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Good news on the front page of today’s Sunday Times: “Tory grandees” are heaping pressure on the Prime Minister to end the lockdown. “A pincer movement of Conservative Party donors, cabinet ministers and senior Tory backbenchers is putting Boris Johnson under concerted pressure to ease the lockdown,” it reports.
Another encouraging development is an exclusive on the front of today’s Mail on Sunday revealing that the Government has ordered 50 million antibody tests that have been devised by scientists at Oxford working for the Rapid Testing Consortium. The newspaper claims the tests cost £10 each and give results in 20 minutes. Let’s hope they’re more reliable than the 33 FDA-approved PCR tests that infectious diseases expert David Crowe reviewed for Lockdown Sceptics yesterday. You can read David’s article here.
The Sunday Telegraph leads with a scoop of its own: anyone arriving in the UK from abroad — including British nationals — will have to self-isolate for two weeks under the Government’s proposed exit strategy. This is already the case in Singapore, which has only recorded 12 deaths from COVID-19 to date. But won’t that devastate the tourist trade? And what about British people who’ve already booked their summer holidays? Will they still leave the country knowing they’ll have to self-isolate for two weeks on their return? It seems a little over-the-top when a simple screening programme at our airports and ports could achieve the same result.
Will Boris’s exit strategy involve the quarantining of the over-70s until the end of the year (and possibly beyond)? A reader has complained that it would be a bit hypocritical of the Government to propose the long-term isolation of the elderly on the grounds that they’re particularly vulnerable to the virus, but not BME people, who also appear to be at greater risk than others. (Imagine the uproar if Boris proposed that!) To this list we could add anyone with the health conditions associated with an above-average risk of dying from COVID-19, such as diabetes, heart disease, chronic lung disease, a compromised immune system, etc. And anyone who’s either overweight or obese, which is 64.3% of all British adults. Being overweight is one of the biggest risk factors when it comes to being admitted to hospital with a severe form of COVID-19. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of those admitted to ICU in the UK with coronavirus are overweight. Or perhaps all of these groups could be allowed to return to normal life provided they take up smoking, given that nicotine is emerging as one of the most effective prophylactics against catching the disease. One study in France found that smokers were four times less likely to contract COVID-19 than non-smokers. My colleague Christopher Snowdon, a long-standing critic of the anti-smoking lobby, is cock-a-hoop about this finding.
A couple of opinion polls out today show the public’s enthusiasm for the lockdown beginning to wane. According to Opinium, 53% of people want restaurants, offices, shopping centres and schools to reopen as soon as new infections decrease (which they have, obviously) and are prepared to accept periodic closures, i.e. switching restrictions on and off according to whether the infection rate is climbing or falling. Approval of the Government and its handling of the crisis has dropped for the second week in a row, according to Opinium, a result echoed in an ORB poll for the Telegraph. The percentage of respondents who approve of the Government’s handling of the crisis has declined to 52%, down from 59% earlier this month.
And Britain has finally chalked up its first anti-lockdown protest. Piers Corbyn, brother of Jeremy, led a demonstration in Glastonbury yesterday. In his speech, Corbyn made some good points – the NHS’s focus on treating COVID-19 patients has led to other patients being neglected – but he also made some not-so-good ones, claiming the reason the Government wants us to stay two metres apart is so it can identify us using satellites. The Mail has the story. Meanwhile, 200 demonstrators gathered in Berlin on Saturday to protest about extreme social distancing measures.
Yesterday I pointed out that celebrities weren’t having a good crisis. Neither is the European Union. Its latest act of self-harm is to censor its own report about how governments spread disinformation about coronavirus. The report was originally critical of China, but has now been heavily watered down after pressure from Chinese officials. According to the New York Times, the first draft of the report was critical of China’s for orchestrating a “global disinformation campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak of the pandemic” as well as spreading false allegations against French politicians, accusing them of using racist slurs against the head of the WHO. All these passages have been excised, says the Times. Read the story here.
Conservative intellectual Andrew Sullivan has written a good column in New York magazine about the psychological toll that self-isolating is taking on him – and he admits he’s better off than most. It includes this quote from a piece by Damon Linker in the Week on the same subject: “A life without forward momentum is to a considerable extent a life without purpose — or at least the kind of purpose that lifts our spirits and enlivens our steps as we traverse time. Without the momentum and purpose, we flounder. A present without a future is a life that feels less worth living, because it’s a life haunted by a shadow of futility.”
The Wall St Journal published a great interview yesterday with arch sceptic John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine at Stanford. Readers will recall that Ioannidis was one of the first senior scientists to criticise the overreaction of governments to the coronavirus crisis, calling it a “once-in-a-century fiasco”. Here are some highlights:
[Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College] used inputs that were completely off in some of their calculations. If data are limited or flawed, their errors are being propagated through the model. . . . So if you have a small error, and you exponentiate that error, the magnitude of the final error in the prediction or whatever can be astronomical.
There’s some sort of mob mentality here operating that they just insist that this has to be the end of the world, and it has to be that the sky is falling. It’s attacking studies with data based on speculation and science fiction. But dismissing real data in favour of mathematical speculation is mind-boggling.
We have some evidence that bad news, negative news [stories], are more attractive than positive news – they lead to more clicks, they lead to people being more engaged. And of course we know that fake news travels faster than true news. So in the current environment, unfortunately, we have generated a very heavily panic-driven, horror-driven, death-reality-show type of situation.
One of our own senior scientists who’s emerging as a bit of a sceptic – Professor Karol Sikora – pointed out on Twitter this morning that the daily death tolls released by NHS England are not in fact a record of those who’ve died in the previous 24 hours. (Off-Guardian drew attention to this on April 23rd in a post entitled ‘Why you can’t trust the UK’s “daily” COVID-19 updates‘.) Sikora wrote: “Of the reported 711 NHS England fatalities yesterday, only 105 were from the previous day. Many were from weeks ago. Using accurate and current data shows a much more encouraging picture.” (In fact, 32% of the 711 deaths reported by NHS England yesterday occurred between March 11th and April 17th, according to the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine.) Sikora refers people to a section of NHS England’s website that records how many people have actually died in the previous 24 hours. Here is the data on this that NHS England released yesterday, clearly showing deaths peaking at between 800 and 900 on April 8th and declining to ~100 on April 24th.
