It's coming towards the end of the year, and there are still countless people minimizing the pandemic and spreading untruths So I thought I'd do a bit of a thread of FACTS about COVID-19 1/n
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2/n Fact 1: the death rate of COVID-19 varies substantially by age, but is high even for relatively young people For example, a 1 in 2,700 risk of death from COVID-19 for a 35 year old, based on our comprehensive paper on the topic https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10654-020-00698-1 …pic.twitter.com/lpN4W6CyKJ
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3/n Fact 2: COVID-19 is MUCH more dangerous than influenza For younger age groups, COVID-19 may be similarly lethal. For anyone over 30, it is much worse.
@zorinaq has a nice graphic on thispic.twitter.com/e1DUdK1zcd
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4/n Fact 3: RT-PCR testing for COVID-19 has a very low rate of false positives. This is both conceptually demonstrable https://virologydownunder.com/the-false-positive-pcr-problem-is-not-a-problem/ … And mathematical facthttps://gidmk.medium.com/most-positive-coronavirus-tests-are-true-positives-60c95fe54fec …
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5/n Fact 4: most deaths that are counted as COVID-19 (at least in the US and other developed nations) have COVID-19 as the "underlying" or main cause https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771761 …https://gidmk.medium.com/covid-19-deaths-are-mostly-caused-by-coronavirus-2a6d2d43bd09 …
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6/n Fact 5: herd immunity through natural infection is not a way out of the pandemic. It will not bring us "back to normal", and certainly not within the timeframes proposedhttps://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-25862/v1 …
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Replying to @GidMK
So if it hadn't been vaccine preventable, Europe locks down forever? It irresponsible of you repeatedly to present this as a 'fact' and commentators doing this has led to a situation where UK scientists who talked about HI are now accused of wanting to cull the weak.
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Replying to @GidMK
Please clarify - it's really toxic in the UK now, this kind of breezy tweet thread hides the complexities and feeds into a popular narrative that when SPI-M spoke about herd immunity it meant deliberately killing the elderly.
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Replying to @TAH_Sci
It was never a choice between endless lockdown and an out of control epidemic, i.e. places like Vietnam, Taiwan, and Australia where control has been achieved without such indefinite onerous restrictions
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My personal opinion is that those who mischaracterised the situation as either complete lockdown or total removal of restrictions are to a great extent responsible for the current nightmares being experienced around the world
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Replying to @GidMK
Which people are these? The chair of SPI-M is being accused of eugenics for giving an early interview saying that the epidemic would only end with herd immunity, and obviously it's a 'fact' that that just means killing people.
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The answer is really obvious. Herd immunity is a term from livestock veterinary management. It has only existed in the popular consciousness in reference to vaccine coverage among school populations in relation to protecting vulnerable kids.
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