1/
Summary
UK's death rates from #CoronaVirus are the world's worst. Fairly ranked against other countries, the UK is in bottom 25%
Science CAN derive the reason for those deaths, then we can CONNECT UKGov Decisions.
As many sadi. They're no good.

(formal write up at end)

2/
UK deaths related to testing?
Unsure coz Prof XYZ UKGov stooge said it's too early know. Because deaths per 1000 isn't reliable.
There's some truth in that - but it's a dodge.

Virologists solved that with Time to Double deaths (DT).
You know the opposite. Half-Life.

3/

The chart is damning. In it, less is bad, because you don't want your deaths to be doubling in a shorter period.
At this stage in the pandemic, there is no good natural reason why the UK should be so much worse than any similar country.

Until Man-made incompetence

4/
There are 11 reasons you can find that country should be so different from a similar country. 6 can be ruled out scientifically. That leaves 5.

2 you know
But amazingly 3 you don't. The most important 3.
That's how bad we are.
The most important things aren't even

5/
The first 3 are all related to control measures China took to stop the virus from spreading all over China. They're probably the most important thing we need to do, and we haven't started even.

Let me show you on the next tweet why we might look at China for guidance.

6/
This is how #covid19 is growing. On the right are MOST countries (like the US and UK) - still growing. In UK we've done well on social isolation but need more.
Below are some maybe on the cusp - yes Italy is there. notice MAYBE.
And then best in the world on the left.

7/
So I keep saying to myself if you're going to look anywhere for advice, look to China, or at least South Korea. Apparently, UKGov is too smart for that.

Helpfully the Chinese and South Koreans have made all their practices available eg.
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf

8/
In there you find charts like this - this one shows, for example, two really important things.

1. that they managed to reduce the death rate from the #coronavirus over time

2. they slowed the expansion outside of Wuhan into other parts of China

Oh how? you'd ask right?

9/21
And that's where these came from.

1. They used mass testing everywhere, beyond their NHS. Early diagnosis saves lives. We're not even doing NHS yet

2. They used aggressive controls and testing to stop spread (UK nope)

3. They used aggressive airport measures (UK nope)

10/21
4. You know - testing to keep NHS staff healthy
5. Our medical staff do an amazing job when they have, for example, ventilators.

And that, at least for this stage is about it, as long as you keep up social isolation and don't spread virus!
Ruled out everything else.

11/21
You can collect up data to show evidence for these - it's covered in a long thread at the end.
What we can't YET do is know how important each one is.

But if you ask China or South Korea, they'll point at the first 3. Just the ones we're not doing.

12/21
We know the agenda for the Cabinet
1. Testing - think about 10x what your highest estimate is, go do that.
2. Why have we got an aversion to learning from others, sort it
3. Borrow from WW2 - Loose Lips sink ships. Not Brexit. Promises we can't keep - that kills people

13/21

Hopefully, we get a proper competent Crisis Gov to do that I don't trust ours.

Youll see why. Now we need to explain how UKGov ends up ignoring best advice on #Covid19, to start with. So let's Sherlock Holmes again: Make a list of reasons & rule out any we can.

14/21
Same method, but there's a big difference. Viruses are predictable, evidence exists, and you've got China and South Korea to ask.

Unless you have a bug in the Cabinet room, or someone squeaks it's very hard to know exactly which reasons, but you can narrow down

15/21
Trouble is, none of these fill you with confidence that the right people WERE in charge. And I have even less confidence that they SHOULD BE going forward. To coin a phrase,

"I didn't see mass death caused by negligence on the ballot sheet."

Let's cover them off.

16/21
A. Herd Immunity. If you haven't heard of this bonkers idea - linked. They could have got so tied up in that, they just didn't make time for mundane stuff like tests or PPE. Or as they said to start with - let it roll through

Deaths ~1-1.5m btw https://twitter.com/atatimelikethis/status/1238405497897857024?s=20

17/21

B and C similar. Either they made up science and it got approved - by people who know better.

Or the approval process we have for science is broken or corrupted. We know their world-class advisory team gave the right advice. So if it's this, it broke INSIDE government

18/21
Cultural reasons - I'm not hinting at racism, though that is one. More, institutional stuff - you know if you've ever worked anywhere near Government that one team never wants to lose to another. That's' why the Chancellor resigned. So class Sir Humph N.I.H.ism

19/21
Finally that EU weirdness - way beyond anything that Brexit needed. Refusing to cooperate on Science, messing around with the airlines as this started, all sorts of weird lies about purchasing Ventilators.

The EU would have tracked WHO compliance for each country...

20/21
We're done. A reminder
Bottom of the pack - means many more deaths.
3 things we should do immediately and
5 things overall that explain why we're bottom (at this stage - later is different)
And the only reasons that UKGov could have for ending up here, at the bottom.

21/21
What I find disturbing, and for once I really wish there was an establishment to come rescue us (there isn't, it's a crypto trope), is I don't like any of the reasons that UKGov can have had for going their own way.

Because we all know:

POSTSCRIPT 1.

This was a short pithy summary of a much longer and more temperate write-up. So if you'd like this without politics and with sources, please see here. https://twitter.com/atatimelikethis/status/1246392991524229123?s=20

POSTSCRIPT 2.

This way of thinking - creating a list of ideas, then ruling things in and out based on evidence is actually a very simplified form of the Scientific Method. You can use it with other things like explaining how the UK went from good to bad https://twitter.com/atatimelikethis/status/1245726774593556481?s=20

And in general, over the past few years, we've trained ourselves not to like science or reason or evidence.

That's a problem if you're saving lives, flying planes, getting food or a lot of other things - basically our whole modern world. Maybe time we rediscovered evidence eh?

The obligatory explanation

Unnecessary death
of British people