I have tremendous news about Prince Rupert. In March, the B.C. city of 12,000 had the highest #COVID19 transmission rate in the province. Every adult was offered the chance to be vaccinated. At the peak, there were more than 100 weekly cases. Last week, there were 3.

Population majeure vaccinée avec au moins une dose (une seule dose/deux doses), au 8 avril : -tous âges : 19,3% (12,6%/6,6%) -moins de 75 ans : 13,3% (10,5%/2,8%) -75 ans ou plus : 62,5% (28,2%/34,2%) Les pourcentages sont arrondis. #Covid19

Nurses getting ready to vaccinate 16+ at Career. Thank you to our nurses for keeping our community safe.

High school vaccinations begin today in New Haven!

“Genomics and epidemiology of the P.1 SARS-CoV-2 lineage in Manaus, Brazil” - P.1 may be 1.7–2.4-fold more transmissible - previous (non-P.1) infection provides 54–79% of the protection against infection with P.1 that it provides against non-P.1 lineages https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/04/13/science.abh2644.full

‘The hand of God’ — nurses trying to comfort isolated patients in a Brazilian Covid isolation ward. Two disposable gloves tied, full of hot water, simulating impossible human contact. Salute to the front liners and a stark reminder of the grim situation our world is in!@sadiquiz

"These data represent a remarkable research resource and illustrate how covid-19 has fostered open science" @jsross119 @BHFDataScience

U.K. variant now dominant form of COVID in US ⁦@CDCDirector⁩ As predicted B.1.1.7 is now the predominant SARS-CoV-2 strain in the US. Let’s remember it is much more transmissible and likely also more severe. Vaccines do cover it. ⁦@ajc

The same approaches that work against SARS-CoV-2 work against variants like B.1.1.7: Mask Avoid indoor gatherings Socialize outdoors And, reinforces the need to continue to scale-up vaccine administration to all 16+.

.@SecBlinken: Stopping COVID-19 is the Biden-Harris Administration’s number one priority. Otherwise, the coronavirus will keep circulating in our communities, threatening people’s lives and livelihoods, holding our economy back.

There are *different* types of clots at issue in both papers. The one's discussed by Science article are explicitly *not* included in Lancet analysis

an 2021: I expected the fall/winter peak to subside much more slowly than it did. I saw people going back to work & school, after the holidays and expected that to prolong transmission. But the sacrifices we made around the holidays paid off & the surge ended pretty abruptly.

March/April 2020: I thought vaccine approval would be 12-18 months away. I didn’t factor in how much quicker trials would go with rampant COVID spread & how efficient the government could be at approval. I’m very glad to have been wrong on this.

Jan/Feb 2020: I thought community-level face mask use wouldn’t help. I based this on studies of the flu, which indicated community mask wearing mostly didn’t work & that sick people were the ones that needed masks. I was wrong. I didn’t know how much asymptomatic COVID we had.

Let’s start at the beginning: Jan 2020, I thought COVID would be contained relatively quickly with case counts on the order of SARS in 2003. This was a reasonable guess but clearly wrong.

I saw a tweet about how there isn’t enough discussion of what experts got wrong on COVID, so here’s a thread of things I got wrong.

really good tweet thread diving into the Lancet study on long term mental health conditions after severe covid.

5) If you’re an island like Britain is, you shouldn’t have 4.3 million #COVID19 cases, yet did somehow. Result is not just 127k deaths, but also 1.1 million #LongCovid cases... or 25% of all infected.

One year ago today: The WHO strongly asserts that COVID-19 is not airborne, and that the most effective way to prevent spread is frequent handwashing.

This below is a measured fact (not a model): In Alberta B117 cases are doubling every 7.5 days @jkenney @shandro cc:@CMOH_Alberta It's like a speedometer showing that you are speeding @ 200 km/h 1/

COVID-19 vaccine rollout: How do countries in Europe compare?

