On Feb15th Ivor Cummins did a video about my recent https://twitter.com/dr_barrett/status/1360940446650929163?s=20… you can find it easy – he has made enough $ it &it is pure sophistry
Here is my reply –I will point out his MAJOR #selfowns bad faith, bad takes, lack of basic interpretation skills #wrongagainivor

1st few minutes Ivor defends this character and motivations…
I don’t really want to labor on his character but to fully address the video I have to mention some brief facts & observations in the next few tweets I want to play the ball and more than the man so don’t worry

Ivor says he looks us straight in the eyes ... so we know he telling the truth ... then says he is fixated with "technical truth" and gets "angry if people misrepresented the way things worked because it suited them" Not a hint of #Irony here- just wait further down this thread.

1min in RE His family "I spend a lot of time securing their future" - the elephant in the room that he has been making huge money out of this pandemic @DrDomPimenta makes a conservative estimate here ...
https://twitter.com/DrDomPimenta/status/1358135432912003078?s=20 below I identify some of his revenue streams

Others have accused him of dishonest tactics - fake accounts&testimonials- to cut it short it does not matter if Ivor a cynic cashing in (explaining his famous mask reversal) or believes what he is saying through hubris - combined with incompetence. He is spreading misinformation

I really feel Ivor is caught up in a feedback loop with his legion of followers - he has a big EGO that cannot be denied. Attention and validation by thousands and a few credentialed people eg Michael Levitt has anything but "burned the confirmation bias out" of him

2:40 “he is making the case I have 29 published papers” ….
Well Ivor, no I did not say you had 29 published papers
My entire point is most are not published.
Many of them are not papers ...
#wrongagainivor

Min 3 “papers judged on its merits” -
Well yes … A paper is judged on its merits but Ivor misses the point of criticism. I am not criticising the paper itself – I make no comment on the quality of the paper at all – although Ivor once called the same paper “dogshit”

Ivor Accuses me of “Junk Credentialism”
But IVOR is the one trying use misrepresents the paper to invoke a credentialism
Potholer54's debunk you can scrub to 6:20 listen to Ivor's own voice …
“We know have many many publications including Lancet”

The problem is that Ivor persistently and repeatedly misrepresents papers and where they are published to make a credentialist argument and it's been pointed out again and again. It's a pervasive pattern!

There are plenty of examples - he is called out again & again. Here he mistakes "scientific reports" which see below has a controversial reputation for "NATURE" .
He is using the brand and misrepresenting the papers ... he must know that. #wrongagainivor

He deflects my criticism by citing the “Supplemental Data Table that Neil never gets near “

In a smug tone, he proudly announces “that the deaths and all the important data was available up to May TO MY POINT “ (Italics for the extra smugness) #selfown alert ahead

He tells me to read the paper and the supplementals “Just a tip”
Well I had read the supplemental - but the point that critical cases was up to April 1 and Mortality was up to May 1st is in the MAIN TEXT and in fact in MY TWEET
To my point he had not read the text properly

Ivor then waffles for several minutes about an interview with a “hardcore data guy” from Wall Street on curves turning before lockdown
Nothing to do with anything I said in my thread but see https://www.covidfaq.co/Claim-Cases-were-falling-anyway-lockdowns-don-t-work-5985e444b14b4faeac45aa1e2cbbf791

Next the BMJ article of Dr Ken Rice and co https://twitter.com/dr_barrett/status/1360940464711606273?s=20
By 6:15 he starts ranting that authors that disagreed with him on the interpretation of the paper they wrote did so
“because I included their paper … there was a little bit of political pressure”

This is the 2nd time in the video but not the last - that he accuses authors of spinning articles away from Ivor's desired case for political reasons.
Well here is what Dr. Rice @theresphysics had to say to me about it - shared with his consent ... cropped as its quite long

Basically, Dr Rice showed that in some scenarios lockdowns if done without other measures could make things worse without taking care of things on exiting
If I give a leukaemia patient chemotherapy – I can certainly make things worse if don’t given supportive care- blood etc

Ivor blames “politics” on 3 separate occasions on the video in relation to certain lines in the eclinical medicine paper, the BMJ paper and indeed in the Karolinska preprint … (I will get to that later) (Simpsons gif for you Tadgh)
https://i.gifer.com/Prvy.gif 

Next 2008 epidemiology paper – effective a forward on a paper on listeria infections …
He basically says this is basically a parable on “unexpected consequences”
If you want to put in a fairy tale on unexpected consequences - "Ivor's fable" maybe why don't you do that too

As explained in my prior thread – without a timemachine the mechanisms laid out can not be applied to covid.
It really feels like he is clutching at straws to retcon his position.
I don’t believe he read the article for which his filed article is the forward to

On Belarus makes a strawman of me and states I said Belarus had mortality similar to Europe.
Not what I highlighted … read it again comparable to those countries worst affected.

