...inadequate research training means public health decision makers don't understand why primary sources are required in science, and are fond of mindlessly parroting what their peers in other jurisdictions have decided.

Don't trust low #longCOVID cost estimates coming out of Canada, they're junk.

You probably have these already but just in case not.

Also...

This is what really requires action. IPC sacrificing patients to cover up their mistakes is bad enough. But the professional bodies that feel that's good enough to meet their standards of medical ethics?

Self-governance for the medical profession needs to end. It's neither deserved nor justified.

Meanwhile in Canada...

AFAICT the reason provinces are cutting back on COVID vaccines is that the economic models underlying national guidance 👉forgot to count COVID cases that don't require medical attention when projecting #longCOVID costs👈

This is RFK-level bullshit.

Amateur hour.

That or I suspect word will come down from Moscow, someone will issue a few orders, and all of a sudden the records will show that all of these accounts have always been registered in 'Merica...

Digital history is convenient that way.

And that behaviour isn't just restricted to global-level actors. Anyone with money (their own, or someone else's) can hire a bunch of bots to try and launder their reputation, manipulate you into buying whatever it is they're selling, rewrite the past, or convince you of things that aren't true.

IMO "the Inquiry has not seen evidence of any specific campaigns..." prior to 2021 bit speaks volumes.

A great many of the guilty parties have tried to have it both ways, doing nothing, but quietly laying the foundations to say "I always knew" when the denial becomes unsustainable even in medicine.

💯 - key is recognizing the false binary power-grab framing around COVID. Both the anti-vax / RFK pseudoscience types on one end and the anti-PPE / IPC pseudoscience types on the other tried to claim they were "speaking for science", but neither had any interest in learning from actual scientists.

hah yes, just posted that!

Interestingly, docs in non-wealthy countries and vets also have a better understanding of airborne transmission than IPC / public health. I suspect their real-world experience and relative lack of treatment resources force them to be more thoughtful about prevention.

By senior I mean "seniority" rather than "older". In my experience actual front line docs are often well ahead of the ones in medicine's management class. Here's the British Medical Association, for example.

Still disappointed in how few have stepped up and publicly challenged the screwups though.

This paper goes into more detail on why infection control and public health leaders in 2020 were close to a century out of date on how infections are transmitted in aerosols. Mechanistic science training is inadequate in many medical programs.

The errors would be funny, except for all the death.

The information that could have stopped the pandemic in 2020, that Dr. Morawska was desperately trying to teach WHO infection control leaders in 2020, was known for 👉84 years👈 before these events (documented in @carlzimmer.com's excellent book AIR-BORNE):

(figure: academic.oup.com/aje/article/...)

NB this is not just a UK thing. Here's what UBC was teaching medical students up until mid 2024 (when they removed 👉the explanation only👈 after I let them know how badly out of date they were).

The apprenticeship model cannot process science that conflicts with received wisdom from senior docs.

The negligent, outdated beliefs of medicine's management class (everywhere; from the UK inquiry here) contrasted with well-understood science from 👉1934👈. If you got sick after being told that COVID falls to the ground within 3 feet and N95/FFP2/FFP3 respirators aren't needed, 👉it was their fault.👈

The 1934 Wells paper is from here: academic.oup.com/aje/article/...

The negligent, outdated beliefs of medicine's management class (everywhere; from the UK inquiry here) contrasted with well-understood science from 👉1934👈. If you got sick after being told that COVID falls to the ground within 3 feet and N95/FFP2/FFP3 respirators aren't needed, 👉it was their fault.👈

"Russia, Russia, Russia" -> yes, exactly