Prof Rhys Thomas MBBS MD FRCA

As I have been inundated with requests for advice on how to do these i thought i would put this guide up. The HEPA filters i created with the children are based on the CorsiRosethal Box. @CorsIAQ 👍 These have to be adapted for UK. (Fans only use 110v) (1)

I want to talk about the scale of what’s coming for the UK over the next three months. Because I don’t think many people have joined the dots yet. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed for over five weeks. Before this war, 135 ships passed through it every day. Now it’s 5 to 7. Over 600 vessels are still stranded. Iran has mined the strait, is charging tolls, and controlling who passes. The CEO of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company said it this week: “The Strait of Hormuz is not open. Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled. That is coercion.” Two thirds of Gulf crude has no alternative route. 14 million barrels a day behind a 21-mile chokepoint. Energy bills are forecast to jump 20% in July. From £1,641 to nearly £2,000. The second major energy shock in four years. Petrol up over 15%. Diesel up nearly 30%. Wholesale gas rose 75% in under four weeks. Food inflation could hit 8% by June and 9% by December. Academics advising DEFRA say it could reach 12%. UK food prices are already 38% higher than before Covid. We’re only 62% self-sufficient in food. We import 60% of our nitrogen fertiliser. Red diesel for farming has surged 60%. Average arable farm income has fallen to £17,000, the lowest in over 20 years. Yesterday, China announced it’s halting all sulphuric acid exports from May. Sulphuric acid is essential for phosphate fertilisers, copper mining, oil refining, and battery manufacturing. A third of the world’s sulphur was already blocked by the Hormuz closure. Now the world’s largest exporter has pulled the other lever at the same time. The fertiliser crisis just got significantly worse, heading straight into planting season. Before the war, markets expected rate cuts. Now they’ve priced in two rate rises. Over 1,500 mortgage products have been pulled. Two year fixes have jumped from 4.8% to 5.5%. Nearly £1,000 a year extra on a £200k mortgage. Gone in weeks. Flights are next. A quarter of UK jet fuel comes from Kuwait, behind the strait. In early April, major carriers said they had five to six weeks of reserves. That clock is running. Ryanair’s CEO has warned 5-10% of summer flights could be cancelled. Iran’s strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG complex, which handles 30% of the world’s helium, is estimated to take 3 to 5 years to repair. Helium is critical for semiconductors and MRI machines. That’s not a disruption. That’s structural damage. Chemical and steel manufacturers are imposing surcharges of up to 30%. Analysts are warning of permanent deindustrialisation. European gas storage was at just 30% after a harsh winter. If the strait stays restricted through summer, Europe can’t refill for next winter. In Ireland, fuel protests shut down Dublin for four days. The army was deployed. Over 100 fuel stations ran dry, with warnings of 500 by end of the week. Downing Street has held talks on the potential for mass protests here. The OECD has downgraded the UK more than any other G7 nation. Growth slashed from 1.2% to 0.7%. Inflation forecast nearly doubled to 4%, with some saying it could breach 5%. Starmer and Trump spoke this week about military options to reopen the strait. The UK is leading a 30+ nation coalition. But the ceasefire is already fracturing. Iran re-closed the strait over Israeli strikes on Lebanon. Reeves is boxed in by fiscal rules. Higher gilt yields are eating her headroom. And I haven’t heard a credible plan from anyone in Westminster. Energy. Food. Fertiliser. Aviation fuel. Mortgages. Industrial chemicals. Semiconductors. Shipping. Government borrowing. Political stability. All under stress. All compounding. This country imports 44% of its energy. Has almost no gas storage. Imports most of its food and fertiliser. Gets a quarter of its jet fuel from behind a mined strait. Every structural weakness built up over 20 years is being stress tested at once. The next three months aren’t going to be uncomfortable. They’re going to be defining

Parents Pinpoint Exact Moment Being At Home For Six Weeks Six Years Ago Caused Daughter’s Small Fibre Neuropathy

Note the date that I wrote this.

