Public gatherings in Sweden are to be limited to eight people, down from a previous upper limit of 300, the prime minister said on Monday, as he blamed a fall in adherence to infection control recommendations.

Sweden limits public gatherings to eight people

The best COVID-19 response in the world

COVID Underdogs: Mongolia

(CNN)You're likely familiar with the tenets of Covid-19 prevention by now: Stay home when you can, keep 6 feet of distance from others when you're out and wear a mask if you're indoors or around other people. We've been told to do these things for so long -- around eight months now -- that they feel like second nature. But it can be tempting to relax and stop following these suggestions as stringently.

Here's everything you need to know about social distancing

Three groups representing emergency and rescue services called on the federal government to take immediate “coordinated measures to contain the second wave” a day after Switzerland registered a record number of new cases of the coronavirus.

Emergency care workers urge Swiss government to act as Covid cases soar

Student-led mutual aid networks have raised tens of thousands of dollars to help peers cover basic costs of living.

How College Students Are Helping Each Other Survive

Doctors, scientists and the hospitality industry all say that Boris Johnson's plans for Christmas are a mistake.

COVID-19: 'Muddled thinking' and 'recipe for regret' - PM's Christmas bubble plans under fire

10.1016/0048-7333(94)01002-1

Science policy issues have recently joined technology issues in being acknowledged to have strategic importance for national ‘competitiveness’ and ‘economic security’. The economics literature addressed specifically to science and its interdependences with technological progress has been quite narrowly focused and has lacked an overarching conceptual framework to guide empirical studies and public policy discussions in this area. The emerging ‘new economics of science’, described by this paper, offers a way to remedy these deficiencies. It makes use of insights from the theory of games of incomplete information to synthesize the classic approach of Arrow and Nelson in examining the implications of the characteristics of information for allocative efficiency in research activities, on the one hand, with the functionalist analysis of institutional structures, reward systems and behavioral norms of ‘open science’ communities-associated with the sociology of science in the tradition of Merton-on the other.An analysis is presented of the gross features of the institutions and norms distinguishing open science from other modes of organizing scientific research, which shows that the collegiate reputation-based reward system functions rather well in satisfying the requirement of social efficiency in increasing the stock of reliable knowledge. At a more fine-grain level of examination, however, the detailed workings of the system based on the pursuit of priority are found to cause numerous inefficiencies in the allocation of basic and applied science resources, both within given fields and programs and across time. Another major conclusion, arrived at in the context of examining policy measures and institutional reforms proposed to promote knowledge transfers between university-based open science and commercial R&D, is that there are no economic forces that operate automatically to maintain dynamic efficiency in the interactions of these two (organizational) spheres. Ill-considered institutional experiments, which destroy their distinctive features if undertaken on a sufficient scale, may turn out to be very costly in terms of long-term economic performance.

Toward a new economics of science

The #AcademicTwitter story... And so it came to pass, that in less than one year, more than 100,000 articles had been published about #COVID19 #SARSCoV2... while shepherds watched their flocks and angels from the realms of glory winged their flight o'er the earth.

10.1093/bjps/axz029

Prepublication peer review should be abolished. We consider the effects that such a change will have on the social structure of science, paying particular attention to the changed incentive structure and the likely effects on the behaviour of individual scientists. We evaluate these changes from the perspective of epistemic consequentialism. We find that where the effects of abolishing prepublication peer review can be evaluated with a reasonable level of confidence based on presently available evidence, they are either positive or neutral. We conclude that on present evidence abolishing peer review weakly dominates the status quo.

Is Peer Review a Good Idea?

new papers, without any quality control whatsoever that render manuscript incomplete) - so we need to be much clearer on what 'scooped' means in the new publishing world 5/5

one reason for why that rule would seem adaptive more generally is that I have also experienced what seem like bad faith reviewers who are using the mushrooming preprint volume to indefinitely postpone manuscript acceptance (as in trendy areas there will invariably be 4/5

the fundamental question that needs resolving is whether we treat non-peer reviewed preprints like we now treat published work. Personally, I have been citing non-peer review and hence not properly published work only where it has influenced the work I am reporting 3/5

2) it is not known and not cited- this seems ok from the perspective of the author, but should reviewers/journal be able to force inclusion? and 3) author knows work, but it played no role in own paper and is not cited. - appropriateness depends on answer to 2) ... 2/5

A thread: This is an important issue as preprints become the norm. There seem to me several distinct cases: 1) preprint is known to authors, used but not cited - that is just 'stealing' same as with published work and unproblematic. 1/5