And, of course, there’s also the problem of doctors dutifully recording coronavirus as the cause of death, when the patient in question may or may not have died of COVID-19. For deaths that occur outside hospitals – such as in care homes – that happens if the doctor merely suspects the patient had coronavirus without any testing evidence. In Pennsylvania, officials have had to remove hundreds of coronavirus deaths from the state’s official death count, following pushback by local coroners. You can read that story here.
Finally, Dan Hannan has written a good column in today’s Sunday Telegraph, arguing out that if Sweden’s more modest social distancing measures prove effective then lockdowns will have been for nothing. He points out that lockdown zealots appear to be willing Sweden to fail, scarcely able to conceal their glee whenever the death toll ticks up. Well, I have some bad news for them: yesterday’s daily toll in Sweden was 40, bringing the total number of deaths to 2,192, around 10% of ours.
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If you’re (quite rightly) going to point out that death data is not from the previous 24 hours, please don’t then make a point of trumpeting the last days data. It’s obviously going to go up the most over the next week. You can’t have it both ways. (Fwiw it’s clear the UK is on a downwards trend as of 7 days ago and no adverse evidence from new cases. We might expect it to continue downwards. Sweden is more complicated, I suspect they’re still on a plateau.)
The UK has been on a downward trend since the peak of 8th April. That makes it an 18 day trend! Peak infection rates were probably 3 weeks prior to that, then declining prior to the lockdown starting. This has been evident from the data for several weeks now.
My point was that you can draw the trend up until about 7 ago, the last week is the most likely to be adjusted upwards so you shouldn’t take account of them yet. It looks like it will continue.
Sweden are doing fine but you shouldn’t really quote that their deaths are 10% of ours without pointing out that their population is 16% of ours. That’s still fewer deaths per unit of population. Plenty of possible reasons for this but certainly it’s a very strong argument against lockdown.
I can point out, being Scottish, that Sweden has roughly double our population but has a slightly lower CFR and deaths per 1000.
The comparison of death rates in Scotland vs Sweden is a very important one because population density in the two countries is very similar.
Similar pop density, similar death rate, suggests that Sweden’s version of social distancing is sufficient and that the lockdown is not making any difference over and above that.
Especially when you consider the infection spike in the UK happened before the lockdown started, which shows that hand washing and some social distancing worked.
They’ve got less covid-10 deaths per head of population, they haven’t sacrificed their liberties, they’ve got a functioning economy and they haven’t had a spike of non-covid-19 deaths due to hospitals failing to handle non-covid cases. Quadruple win!
It’s a win-win-win-win situation.
There has been a recent covid19 outbreak at a local home for the elderly mentally infirm ie those poor people suffering from severe dementia. There have been to date half a dozen clients who have died. All the staff have been tested and 3/4 are covid19+ of which only 1/3 had any symptoms..
The same scenario would have happenend with a flu episode although it wouldnt have made the local press . As an observation from a staff member , many of the resident’s relatives asked every year if they could not be given the flu jab, but the policy was all residents to have the flu jab.
Am I alone in thinking that if I had reached that stage of my life (dementia for gawd’s sake) I wouldn’t really want to be hanging around, anyway..? That isn’t meant to be a hint at any sort of policy or anything like that, but just a personal observation. Old people in care homes, dementia… for me it’s such a bleak, painful image, without any positives whatsoever for anyone involved.
If I ever I get to that stage, I hope they simply put happy pills in my tea and I die laughing.
Quite agree! I’ve had a living will for many years; my late mother had one, as has one of my sisters. and several friends.
(Mum died very quickly and I was able to stop the inevitable resuscitation efforts, as she had requested.)
Dementia is a living death: confusion, loss of self, loss of memory, incontinence, wandering:awful.
I’d like to make a quick departure when the time is right: no nursing home, no dependence on others, no bleak existence shorn of dignity, identity, self respect and control of bodily functions.
Sooner or later, the pressure from people who wish to decide when and how they would like to leave this life, will have to be acknowledged.
Sadly the ever increasing population of elderly people produces a steady stream of income for the numerous private sector care homes so the drive towards longevity and quantity if life over quality is hardly surprising. As someone with a family history of Alzheimer’s I already avoid the flu vaccine and will similarly decline the covid 19 vaccine when it’s available. I’d rather take my chances that something else will kill me than endure the indignities of Alzheimer’s and being a burden on others. I would urge anyone to make an advanced directive and plan their exit strategy to avoid being wrapped in cotton wool as most people in nursing homes now are.
I’ve told my kids to take me to Switzerland and get me the injection…
I’d prefer a sniper rifle to take me out at a distance if I got to a certain stage. But I’d want the memory of my requesting that to be erased!
I seriously hope and pray that “social distancing” does not become the new norm. I could support it for say three months, until the peak has passed. However Dominic Raab is now saying we must get used to months of this? Give me strength!
How will that work on public transport (buses, trains, tube, aeroplanes), restaurants, bars, pubs, cafes, sports stadiums, music festivals, events, theatres, cinemas, gyms…the list goes on! The thought of living like this for an indefinite period really depresses me. But the government seems to be loving it! If Raab, Patel, Hancock and co get their way, they’ll have this written into law. Oh wait a second…
You would most likely get the most benefit out of a few simple rules that we might as well do anyway. Don’t turn up at work if you have a cold. Instead take a couple of days off, get plenty of rest, and work from home (if possible) until you feel better. If you have to go out when you have symptoms, wear a face mask, like they do in Japan. Yes you can spread it when asymptomatic but much less, and that’s the point: just to reduce the effective transmission rate by enough to get through the epidemic without overwhelming the health service.
A few simple non-intrusive steps are all we need. Anyone begging for lockdowns hasn’t read enough history to realise what authoritarian governments do next.
Agreed. The cost benefit analysis is needed. If a strategy is proven to work, has a good effect and is fairly easy to do, then that’s the biggest one to follow. But the lockdown is the opposite to this, there’s hardly any positive effect (only a negative one), but it’s difficult to do in the medium to longterm.
I always thought the Conservatives were more libertarian, compared to Labour. However, they seem to be anti-libertarian at the moment.
