK primary school kids had covid last week. Eight percent.

In the U.S. more people died of Covid in the past week than died of Ebola during the whole 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic. Maybe it’s me, but the slew of ‘the pandemic is essentially over’ articles seem a bit premature.

...some dying, they’re certain that it’s due to the vaccine. But there’s no way to prove that of course." I believe that this is dangerous misinformation that he is peddling to Ugandan citizens Why is the GBD peddling this nonsense? What's in it for them to do this? 3/3

.. it’s associated with a lot of adverse outcomes and effects, and I can just tell you right now, all day and every day as president of the Brownstone Institute, I get letters from parents whose children have developed very serious heart conditions..."

His vax disinformation is at 34.55 in the video His full comments: "But people do not trust this vaccine. It’s not been through the normal trials, it’s a technology that’s not been proven as safe & effective, & now the data is coming in on the vaccine that’s showing that.." 1/3

NYC update (GREAT news heading into weekend) Cases down 43% with positive rate 7.3% (Manhattan 6.2%). lowest rate since December 15. Hospital census down 13% back to levels of January 2. All trends (except deaths) favorable. Thanks to everyone who has helped get us here.

Here's the latest variant picture for Australia. BA.1 (Omicron) is still very dominant. The new sub-lineage BA.1.1 (with the Spike R346K mutation) is significant, but not growing rapidly.

U.S. COVID update: Daily cases drop 13 days in a row, deaths still rising - New cases: 546,598 - Average: 600,789 (-29,966) - States reporting: 46/50 - In hospital: 143,574 (-2,881) - In ICU: 25,099 (-254) - New deaths: 3,061 - Average: 2,525 (+88) Data: https://newsnodes.com/us

“many drivers are complaining they have to use brakes despite wearing their seatbelts at all times”

In summary, Evusheld should retain activity vs Omicron despite 10-100-fold decreased activity. But the BA.1.1 version (+R346K) is expected to further decr cilgavimab activity and we should keep a close eye on this variant and monitor for breakthrough infections on Evusheld 7/7

However, position 346 is a site of resistance for cilgavimab and R346K will further decrease its activity based on in vitro data (https://nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04388-0…, COV2-2130 = cil in figure below) 6/7

Based on the neut curves above and the PK data (https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.12.472269v1…), tix/cil should be maintained above the IC90s for at least 6 months vs Omicron, which is reassuring. 5/7

It turns out that tix/cil is at baseline far more potent than sotrovimab as nicely outlined by neut curves in this paper (https://nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04386-2…). Even with the bigger loss of activity of tix/cil vs Omicron, the IC50s end up at a similar point compared to sot (red lines) 4/7

Based on the NIH OpenData portal of aggregate in vitro data against Omicron, tix/cil has 10-100-fold decreased activity (greater loss of activity for tix than cil), but sotrovimab only has a 2-4-fold loss of activity. So how are both considered likely still active vs Omicron? 3/7

Tix/cil (Evusheld) are 2 mAbs that bind non-overlapping RBD epitopes + have Fc changes to make them long-lasting. In the ph3 PROVENT trial, tix/cil given to high-risk uninfected pts resulted in a 77% reduction in symptomatic COVID-19 infxn. It's FDA-authorized for PrEP 2/7

There's a lineage of Omicron that's gained the R346K mutation (BA.1.1). This one could spell some trouble for the AZ mAb (tixagevimab/cilgavimab, Evusheld) that's being used for pre-exposure prophylaxis. If you want to learn about tix/cil vs Omicron, read on 1/7

So far BA.2 a small minority of cases in England but it is gaining & will likely be dominant by end of Feb. (UKHSA and Denmark both report it's got a growth advantage). Not sure how it squares up vs BA.1.1 which is also growing in share (but slower). Here is London pic. 2/2

Update on growth of Omicron subvariant BA.2 in England from Wellcome Sanger data. Growing in all regions. The main Omicron variant we've had so far is BA.1. There is then its child BA.1.1 with an extra mutation and its brother BA.2 which is pretty different to BA.1. 1/2