This is what happens when teachers are some of the most impacted by the 🦠 that shall not be named. FYI: Do not leave your health up to the same people who decided you are expendable. You will just get replaced.

🚨We warned you! “Reinfection remains a critical challenge in the long-term management of COVID-19 survivors, as it is associated with a significantly higher symptom burden.” #Mitigation #CleanAir bmjopen.bmj.com/content/16/4/e…

There is a BLOODY good reason why Clinicians, like me, advise people to undertake minimal exertion for 8 weeks post infection Feeling fine is not a marker of cellular and inflammatory quiescence

🚨🇫🇷🇪🇺 This is big: the French government and agencies are officially getting out of Windows & non-EU tech. Each ministry has to present their exit plan before Autumn: collaboration tools, antivirus, AI, databases.. It's starting with the Digital Ministry dropping Windows for Linux across its own infrastructure. It's the latest step from France to reduce its tech dependency as much as possible. Previously: > 80,000 French social security agents migrating to sovereign tools: Tchap, Visio, FranceTransfert. > the national health data platform moving to a European cloud solution by end of 2026. There will also be a dependency mapping across all public procurement, and a definition of what counts as a "European digital service" (which could be followed by other EU states as well) This is coming from the Prime Minister's initiative, signed off by three ministers. They call this move #GAFAMdetox

Overall we drain more lymph on the LEFT side of our bodies but for sleep and glymphatics it might be the RIGHT side that does the heavy lifting (i.e. taking out the trash). Side sleeping (lateral position) is significantly better than back (supine) or stomach (prone) for glymphatic clearance. It allows better exchange of cerebrospinal fluid and waste. Some studies show that right-side sleeping (right lateral decubitus) may be most efficient for brain glymphatic transport and waste clearance. This could relate to how posture affects venous drainage from the brain (e.g., the right jugular vein being more open in that position for many people) and intracranial pressure. Cool huh?

After shafting Wales for 27 years, Labour has been dumped by the voters and Labour replaced by Plaid Cymru as the largest and most popular party in Wales.

From a study of 1.2 million patients aged 18 to 65 years in Stockholm, "long COVID was associated with a 2.06 greater likelihood of composite cardiovascular events in women and a 1.33 greater likelihood in men. Cardiac arrhythmias showed the strongest association, resulting in a 3.11 greater likelihood in women and 1.61 greater likelihood in men.." Keep your heart healthy. 'Long COVID May Raise Cardiovascular Risk' conexiant.com/internal-medic…

Reminder that Dr. Fauci said to have COVID under any kind of control we would need to have less than 10k infections daily. Our “low” now is 200-300k daily. Nearly on par with what we used to consider “high” and trigger enforced masking and distancing. It’s not over.

🔥Omicron may have become “milder,” but it certainly didn’t lose its thrombotic sting, its spike still binds and activates human platelets just like the original wild-type virus. #Microclotting #LC

Sharp Rise Noted In Conditions That Inspire Limited Medical Enthusiasm

Holy shit, after 5 years Health Canada finally put out engineering guidelines recommending people wear N95s, clean indoor air to reduce viral load, and admitted COVID is airborne. Based canada.ca/content/dam/hc…

Medical Community Concerned By Public’s Tendency To Notice Their Own Symptoms

Introducing a clean indoor air strategy would have been a John Snow moment for health and a economic boost for the country.

Really wish major news orgs. would realize the idea that the pandemic is over did not come from the WHO, but from politicians tired of dealing with the short-term economic impacts of a novel virus - a decision that, unironically, is likely to result in long-term economic losses.

Perhaps identifying the wrong mode of transmission (for all healthcare in the UK) and recommending the wrong precautions comes under "Serious Incident" rather than "Never Event" I think it should be both...

Financial Times: 'Long Covid projected to cost OECD economies up to $135bn a year' 'New research forecasts hit to GDP from lower productivity and workers quitting because of long-term illness' ft.com/content/de4463…

Plaid Cymru smashing Reform the party full of washed up Tories in #Wales, Senedd and Westminster voting intention. …ts-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Voti…