I’ve managed to stumble over the 10,000 follower line. Feels like a milestone of sorts. Whilst I am revered across the Twittersphere as a high grade punster, I began this account for a different reason, which I suspect many followers aren’t even aware of. It’s memory lane time…
It’s been really fun to watch this project grow over the last 5 months. I remember looking at my analytics as it was all picking up. I was being contacted by big media outlets... Telegraph, Reuters, Sky to name a few... OK, something is happening...
But it started with time on my hands (was off work for a while) & a banned video from Michael Yeadon. I was increasingly frustrated that I was hearing him and others saying things that were obviously wrong and quite worrying in my opinion. But you have no platform, right?
I made a thread in Word, put effort into it and thought it could work. On 23rd Nov 2020 I made an account, fumbled with the settings, worked out how to string tweets together, drag/drop videos and clicked ‘tweet all’ to my precisely zero followers. https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1330882964801073154?s=20
I waited. And I waited some more.…. Still 0 followers. Zip. I was a bit pissed because I’d put the effort in, so with nothing to lose I contacted someone (confess?😉) and asked him if he would boost the thread. He had 11kish followers. QT'd. I got nervous. What have I done?
The next morning I had about 200 followers. And I thought…. ooooh I like this, I’m doing another one. There was a lot of material in the video & I was learning and doing at the same time. Here’s the second one, about ‘pre-existing immunity’. https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1331722078777729024?s=20
And then another thread on an article published in Lockdown Sceptics👎. The first paragraph was just so painfully incorrect and delivered with such absolute certainty, you need to do something about it, or at least try to make a counter argument... https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1333739045252444160?s=20
Then…. The EMA petition. The Syncitin-1 thing.

You know, these unsubstantiated fertility concerns still rumble on to this day and are hampering vaccine uptake among care home workers, medical staff etc.

“A lie has gone around the world before the truth has got its boots on.”
I put my two cents into that discussion also. Here’s that thread. Special thanks to @BallouxFrancois & @VirusesImmunity and many others for giving this idea some decent exposure and helping it reach people in many countries. https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1334593606196187136?s=20
Around the same time.... variants. Variants everywhere. First the rise of B117 in the UK, then the South African variant…
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1351264385109524482?s=20
I tried to highlight some data talking about the risk of reinfection being relatively low. https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1343325300764119041?s=20
Then vaccine data started coming thick and fast, and I enjoyed deciphering the immunogenicity data and trying to make it understandable and interesting.
J&J
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1349816815787110401?s=20
BioNTech
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1334175107892310019?s=20
AZ
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1357688583235198979?s=20
Novavax https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1351995651303874562?s=20
But it’s complex, there’s infection, transmission, sterilising immunity. It’s complex stuff, but can be boiled down into understandable concepts if you sit in front of Powerpoint for a while. This is maybe my favorite thread. https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1351483423173521408?s=20
Twitter has a bad habit of rapidly amplifying negativity which runs a bit counter to my understanding of the mechanisms of how we fight viruses and how vaccines work. Then I met the mighty @sailorrooscout and we’ve been buds ever since. https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1357006371682586625?s=20
Also it’s important for people to understand how effective these vaccines are, and that from my perspective the efficacy was immediately observable after the first immunogenicity data was published. Glad that's working out in the real world! https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1354822534735138816?s=20
Some more threads of interest, if you wish:
Regeneron’s antibody therapy
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1340600758945902598?s=20
Ugur Sahin’s (BioNTech) take on variants
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1341447968679981059?s=20
Low risk of reinfection in health care workers https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1343325300764119041?s=20
Continued:...
Some peer review on pre-existing immunity
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1332304733445435393?s=20
Grifter Parody – Uruguay
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1381560729350799367?s=20
Farewell to Michael Yeadon https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1345679817866412032?s=20
And in no particular order, thanks to all of you for your outstanding contributions and/or discussions: @Enirenberg, @mark_toshner, @zorinaq, @zeynep, @mugecevik, @theosanderson, @GYamey, @FLermyte, @BristOliver, @ArisKatzourakis, @StopCoronavir12, @apnoeaboy, @_johnbye
@VikiLovesFACS, @AdamJKucharski, @asherichia, @InCytometry, @ThatRyanChap, @michaelmina_lab, @TakethatCt, @alanmcn1, @KHInnovation, @ScienceShared, @whippletom, @parthaskar, @a20stephen, @pash22, @dave__uu, @Dr_D_Robertson, @BadCOVID19Takes, @fact_covid, @Coronavirusgoo1
@mhalmossawi, @notdred, @GregoryDavisHNH, @VacZineAnalytic, @dylanhmorris, @sdbaral, @dr_barrett, @dr_simon, @JRJHealey, @MPrepuce, @DocMoschos, @FraiseAdam, @EsteeTorok, @braidedmanga, @SmallRedOne, @stuartjdneil
@JonathanKBall, @bealelab, @SGriffin_Lab, @GauntLab @mancunianmedic, @LawtonTri, @DrDomPimenta, @andymoz78, @seahorse4000, @KatyMcconkey, @dgfull, @TheGazmanRants, @AstroMikeMerrim @andrew_lilico, @ProfTomCotter, @CillianDeGascun
And early from the first few weeks, thanks to @olfurny, @DrSimonHarris, @drjlburgess, @djbradshaw64, @OldMackIsBack, @sophie_smith20, @PriceDanboy, @Bobforster15, @ryankilf, @RDann15, and many others for putting the ‘social’ in social media.
And a special thanks for @jneill and @fascinatorfun for picking me up early on and sharing my threads. That was really great and I appreciate it very much!

Have a great weekend, one and all, and thanks for following.

Oh, and #VaccinesWork
You can follow @andrew_croxford.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled:
There are a lot of misconceptions about the Turkish diaspora in Germany. Since i just finished writing an essay about this topic I thought it's time to give other people
Read more
Las mejores calculadoras online en 2020A thread http://totumat.com/2020/11/26/las-mejores-calculadoras-online-en-2020/ Cuando se estudian asignaturas que requieren de cálculos complicados, nada mejor que contar con una buena calculadora.
Read more
Mitigating #ClimateChange is as much about taking up new techs as about leaving others behindMost studies focus on #coal's global downfall but another #energy tech decline is loomingRead my new
Read more