This despite 1) assuming actual figures released accurate 2) the advantages it had highlighted in the paper….a)High test rate b)good voluntary self-isolation c)%low population in care homes d) low number of travelers into the country

Ok I am going to publish the thread here - as I don't want to accidentally discard this & lose my progress.. but the best yet to come including Ivor doubling down and #selfowning hard on the Karolinska pre-print despite a dirty sleight-of-hand trick he attempts swapping data sets

On PANDATA I did make an error… I should have done a harder look at who they were …
Then again so should of Prof Karol Sikora (no “lockdown fanatic” )
Who initially was on on their SAB before he knew they had extreme views

I like Carl @CT_Bergstrom am curious to know if Scientific advisory board Ivor points to is on board with PANDA’s messaging and goal ...

One wonders how involved the SAB are ; PANDA are sanitising their website to remove some of their more extreme anti-vax rhetoric
Their FAQ now accepts vaccines are an important tool …
But you can still find this ... https://www.pandata.org/wp-content/uploads/PANDAReports-Review-of-Recent-Science-Relevant-to-COVID-Policy.pdf

Next, he tells me I am mad about this Stringency versus mortality plot .... I am not. I dismissed it because it is based on a total fallacy of logic... https://twitter.com/AtomsksSanakan/status/1361748170334683137?s=20 gives his explanation - mine is on the same principle...

Of course, there would be no correlation here – for nations where restrictions were placed in RESPONSE to worsening cases and deaths
Another analogy from my daily practice … children with leukaemia are treated with a certain regimen and marrows are assessed at the end of month

Those that have had a deep response – get the rest of their treatment with a reduced chemotherapy regimen compared to the children with a poorer response who get a more intense chemo
If we looked at outcomes at 5 years those getting more intense chemo have worse outcomes

The worse outcome of those that get increased chemo is not because of side effects – it's because this group ARE higher risk due to their poor response.
If they received the same chemo as the excellent responders they would have markedly worse outcomes

Intensification saves lives – but will be if you take raw view to be associated with worse outcomes overall.
Lockdowns – in response to rising cases & deaths even if they don’t have a clear effect on mortality may still save lives - you don't know what would happened without LD

By 12 min - he comes to the Marine Quarantine NEJM paper.
He quickly states that it's irrelevant "that it doesn’t relate to lockdown" … well it's in your anti-lockdown list …
Ivor is about to demonstrate he has no understanding of the paper #selfown #wrongagain Ivor....

He points to a higher rate of infection in the participants vs non-participants
He finds it “an amusing one to include”
1st point I am going to make is moot – but demonstrates Ivor didn’t read the supplementary data
2nd point demonstrates didn’t read or understand the paper

If you look who would be positive on day 14 (If it was the only test on all) 24/1848 Participants would be + & 26/1554 Non-participants
I JUST show this to demonstrate he didn’t read the supplement
This is an ENTIRELY MOOT point however BECAUSE

This was NOT an interventional study – non-participants were NOT a “control” group.
Precautions were the same, they were in mixed platoons – participants & participants shared room – they were given the same instructions
Ivor ASSUMED they were an intervention & control group

@FatEmperor either DID NOT READ the paper or COULD NOT understand that simple concept
Ivor Cummins often claims to have speed read things ... for me its a euphemism - "for I saw a few lines and decided if it agreed with my preconception or not"

The Authors again (this is a theme) are clear paper is NOT antimask - not sure they ever thought to say it's NOT anti-lockdown as it has nothing to with lockdown https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/technology/a-senate-hearing-promoted-unproven-drugs-and-dubious-claims-about-the-coronavirus.html
I wonder if they would find Ivor's tragic take amusing ... I do.

