UK Govt Coronavirus Response: Sceptics Thread

[Harley]

11 hours ago, Hardhat said:

The government can fuck right off if they think they can make it illegal to shag my girlfriend 

So there actually rules about shagging?  Incredible.  That I ask shows my contempt.  Are these actually laws or just advisories?  Could I get a fine and go to goal for non-payment?  Would almost be worth having a bit on the side so I could go to goal as a "martyr for love"!  And quite a criminal record!

[janch]

I found this article from an  Italian doctor which says the viral load is decreasing in patients and the effects of the virus are getting weaker:

https://inelcos.com/2020/06/07/covid-has-aged-its-viral-load-is-100-times-less-than-in-march-says-an-italian-expert/

 

[Wight Flight]

On 07/06/2020 at 21:49, Hardhat said:

I've almost completely stopped living by lockdown rules. The government can fuck right off if they think they can make it illegal to shag my girlfriend 

Not 100% sure but I believe they announced yesterday that you are allowed to stay overnight with a single grandmother so long as she has a bubble butt.

Or something like that.

[One percent]

2 minutes ago, Wight Flight said:

Not 100% sure but I believe they announced yesterday that you are allowed to stay overnight with a single grandmother so long as she has a bubble butt.

Or something like that.

Ive just been round to my mates for tea. They are a couple. We discussed that under the new rules, they can visit me because i am living on my own, yet i really, really shouldn’t visit them because there are two of them.  

the madness of government policy.  

[Wight Flight]

4 minutes ago, One percent said:

Ive just been round to my mates for tea. They are a couple. We discussed that under the new rules, they can visit me because i am living on my own, yet i really, really shouldn’t visit them because there are two of them.  

the madness of government policy.  

Can you imagine the arguments?

Do we bubble up with my wife's parent or mine?

If I have two teenagers, which one gets to have the girlfriend round?

This is a rule invented by divorce lawyers.

[Caravan Monster]

Was it Remdesivir Boris was hailing as the great new treatment a couple of weeks ago?

[sancho panza]

https://lockdownsceptics.org/

I’m able to bring you not one but two critiques of the Flaxman et al in Nature – the June 8th paper by Imperial College’s modelling team claiming the lockdowns in 11 Europe countries (including, weirdly, Sweden) had saved three million lives. This is the paper I blogged about here and here a couple of weeks ago.

First off is this critique by the independent researcher Nic Lewis. It’s quite dense and not readily accessible to non-specialists, but it looks pretty devastating to my layman’s eye. Here is his conclusion:

First and foremost, the failure of Flaxman et al.’s model to consider other possible causes apart from NPI of the large reductions in COVID-19 transmission that have occurred makes it conclusions as to the overall effect of NPI unscientific and unsupportable. That is because the model is bound to find that NPI together account for the entire reduction in transmission that has evidently occurred.

Secondly, their finding that almost all the large reductions in transmission that the model infers occurred were due to lockdowns, with other interventions having almost no effect, has been shown to be unsupportable, for two reasons:

* the prior distribution that they used for the strength of NPI effects is hugely biased towards finding that most interventions had essentially zero effect on transmission, with almost the entire reduction being caused by just one or two NPI.

* the relative strength of different interventions inferred by the model is extremely sensitive to the assumptions made regarding the average delay from infection to death, and to a lesser extent to whether self isolation and social distancing are taken to exert their full strength immediately upon implementation or are phased in over a few days.

It seems likely that the inferred relative strengths of the various NPIs are also highly sensitive to other assumptions made by Flaxman et al., and to structural features of their model. For instance, their assumption that the effect of different interventions on transmission is multiplicative rather than additive will have affected the estimated relative strengths of different types of NPI, maybe substantially so. The basic problem is that simply knowing the dates of implementation of the various NPI in each country does not provide sufficient information to enable robust estimation of their relative effects on transmission, given the many sources of uncertainty and the differences in multiple regards between the various countries.