Not directly related to the above report …. The government says that they will “follow the science”. Sounds like a worthy approach until you actually think about it. Firstly … what the government means by “science” is an infection/death model provided by scientists. What they mean by “follow” is to follow the recommendations of the scientists. It is not the job of scientists to decide how we react to this virus. Their job is to provide the best facts that they can. It is the government’s job to make a strategy based on these facts. Secondly … the “Science” must include far more than just an infection model. It must also include a model that predicts economic outcomes under various lockdown scenarios. It must also include a a social model that predicts the short, medium and long term effects on our society under various lockdown scenarios. Only when it balances all these possible outcomes can the government decide what will be the least worst outcome for the country. To make the right decision the government will need a strong dose of courage, because the decision will be a life and death decision for some people. So far the government has… Read more »
I agree, but also the science must include both sides of the argument. There are differing models, yet we are only following the advice of those producing the bleakest picture. Each day that goes by, the science and data are showing that this isn’t as bad as predicted, yet we still stick to the views of Prof Ferguson et al.
Correct. This is what I mean by a lack of courage. The government are afraid of how they will be judged if the worst case outcome comes to pass. They are too scared to take the risk of applying more optimistic factors to the model. Meanwhile they are not …. so far as I can tell … modelling the economic and social outcomes of staying in lockdown.
Agree. The predictions made by Ferguson were justifiable as a worst-case estimate at the time he made them. For his team not to have updated them since is absurd. We are being sold the line “we’re sticking to the original 250k deaths estimate, but because of your hard work staying at home, sacrificing your job and clapping we might just get it down to around 20k”. This is pure spin, intended to convey an impression of omniscience (we never admit we were wrong even when we were) and omnipotence (we’re in control and the 10x reduction is due to us telling you what to do). Medical intervention at best improves the death rate by a factor of 2 not 10– even if the NHS were completely overwhelmed and treated noone about twice as many people would die, not ten times.
I agree. The politicians are hiding behind “the science” which is in fact shorthand for “just the viral model” or more broadly “don’t ask us questions and don’t blame us. It’s them.” The politicians are not communicating what they are weighing up at all. We get “hawks” and “doves” which we don;t need. We need sensible analysis across the whole piece and then balanced decision making that the electorate can relate too.
I am not sure that this lock down is wrong. I think it was right at the beginning. I don’t understand where we are today. Who is dying and at what rate? How does this translate to something like life expectancy? What is the cost-benefit analysis? These are extremely difficult to know with any certainty at the best of times. We have poor data but we need to try to have a proper framework.
Peer-reviewed science has a prediction rate lower than a coin-toss. Following the science has nothing to do with sound public policy – it’s about the specific government officials washing their hands of responsibility. It sounds good only to those who know nothing of the parlous state of science today, with its chronic politicization, religious wars and corruption – i.e., most “normal” people.
Frankly, any elected or appointed official who tries to separate their responsibility from their authority in this (or any) manner ought to be immediately removed from both. [Moderator: Final sentence removed. Let’s not get carried away. IR.]
Peer-reviewed science is a bit of a general term in your comment. Peer reviews of some areas of science will be much better. Psychology and sociology not so much. Coronavirus strategy is so complex because there are so many factors per country or region, including population density, general health of public, demographics, humidity, temperature, attitudes of public, individualistic or collectivist society.
A more prudent point might be that issues with lots of variables rarely works with science. A scientific experiment aims to reduce an observable event down to very few variables. The problem is that as soon as you look at a similar event in the “real world” which has huge numbers of variables, the conclusion can rarely be held as there’s too much white noise. The only real science experiment on coronavirus is to run the experiment live in the real world, i.e. compare different countries strategies, although again there are lots of variables between countries, so even that’s difficult to create conclusions from. However, I believe observing different countries is better than any isolated observations in the lab for this one.
Whoever thought of the insane idea of periodic closures obviously doesn’t give a toss about the practicalities of running an enterprise. Imagine the difficulty of repeatedly opening and closing a hospitality business like a restaurant, or any business with regular orders, purchasing and so on. It’s all so completely unnecessary, as well. At this point anyone who can’t see what the statistics are telling us is wilfully blind. Young and working age people, actually nearly everyone, can just get on about their affairs, while we make some special arrangements or concessions for the aged and sick. The lack of plain sense shown by governments, and unfortunately large swathes of the sheeple, is mind boggling.
As a customer I also hate the idea that you might make plans to go out for a meal a couple of weeks hence and then in the interim finding the authorities flexing their tiny muscles and massive egos to shout “PANIC! PANIC! EVACUATE!!! LOCKDOWN!!!! MASKS! HAZMAT!!!” and having to cancel.
100% agree. This is herd stupidity.
Lesson from the pandemic:
HERD IMMUNITY = GOOD. HERD MENTALITY = BAD.
Again, let’s try to be scientific here. Over 70s ARE at extremely high risk – all the serological studies we’ve seen confirm that — in fact it’s so high that it’s skewing the IFR on the high side when it’s so low (and even near 0) for under 40s. Everyone should be able to decide and understand risk for themselves but I find it counterproductive to the anti-lockdown fight to argue that overweight 20s are at the same risk than over 70s. On the BME discussion, no serological survey sampling has found them to be more at risk so far. Let’s not mix up sociological reasons (they’re more likely to live together intergenerationally with big families, very social, maybe less hygiene, etc…) which could explain why they appear more in statistics with scientific reasons. Perhaps they are slightly more susceptible too – but again, impossible to compare to the extent of risk to over 70s (and of course, people with serious illnesses). To be clear, I don’t think forced isolation for our seniors until a vaccine makes sense either. This will have its toll too and is unacceptable from a personal liberty standpoint. But let’s be honest and not hypocritical:… Read more »
Figure 6 of the ONS report https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19englandandwales/deathsoccurringinmarch2020#characteristics-of-those-dying-from-covid-19 shows that except for children, about 7% of deaths are due to COVID-19, irrespective of age group. Indeed, the age group 14-45 has a higher proportion of deaths due to C-19 than the over 84s.
But that’s a relative risk not an absolute one, surely. 14 – 45s are pretty unlikely to die anyway. Also that 7 percent includes those with underlying conditions.
@ThomasPelham: 12.7% of deaths happened in < 65s… This means that 87.3% of all COVID-19 linked deaths happened in above that age group. The median age of deaths is 80+. Risk is so low for under 45s that the graph isn't even visible in figure 5 and they don't even break down age group risk more for under 65s.
Are you seriously trying to imply that the virus is more lethal to 14-45s than to over 84s? Lol.