Connecticut Cases down 72% from last week (lower test resulting). Positive rate 7.3%, lowest since 12/20. Hospitalizations down 29%. 46% are fully vaccinated. FWIW - my hospital is 67% down from peak census. Good news!

cases are down but deaths have not peaked yet

I can't, for example, imagine someone saying "handwashing is of limited use it only "delays" getting norovirus". So, I think it seems worth unpacking the many presuppositions involved in your "just delay" framing

As I said before, it's not the function of this account to argue/advocate covid policies, but I will comment on the shape of the argument. The use of the frame "just delay" here seems hugely prejudicial. We don't talk that way about flu or other diseases we might get repeatedly

it's not actually a logical truth that such a point exists- it is logically entirely possible that the costs of trying to live with the virus outweighs those of elimination. Which is more costly is thus an empirical question

are these fair: - getting Covid is not intrinsically sufficiently aversive that we would want to avoid catching it - getting Covid does not give rise to additive damage to health each time - the risks associated with catching covid are constant or diminishing on reinfection

Spain has also joined the grim list.

1.1 million #COVID deaths averted by #vaccinations in 2021. Could have been many more had we vaccinated more. We need to also #MaskUp with #N95 and remember to #ventilate because #COVIDisAirborne.

Norman has NOIDea Covid is almost entirely notified by labs not GPs. Norman is an embarrassment to @QMUL

Connecticut Cases down 19%. Positive rate is 6.6%, similar to early December. We are at comparable case levels to last winter. Hospitalizations down 32%. Deaths continue to decline, down 22%.

In the latest @ONS estimates of #LongCovid (up to 2nd Jan 2022), only 87 thousand of the 1.33 million cases were admitted to hospital with their acute Covid19 infection.

Infection-induced immunity is helpful But really doesn't seem to last that long And as virus becomes endemic You are looking at constant reinfections Or you could just get vaccinated And avoid all the heartache and misery of having to get infected over and over again Fin

So let's be clear about a few things Is infection-induced immunity real? Absolutely Does it help prevent future infections/hospitalizations? Probably...for a while For first 90 days or so? Almost surely Beyond that? probably not that much 9/10

Now fans of infection induced immunity might argue that these folks just aren't getting reinfected So as proportion of unvaccinated folks with infection-induced immunity rises You should see a fall in infection rates among unvaccinated people We see the opposite 8/10

So is that what we see? A closing of the gap over time? In fact, the opposite Obviously, a lot of other stuff also going on, including which variants are dominant, etc. During each moment in the pandemic, it is better to be vaccinated And over time, the gap is widening 7/9

Over time, as more unvaccinated people got infected, If infection-induced immunity was great We'd expect gaps in population-level hospitalization start to close Because unvaccinated would increasingly be made up of previously-infected folks (as they are now at 60-70%) 6/8

Imagine that infection-induced immunity was AS GOOD as vaccines What would we see? Early, when unvaccinated were largely immunologically naïve (i.e. not previously infected) We'd see a large gap in population-level hospitalization rates between vaxxed and unvaxxed 5/9

My best estimate is that 3 months after an infection, certainly 6 months after infection Immunity from infection starts to break down Which is why we are seeing a lot of unvaccinated people get reinfected, sick, and end up in the hospital But let's do the counterfactual 4/5

One possibility is that hospitalizations are happening in the dwindling group of unvaccinated who haven't been previously infected Means true benefit of the vaccines is even higher (by a lot) But much more likely, it means infection-induced immunity is not holding up 3/8

We see large gaps in hospitalizations between vaccinated and unvaccinated But unvaccinated are not immunologically naïve At this point, probably 2/3 have been previously infected And yet, we still see 50X differences in hospitalizations between vaccinated and unvaccinated 2/7

You all know the data demonstrating dramatically higher hospitalization rates for unvaccinated folks But one key point often not discussed? Around 60%-70% of unvaccinated adults have already been previously infected Which tells us a lot about infection-induced immunity Thread

for completeness, i'm adding test positivity (left: blue line) in Iran (currently ~20%) and daily hospital admissions per 100K individuals over the last 30 days across all 31 provinces (right: red lines) highlighting Qom (1), Tehran (2), and Hormozgan (3) End2/

only around 25% of the population has received a booster jab (mostly sinophram or home-grown vax). also, bear in mind that a very high percentage of the population have already been exposed to the virus at least once over the last 18-20 months.