Critique number two is by two German academics, Stefan Homburg1 and Christof Kuhbandner – “Comment on Flaxman et al. (2020, Nature: The 1illusory effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe“.

This one is a bit more accessible. Here’s the introductory paragraph:

Flaxman et al. infer that non-pharmaceutical interventions conducted by several European countries considerably reduced effective reproduction numbers and saved millions of lives. We show that their method is ill-conceived and that the alleged effects are artefacts. Moreover, we demonstrate that the United Kingdom?s lockdown was both superfluous and ineffective.

Here’s what they have to say about Sweden (which is more or less what I said in my second critique of the paper):

Our final remark regards Sweden, the only country in the dataset that refrained from strong measures, but has lower corona deaths per capita than Belgium, Italy, Spain, or the United Kingdom. In the absence of a lockdown, but with an effective reproduction number that declined in the usual fashion, Flaxman et al. attribute the sudden decline in Sweden’s R(t) on March 27th almost entirely to banning of public events, i.e., to a NPI that they found ineffective in all other countries. This inconsistency underlines our contention that the results of Flaxman et al. are artefacts of an inappropriate model.

Both Lewis’s critique and the Homburgle/Kuhbandner comment are worth reading in full.

Edited June 25, 2020 by sancho panza

[janch]

Maybe someone has been reading this thread and decided a certain paramedic from Leicester is too sceptical about the pandemic............

You may have inadvertantly precipitated a local lockdown

[sancho panza]

23 hours ago, janch said:

Maybe someone has been reading this thread and decided a certain paramedic from Leicester is too sceptical about the pandemic............

You may have inadvertantly precipitated a local lockdown

Please remember there are something like 1600 deaths a day in the uk.

Over the last 6 days there have been 648 covid deaths,ie 108 per day.

There's absolutely no case for locking Leicester down/imprisoning healthy people/denying old people hospital treatment

 

[leonardratso]

a large wall around leicester and armed guards, like in that documentary i saw decades ago, escape from new york or something. maybe bojo can fly over it carrying covid vaccine codes and crash land in it and we can send mick gove in with somekind of bomb in his neck to go retrieve bojo and the codes. This is all my own story so no thieving pls.

[sancho panza]

https://lockdownsceptics.org/2020/06/30/latest-news-64/

What on earth does the Government think it’s doing? What possible reason is there for reimposing a full lockdown on Leicester? In an act of sheer lunacy, Matt Hancock announced this morning that non-essential shops have been told to close today and schools asked to shut their doors to the majority of children from Thursday. Pubs, restaurants and hair salons that have been gearing up to re-open on Saturday have now been told to remain closed.

The rationale, needless to say, is that Leicester has seen a “surge” in cases, with over 900 new cases in the past two weeks. Confusion surrounded this figure since the published data for Leicester recorded just 80 new positive tests between June 13th and 26th. But Hancock now says there were in fact 944.

How do we know the increase in cases isn’t simply an artefact of increased testing in Leicester? We don’t, obviously. The 80 figure is based on Pillar 1 data, which are from tests done in hospitals; the 944 figure is based on Pillar 2 data, which are from tests done at Government centres or at home and processed by commercial labs. But surely the hospital data are more reliable than the community data – although these are all PCR tests and they’re all notoriously unreliable (see this Off-Guardian piece). And if the number of new cases being discovered by hospitals is low that suggests there isn’t a “surge” in new cases in the community. Deaths, too, are low, although, to be fair, if the alleged rise in cases has only happened since June 13th you wouldn’t expect to see any corresponding rise in deaths yet. On June 29th, only two people died from COVID-19 in the whole of the Midlands. According to the FT, the rise in infections is mainly among younger people (as it is in southern and southwestern US states) which means we’re unlikely to see any corresponding rise in deaths.

Let’s suppose the Pillar 2 data are accurate and there have been 944 new cases in Leicester between June 13th and 26th. That’s an average of 472 new cases/week. Assuming an infection fatality rate of ~0.25% (almost certainly an over-estimate), that means ~1 person/week will die if the infection rate remains where it is. And even that’s over-egging it, given that a majority of the new cases are among younger people.