It is clearly the case that the elderly are more susceptible. What the ONS data does show is that C-19 was only responsible for about 7% of deaths of the elderly, and that this proportion was fairly constant across the age groups.
For perspective: ‘Of the 3,912 deaths that occurred in March 2020 involving COVID-19, 3,563 (91%) had at least one pre-existing condition, while 349 (9%) had none. The mean number of pre-existing conditions was 2.7. The most common main pre-existing condition was ischaemic heart diseases.’ ONS reference above To emphasise, the mean number of pre-existing conditions was 2.7, for all ages. The common cold (coronaviruses/rhinoviruses) has been known for some time to kill the elderly and infirm in large numbers, often more deadly than influenza: ‘From 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2019, 21 662 samples were tested by the IHU Méditerranée Infection diagnostic laboratory. Among these, 770 samples were positive for coronavirus, with eight deaths (mortality rate 1%). Among identified coronaviruses, 63 were identified as HKU1 (one death, mortality rate 1.6%), 74 were identified as NL63 (two deaths, mortality rate 2.7%), 92 were identified as E229 (one death, mortality rate 1.1%) and 160 were identified as OC43 (four deaths, mortality rate 2.5%). Three hundred and eighty-one coronaviruses, diagnosed before 2017, were not assigned to any of these four strains……’ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920300972# On the other hand, I don’t know how many incidents of the common cold you may have had but you’re… Read more »
Um, yes, a lot of people who die anyway are over 84.
The over 84s is probably a skew, i.e. if you get to that age your immune system is exemplary. All the weaker people (biologically speaking) have died before they reach 85.
My understanding is that there is an increased risk for the over 70s but to be at “extremely high risk” requires an age of 70+ AND at least one co-morbidity. I may be wrong about this and would like to be corrected if that’s so. I keep seeing this image of Mick Jagger being told that as a weak old man he’d better lock himself away for another 2 years. Robert Plant’s going to have a boring time of it as well. Gko, I second your comments about the vaccine. My worry is that the Pharma lobby (and Mr Gates) are positively salivating over the prospect of forced vaccination – a veritable licence to print money forever (at the expense, of course, of our civil liberties) and that they will try to: a) drag this lockdown on (via any tame scientists and politicians they “own”) for as long as humanly possible, and b) rush a vaccine through ASAP. The worst thing for their business model – their equivalent of Indiana Jones having the Holy Grail slip from his fingers at the last moment – is the Great Unwashed acquiring herd immunity before they’ve got their CoviVax®™ line up and running.… Read more »
The so-called liberal states (e.g. California) already have form in this regard. They haven’t usually used force in the normal sense but they have been refusing service to children* who have not been vaccinated.
* Ironic, since everything they do is for the children, eh?
The old and vulnerable who really need protection are often in hospitals, care homes, or being cared for already. Protecting them means mainly making sure their carers are either free of infection or wear PPE. For old but well people, they can make their own choices how much risk to take.
One thing I haven’t seen much coverage of is Transport for London furloughing 7000 staff. A bus company in Scotland has asked the government for a £300 million bailout. Will all 7000 furloughed staff have jobs to return to when this panic is all over?
What’s interesting, TfL aside, are bus and rail companies pushing funny memes to encourage their paying customers to stay at home. Scotrail published a video harking about how empty it’s busiest stations are, congratulating it’s paying customers for no longer being paying customers.
I’m awaiting Scotlrail announcing job losses soon…
My point is, what sort of world is this where having no customers is seen by businesses as a good thing?
‘Here is the data on this that NHS England released yesterday, clearly showing deaths peaking at between 800 and 900 on April 8th and declining to ~100 on April 24th.’
Yes, but that figure of 100 will be added to today, tomorrow and for a few more days to come, so you shouldn’t use it to illustrate a trend. If you want to know how many died each day you can use the figures only up to about 5 or 6 days ago, because by then the figures stop being significantly added to by the daily updates. The daily updated total-deaths-reported-on-the-previous-day figure is useful to calculate the cumulative deaths reported to date and the trend in reported daily deaths.
Yeah I make that point below, it’s valid to say that the daily deaths shouldn’t be simply reported as died in previous day as that hides the real trends
But you can’t have it both ways
Clearly you need to consider absolute not relative risk in terms of the groups that need to be isolated, so whilst the BME population under 60 have a very low risk of death or complication there may be more of an imperatitve to isolate a 70 year BME than a white 70 year old. The risk with weight is obviously not dichotmous, otherwise
“64.3% of all British adults” who are overwight translating into “between two-thirds and three-quarters of those admitted to ICU in the UK with coronavirus” would not mean being overweight is is”one of the biggest risk factors”
Here are some relevant perspectives from Switzerland (in English):
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
I concur Brian. I’ve been reading the updates on this site: https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ for several weeks now. Well worth the time invested. That’s how I found Lockdown Sceptics.
This is really depressing re the EU and appeasement of China.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/safe-as-houses-covid-19-study-clears-nsw-schools-for-student-return-20200425-p54n6i.html
Being in the “elderly” category I looked at ONS data for w/e 10 April to see how much risk I was running from Covid-19.
Aggregating some of that data it showed that the under 65’s are 82% of the population and represented 13% of the Covid deaths and 14% of the non-Covid deaths. The over 65’s were 18% of the population and represented 87% of the Covid deaths and 86% of the non-Covid deaths.
So my take on this is that older people are more likely to die than younger people (which is hardly a surprise), but just as likely to die from other causes as Covid-19 (assuming all the Covid-19 diagnoses were correct).
More interesting would be Covid death data based on age and body mass index. The ICNARC.ORG critical care outcome report for 24 April shows 75% of those who died in critical care were overweight or obese. It’s unlikely that many of these would have been elderly care home residents because a) few were being admitted to hospital, and b) care home residents are often quite frail.