Interesting visualisation of COVID-related data sharing on Twitter: http://vis.mit.edu/covid-story/#dashboard… via @OYCar

NEW EVIDENCE PYRAMID

Throughout the pandemic, a widespread inability to reason counterfactually has been on display. For example, some people apparently think lockdowns don't work. They seem unable to imagine the situation had there *not* been a lockdown. Lockdowns are costly, but they work!

Another useful perspective on response in Taiwan (from March 2020): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689… 4/4

Taiwan has implemented several innovative, effective measures against COVID-19, but it will harm our ability to plan for the next pandemic if we don't look fully at how countries were interpreting - and acting on - available evidence in real-time. 3/

E.g. from April 2020: "Covid-19 is becoming flu-like. It means that since it is highly contagious with many mild or asymptomatic cases, and can be transmitted through droplets and contaminated areas, we won’t get rid of this virus totally." https://telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/taiwans-vice-president-chen-chien-jen-countrys-fight-covid-19/… 2/

This is an interesting perspective on Taiwan (& glad it mentions data/privacy), although I'd like to see more references to what local officials were actually saying about approach in real-time, rather than what UK-based researchers later say it was: https://theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/24/how-taiwan-triumphed-over-covid-as-uk-faltered… 1/

9/. The govt claim that they put “a protective ring “around care homes This is not true On 2 April, despite knowing about asymptomatic spread, the govt sent discharge guidance to hospitals to transfer patients to care homes without testing I found the smoking gun on 13 May

8/. The govt repeatedly claim they didn’t know about ASYMPTOMATIC SPREAD This is not true The govt knew asymptomatic transmission of #COVID19 was likely in Jan & had this confirmed in Feb So why did the govt direct hospitals to transfer people to care homes without testing?

7/. Whilst the concept of #HerdImmunity is perfectly scientific, any virologist or epidemiologist will tell you - & must’ve told the govt - that herd immunity is an OUTCOME, never a STRATEGY Allowing #COVID19 to spread without a vaccine would be madness & result in mass deaths

6/. “Lockdown fatigue” was used as an way of kickstarting another central piece of cod science The HERD IMMUNITY STRATEGY It was Dr Halpern - whose PhD is in political science - who first floated the concept of #HerdImmunity to @BBCMarkEaston on 11/3/20.

5/ The Nudge Unit told BBC’s @lewis_goodall the concept didn’t come from them The crucial questions therefore are: 1) Where did this idea of lockdown/behavioural fatigue come? 2) How did it gain such prominence in govt strategy & in the media narrative?

4/. When questioned on 9/6 whether the idea of #LockdownFatigue had come from him & @B_I_Tweets, #DavidHalpern couldn't remember “It did not, in my memory, come from SPI-B or us", he said, his eyes darting Strangely, @uksciencechief also can’t remember where the idea came from

3/. The concept of "lockdown fatigue" had no basis in behavioural science On 14 March, 700 behavioural scientists published an open letter stating this So where had the idea come from? How had it been allowed to shape govt policy at this crucial time?

2/. “BEHAVIOURAL FATIGUE” A key justification for delaying lockdown was that “if we do it too early people will get bored” The paper-thin reasoning of this claim was apparent at the time But it was repeated by the PM, Ministers, @uksciencechief & Whitty

1/. The PM claims that the govt “stuck to the science like glue” But this is not true At crucial times they ignored the science or concocted pseudo-scientific justifications for their actions & inaction This thread, & the embedded threads, set them out

EMA rules AZ "safe and effective" and benefits outweigh risks...

The CDC's only substantial communication with the public in the pandemic is through its MMW Reports. But the irrelevant & erroneous 1st line of this latest report suggests political meddling to me. (The WHO doesn't declare pandemics. They declare PHEICs, which they did Jan 30)

Re-opening live events and large venues after Covid-19 'lockdown': Behavioural risks and their mitigations

Worrying misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines is being circulated in Whatsapp groups. Doctors @vanessa_apea & @crageshri from @NHSBartsHealth discuss some of these myths & tell us the facts on #aidsmapLIVE.

