1/n Let's talk envelopes, social-media & political bubbles for a moment, in an #ethics / #SocialEthics thread for @CathyYoung63, @C_Kavanagh, @lastpositivist, and y'all. Because I'm still also pissed off about what happened to Night Jack, a decade ago.
cc. @ProtectRPolice

2/n Short run-down: Night Jack was a UK policeman who blogged anonymously, and well. He more than foreshadowed what would prove to be the case in Rotherham. He was outed by a reporter who used cellphone-phishing & bugging. He had to stop blogging completely.

3/n Personally, I *like* the insights into worlds far removed from my own. I *like* insights from honest, frontline medicos, police, activists, community reporters, etc., insights that would take a decade to finally get filtered through to me thru MSM. These voices are *valuable*

4/n Attack those voices, for whatever reason, by whatever means, and you silence them or you barricade them off into their own tiny bubbles.

This goes double, triple, for a doc working on an ICU unit who tweets truthfully about ICU conditions in the time of the pandemic.

5/ So I am srsly put off by the lamentably self-chosen ignorance & imbecile arrogance James Lindsay displays in attacking an ICU doc who only pleaded with people not to add to COVID_19 transmission, not to add to already swamped ICU's.

6/ Click on below pic to enlarge full screencap. Let's first go through how entirely stupid that tweet of Lindsay's was, before we get onto the arrogance and the contravention of social ethics.

7/ For a start, the doc was working an ICU. We **know beyond all doubt** that hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin are *useless* in severe to critical COVID_19, which is what an ICU situation means. Forget other areas, they are *proven useless* in an ICU for COVID_19.

8/ Just BTW, though irrelevant, we also have lots of evidence that shows HCQ is useless as prophylaxis against COVID_19. We have some observational evidence that ivermectin seems to be useless at treating COVID_19; the same seems true of HCQ. In any case, if it gets severe...

9/ Now, to patronisingly tell an ICU doc, one who pleads with people to avoid transmitting or catching COVID_19, that he should try ivermectin or HCQ instead, is crassly boorish, medically illiterate, ethically sociopathic, & just generally very stupid. "save more lives" my ass.

10/ As all my long-term tweeps know: I'll criticize anyone who deserves it. I've no special reverence for medicos, & no respect for argument from authority. But I want to hear from frontline reports, & if they withdraw because flamed by an idiot with a huge following, we all lose

a/ I *would*, if he even used it. He doesn't. He's proud of his flatulent obtuseness when it comes to COVID_19, its risks, and treatments for it. He could do far better, he refuses to. https://twitter.com/ryankilf/status/1343160488012742657

b/ The grown-ass man has a math PhD, I believe? He would be able to run rings around me on math. Yet he pushes a total crank, Michael Yeadon, whose claims are really easily disproved. On COVID_19, he's all simplistic bluster & emo hot-air.
cc. @ryankilf https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1336185917556527104

1/ So, , let's go right thru all points I made, one by one, then we'll look at what James' 'point' really was, then.
a/ ICU doc does straight 37 hours work, pretty much constant emergency work. He asks others to reduce transmission of #COVID19 over Xmas. https://twitter.com/gravygravyjosh/status/1343249884498063361

1b/ In such a situation, you do NOT harass or patronise an ICU doc, **even if you think your guess about prophylaxis or treatment of early stages is right**.
You just don't DO that. Not unless you're a manic asshole. https://twitter.com/gravygravyjosh/status/1343249884498063361