We wouldn’t be where we are but for: Ferguson’s wretched model, and its presumption that we were dealing with a virus ‘comparable in lethality to H1H1 flu in 1918’ when we knew diddly squat about it; advisers and politicians being ‘guided by the science’ when the ‘science’ is not much more than an ‘upgrade on a crystal ball’, and by sensationalist media reporting lacking balance and perspective. We are where we are though and we now need to make sure that future decisions are as soundly based as possible. That requires two things: 1 The Government must set out its objective. It might be something like: to minimise death, suffering and hardship. Once that is done, lots of things begin to fall in place eg • The criterion of ‘avoiding a second peak’ CANNOT be an objective of policy – it is a policy tool which may or may not contribute to the overall objective above • Minimising COVID deaths CANNOT be an objective of policy because doing so might not minimise the overall death toll (if indirect deaths outweigh the reduction in deaths as a result of trying to minimise COVID deaths), and might increase suffering and hardship. •… Read more »
It’s my understanding that the IFR of Hong Kong Flu which killed around 80,000 UK residents in 1968-9, (when the country’s population was significantly smaller) was 0.5 – much more than the current estimates for the Cv19 virus. (0.1 seems to be around average from recent studies – about 20% of the lethality of Hong Kong Flu.)
There were no lockdowns during the Hong Kong Flu; life went on as normal. As a schoolboy who lived through it, I remember a vague awareness of the pandemic but there was no panic that I recall. Maybe the moon landing took attention away from it but the point is – we lived through it, didn’t trash our economy and came out fine.
Having read the latest news on lockdown in despair, I’m beginning to think that there’s a more apt Cicero quotation than the one Boris quoted:
“CUI BONO?” – WHO BENEFITS?
I don’t agree that this is all Imperial’s fault. It’s a very UK centric view. The lock downs have been adopted globally and each country would ask it’s own teams for an analysis. Even is the UK, the Imperial work would have been challenged and interrogated.
I am pretty sure that Imperial are updating all the time and improving the model in terms of trying to account for social distancing, care homes etc. The problem is that we don’t see this. It’s not being discussed and it really needs to be. In the absence of any end game being announced we need to understand why.
What I find difficult about a lot of the debate on this site is the basic assumption that our scientists are somehow stupid and not looking at basic issues. They are not. This is not the case of one team of researchers working in secret. A huge number are on it globally,
There was an article I was reading the other day – can’t remember where, and it made the point that the modellers love to put in all the stuff they know about – exactly how many care homes there are; the average number of residents per member of staff; average number of visits from relatives per week and all that stuff. That’s the easy bit. And it has relatively minor effects on the outcome. The stuff in the middle is the hard bit; the stuff that makes the biggest difference to the outcome. And it is pure guesswork. What exactly counts as an ‘infection’? What form does the body’s immune response take for different levels of dose of the virus? What is ‘immunity’? Is it the same as ‘resistance’? How does innate immunity deal with this virus compared to learned immunity? How does this vary across age groups, ethnicities, diet, exposure to pollution etc.? Does low level exposure work as an inoculation in some, but a cause of severe illness in others? Do ‘R0’ or the other ‘R’ values even mean anything when ‘infection’ versus ‘exposure’ can’t even be defined? If social distancing reduces the *level* of exposures but not… Read more »
I understand your point on modelling. I’ve done it. It’s a model. It’s not a time machine telling the future. It describes the sort of things that can happen IF you all agree on the inputs and basic assumptions. I agree that the model is about enveloping outcomes and showing what a progression might look like. This doesn’t work for many so everyone asks for three cases – low, central/medium, high. The middle one inevitably gets labelled base when it’s not necessarily. It’s just another case. You cannot throw away modelling though. It is the best tool we have until someone has a crystal ball. So trashing the modellers to my mind is wrong. Yes, experts aren’t infallible but they’re work is better than that of ill informed fools. The two metre rule? Probably a rule of thumb used for other respiratory illnesses. But there is no “revelation” in its genesis as I saw in a newspaper recently. No. A study wasn’t done. It’s an emergency. We don’t know much about Covid even now. So a 2 metre concept is a good precautionary start. I also agree that the lock down ending will be based on many factors being wieghed… Read more »
From a new Guardian article (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/26/france-public-support-for-strict-coronavirus-lockdown-drops-below-50-percent), angry at the growing French resistance to the arbitrary removal of everyday freedoms: “However, the reopening of schools remains divisive, with teachers concerned that they are being used as part of attempts to widen public immunity to the virus.”
The same irrational mindset has infected teachers and parents here – getting children spreading the virus between themselves, building their own and thus longer term population immunity is not only exactly what needs to happen, and should have been happening for the last 6 weeks for this latest coronavirus, but is an inevitable and vital part of childhood when it comes to numerous infections and ultimately improves public health. Yes – not-at-risk children are unwittingly – and even deliberately – used to widen public immunity to disease. Two months ago this was common knowledge.
Two months ago it was common knowledge that humans actually have an immune system. Now it appears that immunity to infection can only be conferred via syringe.
A vaccine may give a better longer lasting immunity, but from the fact that there have been very few (and these few haven’t been entirely clearly proven to be so, good chance of errors in test results) cases of reinfection we can clearly see that natural immunity is good enough to let us get on with life until (if) a vaccine can be ready. If we got no natural immunity then reinfection would be very common, especially for groups like households quarantined together, they would be eternally spreading it back and forth to each other if some immunity didn’t arise.
The WHO has since made an urgent clarification on this after the media when to town on this!
The UK’s testing strategy will collapse like a house of cards. The amount of asymptomatic infection is enormous in the population. The retired Swedish State Epidemiologist Prof Giesecke said that most of transmission of covid-19 was from asymptomatic to asymptomatic and most people will not have noticed that they were infected. The below report supports that assumption. Perhaps asymptomatic transmission is better that Bill Gates vaccine in 2021 before we can ease the lockdown? At least it seemed to have worked for these prisoners even older with pre-existing health conditions.
Another shocking report from Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-prisons-testing-in/in-four-u-s-state-prisons-nearly-3300-inmates-test-positive-for-coronavirus-96-without-symptoms-idUSKCN2270RX
“They started with the Marion Correctional Institution, which houses 2,500 prisoners in north central Ohio, many of them older with pre-existing health conditions. After testing 2,300 inmates for the coronavirus, they were shocked. Of the 2,028 who tested positive, close to 95% had no symptoms.”
Even when they started testing in other prisons in other states they came up with same figures.
It’s easier to fool people than convince them that they have been fooled. (M Twain)
I would be very interested to know how precise these “tests” actually are, are they really able to identify one specific virus, to the definite exclusion of all others?
The test used was the usual PCR test to diagnose covid-19. I don’t know how common it is to look at the same time for other viruses but I suspect that is uncommon at least in Europe. So in this study they only looked for Covid-19. But there are reports of up to 20% co infection with other viruses with Covid-19.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/03/covid-19-can-coexist-with-other-respiratory-viruses.html
I think it has also been described in China co-infection with Influenza A. This begs the question.
