medicine

Coronavirus: Government’s Covid vaccine data ‘providing material for conspiracy theorists’ | News | The Times
“Statisticians lambasted the Health and Security Agency for its weekly vaccine surveillance report, which erroneously suggests that vaccines make you more likely to contract Covid.” The denominator problem explained.
(tags: covid19 vaccination science mathematics statistics medicine)

The lockdown’s founding myth | Christopher Snowdon | The Critic Magazine
Argues that natural herd immunity was following the scientists’ recommendations at the time.
(tags: covid19 Politics)
It’s bizarre that this needs saying, but *of course* the UK had a Herd Immunity plan – Lessons From The Crisis
More digging into the history books from 2020.
(tags: covid19 medicine politics)

How the beach ‘super-spreader’ myth may have hampered UK Covid reaction | World news | The Guardian
“News that no outbreaks were linked to beach trips highlights important message about outdoor transmission, says expert”
(tags: pandemic coronavirus beach science)
Kate Bingham: Why UK strategy on Covid vaccines has been a great success – la Repubblica
“An exclusive interview by “Die Welt” and “La Repubblica” to the former Chair of the UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce: what Boris Johnson said when he appointed her, the secrets of UK success, what Britain did and the EU didn’t, the “fake news” of doses from Germany to Britain, the future of Coronavirus vaccines, what she thinks of Sputnik, the role of Sir Patrick Vallance, why it’s correct to delay the second dose, why a global response is the only answer and why manufacturing vaccines is so complicated: “You do not build a racing car from scratch in 6 hours””
(tags: vaccination vaccine covid19 pandemic medicine)

The U.K.’s Fight Against the Covid Pandemic Has Divided a Nation – The New York Times
The war isn’t over. Pictures from the frontline.
(tags: covid19 pandemic nhs medicine UK)
siderea | The Very Bad News [curr ev, Patreon]
Siderea on the shock of the pandemic actually affecting you personally (and why Lefties shouldn’t disparage preppers). “The Great Shock was a wake up call. I suggest you don’t go back to sleep. I suggest that if you were caught by the Great Shock, you realize that that was because you were out of sync with reality, in a profound and dangerous way. I suggest you resolve not to be caught flat-footed like that again.”
(tags: pandemic preppers psychology)

COVID-19: what health experts could and could not predict | Nature Medicine
Devi Sridhar in Nature: “Nearly a year after the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, it is time to look back and assess what could have been predicted by health experts.”
(tags: science covid19 pandemic medicine)
I thrived on the tension and drama of British politics. Then I had a heart attack | Health & wellbeing | The Guardian
“I lived for the nerve-shredding rollercoaster of Westminster. But the stress got under my skin, and into my blood”
(tags: twitter Politics brexit journalism health)
I’d love to ignore ‘Covid sceptics’ and their tall tales. But they make a splash and have no shame | Media | The Guardian
Neil O’Brien on the fantasies of those in the media, and beyond, who oppose lockdown. There have been a few articles like this recently, hopefully it marks a tide rising against the loonies.
(tags: covid19 science lockdown pandemic)
Rise of the Coronavirus Cranks – Quillette
Another demolition of the smiley face crew.
(tags: twitter pandemic covid19 science)

Covid: The War We Never Fought – Consumer Surplus
“England is about to go into a second lockdown, along with lots of other European countries. It’s possible that the second wave of Covid infections we’re experiencing was inevitable, but we didn’t really try to avoid it either.” Contains a handy list of all the failed predictions from cranks like Toby Young and the Great Barrington backers.
(tags: health covid19 medicine Politics)
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020
The full text of the SI. This looks a lot more tightly drafted than the previous ones I’ve seen (and so is a fair bit longer).
(tags: law covid19)

No, 90% Of Coronavirus Tests Are Not ‘False Positives’ And This Is Why | HuffPost UK
Bayes for the win.
(tags: mathematics covid19 bayes-theorem)
The UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce: strategy for protecting the UK and the world – The Lancet

(tags: vaccination covid19 medicine)

Covid-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity? | The BMJ
Non-bonkers article on pre-existing immunity.
(tags: covid19 coronavirus immunity)
The importance of Nigel Farage and other political hobgoblins – The Law and Policy Blog
“Farage is a political hobgoblin.

He appears where there are cracks between the government and the governed, as a purveyor of easy answers.”
(tags: ukip brexit nigel-farage covid19)

The BMJ interview: Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, on covid-19 | The BMJ

(tags: covid19 medicine)

Boris Johnson: The gambler, by Tom Bower book review
“Boris Johnson: an amoral figure for a bleak, coarse culture
By Rory Stewart” Oof!
(tags: boris-johnson politics)

Yes, PCR tests can detect “the COVID virus” – Virology Down Under
The latest conspiracy theories allege that the test doesn’t work, so it’s interesting to see in explained.
(tags: pcr covid19 medicine biology science)
Johnson: The boy king who can’t grow up
“The ultimate problem with Johnson’s lack of seriousness is that he does not take the British people seriously. That is to say, he is a child who also treats us as children. He lies and jokes and tries to cheer people up, but never levels with us as adults. And so he has never confessed to the damage of Brexit. In the summer he declared it our “patriotic duty” to go to the pub. And last week he declared we should behave “fearlessly” in the face of the virus. Everyone must be mollycoddled or condescended to. The sordid reality must never be spoken.”
(tags: politics covid19 pandemic)