1/6
Prof J Newton PHE (C4News) says it's "too early" to conclude UK 43 deaths/1000 c.f. 12/K in Germany and 3/k in S. Korea has anything to do with testing

Meanwhile in just one day - today UKGov has promised 3m, 10m and 17m tests

Journalists some tips - lives depend on you

2/6
It's unusual, but treat any UKGov representative academic as a hostile witness. Extreme scepticism.

If you need a UKGov affiliated but independent academic start here.

NERVTAG's global expertise has been without reproach (often ignored by UKGov) https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/new-and-emerging-respiratory-virus-threats-advisory-group#members-biographies

3/6

Blanket ban Patrick Vallance. No valid science on Covid-19, yet he

endorsed a HerdImmunity (HI) strategy
gave an unknowable HI effective rate
is still talking multi-waves of infection (wrong for current strategy)
was unaware of death rates by age
And many others.

4/6
Ensure you ask for UK performance net of strategy errors. ie. if we had

1. not pursued Herd Immunity
2. contained at airports
3. ordered timely supplies and ventilators for NHS
4. locked down as advised.

no 4 alone is a death count 3x smaller https://twitter.com/imartincorena/status/1240634861800611840?s=19

5/6

Please ask about any UK decisions in the context of best practice from other countries.

UK has viral experts. But we lag expertise (vs CN, SK) in this specific virus

I cannot recall any choice for #COVID19 where we first took the right course of action vs best practice

6/6

UKGov

Anyone currently in Cabinet is a student of political success via Brexit...

That makes them accomplished in making up "facts on the fly", making false crowd pleasing promises etc

Regardless of your view of Brexit, those behaviours now kill. If they don't know

If you have any other suggestions for journalists feel free to reply to an earlier tweet in this thread and I'll delete this one and add here.

Oh and the obligatory explanation

Bullshit
Detection