If there are many asymptomatic carriers of Covid-19 how do we now if not some of them could be co infected by other virus ie Influenza etc. Would they not be classified as a Covid-19 case if they became symptomatic even though the actual infection could have been something else, incl influenza?
If SARS-Cov-2 was harmless but extremely contagious, would it explain what we’re seeing? That in fact the people with symptoms are also infected with variants of influenza (which scars lungs, triggers pneumonia, kills), but the asymptomless ones are merely carrying a harmless virus? That we are looking at a nasty flu epidemic with a spurious marker spreading in parallel. Please let it be true.
You know it’s true.
‘So a correct comparison is not Sars or Mers but a severe cold. Basically this is a severe form of the cold.’
‘Sunlight is really good at killing viruses. That’s why I believe that Australia and the southern hemisphere will not see any great infections rates because they have lots of sunlight and they are in the middle of summer. And Wuhan and Beijing is still cold which is why there’s high infection rates.’
‘I think this looks more like the seasonal influenza where those who die have co-morbidity.’
‘At this stage it’s a really bad cold which can cause problems in people. People are talking about the “lethal virus” but seasonal influenza can cause deaths in elderly but we don’t call that “the lethal influenza”’
Professor John Nicholls, clinical professor in pathology at the University of Hong Kong and expert on coronaviruses. 06 Feb 2020
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/26/lifting-lockdown-except-vulnerable-would-see-100000-die-government/
Madness.. presumably he intends to keep us all locked up for the next 18 months then? It’s not like they’ve been well protected even in lockdown!
If no vaccine can be found and distributed the same 100,000 will die anyway, either from some other disease, catching Covid despite the lockdown, or losing the will to live etc. The majority seem to be in denial about this.
Madness indeed. Comes in for heavy criticism in my ConWom piece tomorrow morning.
Btw do you or anyone happen to know where the London hospital admissions data is published? People refer to it but I haven’t been able to find it.
Somewhat ominous that this is reported in The Telegraph (Johnson’s newspaper) the day before some of us were hoping for good news. I feel this is not a good sign.
For Ferguson it is *essential* that the lockdown is not lifted before a vaccine. As long as the lockdown is in place, he is safe; as soon as it is lifted, his predictions will be tested. The same goes for the government. It is now an exercise in saving a few men’s reputations at the expense of the country.
I think he may be briefing against the govt. Maybe.
I doubt very much that this is the issue. He can easily get out of any forecast issues now by saying that the data was poor at the outset & the estimates cautious – high number of deaths prompting a very cautious response. Now is a time to modify. The academics will be found out if the are deliberately lying. By the way, the scientific community does not work like this. You do get the odd rogue researcher but the are rare.
I have a number of friends who are in the ‘scientific community’ as was my grandfather; they are just as petty, fearful, biased as the rest of us.
Prof. Ferguson is well within his rights to defend his model. I think some of his assumptions are wrong (such as a 30% rate for asymptomatic, and a 15% of cases severe enough to be hospitalized, to name but 2), and I definitely think that some equivalent doomsday economic scenario should have been put against it; compare worst case to worse case and work down from that. It’s worth remembering that modeling isn’t scientific in the same way as, say, organic chemistry where you can postulate then experiment. Models tend to confirm our assumptions.
Hector Drummond wrote a good post about probability (his specialty, as far as I can make out) here:
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/04/13/taking-probability-seriously-on-covid-19/
Given that, as reported, there are no economic specialists on SAGE I think it’s far to say that hasn’t happened.
I think he’s currently covering his back in front of a loosening of lock down from the Government.
We’ll have to disagree. It could well be that the initial assumptions were pessimistic – the data set is still not great. I’ve done a lot of modelling over the years and it is obviously true that you can get a model to do whatever you want – except when specialists review and challenge the input. This process is always happening. Nobody just accepts outputs.
SAGE will have an agenda set by government. I think you are right about Sage. I suspect the politician’s version of science is the narrow epidemiological view. “Tell us how to minimise Covid deaths”.
Just seen this. So we stay in lockdown – nobody goes to work, the economy is to collapse, which means the NHS is to collapse. 100,000 deaths – if we can give ANY credence whatsoever to these figures in the light of this guy’s track record – will be as nothing compared to the genocidal consequences of this raving insanity. Professor Karol Sikora predicts at least 50,000 unnecessary cancer deaths if lockdown continues another 6 months, add to that the deaths from all other undiagnosed/untreated disease, a mental health crisis, deaths from spousal abuse, suicides and possible starvation. A few more months and we’ll be a third world nation. It’s time for people with functioning brains to end this. Surely there must be thousands of specialists – doctors, immunologists, virologists, microbiologists, psychologists, economists and sociologists – whose families will be devastated by this craziness and who will break ranks and speak out. Hell, even BBC presenters and journalists will break ranks. Either that, or the public will say “to hell with it” and simply go back to work and take their chances. What is happening here? The lethality of this virus to the healthy under-65s is “negligible” according to Prof… Read more »
And what is worse, there ARE simple options for treating those 0.1-0.5% of the population who have life-threatening complications.
No, I’m not talking about that malaria drug which seems to be the only treatment on the table.
I’m talking intravenous vitamin C (or oral vitamin C if the patient is able to swallow) at megadoses. A known antiviral procedure since the 1930s but non-patentable, hence forgotten and unused:
|| And here I was going to post some references via the Orthomolecular News Service which were available online YESTERDAY; the links have disappeared and searches are now throwing up a load of articles about the “severe dangers” of this treatment which have appeared OVERNIGHT. ||
The only link I can find is this: (screen grab it, and any functioning links, while you can)
http://orthomolecular.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&chash=0f28b5d49b3020afeecd95b4009adf4c.145&s=fe4dcfb3f3b980572787b5a69582545e
The other treatment is the “vitamin D hammer” which is here (but probably not for long):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/
I am in despair. It’s like an Orwellian nightmare; have we been – are we being – “played” all along? I would love to still think this is just sheer governmental and scientific incompetence but now…I don’t know, I really just don’t know.
One would like to think criminal charges will follow for those people that have deliberately misled the public. One thing that definitely needs investigating is the influence the pharmaceutical companies and the vaccine industry have had on the whole crisis. Bill Gates has been funding the Imperial College for years. The chief medical officer received 40 million dollars from the Bill and Melinda gates foundation for research and the BBC has also been paid handsomely by Mr Gates.