I wish all these déjà vu reports of "disappearing antibodies" would disappear. That is not a problem. https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/10/20/two-studies-show-covid-19-antibodies-persist-for-months/… by @NIHDirector https://nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2026116… @NEJM

as debate on "saving the economy versus saving lives" marches on, it's worth noting that this type of contrast actually has a name in fallacy research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma… it's also worth noting that there is now a substantial number of research articles on the topic. 1/n

preprint analysing US specifically https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3655899

analysis highlighting the important moderating role of both timing of restrictions and the nature of a country's economic activity

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32835011/ published paperfinds both negative direct effects of social distancing measures and indirect positive effects (via reduction in case numbers) on stock market returns

and one might add the evidence on the 'reverse causal direction' of economic inequality => COVID deaths

the studies by Chetty et al. using real-time economic tracking to study the mechanisms by which C-19 affects the economy

Why did a German newspaper insist the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was inefficacious for older people—without evidence? @hristio reports:

Update: A common question I received was why I didn't include vulnerable individuals under age 45. First, including them doesn't change the shape of the curve Also, just 2% of COVID-19 deaths came from those under 45. And only 4% of all deaths under 45 involve COVID-19.

If you follow my work, you know that the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. And right now, we are still doing a poor job of finding common ground. Thank you to all the experts & scientists who are cutting through politics and advocating for realistic, data-driven goals.

We have a former president who said Covid is already over & a current president who says it won't be normal until Christmas. Because our country is so polarized, this leads to people gravitating towards either extreme. Narratives then become driven by politics, not science.

Yesterday, one state outlined a clear goal for when the mask mandate will be lifted: 8 weeks after 1.6M first doses have been allocated, enough for 70% of the eligible population. I hope other states can also be transparent about their exit strategies.

If we want people to continue to take precautions as restrictions are eased, we should set a common goal to work towards. A messaging such as "you must continue to social distance and wear a mask indefinitely, even if you get vaccinated" will only fuel vaccine hesitancy.

To conclude, it's important that we return to normal in a safe and responsible manner. Currently, the data suggests that we'll be able to do that by this summer.

By summer, everybody who wants a vaccine will be able to get one. The vulnerable population will long have been able to receive their shots. Hospitalizations & deaths will be at negligible levels. Normality will happen... with or without herd immunity.

It's interesting to see so many "but long Covid!" replies, yet not a single one of them gave any guidelines or metrics about when things should go back to normal in their alternate approach. I'm guessing those are the same individuals who have the liberty to work from home.

Being kind isn't just about telling people to stay home. Being kind is about sending kids to school so they can get a proper education. Being kind is also about telling people that it's safe for their children to hug & kiss their grandparents if they've been fully vaccinated.

When can we return to normal? Forget about "herd immunity". Below is my estimate for the number of susceptible individuals over time, as a proportion of the US population. Looking at this graph, what is the best point to go back to normal? Christmas? Fall? Or Summer?

Our country currently has no concrete guidelines for when to expect a return to normal. We seem to be more concerned about a theoretical threshold than setting realistic goals about when restrictions can be dropped. Meanwhile, UK just announced theirs:

At an @improvingpsych meeting with @PsychRabble and @NeilLewisJr a group of people discussed a special article format: A core dialogue - two sides discuss the core of their disagreement, and propose how we could move towards a resolution in the future. Still love the idea!

Too often, scientific debates are like these two mascots. Two parties do their little dance to show off, and walk away, leaving no one wiser about how a disagreement should be resolved.

This piece makes a great point about how we can try to make commentaries more useful for science - turning them from 'pointless quibbles' into pieces where both parties actually commit to working out their disagreements.

