UK Govt Coronavirus Response: Sceptics Thread

[janch]

16 hours ago, leonardratso said:

coffin dodgers cant catch a break;

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-15/norway-warns-of-vaccination-risks-for-sick-patients-over-80

 

This was reported on RT too but I think it passed BBC/ITV/Sky by.  I don't know if it was in any other British MSM but unlikely I should imagine.

[leonardratso]

1 minute ago, janch said:

This was reported on RT too but I think it passed BBC/ITV/Sky by.  I don't know if it was in any other British MSM but unlikely I should imagine.

line em up!

knock em down!
 

[sancho panza]

Some ICU data hot of the press.Outlines some of the key issuess and blows some of the current myths out of the water such as 'lots of younger people ending up in ICU

Figure 7-evidence of clear regional differences in critical care admissions.

Figure 16-Intereating to see there's not much difference to previous years in terms of critical care admissions but when you have little spare capacity(particularly in terms of staff),it doesn't tkae much to swamp the system.

Figure 17-note the huge drop in ICU admission for myocardial infarctions particualrly in Mar./Apr

Figure 18:ditto strokes

Figure 19-huge drop in trauma ICU admissions over 2020

Figure 21-huge drop in Pneumonia admissions-very much backing up Dr Clare Craigs thesis regarding misdiagnosis

Figure 22-ditto viral pneumonia.

 

ahttip @dnb24

https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/4cd9c693-6657-eb11-912d-00505601089b

We can see the regional variations

 

Increased pressure on ICU's

 

[sancho panza]

Table 1-currently the average age of entry into ICU is the same as before the new variant.Rather exploding the myth that the MSM are putting forward that there's lots of younger people entering the mix.

Table 2-evidence of high BMI being an indicator of likely admission to ICU.Backed up by figure 27 showing where the general population BMI fits on the data

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hancock]

The only graphs that matter are the ones Whitty knocks up predicting what is going to happen.

 

[wherebee]

On 16/01/2021 at 20:08, BurntBread said:

A friend, late sixties, has spent the last nine months being unable to see her father, a resident in a care home. She has been waving to him through the window, but because of his dementia, he couldn't understand why she wouldn't come in and give him a hug.

She has been in agonies about it, but is someone who will always stick to the rules, and follow official advice. She's not a close friend, so I haven't been rocking the boat, as I didn't want to add to her distress. I can't imagine it would have changed her mind whatever I had said.

Her father died last week, and now I'm tying myself in knots over whether I should have been more objectionable ... but then her father was genuinely in a vulnerable group, and if he had caught it, there's a fair chance it would have killed him. There would have been ways to minimise risk, though.

She's not angry at all about the government restrictions, and how they have kept her away from her dad, just seeing them as necessary ... but I am, and the whole thing is unutterably sad. There's no way I would want to have a discussion now about policies, in her presence.

Yes, you just have to stay silent.  And if - in years to come - she ever starts to raise how the lockdowns were wrong and she wished she'd gone in, you also stay silent.

I have plenty of friends in the UK who are really hurting, but I know they are so into the BBC and gvt media bubble that nothing I say will ever make them question one mote.  No point trying to save a drowning man who has tied bricks to his shoes in line with government guidelines.

[jamanda]

BurntBread's post has been troubling me since I read it.  I've been thinking about all those poor buggers parked in care homes, some of whom have gone A YEAR without seeing family.

"Life" in a care home - well, they know where they are going next.  I couldn't ever forgive or live with myself if I abandoned anyone, anyone at all, like that.  I assume they feel virtuous.

[sancho panza]

5 hours ago, jamanda said:

BurntBread's post has been troubling me since I read it.  I've been thinking about all those poor buggers parked in care homes, some of whom have gone A YEAR without seeing family.

"Life" in a care home - well, they know where they are going next.  I couldn't ever forgive or live with myself if I abandoned anyone, anyone at all, like that.  I assume they feel virtuous.

It's come a long way from '3 weeks to save the NHS' hasn't it?