Is it really worth reimposing a lockdown on Leicester to prevent one person/week from dying? I looked at the NHS England data for hospital deaths and of the five people who died from coronavirus on June 29th four were 80+ years’ old.

So the people of Leicester are being asked to close schools, shut non-essential shops and keep their pubs, restaurants and hair salons shuttered for two more weeks in order to prevent the deaths of two people aged 80+? Setting aside the civil liberties argument, is Matt Hancock confident that more than one person per week won’t die as a result of reimposing the lockdown? I’m thinking of cancer operations being postponed, the increased risk of suicide and domestic violence, and elderly people who may die of thirst or starvation because their relatives aren’t allowed to visit them.

What an absolute shower this Government is. If I was the Mayor of Leicester, I’d just point-blank refuse to comply. This report on Sky says the Leicester lockdown has “legal underpinning” which sounds like a mealy-mouthed way of saying its not legally enforceable.

[Hardhat]

On 13/05/2020 at 21:31, Hardhat said:

Jesus...

Releasing known cases back into care homes, that's horrific.

Looks like the MSM is starting to catch on to this, Boris has tried to wash his hands of it already.

[sancho panza]

20 hours ago, Hardhat said:

Looks like the MSM is starting to catch on to this, Boris has tried to wash his hands of it already.

Poor old Bozza looking for his Chruchill moment.......given the outlook for Winston's statue,things aren't looking good for him.

Truly managed managed to snatch utter defeat from teh jaws of victory by neither locking down/not locking down with conviction.

The more that the truth emerges,the more incompetent he looks.

[sancho panza]

you can hear all teh statists talking dreamingly of a second spike so they can start repressing people again.

I think they're going to be dissappointed.

Although if they can keep it going utnil the enxt winter,then they might be able to claim the next winter flu deaths for their tallies.

https://lockdownsceptics.org/

This is pretty extraordinary. According to a UK Government study, 80.9% of residents in care homes for the over-65s in England who tested positive for COVID-19 were asymptomatic.

A reaction to the study in the Science Media Centre contains this gem from Sarah Harper, Clore Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford:

Our early conclusions that younger people were generally asymptomatic, but older adults were less likely to be, has now been questioned. This survey further emphasizes that the disease is complex and its progress and impact still unclear. There has been a general assumption in some media reports that COVID-19 was a death sentence for all older people – this study emphasizes that many older adults as well as younger people can have the disease mildly.

So COVID-19 is not a death sentence for the over-65? Who knew?

Well, Dr Scott Atlas does. The senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center has given an interview to Fox News in which he says that for those under 70, the mortality rate for COVID-19 is lower than it is for seasonal flu.

Meanwhile, Boris has put his foot in it by suggesting care home managers are to blame for the high death toll in the sector. The prime minister said on Monday that “too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures”.

That’s a bit rich, considering the Chief Executive of the NHS ordered hospitals to discharge as many patients as possible in March without checking first to make sure they weren’t carrying COVID-19. Given the number of infectious people flooding into care homes as a result of that diktat, I’m not sure following more rigorous social distancing policies in these settings would have made any difference.

Latest ONS Data Shows Deaths Below Five-Year Average for Second Week in Row

Readers will recall that last Tuesday the ONS data for Week 25 showed that the number of people dying in England and Wales had fallen below the five-year average, suggesting that some of the people who’ve died from coronavirus would have died later in the year anyway. The same is true for the ONS data for Week 26 (June 20th – 26th).

[janch]

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/what-real-purpose-lockdowns

Zerohedge speculate on the real reasons behind the lockdowns and other restrictions because of the pandemic.

 

[sancho panza]

And they pick now of all times to kill off Hight st retail with the mask law.

 

[janch]

1 minute ago, sancho panza said:

And they pick now of all times to kill off Hight st retail with the mask law.

Hardly anyone wearing  a mask in Tescos when I went earlier.  If they make me then I may just write "MUZZLE" on it before use.