cases & hospitalisations are rising very sharply in many provinces and there's likely a very significant level of under-reporting too. Qom one of the provinces with the highest per capita death during the past waves is experiencing yet another sharp increase in hospitalisation 2/

after the daily covid-19 cases in Iran dropped to record-low numbers last month, it is now back in full swing due to omicron! map on the left (mostly coloured in blue) shows the situation in late december and the one on the right is from 2 days ago (many in amber or red). 1/

here is BA.2 growth in Denmark.

But of course, we don’t need VAERS data to work out if there is an increased rate of miscarriage after vaccination! There have been *so many* formal studies on this! (Which I guess this person doesn’t know about?) All showing no increased risk. 11/11

I’ve no doubt there are other reasons that this is not a sensible way of calculating the URF, but these are the two that jumped out at me. 10/

(It would also require people vaccinated a year ago who have conceived in the interim and had a miscarriage today to report it. This is most unlikely to be vaccine-related, but at least in this case the vaccination happens before the miscarriage.) 9/

So for that URF to be correct, it would require people to report miscarriages to VAERS that happened *before* they were vaccinated. 8/

But no matter because I’m not sure it would much have helped, because there’s another problem. Timing. The US military data will report miscarriages at any time in pregnancy whereas the VAERS data only reports events after vaccination. 7/

One major problem with this I’ve already touched upon. It makes more sense to calculate miscarriage rates in people who are pregnant, rather than *allll* women. The data to do that was available, they just didn’t look it up 6/

The figure of 49 has come from calculating the per woman rate of miscarriage in the US army, assuming that the per woman rate in VAERS would be the same as it, and dividing one by the other. 5/

So let’s look at how this figure has been calculated. It comes from the idea that VAERS data underreports miscarriages by a factor of 49x, so you need to multiply the VAERS reports by 49 to see how many miscarriages there actually were. 4/

So even if *every single person* who received the vaccine before 20 weeks miscarried, and we somehow failed to notice, that’s still an overestimate of the rare by at least 2x. (Spoiler alert: Obviously it’s a bigger than 2x overestimate…) 3/

Quite apart from being not plausible, it’s straight up impossible. Miscarriages by definition happen before 20 weeks and about half of those vaccinated were vaccinated after 20 weeks. It was too late for them to have a miscarriage. 2/

Let’s begin by taking the 172,000 number at face value. About 190,000 ppl have been vaccinated during pregnancy in the US. So if that were true it’s a miscarriage rate of 90%… 1/

I doubt he'll ever explain to anyone why he used Sept 1 numbers when he had rerun them himself in late Sept. How about it, @MartinKulldorff ? He'd probably claim he submitted the piece many weeks in advance, as if we're not in the era of the web where links can be changed easily.

...and he really should posted numbers from early October, to include more of the massive fall Southern wave. It's not as if this age-adjusted calculation requires hours of super-computer time ... 9\

... so he links to shamefully stale data which incorrectly shows NY/NY still number 1, even though he himself had redone the calculation on Sept 27 after I emailed him to correct him. He certainly cannot claim ignorance ... 8\

..or, if you prefer not to click the link, I'll save you the trouble...he uses the grossly out-of-date Sept 1 rankings which don't include the massive fall Southern wave ?!? ...7\

....and what rankings does he use? You can click the "age-adjusted Covid mortality link" in his piece to find out ...6\

Now, it would be bad enough if that were the end of it and this was just a story of him not knowing that the current rankings now showed low-lockdown states as #1 and #2...but weeks later (Oct 12) he publishes an Op-Ed and links to age-adjusted rankings 5\

To his credit, he reruns the calculation himself and confirms what I told him and posts it in this tweet. Texas and Mississippi have indeed surpassed NY/NY... 4\

I email him and inform him that he's wrong and that Texas and Mississippi have since surpassed NY/NJ and he acknowledges me here with the h\t... 3\