 

[Hancock]

2 hours ago, sancho panza said:

It's come a long way from '3 weeks to save the NHS' hasn't it?

 

I remember thinking 3 weeks of this shit, that's f'en ages.  But also in 3 weeks the cold virus is still going to be here, so will spread then .. not that it really matters.

Now 10 months of this, with no real end in sight and i really do feel burnt out.

Walked into Tesco today with my headphones on, didn't look at anyone then several minutes later a polite man from Tesco came running up offering a mask for me to put on.

Told him i was exempt, but as he was very polite i put one on for the first time for the remaining 2 minutes of my shop.

Then walking out i got told off from going out the wrong way, as obviously walking towards the nearest door that leads outside is the wrong way.

Its beyond insanity now, it really is.

 

 

[leonardratso]

1 minute ago, Hancock said:

I remember thinking 3 weeks of this shit, that's f'en ages.  But also in 3 weeks the cold virus is still going to be here, so will spread then .. not that it really matters.

Now 10 months of this, with no real end in sight and i really do feel burnt out.

Walked into Tesco today with my headphones on, didn't look at anyone then several minutes later a polite man from Tesco came running up offering a mask for me to put on.

Told him i was exempt, but as he was very polite i put one on for the first time for the remaining 2 minutes of my shop.

Then walking out i got told off from going out the wrong way, as obviously walking towards the nearest door that leads outside is the wrong way.

Its beyond insanity now, it really is.

 

 

just wear a hockey mask all the time like i do. even in the bath.

[sancho panza]

via Clare Craig

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/canadian-experts-research-finds-lockdown-harms-are-10-times-greater-than-benefits/wcm/cc911cf4-fb29-4cb7-9f7e-3d39b368fb6f/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Dr. Ari Joffe is a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at University of Alberta. He has written a paper titled COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink that finds the harms of lockdowns are 10 times greater than their benefits.

The below Q&A is an exchange between Joffe and Anthony Furey.

 

You were a strong proponent of lockdowns initially but have since changed your mind. Why is that?

There are a few reasons why I supported lockdowns at first.

First, initial data falsely suggested that the infection fatality rate was up to 2-3%, that over 80% of the population would be infected, and modelling suggested repeated lockdowns would be necessary. But emerging data showed that the median infection fatality rate is 0.23%, that the median infection fatality rate in people under 70 years old is 0.05%, and that the high-risk group is older people especially those with severe co-morbidities. In addition, it is likely that in most situations only 20-40% of the population would be infected before ongoing transmission is limited (i.e., herd-immunity).

Second, I am an infectious diseases and critical care physician, and am not trained to make public policy decisions. I was only considering the direct effects of COVID-19 and my knowledge of how to prevent these direct effects. I was not considering the immense effects of the response to COVID-19 (that is, lockdowns) on public health and wellbeing.

Emerging data has shown a staggering amount of so-called ‘collateral damage’ due to the lockdowns. This can be predicted to adversely affect many millions of people globally with food insecurity [82-132 million more people], severe poverty [70 million more people], maternal and under age-5 mortality from interrupted healthcare [1.7 million more people], infectious diseases deaths from interrupted services [millions of people with Tuberculosis, Malaria, and HIV], school closures for children [affecting children’s future earning potential and lifespan], interrupted vaccination campaigns for millions of children, and intimate partner violence for millions of women. In high-income countries adverse effects also occur from delayed and interrupted healthcare, unemployment, loneliness, deteriorating mental health, increased opioid crisis deaths, and more.

Third, a formal cost-benefit analysis of different responses to the pandemic was not done by government or public health experts. Initially, I simply assumed that lockdowns to suppress the pandemic were the best approach. But policy decisions on public health should require a cost-benefit analysis. Since lockdowns are a public health intervention, aiming to improve the population wellbeing, we must consider both benefits of lockdowns, and costs of lockdowns on the population wellbeing. Once I became more informed, I realized that lockdowns cause far more harm than they prevent.

There has never been a full cost-benefit analysis of lockdowns done in Canada. What did you find when you did yours?