@STWorg and @BaerbelW@JoshCompton2011 @WlliamCrozierIV @SeifertColleen @d_j_flynn @M_B_Petersen @tinaeliassi @UlliEcker @BrendanNyhan @JaneSuit @DanLarhammar @mariabaghramian @PieroBianucci @a_b_powell @FullFact @ProfDFreeman @andrew_chadwick @ipanalysis @SineadPLambe @SJVanders @mariejuanchich

@STWorg and @BaerbelW@profrapp @roozenbot @PhilippMSchmid @GaleSinatra @emilythorson @ekvraga @LeticiaBode @lkfazio @JasonReifler @philipplenz6 @jayvanbavel @AndyPerfors @MicahGoldwater @M_B_Petersen @Karen_Douglas @CorneliaBetsch @ira_hyman @lingtax @annaklas_ @andyguess @DerynStrange

But why stop at German? We also have a Spanish translation: "Manual de Comunicación Para la Vacuna Contra el COVID-19" available at https://sks.to/C19Vax-es Yet another @BaerbelW Incorporated accomplishment. And yes, another translation due tomorrow... stand by to learn more...

@STWorg and @BaerbelW@olbeun @SciBeh @lombardi_learn @kostas_exarhia @stefanmherzog @commscholar @johnfocook @Briony_Swire @Sander_vdLinden @DG_Rand @kendeou @dlholf @ProfSunitaSah @HendirkB @gordpennycook @adamhfinn @emmapsychology @ThomsonAngus @UMDCollegeofEd @gavaruzzi @katytapper @julieleask

Do epidemics lower trust in scientists?

Herd immunity is the end goal of developing a vaccine, @thehowie explains. But when government officials talk about relying on “herd immunity” as a strategy for slowing or stopping the Covid-19 pandemic without a vaccine, it’s a more dangerous approach.

Today @annelongfield gives her last speech as Children’s Commissioner for England. Here’s a preview:

University Students' Adherence to the COVID-19-guidelines: A Qualitative Study on Facilitators and Barriers

Lockdown: Students told not to rush home from uni

Trying to appease both public health demands and the libertarian views of the free market has led not only to astronomical death tolls, such as in the US, UK, and Brazil, but to flailing economies.

governments willing to take the political and economic hit of harsh restrictions early in 2020 are now benefiting from freedom from population restrictions, and in the case of South Korea and China, flourishing economies.

Halfway compromises do not work in response to pandemics and have just dragged out the pandemic for all. Frustratingly, for those of us who research the politics of global health security, this was entirely foreseen.

Our paper on evaluating the first three months of the NHS COVID-19 app is out now as a pre-print.

3.7 million infected with #COVID19 in the UK. An estimated 5-10% will develop #LongCovid. We can't afford to ignore this unfolding health crisis. Join us, 1.30pm. With @theAliceRoberts @chrischirp + guest experts @Dr2NisreenAlwan @drsarah_e

Having been working with the UK regulator as an advisor for several months I have refrained from commenting on specific vaccines but this is good news so far. However, we remain vigilant!

Students Attending School Remotely Suffer Socially, Emotionally, and Academically

How to perform Robust Bayesian Meta-Analysis in JASP. To learn more, have a look at the tutorial video: https://bit.ly/37ENOPL as well as the tutorial paper: https://bit.ly/2Hm7flq

Weekly update of COAP As of 23.10.2020, we have indexed 80588 publications: *8902 pre-prints *71686 peer-reviewed publications Pre-prints: BioRxiv, MedRxiv Peer-reviewed: PubMed, EMBASE

Competence within sports science, and biases towards insider methods seemed to play key roles in this case. We argue that these features may play a more general role in the persistence of poor methods, expanding claims from Akerlof et al. 3

We look at a case study - the use of MBI in sports science. Incoherent statistical methods have persisted for over a decade, despite criticism by statisticians. Draws on work by amazing sports journalist @cragcrest and statistician @KristinSainani 2

Using agent-based methods we show how even modest contact between disciplines can allow better methods to spread. This is because outsiders can award academic credit to those using good methods, leading to their uptake. 5

We build both analytic and agent based models to explore how these features might prevent the adoption of better methods. But wait, are scientific disciplines with poor methods doomed? 4

We find this result is robust across many conditions, and discuss what it might mean for the set-up of real scientific disciplines. 6

New paper!!! @psmaldino look at what causes the persistence of poor methods in science, even when better methods are available. And we argue that interdisciplinary contact can lead better methods to spread. 1

"Halfway compromises do not work in response to pandemics and have just dragged out the pandemic for all. Frustratingly, for those of us who research the politics of global health security, this was entirely foreseen."

