Right Said Fred
(Picture: Getty)Right Said Fred have been slapped down after posting a tweet which appeared to betray a peculiar understanding of statistics.
Posting on Twitter (where else), the band invoked exasperation after they posted a link to a story which said that those who are vaccinated against Covid are 47 per cent less likely to develop long Covid if they contract the virus. Right Said Fred claimed that this - for some reason - meant that vaccinated individuals who contract coronavirus are therefore 53 per cent more likely to develop long Covid. The tweet has since been deleted.
The King’s College London study in question analysed data from more than two million people who logged their symptoms, tests, and vaccine status on the Zoe COVID Symptom Study app between 8 December 2020 and 4 July 2021. It found that vaccines almost half vaccinated people’s risk of developing long Covid.
The research, published in the Lancet, said: “We found that the odds of having symptoms for 28 days or more after post-vaccination infection were approximately halved by having two vaccine doses.
“This result suggests that the risk of long COVID is reduced in individuals who have received double vaccination, when additionally considering the already documented reduced risk of infection overall.”
It added: “Almost all individual symptoms of COVID-19 were less common in vaccinated versus unvaccinated participants, and more people in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated groups were completely asymptomatic.”
It did not suggest at all that the vaccine simultaneously reduces and increases risk of developing protracted symptoms of the illness. This is, of course, is not how statistics, vaccines, or illnesses work.
As a result of the stat mishap, people took to social media to put the band - best known for the song I’m too Sexy - in their place:
I'm 47% less intelligent after reading this (and not, I hasten to add, 53% more clever).
— Caspar Salmon (@CasparSalmon) September 2, 2021
You're gonna want to delete this
— Jade Eloise Norris (@jadenozzz) September 2, 2021
“I’m too stupid for my maths…”
— CaptainFlack (@RichG3230) September 2, 2021
RSF have sold 95% less records since the 90s
— Captain Cabinet (@captaincabinet6) September 2, 2021
You: “so you’re saying we’ve sold 5% more?”
So if you're 47 percent too sexy for your shirt, does that mean you are or you aren't? https://t.co/o4MIHTWsKH
— Hugo Rifkind (@hugorifkind) September 2, 2021
Wrong Said Fred 🙄 https://t.co/Ps3YLAWt9r
— Tim Burgess (@Tim_Burgess) September 2, 2021
Good grief. https://t.co/32dYIkoQD8
— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) September 2, 2021
Wrong Said Maths pic.twitter.com/npbRSV9Vg5
— James Felton (@JimMFelton) September 2, 2021
Following the backlash, the band later claimed the comment was a joke:
Obviously with this tweet I was taking the piss, sadly the twitterati failed to see that. Ffs 🤦♂️ #givemestrength pic.twitter.com/QUB77gYOCm
— Right Said Fred (@TheFreds) September 2, 2021
However, some people didn’t believe them:
Of course you were mate. Course
— J (@Oi_Staf) September 2, 2021
Judging from your previous tweets mate, I don’t think you were
— Danny (@_dannyvfx) September 2, 2021
It is not the first time the band have expressed questionable views about the pandemic. In August, the band’s frontman Richard Fairbrass was hospitalised and tested positive for coronavirus while there, the band said. Despite the experience with the virus, which left him a “little breathless” and “tired”, he said that he was still against the coronavirus vaccine, claiming it is “only for experimental use”.
“It’s on trial until 2023. There’s no long-term data on it – anyone who takes it is foolish.
“Come 2023 and everything is fine, I’ll do it then. I’m absolutely not going to have one now,” he said at the time.
Meanwhile, they have shown anger towards institutions which ask clientele to provide proof of vaccination before entering:
I have never eaten anything from @SUBWAY I guess I never will now. pic.twitter.com/nThuFc9inh
— Right Said Fred (@TheFreds) July 29, 2021
And they have charmingly told people who wear masks to slow the spread of the virus that they are “superfluous to requirements”.
I would like to thank everyone who is still wearing a mask.
— Right Said Fred (@TheFreds) July 4, 2021
It saves me a great deal of time.
Your mask tells me I don’t need to talk to you, know you, work with you, or try to understand your mumblings.
You are superfluous to requirements.
Many thanks XX pic.twitter.com/qMOTJjf5hy
If they *do* think being vaccinated actually makes Covid worse for those who get it, it seems increasingly unlikely that the band will be rolling up their shirt sleeves (which they are of course too sexy for) to get the jab any time soon.