First, some background into the cost-benefit analysis. I discovered information I was not aware of before. First, framing decisions as between saving lives versus saving the economy is a false dichotomy. There is a strong long-run relationship between economic recession and public health. This makes sense, as government spending on things like healthcare, education, roads, sanitation, housing, nutrition, vaccines, safety, social security nets, clean energy, and other services determines the population well-being and life-expectancy. If the government is forced to spend less on these social determinants of health, there will be ‘statistical lives’ lost, that is, people will die in the years to come. Second, I had underestimated the effects of loneliness and unemployment on public health. It turns out that loneliness and unemployment are known to be among the strongest risk factors for early mortality, reduced lifespan, and chronic diseases. Third, in making policy decisions there are trade-offs to consider, costs and benefits, and we have to choose between options that each have tragic outcomes in order to advocate for the least people to die as possible.

In the cost-benefit analysis I consider the benefits of lockdowns in preventing deaths from COVID-19, and the costs of lockdowns in terms of the effects of the recession, loneliness, and unemployment on population wellbeing and mortality. I did not consider all of the other so-called ‘collateral damage’ of lockdowns mentioned above. It turned out that the costs of lockdowns are at least 10 times higher than the benefits. That is, lockdowns cause far more harm to population wellbeing than COVID-19 can. It is important to note that I support a focused protection approach, where we aim to protect those truly at high-risk of COVID-19 mortality, including older people, especially those with severe co-morbidities and those in nursing homes and hospitals.

 

You studied the role modelling played in shaping public opinion. Can you break that down for us?

I think that the initial modelling and forecasting were inaccurate. This led to a contagion of fear and policies across the world. Popular media focused on absolute numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths independent of context. There has been a sheer one-sided focus on preventing infection numbers. The economist Paul Frijters wrote that it was “all about seeming to reduce risks of infection and deaths from this one particular disease, to the exclusion of all other health risks or other life concerns.” Fear and anxiety spread, and we elevated COVID-19 above everything else that could possibly matter. Our cognitive biases prevented us from making optimal policy: we ignored hidden ‘statistical deaths’ reported at the population level, we preferred immediate benefits to even larger benefits in the future, we disregarded evidence that disproved our favorite theory, and escalated our commitment in the set course of action.

I found out that in Canada in 2018 there were over 23,000 deaths per month and over 775 deaths per day. In the world in 2019 there were over 58 million deaths and about 160,000 deaths per day.  This means that on November 21 this year, COVID-19 accounted for 5.23% of deaths in Canada (2.42% in Alberta), and 3.06% of global deaths. Each day in non-pandemic years over 21,000 people die from tobacco use, 3,600 from pneumonia and diarrhea in children under 5-years-old, and 4,110 from Tuberculosis. We need to consider the tragic COVID-19 numbers in context.

I believe that we need to take an “effortful pause” and reconsider the information available to us. We need to calibrate our response to the true risk, make rational cost-benefit analyses of the trade-offs, and end the lockdown groupthink.

Canada has already been going down the lockdown path for many months. What should be done now? How do we change course?

As above, I believe that we need to take an “effortful pause” and reconsider the information available to us. We need to calibrate our response to the true risk, make rational cost-benefit analyses of the trade-offs, and end the lockdown groupthink. Some considerations I have suggested elsewhere include the following:

We need to better educate ourselves on the risks and trade-offs involved, and alleviate unreasonable fear with accurate information. We need to focus on cost-benefit analysis – repeated or prolonged lockdowns cannot be based on COVID-19 numbers alone.

We should focus on protecting people at high risk: people hospitalized or in nursing homes (e.g., universal masking in hospitals reduced transmission markedly), in crowded conditions (e.g., homeless shelters, prisons, large gatherings), and 70 years and older (especially with severe comorbidities) – don’t lock down everyone, regardless of their individual risk.

We need to keep schools open because children have very low morbidity and mortality from COVID-19, and (especially those 10 years and younger) are less likely to be infected by, and have a low likelihood to be the source of transmission of, SARS-CoV-2.