He's apparently using this out of date Sept 1 calculation by @DrJBhattacharya . Anyone closely following the data at the time should know there was a huge covid death wave in Sept in the South and therefore Sept 1 rankings were likely out-of-date ... 2\

Here's an example of how Martin Kulldorff (one of the leading anti-lockdown epidemiologists) uses data. Bear with me- this is a multi-part story. On Sept 27, he makes the false claim that NY and NJ have the highest age-adjusted covid mortality... 1\

New and noteworthy data for vaccine effectiveness vs hospitalization, posted @CDCgov https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitalizations-vaccination… For age 65+, last week December, per 100,000 people Unvaccinated 239.7 2-dose vaccinated 26.8 3-dose (booster vaccinated) 4.8 That's 98% reduction, 3-dose vs unvaccinated

More than seventy peer-reviewed #COVID-19, #SARS, and #MERS @J_Immunol articles are #FreeToRead http://ow.ly/lwTr50Hyu5F #immunology #ReadTheJI

Novavax says it’s officially filed for EUA of its #covid19 vaccine in the US

UK Deaths following a reinfection! Tell me what you see here

How Do You Respond When an #AntiVaxxer Dies of Covid? https://nytimes.com/2022/01/30/opinion/culture/covid-death-mental-health.html?smid=tw-share… by @JamesMartinSJ "Indulged in regularly, #schadenfreude ends up warping the soul." "Don’t find another person’s misery the subject of mirth, glee or satisfaction." Good reminder. One I needed.

Wait two years before we can tell who took the correct approach. OK, we'll check back in March.

While the U.K. official figures and ⁦@BBCNews⁩ say cases in U.K. have plateaued- the reality is that they have been increasing for the last two weeks based on the Zoe data . Now at 176000 cases per day - thanks for logging !

PORTUGAL 90% of the Country is double dosed. This is what a good job looks like

One U.S. child loses a parent or caregiver for every four COVID-19-associated deaths I’m not discounting mental health effects of the pandemic on children. That is real. But the risks associated with #COVID19 for children and its affects on them aren’t always obvious

Seems that the second Omicron subvariant BA.2 may soon be about to cause cases to start rising again in South Africa... Or at least to stop the decline in new infections. Shows how fast immunity wanes & evolution can catch up.

Today at 1.30pm, Independent SAGE will discuss shaping policy to help Long Covid sufferers, with special guests

1/ You’ve probably heard the #Omicron “stealth” sub-variant, BA.2, is spreading rapidly in places like Denmark. We’re tracking the signal and, while there’s a lot of uncertainty, a picture is emerging. A on what we're learning.

50,000 Canadian truckers drive through the night as they continue to make their way to Ottawa this week to protest against COVID mandates and restrictions

Worth mentioning IF BA.2 takes off in the UK & causes mass reinfections we won't see it in case no's because to count as a case there has to be a 90 day gap between PCR +ves. Dunno how they are handling reinfections via LFDs

Vaccine effectiveness against BA.1 and BA.2. After 2 doses it was 9% (7-10%) and 13% (-26-40%) respectively for BA.1 and BA.2, after 25+ weeks. It increased to 63% (63-64%) for BA.1 and 70% (58-79%) for BA.2 at 2 weeks after a booster. Get your booster.

Omicron wave and its consequences....

it's a bit like criticising the person trying to drive from Cardiff to London that they haven't got to Birmingham yet

of course you can criticise the target function (maintaining hospital capacity) * itself* and argue that we should be focussing largely on cases, but arguing that a policy doesn't fulfil a *different* goal than it is designed for is either dense or bad faith

we've had at least 4 months of European governments tailoring policy to *hospital capacity*, not cases per se - so why are we still seeing arguments against the effectiveness of those policies based solely on cases, and not the actual target function? @AllysonPollock

I'm not sure what to say anymore

In France, a recent rise in hospitalizations raises the concern that BA.2 may not just be the harmless wake of BA.1's powerboat Yellow line - hospital admission Black line - death in hospital Red line - ICU admission

How to U-Turn your Omicron decline: Announce the end of mask policies

Here's a great thread for more info on BA.2

Here's the data for India, broken down by state. Steep rises in Manipur and Assam, with Telengana and New Delhi on similar trajectories.