10.1073/pnas.2014564118

The science around the use of masks by the public to impede COVID-19 transmission is advancing rapidly. In this narrative review, we develop an analytical framework to examine mask usage, synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple areas: population impact, transmission characteristics, source control, wearer protection, sociological considerations, and implementation considerations. A primary route of transmission of COVID-19 is via respiratory particles, and it is known to be transmissible from presymptomatic, paucisymptomatic, and asymptomatic individuals. Reducing disease spread requires two things: limiting contacts of infected individuals via physical distancing and other measures and reducing the transmission probability per contact. The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infected respiratory particles in both laboratory and clinical contexts. Public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high. Given the current shortages of medical masks, we recommend the adoption of public cloth mask wearing, as an effective form of source control, in conjunction with existing hygiene, distancing, and contact tracing strategies. Because many respiratory particles become smaller due to evaporation, we recommend increasing focus on a previously overlooked aspect of mask usage: mask wearing by infectious people (“source control”) with benefits at the population level, rather than only mask wearing by susceptible people, such as health care workers, with focus on individual outcomes. We recommend that public officials and governments strongly encourage the use of widespread face masks in public, including the use of appropriate regulation.

An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19

10.1038/d41586-021-00046-7

Here’s the familiar news: governments around the world face a crisis of trust. Populations are increasingly polarized. Politicians struggle to make tough decisions that demand consensus and a long-term view.Less familiar is the fact that governments are increasingly turning to the public for help in decision-making, through deliberative processes such as citizens’ assemblies and juries — and it seems to be working. But now the events of 2020 have moved much of this online, and we shouldn’t take success for granted.

The pandemic has pushed citizen panels online

Part II: "what do they know, why do ICU doctors speak about ICU beds, they're not the experts, why don't we rather listen to the economists, I personally don't know anyone who's on ICU right now, ICU treatment is done wrong anyway, and why don't you go back to your home country?"

Swiss ICU doctors: "regular ICU beds full" Twitter: "No they're not, newspaper says no, there must be other beds they didn't count, all patients are false positive PCRs, ICUs are always full, ICUs are made to be full, ICU staff are lobbyists, just send more ICU patients home"

Wealthy state that has eschewed new curbs faces one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the world

Swiss economists urge Bern to impose second lockdown

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland announced tighter restrictions on Sunday to tackle the second wave of the coronavirus hitting the country, including a nation-wide obligation to wear masks and a ban on large scale public gatherings.

Swiss tighten measures to combat COVID-19 second wave

'I'm a Doctor in Illinois, We're Scared of Running Out of Hospital Beds'

Truly good news out of #Italy. And we can all use it. Cases (23K), positive rate (12.3%), and hospitalizations all DOWN. ICU occupancy with smallest increase in months. Deaths (not surprisingly) the one exception with 3rd highest total.

Three different households will be allowed to mix inside, but most experts are being cautious

'Drinks on the pavement': UK scientists on their Christmas plans

We build a publicly available database that tracks economic activity at a granular level in real time using anonymized data from private companies.

The Economic Impacts of COVID-19: Evidence from a New Public Database Built Using Private Sector Data

The models could help inform policy on everything from mask mandates to social distancing

COVID Models Show How to Avoid Future Lockdowns

Military historian Doug Sterner with some interesting perspective on COVID-19.

10.1136/bmj.m4155

Many patients discharged from hospitals in England in the past six months under new arrangements to free up beds did not get the follow-up support they needed, concludes a report from HealthWatch, which represents patients’ interests in England.

Covid-19: Hospital discharges during pandemic were often chaotic, says watchdog

"Endemic seasonal virus. Causing respiratory disease. In winter." @JuliaHB1

"Winter respiratory viruses have one, or two, winter peaks. The fact every country has falling cases is wonderful news and evidence of endemicity." @ClareCraigPath

"What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could." @BorisJohnson

"A not-very-severe outbreak of disease which is largely over." @ClarkeMicah

"I wish we'd done what Sweden did." @JuliaHB1

"Endemic seasonal virus. Causing respiratory disease. In winter." @JuliaHB1

"I'm happy with Sweden, thanks." @JuliaHB1

"They're still doing a lot better than us." @JuliaHB1

"Over 42 million [UK citizens] must have had it and are thus ‘effectively vaccinated’ and cannot transmit." Sure. @LanceForman

"Let's relax and accept the risk." @ClarkeMicah

"I’ve asked so many people if they know anyone who has had Covid. Hardly anyone. Two people knew someone (not close) who’d died. Without daily news would we even know there was an epidemic?" @allisonpearson

Feb. "The coronavirus isn't going to kill you." May. "There hasn't been a 'second spike' anywhere." Jul. "Let's relax and accept the risk." Aug. "At what point do we declare the pandemic over?" Dec. "Without daily news would we even know there was an epidemic?" Meanwhile.