We should increase healthcare surge capacity if forecasting, accurately calibrated repeatedly to real-time data (up to now, forecasting, even short-term, has repeatedly failed), suggests it is needed. With universal masking in hospitals, asymptomatic health care workers should be allowed to continue to work, even if infected, thus preserving the heatlthcare workforce.

 

[Hancock]

Yes kids who started first school last year will effectively have misses most of their first 2 years if they dont open until after the Easter holidays.

This is a time when they need to be playing with other kids.

Fuck knows what its doing to the minds of those hitting puberty.

Its fucken evil what those in power are intentionally doing.

[Castlevania]

Timing is impeccable. Joe Biden saves the world

 

 

[Hancock]

4 hours ago, Castlevania said:

Timing is impeccable. Joe Biden saves the world

 

 

They can be quite open about their dishonesty, just a pity the media is too dumbed down to report it.

[sancho panza]

https://sebastianrushworth.com/2021/01/25/heres-a-graph-they-dont-want-you-to-see/

Here’s a graph that doesn’t get shown in the mass media, and that I’m sure all those who want you to stay fearful of covid don’t want you to see. It shows the share of the tested population with antibodies to covid in Sweden week by week, beginning in the 28th week of 2020 (the first week for which the Swedish Public Health Authority provides data on the share of tests coming back positive).

There is so much that is interesting about this graph. Like I said, it begins in week 28, in other words in early July, which is around the time the first Swedish covid wave was bottoming out. At the time, I personally thought this was due to enough of the population having developed immunity to covid, but we now know that was wrong. Rather, it was due to seasonality – in other words, summer caused covid to disappear.

The proportion testing positive for antibodies was 15% in early July. It remained stable for a few weeks, and then started to drop, as we would expect, given that the rate of new infections was very low at the time. Your body generally doesn’t keep producing antibodies forever after an infection, rather they wane. Of course, this doesn’t mean immunity is waning, as I discussed on this blog a while back. Although the actively antibody producing cells disappear, memory cells remain, ready to be activated at short notice if you get re-exposed to the pathogen.

After an initial reduction, the proportion with antibodies stabilized at around 10% in August, and stayed that way until October, when it started to rise, in line with the beginning of the second wave. And it’s literally kept rising by a percentage point or two, every week, all autumn and winter so far. In the second week of January 2021, 40% of those tested in Sweden had antibodies to covid.

Funnily enough, mainstream media has so far shown relatively little interest in publicizing this astounding fact. I’ve been getting most of my statistics from SVT, the Swedish public broadcaster. They had been providing data on the share with antibodies in Stockholm up to a month or two back, when that information discretely disappeared from their website. I wonder why.

I know some of you will respond that 40% doesn’t mean anything, because the data isn’t taken from a random sample. If all we had was one number, then that would be a valid point. But we don’t just have one number. We have the number for every week stretching back six months. Any bias due to people preferentially getting tested after a respiratory infection that applies now, when 40% are testing positive, also applied three months ago, when 10% were testing positive. The trend is real, and cannot be denied.

Apart from that, there is another form of bias that will tend to make the proportion with antibodies seem lower than it really is. This is the fact that people who already know they’ve had covid generally don’t keep re-testing themselves to confirm it. This group gets bigger and bigger as more and more people get covid, and this will eventually make the proportion with antibodies seem lower than it really is. So at some point, there is an inflection point. In the early pandemic, a larger share of those being tested will have antibodies than you would get from a random sample. In the late stages of the pandemic, a smaller share of those being tested will have antibodies than you would see in a random sample.

In the last few weeks the number of people being treated for covid in hospitals in Sweden has been dropping rapidly, as has the share of PCR-tests that are coming back positive. There is much discussion in the media about what the cause might be. Everyone seems to be very surprised. Is it because people are better at working from home? Or because people aren’t traveling as much? Or because more people are wearing face masks?

No-one is discussing the obvious explanation – that so many people have now had covid, and have developed immunity, that the virus is having difficulty finding new hosts. In other words, Sweden’s oddly controversial “herd immunity” strategy worked.