[sancho panza]

New predictions of doom with 120,000 excess deaths unless we keep quarantining healthy people.

I;m not sure if Prof Magoo was involved with these calcs.

https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/health/scientists-make-grim-prediction-second-18592294

Top scientists have made a grim prediction about the potential for a second wave of Covid-19 - that it could be more deadly than the first.

Scientists who advise the Government have said it was reasonable to expect 120,000 hospital deaths as a "worst-case scenario” if coronavirus were to rise again.

Coventry and Warwickshire has rebounded from the first wave, in which hospital deaths peaked at 25 per week - now there are weeks with no recorded deaths.

[Chewing Grass]

120,000 was their absolute worst figure but the media are generally failing to explain that or break it down.

Its like listening to 5th columnists at work.

[sancho panza]

3 minutes ago, janch said:

Hardly anyone wearing  a mask in Tescos when I went earlier.  If they make me then I may just write "MUZZLE" on it before use.

Mrs P was jsut giving me the lecture on the need to 'stop the spread' earlier after informing me of the new projection when I got up.

The whole factory of misinformation has deep roots.Last night I dropped a pt off to the covid reception unit at a Midlands hospital.They were delighted to see us-first patient of the night at 0300 I think.

The zero hedge piece is very true,what theyre doing here is deeply disturbing.Even if the main aim is to try and pretend there really has been a systemic threat to the nation )and that it wasn't Boris and Matt Hancock) ,surely now there'svirtually no deaths,they could jsut leave us alone for a few months before the repression starts again.

I think Boris is genuinely hoping if they can keep the fear up then noone will notice how many have died as a result of his covid policies.

[sancho panza]

8 minutes ago, Chewing Grass said:

120,000 was their absolute worst figure but the media are generally failing to explain that or break it down.

Its like listening to 5th columnists at work.

You'd have thought they'd have learned that when Prof magoo came out with his 500,000 predictions in March.No.Given they know the way the media works,they know exactly what they're doing.They have plans for us mortals and for most people they will likely end in them dying slightly early/paying more taxes/living miserable lives

Mrs P has tales of multi organ failure,people in their 30's etc etc.So far the predictions for the UK have been depressinly worng.

The price in mental health has been huge.

Edited July 14, 2020 by sancho panza

[janch]

For several weeks running the death rate has been slightly below the normal apparently (was on the news some days back so I haven't got a link).  Maybe corona bumped a few people off a month or two before they would have gone anyway.

All this doom and gloom about one or two patients being months in ICU and then getting strokes etc but yet the vast majority getting minor or no symptoms.  No-one points out that you always get one or two extreme cases for virtually any illness you care to mention.  It's not like ebola or the plague where if you get it then it's usually curtains.  I could understand the panic if this were the case but it's not.

 

[janch]

This is amazing and as you have maintained all along @sancho panza:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nhs-consultant-says-staff-are-being-silenced-over-covid-19

[Talking Monkey]

36 minutes ago, janch said:

This is amazing and as you have maintained all along @sancho panza:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nhs-consultant-says-staff-are-being-silenced-over-covid-19

I read that article and links in to what some of the people that have rocked up to A&E have told me on how quiet the hospitals were. I just don't understand why perpetuate this shit when its so clear that the pandemic was not at all as bad as predicted. Why curtail the access to the medical system for large swathes of the population. Then this face mask thing now seems utterly bizzare. People will be reusing the same face mask over and over so its clearly not a safety thing but a compliance thing, however the consequence is yet another blow to the high street. The last 2 months have been surreal since I realised it was no where near as bad as they had made out. Walking around London during office hours on a weekday, around London Bridge station and it was eerily quiet, surreal proper surreal

[janch]

4 minutes ago, Talking Monkey said:

...this face mask thing now seems utterly bizzare. People will be reusing the same face mask over and over so its clearly not a safety thing but a compliance thing,

If enough of us don't wear them and comply, I doubt they will fine the lot of us.  I'm not going to wear one next week and see what happens.