"Trying to appease both public health demands and the libertarian views of the free market has led not only to astronomical death tolls, such as in the US, UK, and Brazil, but to flailing economies. "

"governments willing to take the political and economic hit of harsh restrictions early in 2020 are now benefiting from freedom from population restrictions, and in the case of South Korea and China, flourishing economies." Independent panel report: 1/3

important themes that emerged in discussion: accuracy, trust, transparency and bias in AI support tools for policy (more on this in the "Tools" session tomorrow) as well as the benefits (and perils) of coproduction between policy makers and researchers..

Session 2: the policy interface followed with a really helpful presentation by Lindsey Pike, from Bristol, and then panel discussion with Mirjam Jenny (Robert Koch Insitute), Paulina Lang (UK Cabinet Office), Rachel McCloy (Reading Uni.), and Rene van Bavel (European Commission)

..and possible tensions between close science-policy links, on the one hand, and science-general public trust issues on the other. Discussion will continue via our Reddits: https://reddit.com/r/BehSciAsk/comments/jkzuig/ideas_for_discussion_how_can_research_interface/… and #scibeh2020

videos and summary docs will be posted online to help those who missed the session get up to speed join us now for hackathon sessions (underway), and tomorrow, Day 2

@STWorg @stefanmherzog

UK faith leaders join to counter fears over vaccine in BAME communities

This graph shows the share of the Swedish population testing positive to antibodies against covid week on week. The results are pretty startling.

You can always see the latest SocArXiv papers on COVID-19 topics here: https://bit.ly/2XNVF7b. You can comment using the @hypothes_is tool, and endorse using the @PlauditPub button. And add your own work, using the covid-19 tag.

Bah, higher than in *unvaccinated* population.

A reminder: especially among the elderly, some individuals will die shortly after receipt of the vaccine. What we need to understand is the background rate of such deaths. Are they higher then in the vaccinated population? We didn't see that in the trials. Some data from @RtAVM.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A review (pre-proof) out in Physics Reports!

#LongCovid prevalence in a study of 1,733 hospitalised patients in Wuhan at average follow-up of 6 months: 76% at least one ongoing symptom 63% fatigue or muscle weakness 26% sleep problems 23% anxiety/depression 9% palpitations 9% joint pain 5% chest pain https://thelancet.com/action/showFullTableHTML?isHtml=true&tableId=tbl2&pii=S0140-6736%2820%2932656-8

am retweeting this with reminder of an alternative opinion expressing concern about flooding ICUs beyond capacity with young people if relaxations are lifted too soon https://spiegel.de/international/germany/interview-with-virologist-christian-drosten-i-am-quite-apprehensive-about-what-might-otherwise-happen-in-spring-and-summer-a-f22c0495-5257-426e-bddc-c6082d6434d5

An informed community is a healthier community. Check us out at @UCLACOVID19 and @uclaaasc's http://translatecovid.org for reliable multilingual COVID-19 information. #covid19 #healthliteracy #healthmatters #publichealth #multilingual #healthliteracymonth #IHA @UCLAFSPH @uclaaasc

The science behind how and when to give vaccines doses.

Universities and colleges face Covid funding shortfalls

I’ve turned down a lot of COVID-related interviews/events this year because topic was outside my main expertise and/or I thought there were others who were better placed to comment. Science communication isn’t just about what you take part in – it’s also about what you decline.

Every so often I am reminded that there is an entire universe of people just casually giving out gazillions of wrong answers on researchgate like it's no big deal, and it's wild.