So, 40% of those tested have antibodies. And that likely underestimates the proportion of the population that is immune to covid, because antibody production wanes much faster than immunity wanes, and because not everyone produces antibodies after infection, and because not everyone is susceptible to the virus in the first place.

At the end of the second week of January, 10,323 people had died of/with covid in Sweden. In fact, the real number is probably much lower. A recent study carried out here in Stockholm found that only 17% of those who supposedly died of covid in care homes actually had covid as the primary cause of death.

But let’s assume 10,323 is correct, for the sake of argument. If 40% of Swedes have had covid, that gives an infection fatality rate of 0,25%. It’s a little higher than the global infection fatality rate determined by professor John Ioannidis, which is likely due to the fact that Sweden’s population is older than the global average. But it’s not much higher, and certainly not high enough to motivate the large scale harm imposed on us by the powers that be. That’s why the fear mongers don’t want you to see that graph. And that’s why I hope you will help me spread it far and wide.

 

[janch]

Merck have decided you get better immunity from catching and recovering from the virus than from a vaccine so they're looking at drugs instead:

https://foreignaffairsintelligencecouncil.wordpress.com/2021/01/26/merck-scraps-covid-vaccines-says-its-more-effective-to-get-the-virus-and-recover/

[Mapper]

The idea that Covid 19 has come from a lab leak is discussed here by Bret and Heather (evolutionary biologists) here at the time stamp (about a 20 minute segment). Basically saying a lab leak is more likely than the natural origin hypothesis.

They describe how most people when they think about Covid being from a lab, think it was made from scratch for nefarious purposes, when this is not likely to be the origin story.

More likely that it was taken from a natural source and than scientists played around with it. Basically to "see what it did", putting it scientifically you understand!

 

[Hancock]

9 hours ago, Mapper said:

The idea that Covid 19 has come from a lab leak is discussed here by Bret and Heather (evolutionary biologists) here at the time stamp (about a 20 minute segment). Basically saying a lab leak is more likely than the natural origin hypothesis.

They describe how most people when they think about Covid being from a lab, think it was made from scratch for nefarious purposes, when this is not likely to be the origin story.

More likely that it was taken from a natural source and than scientists played around with it. Basically to "see what it did", putting it scientifically you understand!

 

Surely it just evolved like all other virus.

Why did we not blame Russian scientists for AIDS,  Chinese for SARS etc..

This myth that it was created by the Chinese is just that imho.

Its not exactly a mass killer, its merely labelling every death as being related to CV19 and the mass hysteria from the govt/MSM that claims otherwise.

[Mapper]

2 hours ago, Hancock said:

Surely it just evolved like all other virus.

Why did we not blame Russian scientists for AIDS,  Chinese for SARS etc..

This myth that it was created by the Chinese is just that imho.

Its not exactly a mass killer, its merely labelling every death as being related to CV19 and the mass hysteria from the govt/MSM that claims otherwise.

I am only going on what I got from the video, but one point is that the narrative is exactly that it was NOT a lab leak. The MSM and governments are NOT saying the Chinese created it.

There is suspicion at how quickly a large number of scientists determined that it had jumped from an animal and governments pushed that origin story.

Again from the video, it hasn't evolved like all other viruses. It is like nothing ever before, the speed at which it has spread.

[Dogtania]

On 16/01/2021 at 13:24, janch said:

This was reported on RT too but I think it passed BBC/ITV/Sky by.  I don't know if it was in any other British MSM but unlikely I should imagine.

Interesting.  Getting a bit tin foily, but have the Norwegians not been brought up to speed on the urgency of getting all and sundry vaxxed, especially the very elderly.  We seem to be the opposite of them, throwing caution to the wind.  And indeed potentially censoring (well by omission) anything that questions safety or effacy of jab.

As per article, at least 33,000 people vaccinated in Norway with first dose (mainly pszier it says).  And 23 people died close after receiving.  Later in article says the Norwegians investigating 29 cases with possible side effects linked to vax.  Not sure if death counted as side effect or how that ties in.  Still seems quite a lot but maybe they were on their last legs anyway.