"Vitally important that people understand that 'infections' (as BBC call them, actually positives, often without symptoms) are reflection of the number of tests done, not a measure of the level of illness." @ClarkeMicah

"It's December. Respiratory disease hospitalisations rise every winter." @JuliaHB1

"Sweden settled in for the long haul, and now doesn’t need to worry about a second surge." @DanielJHannan

"Despite a supposedly deadly second wave..." @ClarkeMicah

"The entire WORLD is being badly hurt by the China Virus." @realDonaldTrump

"Sadly, we are still not following Sweden. Why, don't you think it would be a good idea?" @JuliaHB1

"General infection rates and respiratory diseases always go up in September and October. I've had a cold every September since my daughter started nursery." @JuliaHB1

"We want them infected."

"I’ve asked so many people if they know anyone who has had Covid. Hardly anyone. Two people knew someone (not close) who’d died. Without daily news would we even know there was an epidemic?" @allisonpearson

"There hasn’t been a 'second spike' anywhere. Not in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland... not in any US states… nowhere. Utter balls." @toadmeister

"Lockdowns don't work."

"Sweden settled in for the long haul, and now doesn't need to worry about a second surge." @DanielJHannan

"So many on Twitter dancing on the head of a pin when it comes to Sweden because they don’t like the data."

"Covid deaths in Sweden remain low."

"Sweden settled in for the long haul, and now doesn't need to worry about a second surge."

"Switzerland and Austria - the new Swedens?"

"In all of them the epidemic is now (in terms of positive test results) either in decline or plateauing."

"Lockdowns don't work."

"It's called the autumn. Every autumn we see an increase in respiratory diseases. It happens every single year."

"It's called the autumn. Every autumn we see an increase in respiratory diseases. It happens every single year."

"Trust your eyes, not the fake news."

"The number is almost nothing. Because we’ve gotten control of this thing, we understand how it works. They have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this."

"Scotland is not doing better than the rest of the UK."

"Only a small increase in bed demand. No pandemic."

"I'm going to go out on a limb and predict there will be no 'second spike' - not now, and not in autumn either. The virus has melted into thin air."

"Respiratory deaths rise in Northern countries at this time of year."

"Switzerland is doing better than most."

"European Countries are sadly getting clobbered by the China Virus."

"There's always a surge in respiratory illnesses in Europe during autumn."

"The peak of infections was two weeks before we locked down."

"If Sweden succeeds, lockdowns will all have been for nothing."

"We should look at Sweden and learn from their experience."

"Lockdowns don't work."

30 June 2020. Fauci: "I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around, and so I am very concerned." Trump: "He's a little bit of an alarmist."

"Infections are going down, not up."

"Each part of the world offers a control in the lockdown experiment. To justify the lockdowns, those places wouldn't just have to lag behind this or that neighbour; they'd have to stick out like sore thumbs."

"Cases in Belgium already started to drop before the national lockdown on 2 Nov." [Narrator: Belgium closed all bars and restaurants on 19 October and introduced a curfew between midnight and 5 am]

"South Dakota is the Sweden of the USA."

"There is no science to suggest a second wave should happen."

"It will be over by Christmas."

"The rate of new infections had peaked before the imposition of the lockdown in March."

"We have made tremendous progress."

"We are very close to reaching herd immunity."

"The coronavirus isn't going to kill you. It really isn't."

"The pandemic in the UK is over."

"Infection rates go up in winter and down in summer."

"People in Asia have a natural immunity against coronaviruses."

"Sweden did it right because they didn't go into full lockdown."

"What we are seeing now is normal for this time of the year."

"There is no second wave."

30/n So AT BEST assuming there are no other errors, the estimate of the years of life lost due to school closures should be divided by 5

29/n If I re-run the meta-analysis they've purported to use with the correct numbers, we end up with this graph instead. A relative reduction in risk of death of 5% for every year of schooling This is A QUARTER of the estimate used in the study

28/n However you slice it, it's inappropriate to just bung these two estimates together into a model and treat them as separate. I would argue that the Mazumder paper is probably a better estimate, but either way what they've done here is wrong

27/n You see, Lleras-Muney compiled an estimate based on a number of factors on the reduction in risk from 1 year of extra schooling. Mazumder, three years later, took that same database and re-analyzed it considering additional factors, and estimated a lower reduction

26/n So the number is wrong, but this brings us to another issue - the two papers at the top that were double-weighted...are ON THE SAME DATASET This is a massive issue

25/n Mazumder (2008) did not find a relative risk of 0.65 (0-1.3), it found an RR of 0.89 (0.74-1.04) The paper is here. I've read it very carefully and this appears to be the main finding from the author https://chicagofed.org/publications/economic-perspectives/2008/2qtr2008-part1-mazumder