Israel: 2.4M after 1st dose (27% pop) 78% of all 60+ years old Despite that, we have a problem: cities of lower socio-economic status and more cases get vaccinated less X: Socioeconomic rank Y: % 60+ years old vaccinated Color: Vaccination need ratio @MDCaspi by covid-19 cases

Excellent new Covid RED dashboard from UCL https://covid.i-sense.org.uk Would be good to also know (a) how many contacts isolate (b) how many would not have done so anyway (c) how many actually infected. All necessary for T+T to be effective - need this info!

We need to start learning now how best to ‘nudge’ people to receive their vaccinations.

England's quarantine hotels won't stop spread of coronavirus variants

Resistance to COVID-19 vaccination has increased in Ireland and the UK during the pandemic

Our great team works over the clock to make this data accurate and insightful demonstrating how important it is to have MDs, Data-scientists, Healthcare policy experts working together in harmony. @ShinaAvi @GilCaspi1 @AvshalomDayan @EshalYael @SigalTaub https://vaccinations.covid19maps.org

Leadership. One of the most important and non-trivial steps taken by @JoeBiden is the decision to prioritize the protection of those at the highest risk. In Israel, our analysis shows that municipalities at low SES have the lowest rates of vaccination of at-risk populations.1/4

Our novel metric - Vaccination Need Ratio (VNR) assesses the disease burden in a municipality relative to the level of 60+ pop. vaccinated. While the pandemic reaches calamitous scales, policymakers should target those red pockets of high VNR to effectively restrain it. 2/4

These are not the low hanging fruits. For that, we do need leadership worldwide, prioritization of equality, and real national responsibility for healthcare. Boosting vaccine accessibility should be coupled with public education, info, and transparency. @EricTopol 3/4

Body Image During Quarantine; Generational Effects of Social Media Pressure on Body Appearance Perception

The Biden "American Rescue Plan" goes *big*: $1.9T, incl almost every Dem stimulus priority under the sun: State/local, checks, UI, SNAP, renters, EITC, CTC, $15/hr min wage, paid leave, child care ... and $400b for Covid relief. @michaelcrowley & me:

a devastating graph that any proponent of 'natural' herd immunity needs to address

We are excited to launch of a side project we worked on this summer - http://Bleepr.ai. We scan Twitter profiles with over 10k followers and list Tweets we find which are toxic, abusive, hateful or hyperpartisan in tone. Check it out here!

Summary of NERVTAG view on new SARS-CoV-2 variant, from 18 Dec (full document here: https://khub.net/documents/135939561/338928724/SARS-CoV-2+variant+under+investigation%2C+meeting+minutes.pdf/962e866b-161f-2fd5-1030-32b6ab467896?t=1608470511452…)

Predictors of Social Distancing and Hand Washing among Adults in Five Countries during COVID-19

starting soon Day 2 SchBeh Workshop "Building an online information environment for policy relevant science" join for a Q&A with Martha Scherzer (WHO) on role of behavioural scientists in a crisis followed by sessions on "Online Discourse" and "Tools"

1 week to the SciBeh workshop "Building an online information environment for policy relevant science" Join us, register now! Topics: crisis open science, interfacing to policy, online discourse, tools for research curation talks, panels, hackathons https://scibeh.org/events/workshop2020/

Now #scibeh2020: Pat Healey from QMU, Univ. of London speaking about (online) interaction and miscommunication in our session on "Managing Online Research Discourse"

Newsdesk in March issue: #COVID19 among American Indians and Alaska Natives

wow, Our World in Data now showing both Sweden and Germany having a higher daily Covid death rate than the UK https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-11-25..latest&country=GBR~DEU~SWE&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc

OTOH a recent talk with @jbakcoleman convinced me maybe this is not all bad. When child credit *does* show up in the trending topics, it's usually because it has become divisive, simplified, or spun. You probably don't *want* these subject to get the trending treatment.