I find the below quote interesting... Seems the opposite almost about what we're doing.  Is there a sweet spot where the balance is in favour of vaccination?  Despite being still an experiment and nobody knowing IMO long term, it does sound like short/ medium term maybe going by what we're told.

“For those with the most severe frailty, even relatively mild vaccine side effects can have serious consequences,” the Norwegian Institute of Public Health said. “For those who have a very short remaining life span anyway, the benefit of the vaccine may be marginal or irrelevant.”

Apparently side effects etc not common in the US and with so many vaxxed one would think there should be more. Maybe Norway too small a sample.... Or are they being more watchful and transparent??

Quote below seems to me to be obvious they don't want to link in some places.  I mean they link testing positive within 28 days and death in the UK, as coming under the official death toll I believe. The below was 2 hours FFS.

In France, one frail patient died in a care home two hours after being vaccinated, but authorities said given the patient’s previous medical history there is no indication the death was linked to the vaccine.

Finally, I'm really not sure I want to be one of the cases that they are going to start tracking - being relatively young and healthy especially so.

Emer Cooke, the new head of the European Medicines Agency, has said tracking the safety of Covid vaccines, especially those relying on novel technologies such as messenger RNA, would be one of the biggest challenges once shots are rolled out widely.

[Noallegiance]

2 hours ago, Dogtania said:

 France, one frail patient died in a care home two hours after being vaccinated, but authorities said given the patient’s previous medical history there is no indication the death was linked to the vaccine

And the same doesn't apply to deaths with Covid on the certificate because........

[Dogtania]

3 hours ago, Noallegiance said:

And the same doesn't apply to deaths with Covid on the certificate because........

.... The narrative needs to be maintained that covid is highly deadly but the vaccine completely safe.  (Not dismissing just saying all this subterfuge with headlines and spin gets me down and raises warning signs IMO)

[sancho panza]

On 14/02/2021 at 13:12, Dogtania said:

.... The narrative needs to be maintained that covid is highly deadly but the vaccine completely safe.  (Not dismissing just saying all this subterfuge with headlines and spin gets me down and raises warning signs IMO)

Taken a couple of people to hosptial with adverse reactions to the vaccines in last two shifts,mainly abdo pain,vomiting and headaches.Apparently,more common than is being reported.

So no covid hospitalizations in last two days but tow vaccine recipients saying they won't be taking the second dose.

As for me,I'm waiting to see how many snuff it from the vaccines.QUite why they're vaccinating people who've had it I don't know but I'm sure someone will tell me.

[Dogtania]

38 minutes ago, sancho panza said:

Taken a couple of people to hosptial with adverse reactions to the vaccines in last two shifts,mainly abdo pain,vomiting and headaches.Apparently,more common than is being reported.

So no covid hospitalizations in last two days but tow vaccine recipients saying they won't be taking the second dose.

As for me,I'm waiting to see how many snuff it from the vaccines.QUite why they're vaccinating people who've had it I don't know but I'm sure someone will tell me.

It's a bit of a concern and seems iffy that they are just vaccinating any old bugger.  From anecdotals here and elsewhere it sounds like you can just turn up and if there is one spare they'll happily jab you in the arm.

I think I had last march so really not convinced it's the best for me.  Especially since other countries seem to be going down the only first dose for those with antibodies or prior positive test. Maybe if they tested for antibodies (which don't stick around too long anyway?) it would hold things up or there would be less jabs handed round.  Seems like it's a race to get as high a vaccination number as possible, anything that stands in this way -including negative news about side effects/ complications- be damned and buried.

Similar to the very frail elderly ie care home residents, who by all accounts stand a good chance of snuffing it come the second dose.  Very bizarre.  I have seen videos leaked, obliviously cant be taken as gospel, but nevertheless looks like in some countries these bedridden care home residents are being vaccinated against their will.  Like I say context and veracity is lacking but looks pretty bad on the face of it, even if isolated.

[Noallegiance]

Hospitalisations and deaths within 28 days of vaccination stats needed....