24/n Firstly, we have these top 2 papers. Because they're from the US, they are more heavily weighted than the others (this is arbitrary, but whatever) Except the values for the second paper are flatly incorrect

23/n This number is the ENTIRE BASIS for the paper. If schooling reduces mortality by less than 25%, then the number of deaths caused by missed school days will drop as well And we have a problem, because this 25% figure is...wrong

22/n Ok, there's another HUGE problem with the study The findings are entirely based on the idea that an extra year of schooling reduces your risk of death by 25%, a figure reached by aggregating studies in a meta-analysis model

21/n Also, what's the impact of parents/carers getting sick and dying? Presumably this will have an outsized impact on the children it affects, which would cause (based on this model) large increases in YLL

20/n Another point I've been thinking about - the authors fail to consider the impact of an ongoing epidemic on school attendance. Lots of cases in the local area probably impacts schooling as well!

19/n Many further criticisms of this paper that I missed in this also excellent thread. It appears that almost none of the assumptions in the paper make any sense at all

18/n I should add - I am not saying that closing schools is necessarily a positive in this thread. What I AM saying, however, is that we could not possibly know whether it was or not from this paper

17/n At best, what we've got here is a very rough inference about what the impact of school closures could possibly have been (as long as US kids in 2020 are the same as Argentinians in 1977), compared to an undercount of the impact of what COVID-19 probably was

16/n It may be possible to do a rigorous cost/benefit of school closures, but I really don't see how this can be considered one

15/n Ultimately, what we get in the end - the "98.1% probability" figure - makes almost no sense at all. Even if the Argentinian study was applicable to the US situation, which it clearly isn't, the counterfactual is just inappropriate

14/n (This is also a problem for the YLL calculation for children missing school, FYI, it is FAR more complex than just missing educational attainment. So many potential things that are not included here!)

13/n Where are the years of lost life due to ICU stays? Hospitalizations? Disability, mental health issues, avoided care due to full hospitals, etc etc etc???

12/n But, if we're comparing the total impact of missed education on children over a lifetime, this makes no sense. COVID-19 has many other harms, after all, some of which are disputed but many of which are easily attributable

11/n Next, the authors did something odd. They decided to compare this to the DIRECT mortality from COVID-19. This means that they are only counting people who have died as a direct result of the disease

10.5/n (Also, whether the impact of teachers formally striking on children in the 70s is the same as missing days of in-person education during a pandemic in 2020...I would say probably not)

10/n It should also be noted that the impact of TEACHERS' STRIKES on ARGENTINIAN CHILDREN may not mean much when we're talking about American children, some % of whom could learn at home and thus were not explicitly missing class

9/n Indeed, the main analysis of this paper explicitly excludes the impact of missing secondary education because their data was incomplete and many Argentinian children in the cohort at the time did not attend secondary school

8/n Note there that I said ASSOCIATION. This is a key point. The authors of this paper WARN AGAINST USING IT CAUSALLY because, among other issues, the data for children in Argentina in the 70s and 80s (especially schoolkids) was not great

7/n This is a long and fascinating examination of the association between teachers' strikes in Argentina and the eventual earnings that children achieved when they grew up

6/n Firstly, the paper that all of this extrapolation is based on - reference 14. This is where the authors got the relationship between days of schooling missed and overall educational attainment

5/n Now, that sounds very robust. 98.1% probability is extremely certain! It's also, as far as I can tell, an incredibly meaningless number. NONE OF THIS IS THE SLIGHTEST BIT CERTAIN

4/n They then compared this with estimates of the number of years of life lost due to COVID-19 already, and found that the loss of educational attainment caused more death (with 98.1% probability!)

3/n Specifically, they said: 1. Children miss days of school 2. Days of school cause decreased educational attainment 3. Decreased educational attainment causes less life

2/n Paper is here. It's actually very simple, basically the authors took an estimate of how many days of school kids lost due to closures during COVID-19, an estimate of how much that impacts their years of life, and multiplied out

Ok, so I've had a read of this paper (which has been all over the news) that says quite explicitly that closing schools will probably cause more years of life lost than leaving them open in a pandemic Let's do some peer-review on twitter! 1/n

10.1136/bmj.m4604

In October, Healthwatch England published a report on the experiences of 590 patients and carers,1 interviewed about leaving hospital under NHS England’s “discharge to assess” arrangements from April to August 2020. Many patients and families reported that communication and implementation of discharge had been poor.

David Oliver: Getting defensive over patient experience in the pandemic

With the holidays fast approaching and COVID-19 cases and deaths reaching new highs, some U.S. officials are, to limit the spread of COVID-19, urging—or even requiring—that residents alter their typical celebrations.

Understanding the Outrage Over Altering Holiday Celebrations Despite COVID-19 Risks