Gates has said that nobody can return to normal until the whole world is vaccinated – by his vaccine obviously. This whole saga is being dragged out so Mr Gates can force through mandatory vaccinations.
The question is, who is running our government – Boris Johnson or the Vaccine industry?
Please take a look at the facts on Vitamin C. If it were a cure we would be all over it. There is no “Vitamin C” conspiracy. Why would the whole medical community have it in for Vitamin C?
https://sciencefeedback.co/outlet/orthomolecular-medicine-news-service/
The medical community is a bit like the church – they don’t break ranks if they know what’s good for them, especially over “unapproved” treatments. I have been a lifelong self-help advocate and have a physiotherapy background; I read papers on Vitamin C by the pioneers – Klenner, Cathcart, Pauling and others – when I was at college, because of Vit C’s role in producing healthy collagen. The antiviral, antitoxin effects of high doses have been published over decades. These published papers are small scale studies and thus easily dismissed. Who would fund expensive, large scale trials on a cheap, non- patentable substance? Answer = nobody. And so we are left with the published clinical observations of the pioneers; all available on PubMed (or maybe not, now we’re being censored for our own good.) Now, I looked at the link you provided. This is interesting: “Another study demonstrated that high-dose vitamin C supplementation of approximately 6 g/day improved the survival rate among severely ill patients in intensive care units[3], although this has not been confirmed in randomized, controlled clinical trials. For reference, the daily recommended vitamin C intake for healthy individuals is 75 mg for women and 90 mg for… Read more »
‘Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity’
Hanlon’s razor
I’m worried about the impact all of our compulsive hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes and Lysol spraying everything in sight is going to have on our immune systems down the road. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that we were being warned that the overuse of these products is causing a rise in immune-resistant bacteria? We’ll make it out of Covid but all come down with Staph infections.
By the way, I attended a “chicken pox party” as a child in the 1970s, caught the chicken pox and am just fine. I know this is a wildly out-of-fashion notion, but it did work.
Aaaahhhh Ferguson with your stupid glasses and playground Excel model please just go away
The frightening thing is that Ferguson has for some reason complete control of government lockdown policy, to the point that what he says goes. I fully expect the government to follow his unfounded recommendations, but since our government consists of middle managers or careerists its not surprising. It seems we not only haven’t a scientific voice to challenge the current disastrous control data free Ferguson model but we also have no politicians in the government/cabinet to put forward an anti lockdown argument. Those in power do the profession of being a politician a disgraceful disservice. Neil Ferguson is nothing more than an advisor, there to give an opinion and recommendation that should be either absolutely proven correct beyond all doubt or robustly scientifically challenged. Even then it should be counter balanced against all other arguments such as the economy, etc. His language in interviews suggests he thinks he’s an elected representative with our interests at heart and government should do as he says. He needs to be told otherwise. He needs to think long and hard about whether he really believes he is absolutely correct with his findings, as his models are possibly the sole cause for the destruction of… Read more »
Professor Ferguson is but one member of SAGE. He is not in sole control.
But it seems like he very much is. Until they publish SAGE meeting minutes, I’ll stick with my conclusion that current government policy and everything Neil Ferguson says relating to his model and its findings are not just coincidentally connected. His peers from renowned institutions around the world whose opinions and ideas have been ignored by government seem to come to the same conclusion. Are they criticising his work and his seemingly vast importance to government policy application out of jealously?
What is happening? Look at these fresh death statistics form CDC US.
https://twitter.com/KoenSwinkels/status/1254506653044662276/photo/1
Dramatic drop in deaths of other causes just replaced by Covid-19 and no increase in total deaths.
Is it possible that when we have a virus whose current test (if done) has a reasonably high false positive rate and whose symptoms are not unique we end up with death displacement, i.e many of the deaths that would normally be logged as respiratory complications etc. are now going into the Covid-19 pot.
Those US CDC, figures essentially prove that the Covid 19 pandemic is an MSM generated farce. If total deaths have not risen and doctors have essentially been labelling deaths from other causes as Covid deaths then legislation is needed to stop this bad joke from happening again.
The “underlying cause of death” has to be listed as the cause eg cancer or heart disease. Many thousands are going to die as a result of this panic. Many westerners aren’t getting cancer check ups because they’re too scared to see their doctor – or newly poor. Many Africans will die from the economic down turn.
Brain dead, 28 year old newspaper editors should also become liable. Maybe we need a Tortiously Liable for Generating Panic Media Act???
The problem with that is that there is clear excess mortality in Europe & New York. What’s caused those deaths?
Excess mortality in England is matching the worst flu seasons. Doesn’t mean the lockdown is a good idea, but we need to work with the facts. It will be important to work out why some places were so much worse affected than others. Population density? Air quality? Different strains? Healthiness? All could play a role and more.
Quite – but we do have to be realistic. It’s clear CORVID is a nasty disease to a lot of people; it’s less clear that house arrest is appropriate.
“What’s caused those deaths?”
A strain of flu running in parallel..? Or just the lockdown itself.
The lockdown is a simultaneous ‘stimulus’ across the whole population. Normally, deaths are more-or-less independent of each other, smoothed out over millions of people. But here we have *simultaneously* locked up all the old people, cut them off from their relatives, prevented them from keeping fit, scared them half (or all the way) to death, changed their diets. All at the same moment.
And some of this applies to younger people, too.
Shouldn’t we expect to see some sort of blip starting after a few weeks?
The problem I have with these possibilities is that they, for me, fail Occam’s Razor – the simplest explanation is usually true. I think in terms of arguing against a manifestly unjust house arrest we should be careful with those sorts of ideas because they’re easy to dismiss as just wishful thinking.
Lockdowns will cause deaths, that’s obvious. I don’t think this quickly though.
Occam’s Razor is all about perception. If you’d never heard of Covid-19 then Occam’s Razor would come down firmly on the side of the mundane explanation rather than the idea there was a fancy new virus in town.
The only reason any of us knows anything about Covid-19 is the ‘narrative’ we’ve been fed. That’s even true for doctors. If we’d all been told it was just a bad flu season none of us would be any the wiser.
I think there’s a lot in that.