Now the #selfown of the Karolinska Preprint... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.25.20248853v1
I said it is inconsistent with "dry tinder" - but HE claims it proves it ... Who is right? clue = #wrongagainivor & plain English below ...
Ivor does a few things here - some half clever but also dishonest

Ivor moves the goalposts now by changing preceding SEASONS to preceding SEASON + argues the variability is due to sinusoidal mortality
credit for the plausible case here – that is until you look at the data then you get an EVEN BIGGER #SELFOWN than I thought
#wrongagainivor

The authors correlate variability 2015-19 Z scores with excess in 2020 mortality
Plain English said excess mortality correlated – but the authors haven’t expressly stated the net direction of the variability.
Ivor has some ambiguity to hide in his deceptive play is coming

One is the variability sinusoidal ?
If this was due true sinusoidal pattern large oscillations in Z scores ABOVE & BELOW baseline he might have a point.
But what does the data say … is it sinusoidal Above & Below …???? Now Ivor shows this ...

It took me a second to realize... despite Ivor's love for EUROMOMO and their lagging mortality curve (thats become a joke)
These are NOT from EUROMOMO - and they are z scores
this is not the dataset the paper is based on.

What is it about technical-scientific truth Ivor? - it angers you when someone misrepresents the technical truth, well ....
Do you think his audience noticed the switch in graphs as they gave him 35k views + with a massive like ratio

Well what do the EUROMOMO curves look like?

Publishing this to save it ... next in the words of Jennifer Anniston here comes the science bit ...

“Variability” Defined by Karolinska paper is driven by peaks not troughs
High Variability Nations are driven by extreme and frequent peaks – relatively few and shallow troughs - see here France and Spain (note the covid peaks too)

Low variability countries don't LACK troughs ... they lack peaks ... Strange how this graph for Hungrary looks different to Ivors. (Would that not suggest they are building dry tinder??? - but no covid fire.... )

Finland has slightly lower variability than Sweden which is still relatively low ... so both are expected to do ok then ... And they may well be - it looks like they may have discovered something fundamental - Authors are good scientists with excellent publication records.

Interesting to note Finland has barely a covid squeak Sweden a covid massive peak - despite not that dissimilar variability - Interesting indeed.

Now look at their regression plot ... Now without data table or line of best fit was hard to be sure but doing some geometry looks like - ASSUMING Karolinska guys are right variable Z score predicts vulnerability.
The nation that did the poorest vs expectation is SWEDEN

Now that might be slightly dodgy way to look at the graph - @gordonrlove was a great help to reverse plot the graph and make a line of best fit. - And what nation was furthest from the line on the "unhappy side" - you guessed SWEDEN !

Also, major shout out to @alexselby1770 genius mathematician who was a great sounding board gave me an expert view of Karolinska paper - and I just noted a message from Alex that explains Ivor's Sinusoidal mortality

Now near the end Ivor tries to come up with some nonsense excuse for using that map #wakandaforever.. something blah HOPE SIMPSON ... He says it's "out of date" but fine - well it is not out of date it's fictional #wrongagainivor ..
but last time I didn't point out the #selfown

last time I Included the Map part … mainly for humor #wakandaforever but I guess since we are revisiting things let's have another look at another MASSIVE #SELFOWN by Ivor
He points to low mortality rates in Asia-Pacific as proof of the failure of “China lockdown science”

Quick check countries in the green circle …
Australia New Zealand Malaysia Vietnam etc etc
And oh yes … China
I am pretty sure they did good test and trace and locked down aggressively when needed ... damn China embracing their lockdown science...

I did this because I actually am passionate about Science and I love to look at the world - I love the INSIGHT that looking at a problem can bring when you take the time to think. I encountered Ivor months ago - I didn't close my mind but saw through him

I really do believe he has damaged discourse and tainted thinking in Ireland with his pseudoscience - I am not sure if he is capable of insight into his own capabilities (lack thereof) and deeds - he may not care. I hope this and my prior thread are a resource to counter him.

Thanks for your patience and for reading it through if you get this far. Thanks to other debunkers too @braidedmanga @cjsnowdon @jocami_ca @higginsdavidw @DrDomPimenta @roberto_blanko @alexselby1770 @gordonrlove

I am not a lockdown fanatic - lets have a conversation but and honest one . Please retweet and share ... #wrongagainivor #covidireland #MedTwitter #ScienceTwitter #debunking @FatEmperor

I should add that the variability in mortality in the karolinska paper was overwhelming due to EXCESS mortality for those nations essentially there were no troughs of significance - the dry tinder is blown away- hope that was clear. #wrongagainivor

in medical speak the z scores the more VFib than VTachy @MedCrisis

@threadreaderapp unroll please #wrongagainivor