I arbitrarily excluded some countries: - Germany & USA - very low frequencies amid the huge volume of sequences they share - Philippines - shared samples don't seem representative/random - NZ - samples were trapped in quarantine

The first chart above showed the top 5 countries (by the number of samples shared. Here are the next 5, showing significant rises in South Africa, Sri Lanka and Botswana.

Note the Frequency is calculated for each country independently, comparing to all the recent samples sequenced in that country. In India and Singapore, the rise of BA.2 has a similar timing to the start of their Omicron waves, so perhaps those are just "founder effects"?

Here's the latest variant picture for BA.2 (Omicron). Globally it has been far less common than it's sibling BA.1 lineage. The frequency of BA.2 is rising rapidly in several countries, notably India, Denmark & Singapore.

43% The percentage of frontline workers research shows are experiencing significant levels of anxiety

2,369 The average number of deaths per day since the first #COVID19 cases were detected in the WHO European Region two years ago. That's an average of 99 lives lost every hour

0.5 million The estimated number of lives saved thanks to #COVID19 vaccination - according to a study in late November from WHO/Europe & @ECDC_EU

52% Of 46 countries surveyed - 24 identified #COVID19 related constraints as a challenge to implementing national health & climate change plans or strategies

10-20% The percentage of people suffering from a post #COVID19 condition or #LongCOVID - experiencing symptoms for weeks to months after an acute infection

732 days of #COVID19 in the WHO European Region – in 15 figures https://bit.ly/3rHKfAB Find out more in the thread

Maryland 24,183 new cases South Korea 8,571 new cases Maryland population 6.2 million South Korea population 51.82 million Perspective, even w SK sharply rising & MD headed down (hope it continues).

For the BA.2 watchers, looks like it doubling roughly every 4 days in the UK at the moment. Would make it the dominant strain around about February 14th. Maybe it is time to move away from the Greek alphabet and move onto their Gods instead. Eros variant?

NYC update Positive rate 6.6%. Cases fewest since 12/13. Hospital census lowest since 1/1/2022. Hospital admits lowest since 12/22/2021. All indicators (except deaths) declining rapidly, but still well above pre-Omicron levels. Expect more swift progress this week.

Smart people change their minds. They reconsider things they thought they'd already figure out when offered compelling data contradicting their previous understanding. Last week we saw the Swiss data. This is from #USA. #scicomm #dataviz #VaccinesSaveLives (h/t @OurWorldInData)

Both Victoria and New South Wales are seeing continued improvement in COVID-19 hospitalisation

A story told in three parts

Of 51,141 deaths due to ischaemic heart diseases 32,872 (64.3%) had pre-existing conditions. Do those 33k heart disease deaths not count? Or is an absence of pre-existing conditions only required for Covid deaths... Source: ONS England 2019

So this is political vetting of public health decisions. By an education Secretary.

Gov: Its all about managing personal risk, No not that like that Right, ill have to ban you then

2) Florida governor’s new anti-COVID testing surgeon general doesn’t seem well either…

Our list of retracted COVID-19 papers is up to 206. For context and denominators, please see the post. https://retractionwatch.com/retracted-coronavirus-covid-19-papers/…

My cousin wanted to get tested. She waited in an auto testing line for 6.5 hours, and stayed in it bc she was traveling to bury her Daddy. How many people give up in such long lines? How many cases upwards of a million are we losing bc Biden et all failed on home tests?

You get the public health outcomes that your system is willing to support

minority whose actions are tolerated by the state? And what how polarising is *that*? All thoughts/data appreciated 3/311

2/3 the majority that is? Many have gone along with measure after measure out of a sense of collective responsibility and/or because they were told doing so would end the pandemic. What effect will it have on *their* future compliance to see the undermining of that effort by a ..

Just a thought on this and the general vaccine mandate debate. As a behavioural scientist currently stuck in Germany where this is a live debate, it strikes me that the thoughts below address only part of the population: those not currently vaccinated. But what about ... 1/2Quote Tweet