I’ll not belabour Occam. We do know that there is a “fancy new virus in town” and it’s not only in town it’s around the globe. It’s killing people in New York. Sure people are dying of other causes too. But the difference in 2020 is Covid. That doesn’t make the lock down right.
However, people claiming that Covid is nothing and an MSM generated panic is nuts.
No, we don’t know that, at all.
We’ve been told that by people with direct financial and political advantages if we believe it and (allow them to) change our behaviour accordingly.
The evidence provided for their assertion is sketchy at best (proven dishonest sources, unreliable technologies, actual outcomes vastly different from their predictions) and at worst it is criminally fraudulent, mendacious, negligent, stalinist, and plainly idiotic.
Whether there is or there isn’t a new virus present, and whether it is or it isn’t more dangerous than a bad flu, what is undeniably nuts is closing down the entire economic foundation that keeps us all alive and living a life we consider worth living.
Unpopular opinion, if personal liberty, economic prosperity and our ability to flourish as a country in the long term was not in some circumstances worth risking aspects our collective safety for we would not be calling the heroic Captain Thomas Moore Captain. I would also be making this post in German. Our society has always been prepared to accept grave risks and even deaths for freedom and I am sad to see that calculus change now.
So Boris fails another Churchill moment.
Do we think it’s possible that the following will happen? The government and its blind modellers know the game is up, but continue mouthing the words “second wave”, “don’t give up”, “keep the brakes on”, etc. But in reality, businesses open up, the police are gently told to back off, people just drift back to normality without anyone having to make a “difficult decision”..?
It’s the opposite of Churchillian leadership, but the politicians have worked out it’s their best way of wriggling out from the catastrophe they have created?
They continue to present themselves as an ideas vacuum – because no one can see, touch, feel or blame a vacuum.
No. He used a lot of referrals to being at war, in fact we are.
I think the UK will be one of the last country, if not the last country, to “ease” “lockdown”.
The UK is the head of the snake, the Fabian snake. Hence why, they have to keep with their agenda, last one to surrender…
I would love to think so. But despite a little light resistance I can’t see much sign of public appetite for rebelling. Depressing. And truly frightening.
I don’t think it is “unfortunate” that “we” have “generated a very heavily panic-driven, horror-driven, death-reality-show type of situation.” I think it is tragic, in the truest sense of the word, that we have allowed ourselves to be duped. It is more than just a click-addicted media in play here. Truth is being distorted deliberately in order to induce fear, as a means of control.
See for example this:
“On March 30, we mentioned the list of Italian doctors who died „during the Corona crisis“, many of whom were up to 90 years old and didn’t actively participate in the crisis at all. Today, all years of birth on the list have been removed (see however the last archive version). A strange procedure.”
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
There is something far more insidious going on here than “mob mentality”. This is a relatively few people, in positions of authority, manipulating the mob mentality.
So, according to Prof. Ferguson yesterday, lifting the lockdown for all bar the elderly would see more than 100,000 die. Policy response: we’re following the science, the science says if we lift the lockdown an unacceptable number of people will die. Ergo, we will not lift the lockdown. That is just stupidity on so many levels. The government should not be following the science. The science should just be the starting point. The first thing to do is interrogate the science. What are the key parameters that produce that level of fatality? What is the evidence for the values you attribute to those parameters? Are there other plausible views? What would be the result of assuming different values? All this to form a view, with a limited amount of information, as to whether we are dealing with a truly deadly virus or not. Just because Prof. Ferguson’s model says it is, doesn’t make it so. So, we come to a view of the type of virus we’re dealing with in terms of its contagiousness and lethality, and recognise that we don’t really know that with any certainty, but let’s say that we would expect xx,000 deaths if we lifted lockdown,… Read more »
Boris Johnson’s announcement today and comments/interviews from Ferguson confirm completely that he is running the show. There will naturally be other SAGE scientists having input but the timing of Ferguson press releases and government policy updates clearly confirm the UK policy is driven massively if not solely by ICL Ferguson modelling. Why do the government say “following the science” every minute of the day? For the love of god just say “following Ferguson”, anyone with an ounce of common sense can see this. I know that in reality they can’t name him as their soothsayer in chief but give us a break and tell it like it is – that were guessing and using only one model that we think produces the best guess and we will pretend any other models or opinions don’t exist as were utterly clueless.
“But dismissing real data in favour of mathematical speculation is mind-boggling.” This is why precedent is so important. There’s an ancient Latin warning about “seeing the principle of the thing in the first act” and it is something that most people never learn and every generation suffers from not learning. This is exactly how the multi-trillion dollar climate change boondoggle operated, and this mode of operation was baptised into respectability by a massive agglomeration of scientists, politicians, pundits, media shrieking heads (they used to be “talking heads” but those days are gone, eh, Piers?), concern trolls, etc. So no, it’s not mind-boggling at all. It’s just how social engineering is done in the modern world and it is SOP for those who insist that the world needs to be governed by them and people like them. It was incredibly stupid of us to let this precedent be established in re climate change and doubly stupid to allow it to double down on the pandemic panic. But here we are. In spite of a dislike of artificial dichotomies, I believe we have but two choices: we either fight back or we accept our new status as serfs in the new globalist… Read more »
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/gemeinsamer-appell-von-prominenten-rasch-raus-aus-dem-corona-lockdown/25773378.html This world is upside down. In the UK, the whole establishment is following the government directives like sheep. In Germany, which has one of the best outcomes of the covid-19 pandemic, the furore against the lockdown is growing by the day from all parts of society incl. prominent politicians, scientists, authors, philosophers and human right lawyers. They have come together as the link above highlights, with a frontal attack against the lockdown published in “Der Spiegel” This is done from a public health, economical and legal standpoint. One of the persons in the above petition is the Professor in Virology, Alexander von Kekule, Munich, who unfortunately this time around was the earlier advisor to Chancellor Merkel. He is a very prominent person, who early on in the pandemic, was advising for sensible wide range social distancing measure short of lockdown even before they were instituted in Germany. I will give you a few sentences translated. The lockdown is ruining our social, cultural and economic life. We must at the same time both protect our public health, economy and rule of law. They argue that three main goals, economy, constitutional rights and life should not be competing objectives instead they… Read more »
According to the New York Times, the first draft of the report was critical of China’s for orchestrating a “global disinformation campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak of the pandemic”.
Pot, kettle, black. Remember Iraq.