So if you are wondering why your twitter timeline is filled with Piers Morgan even though zero people care about him and not filled with details about the child credit its b/c its very easy to form accurate opinions on Morgan on the basis of watching him talk for 5 seconds.

One of the drivers of Twitter daily topics is that topics must be participatory to trend, which means one must be able to form a firm opinion on a given subject in the absence of previous knowledge. And, it turns out, this is a bit of a flaw.

In other words, if Piers Morgan isn't trending and child care tax credit is, prepare for the child care credit to get Piers Morganified. Might be better if people are just happy when the checks show up unexpectedly.

How to obtain introductory texts using the Learn Bayes Module in JASP.

Now #scibeh2020: presentation and Q&A with Martha Scherzer, senior risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) Consultant at the World Health Organization

many aspects to the vaccine pauses are worthy of discussion, but am I alone in thinking that *undermining public perception of the regulators* can only increase vaccine hesitancy? can promoting trust in vaccine safety by publicly condemning decision really be a viable strategy?

n.b. I think there are clearly ways to communicate the issues and concerns at stake, while acknowledging that one does not have access to full set of facts, i.e. *without* making the leap to publicly declaring a decision is clearly wrong

In 4 days: SciBeh workshop "Building an online information environment for policy relevant science" Join us! Topics: crisis open science, interfacing to policy, online discourse, tools for research curation talks, panels, hackathons https://scibeh.org/events/workshop2020/…… I

#AcademicTwitter @HealthPsychX @cogsci_soc @BPSOfficial @INGSciAdvice @BobbyDuffyKings

New study on mortality of B.1.1.7 using health records from England. We found the variant of concern (VOC) was 1.67x more likely to result in death, controlling for comorbidities, age, week, region & other sociodemographics. NB NOT YET PEER REVIEWED (1/8)

But the whole document is genius: “It takes more than a convenient ‘re-interpretation’ by PHE to overturn a definition that has been the law of the land for thirty years and make something that is not PPE into PPE.” @PHE_uk @NHSEngland @KamranAbbasi @fgodlee

Truth. @FreshAirNHS @theRCN @TheBMA @mancunianmedic @DrLindaDykes @Chakladar_A @KGadhok https://tridenthse.co.uk/covid-report.pdf

Evidence will be presented that: • the relevant Government departments (PHE/DHSC) are seriously misleading healthcare workers by referring to surgical masks as ‘PPE’,

the HSE provides advice specifically for HCWs: “Until the cause & route of transmission are known, in addition to standard precautions, infection control measures for inpatients should include...airborne precautions, e.g. use of FFP3 filtering masks for persons entering the room”

Take a moment. It’s worth it.

And clearly, but incredibly: ‘They [@WHO, PHE, @DHSCgovuk] do not, DESPITE THE MOUNTAINOUS WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE NOW ASSEMBLED, seem willing to accept that aerosols produced by natural means (coughing, sneezing, talking, etc.) are relevant in disease transmission. @akm5376 @pash22

• this misinformation leads workers to a false belief that they are being adequately protected, and • this seriously compromises the health and safety of these workers and endangers their lives @doctorsdilemma @DrPieterPeach @YouAreLobbyLud

My favourite part: 8. THE ‘UNIVERSAL ETHICAL CODE FOR SCIENTISTS’ @Sir_David_King what do you think: have our ‘politician-scientists’ upheld these values, or have they chosen to ignore wrong-doing? @chrischirp @IndependentSage @globalhlthtwit

Whenever you vaccinate millions and millions of people, some will inevitably die shortly after. Others will get blood clots. Others will crash cars, or fall down stairs. None of this is newsworthy until there’s reason to believe these things are connected.

reports of 6 cases of cerebral venous sinus thromboses (CVST) in younger women Germany following 1.6 million AZ vaccines https://pei.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/newsroom-en/hp-news/faq-temporary-suspension-astrazeneca.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=5… UK reports 3 cases after 10 mil AZs, 1 after 10 mil Pfizer https://gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting#annex-1-vaccine-… analysis-print EMA will look at age profile

