In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, F.A. Hayek noted: "the erroneous belief that the exercise of some power would have beneficial consequences is likely to lead to a new power to coerce". This remains true today.
The epiforecast group at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine recently held a competition to forecast cases and deaths. They found that self-declared experts performed slightly worse than non-experts.
At this point in the pandemic, you might say 'Zero Covid' is a non-starter. Yet a recent article argues that "COVID-19 must be eliminated". As you might expect, this article ignores the crucial role of immunity.
September was the first month of the year in which several causes of death other than Covid were above their five-year averages. After months of disruption, are we now seeing the impact of lockdown on mortality?
A recent viral tweet claims the Government would not have pursued "herd immunity" if the virus targetted "Etonians and bankers rather than working class and poorer people". But it gets pretty much everything wrong.
In 2019, nine out of ten people lived in countries with a higher level of mortality than Britain experienced last year. While the change in mortality last year was historically high, the level to which it rose was not.
Lockdowns represent a radical departure from conventional forms of pandemic management. So where did 'The Science' of lockdown come from? It's a story that involves Italy, the WHO and our old friend Neil Ferguson.
Despite experiencing a moderately high infection rate in the winter, Denmark has had only 1% excess mortality since the pandemic began. This suggests that some degree of focused protection can be achieved.
The House of Commons’ report says that our first lockdown “should have come sooner”. But it ignores the risks of postponing the epidemic. Many countries that missed the first wave got hit even harder in the second.
The BMJ has published a clumsy and very belated hit piece against the Great Barrington Declaration, which relies on ad hominem, guilt by association and appeals to authority. Read this point-by-point response.
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