PHIL STAT FORUM NOVEMBER 19; STEPHEN SENN "Randomisation and Control in the Age of Coronavirus?" https://phil-stat-wars.com/2020/10/30/november-19-randomisation-and-control-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-stephen-senn/

A key issue facing health communicators around the AZ-vaccine is that this () emphasis on costs-vs.-benefits may promote the same thinking among citizens. Research shows that cost-benefit reasoning itself is associated with vaccine skepticism (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0208601…). [1/2]

This is worsened as costs of #covid19 are not mentally similar to costs of side effects, even if the latter are less risky. People prefer controllable risks to uncontrollabe risks, even if less lethal (https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597884710673…). That is why you fear flying but not driving. [2/2]

A new study predicts the effect of fully reopening schools - pushing R up from 0.8 to between 1.1-1.5. R is very abstract. What it means is that, in classrooms with no meaningful mitigation in place, children WILL become infected & WILL spread the virus.

.@POTUS says local doctors would be more effective at getting the message across about vaccines to Trump supporters than the former president would be

It's been 100 days since the first dose of the SARS2-CoV vaccine was given in the UK, and 24.8 million people have received their first dose since. That is pretty amazing.

Our letter in the Times. ‘We request that the government urgently and openly share the scientific evidence, data and modelling it is using to inform its decision on the #Covid_19 public health interventions’ @richardhorton1 @miriamorcutt @devisridhar @drannewilson @PWGTennant

Exactly a year ago we wrote this letter in the Times. We were gobsmacked! We just didn’t understand what the government was basing all its decisions on including stopping testing and the herd immunity by natural infection stuff. We wanted to see the evidence backing them.

yes, we all make mistakes, but a responsible actor also factors the kinds of mistakes she is prone to making into decisions on what actions to take: I'm not that great with my hands, so I never contemplated being a neuro-surgeon. not everyone should be a public voice on COVID

There is nothing wrong with making an error. But if your beliefs are based on a tenfold underestimation of risk they should change when that underestimation is corrected.

A while back I queried the wisdom of reputable academics publishing on the Toby Young created website http://lockdownsceptics.org. This tweet this morning by its creator, I feel, sheds further light on that issueQuote Tweet

12 March 2020 "The public could be putting themselves *more* at risk from contracting coronavirus by wearing face masks." "Jenny Harries, England's deputy chief medical officer, said the masks could “actually trap the virus” and cause the person wearing it to breathe it in"

New summary report on SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants of interest in the UK: https://gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201… via @fact_covid

Today we are officially launching our Practical Health Psychology Free E-Book @EHPSociety @PractHealthPsy https://practicalhealthpsychology.com/e-book/ Translating behavioural research to practice, one blog post at a time #BehaviouralScience #HealthPsychology #Health

The map is not the territory. And the mapmakers are not the map.

OBVIOUSLY by “science’s truths”, I meant the truths about the real world that science aspires to find, NOT scientists’ beliefs during any particular historical era – phlogiston, etc. My point was only that there’s such a thing as objective reality – denied by postmodern pseuds.

Science is not a social construct. Science’s truths were true before there were societies; will still be true after all philosophers are dead; were true before any philosophers were born; were true before there were any minds, even trilobite or dinosaur minds, to notice them.

25 March deadline for submissions to our "special track" https://dataforpolicy.org/data-fof-policy-2021/special-track-3/… at Data for Policy conference, 14-16 September at UCL. Please consider submitting @SciBeh @stefanmherzog @Sander_vdLinden

Testing works. I test daily. Insist on HOME testing. @michaelmina_lab @JoeBiden Research suggests B.1.526 needs to be closely watched “for its ability to evade both monoclonal antibody and, to a certain extent, the vaccine-induced antibody,” said Fauci

Thursday-Saturday air traffic numbers are up 6.5% vs last week, which were up 5% from the prior week: