At the start of this health crisis, those of us that didn’t (don’t) buy into the fear, and yet acknowledged the very real unknowns of early February/March, we happily wore the masks and followed the draconian lockdown measures, mostly as consideration to those around us (and naturally to avoid the punishment of the authorities).
Now, with *large* amounts of data, much of which is even biased in the ‘err in the conservative’ direction, we know with high levels of certainty the following:
– Masks are largely ineffective for the purposes they are being required. Not completely ineffective, (slightly better than nothing), but functionally irrelevant to the purported task. Studies confirming this have existed for years and are largely ignored by the power-brokers in our midst. The ‘experts’ at the American CDC and the WHO have flip-flopped on their recommendations multiple times, seemingly aligning with the political fashion of the day, rather than the science that they themselves publish (!) and know with high certainty. This is a bit odd. (eta: wwwnc cdc gov /eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article – fix the URL to access)
– In countries, states, counties, districts, towns, and clubs, the infection propagation rate is audit-ably only slightly above the common cold or flu. The data is in and not even being argued, let alone dignified in the few conversations being had. But the authorities’ behavior somehow continues as if on auto-pilot.
– The available and growing data indicates that the real death-rate is slightly above that of the flu, and notably hard on our elders, especially those with co-morbidities (pre-existing health stresses). The ‘damage’ rate is very low to the remaining population (especially under 25ers) but seems to really hit some ‘average’ folks very hard with lasting effects – notably lung damage, while leaving others relatively unscathed, if not completely unnoticed. That the American CDC has admitted that of the 220,000 recorded deaths in America, that only 6% (14k?) were ‘pure COVID-19’ best they could tell, and the rest were registered as COVID-related – meaning the poor folks that died may have been pushed over an ‘edge’ in the same way as a flu or cold may have. My problem isn’t with the probable and valid association with COVID-19, it’s with the unquestioned binding that the statistic, which was probably cited 30 times by the American *Presidential candidates* in their recent political debates, as being simple un-nuanced facts. Sorry guys, we’re *not* certain that all 206,000 of the COVID-19 patients in question died of the virus, we only know that the now dead people had it! (eta: great comment below by TomD: disq us /p/2czytxd – fix the URL or browse down a bit)
– There are virtually no studies that verify the existence of so-called ‘super-spreaders’, Only rumors that make good headlines. Like colds and flu carriers, the period just before you realize you have something, you are likely to be sharing it liberally, after which the contagious factor drops notably. You’d think if super-spreaders were ‘real’, that within the pool of positive testers, some sample would be tested and tracked for the existence of such entities. I’m still waiting. (eta: a comment was made that cited an existing study, but since has been removed by the user. That such a study exists is worth noting.)
– Watching closely, to my count, there have been ~10 audit-able cases of repeat occurrences in persons who have gotten the bug twice, 2 of which have reportedly died as a result. This is out of 7 billion people, and with a vulturing media that will headline every case they find to sell more clicks or papers, it’s not like repeat cases would be slipping through the cracks here. The idea that re-infection is currently a *real* problem in the general risk profile is abject nonsense. Yes, it could be, but it currently is not.
– The true data shows virtually no difference in infection and propagation rates between populations that mask and lockdown relative to those that don’t, and in far too many cases, the supposed occurrence of spikes in infections (which do make headlines), has turned out to be data spikes due to IT and data processing errors (which don’t make headlines, except in skeptical media outlets). In a few cases, it appears there have been some delay and deferral effects due to these prevention measures, but even in a few of these cases the data is arguably questionable. The effectiveness of these defense measures is clearly lower than those in power would wish it (laudably), but also far lower than they would have you believe as they seriously consider round two.
– The most common test, (PCR) is *known* to be useful but it is *not* a certain indicator of infection. While hard to explain, they can determine with useful certainty that one has been exposed and/or is fighting the COV SARS2 – COVID-19 virus, but many other infection influences across a lifetime *will show the same signature*. Add to this that the test can be run at different levels and is currently being run at levels that *will show indicators at a higher contrast, but with less certainty* – to put it in layman’s terms. This means the tests are being run to generate more false-positives, rather than to miss cases, which might be a fair choice if the consequences of false positives aren’t high. This also means that those (especially nurses and techs who are simply following clearly established protocol) are reading the results much like a madame would read tarot cards. (eta: great PCR test info by a Dr. Mackay mentioned below by Paul Wright at “virologydownunder com /yes-pcr-tests-can-detect-the-covid-virus/” – fix the URL to access – great read – balanced and complete.)
– When the vulture media report new ‘cases’, how many of you can describe exactly what a ‘case’ is, and if that case poses a risk to fellow citizens – which is really the most important factor isn’t it? Is a new ‘case’ simply someone that had it?, or do they still have it? Is that person contagious? or not? and if so, how contagious *now*? and how contagious over the next 14 days (so-called lifespan of the sickness – and don’t get me started on that)? Very few know, but worse, apparently very few care: “More cases!” This means that effectively nobody can tell you how much risk is actually present in the system at a given moment. So, … we assume it’s all bad and lock ourselves up. Again. “Just in case”. “Trust the science”. But don’t do any science. Contagiousness matters, otherwise ‘cases’ are simply interesting in that we know who is *not* likely to get it – for which it could be argued that we should be wishing there were *more* cases, not less… sigh.
– Counting cases – this is a doozy for the fear-mongering headline grabbers… A new case is *bad*, and the fact that there are more-than-there-were-before means we’re dooomed, right? Well, as many have tried to articulate, you test more, you’re going to get more results! duh. It’s when you see headlines that say “Cases have *doubled* over the weekend!”, – or “200% more cases over the last 3 days!”, and then, with rudimentary digging, you find that the case count went from 7 to 13 cases, (in a population of 300,000!), and 3 of them had no symptoms, and one had tested negative the next day… all of which, if you *choose* to look, should clue you into the idea that something isn’t passing the sniff test here. Something else is going on, and it’s well-past time for more of us to *choose to look*.
When you consider that virtually every outcome of this statistically low-risk disease event can in some way be be tied at the highest levels of our sources of trust and information, to high-power and high-profit mandates of the in-place power systems and the medical service and product corporations, at least the connections between some of the dots might start to make more sense. Of course you can go conspiracy crazy here, but even the simplest consideration of the agendas and the amounts of power and money involved ought to raise some questions in a healthy and intelligent gut.
When you also consider that most rational but gutless politicians will far more likely ‘chance’ the possibility of figuring out what to do *tomorrow* with the side-effects of the lock-downs and creating functional police states with your communities today, rather than risk the very immediate, unpopular, and tragic death of ‘grandma’ today… Kicking the can isn’t exactly irrational, but “at what cost?” would be a great conversation to begin someday soon.
It seems to me a better approach to this situation is to re-visit the *current* risk profiles, trust the *current* data, and assume that perhaps a better answer is to take extra steps to protect those ‘at risk’ while encouraging the broader community to carefully and conscientiously keep the gears of life moving for the better good of the community at large. This would be a far more prudent approach (as proven in more than a few *large* populations) and *does not* preclude moving back to more careful measures if data-backed and otherwise warranted.
Perhaps we will also reconsider the structures of our current community “emergency powers” directives and better-scrutinize the character and crisis-management judgement capabilities of our duly elected leaders more carefully as we vote in the near future.
As with so many ignorant and fearful media outlets, the writers of this article have shared a good amount of speculation, fear, uncertainty, and arguable ignorance with us, mixed in with some merit-worthy points and information. Perhaps it is time that we all poke around at some of the more pragmatic information sources out there (this article is pretty one-sided) and make up our own minds about the current situation, rather than trusting others to do it for us. Perhaps you can’t do this kind of digging for every threat that surfaces, but this would be a good time and a good issue to maybe withhold some of your trust and do your own research and thinking, given the license to destroy lives and lively-hoods it apparently has handed to our elected (and many non-elected!) officials. I’m pretty sure they mean well, but… you know what they say about the path to hell.
Remember at the beginning of this adventure, we knew nothing about it other than “china” and “scary”. We were all wary, nervous, and conscientiously willing to dignify our own fears and honor our neighbors fears as well. That’s what good people do.
Now we know far more, and we’re behaving like we know nothing more – dogmatically adhering to less-justified fears and expired narratives. With data being ignored by our leaders, sincere intelligent doctors being censored for questioning the ‘science’ and more-so the narrative, and worst of all, bubbly but absolutely ignorant talking heads on network TV telling us with clear-eyed *certainty* that we’re literally ‘killing people’ by questioning that same narrative – all this, in spite of our own seasoned eyes and guts telling us that maybe things aren’t quite like they’re telling us… (eta: Okay, this is a bit hyperbolic. I was on a roll there… it’s not like nobody is updating their responses and behaviors, but… there’s are still a *lot* of questionable rules being executed out there, and not all are based on current information, and the trend doesn’t seem to be improving in some areas)
This article has the proper form, the right words, the pretty graphs, and the scary accusatory headline that implies that many well-intentioned and intelligent skeptics are dangerous nay-sayers and conspiracy nuts – but really, to my read, it’s an interesting take, rich with not-so-self-evident ‘truths, leaving me a bit wanting for more of the other side of the discussion.
Perhaps it’s time to consider that something else might be going on here and do some checking for ourselves.
(edit to add:
I am firmly convinced that COV SARS2/COVID-19 is a real and potentially deadly/crippling threat to some folks, and we cannot lose sight of that. I believe if my mother gets it before a working vaccine is available for her, that she will die. I am close in age to the published risk population and am not interested in taking on this beast either, but I wish to live my life with consideration and selfishness both until new options are available. 8 months of emergency aren’t working for me *with what we now know*.
My inspiration for this note was the authors’ use of the term ‘deniers’ with respect to anyone who doubts a second wave, or who doubts anything presented by the highest levels of our scientific community. There are innumerable brilliant and capable people that do not work for the CDC or WHO, and the forces that drive those organizations are hardly transparent. The read of the article also showed bias that moved me to at least comment… so here we are.
Like everyone here, we don’t know, but I am comfortable with my conclusions that blanket policies that paint too broadly and have been now been determined to have ‘negligible’ effect are the easy way out for our leaders, and I fear these policies are causing damage beyond our ability to understand to the economic and social fabric of our societies, and are decisions being made without the blessings and participation of our communities. I hope my fears are unfounded. I also believe we are resilient as heck, so we’ll ultimately be fine, but this seems *so* unnecessary, given a bit more thought could save us from a lot more trouble.
When writers of an article like this take well-studied but differing opinions and shut them down with terms like ‘deniers’, I take offense and spend way too much time in a forum describing why. Perhaps it articulates what many others have also been thinking, and I suppose that’s worth something.
Thanks for your kind and critical words, both, and please continue to peacefully and rationally engage your peers and leaders in coming up with better solutions today than we had yesterday. Its all we can ask, and the noble-est and most achievable path I can expect to live up to. Best of health to your and yours
end: edit to add)
best, mf (edits: re-phrasing and softened the unnecessarily harsh critique of the original authors and article., links/references added)
10 audit-able cases of repeat occurrences in persons who have gotten the bug twice, 2 of which have reportedly died as a result.
========
That’s out off 750 million infections. Population is the wrong measure for the denominator.
The conclusion is that its not an issue.
Falling antibody levels is another fraud. The conclusion from the alarmists is that this must mean immunity is lost.
The research from the SARS outbreak is people still have immunity. What’s going on is that antibodies aren’t being produced because people are not exposed to more virus.
At issue are the SARs-CoV-2 variants. The multiple infections in India were examined to verify the second infection was a verified genomic variant. Apparently T-cell response wasn’t triggered for the variant. We have little reporting on the various circulating variants.
Great post. I also do not understand why the government have not advised the taking of Vit D and Zinc. The admittedly small survey in Spain and data from Iran show people who are low in them are more likely to suffer more and die. Vit D and Zinc cost pennies, meanwhile we have spent over 12 billion pounds on testing, that is £200 for every person in the UK.
Quite! And also why the authors mention all drug interventions under the sun and vaccines but make no mention at all of vitamin D and zinc. This article explains just how important vitamin D is and why even people that are taking supplements are probably not getting enough or not getting it in the right form: “Correcting misapprehensions about vitamin D to save lives and reduce hospitalisations” https://drive.google.com/fi…
No, there is always one HUGE thing left out. Taiwan and Vietnam (worldometers) have 0.3 deaths per million, the rest of Western Pacific have 3 deaths per million contrasting the Western Nations having 600-800 deaths per million. Why? I read a natural immunity exists from eons of exposure, rather like the Europeans taking the normal illnesses to the New World and wiping out half the natives. Is this true? Is this the ‘Dark Matter Immunity’ at play? What does this mean about the source and such?
Exactly. For anyone who is really interested in what this is all about, I will be happy to explain in minute detail, however, Discus will not let me post links to any evidence, so it falls upon the reader to verify any information I give.
Disqus won’t let anyone post links to anything, and decided my response to this thread was “spam”, so I don’t think Russ has been singled out by Them (although it’ll feed his persecution delusions, unfortuanately).
Precisely. There are so many things to take issue with in this piece, which I hoped would give me something to counter my impending sense of doom and that we’re on a road to self-destruct. Apart from the many issues they don’t address (old data used by Sage, cases caught in hospital, confluence with other seasonal illnesses, the idea that a vaccine is the only thing worth counting on etc etc), what I really take issue with is this patronising, let-us-set-the-plebs-straight approach that treats everybody with legitimate concerns as irresponsible deniers of the facts, which, according to these authors can only be viewed through the prism of control of a single virus and to hell with everything else – our jobs, livelihoods, sanity, our culture, our common life, our family & social networks – all the things that make our lives meaningful and give us a sense of purpose.
> – In countries, states, counties, districts, towns, and clubs, the infection propagation rate is audit-ably only slightly above the common cold or flu.
Is it? Evidence? “Comparing SARS-CoV-2 with SARS-CoV and influenza pandemics” in the Lancet has: ” The basic reproductive rate (R0) for SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be 2·5 (range 1·8″“3·6) compared with 2∙0″“3∙0 for SARS-CoV and the 1918 influenza pandemic, 0∙9 for MERS-CoV, and 1·5 for the 2009 influenza pandemic”.
> but many other infection influences across a lifetime *will show the same signature*
Dr Ian MacKay at the University of Queensland says (in his blog, under “Yes, PCR tests can detect “the COVID virus””) that primers are chosen to pick out unique sequences of SARS-Cov-2 and tests are validated against other viruses. What do you mean by the quoted text?
> Add to this that the test can be run at different levels and is currently being run at levels that *will show indicators at a higher contrast, but with less certainty* – to put it in layman’s terms.
At Birmingham Lighthouse lab they sequence every positive test, so they all contain the virus. (Source: Prof Alan McNally who runs the lab, @alanmcn1 on Twitter, Oct 31). More could be done to publicise this in the wake of the current round of “casedemic” conspiracy theories on social media, but I suspect the people running the labs are a bit busy.
> This means the tests are being run to generate more false-positives, rather than to miss cases, which might be a fair choice if the consequences of false positives aren’t high.
FPR is no worse than about 0.05%. Source: ONS’s page “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot: England, 17 July 2020” where they say “For example, in our most recent six weeks of data, 50 of the 112,776 total samples tested positive. Even if all these positives were false, specificity would still be 99.96%” (and so the FPR 100% – 99.96% = 0.04%).
The proportion of tests giving positives has been increasing since the end of August (source: “Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing statistics (UK): data tables”). Has the testing methodology changed during that time, or do more people have the virus, do you think?
> This article has the proper form, the right words, the pretty graphs, and the scary accusatory headline that implies that many well-intentioned and intelligent skeptics are dangerous nay-sayers and conspiracy nuts – but really, to my read, it’s hollow, incomplete, sensational garbage.
The article is specifically addressing the current round of people quoting Yeadon and saying that therefore there’s no need for government interventions. Yeadon is, as far as I can see, completely wrong.
I tend to agree with that as well. The trouble with politics is that once you are locked into a point of view you can be unwilling or unable to look at new facts, the attention being on saving face because of your political career.
Thank you for making the effort. This article is long-winded scare mongering. CV is bad flu, we live with flu, yes you can get it more than once, so what? There is NO reasonable justification for these extreme and damaging measures. There IS an agenda; it behoves each one of to find out what that is.
No more to say. Many on this forum have been trying to articulate this over a period of time and this puts it all together in one comment that could stand as an article. Respect sir.
How about death years? How many years are lost to these 300,000 CDC excess deaths? Average age of 82 and all – what I am getting at is will the excess death numbers become below normal deaths in 2021 where it balances out with some under a year of life lost per average? If so how much importance should be put on end of life years contrasting beginning of life years(loss of school and jobs).
Life years lost consistently measured at over 10, which is the average. Some obviously lose very little time (as with most diseases), the flip side is that there must be plenty losing a lot.
I’m just joining in saying thank you for this great reply. I do think Saloni is one of the good guys, but her piece is a very detailed rebuttal of a case that few of us have much attachment to, yet it claims the sensationalist headline.
A well-presented analysis. If only we could have you at one of the daily audiences given by Boris and his clowns to put these issues to them. Out with Beth Rigby, in with bf.
It is time the nonsense of wave was left behind. We have seasonal respiratory illnesses every winter. We are not in a second wave, it is just coming around again like flu, and seems likely to do this for some years, even with a vaccine.
Only a few percent mention no comorbidities, but of those that have comorbidities, many are covid-caused. Pneumonia is one of the common ones, oddly enough something frequently caused by respiratory diseases like covid. So do we know that allnof the dead definitely died of covid? No, but neither is that 6% figure in any way useful.
I enjoyed a recent comment by a fellow who stated that nobody actually dies from COVID itself… A bit like Mark Twain’s line that “It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the abrupt stop at the end…” 🙂
Of course, the information available in the stats – that most of the 220k+ who died were measurably compromised in some manner, and some small percentage were not, is more complex than generally being represented, but still very relevant the the actual risk that we’re all facing.
Clearly, that some of the ‘found’ co-morbidities may have been irrelevant to certain deaths, and that some of the non-co-mobidity deaths may simply have had underlying issues that were present and simply missed – is also likely and worthy of note.
My general grumble is that these important details are so easily distilled out of the conversation in the 24×7 ‘news’ cycle. While simplicity and narratives are generally understandable in the news-business, the reality is that in many ways these stories, and articles like this can motivate some very questionable policy making by well-intentioned but ignorant (not stupid!) leaders.
In so many ways we’re woefully at the mercy of the medical ‘priests’ that our leaders choose to follow, and anyone who is calling holders of alternate points of view ‘deniers’ (as the article title opines), is certainly *not* helping the situation.
We hear that a positive test within 28 days of death counts it as a covid death. I remember UNICF saying 1.2 million third world children may well die of Western Lockdowns causing reduced economic activity in their lands. Do these numbers fit into excess deaths? And if so are they covid excess deaths (the 1.2 million children) or hunger and medical lack deaths?
Such deaths as these are not Covid deaths, but they would be pandemic deaths. For example, the American CDC is guessing that 10% of the 300,000 excess deaths in 2020 are due to deferred medical treatments. Those definitely would be caused by the pandemic. How many are actually avoidable? Realistically there are three subsets (fear of contagion by medical practitioners, fear of contagion by the patients, and overburdened medical facilities), and only the first is really avoidable – that is, IF there is no PPE shortage. I had to deal with the refusal of doctors to see a family member, and the refusals ended when the PPE shortage ended.
So here 300,000 deaths would be pandemic deaths, but only ~270,000 would be Covid deaths.
Many thanks for your well thought out post and devoting the time to it.
The only additional contribution I would make is the CEBM report on excess mortality into October. I would recommend anyone to read this at cebm.net as it shows very clearly that excess deaths per week are running now at about 250 to 350 a week. Sars CoV 2 has entered the endemic phase and quite clearly the Pandemic phase ended at the end of May June. Respiratory illness each year increase from 2.5% positive rate for RSV in early September to 30% at the end of November. What is happening now is seasonal. Anders Tegnell also has concluded an exhaustive interview updating us on his current thinking. His understanding of the dynamic of transmission and how he responds to it is a lesson for Health Directorates around the world and of course he is the one person who admits past mistakes and corrects them. One stat from him there are 20 cases of recorded reinfection globally the clearest possible evidence of immunity being generated what ever the reason..
The very use of the word Covid “denialism”, detracts from the believability of your article. It is an attempt to shut down discussions about an illness that we know relatively little. The fact that experts in the field have different opinions, shows that our understanding of the human body is not as perfect as we would like.
You fail to mention the fact that positive tests in Liverpool are falling. They have dropped from around 100 ( per 100,000) to 50 over 3 weeks (Cut off date 1st of November). This means that the cases started to fall before Liverpool was affected by Tier 3 regulation. Sage says that the effect of new regulations take around 3 weeks to have an effect.
So if we believe Sage – when they say 3 weeks – how come there has been a dramatic fall in the numbers in Liverpool over 2.5 weeks (Since Tier 3 regs were introduced)?
Put simply this means, we do not fully understand this disease and hence there is room for discussion on its effects.
One thing we do know is that the economy, is being hit very hard – people are losing their jobs, next their homes?. The borrowing, by the Government is not sustainable in the long term.
There is a need for the discussion on the balance between healthy people and those potentially dying – calling someone a “denier” because they disagree with you is not a healthy attitude.
“Denialism”: merely abusive. That it’s a belief, that it’s disbelief in virus mitigation, that it equates with holocaust denial. It’s a disgusting word to use in an apparently scientific and rational discussion. The author should apologise for the vilification.
Oh, the author was quite clear about the word. This was no casual mistake. How ironic that the folks who wrap themselves in the flag of science frequently resort to the most anti-science rhetoric.
I have made this same point. It is also interesting that we have a PhD student as an author. A PhD student, Michael Mann, also produced he discredited Hockey Stick curve but the influence it has will not go away.
She was partial from the beginning as if she was the expert because she had control over the article. I don’t honestly believe in the official take on this and I believe time will tell that.
So many people say, ‘listen to the science’, as a way of suggesting that they themselves are more clued up than others. They forget scientific knowledge isn’t built overnight. We can only be thankful that some scientists do challenge the prevailing opinions.
One of the fundamental principles that science is built on is that the data or observations (and to some extent interpretation) must be independent of the observer. Hence, data must always be scrutinized. Scientists must be willing and welcoming of others to examine their findings and interpretation.
I love articles that claim to be oh so neutral but in fact use every logical fallacy going for them. The number of Covid deniers is tiny, there is a huge number of people doubting whether the massive health (deaths, shorter lives), social, economic damage is worth it for a disease that overwhelmingly kills the old and frail, not children (Edit: I’d prefer us to use focused protection as we know those at high risk).
Will they answer the simple questions:
1. Lockdown v1 took place ~2 weeks before a peak in deaths, on average infection to deaths lags by 20 days. Will they admit that voluntary action had a great effect and that draconian government action was of limited use?
2. How many people are being re-infected in the UK? I ask genuinely, there appears to be some documented cases of re-infection worldwide (from 50 million cases) – but with ~1million positive tests in the UK how many have become re-infected? I suspect (although I may be wrong) that the number is small, if it was significant I believe they would be shouting it from the roof tops.
3. Do they condemn the fraudulent modelling from Imperial and the governments advisors use of old and wrong statistics? Do they not realise that when people see the government lying about one area of Covid, they become suspicious of everything they say?
4. Will then admit as numerous ‘evil’ people have speculated that this is now an endemic, seasonal respitory disease that comes and goes inline with other respitory dieseases.
5. Why isn’t everyone in Sweden dead? a place with 55% of our relative excess deaths?
The fact that they couldn’t resist using a word like “denialism” in their headline, with its bigoted implication that their opponents are – in effect – liars or fools, told me all I needed to know about what was to come. And sure enough…
I am a denialist, I am glad to be one, like I am proud to be a Deplorable! The other side of the coin, the one adopted, the close down the West and thus lose the world’s status quo, is 100000 times worse.
I agree with you Luke. I very much welcome and appreciate Unherd’s efforts to provide balance to the mainstream media hysteria, but also to the more extreme scepticism towards the lockdown policy. This article feels like a missed opportunity. I firstly question whether Solani and Matt really have the relevant backgrounds to set out credible counter views on the subject. Their point by point deconstruction is however welcome, but their own bias appears to be inherent on each one. But in a way it’s their own denial that’s the issue in how they’ve framed the article. I think it’s frustrating how the aim for such pieces is to focus on simply discrediting the alternative perspective (such as from Yeadon and the Great Barrington Declaration) rather than bringing them into a balanced discussion That’s what people like me crave. A more transparent analysis of the data and discussion of the many credible scientific views rather than scaremongering with completely implausible forecasts of death rates to justify a lockdown with significant social, health and economic implications.
There’s no denial of Covid here. There is just deep concern of mismanagement of the country with available information. I increasingly lack confidence that the country (and world) has a decent grasp of the actual relative risks on the matter, and the fear is that the ongoing denial to transparently address/ frame the data and interrogate competing views in the mainstream will perpetuate a bubble of hugely damaging Covid hysteria.
So well said. I am convinced that said scientists, academics, Governments worldwide are so far down this road of hysteria, they are now completely incapable of balanced opinion. They cannot admit to themselves never mind us that they might have got it wrong, or heaven forbid there could be alternative routes out of this. Instead they hunker down and throw out aspersions on anyone who dare disagree. Covidiots the lot of you…
“There’s no denial of Covid here.”I am a proud Denialist! I deny covid is anything like the issue needed to destroy the West and the lives of the innocent citizens! I deny covid needed a response beyond massive public information and the distribution of access to hygiene and ability of risk groups to opt out of public association. But then I am a conspiracy loon and so ascribe all the responses taken to very dark forces. I do NOT think this destruction of the West is by bad choices in leadership!
1. Yes, voluntary action before the UK Government acted probably reduced infection rates. Official lockdown in UK was 23rd March – deaths peaked between 10th and 21st April – that’s 18 to 28 days after lockdown – fits with your 20 day timescale from infection for peak deaths. 2. You ‘suspect’. Not enough for me to reply. 3. Agree – government lying doesn’t help – Imperial did modelling – it’s a model – a forecast based on a particular interpretation of evidence. Because you disagree with it doesn’t make the modellers fraudulent even if you think they were wrong. 4. No, it’s been identified as a new variation on a virus type. And the people who say it isn’t and think it’s flu or common cold aren’t ‘evil’. 5. Is it because they drive Volvos? More seriously, do you mean only just over half as many extra people died than in the UK?
My question back to you is what exactly do you mean by focussed protection? Details of how much support you think is needed for those who need to protect themselves – which is estimated at around 20% to 25% of UK population. Many of these people live in mixed, multi-generational households. Do we pay and force all the clinically vulnerable to move to hotels if they can’t continue to live with their families? Or do we offer them the money to do so but leave it up to them whether to take up the offer? I really want to know how this would work.
1. Deaths peaked on the 8th April, you’re confusing reported and actual dates. I refer you to: https://coronavirus.data.go…. The top 2 graphs show the difference nicely.
2. Can you prove a significant reinfection rate? I suspect rightly or wrongly that if the data was there to destroy the aquired immunity viewpoint it would be presented. And I would be shocked if somebody hadn’t worked it out from ~1 million positive tests.
3. The Imperial model is a sick joke in software engineering terms. And not peer reviewed. It’s input data is still unreleased. The ONS for example make their software opensource where possible.
In March we merely had to look at Italy to realise that sometthing serious was going to hit us. Why 10,000s actually dead Italians had less affect on the government than ‘just a model’ is beyond me.
4. I agree this isn’t ‘the flu’. Some people say ‘like the flu’ which is different. It’s a serious disease. One of many. It’s about proportionality.
5. The term relative should be the give away here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peop… Look at the graphs comparing Sweden to England. They did bad, we did really bad. Carehomes appear to have been key, the Swedes admit this – we still don’t test ours weekly.
Note: full reply on way once moderators happy with links to government stats sites.
In short 1) No it was the 8th of April, actual death date, not reported dates. Links to follow. This is consistent with the R rate falling long before the lockdown. See main UK gov coronvirus site.
5) relative excess deaths, relative. Sweden’s was realtively 55% of the UKs. About ONS links to follow. Excess deaths is probably the best fair comparisson, and the UK did really badly.
Neil Ferguson and his models may not be fraudulent, but they are consistently and egregiously wrong by massive margins. His track record on Foot & Mouth, SARS and Avian ‘Flu were so inaccurate and Cassandra like in their scaremongering, that it should have been evident that his Covid-19 modelling had a very high risk / probability of being wrong. And yet this was what largely bounced the government into Lockdown #1/
I have decades of experience in highly complex financial modelling. One the oldest truisms regarding them is that if you put rubbish / garbage in as an input, then that is exactly what a model will spit out. The quality of assumptions used is directly correlated to the reliability of forecasting.
The other truism, perhaps – hopefully less / not the case the case here – is that you start with the desired output / outcome and work backwards.
Ferguson has been wrong so often that he would have been shown the door in most self-respecting organisations a while ago. Yet the MSM still regard him as a “go to” “expert”.
The same applies to Vallance & Whitty (VW – another outfit with a casual attitude towards truth and accuracy) and their selective, outdated and hard to read / interpret graphs.
According to VW, we were going to have in excess of 50,000 new “cases” (point taken re definition of a “case”) a day by mid-October. We’re not at half of that almost a month later. Their chart purporting to show pubs, restaurants etc as the largest source of infections casually omitted schools and non-hospitality workplaces (ie only considered 58% of the overall data). And the chart relied on by our hapless trio on Saturday appears to be the worst possible case scenario, using out of date numbers which apparently risk overstating deaths by a factor of 4x. Theresa May had it right: the policy is driving the numbers, not the other way round.
So – not fraudulent perhaps. Disingenuous, maybe. Hancock & Gove leaked and got their cynical way. The unanswered question is WHY?
It’s hard to believe anything from Matt Hancock. He should be begging for forgiveness for not increading ICU capacity for the last 8 months – and completely failing to get control of hospital and carehome transmissions.
And yes it would be hard and expensive, but not compared to national lockdown. Again.
Lets Ask ”mystic meg” shes More ‘Scientific than Professor pantsdown Ferguson..
G Harris
3 years ago
Covid 19 denialism is indeed ‘madness’, but the near global overreaction to it and its long-term consequences far, far exceeds the meaning of that word, I’m afraid.
In a way, the global governmental over-reactions mirror the unmoderated reactions of some folks’ immune systems to the SARS-COV-2 virus.
And we all know where that over-reaction leads.
Bob Honda
3 years ago
Actual “deniers” of the virus are rare. However, skeptics are increasingly coming forth with their arguments – in academia and medicine too. This is a good thing, we urgently need debate on this topic.
A simple question regarding the “second wave” needs to be answered: Why is it happening now, exactly when the flu season starts? why didn’t the second wave come during summer when restrictions were off and everyone went about their business as normal?
The answer is obvious: the COV SARS2 virus is a Coronavirus, a virus that causes “influenza like illness” and it is seasonal in nature. It will come and go every flu season from now until eternity. Observe now that the southern hemisphere is going out of their flu season, and the northern hemisphere is going back into flu season. Hence, infections and deaths will now occur primarily in the Northern hemisphere.
We will never be able to “stop” or “eradicate” COV SARS2 any more than we will ever be rid of seasonal influenza. This is the key reason why the reaction to the virus needs to change.
Finally, the IFRs quoted in this article are woefully out of date. Latest research Indicate a spectrum from 0.05% to around 0.3%, with 0.3% being very much an upper bound. Another useful fact, while it was “fact checked” and later backtracked, Chris Ryan of the WHO did come out and say that “Our current best estimates tell us that about ten percent of the global population may have been infected by this virus” in a press conference 5. october. Those are his words – verbatim.
Applying basic math of number of dead due to COVID19 at the time, which was 1.1 million, divided by 10% of the world population, about 780 million, nets an IFR of 0.14%. While we can argue about the accuracy of the 10% and the fact that Chris Ryan backtracked (probably because he realized the implications for IFR…) it’s probably not far off, and thus it does put the IFR squarely in the 0.05%-0.3% range, which history probably will vindicate as accurate.
Agree with the thrust of you comment. John Ioannidis has the IFR at 0.15-0.2% and for under 70’s 0.03-0.04% Peer reviewed and published and available on the WHO website.
I have an opinion on the IFR, but since the ONS infection survey is likely to peak soon, and deaths are likely to peak soon, we’ll have a good idea in about a fortnight of a rough IFR.
I know the tests aren’t perfect, but as long as the testing methodology stays the same the number of deaths calculated by this measure is likely to be predictive.
Yeah. A spike was predicted by un-politically correct scientists that it would rise about now (Nov 5th) due to the onset of colder weather. It is not a second wave but the normal peak in corona type viruses. It will not rise to anything like the March and April figures. It will work itself through if they let it. Rather like the flu epidemics where nobody wore masks.
nick harman
3 years ago
One can read articles forever, but lived experience is perhaps a better guide
I live in London. Only one of my acquaintances knows of a Covid victim, his student daughter, (guess where she caught it) who was mildly ill for three days.
By rights and perhaps logic, London with its large tightly packed population many of whom do not wear masks and party hard, should be a wasteland with dead bodies piled on every corner since April
And yet it isn’t
Covid is real but the panic is unnecessary. Waves pass on. We had ours.
> By rights and perhaps logic, London with its large tightly packed population many of whom do not wear masks and party hard, should be a wasteland with dead bodies piled on every corner since April
This is simply wrong: in Chris Whitty’s lecture to Gresham College (posted to YouTube on 30th April, I won’t link to it as links seem to mean your comment gets stuck in moderation forever), he says “at an individual level the chances of dying of coronavirus are low” (slide at 13:14) and gives case fatality rates of less than 1% for people under 50 (slide at 14:44). Infection fatality rates must be lower.
The problem is not that bodies would pile up in the streets, but that a small percentage of a UK population of 66 million is still an unacceptable number of deaths.
I fail to understand this reasoning, when in the winter of 2017/18 there were, according to the ONS, an excess of 50,000 winter deaths in England and Wales alone.
ONS says we’re at 56,000 this year. We’ve also had about 50000 deaths with COVID named as the main cause, and 55000 where the death certificate mentioned COVID (between weeks 1 and 43 2020, see “Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 23 October 2020”). Of course, we’re not done with 2020 yet.
This is with government interventions and people taking care. It’d be much worse without that, and could have caused the NHS to be unable to cope, leading to further deaths not just from COVID19.
Government restrictions will cause deaths, the government’s unenviable job is to chose between that and the potential deaths from the virus. Personally, I think they wasted the summer when they could have put in less blunt interventions (i.e. fixing T&T), but with other European countries facing similar problems, perhaps I’m being a bit hard on them.
NS says we’re at 56,000 this year. We’ve also had about 50000 deaths with COVID named as the main cause, and 55000 where the death certificate mentioned COVID (between weeks 1 and 43 2020, see “Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 23 October 2020”). Of course, we’re not done with 2020 yet.
Er re your statement in bold. Rubbish. Only 5-6% of fatalities globaly have recorded a death of pure/main COVID (and that is only becasue they didn’t have a formally diagnosed CM which doesn’t mean they didn’t have one or just s**t happens to people medically some times) i.e. the rest 95% plus had co-morbidities (CM) and were an average age of 82.4 (also known as old people coming to the end of their time – it’s normal dont you know?). That’s WHO data globaly in the UK it is ONS data not NS among three main sources of public data on this. You really need to learn how to read ONS (not NS) data before you quote it incorrectly.
Exactly Paul, we are in the midst of a global pandemic and have an excess of 56, 000 deaths.
So why, in a so called normal year, when there was an excess of 50 thousand deaths in one winter, did no one seemingly bat an eyelid?
It went unreported.
Were you on social media then decrying this terrible failure?
Doctors weren’t on TV and the radio shouting about it. Telling the young not to socialise and risk infecting their grandparents perhaps causing their deaths… People weren’t filled with fear about catching flu and dying….
I’m not a physicist so perhaps not as clever as you, but I can smell hypocrisy a mile off…
“It’d be much worse without that”. But it’s not good enough just to leave it there is it? Firstly, it is the severe government restrictions we are talking about here. Not a soul in the country is advocating not taking care and hardly anyone about not wearing masks. That level of precaution – and other similar ones – has no place being mentioned alongside lockdown. Secondly, to substantiate lockdown you have to explain to me (please, I would welcome it) how Sweden has had a better outcome or Brazil isn’t a Covid wasteland because what’s not doubted is that lockdown kills and in large numbers but less identifiably. I also would love to know how the author supposes that the UK has a IFR 3 times that of other countries rather than putting it down to wholley more realistic methodology of counting? The NHS isn’t that bad surely nor the virus more deadly.
> Not a soul in the country is advocating not taking care and hardly anyone about not wearing masks
There are plenty of people on here and on social media advocating not wearing masks, proudly wearing fake lanyards saying they’re exempt, and so on. You’ll find them underneath almost any article on Facebook published by a public health authority (NHS, PHE and so on) or under ads for masks, of course. Possibly they’re all Russian bots, but a lot of them seem like real people.
> how Sweden has had a better outcome
Better than who? Not its Nordic neighbours.
> I also would love to know how the author supposes that the UK has a IFR 3 times that of other countries rather than putting it down to wholley more realistic methodology of counting?
IFR for a country is an average which will depend on the population age structure and health, among other things. African countries with fewer older people will do better, for example. Looking at the world average and objecting to a higher UK average is like saying no one in the UK is poor because if you take the average over the whole world, pretty much everyone in the UK is fine.
“Government restrictions will cause deaths, the government’s unenviable job is to chose between that and the potential deaths from the virus.”The government has bottled this choice totally. Human Rights of the society have to count more than the individual risks of a minority. To take such actions of curtailing every citizens personal rights of freedom need a higher standard of risk! What would FDR and Churchill have done?
7882fremic, that is the most succinct, insightful, straight to the very heart of the matter, way of putting EXACTLY the most important point of 2020, when you say…
“Human Rights of the society have to count more than the individual risks of a minority. To take such actions of curtailing every citizens personal rights of freedom need a higher standard of risk”
Thank you for putting my mixed up thoughts into words so well. I will commit your words to memory, and repeat them to who ever cares to hear them.
The most important, fundamental point for 2020…period! Thank you
I’m not sure how Churchill would have dealt with people claiming that the Germans weren’t real, that houses caught fire because of radar or that they did so no more often than usual at this time of year, and that the blackout was an infringement on our freedoms which should be ignored, or calling ARP wardens “snitches”. It probably would have been fun to watch, but not so much fun for the people themselves.
UK Population is 70 Million .5m Scotland; 3.5m Northern Ireland, 3.6m Wales 58m England (Migration Watch &UN) london’s population is 9.5m(UN) &usually 1.5m tourists at anytime, lower figures always quoted by London evening standard
“The problem is… that a small percentage of a UK population of 66 million is still an unacceptable number of deaths.”
What number of deaths annually would you be prepared to accept?
Using your figure of 66 million for population, and average life span of around 81 years, about 0.8 million would have to die each year (and about the same number be born) if the population is to stay stable.
I suspect we are going to see some herd immunity in London which will be good news, unlike our molly coddled people in the counties who are locked down and isolated up to their eyebrows with no chance to build immunities. By all means protect the vulnerable but give others some voluntary options on what they do like in Sweden who have managed it very well.
Two days ago Tranport for London published the results of an extensive investigation, carried out by Imperial College London, into Covid-19 contamination on surfaces and in the air on the underground network and on London buses. That is certainly a place where people will pack tightly together. No traces of contamination were found.
I’m surprised these findings seem to have generated little interest in the MSM or social media.
Obviously this sort of research requires a lot of manual input; not just feeding figures into a computer model. Good to hear ICL are doing the former and not just the latter.
Could it also be safe to stop all the excessive hand washing too? I’ve always suspected it could be damaging people’s skin microbiomes making them more susceptible to diverse infections.
Frederik van Beek
3 years ago
The problem is not denial, the problem is that scientific facts are not taken into account like the IFR of around 0,05% for people under 70. This article is complete rubbish because it suggests that fear has not yet been spread enough, it’s the other way around. And not a word about the catastrophic damage done by the measures (also in life-years lost). Not one word. I can’t believe that seemingly intelligent people can be so narrow minded. It’s even criminal I would say. Like the brilliant Belgian professor Mattias Desmet (clinical psychology) already stated: experts who shouted from the beginning that the new plague descended on us are now sometimes literally fighting for their lives to keep the narrative of total carnage intact. At the same time many of those experts find themselves in the same collective hypnosis as the rest of the population.
Once a poor student loses time in school every study shows they rarely make it up. How do you weigh those lost life years. When a young person leaves school and is unable to get a proper job it diminishes their life employment as they receive less work experience and skills just when they need to be gaining those. How is that factored in?
Andrew Harvey
3 years ago
Meanwhile, effective testing and training can prevent outbreaks and save lives ” as in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan.
BS. Deadly, unscientific BS.
There have been no deaths in Cambodia or Laos, either, where they do not have “effective testing and training”, or wide spread mask wearing or quarantines. There was never going to be a widespread outbreak in any of the countries listed (or in Japan, conveniently left off your list).
Some people/populations very clearly have an underlying resistance to Covid-19. This is a real thing. The high cost in money and lives of lockdowns are also a real thing. Enough with denialism.
You are merely speculating by observing evidence so far, including the standout Japan. Germany is for some reason now missing as are the Eastern European countries who kept it out in the spring.
Observed evidence isn’t consistent with their modelling, forecasts and authoritarian instincts, the only possibility is that observed evidence is wrong.
It’s sarcasm. The authors of the article work on speculation and modelling – most of which consistently fails to match the real world. They then pick and choose data, Germany was lauded but now is unable to do track and trace?
I agree that it is likely a genetic trait that is making life easier for countries in the far east. In a similar vein, amerindians from the Navajo Nation down to Argentina are suffering disproportionately. Seeing how some of the waves in the government heatmaps seemed to be happening in synchronisation across large parts of the country, one has to posit the weather as a confounding factor too.
Come the end of this second wave, which most experts seem to be aligning with seasonality, we will find out if the numbers of cases in different parts of the countries have levelled up, or spread apart.
If the numbers are levelling up then we must assume that the 57% infection rate in Bergamo, and the 30% non-susceptibility suggested by Yeadon are not mutually exclusive facts after all. What we need to know is whether the 43% uninfected in Bergamo were sat on one side of a river, sat in completely separate households, or intermingled in the same households as the 57% infected.
I cannot see testing and tracing being an effective long term strategy. I just consider my movements on a weekly basis and with my limited movement, they would need an army to follow me up. And after lockdown experiments I am not that keen on an app telling the government my movements. Further, apps don’t work in poorer countries where I live – people might not have phones or not have a later version of phone that is compatible with the app.
I agree that it must be genetics driving lower infections in the East. A frustration is that as English speakers we read less information coming from Eastern countries in order to make informed opinions. If anyone can advise me on regular sources of data and emerging science from the East I would be grateful.
Can’t test and trace me, I would lie, and will never own a cell phone so cannot be tracked by any means but illegal ones. But ID2020 is out to subvert that, first it is all for altruistic reasons, but underneath is all darkness.
Thankyou Harvey, No one mentions this! 0.3 deaths per million in Taiwan and Vietnam! We are the Cherokee , Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw handed out smallpox infected blankets! We have not got the ‘Dark Matter Immunity’ that China has!
Robin Taylor
3 years ago
Why have the authors of this article focussed almost entirely on Dr Michael Yeadon? Why did they not focus on findings by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) and Prof Carl Heneghan? The models and figures used by SAGE have consistently been found wanting by CEBM. The most recent example being a significant over estimation, by Government/SAGE, of forecasted future deaths. It has also highlighted Sir Patrick Vallance, in mid-September, referring to cases doubling every 7 days when in fact they were doubling every 21 days. CEBM has further identified significant weaknesses in relying solely on PCR tests due to problems with false positives/people who are not infectious.
The Government should not be basing policy, and closing down the economy at vast cost, on misleading extreme worst case scenario forecasts. We have had all Summer to prepare for a rise in cases during the Winter so why are we going into another lockdown?
“We have had all Summer to prepare for a rise in cases during the Winter so why are we going into another lockdown?”
Because Boris and Co. gave the T+T job to one of their cronies, and contracts to the privateers who have already failed when other parts of the public sector were privatised, while refusing to empower local public health teams, perhaps?
Viva R
3 years ago
“other countries have undertaken similar numbers of tests with much fewer positive results.”
Please do some research on CT (Cycle Threshold) value of PCR tests. That another country has fewer positives than yours may be solely because they set their CT lower for a positive result
When any government is ready to claim the crisis is over and quell the panic, all they need to do is require a much lower CT than is presently allowed and cases will “magically” go down. It’s math. COVID has exposed a distressing lack of basic math skills which has allowed the public to be manipulated.
a distressing lack of basic math skill I suspect its more fundamental than that unfortunately..a distinct inability to focus on a topic and use logical,rational,analytical thought
Agreed. The ability to think rationally about complicated topics independently of what others think seems to be a rapidly disappearing skill in todays society. But also a distressing lack of mathematical understanding plays into it. The herd mentality (see what I did there) reigns supreme.
I don’t think peoples rationality is declining, I suspect it has always been so. Although I have ltd faith in psychology (replication crisis) it appears as you say that most people go with the herd – it’s easier.
It probably makes evolutionary sense to go with the herd, most of the time.
Saying you think Covid is the worst thing ever and we must do everything to save lives has few social costs to the virtue signaller.
It also shows you to be emotional and therefore good.
What’s funny of course is that people are comfortable with common risks. Compare flying to driving, flying worries me far more due to the novelty and ironically all the safety checks. But flying is safer.
yes – we need to continue to beat this drum – being careful *not* to discount the PCR’s value, but rather to promote its true strengths and weaknesses.
Acknowledging that nuance isn’t that pervasive in most of these venues, the real information seekers will sniff it out and appreciate it when it’s available.
Although “cases” are what the largely innumerate media concentrate on they have only ever been an imperfect predictor (along with the age distribution of these cases) for hospitalisations. The problem the NHS is grappling with right now is juggling an increasing number of hospitalisations of Covid cases requiring, in the main just CPAP and similar + trying to maintain a throughput of normal work (now backlogged). Covid cases, even when they don’t go to ICU, require longer hospitalisation than your average bad flu. It’s a capacity juggling problem. Great Royal Society of Medicine webinair about this today (#49) available on YouTube tomorrow.
As for testing – another strong argument for rolling out low sensitivity rapid testing and accepting the risk of false negatives, as they are now doing in some areas of the US.
An excellent point. No two countries will necessarily use the same numerator / denominator settings any more than any two countries will use the same methodology for recording deaths.
We in the UK are not being shown much in the way of data analysis that would reveal crucial trends, such as the age distribution of C-19 deaths – other than the headline level data of the average age of death being 82.4 years and an average of 2.5 underlying health conditions. Any data we get fed is overwhelmingly worst case or not broken out or down. For example: what is the R rate for the under 70s?
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
The use of “denialism” is an indicator that what follows is not coming in good faith. No one has denied the reality. On the contrary, it appears the “deniers” are far more aware of the reality of covid than are the panic-mongers. The deniers see that the most vulnerable were, are, and will be the old, the sick, and those with compromised immune systems. The deniers see CDC numbers that point to 94% of deaths involving people who were old and had an average of 2.5 other health conditions. The deniers also see that panic-mania has side effects of its own, as measured in increased overdoses, instances of abuse, cases of depression, suicides, and so forth.
No, it also means denialism is a badge to be worn with pride, as the Lockdownism is producing absolutely horrific results with worse coming hast and hard!
Duncan Cleeve
3 years ago
Couldn’t take this article seriously given the emotive over the top language, ‘Covid denialism’, nobody serious is denying covid exists and ‘denialism’ is generally used to evoke emotion over a certain genocide and to present the other side of the argument as a bad person. Again, ‘ For the second time this year, a pestilence is descending upon us.’ No, it isn’t the data doesn’t remotely point to a plague such as the black death, that’s just ridiculous. In 2018 50,000 people died of the flu but most people don’t even remember it. The average age of a covid victim is 82, it has killed 0.06 percent of the population, we should have protected them from the beginning, instead the Government has spent 100’s of billions, has crashed the economy, destroyed the lives of millions of people and have taken away liberties as never before in our history. It must stop.
zsretic1701
3 years ago
The article misses the point of lockdown scepticism. Whichever data you throw upon, it does not take away from the main concern, the proportionality of the measures against the risk. Hence, even if debunked, which is hard to fact check, since both Yeadon’s and authors’ arguments are based on some assumption, the article fails to underscore why the “data” suport the lockdown, against more targeted approach. The assumption that the sceptics argue no measures at all reflects perhaps wellintended activism, yet zeal to push the battleground in wrong direction. That explains why authors have deep trouble to confront Sweden’s approach as reasonable. Their rethorical escape is to coin it “voluntary lockdown”. Well call it what you like, it is still better.
That wasn’t the point of the article. You can hardly blame the authors of this article for not writing a completely different one. They are simply addressing the argument that the virus is about to go away and, sadly, they make a good case for why this view is not turning out to be true. It’s perfectly to possible to accept that the virus is not going to go away – we’re some way from herd immunity – without accepting everything the government has done and the whole SAGE analysis.
Michael the article starts with quoting Albert Camu’s Plague: “Pestilence is in fact very common, but we find it hard to believe in a pestilence when it descends on us.” It is clear to me the point the article is trying to argue, and I do not blame them for writing it. The argument of the article is not that the virus will not go away, but that the fact it will not go away is, somewhat, critical data. Yet, the plague is in the quote not in the real life, whatever data you throw at Yeadon. Hence, to translate literal meaning of the quote to the data they employ does not make the article convincing in relation to arguments it tries to argue or imply. The opposite is true. The book is about plague, as much as Crime and Punishment is about prosecuting crime. That said, the irony is that measures imposed reflect human fallacy Albert tried to describe in the novel not the virus. Hence, the article misses the very point it tries to make.
The Camus quote is not actually the subject of the article and the authors’ reference to a pestilence is unfortunate as it distracts attention away from what they are actually addressing, which is the argument that we have reached herd immunity, so any government restrictions now have no benefits and lots of costs. Maybe you could address that? As is predictable on this site, there are a lot of critics of the article, but very little detail in what they say. I was hopeful Prof Gupta would be right in May, then Dr Yeadon more recently. But the evidence does not support their predictions – and by evidence here I am referring to deaths and hospitalisations, as well as cases, not just in the UK but elsewhere in Europe too.
I understand your point, indeed, it may appear that herd immunity has yet to be reached. However, that being said, that still does not corroborate the lockdown, since, you do not protect effectively the population at risk, while in the same time it seems that very structure of the society is indeed put at risk. Hence, to set the scene with Camus, without proper argumenta to support such a strong statement, makes a poor argument for a rather ambitious article, which tend to argue the case for strong interference with free society.
Robin Taylor
3 years ago
Interesting how the authors of this article are also cherry-picking their data. They dismiss an IFR of 0.2% stating “the Covid-19 IFR is around 0.5%-1.0%….while in England specifically, it is estimated to be 1.5%”. Yet further on in the article, in attempting to dismiss pre-existing immunity to infection, they refer to research showing 54% had developed antibodies in Mumbai. The positive test rate of 54% related to the Mumbai slums which contain some 6m people (ie more than 3m people were likely to have been infected at some point). One of the main conclusions of the study, not mentioned in the above article, was that “The high seroprevalence in slums implies a moderate infection fatality rate”. Further evidence that this is not the big killer disease. Of course we want to avoid catching it and we should protect the vulnerable, but shutting the economy down and spending hundreds of billions of pounds propping up jobs of the non-vulnerable is just complete madness.
They are quoting outdated studies on IFR. This is one is more recent, more complete and more accurate (0.05%-0.27%). For reference, the flu has an estimated IFR of 0.1% ….
The IFR rate is almost pointless, age of infected person changes it by a factor of 10,000.
Due to the panic caused by Imperial we sacrificed 20,000 people to Covid in the care homes, by putting covid positive people into care homes with predictable results.
Ironically this panic that killed so many is then flipped and used to justify the panic. Its a neat trick as it turns them from the bad guys onto the good guys.
The lockdown meant Covid killed working class people and minorities in hugely disproportionate numbers. However the pro lockdowners are the good guys, focused protection people are far right etc. It hurts my head.
peter.azlac
3 years ago
Unheard should require authors to state all affiliations and sources of funding as is normal with scientific papers such that the readers can judge any sources of bias.
A useful maxim when looking at “dark money” organisations such as the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Adam Smith Institute and the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which refuse to disclose the identity of their donors.
Or SAGE refusing to disclose its total membership (plus their affiliations)…
Geoff Cox
3 years ago
When the authors of this article state as fact that 43,000 people in the UK have died of Covid-19, it is hard to take the conclusions seriously however logical and pretty the maths. Anyone who has read anything about the crisis will know all about the difference between dying of covid and dying with it. Plus there are the demographics of the 43,000, with an average age above 80.
What is more likely – that we have a killer disease on the loose about to kill half the world, or that governments have massively over reacted due to the emotional propaganda spread about by certain parties and amplified by the msm who know that if it bleeds it leads?
brilliant comment. perfect synopsis of the situation as I see it as well.
i would only add the possibility that well-intended government subsidies in response to this situation, and not-so-well-intended private industry subsidies to the msm (which serve to ‘inform’ and influence those same policy makers) would in effect amplify what you’ve described so well, in the absolutely wrong direction relative to truth finding.
nicely put, mf
Nick Wade
3 years ago
It’s not a “second wave”. I’m sick of hearing that term. People like to use it because they read about the Spanish Flu, which did have a unique deadly second wave, and they think it makes them sound learned.
Funny how this “second wave” began just as the weather cooled in Europe, and people normally start suffering from respiratory illness.
It’s now an endemic virus, and unless they eradicate it (!) will reappear every Autumn.
”Spanish Flu” Originated in Kansas Troop camps & on US Troop ships..Not a lot of people know that!..But it Was beaten by ”Herd immunity” it Was more deadly to Younger Population! It fizzled out after two&half years..
Funny how this “second wave” began just as the weather cooled in Europe, and people normally start suffering from respiratory illness. Exactly. It’s as if people totally forgot how way back in March, they were predicting a drop off in cases as the summer approached.
”Spanish Flu” became Less Virulent as people Assumed ‘Herd Immunity” after two&half years..&100 million deaths …SARS2 is an Influenza strain? .There are 15 strains….Its the hysteria I cannot stand and the fact my Nephews Great Grandchildren will be paying off 2Trillion£ debts …
The reason that Spanish Flu was so deadly to so many people, even the young, was, and some people seem to conveniently forget this, is that it occurred in the days BEFORE anti-biotics.
A good deal those who died didn’t do so of the virus itself but from its resulting, secondary, usually pulmonary complications, a great deal of which would be treated successfully today with anti-biotics.
dean
3 years ago
As you point out ‘it is not likely the number of false positives have increased 35 times’. Also you point out that more people get tested when they have symptoms. To not point out that as we enter into September, we also start to see colds, flu and other seasonal respiratory issues, is to tell half the story. So of course there was a huge rise in testing. Students were locked down and tested in their thousands, pupils and teachers tested every time someone coughed . Children back at school so parents can work, but safety conscious business owners sending their staff for a test at the slightest sniffle, before being allowed back. There is even a study of thousands of paid human guinea pigs being tested once or twice a week, every week. Stories from Doctors, nurses and test centres, detailing the massive issues with cross contamination due to excessive testing. So false positives will have jumped exponentially, with a return to normal life and our shorted immune systems from lack of human interaction for 6 months, as this would make everyone much more likely to catch a cold or flu. Or has covid managed to almost eradicate flu after 80 years of vaccines, while also dropping new heart disease and cancer cases off the scale. So it makes as many people better as it does ill? Or is there some serious miscounting, massaging of numbers and a super sensitive test that our Boris actually told a camera crew around 9 months ago, was only7% accurate at best. Thats 40 years of immunology proved wrong in 3 months of associated science.
Even if what you are trying to balance out was true(but it is flawed), the country does not need a lockdown, safety measures are fine, lockdowns will kill far more than Covid. Even if T-cell immunity isn’t 100% immunity, so what! The covid survival rate, average death age and the small proportion of society that will actually get very ill from it, does not warrant lockdowns. As you point out with Sweden above. ITU is falling, theres capacity in hospital beds and they are freeing up quickly, but it is hindered by thousands of medical staff are self isolating, which isnt what we see in a normal flu breakout. So predictions for the future- Moonshot is nowhere near ready, as pointed out by many including recently in the BMJ. Will be forced upon us raising the issues of many more false positives and pushing ever harder this ‘test-demic’ madness, fulfilling the governments obsession with taking away our civil liberties and passing harsh laws. If I had a bunch of people work for me that produced such materially incorrect data and forecasts, as SAGE do, they would all have been fired by now.
If you saw their past track record then you wouldn’t hire them in the first place!
tmglobalrecruitment
3 years ago
er the facts are the average death age is 82.5, and of people already ill
Bearing in mind people know there are vulnerable and they not govt. can take appropriate measures. Killing the economy, killing non covid ill people, killing basically the economic future of an already debt laden low growth economy is a nonsense, to give an 82 year old a couple of extra months being ill.
History will look at this as a farce, t6he West is dying in the face of the growth of the East, and this will put it over the edge.
The denial is in pretending Covid kills many more than it does.
Simon Bond
3 years ago
As always tons of data to support a view (either way) but a couple of observations… Firstly you skip over the false positive/false negative as if this is linear – ie equal and opposite. But at relatively low levels of infection this is not true… Imagine that 10/1000 are infected. A false negative can only be a maximum 10 of the 1000 in which case the test is useless anyway – even 1 out of the 10 being wrong would be a poor result for the test.
The false positive though leans on the other 990 tests a much bigger denominator. A 1/10 error rate there gives you another 10 cases quite easily. Your assertion is that cases are quite low so imagine that the false positive /negative were equal at 3/10 then the false positive number explodes.
Secondly you are caught in the Herd Immunity trap…. you cannot have herd immunity unless there is infection. Put aside the second infection argument for a moment (as that would also be a problem for a vaccination program), then if we do not reach some form of herd immunity wherever it is then each time the lock-downs end then the whole cohort of vulnerable people is exposed again. With herd immunity higher, the virus implicitly moves more slowly. The key of course therefore is not stalling the economy (with untold other health and social issues) but to protect, emphatically not lock up, the vulnerable pro tem.
kevbuk
3 years ago
There is an error in this article. You mention that “[T-cells] help reduce the severity of symptoms upon reinfection, but are highly unlikely to prevent it”
But the study referenced to support this claim refers to cross-reactive T-cells, which is a completely different thing.
John Mcalester
3 years ago
I’m not particularly impressed with the qualifications of the authors of this piece as regards the subject. A PHD student and the Head of Research at the Adam Smith Institute !
The information on the Adam Smith Institute seems to broadly follow that of the WEF. The latter sees the pandemic as an opportunity for a great reset. I’m suspicious, purely irrational and emotional no doubt. I’m not a covid denier though but I might accuse the authors of being unqualified to critique Yeadon and others. Maybe SALONI DATTANI AND MATTHEW LESH are deniers of alternative perspectives.
It is a sort of true believer written article, more an example of picking and choosing ones way through numbers can give any outcome desired. Next: The Carl Marx Institute debunks Capitalism!
Jeffrey Chongsathien
3 years ago
Let me save you some time: the author is an idiot, and the comments section tells you why.
Chuck Burns
3 years ago
No mention of the “Great reset”. No mention of the Leftist anti-America Democrats in the USA claiming the virus as “their opportunity”. There is no mention that the Left has seized upon the virus to use as a political weapon. No denying that there is a virus, it is a Corona Virus similar to several others we have experienced. The difference is the politicization of the pandemic as a means to an end. The Leftist agenda, the Great reset, the “opportunity” Agenda 21, Agenda 30. Lies, deceit, fabrication, fear mongering to promote the Lefts authoritarian agenda.
Ah yes, all that Leftist propaganda from (checks notes)… the Adam Smith Institute.
You forgot to include the Knights Templar, the Freemasons and the Bilderbergs, though. Fear not, if you wear your tin foil hat, it’ll keep the black helicopters from landing.
I won’t defend this post in it’s entirety, but here is the actual WEF homepage for the “the great reset” which is pretty obviously an attempt by the WEF to use the Coronavirus crisis to usher in their “great reset”. How is this is conspiracy if they are openly admitting as much on their own webpages?
Thankyou Burns, tor bringing up the real covid lockdown reasons, That and the fact it came from a China Bio Lab, and it appears they are basically immune (The West Pacific nations, 0.3 to 3 deaths per million to the Wests 600-800) And the fact China is furiously economically-colonizing Africa, and even South and Central America, it has done it in East Asia already, as the West focuses on its covid navel and goes bankrupt!
Rainer Schlötterer
3 years ago
I think the 2 authors largely overestimate the IFR and base this on old estimates (not on studies). Many studies on the IFR have shown an IFR which is far below the old estimates.The meta study by Ioannidis published in October on the WHO website has summed this up quite well. I would like to quote from it: “Across 51 locations, the median COVID-19 infection fatality rate was 0.27% (corrected 0.23%)” “Conclusion The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 can vary substantially across different locations and this may reflect differences in population age structure and casemix
of infected and deceased patients and other factors. The inferred infection fatality rates
tended to be much lower than estimates made earlier in the pandemic.”
Indeed. It is interesting that the research study referred to by the authors, concerning the figure they use of 54% having developed antibodies to the virus in Mumbai slums, also states that “Taken together our estimate of seroprevalence, these number imply an infection fatality rate of 0.076% and 0.263% in non-slums. The overall rate is estimated to be 0.12%”.
Aden Wellsmith
3 years ago
There’s no evidence for second waves with corona viruses If there is, I’m interested.
Where are the mathematical models for second waves
There is evidence for seasonality. That’s what is being used to justify the lock down and its a lie.
Is there a meaningful difference between 2nd waves and seasonality?
pettersonvale
3 years ago
Thanks for writing an excellent piece.
I hope another one can be written about the other end of the spectrum – alarmism. I believe this other end is a lot more widespread so definitely deserves serious criticism.
Here is a perspective from France, where a crazy story is unfolding.
Second scandal is that of hydroxicloroquine. The French government not only stopped all clinical trials using hydroxicloroquine after the now retracted Lancet paper, never removed the prohibition even after the Lancet scandal, but now seems to be making it impossible for doctors in France to be able to prescribe hydroxicloroquine. At the same time, the French government recommends the use of Gilead’s redemsivir as a potential treatment even though there is basically nobody – doctors, toxicologists, scientists – that believes redemsivir is a good treatment.
All of this is maddening. They mask the data to make it more scary, recommend a treatment that is ineffective and dangerous, prohibit a treatment that is not dangerous and potentially effective, and go ahead closing down most of the economy and taking money from our children and grandchildren to pay people not to work against their own will.
Isla C
3 years ago
Surprise surprise…. The UK Statistics Authority has actually criticised the Government for using out of date modelling and having a lack of transparency over data…. What those naughty boys Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance ( they are Sirs’ so beyond reproach by the common man) regurgitating garbage to justify their own ends…. I mean it’s just shocking!
John Vaughan
3 years ago
When these 2 bright kids get back to school, maybe the teachers will give them a basic lesson in virology – viruses don’t have second waves. The pandemic was over in June.
It’s instructive to look at the Covid death/day curve for Sweden at worldometers dot info (it went into post prison when I posted the working link!) It peaked at around 100 back in April, and they now already seem to be over the 2nd wave which topped out at 7 deaths/day.
Hard lockdowns may only delay the inevitable while killing the economy and burdening the young with massive national debts.
Senile ‘ Joe Biden ‘Doesn’t have dementia” MSM says so it must ‘Be true?” Vallance has £650,000 in big pharma shares Why no BBC,iTV ,ch4 investigation?..
I see a pretty good chance that COVID will be fading by Inauguration Day (Jan. 20, 2021). Won’t be gone by any means, but very plausible that the main impact by then will be scattered outbreaks and relatively low, endemic spread in most of the country. The outbreaks would mostly be in parts of cold weather states – due to people being indoors – that haven’t been hit too hard.
Also, one U.S. data point (which I discuss in more detail in a separate comment): the 9.3% estimated U.S. seroprevalence referenced by the authors is from a study calculating that number as of 3-4 months ago. The study used blood draws (from dialysis patients) taken in July 2020.
Actually they are run up to 45 cycles, however anything above 35 is deemed inconclusive with a re-test recommended. Here is Alan McNally (who has set up 2 testing labs) correcting Mike on this https://twitter.com/alanmcn…
David Bell
3 years ago
An unfortunate title for the article, which perhaps reflects an unwillingness to think laterally. Mike Yeadon and others are not denying the existence of COVID-19 – that is silly. They are questioning the response and suggesting previous WHO and CDC recommendations for pandemic management be followed, not those introduced from China earlier in 2020. May or not be reasonable, but clearly not denialism. They are just recognizing the body of evidence on which the discarded recommendations are based, and for which limited evidence to justify change has been provided. However, subsequent errors or omissions seem to undermine the main premise (which seems to be that we all need a vaccine to get back to normal). IFR: WHO estimates about a million deaths in 170M infections. that is about 0.13%, similar to that recently published in the Bull of WHO. Evidence for pre-existing T-cell cross-immunity seems to be overlooked? Modelling that includes heterogeneity and immunity (basic to biological modelling but seemingly omitted by Imperial and IHME models) predicts a much lower population infection requirement to achieve herd immunity. As with so many other analyses, it completely overlooks the fact that average age of mortality is at or above all-cause mortality. Lockdown-induced deaths are frequently younger. It does matter that the average age of death is over 80, and in people with co-morbidities who are expected to die relatively soon. Unfortunate to lose some months, and sometimes far more, but relevant if you are talking about raw numbers dying. We do die when we are old, of various causes.
So no one (or few) are denying COVID-19. The point is, surely, to use context in the response, as the response will also kill people, often at younger age (simply increasing poverty does that). When we can get past silly jargon, we will find it easier to have a sensible debate that leads to sensible policies.
Alan Thorpe
3 years ago
Once again, we have the use of the word “deniers” to describe people who question and ask for more information. It is used for people who rightly question the human climate change fraud and it’s use effectively trying to associate anybody who does not follow the agree script with deniers of the holocaust and so discredit them.
If there is any denier in this farce it is Boris. He is denying the reality of all viruses. I have just listened to him telling us that we need to put the virus back in its box. This is more Boris Bluster. We have not managed to put the influenza virus back in its box even with a vaccine. The Tory Party needs to get rid of him and the entire cabinet as soon as possible.
We also have the NHS telling us how we should be helping them. We don’t have a choice about when we get ill. Only monolithic socialist organisations like the NHS lecture their “customers”. The NHS needs to go with Boris.
Andrea X
3 years ago
So, to sum up a very long article, Yeadon has not said ONE correct thing. Not one. Not even the date probably…
If you take the word of a PhD student and the Adam Smith Institute then yes I suppose so. No one is completely right here as that is not possible but the scientific basis on which the lockdown is based is outrageously flawed and cannot be right. Yeadon can be close to it.
david bewick
3 years ago
Where’s my post gone? Is the BMJ not suitable for Unherd? Mike Yeadon on talk radio this morning wading into the situation again. He ain’t backing down.
Talk Radio, which regularly gives a voice to people like Mike Yeadon and Professor Gupta, is the only mainstream media outlet that allows dissenting voices.
OK, but it’s fair enough to criticise those voices as well. Professor Gupta’s view back in late Spring was essentially that the virus would not reappear. Dr Yeadon’s article from a month or so ago basically said there would be no general increase in cases, hospitalisations and deaths. Neither has proved to be accurate so far. I wish they were right, but frankly they haven’t be up to this point.
This does not mean I support the Imperial model, SAGE etc. There are plenty of problems there too. But as the authors of this article point out, denying the reality of the virus is not a good starting point for any analysis.
I am a denialist, and wear it like a badge of honour.
Tony Conrad
3 years ago
I don’t think we are seeing a spike. Just the normal increase in covid type viruses one always sees as the weather gets colder as with flu which is a covid virus. What could be being interpreted as a spike is the results of testing which can pick up all sorts of covid traces associated with flu and even dead covid traces from someone who has already had it. I think it is a panic because of ignorance and fear. As soon as one brings politics into it things get misty because of the compunction to be seen doing the right thing.
> What could be being interpreted as a spike is the results of testing which can pick up all sorts of covid traces associated with flu
This is false. The PCR tests looks for sequences specific to SARS-nCOV-2, not any influenza virus. See “Yes, PCR tests can detect “the COVID virus”” on Dr Ian M. Mackay’s site.
You’ve caught me, I’m a Big Farmer Bot. Beep boop.
It’s not particularly hard to work out who I am and what my background is, seeing as I’m using my real name and photo. I am a physicist by degree and a software engineer by trade, usually in jobs which end up using bits of physics and maths. As is well known, physicists are experts on absolutely everything, because it’s all made of atoms (except for software, which is made of electrons).
I’m here mostly because I follow Tom Chivers on Twitter and he writes here (and linked to this article).
To anyone serious about this issue (PCR use and its appropriateness), please read the above mentioned article – find it easily with a search for virologydownunder – and appreciate that the author is knowledgeable about the science, refreshing complete in his presentation of his topics, and amazingly adept at communicating very technical information in understandable terms that most readers can understand.
He’s a favorite read, and I base some of my commentary on his work (there’s a great youtube interview out there as well.)
While it seems that I highlight the test’s weaknesses, also mentioned in the article, I believe it’s only because I have concerns in the amount of trust being placed in this (deniers) article and the PCR test in general. In many ways, it is a delicate science being sold with a sledgehammer of certainty.
The mentioned article’s author (Dr. Mackay) even references comments related to the limitations of the test from the recently deceased inventor (Kary Mullis – who ironically died just months before the current COVID-19 outbreak – go figure) of the test in certain situations. Be wary that some recent mis-quotes attributed to Dr. Mullis are floating around the web, but some relevant critiques were also made regarding the original SARS outbreak analysis that are potentially relevant to this situation – I’ll be durned if I can’t find them right now, sorry.
That said, science doesn’t sit still, and improvements continue in the mechanics, configuration, and analysis of PCR technology, especially in the current environment – many bright eyes are working on this, but the one quote from the article that still seems especially relevant to me from Dr. Mackay, is
Expertly designed and used SARS-CoV-2 tests have been well-proven to detect this virus.
Where ‘expertly designed’ is the detail of note. He also mentions that poorly designed tests would result in … poor results, etc.:)
good catch and share Mr. Wright, mf
Simon Adams
3 years ago
Some good points, but a lot of special pleading in the article. If the existing ‘immunity’ is related to levels of naive T cells, then cruise ships full of mostly elderly couples are not a great example to use.
Also these “second waves” we’re seeing cannot be compared with the cases graphs in the first wave, yes because most people weren’t tested. The only thing that is in any way reliable is to look at death rates and compare with average all causes mortality for this time of year.
Of course there are people dying of Covid, which is not what anyone wants. But there would also be hundreds per day dying of flu in normal winters.
There is of course a mid way between these views, where we are not at herd immunity (which is clear), but do have enough immunity in the population such that hospitals would not be overwhelmed using basic social distancing, and isolation of the vulnerable. The trouble is that politically that would always be difficult versus those who think we can control everything…
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
I saw this headline and immediately thought wtf? What is a Covid denialist really? These people I do not know. Covid exists and sadly kills people, as does flu and many other viruses. I don’t know anyone who denies this. What I also know is that the mortality rate is very low, we cannot sterilize ourselves from death, lockdowns are deadly and devastating, lockdowns have been proven to have limited effect unless they are done early with extreme lockout and suppression which is not viable in most countries who want to have a future. So please call me a lockdown skeptic, not a Covid denialist.
This article was a slap on the wrist for those of us who dare to question the orthodoxy. The headline was designed to put us in our place, alongside Holocaust deniers and flat-earthers. “People are dying” is the much heard catch-phrase, as though people have never died before. Well might Marlon Brando have mumbled, “the horror, the horror”. “The madness, the madness”, is now more appropriate.
You omitted the favourite accusation of ”Trumpist”. That is designed to end the debate and put one well and truly in ones place.
mike otter
3 years ago
I doubt there are any sane people who deny SARS-CoV2 exists. However the constant lies and assaults on civic society by those seeking to profit from this unfortunate outbtreak are there for all to see. Boris thinks he can play St George and hide his Brexit issues, the left including most of academia and PHE etc think they can trash the economy thereby causing them to rise to power atop a class and possibly a race war. For the Ickes, Corbyns, Chris Hedges etc this is manna from heaven (or the moon) as they rush to validate their untestable conspiracy theories. The fact that all 3 of the above tribes have the same lack of decency and the same delight in lies and chaos tells you all you need to know. If the grown-ups don’t stop the party soonish people are going to get hurt.
Lisa
3 years ago
This unhealthy focusing on Dr Yeadon’s credibility (using faulty logic, cherry picking and twisting of immunological logic and research) and ignoring many other relevant arguments from other scientists leads one to wonder what or who is really behind this article
Just like you get book review articles this is a Dr Yeadon review article.
Reviewing say half a dozen of the leading books on ornithology would take ages. So your average book reviewer reads a single book on birds over the weekend and jots stuff down as they go to get their review out. And they’ll tend to pontificate on the general state of ornithology from this single book.
Same with this article.
John Stone
3 years ago
I have commented before (BMJ on-line) but here again:
“We are in an exceedingly dangerous position while we are at the mercy of endless worst case scenarios which do not have to be proven. Moreover, the wreckage of the policy is far more quantifiable than any benefit i.e we do not really either know how bad Covid is going to be or how much the policy will mitigate it, while we do know the catastrophic damage to everything else. To institute policy on this basis is without rationality.”
We have been here before: WMD in 2002-3 (maximising the global threat of Saddam Hussain). It is not as if there are no concerns but in total it is pernicious rubbish.
Saddam had WMDs, he used them on the Marsh Shia and the Kurds and the Iranians in the trenches. That he would not cooperate one had to think he had a lot of them, it would have been just like him to get them as much as he could. But then I like the analogy, as covid came from a Chinese bio lab, and they seem basically immune to it, so what exactly are you saying?
Saddam used weapons of terror and was a ruthless cruel dictator. The Iraq War was sold on the basis that he posed a direct threat to the survival of the West i.e. these were WMDs that could kill us en masse. A sober assessment – such as Dr Kelly’s – was that there was little evidence for this. We are dealing with governments hyping risks to suit agendas which have never been debated.
David Jory
3 years ago
Thankyou for the article. Two questions: 1.Why has influenza almost disappeared worldwide apparently? 2.How do you refute the claim that the 2007 New Hampshire PCR mass screening programme for whooping cough was shown up as a mirage? This seems better from what you write as there are genuine positive results, but I doubt if that is enough to justify the current management. Covid was real and I don’t deny some deaths, but I am watching people go blind in clinics and listen to others on the phone yet to be seen. Some of these are children under 10. I would hate to be an Oncologist. The last person I saw was an hour ago. Normally that person would be seen as an emergency within days. Now she is likely to wait weeks and it will be too late. Life is a balance of risks and benefits. Politicians’ reactions to media pressure and public health officials is killing people in large numbers and harming the health of many more. This is shameful.
David Jones
3 years ago
Why would you bankrupt a country based on a PCR test that is twice as likely to record a positive case without the possibility of passing on an infection as opposed to a positive case with infectivity. Sometimes I think it can be unproductive to refer to the minutiae of physiological processes to explain the progress of the epidemic. There is varying resilience in the population to what life throws at us. Young people have more resilience and old people have much less. In the winter of 2017/18 there were over 55,000 excess UK deaths. The great majority of these deaths were people over the age of 75 ( over 42,000 ) They had far less resilience to viruses, bacterial infections, cancer, hypothermia etc than the rest of the population. This happens year in year out. Those who did not die might have had the appropriate antibodies, T cell immunity etc but for Imperial Collage to say that over 90% of the population is susceptible to covid because antibodies do not last, shouldn’t the question be – susceptible to what? Certainly not susceptible to dying as we know that dying from Covid is almost exclusively reserved for the old
Let the people least likely to be incapacitated by Covid get on with their lives and save the country and let us take care of the vulnerable and old as best as we can.
Personally I believe that Yeadon gives a plausible explanation (I am not a scientist) only time will tell
Sadly time already is telling and Dr Yeadon’s explanation/forecast is being contradicted by events. I have some sympathy with your wider point about an over-reaction and do not agree with various things the government has done and is continuing to do. But the article is quite right to argue that it is facile to claim there is no great trade-off between everyone living their lives as normal and the many extra deaths that would likely follow, to the point where people would stop living their lives as normal because they would be scared out of their wits that if they caught the virus they might die, due to a complete collapse of the NHS.
But the point is that all has to accept that nobody is going to be absolutely right and the government response cannot be formulated on that basis. That taken as given what should the government choose to use as evidence because everything points to SAGEs evidence to be dud. I cannot happen. Yeadon can be wrong but close. The precautionary principle doesn’t carry here. The effects of lockdown are severe on the economy and life – that begins to explain why SAGE needs severe evidence of its own. Speaking of which where is the government’s analysis of the impact of lockdown? It has not even been given to parliament.
R S
3 years ago
I like reading a counter argument now and then. But I stopped reading at the claim that 67.9% of the Diamond Princess was infected, because it is such a blatant lie. Only about 20% got infected, and that is so well documented that to suggest anything else is an insult to the public. I don’t know what the rest of the article said. If you lie to me, all you are is lies.
miketomaus
3 years ago
It’s true that there has been a significant rise in daily deaths in the UK, Spain and France but only to 136 so far in the UK compared with the notorious worst case projection of 1,000 per day by now. Fortunately deaths have lagged far behind projections. It remains to be seen whether they will match the first wave. While there may well be a considerable reservoir of people left who are susceptible to infection, the number of people susceptible to severe illness leading to death may have reduced.
The other point to be careful of is that these three countries are outliers in world terms. We are not seeing these increases in other regions of the world, or even in the much criticised Sweden, where daily deaths are sinking towards the floor again.
presumably because many of those who would have died in September died in the previous 6 months
Jeremy Rolls
3 years ago
Whilst Dr Yeadon is probably wrong about false positives it doesn’t necessarily follow that he is completely wrong about the other three key points namely: 1. The “real” IFR being a lot lower than forecast, 2. (Therefore) the level to which the population has already been exposed being much higher and 3. the degree of pre-existing immunity (or biological incapability to get the disease) being under-estimated. In terms of the first point it is perfectly possible to find credible data that shows IFR to be around 0.2% (in a population with similar demographics to the UK). For the second point Dr Yeadon may not be taking into account that the government dumped hospital patients into care homes in March and a lot of covid-19 deaths were caused by patients getting the virus whilst already in hospital (as is sadly happening again now). Both of those factors may considerably have skewed the number of deaths given that the virus is indisputably more deadly amongst the elderly. Adjust for that is his calculations and maybe you get more like 20% rather than 32% of the population getting the virus earlier in the year. Regarding the antibody v T-cell debate I cannot comment on the study that the authors quote but there was a study done in Sweden a few months back that showed for every person with antibodies two more had t-cell immunity. We also know (again I think not disputed) that antibodies decline over time or can sometimes not be detectable. Put those factors together and you also get perhaps around 20% of the population having exposure. Of course exposure is not uniform across the country and (reference excess deaths) in London excess deaths up to 23rd October (the latest report) have remained mainly negative since June, apart from a spike in the summer likely caused by a heatwave rather than covid. In other regions there has indeed been a discernible rise in October. (And yes I get deaths lag infections by 3-4 weeks so the picture is emerging still). But London’s significantly lower mortality in the second wave compared to other urban areas does not appear to be explained fully by it’s likely higher rate of infection in February/March. It is probable that a % of the population simply cannot catch the disease for whatever biological reason that might be (pre-existing immunity or otherwise). The data from the two ships is interesting but surely in a closed environment with frequent person to person contact you would expect nearly 100% to catch the disease? Dr Yeadon’s estimate of those with pre-immunity may again be too high but it doesn’t mean the phenomenon doesn’t exist.
The points Dr Yeadon is making are not out of line with other eminent scientists like Sunetra Gupta. He may not (by his own admission) be right about the precise numbers but that should not dismiss him from a reasoned and reasonable argument. Sadly, the debate has become very polarized. My own view, for what that is worth, is that London is close to herd immunity and the second wave would die down pretty quickly without lockdown measures in place. Other parts of the country got it less badly earlier in the year and for them herd immunity may be a way off yet. But what we do know for absolute certainty is that covid-19 kills the elderly more than the young, by as much as 10,000 times. Any measure designed to reduce the virus’s impact, pending the availability of a vaccine, would surely be better focused on those most likely to die from the virus, rather than the blunt and economically catastrophic tool of a lockdown.
For a back of fag packet calculation do the following:
Take a smoothed number of deaths from the government stats – say roughly 500 today, to be on the generous side. Take the latest ONS infection survey, which is a wonderful thing. That shows cases a fortnight ago, and corresponds to infections roughly 3 weeks ago, so dying yesterday. 95% credible lower figure is 536500. 500/536500 = 0.09%
If I’m out by a week, because of reporting dates and so on, and infections double every two weeks then multiply by root two, IFR = 0.13.
If I’m out by two weeks then IFR = 0.18%
So 0.2% is not a silly figure for IFR at all, and would concur with the government approved sources of data.
When infections and deaths have peaked for this wave we should be able to compare the numbers at peak, and get a pretty solid IFR figure for the UK.
By that reckoning we are heading for another 11000 deaths over the next year or two, and this will bring us in line with San Marino at about 1000 deaths per million. Note San Marino hasn’t had a death since May.
Sean Arthur Joyce
3 years ago
Sad when the comments on an article are more intelligent than the article itself. Skip the article and read “maps foderit”‘s comments if you want a dose of common sense so lacking anywhere these days.
Totally agree. the comments to this article actually blow the article out of the water. Well done, random people on the internet! you make me think that there is actually a sliver of hope for a more rational approach to this crisis.
Robin Taylor
3 years ago
“By July, 54% had [developed antibodies to the virus] in Mumbai…” Yes, and the research paper you quote that relates to the Mumbai figure also states: “Taken together our estimate of seroprevalence, these number imply an infection fatality rate of 0.076% and 0.263% in non-slums. The overall rate is estimated to be 0.12%”. Maybe Yeadon’s IFR figure of 0.2% is nearer to the truth than the 0.5%-1.5% you are suggesting in the article. Also, could it not be that one factor for the very low IFR in the slums, compared to non-slums, is the existence of a degree of pre-existing immunity? A concept which your article seems at pains to try and discredit.
Scott Allan
3 years ago
“Covid Deniers” these are the bad people who have no humanity, right? Your article does not graph how many people got a case of the common cold in 2018 and deaths from that. Why? I can tell you why, because it would show that the rates of infection and death are almost similar.
If you would graph number of other more serious disease cases 2018 – 2020 you would see the massive drop in detection for 2020. Do you believe people stopped getting cancer and such serious diseases? No they did not. The body count because of COVID lock down and masks will far exceed the body count from COVID minus usual death by influenza by a factor of 5.
So COVID doomsdayers are far more dangerous than deniers by a factor of 5. Will your next article be calling for manslaughter charges against those who prevented access to critical care for non-COVID diseases??
Also 75% of the population is reporting they will not be taking your Frankenstein vaccine.
Adrian
3 years ago
I take issue with the implication that because new infections precede deaths by about 21 days that peak tests will precede deaths by the same amount.
Looking at the graphs from the last wave, peak cases tend to lead peak deaths by about a week, often less.
This is a result of people getting tested as they enter hospital, a fortnight after they were infected, and dying soon after.
Thus we should expect the general ONS survey infections to lead deaths by slightly less than 3 weeks, but the various pillar testing regimes to lead deaths by a much smaller time.
Finally consider that even the ONS infections survey will be skewed by the fact that if you test once a fortnight, you will have on average 7 days lag from infection to reporting date. Also virus is more detectable towards the end of the 14 days. Thus we’d expect deaths to lag cases by under two weeks for the survey case data.
Russ Littler
3 years ago
I only have one question for you Saloni, and Mathew. I’ll believe you when you show me the study document that has isolated the Covid-19 virus in human beings. Just produce it, for us all to peruse. I’m sure you won’t find it too difficult..
I suggest you Google the appropriate phrase “can you link to evidence that the virus was isolated is becoming fake moon landing level stupid” (seriously), where you’ll find a biologist linking to all the papers of people who isolated the virus. I’d link to it but UnHinged doesn’t like links, apparently.
There is currently a court case underway against all 650 UK MP’s for crimes against the people, and the Lawyers requested (under the freedom of information Act) that very same study, however they had to admit that no such study has been done, and they do not have anything to produce.
Of course there is, “crimes against the people” is absolutely a tort you can sue for. Take your meds and get off the Internet, it’s only making your symptoms worse.
But then what can one do for Crimes Against the People? Seems there should be some mechanism for making them pay, or like Heroin in Oregon, is it legal now?
Eileen Natuzzi
3 years ago
I think the idea that herd immunity will be achieved by exposure or vaccine is a pipe dream. Have we achieved herd immunity with the flu? No. The best we will achieve is attenuation of infection (and deaths) just like we see with the seasonal soup of flu and other viruses including coronaviruses. To think we will obliterate SARsCoV2 is like saying “it will magically go away.” It won’t, but it will leave a far less lethal foot print on us as more are exposed to low doses of virus or recover from true infections. Eventually SARsCoV2 will join the seasonal respiratory viruses we knew nothing about prior to this pandemic. As to T cell mediated responses: they probably play a much greater role in living with the virus. Perhaps a skin test similar to the TB test would be a valuable way to show this and determine prevalence of exposure.
Flu isn’t one single virus. There are new strains every year which need to be vaccinated against. Similarly the family of Coronaviruses have different strains. Covid-19 is one of them. The two things you are comparing are not comparable.
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
More bilge from The Establishment if you dismiss the ridiculous 100 Year models on Climate ,”You’re a climate denier” Even though the Weather models for 5-10 days are Inaccurate,the DATA is skewered they chose 29 hospitals which suited their ”Scenario” of panic .ignored falling admissions or No admissions (Daily mail graphs nov3) of 453 Hospitals!…The SARS2 plandemic peaked Around April 8-12… Ferguson’s projections ARE wrong..Why hasn’t great Barrington scientists like Professor Sunetra Gupta been Listened to?…Mainstream media are also to blame with their Slavish Love of EU,WHO,UN …Funding from Bill gates,george Soros Should be Looked at..
Shahzia Teja
3 years ago
I stopped reading when they began discussion of the IFR. Those numbers are out of date and the WHO’s own recent estimation is that 750M people worldwide have had covid, making the IFR closer to 0.2%.
Roger Dawson
3 years ago
I really object to the term ‘Covid denialism’. It implies that we should all accept what the government and mainstream media are telling us. What is wrong with using common sense, and with looking at the data?
1) Cases should not be confused with infections. The connection between the two is very tenuous. The PCR test should never be used for clinical purposes
2) The unnatural fear of a second wave is without foundation. This virus is following the same pattern as most other viruses. There is a peak, which dies away, followed by a seasonal return each year at a much lower level. This is what we are seeing. This second ‘peak’ will be larger in those countries that have locked down harder, because of a higher susceptibility in the population.
3) The R value is meaningless because it depends on cases, which are themselves meaningless.
Do not worry about ‘Covid denialists’. They are generally those that think for themselves. You should be more worried about the ‘truth denialists’ who ignore the data.
Denialism is a political choice of words designed to shut down debate. In our Western world now dissension is deemed anti social on just about everything unless it is a socially progressive and approved topic.
Dave Smith
3 years ago
We need to look closely at the possibility that covid was here much earlier. Maybe in November last year. There are things that might point that way. School closures in Highbridge Somerset in December attributed to a virus that spread rapidly. I fell ill with something very like it in the third week of January. along with a good few in my town. An old friend in Lynton Devon had a cough that developed into a fever along with so many others it was known as the Lynton cough . Maybe it was quietly spreading unrecognised until it seemed to suddenly be everywhere in March. This suggests to me that we have underestimated the spread by a vast number. There were no antibody test back then and exactly how reliable are they? Of course this makes the policy of emptying out the hospitals and ignoring the danger to care homes doubly foolish. If the virus was everywhere then care homes were a sitting target. Only recently has aerolised spread been accepted. That makes a care home or a hospital a real source of infection. Closed environments and no way of stopping it.
oxeslevy
3 years ago
Thank you to all of you who have commented here. The comments section is by far a better read than the article itself. You have articulated so well what I find very hard to put in to words. Maps foderit you have a special talent for debate. Thank you for your measured and thoughtful responses. I struggle to get my point across and people often immediately take offence or call me a ‘denier’ for questioning the narrative and asking for more detail. What can I say to friends of mine who are calling for a ‘zero COVID strategy’ ie tougher lockdowns? I’m sure they are well meaning people but for some reason they simply don’t want to hear that lockdowns aren’t the answer and will likely cause an awful lot more harm than good. If anyone could help me to write a clear and easy to understand answer to these people I would appreciate it as my debating skills aren’t up to scratch! Thank you!
Peter Price
3 years ago
So many innacuracies, so little time! Why pick upon Mike Yeadon when there are many more highly qualified actual Epidimiologists and virologists who are questioning the SAGE theocracy? Briefly. Viruses don’t do waves, that’s simply not how they work. Antibodies are not the only measure of immunity and always decline in the absence of the relevant threat. What do remain are the appropriate T cells which will recognise the threat if it returns. Lastly, herd immunity. Once again this is a scientific fact that all such viruses follow. There is debate as to the current level Vis a Vis the required level but it will arrive if it’s allowed to happen naturally without Government meddling.
Andy Dawson
3 years ago
Why should I bother reading this article with anything like an open mind when the author uses the dog-whistle word denialism in the title? There are many shades of scepticism. Not believing the dissembling half-truths trotted out by Johnson, Hancock, Whitty and Vallance seems to me to be entirely rational and does not equate to denialism.
zsretic1701
3 years ago
What if covid denialism applies to those who try to sustain narrative on covid19 from March 2020 in November 2020 despite new scientific data on the threat of the disease?
dixonpinfold
3 years ago
I’ve got a trust issue with this article, because it has a phony link.
“The WHO has estimated the Covid-19 IFR is around 0.5%-1.0%.” I clicked on the embedded link, only to find that the destination contains no IFR estimate at all. It’s a boilerplate summary of how one calculates an IFR.
I also note this essay’s heavy over-reliance on rhetoric, beginning in its opening paragraphs which lean on Albert Camus (!) to inform us about the coronavirus. And later, with the appearance of the word “denialism”, question-begarring rears its hideous head. I’ll have to look elsewhere for rebuttal of Dr. Yeadon’s assertions.
Thanks for that Dixon – great work. It reminds us that even in the excellent Unherd pages we’ve all got to be alert to “statistics” and their “interpretation”. Ah, but to have the time! And that’s what the MSM knows so well.
billwald123
3 years ago
Reflect “The sky is falling?”
By next winter, most of the people most likely to die from this new corona virus will be dead. Either there will be a safe vaccination or there will not be. No point in worrying about things not under one’s control.
If the sky is falling, I can’t stop it but if people think it is falling, there is big money to be made.
Jane In Toronto
3 years ago
Her charts are useless. Deaths and hospitalisations ALWAYS rise significantly in late autumn.
Dan Poynton
3 years ago
As the scientists bicker I suppose the best us plebian-laypeople can do is to keep asking whose payroll these scientists are on, and even more sadly for science, what are their politics.
Dan Poynton
3 years ago
The “experts” now blame Western “exceptionalism” for their slow reaction to the virus, yet at the time they attacked the West for xenophobia and racism when they wished to close their borders. And I thought we’d all given up on taking seriously studies from WHO, and even governments, on this issue?
Nick Faulks
3 years ago
The fact that the writers from the very start use the pejorative term “denialist” to describe anyone who questions orthodox dogma made me expect that the whole article would be just a standard hack job. I read it anyway and I was right.
Michael Coleman
3 years ago
While the author’s arguments are mostly sound, I find their almost complete neglect (willful or not) of seroreversion disappointing. The authors acknowledge that antibodies can become undetectable after a “few months”, but thereafter ignore the issue (potentially because it is complicated). A Japanese study found antibodies disappeared by 12.5% in one month. Another study found > 20% loss in 90 days. Almost all of the individuals in the Japan study were asymptomatic. For hospitalized cases antibodies last much longer. But given that the seroprevalence is 5 to 10 times the confirmed case rate it is clear that the shorter time scale seroreversion is the relevant rate. If the majority of US cases were in March and April and a 10% seroprevalence was found IN JULY the current US rate of infected or exposed individuals certainly is much larger than 10% – but to the author’s point 30% would be a stretch.
James Moss
3 years ago
Great piece. As I read it I sensed it would not be popular with the Unherd commentariat and sure enough it wasn’t.
I’m not averse to some serious attempt to make a numerical comparison of the effects of Covid-suppression measures and the benefits. But the “Covid-deniers” (for want of a better term, as they do not deny its very existence**) seem to want to pick on every opportunity to downgrade the data on one side of the comparison before they move on to the analysis. Having recently begun to see this in its latest stage of evolution (the tests are all false-positives, no-one is ill, everyone is dying of something else) I am glad to see some of the contra-arguments put here.
There is in fact no 100% certainty that either side is correct. Much of the science is new, the data has caveats. All one can do is try establish a consensus having tried to take in as much as possible of what is available. It takes someone with a very arrogant belief in their own analytical ability to take an extreme position on the various aspects of this debate.
Masks don’t work. They do work. They don’t work much. It has been proven that masks….These are all examples of such extreme pronouncements. There is no rigorous scientific proof of any of these statements. A safer statement is “There is reason to believe masks might do quite a bit of good, we don’t know – lets wear them whilst we try to get more evidence”.
Similarly on the mortality, the IFR, the infectiousness of the pathogen, the proportion of the population infected, the effects of cross-reactive antibodies – there are many parts of recent studies, not thoroughly reviewed, experiments not yet replicated that one can cherry pick to support a position – but no-one knows for sure and I don’t trust anyone that claims to be able to. This all argues for caution in dealing with the pandemic.
**to go back to “holocaust denier”, from which such terms are derived, most “holocaust deniers” question only the size of the holocaust, not its occurrence. I will therefore stick with this nomenclature until I come across a better one.
Gordon Mackay
3 years ago
I think it’s notable that there are several, unconnected, expert opinions pointing out the same thing, basically that flawed PCR tests are creating the impression that the epidemic is still going. As well as Michael Yeadon, there’s also Sucharit Bhakdi and Clare Craig as well as the whole Barrington lot. That’s a lot of experts so there must be something in what they’re saying.
It was from Dr Craig I learned about a previous whooping cough ‘epidemic’ which turned out to be completely false. https://www.nytimes.com/200…
Steve Bimpson
3 years ago
An interesting perspective/rebuttal of the points raised by Mike Yeadon but, as pointed out elsewhere, I’m not sure why Mike is singled out when there are plenty of other experts in the field who share his views.
I’ve asked one main and a small follow up question in a variety of places and haven’t even had an answer, as yet, let alone one that was at all convincing. My questions concern a few simple observations.
1) Assuming an IFR of 0.5%, some 99.5% of humans infected by SARS-Cov-2 recover from Covid-19.
2) We’re told that as many as 80% of those infected are asymptomatic.
3) As I understand it, immunity doesn’t mean that an infection doesn’t enter your body. It means that your body kills off the infection through a range of immune responses, some acquired and some innate.
My questions are;
A) If it’s true that 99.5% of those infected with SARS-Cov-2 recover and as many as 80% recover without even developing symptoms, isn’t that a clear indication that a powerful immune response – be that an acquired or an innate immune response – is already endemic within the human population?
Logically, it seems to me that it does, which brings me on to my follow up;
B) If there is already a powerful immune response endemic within the human population, why are we arguing over and getting bogged down by, the semantics of it?
If anyone can answer those questions for me, I’d really, really appreciate it.
david bewick
3 years ago
I’m not sure this article is worthy of a reply to be honest. It’s hard to know where to start. Maybe reading John Iaonnidis’s peer reviewed and published article would help the authors understand a little more. The IFR is 0.15-0.2% and under 70yrs old it is 0.03-0.04%. It is accepted that once you’ve had it you have immunity. Respiratory illnesses rarely produce antibodies, in fact some diseases we vaccinate against rarely produce antibodies, for example hepatitis B. There is not one recorded case of a pupil passing the illness to a teacher. There is evidence of immunity in Asia in people who have had no exposure to the virus. How T cells (and B cells) behave is well understood. An article in the BMJ covers T cells etc. I’ve copied and pasted the text as Unherd doesn’t like links!
Feature Coronavirus Covid-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity? BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj… (Published 17 September 2020) Cite this as: BMJ 2020;370:m3563 Read our latest coverage of the coronavirus outbreak Article Related content Metrics Responses Peter Doshi, associate editor Author affiliations [email protected] It seemed a truth universally acknowledged that the human population had no pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2, but is that actually the case? Peter Doshi explores the emerging research on immunological responses
Even in local areas that have experienced some of the greatest rises in excess deaths during the covid-19 pandemic, serological surveys since the peak indicate that at most only around a fifth of people have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2: 23% in New York, 18% in London, 11% in Madrid.123 Among the general population the numbers are substantially lower, with many national surveys reporting in single digits.
With public health responses around the world predicated on the assumption that the virus entered the human population with no pre-existing immunity before the pandemic,4 serosurvey data are leading many to conclude that the virus has, as Mike Ryan, WHO’s head of emergencies, put it, “a long way to burn.”
Yet a stream of studies that have documented SARS-CoV-2 reactive T cells in people without exposure to the virus are raising questions about just how new the pandemic virus really is, with many implications.
Not so novel coronavirus? At least six studies have reported T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 in 20% to 50% of people with no known exposure to the virus.5678910
In a study of donor blood specimens obtained in the US between 2015 and 2018, 50% displayed various forms of T cell reactivity to SARS-CoV-2.511 A similar study that used specimens from the Netherlands reported T cell reactivity in two of 10 people who had not been exposed to the virus.7
In Germany reactive T cells were detected in a third of SARS-CoV-2 seronegative healthy donors (23 of 68). In Singapore a team analysed specimens taken from people with no contact or personal history of SARS or covid-19; 12 of 26 specimens taken before July 2019 showed reactivity to SARS-CoV-2, as did seven of 11 from people who were seronegative against the virus.8 Reactivity was also discovered in the UK and Sweden.6910
Though these studies are small and do not yet provide precise estimates of pre-existing immunological responses to SARS-CoV-2, they are hard to dismiss, with several being published in Cell and Nature. Alessandro Sette, an immunologist from La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California and an author of several of the studies (box 1), told The BMJ, “At this point there are a number of studies that are seeing this reactivity in different continents, different labs. As a scientist you know that is a hallmark of something that has a very strong footing.”
Box 1
Roland Ayers
3 years ago
Use of the loaded term ‘denialism’ aside, this is a commendably analytical article. It is not hysteria. It is also however, largely analysis of the views of one particular individual, namely Michael Yeadon. It doesn’t really address the genuine cause for confusion over how many deaths are covid deaths, and how many are flu deaths. It is not making the distinction between the genuinely inherently vulnerable, and the willfully unhealthy. It is holding out the prospect of vaccines as a source of hope, but if they are rolled out as soon as suggested, they won’t have been tested on very many people, so we will only have a vague idea of how effective they are likely to be. Flu vaccines don’t exactly have a great record of protecting those who really need them.
As soon as the optimistic vaccine section came up without any of the non-conspiratorial but medically understood limitations of all vaccines, the air was gone.
I don’t sense intentional propaganda here so much as well-intended ignorance and/or incomplete/mis-information.
mf
worldsbestbrewer
3 years ago
Interesting how the author accuses Yeadon of being ‘selective’ in his thinking, yet the article is very selective. Only got to look at the treatments she mentions to show which side of the discussion she represents. And the data graphs – no overlays with the past. She is being very selective. Prof Friston, months ago penned the term ‘covid dark matter’ which he concludes is the tranche of the population that isn’t susceptible to covid; 50pcent to 80 pcent of the population. This is any country he looked at, whatever their containment policy. This of course, means that herd immunity is attainable with far fewer numbers than the author infers. And of course let’s not forget our control group who are doing rather well. Sweden. https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Percy Winter
3 years ago
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tricia
3 years ago
I’m no expert and do not deny covid-19 exists, but I can read, and follow Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Claire Craig. I take exception to the way admissions and deaths ‘with’ covid are counted. An admission is anyone who tests positive on admission or thereafter in hospital, but who have most likely been admitted for an entirely different reason eg heart attack. This combined with the frequent care home testing means that the death stats are being falsely inflated by testing those who are very frail and suffering from several co-morbidities and then when they die within 28 days of testing positive they are declared as a covid death. This method is fraudulent, highly misleading and being used to scaremonger. Also, those healthy people who are admitted and test positive are being discharged within a few days but we never hear the high level of discharges on the MSM. In NI there were more discharges in the last 7 days than admissions. PCR test positive is not proof of suffering Covid-19 infection, only viral culture is. Thousands of new ‘cases’ are declared daily without any proof of infectiousness. A recent ‘case’ in NI declared a 17 year old as being the youngest to die. His father was distraught as he had been told his son had died of heart failure due to a congenital disease. His son had been due to go into hospital so was tested a month before and they yielded a positive result but the boy had no symptoms and tested negative 2 weeks later. Because he died within the fraudulent 28 day range he will forever be a covid death statistic. This is twisting the truth beyond belief! Dr Claire Craig is a pathologist who has analysed the case and death statistics for the so-called second wave. She has found several irregularities and shares Dr Yeadon’s belief that ‘cases’ are not true infections. It would be easy to disprove either party by doing viral culture of every positive swab, so why don’t you in the medical profession who call anyone with a sceptical view a ‘Covid denier’ get on and do this? https://lockdownsceptics.or…
George Wiseman
3 years ago
With all due respect to Solani and Matt, I join the many people questioning the relevance of the ‘data’ they use to ‘prove their theory’ of ‘Covid Denialism’.
It could just (and perhaps more appropriately) be argued that ‘they’ are the Covid Deniers… Because their ‘data’ is mostly conjecture and not based on the FACTS that are NOW known (which we did not know in the ‘beginning’).
I’m not sure why UnHerd would even publish this article without fact checking…
For example, when claiming ‘excess deaths’ you need to INCLUDE on the chart the ‘normal deaths’ (deaths from all causes) line so that people can see that the ‘total mortality’ is LESS than ‘normal’ or at worse, slightly above normal like in 2018. Making a chart without all the relevant data is misleading, to say the least.
And we KNOW that most people who die these days are dying WITH the virus not OF the virus. Just because the person tested positive (or was presumed positive) does NOT mean they died OF the virus. Worldwide, the actual deaths OF the virus (no other morbidity) ranges only 2% to 6% of the total ‘claimed’ deaths.
The bare bones FACT is that, if you strip away all the media hype and false ‘science’, this disease has AT WORST the mortality of a bad flu season. This is FACT.
And there is NO ‘second wave’. The second ‘wave is entirely fabricated from so called ‘cases’ generated mostly by testing HEALTHY people that ‘had’ the disease and now just have dead pieces of RNA that the PCR test can identify.
Yes, there are people with ‘symptoms’ as there ALWAYS are, mostly the flu or common cold du jour. The COVID just joins this long list of pathogens that are endemic in our bodies and our immune systems clean up everyday.
Let’s examine some other FACTS that seem to be missed by the Covid Deniers like our esteemed Solani and Matt. I have charts to support this presentation but I don’t see a way to post them here…
“How” we will know the ‘pandemic’ is over is just by looking at the facts. Facts that would NORMALLY (via science) convince anyone with functioning neurons. I WISH our politicians had enough ‘common sense’ to look at the facts.
Fact 1:
There was never an actual crisis until the Vaccine Vested Interest MADE IT a crisis by locking down the world (using Vested Interest controlled Media to create hysteria).
The virus was ALREADY spread worldwide in MARCH of 2019, known by testing archived sewage samples. https://www.usatoday.com/st…
There were NO excess deaths UNTIL the lockdowns (in fact LESS than normal which made a lot of ‘dry wood’ for the lockdown), even though the virus was spread worldwide for a YEAR before the lockdowns.
So it was side effects of the lockdowns (like fear, hysteria and miss-treatment of this disease) that caused the excess mortality.
Not saying that there isn’t a virus or that people aren’t dying, but I AM saying that the virus is LESS deadly than the common flu (if treated properly) and that people die everyday. At the time of the lockdown more people had died from the common flu than the virus.
But after the lockdowns a miracle”¦ The common cold and flu nearly disappeared, ALL deaths were attributed to the virus du jour.
Fact 2:
Even with all the fiasco of asking people to lockdown for two weeks to ‘flatten the curve’, the ‘Pandemic’ ended about mid June, 2020.
We initially locked down like good little sheeple because we didn’t KNOW any better and we were scared out of our minds… me too”¦
But then SOME of us started noticing ‘inconsistencies’ like the disease is NOT a lung disease, it is a BLOOD disease, which is more appropriately treated with ionophores (like hydroxychloroquine) and zinc (virtually 100% of such treated live) than with ventilators (90% of the people put on ventilators die). The trick is to get the blood carrying oxygen again”¦ People were dying of hypoxia because the BLOOD couldn’t accept oxygen, so ventilators are useless.
And we noticed that as the death toll started dramatically dropping”¦ The propaganda from the Vaccine Vested Interest shifted to counting ‘cases’ instead of ‘deaths’.
So while deaths dropped to well below anything that could be called a pandemic, and both the WHO and CDC stopped calling it a pandemic”¦
They (the Vaccine Vested Interest and controlled Media) ‘focused’ everyone’s attention on BLM (to keep fear up) until they realized they could keep the hysteria alive by reporting positive tests as ‘cases’.
3.does not prove the person is ill, only that specific RNA bits are present, usually from dead virus, at best proving the person WAS ill https://www.youtube.com/wat…
It didn’t matter to them that what they were reporting wasn’t actually ‘cases’, they just called every positive test and ‘presumptive’ symptoms as a ‘case’.
Technically, ‘CASES’ are ONLY people who are actually sick; have symptoms AND positive tested diagnosis.
That didn’t matter when they realized that most people are too ignorant to know that”¦ So they started MASSIVELY testing healthy people, in the hopes of finding a few that would test positive and (to their joy) they DID. It didn’t matter that these positive tests were only finding ‘dead’ RNA fragments because the (now healthy) person had HAD the disease and recovered.
They KNEW that MOST people that got infected (as many as 90%) did NOT have symptoms severe enough to go to the hospital, so they just needed to find these previously ‘sick’ people (who MAY have been sick a YEAR ago) to now have a CASEdemic.
It’s PERFECT! To keep the CASEdemic going they just have to excessively test HEALTHY people and make them ‘think’ they are ‘sick’ when actually they are the saviors, the ones with the great immune systems that protect the rest of us.
Literally, herd immunity is DEFINED by MOST people having been infected and now IMMUNE, so that the death rate drops to near zero”¦ LOL”¦
But ‘they’ found a way to ‘twist this GREAT NEWS into more hysteria. I gotta admit, I’m kinda impressed even as I’m terrified of their actual agenda (more on that later).
Anything to strike fear into the population so they will line up for their vaccines”¦ Deaths are minimal, so CASEdemic it is”¦
And an interesting side note”¦ Before this ‘pandemic’ the third leading cause of death in the USA was Doctor mistakes, about 250,000 deaths every year. Right now in November the ‘so called virus’ deaths, even with all the miss-counting and fraud, is not yet 250,000″¦ Just saying for perspective”¦ https://www.cnbc.com/2018/0…
Fact 3:
Note that the virus will NEVER actually ‘go away’, it’ll just join the millions of others in our micro-biome that can no longer make us sick because our immune systems will recognize and kill it. It’s called ‘Endemic’. So even though the virus never goes away, the SYMPTOMS do go away and THAT is what I think you were actually asking.
So to answer for YOU, the pandemic has come and gone and would have been no worse than a normal flu season IF ‘they’ had just left it alone. ‘They’ are now preparing for another lockdown based on testing HEALTHY PEOPLE (CASEdemic).
Fact 4:
“They” didn’t leave it alone and will NEVER leave it alone because they have found the PERFECT vehicle to achieve World Domination, decimate the population and make us into vaccine slaves.
All they need to do is:
1.keep us so scared that we can’t THINK and
2.suppress ANY possible efficacious treatments (there are several) and
3.keep us scared of EACH OTHER, (divide and conquer) and
4.destroy all the world economies so the people become DESPERATE and
5.then offer only ONE choice for ‘salvation’
‘They’ then offer total debt forgiveness and a Universal Basic Income. All you need to do to qualify is to give up all rights to own anything again EVER (like a slave owns nothing) and get the vaccine (mark of the beast). https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Then you’ll be able to go to work, purchase things, travel, etc. GREAT STUFF”¦ BUT they don’t tell you”¦
1.A HIGH percentage of people taking the vaccine will die or have SEVERE side effects (wish they had died). Bill Gates has admitted this and ALL the vaccine trials (what little they are doing, is proving this point)
2.If you do ANYTHING your new owners don’t like they’ll demerit your UBI, just like they already do in China.
3.You will now be a genetically modified organism, literally ‘owned’ by the vaccine patent holder because every cell in your body will have it’s DNA permanently altered to match their patent (and you’ll no longer be a ‘child of God’).
that can read your physical location and your physiological parameters, so they will even know when you are having sex.
5.The vaccine will have a substance called luciferase that can be read by computers, so your mark needs to be on exposed skin, the hand or forehead.
6.The quantum-dots are 2 way communication, so they can both transmit and RECEIVE information. They will program tiny robots in your body called nanobots.
The nanobots can help you heal, or KILL you depending on what the programmers choose. So do what your masters say or they can literally punish or kill you remotely.
7.And finally (for this dissertation today) you’ll likely be HAPPY about all this because they will be able to both READ YOUR MIND and PLACE THOUGHTS into your head with the neuralink technology that will be uploaded with subsequent injections of vaccines”¦
All these vaccines to ‘prevent’ a disease that was SO SEVERE that most people needed to be tested to even know they HAD it”¦ https://www.stanforddaily.c…
And if you think masks will protect you”¦ You are watching too much TV and don’t know enough SCIENCE. The SCIENCE actually says that masks INCREASE infection”¦
One reason is because the masks actually aerosolize the ‘big droplets’. Yes, they ‘catch’ the big droplets but then they turn the big droplets into TINY droplets when you breathe out through the mask”¦ Those tiny droplets can hang in the air for hours and once they land on someone else’s mask, the virus goes through the mask like a golf ball through a soccer net.
I’m terrified, but not of this virus”¦ I’m terrified by WHY they are hyping this virus even AFTER it’s no longer even a CONCEIVABLE threat, because it’s now endemic AND we KNOW how to treat it so that there are near zero deaths, even with old people and people with comorbidities.
If you’d like to know what the Media is NOT telling you, use duckduckgo to search for terms like americas frontline doctors or medicine uncensored or questioncovid or the highwire or suppressed doctors or Dr. Drew Pinsky or Dr Kelly Victory or restrictedrepublic or londonreal or Dr. Richard Bartlett or Dr Brownstein or Celeste Solum or Doctor blasts WHO or dr jeff barke or thefreedomarticles the last american vagabond or amazing Polly or why we stay asleep when or the dollar vigilante or losthorizons or or unherd or Michael Levitt virus or NoMoreFakeNews or Brasscheck TV or TheDailyWire or WeAreChange or makeamericansfreeagain
Pete Marsh
3 years ago
It’s instructive to look at the Covid death/day curve for Sweden at https://www.worldometers.in… It peaked at around 100 back in April, and they now already seem to be over the 2nd wave which topped out at 7 deaths/day.
Hard lockdowns may only delay the inevitable while killing the economy and burdening the young with massive national debts.
Lisa
3 years ago
Please see this video of Dr Fauci confirming that any PCR positive test arrived at by using 35 cycles or above will basically pick up only dead viral fragments: https://mobile.twitter.com/…
..and this video also confirming that the UK goes up to 45 cycles:
Prof. Carl Heneghan on The PCR Test (House of Commons Science & Tech Committee, 17 Sep, 2020) https://www.youtube.com/wat…
John Kirk
3 years ago
Like others my impression is that this is a hatchet job pretending to be a neutral assessment.
At least however it is taking Dr Yeadon head on and not pretending he doesn’t exist.
It would of course be ideal for Unherd to allow Dr Yeadon to answer this article himself. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your stance, he is currently in France and unable to return to the UK because of the French lockdown, so presumably has access to only what material he can access via the internet. Why doesn’t Freddie Sayers do an in-depth interview with him? – I don’t think that has happened so far.
I know about Dr Yeadon’s current situation from an interesting interview he gave to Anna Brees on 29 October. That can still be found with a little work, but access to it meantime has been removed by Facebook and Youtube under “emergency” Ofcom rules apparently. So much for free debate in the UK.
At https://lockdownsceptics.or… we learn that “Dr Mike Yeadon has a degree in biochemistry and toxicology and a research-based PhD in respiratory pharmacology. He has spent over 30 years leading new medicines research in some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, leaving Pfizer in 2011 as Vice President & Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory. That was the most senior research position in this field in Pfizer. Since leaving Pfizer, Dr Yeadon has founded his own biotech company, Ziarco, which was sold to the worlds biggest drug company, Novartis, in 2017.”
Impressive though his qualifications are, ( see also the Delingpod interview on https://www.youtube.com/wat… ) Dr Yeadon at 60 and semi retired may be a softer target to smear as a “Covid denier” than e.g. Gupta or Heneghan both currently employed by substantial organisations, with access to substantial resources of all kinds.
Anyone who hasn’t done so should access Dr Yeadon’s arguments directly e.g. from the links I have given, and weigh them against this article.
Sean L
3 years ago
Because of the verbal coincidence of COVID with corona virus, the meaning of COVID: Certificate of Vaccination ID is insufficiently acknowledged. Otherwise the most telling refutation of the kind of propaganda above comes in the statement from German corporate fraud lawyer Dr Reiner Fuellmich, ‘Crimes against Humanity’ detailing class action based on ‘criminal PCR tests’, citing official sources contradicting their own propaganda, as well as scientists who are mostly sidelined by the media.
When 5 nurses find the amount of positive tests dubious they send off 5 swabs swabbed on nothing, and they came back positive. Then you had 3 dental nurses do the same thing with the same result, this started to question the validity of the tests and the “virus” It got even worse when a family waited so long for their test appointment they gave up and went back home and received text messages the following day saying they were positive. There are people on video swabbing a dog, an orange and a yucca plant, all coming back positive. Its getting that comical we are thinking of starting a Face Book page to upload these types of videos. To a more serious note. Here is the real reason for this plandemic. https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Dan Poynton
3 years ago
The authors, seemingly disciples of The New Normal, quake in terror at a return to “our terrible former hygiene habits” (sic). Incidentally and even more bizarrely, I take it they’re referring to the West, not Chinese wet markets. Ah, let us warn our children to beware of Filthy Humanity and embrace our move into pristine transhumanism!
gardner.peter.d
3 years ago
I read the Yeadon paper some weeks ago and the flaws were obvious then. Nevertheless it was greeted by the anti-lockdown brigade as gospel – they’ve been clutching at straws of one sort or another for 8 months. Another thing on false positives pointed out by Tom Chivers is that with a given testing regime, even with false positives, a rise in +ve results still means a rise in true positives. It has been obvious in the data since August because the ratio of the number of tests to +ve results has decreased. Yet people still claim the rise is because of false positives. And if it is a problem it is easily solved by re-testing people who test positive once. Anyway it is good to see at least one piece of nonsense debunked.
Tom Hawk
3 years ago
One needs accept that back in the winter, the virus was so new that scientists didn’t even recognise it. It then took months to develop effective tests to find people who were currently infected. We still do not have an effective test to show if someone was previously infected and recovered. All the while the virus has been spreading.
All of which does make it as near as makes no difference, impossible to determine exactly how many have been exposed. The very wuestions abkut the Yealdon paper being asked demonstrate the fact.
Yet without testing and effective measurement, the government is flying blind in fog without a radio whilst trying to land. All the boffins are doing at present is little more than navigating by dead reckoning. Meanwhile they are t lling the captain what to do.
Dave Tagge
3 years ago
It’s worth noting that U.S. study estimating 9.3% national seroprevalence used blood draws (from dialysis patients) in July. The authors only needed to add the words “as of July”, which would have conveyed more information. There have obviously been many more cumulative people exposed to COVID in the U.S. as of November than there were as of July.
The U.S. had a first wave in March/April that hit the Northeast hardest, along with parts of the Midwest (mainly big cities in the latter). There was then a summer wave that peaked in late July and mostly hit warm weather states (the South, Arizona, and some increase in California). The third, current wave is showing some increases in those areas but the hardest hit areas per capita are parts of the Midwest that previously hadn’t experienced much COVID.
Anyway, my overall point is that seroprevalence number is now 3-4 months old. It may have missed a significant part of the summer COVID wave depending on time to seroconvert and when in July those samples were gathered. One could also argue that dialysis patients might have been more careful in avoiding COVID than the overall U.S. population, because they know that they’re at higher risk. A counterargument could be that they’ve been at risk of exposure due to the need for more healthcare interactions, both dialysis and otherwise.
Put that all together, though, and this 3-4 month old study should extrapolate to current U.S. seroprevalence is *at least* 15%. I think it’s at least 20% if the timing of the study missed much of the summer wave, and extrapolating as high as 25% or even 30% isn’t out of the question.
Bob Honda
3 years ago
Why is the top voted comment “awaiting moderation” all day?
alan.coombs2
3 years ago
No doubt this article will help with their political ambitions in the future.
Helen Barbara Doyle
3 years ago
I’m in the middle here, neither a denialism nor a lockdown isn’t, clearly cases are riding but viruses don’t do waves, it is just being seasonal now.
nolstarcats
3 years ago
Hi, Covid is a terrible disease, But does anyone, know anybody, who has had ordinary Seasonal Flu, or a bad cold this year?? If you went for a PCR test, it would probably come up as Positive. They say it’s not that reliable.
Mike Yeadon Isn’t a Covid Denier. He made most of his videos before the New Variants came. Not saying he was completely correct about everything, however, the media is quite narrow minded. If you question the official narrative at all, your classed as someone who doesn’t believe it here. You can’t say the Great Barrington Scientists are Covid deniers, it’s ridiculous.
rab57wil
3 years ago
Dr Yeadon knows what he is talking about. Enough said.
Phil Lynch
3 years ago
Great work Saloni. I have hardly no medical or scientific knowledge, but felt strongly that Dr Yeadon was wrong, based purely on the numbers I was witnessing not just here, but around the world, with my own eyes. You have helped me understand why I knew he was wrong. People are now delighted that it looks like “Christmas is saved”, regardless of how many thousands of people get sacrificed in the process. I can’t help thinking how much better things would be if people could just think for themselves and replace the word “allowed” with the word “safe”. We really can be disappointing as a species sometimes. Thank you for your insight.
Interesting, Phil. I look at this a little differently.
As I understand it, immunity doesn’t mean you don’t become infected. It means your body can successfully kill off the virus.
Given that 99.5% of people who become infected recover – as many as 80% of them without developing symptoms of any kind – surely that suggests that immunity is already endemic within the human population?
Especially, as so many people kill off the virus before symptoms can even develop. It may be due to innate, rather than acquired immunity – or even combination of the two – but does that matter?
And whilst I’m not dismissing deaths – because every one is a tragedy – the vast majority of those who die have one or more co-morbidities that are suppressing their immune system, which is probably why they die.
I believe our focus should be on helping them by developing treatments to fight the virus and, yes, a vaccine that’s used to target and protect the most vulnerable. I just don’t get why we need to vaccinate the world when 99.5% already have the means to fight it.
The cynical part of me thinks about the £Billions that Big Pharma are going to make out of this by vaccinating the world when it doesn’t appear to be necessary.
Like you, I’m not a medical professional, I’m just looking at this logically.
At the start of this health crisis, those of us that didn’t (don’t) buy into the fear, and yet acknowledged the very real unknowns of early February/March, we happily wore the masks and followed the draconian lockdown measures, mostly as consideration to those around us (and naturally to avoid the punishment of the authorities).
Now, with *large* amounts of data, much of which is even biased in the ‘err in the conservative’ direction, we know with high levels of certainty the following:
– Masks are largely ineffective for the purposes they are being required. Not completely ineffective, (slightly better than nothing), but functionally irrelevant to the purported task. Studies confirming this have existed for years and are largely ignored by the power-brokers in our midst. The ‘experts’ at the American CDC and the WHO have flip-flopped on their recommendations multiple times, seemingly aligning with the political fashion of the day, rather than the science that they themselves publish (!) and know with high certainty. This is a bit odd.
(eta: wwwnc cdc gov /eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article – fix the URL to access)
– In countries, states, counties, districts, towns, and clubs, the infection propagation rate is audit-ably only slightly above the common cold or flu. The data is in and not even being argued, let alone dignified in the few conversations being had. But the authorities’ behavior somehow continues as if on auto-pilot.
– The available and growing data indicates that the real death-rate is slightly above that of the flu, and notably hard on our elders, especially those with co-morbidities (pre-existing health stresses). The ‘damage’ rate is very low to the remaining population (especially under 25ers) but seems to really hit some ‘average’ folks very hard with lasting effects – notably lung damage, while leaving others relatively unscathed, if not completely unnoticed. That the American CDC has admitted that of the 220,000 recorded deaths in America, that only 6% (14k?) were ‘pure COVID-19’ best they could tell, and the rest were registered as COVID-related – meaning the poor folks that died may have been pushed over an ‘edge’ in the same way as a flu or cold may have. My problem isn’t with the probable and valid association with COVID-19, it’s with the unquestioned binding that the statistic, which was probably cited 30 times by the American *Presidential candidates* in their recent political debates, as being simple un-nuanced facts. Sorry guys, we’re *not* certain that all 206,000 of the COVID-19 patients in question died of the virus, we only know that the now dead people had it!
(eta: great comment below by TomD: disq us /p/2czytxd – fix the URL or browse down a bit)
– There are virtually no studies that verify the existence of so-called ‘super-spreaders’, Only rumors that make good headlines. Like colds and flu carriers, the period just before you realize you have something, you are likely to be sharing it liberally, after which the contagious factor drops notably. You’d think if super-spreaders were ‘real’, that within the pool of positive testers, some sample would be tested and tracked for the existence of such entities. I’m still waiting.
(eta: a comment was made that cited an existing study, but since has been removed by the user. That such a study exists is worth noting.)
– Watching closely, to my count, there have been ~10 audit-able cases of repeat occurrences in persons who have gotten the bug twice, 2 of which have reportedly died as a result. This is out of 7 billion people, and with a vulturing media that will headline every case they find to sell more clicks or papers, it’s not like repeat cases would be slipping through the cracks here. The idea that re-infection is currently a *real* problem in the general risk profile is abject nonsense. Yes, it could be, but it currently is not.
– The true data shows virtually no difference in infection and propagation rates between populations that mask and lockdown relative to those that don’t, and in far too many cases, the supposed occurrence of spikes in infections (which do make headlines), has turned out to be data spikes due to IT and data processing errors (which don’t make headlines, except in skeptical media outlets). In a few cases, it appears there have been some delay and deferral effects due to these prevention measures, but even in a few of these cases the data is arguably questionable. The effectiveness of these defense measures is clearly lower than those in power would wish it (laudably), but also far lower than they would have you believe as they seriously consider round two.
– The most common test, (PCR) is *known* to be useful but it is *not* a certain indicator of infection. While hard to explain, they can determine with useful certainty that one has been exposed and/or is fighting the COV SARS2 – COVID-19 virus, but many other infection influences across a lifetime *will show the same signature*. Add to this that the test can be run at different levels and is currently being run at levels that *will show indicators at a higher contrast, but with less certainty* – to put it in layman’s terms. This means the tests are being run to generate more false-positives, rather than to miss cases, which might be a fair choice if the consequences of false positives aren’t high. This also means that those (especially nurses and techs who are simply following clearly established protocol) are reading the results much like a madame would read tarot cards.
(eta: great PCR test info by a Dr. Mackay mentioned below by Paul Wright at “virologydownunder com /yes-pcr-tests-can-detect-the-covid-virus/” – fix the URL to access – great read – balanced and complete.)
– When the vulture media report new ‘cases’, how many of you can describe exactly what a ‘case’ is, and if that case poses a risk to fellow citizens – which is really the most important factor isn’t it? Is a new ‘case’ simply someone that had it?, or do they still have it? Is that person contagious? or not? and if so, how contagious *now*? and how contagious over the next 14 days (so-called lifespan of the sickness – and don’t get me started on that)? Very few know, but worse, apparently very few care: “More cases!” This means that effectively nobody can tell you how much risk is actually present in the system at a given moment. So, … we assume it’s all bad and lock ourselves up. Again. “Just in case”. “Trust the science”. But don’t do any science. Contagiousness matters, otherwise ‘cases’ are simply interesting in that we know who is *not* likely to get it – for which it could be argued that we should be wishing there were *more* cases, not less… sigh.
– Counting cases – this is a doozy for the fear-mongering headline grabbers… A new case is *bad*, and the fact that there are more-than-there-were-before means we’re dooomed, right? Well, as many have tried to articulate, you test more, you’re going to get more results! duh. It’s when you see headlines that say “Cases have *doubled* over the weekend!”, – or “200% more cases over the last 3 days!”, and then, with rudimentary digging, you find that the case count went from 7 to 13 cases, (in a population of 300,000!), and 3 of them had no symptoms, and one had tested negative the next day… all of which, if you *choose* to look, should clue you into the idea that something isn’t passing the sniff test here. Something else is going on, and it’s well-past time for more of us to *choose to look*.
When you consider that virtually every outcome of this statistically low-risk disease event can in some way be be tied at the highest levels of our sources of trust and information, to high-power and high-profit mandates of the in-place power systems and the medical service and product corporations, at least the connections between some of the dots might start to make more sense. Of course you can go conspiracy crazy here, but even the simplest consideration of the agendas and the amounts of power and money involved ought to raise some questions in a healthy and intelligent gut.
When you also consider that most rational but gutless politicians will far more likely ‘chance’ the possibility of figuring out what to do *tomorrow* with the side-effects of the lock-downs and creating functional police states with your communities today, rather than risk the very immediate, unpopular, and tragic death of ‘grandma’ today… Kicking the can isn’t exactly irrational, but “at what cost?” would be a great conversation to begin someday soon.
It seems to me a better approach to this situation is to re-visit the *current* risk profiles, trust the *current* data, and assume that perhaps a better answer is to take extra steps to protect those ‘at risk’ while encouraging the broader community to carefully and conscientiously keep the gears of life moving for the better good of the community at large. This would be a far more prudent approach (as proven in more than a few *large* populations) and *does not* preclude moving back to more careful measures if data-backed and otherwise warranted.
Perhaps we will also reconsider the structures of our current community “emergency powers” directives and better-scrutinize the character and crisis-management judgement capabilities of our duly elected leaders more carefully as we vote in the near future.
As with so many ignorant and fearful media outlets, the writers of this article have shared a good amount of speculation, fear, uncertainty, and arguable ignorance with us, mixed in with some merit-worthy points and information. Perhaps it is time that we all poke around at some of the more pragmatic information sources out there (this article is pretty one-sided) and make up our own minds about the current situation, rather than trusting others to do it for us. Perhaps you can’t do this kind of digging for every threat that surfaces, but this would be a good time and a good issue to maybe withhold some of your trust and do your own research and thinking, given the license to destroy lives and lively-hoods it apparently has handed to our elected (and many non-elected!) officials. I’m pretty sure they mean well, but… you know what they say about the path to hell.
Remember at the beginning of this adventure, we knew nothing about it other than “china” and “scary”. We were all wary, nervous, and conscientiously willing to dignify our own fears and honor our neighbors fears as well. That’s what good people do.
Now we know far more, and we’re behaving like we know nothing more – dogmatically adhering to less-justified fears and expired narratives. With data being ignored by our leaders, sincere intelligent doctors being censored for questioning the ‘science’ and more-so the narrative, and worst of all, bubbly but absolutely ignorant talking heads on network TV telling us with clear-eyed *certainty* that we’re literally ‘killing people’ by questioning that same narrative – all this, in spite of our own seasoned eyes and guts telling us that maybe things aren’t quite like they’re telling us…
(eta: Okay, this is a bit hyperbolic. I was on a roll there… it’s not like nobody is updating their responses and behaviors, but… there’s are still a *lot* of questionable rules being executed out there, and not all are based on current information, and the trend doesn’t seem to be improving in some areas)
This article has the proper form, the right words, the pretty graphs, and the scary accusatory headline that implies that many well-intentioned and intelligent skeptics are dangerous nay-sayers and conspiracy nuts – but really, to my read, it’s an interesting take, rich with not-so-self-evident ‘truths, leaving me a bit wanting for more of the other side of the discussion.
Perhaps it’s time to consider that something else might be going on here and do some checking for ourselves.
(edit to add:
I am firmly convinced that COV SARS2/COVID-19 is a real and potentially deadly/crippling threat to some folks, and we cannot lose sight of that. I believe if my mother gets it before a working vaccine is available for her, that she will die. I am close in age to the published risk population and am not interested in taking on this beast either, but I wish to live my life with consideration and selfishness both until new options are available. 8 months of emergency aren’t working for me *with what we now know*.
My inspiration for this note was the authors’ use of the term ‘deniers’ with respect to anyone who doubts a second wave, or who doubts anything presented by the highest levels of our scientific community. There are innumerable brilliant and capable people that do not work for the CDC or WHO, and the forces that drive those organizations are hardly transparent. The read of the article also showed bias that moved me to at least comment… so here we are.
Like everyone here, we don’t know, but I am comfortable with my conclusions that blanket policies that paint too broadly and have been now been determined to have ‘negligible’ effect are the easy way out for our leaders, and I fear these policies are causing damage beyond our ability to understand to the economic and social fabric of our societies, and are decisions being made without the blessings and participation of our communities. I hope my fears are unfounded. I also believe we are resilient as heck, so we’ll ultimately be fine, but this seems *so* unnecessary, given a bit more thought could save us from a lot more trouble.
When writers of an article like this take well-studied but differing opinions and shut them down with terms like ‘deniers’, I take offense and spend way too much time in a forum describing why. Perhaps it articulates what many others have also been thinking, and I suppose that’s worth something.
Thanks for your kind and critical words, both, and please continue to peacefully and rationally engage your peers and leaders in coming up with better solutions today than we had yesterday. Its all we can ask, and the noble-est and most achievable path I can expect to live up to. Best of health to your and yours
end: edit to add)
best,
mf
(edits: re-phrasing and softened the unnecessarily harsh critique of the original authors and article., links/references added)
Great points raised, upvoted.
Wonderful-thanks for taking then time to put it down.
Brilliant. Wish I could read more of these types of views to balance things out.
It’s on the internet, particularly on Youtube if you look for it.
Lockdown Sceptics site is a mine of information with many reference sources and further reading suggestions.
10 audit-able cases of repeat occurrences in persons who have gotten the bug twice, 2 of which have reportedly died as a result.
========
That’s out off 750 million infections. Population is the wrong measure for the denominator.
The conclusion is that its not an issue.
Falling antibody levels is another fraud. The conclusion from the alarmists is that this must mean immunity is lost.
The research from the SARS outbreak is people still have immunity. What’s going on is that antibodies aren’t being produced because people are not exposed to more virus.
It’s evidence that its over.
At issue are the SARs-CoV-2 variants. The multiple infections in India were examined to verify the second infection was a verified genomic variant. Apparently T-cell response wasn’t triggered for the variant. We have little reporting on the various circulating variants.
Great post. I also do not understand why the government have not advised the taking of Vit D and Zinc. The admittedly small survey in Spain and data from Iran show people who are low in them are more likely to suffer more and die. Vit D and Zinc cost pennies, meanwhile we have spent over 12 billion pounds on testing, that is £200 for every person in the UK.
Quite! And also why the authors mention all drug interventions under the sun and vaccines but make no mention at all of vitamin D and zinc. This article explains just how important vitamin D is and why even people that are taking supplements are probably not getting enough or not getting it in the right form: “Correcting misapprehensions about vitamin D to save lives
and reduce hospitalisations” https://drive.google.com/fi…
No point in me answering any further. Thanks for the succinct reply.
Thanks. You have said it all.
No, there is always one HUGE thing left out. Taiwan and Vietnam (worldometers) have 0.3 deaths per million, the rest of Western Pacific have 3 deaths per million contrasting the Western Nations having 600-800 deaths per million. Why? I read a natural immunity exists from eons of exposure, rather like the Europeans taking the normal illnesses to the New World and wiping out half the natives. Is this true? Is this the ‘Dark Matter Immunity’ at play? What does this mean about the source and such?
Well said. So much face saving going on ..
Exactly. For anyone who is really interested in what this is all about, I will be happy to explain in minute detail, however, Discus will not let me post links to any evidence, so it falls upon the reader to verify any information I give.
So now Discus is playing the game of political correctness?
Disqus won’t let anyone post links to anything, and decided my response to this thread was “spam”, so I don’t think Russ has been singled out by Them (although it’ll feed his persecution delusions, unfortuanately).
Precisely. There are so many things to take issue with in this piece, which I hoped would give me something to counter my impending sense of doom and that we’re on a road to self-destruct. Apart from the many issues they don’t address (old data used by Sage, cases caught in hospital, confluence with other seasonal illnesses, the idea that a vaccine is the only thing worth counting on etc etc), what I really take issue with is this patronising, let-us-set-the-plebs-straight approach that treats everybody with legitimate concerns as irresponsible deniers of the facts, which, according to these authors can only be viewed through the prism of control of a single virus and to hell with everything else – our jobs, livelihoods, sanity, our culture, our common life, our family & social networks – all the things that make our lives meaningful and give us a sense of purpose.
MF, with a bit more information about your sources, your really well argued piece should feature in the press, not in the comments. Well put.
> – In countries, states, counties, districts, towns, and clubs, the infection propagation rate is audit-ably only slightly above the common cold or flu.
Is it? Evidence? “Comparing SARS-CoV-2 with SARS-CoV and influenza
pandemics” in the Lancet has: ” The basic reproductive rate (R0) for SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be 2·5 (range 1·8″“3·6) compared with 2∙0″“3∙0 for SARS-CoV and the 1918 influenza pandemic, 0∙9 for MERS-CoV, and 1·5 for the 2009 influenza pandemic”.
> but many other infection influences across a lifetime *will show the same signature*
Dr Ian MacKay at the University of Queensland says (in his blog, under “Yes, PCR tests can detect “the COVID virus””) that primers are chosen to pick out unique sequences of SARS-Cov-2 and tests are validated against other viruses. What do you mean by the quoted text?
> Add to this that the test can be run at different levels and is currently being run at levels that *will show indicators at a higher contrast, but with less certainty* – to put it in layman’s terms.
At Birmingham Lighthouse lab they sequence every positive test, so they all contain the virus. (Source: Prof Alan McNally who runs the lab, @alanmcn1 on Twitter, Oct 31). More could be done to publicise this in the wake of the current round of “casedemic” conspiracy theories on social media, but I suspect the people running the labs are a bit busy.
> This means the tests are being run to generate more false-positives, rather than to miss cases, which might be a fair choice if the consequences of false positives aren’t high.
FPR is no worse than about 0.05%. Source: ONS’s page “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot: England, 17 July 2020” where they say “For example, in our most recent six weeks of data, 50 of the 112,776 total samples tested positive. Even if all these positives were false, specificity would still be 99.96%” (and so the FPR 100% – 99.96% = 0.04%).
The proportion of tests giving positives has been increasing since the end of August (source: “Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing statistics (UK): data tables”). Has the testing methodology changed during that time, or do more people have the virus, do you think?
> This article has the proper form, the right words, the pretty graphs, and the scary accusatory headline that implies that many well-intentioned and intelligent skeptics are dangerous nay-sayers and conspiracy nuts – but really, to my read, it’s hollow, incomplete, sensational garbage.
The article is specifically addressing the current round of people quoting Yeadon and saying that therefore there’s no need for government interventions. Yeadon is, as far as I can see, completely wrong.
I tend to agree with that as well. The trouble with politics is that once you are locked into a point of view you can be unwilling or unable to look at new facts, the attention being on saving face because of your political career.
A rather better description of the situation than that of the author.
Thank you for making the effort. This article is long-winded scare mongering. CV is bad flu, we live with flu, yes you can get it more than once, so what? There is NO reasonable justification for these extreme and damaging measures. There IS an agenda; it behoves each one of to find out what that is.
No more to say. Many on this forum have been trying to articulate this over a period of time and this puts it all together in one comment that could stand as an article.
Respect sir.
How about death years? How many years are lost to these 300,000 CDC excess deaths? Average age of 82 and all – what I am getting at is will the excess death numbers become below normal deaths in 2021 where it balances out with some under a year of life lost per average? If so how much importance should be put on end of life years contrasting beginning of life years(loss of school and jobs).
Life years lost consistently measured at over 10, which is the average. Some obviously lose very little time (as with most diseases), the flip side is that there must be plenty losing a lot.
See e.g.:
https://www1.racgp.org.au/n…
https://www.medrxiv.org/con…
https://wellcomeopenresearc…
Which is what the GMB (?) declaration was pretty much saying, and look how everyone buried that
I’m just joining in saying thank you for this great reply. I do think Saloni is one of the good guys, but her piece is a very detailed rebuttal of a case that few of us have much attachment to, yet it claims the sensationalist headline.
A well-presented analysis. If only we could have you at one of the daily audiences given by Boris and his clowns to put these issues to them. Out with Beth Rigby, in with bf.
It is time the nonsense of wave was left behind. We have seasonal respiratory illnesses every winter. We are not in a second wave, it is just coming around again like flu, and seems likely to do this for some years, even with a vaccine.
Very well done. thank you.
Your interpretation of the CDC figues is off.
Only a few percent mention no comorbidities, but of those that have comorbidities, many are covid-caused. Pneumonia is one of the common ones, oddly enough something frequently caused by respiratory diseases like covid. So do we know that allnof the dead definitely died of covid? No, but neither is that 6% figure in any way useful.
It’s good to examine the facts from all sides.
Granted.
I enjoyed a recent comment by a fellow who stated that nobody actually dies from COVID itself… A bit like Mark Twain’s line that “It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the abrupt stop at the end…” 🙂
Of course, the information available in the stats – that most of the 220k+ who died were measurably compromised in some manner, and some small percentage were not, is more complex than generally being represented, but still very relevant the the actual risk that we’re all facing.
Clearly, that some of the ‘found’ co-morbidities may have been irrelevant to certain deaths, and that some of the non-co-mobidity deaths may simply have had underlying issues that were present and simply missed – is also likely and worthy of note.
My general grumble is that these important details are so easily distilled out of the conversation in the 24×7 ‘news’ cycle. While simplicity and narratives are generally understandable in the news-business, the reality is that in many ways these stories, and articles like this can motivate some very questionable policy making by well-intentioned but ignorant (not stupid!) leaders.
In so many ways we’re woefully at the mercy of the medical ‘priests’ that our leaders choose to follow, and anyone who is calling holders of alternate points of view ‘deniers’ (as the article title opines), is certainly *not* helping the situation.
your thoughts appreciated,
mf
We hear that a positive test within 28 days of death counts it as a covid death. I remember UNICF saying 1.2 million third world children may well die of Western Lockdowns causing reduced economic activity in their lands. Do these numbers fit into excess deaths? And if so are they covid excess deaths (the 1.2 million children) or hunger and medical lack deaths?
Such deaths as these are not Covid deaths, but they would be pandemic deaths. For example, the American CDC is guessing that 10% of the 300,000 excess deaths in 2020 are due to deferred medical treatments. Those definitely would be caused by the pandemic. How many are actually avoidable? Realistically there are three subsets (fear of contagion by medical practitioners, fear of contagion by the patients, and overburdened medical facilities), and only the first is really avoidable – that is, IF there is no PPE shortage. I had to deal with the refusal of doctors to see a family member, and the refusals ended when the PPE shortage ended.
So here 300,000 deaths would be pandemic deaths, but only ~270,000 would be Covid deaths.
Many thanks for your well thought out post and devoting the time to it.
The only additional contribution I would make is the CEBM report on excess mortality into October. I would recommend anyone to read this at cebm.net as it shows very clearly that excess deaths per week are running now at about 250 to 350 a week. Sars CoV 2 has entered the endemic phase and quite clearly the Pandemic phase ended at the end of May June. Respiratory illness each year increase from 2.5% positive rate for RSV in early September to 30% at the end of November. What is happening now is seasonal. Anders Tegnell also has concluded an exhaustive interview updating us on his current thinking. His understanding of the dynamic of transmission and how he responds to it is a lesson for Health Directorates around the world and of course he is the one person who admits past mistakes and corrects them. One stat from him there are 20 cases of recorded reinfection globally the clearest possible evidence of immunity being generated what ever the reason..
This maybe the best comment I read so far since the beginning of this craziness.
Thank you for your clarity and patience.
ðŸ‘😀
The very use of the word Covid “denialism”, detracts from the believability of your article.
It is an attempt to shut down discussions about an illness that we know relatively little. The fact that experts in the field have different opinions, shows that our understanding of the human body is not as perfect as we would like.
You fail to mention the fact that positive tests in Liverpool are falling. They have dropped from around 100 ( per 100,000) to 50 over 3 weeks (Cut off date 1st of November). This means that the cases started to fall before Liverpool was affected by Tier 3 regulation. Sage says that the effect of new regulations take around 3 weeks to have an effect.
So if we believe Sage – when they say 3 weeks – how come there has been a dramatic fall in the numbers in Liverpool over 2.5 weeks (Since Tier 3 regs were introduced)?
Put simply this means, we do not fully understand this disease and hence there is room for discussion on its effects.
One thing we do know is that the economy, is being hit very hard – people are losing their jobs, next their homes?. The borrowing, by the Government is not sustainable in the long term.
There is a need for the discussion on the balance between healthy people and those potentially dying – calling someone a “denier” because they disagree with you is not a healthy attitude.
“Denialism”: merely abusive. That it’s a belief, that it’s disbelief in virus mitigation, that it equates with holocaust denial. It’s a disgusting word to use in an apparently scientific and rational discussion. The author should apologise for the vilification.
Oh, the author was quite clear about the word. This was no casual mistake. How ironic that the folks who wrap themselves in the flag of science frequently resort to the most anti-science rhetoric.
Agreed. And, of course, it is not surprising that this same slur is used in the context of earth’s changing climate.
I have made this same point. It is also interesting that we have a PhD student as an author. A PhD student, Michael Mann, also produced he discredited Hockey Stick curve but the influence it has will not go away.
She was partial from the beginning as if she was the expert because she had control over the article. I don’t honestly believe in the official take on this and I believe time will tell that.
So many people say, ‘listen to the science’, as a way of suggesting that they themselves are more clued up than others. They forget scientific knowledge isn’t built overnight. We can only be thankful that some scientists do challenge the prevailing opinions.
One of the fundamental principles that science is built on is that the data or observations (and to some extent interpretation) must be independent of the observer. Hence, data must always be scrutinized.
Scientists must be willing and welcoming of others to examine their findings and interpretation.
Denialists are the new Deplorables.
I love articles that claim to be oh so neutral but in fact use every logical fallacy going for them. The number of Covid deniers is tiny, there is a huge number of people doubting whether the massive health (deaths, shorter lives), social, economic damage is worth it for a disease that overwhelmingly kills the old and frail, not children (Edit: I’d prefer us to use focused protection as we know those at high risk).
Will they answer the simple questions:
1. Lockdown v1 took place ~2 weeks before a peak in deaths, on average infection to deaths lags by 20 days. Will they admit that voluntary action had a great effect and that draconian government action was of limited use?
2. How many people are being re-infected in the UK? I ask genuinely, there appears to be some documented cases of re-infection worldwide (from 50 million cases) – but with ~1million positive tests in the UK how many have become re-infected? I suspect (although I may be wrong) that the number is small, if it was significant I believe they would be shouting it from the roof tops.
3. Do they condemn the fraudulent modelling from Imperial and the governments advisors use of old and wrong statistics? Do they not realise that when people see the government lying about one area of Covid, they become suspicious of everything they say?
4. Will then admit as numerous ‘evil’ people have speculated that this is now an endemic, seasonal respitory disease that comes and goes inline with other respitory dieseases.
5. Why isn’t everyone in Sweden dead? a place with 55% of our relative excess deaths?
Thank you for your excellent post, which lays out the truth will exceptional clarity. I agree with every word.
The fact that they couldn’t resist using a word like “denialism” in their headline, with its bigoted implication that their opponents are – in effect – liars or fools, told me all I needed to know about what was to come. And sure enough…
I am a denialist, I am glad to be one, like I am proud to be a Deplorable! The other side of the coin, the one adopted, the close down the West and thus lose the world’s status quo, is 100000 times worse.
I agree with you Luke. I very much welcome and appreciate Unherd’s efforts to provide balance to the mainstream media hysteria, but also to the more extreme scepticism towards the lockdown policy. This article feels like a missed opportunity. I firstly question whether Solani and Matt really have the relevant backgrounds to set out credible counter views on the subject. Their point by point deconstruction is however welcome, but their own bias appears to be inherent on each one. But in a way it’s their own denial that’s the issue in how they’ve framed the article. I think it’s frustrating how the aim for such pieces is to focus on simply discrediting the alternative perspective (such as from Yeadon and the Great Barrington Declaration) rather than bringing them into a balanced discussion That’s what people like me crave. A more transparent analysis of the data and discussion of the many credible scientific views rather than scaremongering with completely implausible forecasts of death rates to justify a lockdown with significant social, health and economic implications.
There’s no denial of Covid here. There is just deep concern of mismanagement of the country with available information. I increasingly lack confidence that the country (and world) has a decent grasp of the actual relative risks on the matter, and the fear is that the ongoing denial to transparently address/ frame the data and interrogate competing views in the mainstream will perpetuate a bubble of hugely damaging Covid hysteria.
So well said. I am convinced that said scientists, academics, Governments worldwide are so far down this road of hysteria, they are now completely incapable of balanced opinion. They cannot admit to themselves never mind us that they might have got it wrong, or heaven forbid there could be alternative routes out of this. Instead they hunker down and throw out aspersions on anyone who dare disagree.
Covidiots the lot of you…
“There’s no denial of Covid here.”I am a proud Denialist! I deny covid is anything like the issue needed to destroy the West and the lives of the innocent citizens! I deny covid needed a response beyond massive public information and the distribution of access to hygiene and ability of risk groups to opt out of public association. But then I am a conspiracy loon and so ascribe all the responses taken to very dark forces. I do NOT think this destruction of the West is by bad choices in leadership!
1. Yes, voluntary action before the UK Government acted probably reduced infection rates. Official lockdown in UK was 23rd March – deaths peaked between 10th and 21st April – that’s 18 to 28 days after lockdown – fits with your 20 day timescale from infection for peak deaths.
2. You ‘suspect’. Not enough for me to reply.
3. Agree – government lying doesn’t help – Imperial did modelling – it’s a model – a forecast based on a particular interpretation of evidence. Because you disagree with it doesn’t make the modellers fraudulent even if you think they were wrong.
4. No, it’s been identified as a new variation on a virus type. And the people who say it isn’t and think it’s flu or common cold aren’t ‘evil’.
5. Is it because they drive Volvos? More seriously, do you mean only just over half as many extra people died than in the UK?
My question back to you is what exactly do you mean by focussed protection? Details of how much support you think is needed for those who need to protect themselves – which is estimated at around 20% to 25% of UK population. Many of these people live in mixed, multi-generational households. Do we pay and force all the clinically vulnerable to move to hotels if they can’t continue to live with their families? Or do we offer them the money to do so but leave it up to them whether to take up the offer? I really want to know how this would work.
1. Deaths peaked on the 8th April, you’re confusing reported and actual dates. I refer you to: https://coronavirus.data.go…. The top 2 graphs show the difference nicely.
2. Can you prove a significant reinfection rate? I suspect rightly or wrongly that if the data was there to destroy the aquired immunity viewpoint it would be presented. And I would be shocked if somebody hadn’t worked it out from ~1 million positive tests.
3. The Imperial model is a sick joke in software engineering terms. And not peer reviewed. It’s input data is still unreleased. The ONS for example make their software opensource where possible.
In March we merely had to look at Italy to realise that sometthing serious was going to hit us. Why 10,000s actually dead Italians had less affect on the government than ‘just a model’ is beyond me.
4. I agree this isn’t ‘the flu’. Some people say ‘like the flu’ which is different. It’s a serious disease. One of many. It’s about proportionality.
5. The term relative should be the give away here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peop…
Look at the graphs comparing Sweden to England. They did bad, we did really bad. Carehomes appear to have been key, the Swedes admit this – we still don’t test ours weekly.
On focused protection please see the GBD.
Note: full reply on way once moderators happy with links to government stats sites.
In short
1) No it was the 8th of April, actual death date, not reported dates. Links to follow. This is consistent with the R rate falling long before the lockdown. See main UK gov coronvirus site.
5) relative excess deaths, relative. Sweden’s was realtively 55% of the UKs. About ONS links to follow. Excess deaths is probably the best fair comparisson, and the UK did really badly.
Neil Ferguson and his models may not be fraudulent, but they are consistently and egregiously wrong by massive margins. His track record on Foot & Mouth, SARS and Avian ‘Flu were so inaccurate and Cassandra like in their scaremongering, that it should have been evident that his Covid-19 modelling had a very high risk / probability of being wrong. And yet this was what largely bounced the government into Lockdown #1/
I have decades of experience in highly complex financial modelling. One the oldest truisms regarding them is that if you put rubbish / garbage in as an input, then that is exactly what a model will spit out. The quality of assumptions used is directly correlated to the reliability of forecasting.
The other truism, perhaps – hopefully less / not the case the case here – is that you start with the desired output / outcome and work backwards.
Ferguson has been wrong so often that he would have been shown the door in most self-respecting organisations a while ago. Yet the MSM still regard him as a “go to” “expert”.
The same applies to Vallance & Whitty (VW – another outfit with a casual attitude towards truth and accuracy) and their selective, outdated and hard to read / interpret graphs.
According to VW, we were going to have in excess of 50,000 new “cases” (point taken re definition of a “case”) a day by mid-October. We’re not at half of that almost a month later. Their chart purporting to show pubs, restaurants etc as the largest source of infections casually omitted schools and non-hospitality workplaces (ie only considered 58% of the overall data). And the chart relied on by our hapless trio on Saturday appears to be the worst possible case scenario, using out of date numbers which apparently risk overstating deaths by a factor of 4x. Theresa May had it right: the policy is driving the numbers, not the other way round.
So – not fraudulent perhaps. Disingenuous, maybe.
Hancock & Gove leaked and got their cynical way.
The unanswered question is WHY?
It’s hard to believe anything from Matt Hancock. He should be begging for forgiveness for not increading ICU capacity for the last 8 months – and completely failing to get control of hospital and carehome transmissions.
And yes it would be hard and expensive, but not compared to national lockdown. Again.
Lets Ask ”mystic meg” shes More ‘Scientific than Professor pantsdown Ferguson..
Covid 19 denialism is indeed ‘madness’, but the near global overreaction to it and its long-term consequences far, far exceeds the meaning of that word, I’m afraid.
In a way, the global governmental over-reactions mirror the unmoderated reactions of some folks’ immune systems to the SARS-COV-2 virus.
And we all know where that over-reaction leads.
Actual “deniers” of the virus are rare. However, skeptics are increasingly coming forth with their arguments – in academia and medicine too. This is a good thing, we urgently need debate on this topic.
A simple question regarding the “second wave” needs to be answered: Why is it happening now, exactly when the flu season starts? why didn’t the second wave come during summer when restrictions were off and everyone went about their business as normal?
The answer is obvious: the COV SARS2 virus is a Coronavirus, a virus that causes “influenza like illness” and it is seasonal in nature. It will come and go every flu season from now until eternity. Observe now that the southern hemisphere is going out of their flu season, and the northern hemisphere is going back into flu season. Hence, infections and deaths will now occur primarily in the Northern hemisphere.
We will never be able to “stop” or “eradicate” COV SARS2 any more than we will ever be rid of seasonal influenza. This is the key reason why the reaction to the virus needs to change.
Finally, the IFRs quoted in this article are woefully out of date. Latest research Indicate a spectrum from 0.05% to around 0.3%, with 0.3% being very much an upper bound. Another useful fact, while it was “fact checked” and later backtracked, Chris Ryan of the WHO did come out and say that “Our current best estimates tell us that about ten percent of the global population may have been infected by this virus” in a press conference 5. october. Those are his words – verbatim.
Applying basic math of number of dead due to COVID19 at the time, which was 1.1 million, divided by 10% of the world population, about 780 million, nets an IFR of 0.14%. While we can argue about the accuracy of the 10% and the fact that Chris Ryan backtracked (probably because he realized the implications for IFR…) it’s probably not far off, and thus it does put the IFR squarely in the 0.05%-0.3% range, which history probably will vindicate as accurate.
Agree with the thrust of you comment. John Ioannidis has the IFR at 0.15-0.2% and for under 70’s 0.03-0.04% Peer reviewed and published and available on the WHO website.
I have an opinion on the IFR, but since the ONS infection survey is likely to peak soon, and deaths are likely to peak soon, we’ll have a good idea in about a fortnight of a rough IFR.
I know the tests aren’t perfect, but as long as the testing methodology stays the same the number of deaths calculated by this measure is likely to be predictive.
Yeah. A spike was predicted by un-politically correct scientists that it would rise about now (Nov 5th) due to the onset of colder weather. It is not a second wave but the normal peak in corona type viruses. It will not rise to anything like the March and April figures. It will work itself through if they let it. Rather like the flu epidemics where nobody wore masks.
One can read articles forever, but lived experience is perhaps a better guide
I live in London. Only one of my acquaintances knows of a Covid victim, his student daughter, (guess where she caught it) who was mildly ill for three days.
By rights and perhaps logic, London with its large tightly packed population many of whom do not wear masks and party hard, should be a wasteland with dead bodies piled on every corner since April
And yet it isn’t
Covid is real but the panic is unnecessary. Waves pass on. We had ours.
i wrote many paragraphs nearby to this comment to detail what you just expressed beautifully in four lines … and yours speaks far more clearly.
well said,
mf
> By rights and perhaps logic, London with its large tightly packed population many of whom do not wear masks and party hard, should be a wasteland with dead bodies piled on every corner since April
This is simply wrong: in Chris Whitty’s lecture to Gresham College (posted to YouTube on 30th April, I won’t link to it as links seem to mean your comment gets stuck in moderation forever), he says “at an individual level the chances of dying of coronavirus are low” (slide at 13:14) and gives case fatality rates of less than 1% for people under 50 (slide at 14:44). Infection fatality rates must be lower.
The problem is not that bodies would pile up in the streets, but that a small percentage of a UK population of 66 million is still an unacceptable number of deaths.
I fail to understand this reasoning, when in the winter of 2017/18 there were, according to the ONS, an excess of 50,000 winter deaths in England and Wales alone.
50 thousand excess deaths in one winter…
The difference is that the media is all over Covid and so people in government need to protect their political careers.
ONS says we’re at 56,000 this year. We’ve also had about 50000 deaths with COVID named as the main cause, and 55000 where the death certificate mentioned COVID (between weeks 1 and 43 2020, see “Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 23 October 2020”). Of course, we’re not done with 2020 yet.
This is with government interventions and people taking care. It’d be much worse without that, and could have caused the NHS to be unable to cope, leading to further deaths not just from COVID19.
Government restrictions will cause deaths, the government’s unenviable job is to chose between that and the potential deaths from the virus. Personally, I think they wasted the summer when they could have put in less blunt interventions (i.e. fixing T&T), but with other European countries facing similar problems, perhaps I’m being a bit hard on them.
NS says we’re at 56,000 this year. We’ve also had about 50000 deaths with COVID named as the main cause, and 55000 where the death certificate mentioned COVID (between weeks 1 and 43 2020, see “Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 23 October 2020”). Of course, we’re not done with 2020 yet.
Er re your statement in bold. Rubbish. Only 5-6% of fatalities globaly have recorded a death of pure/main COVID (and that is only becasue they didn’t have a formally diagnosed CM which doesn’t mean they didn’t have one or just s**t happens to people medically some times) i.e. the rest 95% plus had co-morbidities (CM) and were an average age of 82.4 (also known as old people coming to the end of their time – it’s normal dont you know?). That’s WHO data globaly in the UK it is ONS data not NS among three main sources of public data on this. You really need to learn how to read ONS (not NS) data before you quote it incorrectly.
Regards
NHP
Exactly Paul, we are in the midst of a global pandemic and have an excess of 56, 000 deaths.
So why, in a so called normal year, when there was an excess of 50 thousand deaths in one winter, did no one seemingly bat an eyelid?
It went unreported.
Were you on social media then decrying this terrible failure?
Doctors weren’t on TV and the radio shouting about it. Telling the young not to socialise and risk infecting their grandparents perhaps causing their deaths… People weren’t filled with fear about catching flu and dying….
I’m not a physicist so perhaps not as clever as you, but I can smell hypocrisy a mile off…
“It’d be much worse without that”.
But it’s not good enough just to leave it there is it? Firstly, it is the severe government restrictions we are talking about here. Not a soul in the country is advocating not taking care and hardly anyone about not wearing masks. That level of precaution – and other similar ones – has no place being mentioned alongside lockdown. Secondly, to substantiate lockdown you have to explain to me (please, I would welcome it) how Sweden has had a better outcome or Brazil isn’t a Covid wasteland because what’s not doubted is that lockdown kills and in large numbers but less identifiably. I also would love to know how the author supposes that the UK has a IFR 3 times that of other countries rather than putting it down to wholley more realistic methodology of counting? The NHS isn’t that bad surely nor the virus more deadly.
> Not a soul in the country is advocating not taking care and hardly anyone about not wearing masks
There are plenty of people on here and on social media advocating not wearing masks, proudly wearing fake lanyards saying they’re exempt, and so on. You’ll find them underneath almost any article on Facebook published by a public health authority (NHS, PHE and so on) or under ads for masks, of course. Possibly they’re all Russian bots, but a lot of them seem like real people.
> how Sweden has had a better outcome
Better than who? Not its Nordic neighbours.
> I also would love to know how the author supposes that the UK has a IFR 3 times that of other countries rather than putting it down to wholley more realistic methodology of counting?
IFR for a country is an average which will depend on the population age structure and health, among other things. African countries with fewer older people will do better, for example. Looking at the world average and objecting to a higher UK average is like saying no one in the UK is poor because if you take the average over the whole world, pretty much everyone in the UK is fine.
“Government restrictions will cause deaths, the government’s unenviable
job is to chose between that and the potential deaths from the virus.”The government has bottled this choice totally. Human Rights of the society have to count more than the individual risks of a minority. To take such actions of curtailing every citizens personal rights of freedom need a higher standard of risk! What would FDR and Churchill have done?
7882fremic, that is the most succinct, insightful, straight to the very heart of the matter, way of putting EXACTLY the most important point of 2020, when you say…
“Human Rights of the society have to count more than the individual risks of a minority. To take such actions of curtailing every citizens personal rights of freedom need a higher standard of risk”
Thank you for putting my mixed up thoughts into words so well. I will commit your words to memory, and repeat them to who ever cares to hear them.
The most important, fundamental point for 2020…period! Thank you
> What would FDR and Churchill have done?
I’m not sure how Churchill would have dealt with people claiming that the Germans weren’t real, that houses caught fire because of radar or that they did so no more often than usual at this time of year, and that the blackout was an infringement on our freedoms which should be ignored, or calling ARP wardens “snitches”. It probably would have been fun to watch, but not so much fun for the people themselves.
UK Population is 70 Million .5m Scotland; 3.5m Northern Ireland, 3.6m Wales 58m England (Migration Watch &UN) london’s population is 9.5m(UN) &usually 1.5m tourists at anytime, lower figures always quoted by London evening standard
Why? A small percentage of the UK population die every year. This is not unacceptable – it’s life, and its inevitable end, death.
“The problem is…
that a small percentage of a UK population of 66 million is still an unacceptable number of deaths.”
What number of deaths annually would you be prepared to accept?
Using your figure of 66 million for population, and average life span of around 81 years, about 0.8 million would have to die each year (and about the same number be born) if the population is to stay stable.
https://www.standard.co.uk/…
I suspect we are going to see some herd immunity in London which will be good news, unlike our molly coddled people in the counties who are locked down and isolated up to their eyebrows with no chance to build immunities. By all means protect the vulnerable but give others some voluntary options on what they do like in Sweden who have managed it very well.
Two days ago Tranport for London published the results of an extensive investigation, carried out by Imperial College London, into Covid-19 contamination on surfaces and in the air on the underground network and on London buses. That is certainly a place where people will pack tightly together. No traces of contamination were found.
I’m surprised these findings seem to have generated little interest in the MSM or social media.
Strange indeed.
Obviously this sort of research requires a lot of manual input; not just feeding figures into a computer model. Good to hear ICL are doing the former and not just the latter.
Could it also be safe to stop all the excessive hand washing too?
I’ve always suspected it could be damaging people’s skin microbiomes making them more susceptible to diverse infections.
The problem is not denial, the problem is that scientific facts are not taken into account like the IFR of around 0,05% for people under 70. This article is complete rubbish because it suggests that fear has not yet been spread enough, it’s the other way around. And not a word about the catastrophic damage done by the measures (also in life-years lost). Not one word. I can’t believe that seemingly intelligent people can be so narrow minded. It’s even criminal I would say. Like the brilliant Belgian professor Mattias Desmet (clinical psychology) already stated: experts who shouted from the beginning that the new plague descended on us are now sometimes literally fighting for their lives to keep the narrative of total carnage intact. At the same time many of those experts find themselves in the same collective hypnosis as the rest of the population.
Once a poor student loses time in school every study shows they rarely make it up. How do you weigh those lost life years. When a young person leaves school and is unable to get a proper job it diminishes their life employment as they receive less work experience and skills just when they need to be gaining those. How is that factored in?
BS. Deadly, unscientific BS.
There have been no deaths in Cambodia or Laos, either, where they do not have “effective testing and training”, or wide spread mask wearing or quarantines. There was never going to be a widespread outbreak in any of the countries listed (or in Japan, conveniently left off your list).
Some people/populations very clearly have an underlying resistance to Covid-19. This is a real thing. The high cost in money and lives of lockdowns are also a real thing. Enough with denialism.
You are merely speculating by observing evidence so far, including the standout Japan. Germany is for some reason now missing as are the Eastern European countries who kept it out in the spring.
Observed evidence isn’t consistent with their modelling, forecasts and authoritarian instincts, the only possibility is that observed evidence is wrong.
I don’t understand your comment, Luke. What do you mean?
It’s sarcasm. The authors of the article work on speculation and modelling – most of which consistently fails to match the real world. They then pick and choose data, Germany was lauded but now is unable to do track and trace?
I agree that it is likely a genetic trait that is making life easier for countries in the far east.
In a similar vein, amerindians from the Navajo Nation down to Argentina are suffering disproportionately.
Seeing how some of the waves in the government heatmaps seemed to be happening in synchronisation across large parts of the country, one has to posit the weather as a confounding factor too.
Come the end of this second wave, which most experts seem to be aligning with seasonality, we will find out if the numbers of cases in different parts of the countries have levelled up, or spread apart.
If the numbers are levelling up then we must assume that the 57% infection rate in Bergamo, and the 30% non-susceptibility suggested by Yeadon are not mutually exclusive facts after all. What we need to know is whether the 43% uninfected in Bergamo were sat on one side of a river, sat in completely separate households, or intermingled in the same households as the 57% infected.
I cannot see testing and tracing being an effective long term strategy. I just consider my movements on a weekly basis and with my limited movement, they would need an army to follow me up. And after lockdown experiments I am not that keen on an app telling the government my movements. Further, apps don’t work in poorer countries where I live – people might not have phones or not have a later version of phone that is compatible with the app.
I agree that it must be genetics driving lower infections in the East. A frustration is that as English speakers we read less information coming from Eastern countries in order to make informed opinions. If anyone can advise me on regular sources of data and emerging science from the East I would be grateful.
Can’t test and trace me, I would lie, and will never own a cell phone so cannot be tracked by any means but illegal ones. But ID2020 is out to subvert that, first it is all for altruistic reasons, but underneath is all darkness.
Thankyou Harvey, No one mentions this! 0.3 deaths per million in Taiwan and Vietnam! We are the Cherokee ,
Seminole, Chickasaw,
Choctaw handed out smallpox infected blankets! We have not got the ‘Dark Matter Immunity’ that China has!
Why have the authors of this article focussed almost entirely on Dr Michael Yeadon? Why did they not focus on findings by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) and Prof Carl Heneghan? The models and figures used by SAGE have consistently been found wanting by CEBM. The most recent example being a significant over estimation, by Government/SAGE, of forecasted future deaths. It has also highlighted Sir Patrick Vallance, in mid-September, referring to cases doubling every 7 days when in fact they were doubling every 21 days. CEBM has further identified significant weaknesses in relying solely on PCR tests due to problems with false positives/people who are not infectious.
The Government should not be basing policy, and closing down the economy at vast cost, on misleading extreme worst case scenario forecasts. We have had all Summer to prepare for a rise in cases during the Winter so why are we going into another lockdown?
“We have had all Summer to prepare for a rise in cases during the Winter so why are we going into another lockdown?”
Because Boris and Co. gave the T+T job to one of their cronies, and contracts to the privateers who have already failed when other parts of the public sector were privatised, while refusing to empower local public health teams, perhaps?
Please do some research on CT (Cycle Threshold) value of PCR tests. That another country has fewer positives than yours may be solely because they set their CT lower for a positive result
When any government is ready to claim the crisis is over and quell the panic, all they need to do is require a much lower CT than is presently allowed and cases will “magically” go down. It’s math. COVID has exposed a distressing lack of basic math skills which has allowed the public to be manipulated.
a distressing lack of basic math skill
I suspect its more fundamental than that unfortunately..a distinct inability to focus on a topic and use logical,rational,analytical thought
Agreed. The ability to think rationally about complicated topics independently of what others think seems to be a rapidly disappearing skill in todays society. But also a distressing lack of mathematical understanding plays into it. The herd mentality (see what I did there) reigns supreme.
I don’t think peoples rationality is declining, I suspect it has always been so. Although I have ltd faith in psychology (replication crisis) it appears as you say that most people go with the herd – it’s easier.
It probably makes evolutionary sense to go with the herd, most of the time.
Saying you think Covid is the worst thing ever and we must do everything to save lives has few social costs to the virtue signaller.
It also shows you to be emotional and therefore good.
What’s funny of course is that people are comfortable with common risks. Compare flying to driving, flying worries me far more due to the novelty and ironically all the safety checks. But flying is safer.
yes – we need to continue to beat this drum – being careful *not* to discount the PCR’s value, but rather to promote its true strengths and weaknesses.
Acknowledging that nuance isn’t that pervasive in most of these venues, the real information seekers will sniff it out and appreciate it when it’s available.
bravo
mf
Although “cases” are what the largely innumerate media concentrate on they have only ever been an imperfect predictor (along with the age distribution of these cases) for hospitalisations.
The problem the NHS is grappling with right now is juggling an increasing number of hospitalisations of Covid cases requiring, in the main just CPAP and similar + trying to maintain a throughput of normal work (now backlogged). Covid cases, even when they don’t go to ICU, require longer hospitalisation than your average bad flu. It’s a capacity juggling problem. Great Royal Society of Medicine webinair about this today (#49) available on YouTube tomorrow.
As for testing – another strong argument for rolling out low sensitivity rapid testing and accepting the risk of false negatives, as they are now doing in some areas of the US.
An excellent point. No two countries will necessarily use the same numerator / denominator settings any more than any two countries will use the same methodology for recording deaths.
We in the UK are not being shown much in the way of data analysis that would reveal crucial trends, such as the age distribution of C-19 deaths – other than the headline level data of the average age of death being 82.4 years and an average of 2.5 underlying health conditions. Any data we get fed is overwhelmingly worst case or not broken out or down. For example: what is the R rate for the under 70s?
The use of “denialism” is an indicator that what follows is not coming in good faith. No one has denied the reality. On the contrary, it appears the “deniers” are far more aware of the reality of covid than are the panic-mongers. The deniers see that the most vulnerable were, are, and will be the old, the sick, and those with compromised immune systems. The deniers see CDC numbers that point to 94% of deaths involving people who were old and had an average of 2.5 other health conditions. The deniers also see that panic-mania has side effects of its own, as measured in increased overdoses, instances of abuse, cases of depression, suicides, and so forth.
No, it also means denialism is a badge to be worn with pride, as the Lockdownism is producing absolutely horrific results with worse coming hast and hard!
Couldn’t take this article seriously given the emotive over the top language, ‘Covid denialism’, nobody serious is denying covid exists and ‘denialism’ is generally used to evoke emotion over a certain genocide and to present the other side of the argument as a bad person. Again, ‘ For the second time this year, a pestilence is descending upon us.’ No, it isn’t the data doesn’t remotely point to a plague such as the black death, that’s just ridiculous. In 2018 50,000 people died of the flu but most people don’t even remember it. The average age of a covid victim is 82, it has killed 0.06 percent of the population, we should have protected them from the beginning, instead the Government has spent 100’s of billions, has crashed the economy, destroyed the lives of millions of people and have taken away liberties as never before in our history. It must stop.
The article misses the point of lockdown scepticism. Whichever data you throw upon, it does not take away from the main concern, the proportionality of the measures against the risk. Hence, even if debunked, which is hard to fact check, since both Yeadon’s and authors’ arguments are based on some assumption, the article fails to underscore why the “data” suport the lockdown, against more targeted approach. The assumption that the sceptics argue no measures at all reflects perhaps wellintended activism, yet zeal to push the battleground in wrong direction. That explains why authors have deep trouble to confront Sweden’s approach as reasonable. Their rethorical escape is to coin it “voluntary lockdown”. Well call it what you like, it is still better.
That wasn’t the point of the article. You can hardly blame the authors of this article for not writing a completely different one. They are simply addressing the argument that the virus is about to go away and, sadly, they make a good case for why this view is not turning out to be true. It’s perfectly to possible to accept that the virus is not going to go away – we’re some way from herd immunity – without accepting everything the government has done and the whole SAGE analysis.
Michael the article starts with quoting Albert Camu’s Plague: “Pestilence is in fact very common, but we find it hard to believe in a pestilence when it descends on us.” It is clear to me the point the article is trying to argue, and I do not blame them for writing it. The argument of the article is not that the virus will not go away, but that the fact it will not go away is, somewhat, critical data. Yet, the plague is in the quote not in the real life, whatever data you throw at Yeadon. Hence, to translate literal meaning of the quote to the data they employ does not make the article convincing in relation to arguments it tries to argue or imply. The opposite is true. The book is about plague, as much as Crime and Punishment is about prosecuting crime. That said, the irony is that measures imposed reflect human fallacy Albert tried to describe in the novel not the virus. Hence, the article misses the very point it tries to make.
The Camus quote is not actually the subject of the article and the authors’ reference to a pestilence is unfortunate as it distracts attention away from what they are actually addressing, which is the argument that we have reached herd immunity, so any government restrictions now have no benefits and lots of costs. Maybe you could address that? As is predictable on this site, there are a lot of critics of the article, but very little detail in what they say. I was hopeful Prof Gupta would be right in May, then Dr Yeadon more recently. But the evidence does not support their predictions – and by evidence here I am referring to deaths and hospitalisations, as well as cases, not just in the UK but elsewhere in Europe too.
I understand your point, indeed, it may appear that herd immunity has yet to be reached. However, that being said, that still does not corroborate the lockdown, since, you do not protect effectively the population at risk, while in the same time it seems that very structure of the society is indeed put at risk. Hence, to set the scene with Camus, without proper argumenta to support such a strong statement, makes a poor argument for a rather ambitious article, which tend to argue the case for strong interference with free society.
Interesting how the authors of this article are also cherry-picking their data. They dismiss an IFR of 0.2% stating “the Covid-19 IFR is around 0.5%-1.0%….while in England specifically, it is estimated to be 1.5%”. Yet further on in the article, in attempting to dismiss pre-existing immunity to infection, they refer to research showing 54% had developed antibodies in Mumbai. The positive test rate of 54% related to the Mumbai slums which contain some 6m people (ie more than 3m people were likely to have been infected at some point). One of the main conclusions of the study, not mentioned in the above article, was that “The high seroprevalence in slums implies a moderate infection fatality rate”. Further evidence that this is not the big killer disease. Of course we want to avoid catching it and we should protect the vulnerable, but shutting the economy down and spending hundreds of billions of pounds propping up jobs of the non-vulnerable is just complete madness.
They are quoting outdated studies on IFR. This is one is more recent, more complete and more accurate (0.05%-0.27%). For reference, the flu has an estimated IFR of 0.1% ….
https://www.who.int/bulleti…
I make a prediction that the estimated IFR will continue to fall as more and more research into this topic is being done.
I agree but when will the government see it?
Perhaps it’s all part of hush hush Project ‘Meek shall inherit the Earth’?
Or the Geeks perhaps?
The IFR rate is almost pointless, age of infected person changes it by a factor of 10,000.
Due to the panic caused by Imperial we sacrificed 20,000 people to Covid in the care homes, by putting covid positive people into care homes with predictable results.
Ironically this panic that killed so many is then flipped and used to justify the panic. Its a neat trick as it turns them from the bad guys onto the good guys.
The lockdown meant Covid killed working class people and minorities in hugely disproportionate numbers. However the pro lockdowners are the good guys, focused protection people are far right etc. It hurts my head.
Unheard should require authors to state all affiliations and sources of funding as is normal with scientific papers such that the readers can judge any sources of bias.
Great point, fully support that.
A useful maxim when looking at “dark money” organisations such as the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Adam Smith Institute and the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which refuse to disclose the identity of their donors.
Or SAGE refusing to disclose its total membership (plus their affiliations)…
When the authors of this article state as fact that 43,000 people in the UK have died of Covid-19, it is hard to take the conclusions seriously however logical and pretty the maths. Anyone who has read anything about the crisis will know all about the difference between dying of covid and dying with it. Plus there are the demographics of the 43,000, with an average age above 80.
What is more likely – that we have a killer disease on the loose about to kill half the world, or that governments have massively over reacted due to the emotional propaganda spread about by certain parties and amplified by the msm who know that if it bleeds it leads?
brilliant comment. perfect synopsis of the situation as I see it as well.
i would only add the possibility that well-intended government subsidies in response to this situation, and not-so-well-intended private industry subsidies to the msm (which serve to ‘inform’ and influence those same policy makers) would in effect amplify what you’ve described so well, in the absolutely wrong direction relative to truth finding.
nicely put,
mf
It’s not a “second wave”. I’m sick of hearing that term. People like to use it because they read about the Spanish Flu, which did have a unique deadly second wave, and they think it makes them sound learned.
Funny how this “second wave” began just as the weather cooled in Europe, and people normally start suffering from respiratory illness.
It’s now an endemic virus, and unless they eradicate it (!) will reappear every Autumn.
The first wave of the Spanish Flu happened under conditions of censorship, so may have been larger than the second wave.
”Spanish Flu” Originated in Kansas Troop camps & on US Troop ships..Not a lot of people know that!..But it Was beaten by ”Herd immunity” it Was more deadly to Younger Population! It fizzled out after two&half years..
Funny how this “second wave” began just as the weather cooled in Europe, and people normally start suffering from respiratory illness.
Exactly. It’s as if people totally forgot how way back in March, they were predicting a drop off in cases as the summer approached.
That’s what I think. Not a second wave but the onset of winter on it’s way.
”Spanish Flu” became Less Virulent as people Assumed ‘Herd Immunity” after two&half years..&100 million deaths …SARS2 is an Influenza strain? .There are 15 strains….Its the hysteria I cannot stand and the fact my Nephews Great Grandchildren will be paying off 2Trillion£ debts …
The reason that Spanish Flu was so deadly to so many people, even the young, was, and some people seem to conveniently forget this, is that it occurred in the days BEFORE anti-biotics.
A good deal those who died didn’t do so of the virus itself but from its resulting, secondary, usually pulmonary complications, a great deal of which would be treated successfully today with anti-biotics.
As you point out ‘it is not likely the number of false positives have increased 35 times’. Also you point out that more people get tested when they have symptoms.
To not point out that as we enter into September, we also start to see colds, flu and other seasonal respiratory issues, is to tell half the story.
So of course there was a huge rise in testing.
Students were locked down and tested in their thousands, pupils and teachers tested every time someone coughed . Children back at school so parents can work, but safety conscious business owners sending their staff for a test at the slightest sniffle, before being allowed back. There is even a study of thousands of paid human guinea pigs being tested once or twice a week, every week.
Stories from Doctors, nurses and test centres, detailing the massive issues with cross contamination due to excessive testing.
So false positives will have jumped exponentially, with a return to normal life and our shorted immune systems from lack of human interaction for 6 months, as this would make everyone much more likely to catch a cold or flu. Or has covid managed to almost eradicate flu after 80 years of vaccines, while also dropping new heart disease and cancer cases off the scale. So it makes as many people better as it does ill?
Or is there some serious miscounting, massaging of numbers and a super sensitive test that our Boris actually told a camera crew around 9 months ago, was only7% accurate at best. Thats 40 years of immunology proved wrong in 3 months of associated science.
Even if what you are trying to balance out was true(but it is flawed), the country does not need a lockdown, safety measures are fine, lockdowns will kill far more than Covid.
Even if T-cell immunity isn’t 100% immunity, so what! The covid survival rate, average death age and the small proportion of society that will actually get very ill from it, does not warrant lockdowns. As you point out with Sweden above.
ITU is falling, theres capacity in hospital beds and they are freeing up quickly, but it is hindered by thousands of medical staff are self isolating, which isnt what we see in a normal flu breakout.
So predictions for the future-
Moonshot is nowhere near ready, as pointed out by many including recently in the BMJ. Will be forced upon us raising the issues of many more false positives and pushing ever harder this ‘test-demic’ madness, fulfilling the governments obsession with taking away our civil liberties and passing harsh laws.
If I had a bunch of people work for me that produced such materially incorrect data and forecasts, as SAGE do, they would all have been fired by now.
If you saw their past track record then you wouldn’t hire them in the first place!
er the facts are the average death age is 82.5, and of people already ill
Bearing in mind people know there are vulnerable and they not govt. can take appropriate measures. Killing the economy, killing non covid ill people, killing basically the economic future of an already debt laden low growth economy is a nonsense, to give an 82 year old a couple of extra months being ill.
History will look at this as a farce, t6he West is dying in the face of the growth of the East, and this will put it over the edge.
The denial is in pretending Covid kills many more than it does.
As always tons of data to support a view (either way) but a couple of observations… Firstly you skip over the false positive/false negative as if this is linear – ie equal and opposite. But at relatively low levels of infection this is not true… Imagine that 10/1000 are infected. A false negative can only be a maximum 10 of the 1000 in which case the test is useless anyway – even 1 out of the 10 being wrong would be a poor result for the test.
The false positive though leans on the other 990 tests a much bigger denominator. A 1/10 error rate there gives you another 10 cases quite easily. Your assertion is that cases are quite low so imagine that the false positive /negative were equal at 3/10 then the false positive number explodes.
Secondly you are caught in the Herd Immunity trap…. you cannot have herd immunity unless there is infection. Put aside the second infection argument for a moment (as that would also be a problem for a vaccination program), then if we do not reach some form of herd immunity wherever it is then each time the lock-downs end then the whole cohort of vulnerable people is exposed again. With herd immunity higher, the virus implicitly moves more slowly. The key of course therefore is not stalling the economy (with untold other health and social issues) but to protect, emphatically not lock up, the vulnerable pro tem.
There is an error in this article. You mention that “[T-cells] help reduce the severity of symptoms upon reinfection, but are highly unlikely to prevent it”
But the study referenced to support this claim refers to cross-reactive T-cells, which is a completely different thing.
I’m not particularly impressed with the qualifications of the authors of this piece as regards the subject. A PHD student and the Head of Research at the Adam Smith Institute !
The information on the Adam Smith Institute seems to broadly follow that of the WEF. The latter sees the pandemic as an opportunity for a great reset. I’m suspicious, purely irrational and emotional no doubt. I’m not a covid denier though but I might accuse the authors of being unqualified to critique Yeadon and others. Maybe SALONI DATTANI AND MATTHEW LESH are deniers of alternative perspectives.
Exactly. It’s a joke.
It is a sort of true believer written article, more an example of picking and choosing ones way through numbers can give any outcome desired. Next: The Carl Marx Institute debunks Capitalism!
Let me save you some time: the author is an idiot, and the comments section tells you why.
No mention of the “Great reset”. No mention of the Leftist anti-America Democrats in the USA claiming the virus as “their opportunity”. There is no mention that the Left has seized upon the virus to use as a political weapon. No denying that there is a virus, it is a Corona Virus similar to several others we have experienced. The difference is the politicization of the pandemic as a means to an end. The Leftist agenda, the Great reset, the “opportunity” Agenda 21, Agenda 30. Lies, deceit, fabrication, fear mongering to promote the Lefts authoritarian agenda.
Ah yes, all that Leftist propaganda from (checks notes)… the Adam Smith Institute.
You forgot to include the Knights Templar, the Freemasons and the Bilderbergs, though. Fear not, if you wear your tin foil hat, it’ll keep the black helicopters from landing.
I won’t defend this post in it’s entirety, but here is the actual WEF homepage for the “the great reset” which is pretty obviously an attempt by the WEF to use the Coronavirus crisis to usher in their “great reset”. How is this is conspiracy if they are openly admitting as much on their own webpages?
https://www.weforum.org/gre…
It is not a conspiracy if it is on the WEF website.
Paul, I am sure your post was very similar to ones made as the storm clouds gathered over the world in the 1920s – 1930s.
Thankyou Burns, tor bringing up the real covid lockdown reasons, That and the fact it came from a China Bio Lab, and it appears they are basically immune (The West Pacific nations, 0.3 to 3 deaths per million to the Wests 600-800) And the fact China is furiously economically-colonizing Africa, and even South and Central America, it has done it in East Asia already, as the West focuses on its covid navel and goes bankrupt!
I think the 2 authors largely overestimate the IFR and base this on old estimates (not on studies). Many studies on the IFR have shown an IFR which is far below the old estimates.The meta study by Ioannidis published in October on the WHO website has summed this up quite well. I would like to quote from it:
“Across 51 locations, the median COVID-19 infection fatality rate was 0.27% (corrected 0.23%)”
“Conclusion The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 can vary substantially across different locations and this may reflect differences in population age structure and casemix
of infected and deceased patients and other factors. The inferred infection fatality rates
tended to be much lower than estimates made earlier in the pandemic.”
I agree, the IFRs put forth in the article are too high and based on outdated research. The Ioannidis study is even hosted on WHO webpages:
https://www.who.int/bulleti…
Indeed. It is interesting that the research study referred to by the authors, concerning the figure they use of 54% having developed antibodies to the virus in Mumbai slums, also states that “Taken together our estimate of seroprevalence, these number imply an infection fatality rate of 0.076% and 0.263% in non-slums. The overall rate is estimated to be 0.12%”.
There’s no evidence for second waves with corona viruses If there is, I’m interested.
Where are the mathematical models for second waves
There is evidence for seasonality. That’s what is being used to justify the lock down and its a lie.
Is there a meaningful difference between 2nd waves and seasonality?
Thanks for writing an excellent piece.
I hope another one can be written about the other end of the spectrum – alarmism. I believe this other end is a lot more widespread so definitely deserves serious criticism.
Here is a perspective from France, where a crazy story is unfolding.
On the one hand, the second wave looks serious enough. On the other, the official data on ICU hospitalizations are misleading. The information the government publishes is number of ICU hospitalizations with a positive PCR divided by number of beds. However, they are summing three different types of intensive care coverage (“reanimation” and two other types of intensive care) in the numerator to obtain today’s ~ 4,000 hospitalizations and using a denominator of 5,000. They call the indicator, which they publish daily, share of reanimation beds occupied by covid patients. Now, the numerator includes more than just reanimation, and the denominator does not reflect today’s reanimation beds (“réanimation”), which have increased to 5,800 over the summer. Moreover, the denominator does not reflect the number of beds available for the three types of intensive care that are accounted for by the numerator of 4,000. The actual number of beds in the three types of intensive care is 20,000. So one possible way of calculating the indicator – arguably, a more reasonable one – would have it drop from about 75% today to less than 20%. This is a masking of the data that creates unnecessary alarmism.
Second scandal is that of hydroxicloroquine. The French government not only stopped all clinical trials using hydroxicloroquine after the now retracted Lancet paper, never removed the prohibition even after the Lancet scandal, but now seems to be making it impossible for doctors in France to be able to prescribe hydroxicloroquine. At the same time, the French government recommends the use of Gilead’s redemsivir as a potential treatment even though there is basically nobody – doctors, toxicologists, scientists – that believes redemsivir is a good treatment.
All of this is maddening. They mask the data to make it more scary, recommend a treatment that is ineffective and dangerous, prohibit a treatment that is not dangerous and potentially effective, and go ahead closing down most of the economy and taking money from our children and grandchildren to pay people not to work against their own will.
Surprise surprise…. The UK Statistics Authority has actually criticised the Government for using out of date modelling and having a lack of transparency over data…. What those naughty boys Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance ( they are Sirs’ so beyond reproach by the common man) regurgitating garbage to justify their own ends…. I mean it’s just shocking!
When these 2 bright kids get back to school, maybe the teachers will give them a basic lesson in virology – viruses don’t have second waves. The pandemic was over in June.
You probably know Roitt’s Textbook of Immunology.
It’s instructive to look at the Covid death/day curve for Sweden at worldometers dot info (it went into post prison when I posted the working link!)
It peaked at around 100 back in April, and they now already seem to be over the 2nd wave which topped out at 7 deaths/day.
Hard lockdowns may only delay the inevitable while killing the economy and burdening the young with massive national debts.
Check out the great secret, Belarus, the other country which refused the insanity of lockdown.
If and when Joe Biden becomes president, the number of Covid cases will no doubt begin to subside.
Senile ‘ Joe Biden ‘Doesn’t have dementia” MSM says so it must ‘Be true?” Vallance has £650,000 in big pharma shares Why no BBC,iTV ,ch4 investigation?..
Brian Dorsley, we need a laugh button.
I see a pretty good chance that COVID will be fading by Inauguration Day (Jan. 20, 2021). Won’t be gone by any means, but very plausible that the main impact by then will be scattered outbreaks and relatively low, endemic spread in most of the country. The outbreaks would mostly be in parts of cold weather states – due to people being indoors – that haven’t been hit too hard.
Also, one U.S. data point (which I discuss in more detail in a separate comment): the 9.3% estimated U.S. seroprevalence referenced by the authors is from a study calculating that number as of 3-4 months ago. The study used blood draws (from dialysis patients) taken in July 2020.
Change maximum allowed PCR CT (cycle threshold) for “positive” to 32 and voila: “cases” (positive PCR tests) drop like a rock.
Actually they are run up to 45 cycles, however anything above 35 is deemed inconclusive with a re-test recommended. Here is Alan McNally (who has set up 2 testing labs) correcting Mike on this https://twitter.com/alanmcn…
An unfortunate title for the article, which perhaps reflects an unwillingness to think laterally. Mike Yeadon and others are not denying the existence of COVID-19 – that is silly. They are questioning the response and suggesting previous WHO and CDC recommendations for pandemic management be followed, not those introduced from China earlier in 2020. May or not be reasonable, but clearly not denialism. They are just recognizing the body of evidence on which the discarded recommendations are based, and for which limited evidence to justify change has been provided.
However, subsequent errors or omissions seem to undermine the main premise (which seems to be that we all need a vaccine to get back to normal).
IFR: WHO estimates about a million deaths in 170M infections. that is about 0.13%, similar to that recently published in the Bull of WHO.
Evidence for pre-existing T-cell cross-immunity seems to be overlooked?
Modelling that includes heterogeneity and immunity (basic to biological modelling but seemingly omitted by Imperial and IHME models) predicts a much lower population infection requirement to achieve herd immunity.
As with so many other analyses, it completely overlooks the fact that average age of mortality is at or above all-cause mortality. Lockdown-induced deaths are frequently younger. It does matter that the average age of death is over 80, and in people with co-morbidities who are expected to die relatively soon. Unfortunate to lose some months, and sometimes far more, but relevant if you are talking about raw numbers dying. We do die when we are old, of various causes.
So no one (or few) are denying COVID-19. The point is, surely, to use context in the response, as the response will also kill people, often at younger age (simply increasing poverty does that).
When we can get past silly jargon, we will find it easier to have a sensible debate that leads to sensible policies.
Once again, we have the use of the word “deniers” to describe people who question and ask for more information. It is used for people who rightly question the human climate change fraud and it’s use effectively trying to associate anybody who does not follow the agree script with deniers of the holocaust and so discredit them.
If there is any denier in this farce it is Boris. He is denying the reality of all viruses. I have just listened to him telling us that we need to put the virus back in its box. This is more Boris Bluster. We have not managed to put the influenza virus back in its box even with a vaccine. The Tory Party needs to get rid of him and the entire cabinet as soon as possible.
We also have the NHS telling us how we should be helping them. We don’t have a choice about when we get ill. Only monolithic socialist organisations like the NHS lecture their “customers”. The NHS needs to go with Boris.
So, to sum up a very long article, Yeadon has not said ONE correct thing. Not one. Not even the date probably…
If you take the word of a PhD student and the Adam Smith Institute then yes I suppose so. No one is completely right here as that is not possible but the scientific basis on which the lockdown is based is outrageously flawed and cannot be right. Yeadon can be close to it.
Where’s my post gone? Is the BMJ not suitable for Unherd? Mike Yeadon on talk radio this morning wading into the situation again. He ain’t backing down.
Talk Radio, which regularly gives a voice to people like Mike Yeadon and Professor Gupta, is the only mainstream media outlet that allows dissenting voices.
OK, but it’s fair enough to criticise those voices as well. Professor Gupta’s view back in late Spring was essentially that the virus would not reappear. Dr Yeadon’s article from a month or so ago basically said there would be no general increase in cases, hospitalisations and deaths. Neither has proved to be accurate so far. I wish they were right, but frankly they haven’t be up to this point.
This does not mean I support the Imperial model, SAGE etc. There are plenty of problems there too. But as the authors of this article point out, denying the reality of the virus is not a good starting point for any analysis.
There is a difference between being slightly wrong and outrageously out.
Encouraging to see an almost complete denial of ‘denialism’ from all the sensible response
That’s because no one denies the virus.
I am a denialist, and wear it like a badge of honour.
I don’t think we are seeing a spike. Just the normal increase in covid type viruses one always sees as the weather gets colder as with flu which is a covid virus. What could be being interpreted as a spike is the results of testing which can pick up all sorts of covid traces associated with flu and even dead covid traces from someone who has already had it. I think it is a panic because of ignorance and fear. As soon as one brings politics into it things get misty because of the compunction to be seen doing the right thing.
> What could be being interpreted as a spike is the results of testing which can pick up all sorts of covid traces associated with flu
This is false. The PCR tests looks for sequences specific to SARS-nCOV-2, not any influenza virus. See “Yes, PCR tests can detect “the COVID virus”” on Dr Ian M. Mackay’s site.
Paul, may I ask if you work for a Pharmaceutical company, or otherwise what is your area of expertise. Could you even be a Bot?
You’ve caught me, I’m a Big Farmer Bot. Beep boop.
It’s not particularly hard to work out who I am and what my background is, seeing as I’m using my real name and photo. I am a physicist by degree and a software engineer by trade, usually in jobs which end up using bits of physics and maths. As is well known, physicists are experts on absolutely everything, because it’s all made of atoms (except for software, which is made of electrons).
I’m here mostly because I follow Tom Chivers on Twitter and he writes here (and linked to this article).
Paul, is AI going to kill us, or make us pets?
To anyone serious about this issue (PCR use and its appropriateness), please read the above mentioned article – find it easily with a search for virologydownunder – and appreciate that the author is knowledgeable about the science, refreshing complete in his presentation of his topics, and amazingly adept at communicating very technical information in understandable terms that most readers can understand.
He’s a favorite read, and I base some of my commentary on his work (there’s a great youtube interview out there as well.)
While it seems that I highlight the test’s weaknesses, also mentioned in the article, I believe it’s only because I have concerns in the amount of trust being placed in this (deniers) article and the PCR test in general. In many ways, it is a delicate science being sold with a sledgehammer of certainty.
The mentioned article’s author (Dr. Mackay) even references comments related to the limitations of the test from the recently deceased inventor (Kary Mullis – who ironically died just months before the current COVID-19 outbreak – go figure) of the test in certain situations. Be wary that some recent mis-quotes attributed to Dr. Mullis are floating around the web, but some relevant critiques were also made regarding the original SARS outbreak analysis that are potentially relevant to this situation – I’ll be durned if I can’t find them right now, sorry.
That said, science doesn’t sit still, and improvements continue in the mechanics, configuration, and analysis of PCR technology, especially in the current environment – many bright eyes are working on this, but the one quote from the article that still seems especially relevant to me from Dr. Mackay, is
Where ‘expertly designed’ is the detail of note. He also mentions that poorly designed tests would result in … poor results, etc.:)
good catch and share Mr. Wright,
mf
Some good points, but a lot of special pleading in the article. If the existing ‘immunity’ is related to levels of naive T cells, then cruise ships full of mostly elderly couples are not a great example to use.
Also these “second waves” we’re seeing cannot be compared with the cases graphs in the first wave, yes because most people weren’t tested. The only thing that is in any way reliable is to look at death rates and compare with average all causes mortality for this time of year.
Of course there are people dying of Covid, which is not what anyone wants. But there would also be hundreds per day dying of flu in normal winters.
There is of course a mid way between these views, where we are not at herd immunity (which is clear), but do have enough immunity in the population such that hospitals would not be overwhelmed using basic social distancing, and isolation of the vulnerable. The trouble is that politically that would always be difficult versus those who think we can control everything…
I saw this headline and immediately thought wtf? What is a Covid denialist really? These people I do not know. Covid exists and sadly kills people, as does flu and many other viruses. I don’t know anyone who denies this. What I also know is that the mortality rate is very low, we cannot sterilize ourselves from death, lockdowns are deadly and devastating, lockdowns have been proven to have limited effect unless they are done early with extreme lockout and suppression which is not viable in most countries who want to have a future. So please call me a lockdown skeptic, not a Covid denialist.
This article was a slap on the wrist for those of us who dare to question the orthodoxy. The headline was designed to put us in our place, alongside Holocaust deniers and flat-earthers. “People are dying” is the much heard catch-phrase, as though people have never died before. Well might Marlon Brando have mumbled, “the horror, the horror”. “The madness, the madness”, is now more appropriate.
You omitted the favourite accusation of ”Trumpist”. That is designed to end the debate and put one well and truly in ones place.
I doubt there are any sane people who deny SARS-CoV2 exists. However the constant lies and assaults on civic society by those seeking to profit from this unfortunate outbtreak are there for all to see. Boris thinks he can play St George and hide his Brexit issues, the left including most of academia and PHE etc think they can trash the economy thereby causing them to rise to power atop a class and possibly a race war. For the Ickes, Corbyns, Chris Hedges etc this is manna from heaven (or the moon) as they rush to validate their untestable
conspiracy theories. The fact that all 3 of the above tribes have the same lack of decency and the same delight in lies and chaos tells you all you need to know. If the grown-ups don’t stop the party soonish people are going to get hurt.
This unhealthy focusing on Dr Yeadon’s credibility (using faulty logic, cherry picking and twisting of immunological logic and research) and ignoring many other relevant arguments from other scientists leads one to wonder what or who is really behind this article
Just like you get book review articles this is a Dr Yeadon review article.
Reviewing say half a dozen of the leading books on ornithology would take ages.
So your average book reviewer reads a single book on birds over the weekend and jots stuff down as they go to get their review out. And they’ll tend to pontificate on the general state of ornithology from this single book.
Same with this article.
I have commented before (BMJ on-line) but here again:
“We are in an exceedingly dangerous position while we are at the mercy of endless worst case scenarios which do not have to be proven. Moreover, the wreckage of the policy is far more quantifiable than any benefit i.e we do not really either know how bad Covid is going to be or how much the policy will mitigate it, while we do know the catastrophic damage to everything else. To institute policy on this basis is without rationality.”
We have been here before: WMD in 2002-3 (maximising the global threat of Saddam Hussain). It is not as if there are no concerns but in total it is pernicious rubbish.
Saddam had WMDs, he used them on the Marsh Shia and the Kurds and the Iranians in the trenches. That he would not cooperate one had to think he had a lot of them, it would have been just like him to get them as much as he could. But then I like the analogy, as covid came from a Chinese bio lab, and they seem basically immune to it, so what exactly are you saying?
Saddam used weapons of terror and was a ruthless cruel dictator. The Iraq War was sold on the basis that he posed a direct threat to the survival of the West i.e. these were WMDs that could kill us en masse. A sober assessment – such as Dr Kelly’s – was that there was little evidence for this. We are dealing with governments hyping risks to suit agendas which have never been debated.
Thankyou for the article.
Two questions:
1.Why has influenza almost disappeared worldwide apparently?
2.How do you refute the claim that the 2007 New Hampshire PCR mass screening programme for whooping cough was shown up as a mirage? This seems better from what you write as there are genuine positive results, but I doubt if that is enough to justify the current management.
Covid was real and I don’t deny some deaths, but I am watching people go blind in clinics and listen to others on the phone yet to be seen. Some of these are children under 10. I would hate to be an Oncologist.
The last person I saw was an hour ago. Normally that person would be seen as an emergency within days. Now she is likely to wait weeks and it will be too late.
Life is a balance of risks and benefits. Politicians’ reactions to media pressure and public health officials is killing people in large numbers and harming the health of many more.
This is shameful.
Why would you bankrupt a country based on a PCR test that is twice as likely to record a positive case without the possibility of passing on an infection as opposed to a positive case with infectivity.
Sometimes I think it can be unproductive to refer to the minutiae of physiological processes to explain the progress of the epidemic.
There is varying resilience in the population to what life throws at us. Young people have more resilience and old people have much less.
In the winter of 2017/18 there were over 55,000 excess UK deaths. The great majority of these deaths were people over the age of 75 ( over 42,000 ) They had far less resilience to viruses, bacterial infections, cancer, hypothermia etc than the rest of the population. This happens year in year out.
Those who did not die might have had the appropriate antibodies, T cell immunity etc but for Imperial Collage to say that over 90% of the population is susceptible to covid because antibodies do not last, shouldn’t the question be – susceptible to what? Certainly not susceptible to dying as we know that dying from Covid is almost exclusively reserved for the old
Let the people least likely to be incapacitated by Covid get on with their lives and save the country and let us take care of the vulnerable and old as best as we can.
Personally I believe that Yeadon gives a plausible explanation (I am not a scientist) only time will tell
Sadly time already is telling and Dr Yeadon’s explanation/forecast is being contradicted by events. I have some sympathy with your wider point about an over-reaction and do not agree with various things the government has done and is continuing to do. But the article is quite right to argue that it is facile to claim there is no great trade-off between everyone living their lives as normal and the many extra deaths that would likely follow, to the point where people would stop living their lives as normal because they would be scared out of their wits that if they caught the virus they might die, due to a complete collapse of the NHS.
But the point is that all has to accept that nobody is going to be absolutely right and the government response cannot be formulated on that basis. That taken as given what should the government choose to use as evidence because everything points to SAGEs evidence to be dud. I cannot happen. Yeadon can be wrong but close. The precautionary principle doesn’t carry here. The effects of lockdown are severe on the economy and life – that begins to explain why SAGE needs severe evidence of its own. Speaking of which where is the government’s analysis of the impact of lockdown? It has not even been given to parliament.
I like reading a counter argument now and then. But I stopped reading at the claim that 67.9% of the Diamond Princess was infected, because it is such a blatant lie. Only about 20% got infected, and that is so well documented that to suggest anything else is an insult to the public.
I don’t know what the rest of the article said. If you lie to me, all you are is lies.
It’s true that there has been a significant rise in daily deaths in the UK, Spain and France but only to 136 so far in the UK compared with the notorious worst case projection of 1,000 per day by now. Fortunately deaths have lagged far behind projections. It remains to be seen whether they will match the first wave. While there may well be a considerable reservoir of people left who are susceptible to infection, the number of people susceptible to severe illness leading to death may have reduced.
The other point to be careful of is that these three countries are outliers in world terms. We are not seeing these increases in other regions of the world, or even in the much criticised Sweden, where daily deaths are sinking towards the floor again.
The number of overall deaths in Sweden in September was the lowest number they had ever recorded for a September.
presumably because many of those who would have died in September died in the previous 6 months
Whilst Dr Yeadon is probably wrong about false positives it doesn’t necessarily follow that he is completely wrong about the other three key points namely: 1. The “real” IFR being a lot lower than forecast, 2. (Therefore) the level to which the population has already been exposed being much higher and 3. the degree of pre-existing immunity (or biological incapability to get the disease) being under-estimated. In terms of the first point it is perfectly possible to find credible data that shows IFR to be around 0.2% (in a population with similar demographics to the UK). For the second point Dr Yeadon may not be taking into account that the government dumped hospital patients into care homes in March and a lot of covid-19 deaths were caused by patients getting the virus whilst already in hospital (as is sadly happening again now). Both of those factors may considerably have skewed the number of deaths given that the virus is indisputably more deadly amongst the elderly. Adjust for that is his calculations and maybe you get more like 20% rather than 32% of the population getting the virus earlier in the year. Regarding the antibody v T-cell debate I cannot comment on the study that the authors quote but there was a study done in Sweden a few months back that showed for every person with antibodies two more had t-cell immunity. We also know (again I think not disputed) that antibodies decline over time or can sometimes not be detectable. Put those factors together and you also get perhaps around 20% of the population having exposure.
Of course exposure is not uniform across the country and (reference excess deaths) in London excess deaths up to 23rd October (the latest report) have remained mainly negative since June, apart from a spike in the summer likely caused by a heatwave rather than covid. In other regions there has indeed been a discernible rise in October. (And yes I get deaths lag infections by 3-4 weeks so the picture is emerging still). But London’s significantly lower mortality in the second wave compared to other urban areas does not appear to be explained fully by it’s likely higher rate of infection in February/March. It is probable that a % of the population simply cannot catch the disease for whatever biological reason that might be (pre-existing immunity or otherwise). The data from the two ships is interesting but surely in a closed environment with frequent person to person contact you would expect nearly 100% to catch the disease? Dr Yeadon’s estimate of those with pre-immunity may again be too high but it doesn’t mean the phenomenon doesn’t exist.
The points Dr Yeadon is making are not out of line with other eminent scientists like Sunetra Gupta. He may not (by his own admission) be right about the precise numbers but that should not dismiss him from a reasoned and reasonable argument. Sadly, the debate has become very polarized. My own view, for what that is worth, is that London is close to herd immunity and the second wave would die down pretty quickly without lockdown measures in place. Other parts of the country got it less badly earlier in the year and for them herd immunity may be a way off yet. But what we do know for absolute certainty is that covid-19 kills the elderly more than the young, by as much as 10,000 times. Any measure designed to reduce the virus’s impact, pending the availability of a vaccine, would surely be better focused on those most likely to die from the virus, rather than the blunt and economically catastrophic tool of a lockdown.
For a back of fag packet calculation do the following:
Take a smoothed number of deaths from the government stats – say roughly 500 today, to be on the generous side.
Take the latest ONS infection survey, which is a wonderful thing. That shows cases a fortnight ago, and corresponds to infections roughly 3 weeks ago, so dying yesterday. 95% credible lower figure is 536500.
500/536500 = 0.09%
If I’m out by a week, because of reporting dates and so on, and infections double every two weeks then multiply by root two, IFR = 0.13.
If I’m out by two weeks then IFR = 0.18%
So 0.2% is not a silly figure for IFR at all, and would concur with the government approved sources of data.
When infections and deaths have peaked for this wave we should be able to compare the numbers at peak, and get a pretty solid IFR figure for the UK.
By that reckoning we are heading for another 11000 deaths over the next year or two, and this will bring us in line with San Marino at about 1000 deaths per million. Note San Marino hasn’t had a death since May.
Sad when the comments on an article are more intelligent than the article itself. Skip the article and read “maps foderit”‘s comments if you want a dose of common sense so lacking anywhere these days.
Totally agree. the comments to this article actually blow the article out of the water. Well done, random people on the internet! you make me think that there is actually a sliver of hope for a more rational approach to this crisis.
“By July, 54% had [developed antibodies to the virus] in Mumbai…” Yes, and the research paper you quote that relates to the Mumbai figure also states: “Taken together our estimate of seroprevalence, these number imply an infection fatality rate of 0.076% and 0.263% in non-slums. The overall rate is estimated to be 0.12%”. Maybe Yeadon’s IFR figure of 0.2% is nearer to the truth than the 0.5%-1.5% you are suggesting in the article. Also, could it not be that one factor for the very low IFR in the slums, compared to non-slums, is the existence of a degree of pre-existing immunity? A concept which your article seems at pains to try and discredit.
“Covid Deniers” these are the bad people who have no humanity, right? Your article does not graph how many people got a case of the common cold in 2018 and deaths from that. Why? I can tell you why, because it would show that the rates of infection and death are almost similar.
If you would graph number of other more serious disease cases 2018 – 2020 you would see the massive drop in detection for 2020. Do you believe people stopped getting cancer and such serious diseases? No they did not. The body count because of COVID lock down and masks will far exceed the body count from COVID minus usual death by influenza by a factor of 5.
So COVID doomsdayers are far more dangerous than deniers by a factor of 5. Will your next article be calling for manslaughter charges against those who prevented access to critical care for non-COVID diseases??
Also 75% of the population is reporting they will not be taking your Frankenstein vaccine.
I take issue with the implication that because new infections precede deaths by about 21 days that peak tests will precede deaths by the same amount.
Looking at the graphs from the last wave, peak cases tend to lead peak deaths by about a week, often less.
This is a result of people getting tested as they enter hospital, a fortnight after they were infected, and dying soon after.
Thus we should expect the general ONS survey infections to lead deaths by slightly less than 3 weeks, but the various pillar testing regimes to lead deaths by a much smaller time.
Finally consider that even the ONS infections survey will be skewed by the fact that if you test once a fortnight, you will have on average 7 days lag from infection to reporting date. Also virus is more detectable towards the end of the 14 days. Thus we’d expect deaths to lag cases by under two weeks for the survey case data.
I only have one question for you Saloni, and Mathew. I’ll believe you when you show me the study document that has isolated the Covid-19 virus in human beings. Just produce it, for us all to peruse. I’m sure you won’t find it too difficult..
I suggest you Google the appropriate phrase “can you link to evidence that the virus was isolated is becoming fake moon landing level stupid” (seriously), where you’ll find a biologist linking to all the papers of people who isolated the virus. I’d link to it but UnHinged doesn’t like links, apparently.
There is currently a court case underway against all 650 UK MP’s for crimes against the people, and the Lawyers requested (under the freedom of information Act) that very same study, however they had to admit that no such study has been done, and they do not have anything to produce.
Of course there is, “crimes against the people” is absolutely a tort you can sue for. Take your meds and get off the Internet, it’s only making your symptoms worse.
But then what can one do for Crimes Against the People? Seems there should be some mechanism for making them pay, or like Heroin in Oregon, is it legal now?
I think the idea that herd immunity will be achieved by exposure or vaccine is a pipe dream. Have we achieved herd immunity with the flu? No. The best we will achieve is attenuation of infection (and deaths) just like we see with the seasonal soup of flu and other viruses including coronaviruses. To think we will obliterate SARsCoV2 is like saying “it will magically go away.” It won’t, but it will leave a far less lethal foot print on us as more are exposed to low doses of virus or recover from true infections. Eventually SARsCoV2 will join the seasonal respiratory viruses we knew nothing about prior to this pandemic.
As to T cell mediated responses: they probably play a much greater role in living with the virus. Perhaps a skin test similar to the TB test would be a valuable way to show this and determine prevalence of exposure.
Flu isn’t one single virus. There are new strains every year which need to be vaccinated against. Similarly the family of Coronaviruses have different strains. Covid-19 is one of them. The two things you are comparing are not comparable.
More bilge from The Establishment if you dismiss the ridiculous 100 Year models on Climate ,”You’re a climate denier” Even though the Weather models for 5-10 days are Inaccurate,the DATA is skewered they chose 29 hospitals which suited their ”Scenario” of panic .ignored falling admissions or No admissions (Daily mail graphs nov3) of 453 Hospitals!…The SARS2 plandemic peaked Around April 8-12… Ferguson’s projections ARE wrong..Why hasn’t great Barrington scientists like Professor Sunetra Gupta been Listened to?…Mainstream media are also to blame with their Slavish Love of EU,WHO,UN …Funding from Bill gates,george Soros Should be Looked at..
I stopped reading when they began discussion of the IFR. Those numbers are out of date and the WHO’s own recent estimation is that 750M people worldwide have had covid, making the IFR closer to 0.2%.
I really object to the term ‘Covid denialism’. It implies that we should all accept what the government and mainstream media are telling us. What is wrong with using common sense, and with looking at the data?
1) Cases should not be confused with infections. The connection between the two is very tenuous. The PCR test should never be used for clinical purposes
2) The unnatural fear of a second wave is without foundation. This virus is following the same pattern as most other viruses. There is a peak, which dies away, followed by a seasonal return each year at a much lower level. This is what we are seeing. This second ‘peak’ will be larger in those countries that have locked down harder, because of a higher susceptibility in the population.
3) The R value is meaningless because it depends on cases, which are themselves meaningless.
Do not worry about ‘Covid denialists’. They are generally those that think for themselves. You should be more worried about the ‘truth denialists’ who ignore the data.
Denialism is a political choice of words designed to shut down debate. In our Western world now dissension is deemed anti social on just about everything unless it is a socially progressive and approved topic.
We need to look closely at the possibility that covid was here much earlier. Maybe in November last year. There are things that might point that way. School closures in Highbridge Somerset in December attributed to a virus that spread rapidly. I fell ill with something very like it in the third week of January. along with a good few in my town. An old friend in Lynton Devon had a cough that developed into a fever along with so many others it was known as the Lynton cough .
Maybe it was quietly spreading unrecognised until it seemed to suddenly be everywhere in March. This suggests to me that we have underestimated the spread by a vast number. There were no antibody test back then and exactly how reliable are they?
Of course this makes the policy of emptying out the hospitals and ignoring the danger to care homes doubly foolish. If the virus was everywhere then care homes were a sitting target. Only recently has aerolised spread been accepted. That makes a care home or a hospital a real source of infection. Closed environments and no way of stopping it.
Thank you to all of you who have commented here. The comments section is by far a better read than the article itself. You have articulated so well what I find very hard to put in to words. Maps foderit you have a special talent for debate. Thank you for your measured and thoughtful responses. I struggle to get my point across and people often immediately take offence or call me a ‘denier’ for questioning the narrative and asking for more detail. What can I say to friends of mine who are calling for a ‘zero COVID strategy’ ie tougher lockdowns? I’m sure they are well meaning people but for some reason they simply don’t want to hear that lockdowns aren’t the answer and will likely cause an awful lot more harm than good. If anyone could help me to write a clear and easy to understand answer to these people I would appreciate it as my debating skills aren’t up to scratch! Thank you!
So many innacuracies, so little time! Why pick upon Mike Yeadon when there are many more highly qualified actual Epidimiologists and virologists who are questioning the SAGE theocracy? Briefly. Viruses don’t do waves, that’s simply not how they work. Antibodies are not the only measure of immunity and always decline in the absence of the relevant threat. What do remain are the appropriate T cells which will recognise the threat if it returns. Lastly, herd immunity. Once again this is a scientific fact that all such viruses follow. There is debate as to the current level Vis a Vis the required level but it will arrive if it’s allowed to happen naturally without Government meddling.
Why should I bother reading this article with anything like an open mind when the author uses the dog-whistle word denialism in the title? There are many shades of scepticism. Not believing the dissembling half-truths trotted out by Johnson, Hancock, Whitty and Vallance seems to me to be entirely rational and does not equate to denialism.
What if covid denialism applies to those who try to sustain narrative on covid19 from March 2020 in November 2020 despite new scientific data on the threat of the disease?
I’ve got a trust issue with this article, because it has a phony link.
“The WHO has estimated the Covid-19 IFR is around 0.5%-1.0%.” I clicked on the embedded link, only to find that the destination contains no IFR estimate at all. It’s a boilerplate summary of how one calculates an IFR.
I also note this essay’s heavy over-reliance on rhetoric, beginning in its opening paragraphs which lean on Albert Camus (!) to inform us about the coronavirus. And later, with the appearance of the word “denialism”, question-begarring rears its hideous head. I’ll have to look elsewhere for rebuttal of Dr. Yeadon’s assertions.
Thanks for that Dixon – great work. It reminds us that even in the excellent Unherd pages we’ve all got to be alert to “statistics” and their “interpretation”. Ah, but to have the time! And that’s what the MSM knows so well.
Reflect “The sky is falling?”
By next winter, most of the people most likely to die from this new corona virus will be dead. Either there will be a safe vaccination or there will not be. No point in worrying about things not under one’s control.
If the sky is falling, I can’t stop it but if people think it is falling, there is big money to be made.
Her charts are useless. Deaths and hospitalisations ALWAYS rise significantly in late autumn.
As the scientists bicker I suppose the best us plebian-laypeople can do is to keep asking whose payroll these scientists are on, and even more sadly for science, what are their politics.
The “experts” now blame Western “exceptionalism” for their slow reaction to the virus, yet at the time they attacked the West for xenophobia and racism when they wished to close their borders. And I thought we’d all given up on taking seriously studies from WHO, and even governments, on this issue?
The fact that the writers from the very start use the pejorative term “denialist” to describe anyone who questions orthodox dogma made me expect that the whole article would be just a standard hack job. I read it anyway and I was right.
While the author’s arguments are mostly sound, I find their almost complete neglect (willful or not) of seroreversion disappointing. The authors acknowledge that antibodies can become undetectable after a “few months”, but thereafter ignore the issue (potentially because it is complicated). A Japanese study found antibodies disappeared by 12.5% in one month. Another study found > 20% loss in 90 days. Almost all of the individuals in the Japan study were asymptomatic. For hospitalized cases antibodies last much longer. But given that the seroprevalence is 5 to 10 times the confirmed case rate it is clear that the shorter time scale seroreversion is the relevant rate. If the majority of US cases were in March and April and a 10% seroprevalence was found IN JULY the current US rate of infected or exposed individuals certainly is much larger than 10% – but to the author’s point 30% would be a stretch.
Great piece. As I read it I sensed it would not be popular with the Unherd commentariat and sure enough it wasn’t.
I’m not averse to some serious attempt to make a numerical comparison of the effects of Covid-suppression measures and the benefits. But the “Covid-deniers” (for want of a better term, as they do not deny its very existence**) seem to want to pick on every opportunity to downgrade the data on one side of the comparison before they move on to the analysis. Having recently begun to see this in its latest stage of evolution (the tests are all false-positives, no-one is ill, everyone is dying of something else) I am glad to see some of the contra-arguments put here.
There is in fact no 100% certainty that either side is correct. Much of the science is new, the data has caveats. All one can do is try establish a consensus having tried to take in as much as possible of what is available. It takes someone with a very arrogant belief in their own analytical ability to take an extreme position on the various aspects of this debate.
Masks don’t work. They do work. They don’t work much. It has been proven that masks….These are all examples of such extreme pronouncements. There is no rigorous scientific proof of any of these statements. A safer statement is “There is reason to believe masks might do quite a bit of good, we don’t know – lets wear them whilst we try to get more evidence”.
Similarly on the mortality, the IFR, the infectiousness of the pathogen, the proportion of the population infected, the effects of cross-reactive antibodies – there are many parts of recent studies, not thoroughly reviewed, experiments not yet replicated that one can cherry pick to support a position – but no-one knows for sure and I don’t trust anyone that claims to be able to. This all argues for caution in dealing with the pandemic.
**to go back to “holocaust denier”, from which such terms are derived, most “holocaust deniers” question only the size of the holocaust, not its occurrence. I will therefore stick with this nomenclature until I come across a better one.
I think it’s notable that there are several, unconnected, expert opinions pointing out the same thing, basically that flawed PCR tests are creating the impression that the epidemic is still going. As well as Michael Yeadon, there’s also Sucharit Bhakdi and Clare Craig as well as the whole Barrington lot. That’s a lot of experts so there must be something in what they’re saying.
It was from Dr Craig I learned about a previous whooping cough ‘epidemic’ which turned out to be completely false. https://www.nytimes.com/200…
An interesting perspective/rebuttal of the points raised by Mike Yeadon but, as pointed out elsewhere, I’m not sure why Mike is singled out when there are plenty of other experts in the field who share his views.
I’ve asked one main and a small follow up question in a variety of places and haven’t even had an answer, as yet, let alone one that was at all convincing. My questions concern a few simple observations.
1) Assuming an IFR of 0.5%, some 99.5% of humans infected by SARS-Cov-2 recover from Covid-19.
2) We’re told that as many as 80% of those infected are asymptomatic.
3) As I understand it, immunity doesn’t mean that an infection doesn’t enter your body. It means that your body kills off the infection through a range of immune responses, some acquired and some innate.
My questions are;
A) If it’s true that 99.5% of those infected with SARS-Cov-2 recover and as many as 80% recover without even developing symptoms, isn’t that a clear indication that a powerful immune response – be that an acquired or an innate immune response – is already endemic within the human population?
Logically, it seems to me that it does, which brings me on to my follow up;
B) If there is already a powerful immune response endemic within the human population, why are we arguing over and getting bogged down by, the semantics of it?
If anyone can answer those questions for me, I’d really, really appreciate it.
I’m not sure this article is worthy of a reply to be honest. It’s hard to know where to start. Maybe reading John Iaonnidis’s peer reviewed and published article would help the authors understand a little more. The IFR is 0.15-0.2% and under 70yrs old it is 0.03-0.04%. It is accepted that once you’ve had it you have immunity. Respiratory illnesses rarely produce antibodies, in fact some diseases we vaccinate against rarely produce antibodies, for example hepatitis B. There is not one recorded case of a pupil passing the illness to a teacher. There is evidence of immunity in Asia in people who have had no exposure to the virus. How T cells (and B cells) behave is well understood. An article in the BMJ covers T cells etc. I’ve copied and pasted the text as Unherd doesn’t like links!
Feature Coronavirus
Covid-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity?
BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj… (Published 17 September 2020)
Cite this as: BMJ 2020;370:m3563
Read our latest coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
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Peter Doshi, associate editor
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It seemed a truth universally acknowledged that the human population had no pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2, but is that actually the case? Peter Doshi explores the emerging research on immunological responses
Even in local areas that have experienced some of the greatest rises in excess deaths during the covid-19 pandemic, serological surveys since the peak indicate that at most only around a fifth of people have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2: 23% in New York, 18% in London, 11% in Madrid.123 Among the general population the numbers are substantially lower, with many national surveys reporting in single digits.
With public health responses around the world predicated on the assumption that the virus entered the human population with no pre-existing immunity before the pandemic,4 serosurvey data are leading many to conclude that the virus has, as Mike Ryan, WHO’s head of emergencies, put it, “a long way to burn.”
Yet a stream of studies that have documented SARS-CoV-2 reactive T cells in people without exposure to the virus are raising questions about just how new the pandemic virus really is, with many implications.
Not so novel coronavirus?
At least six studies have reported T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 in 20% to 50% of people with no known exposure to the virus.5678910
In a study of donor blood specimens obtained in the US between 2015 and 2018, 50% displayed various forms of T cell reactivity to SARS-CoV-2.511 A similar study that used specimens from the Netherlands reported T cell reactivity in two of 10 people who had not been exposed to the virus.7
In Germany reactive T cells were detected in a third of SARS-CoV-2 seronegative healthy donors (23 of 68). In Singapore a team analysed specimens taken from people with no contact or personal history of SARS or covid-19; 12 of 26 specimens taken before July 2019 showed reactivity to SARS-CoV-2, as did seven of 11 from people who were seronegative against the virus.8 Reactivity was also discovered in the UK and Sweden.6910
Though these studies are small and do not yet provide precise estimates of pre-existing immunological responses to SARS-CoV-2, they are hard to dismiss, with several being published in Cell and Nature. Alessandro Sette, an immunologist from La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California and an author of several of the studies (box 1), told The BMJ, “At this point there are a number of studies that are seeing this reactivity in different continents, different labs. As a scientist you know that is a hallmark of something that has a very strong footing.”
Box 1
Use of the loaded term ‘denialism’ aside, this is a commendably analytical article. It is not hysteria. It is also however, largely analysis of the views of one particular individual, namely Michael Yeadon. It doesn’t really address the genuine cause for confusion over how many deaths are covid deaths, and how many are flu deaths. It is not making the distinction between the genuinely inherently vulnerable, and the willfully unhealthy. It is holding out the prospect of vaccines as a source of hope, but if they are rolled out as soon as suggested, they won’t have been tested on very many people, so we will only have a vague idea of how effective they are likely to be. Flu vaccines don’t exactly have a great record of protecting those who really need them.
You are being to kind for them, the article is a total distortion of reality.
this, yes.
As soon as the optimistic vaccine section came up without any of the non-conspiratorial but medically understood limitations of all vaccines, the air was gone.
I don’t sense intentional propaganda here so much as well-intended ignorance and/or incomplete/mis-information.
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Interesting how the author accuses Yeadon of being ‘selective’ in his thinking, yet the article is very selective.
Only got to look at the treatments she mentions to show which side of the discussion she represents. And the data graphs – no overlays with the past. She is being very selective.
Prof Friston, months ago penned the term ‘covid dark matter’ which he concludes is the tranche of the population that isn’t susceptible to covid; 50pcent to 80 pcent of the population. This is any country he looked at, whatever their containment policy. This of course, means that herd immunity is attainable with far fewer numbers than the author infers.
And of course let’s not forget our control group who are doing rather well. Sweden.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
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I’m no expert and do not deny covid-19 exists, but I can read, and follow Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Claire Craig. I take exception to the way admissions and deaths ‘with’ covid are counted. An admission is anyone who tests positive on admission or thereafter in hospital, but who have most likely been admitted for an entirely different reason eg heart attack. This combined with the frequent care home testing means that the death stats are being falsely inflated by testing those who are very frail and suffering from several co-morbidities and then when they die within 28 days of testing positive they are declared as a covid death. This method is fraudulent, highly misleading and being used to scaremonger. Also, those healthy people who are admitted and test positive are being discharged within a few days but we never hear the high level of discharges on the MSM.
In NI there were more discharges in the last 7 days than admissions. PCR test positive is not proof of suffering Covid-19 infection, only viral culture is. Thousands of new ‘cases’ are declared daily without any proof of infectiousness. A recent ‘case’ in NI declared a 17 year old as being the youngest to die. His father was distraught as he had been told his son had died of heart failure due to a congenital disease. His son had been due to go into hospital so was tested a month before and they yielded a positive result but the boy had no symptoms and tested negative 2 weeks later. Because he died within the fraudulent 28 day range he will forever be a covid death statistic. This is twisting the truth beyond belief! Dr Claire Craig is a pathologist who has analysed the case and death statistics for the so-called second wave. She has found several irregularities and shares Dr Yeadon’s belief that ‘cases’ are not true infections. It would be easy to disprove either party by doing viral culture of every positive swab, so why don’t you in the medical profession who call anyone with a sceptical view a ‘Covid denier’ get on and do this? https://lockdownsceptics.or…
With all due respect to Solani and Matt, I join the many people questioning the relevance of the ‘data’ they use to ‘prove their theory’ of ‘Covid Denialism’.
It could just (and perhaps more appropriately) be argued that ‘they’ are the Covid Deniers… Because their ‘data’ is mostly conjecture and not based on the FACTS that are NOW known (which we did not know in the ‘beginning’).
I’m not sure why UnHerd would even publish this article without fact checking…
For example, when claiming ‘excess deaths’ you need to INCLUDE on the chart the ‘normal deaths’ (deaths from all causes) line so that people can see that the ‘total mortality’ is LESS than ‘normal’ or at worse, slightly above normal like in 2018.
Making a chart without all the relevant data is misleading, to say the least.
And we KNOW that most people who die these days are dying WITH the virus not OF the virus.
Just because the person tested positive (or was presumed positive) does NOT mean they died OF the virus.
Worldwide, the actual deaths OF the virus (no other morbidity) ranges only 2% to 6% of the total ‘claimed’ deaths.
The bare bones FACT is that, if you strip away all the media hype and false ‘science’, this disease has AT WORST the mortality of a bad flu season. This is FACT.
And there is NO ‘second wave’. The second ‘wave is entirely fabricated from so called ‘cases’ generated mostly by testing HEALTHY people that ‘had’ the disease and now just have dead pieces of RNA that the PCR test can identify.
Yes, there are people with ‘symptoms’ as there ALWAYS are, mostly the flu or common cold du jour. The COVID just joins this long list of pathogens that are endemic in our bodies and our immune systems clean up everyday.
Let’s examine some other FACTS that seem to be missed by the Covid Deniers like our esteemed Solani and Matt.
I have charts to support this presentation but I don’t see a way to post them here…
“How” we will know the ‘pandemic’ is over is just by looking at the facts. Facts that would NORMALLY (via science) convince anyone with functioning neurons. I WISH our politicians had enough ‘common sense’ to look at the facts.
Fact 1:
There was never an actual crisis until the Vaccine Vested Interest MADE IT a crisis by locking down the world (using Vested Interest controlled Media to create hysteria).
The virus was ALREADY spread worldwide in MARCH of 2019, known by testing archived sewage samples.
https://www.usatoday.com/st…
There were NO excess deaths UNTIL the lockdowns (in fact LESS than normal which made a lot of ‘dry wood’ for the lockdown), even though the virus was spread worldwide for a YEAR before the lockdowns.
So it was side effects of the lockdowns (like fear, hysteria and miss-treatment of this disease) that caused the excess mortality.
Not saying that there isn’t a virus or that people aren’t dying, but I AM saying that the virus is LESS deadly than the common flu (if treated properly) and that people die everyday. At the time of the lockdown more people had died from the common flu than the virus.
But after the lockdowns a miracle”¦ The common cold and flu nearly disappeared, ALL deaths were attributed to the virus du jour.
Fact 2:
Even with all the fiasco of asking people to lockdown for two weeks to ‘flatten the curve’, the ‘Pandemic’ ended about mid June, 2020.
We initially locked down like good little sheeple because we didn’t KNOW any better and we were scared out of our minds… me too”¦
But then SOME of us started noticing ‘inconsistencies’ like the disease is NOT a lung disease, it is a BLOOD disease, which is more appropriately treated with ionophores (like hydroxychloroquine) and zinc (virtually 100% of such treated live) than with ventilators (90% of the people put on ventilators die). The trick is to get the blood carrying oxygen again”¦ People were dying of hypoxia because the BLOOD couldn’t accept oxygen, so ventilators are useless.
https://www.jamiiforums.com…
And we noticed that as the death toll started dramatically dropping”¦ The propaganda from the Vaccine Vested Interest shifted to counting ‘cases’ instead of ‘deaths’.
So while deaths dropped to well below anything that could be called a pandemic, and both the WHO and CDC stopped calling it a pandemic”¦
They (the Vaccine Vested Interest and controlled Media) ‘focused’ everyone’s attention on BLM (to keep fear up) until they realized they could keep the hysteria alive by reporting positive tests as ‘cases’.
Never mind that the PCR test:
1.was never designed to be ‘diagnostic’
https://www.marktaliano.net…
2.has over 90% false positives due to the high cycles used (40)
https://off-guardian.org/20…
https://drleonardcoldwell.c…
https://lockdownsceptics.or…
3.does not prove the person is ill, only that specific RNA bits are present, usually from dead virus, at best proving the person WAS ill
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
https://heavy.com/news/2020…
https://rationalground.com/…
4.are often pre-positive, returning positive even if the test was NEVER USED
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
https://www.newsweek.com/sw…
It didn’t matter to them that what they were reporting wasn’t actually ‘cases’, they just called every positive test and ‘presumptive’ symptoms as a ‘case’.
Technically, ‘CASES’ are ONLY people who are actually sick; have symptoms AND positive tested diagnosis.
That didn’t matter when they realized that most people are too ignorant to know that”¦ So they started MASSIVELY testing healthy people, in the hopes of finding a few that would test positive and (to their joy) they DID. It didn’t matter that these positive tests were only finding ‘dead’ RNA fragments because the (now healthy) person had HAD the disease and recovered.
They KNEW that MOST people that got infected (as many as 90%) did NOT have symptoms severe enough to go to the hospital, so they just needed to find these previously ‘sick’ people (who MAY have been sick a YEAR ago) to now have a CASEdemic.
It’s PERFECT! To keep the CASEdemic going they just have to excessively test HEALTHY people and make them ‘think’ they are ‘sick’ when actually they are the saviors, the ones with the great immune systems that protect the rest of us.
Literally, herd immunity is DEFINED by MOST people having been infected and now IMMUNE, so that the death rate drops to near zero”¦ LOL”¦
But ‘they’ found a way to ‘twist this GREAT NEWS into more hysteria. I gotta admit, I’m kinda impressed even as I’m terrified of their actual agenda (more on that later).
Anything to strike fear into the population so they will line up for their vaccines”¦ Deaths are minimal, so CASEdemic it is”¦
And an interesting side note”¦ Before this ‘pandemic’ the third leading cause of death in the USA was Doctor mistakes, about 250,000 deaths every year. Right now in November the ‘so called virus’ deaths, even with all the miss-counting and fraud, is not yet 250,000″¦ Just saying for perspective”¦
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/0…
Fact 3:
Note that the virus will NEVER actually ‘go away’, it’ll just join the millions of others in our micro-biome that can no longer make us sick because our immune systems will recognize and kill it. It’s called ‘Endemic’. So even though the virus never goes away, the SYMPTOMS do go away and THAT is what I think you were actually asking.
So to answer for YOU, the pandemic has come and gone and would have been no worse than a normal flu season IF ‘they’ had just left it alone. ‘They’ are now preparing for another lockdown based on testing HEALTHY PEOPLE (CASEdemic).
Fact 4:
“They” didn’t leave it alone and will NEVER leave it alone because they have found the PERFECT vehicle to achieve World Domination, decimate the population and make us into vaccine slaves.
All they need to do is:
1.keep us so scared that we can’t THINK and
2.suppress ANY possible efficacious treatments (there are several) and
3.keep us scared of EACH OTHER, (divide and conquer) and
4.destroy all the world economies so the people become DESPERATE and
5.then offer only ONE choice for ‘salvation’
‘They’ then offer total debt forgiveness and a Universal Basic Income. All you need to do to qualify is to give up all rights to own anything again EVER (like a slave owns nothing) and get the vaccine (mark of the beast).
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Then you’ll be able to go to work, purchase things, travel, etc. GREAT STUFF”¦ BUT they don’t tell you”¦
1.A HIGH percentage of people taking the vaccine will die or have SEVERE side effects (wish they had died). Bill Gates has admitted this and ALL the vaccine trials (what little they are doing, is proving this point)
2.If you do ANYTHING your new owners don’t like they’ll demerit your UBI, just like they already do in China.
3.You will now be a genetically modified organism, literally ‘owned’ by the vaccine patent holder because every cell in your body will have it’s DNA permanently altered to match their patent (and you’ll no longer be a ‘child of God’).
4.The vaccine will be delivered with programmable quantum-dots
https://humansarefree.com/2…
that can read your physical location and your physiological parameters, so they will even know when you are having sex.
5.The vaccine will have a substance called luciferase that can be read by computers, so your mark needs to be on exposed skin, the hand or forehead.
6.The quantum-dots are 2 way communication, so they can both transmit and RECEIVE information. They will program tiny robots in your body called nanobots.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mac…
The nanobots can help you heal, or KILL you depending on what the programmers choose.
So do what your masters say or they can literally punish or kill you remotely.
7.And finally (for this dissertation today) you’ll likely be HAPPY about all this because they will be able to both READ YOUR MIND and PLACE THOUGHTS into your head with the neuralink technology that will be uploaded with subsequent injections of vaccines”¦
https://www.cnet.com/news/e…
All these vaccines to ‘prevent’ a disease that was SO SEVERE that most people needed to be tested to even know they HAD it”¦
https://www.stanforddaily.c…
And if you think masks will protect you”¦ You are watching too much TV and don’t know enough SCIENCE. The SCIENCE actually says that masks INCREASE infection”¦
One reason is because the masks actually aerosolize the ‘big droplets’. Yes, they ‘catch’ the big droplets but then they turn the big droplets into TINY droplets when you breathe out through the mask”¦ Those tiny droplets can hang in the air for hours and once they land on someone else’s mask, the virus goes through the mask like a golf ball through a soccer net.
I’m terrified, but not of this virus”¦ I’m terrified by WHY they are hyping this virus even AFTER it’s no longer even a CONCEIVABLE threat, because it’s now endemic AND we KNOW how to treat it so that there are near zero deaths, even with old people and people with comorbidities.
If you’d like to know what the Media is NOT telling you, use duckduckgo to search for terms like americas frontline doctors or medicine uncensored or questioncovid or the highwire or suppressed doctors or Dr. Drew Pinsky or Dr Kelly Victory or restrictedrepublic or londonreal or Dr. Richard Bartlett or Dr Brownstein or Celeste Solum or Doctor blasts WHO or dr jeff barke or thefreedomarticles the last american vagabond or amazing Polly or why we stay asleep when or the dollar vigilante or losthorizons or or unherd or Michael Levitt virus or NoMoreFakeNews or Brasscheck TV or TheDailyWire or WeAreChange or makeamericansfreeagain
It’s instructive to look at the Covid death/day curve for Sweden at https://www.worldometers.in…
It peaked at around 100 back in April, and they now already seem to be over the 2nd wave which topped out at 7 deaths/day.
Hard lockdowns may only delay the inevitable while killing the economy and burdening the young with massive national debts.
Please see this video of Dr Fauci confirming that any PCR
positive test arrived at by using 35 cycles or above will basically pick up
only dead viral fragments: https://mobile.twitter.com/…
..and this video also confirming that the UK goes up to
45 cycles:
Prof. Carl Heneghan on The PCR Test (House
of Commons Science & Tech Committee, 17 Sep, 2020) https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Like others my impression is that this is a hatchet job pretending to be a neutral assessment.
At least however it is taking Dr Yeadon head on and not pretending he doesn’t exist.
It would of course be ideal for Unherd to allow Dr Yeadon to answer this article himself. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your stance, he is currently in France and unable to return to the UK because of the French lockdown, so presumably has access to only what material he can access via the internet. Why doesn’t Freddie Sayers do an in-depth interview with him? – I don’t think that has happened so far.
I know about Dr Yeadon’s current situation from an interesting interview he gave to Anna Brees on 29 October. That can still be found with a little work, but access to it meantime has been removed by Facebook and Youtube under “emergency” Ofcom rules apparently. So much for free debate in the UK.
At https://lockdownsceptics.or… we learn that “Dr Mike Yeadon has a degree in biochemistry and toxicology and a research-based PhD in respiratory pharmacology. He has spent over 30 years leading new medicines research in some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, leaving Pfizer in 2011 as Vice President & Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory. That was the most senior research position in this field in Pfizer. Since leaving Pfizer, Dr Yeadon has founded his own biotech company, Ziarco, which was sold to the worlds biggest drug company, Novartis, in 2017.”
Impressive though his qualifications are, ( see also the Delingpod interview on https://www.youtube.com/wat… ) Dr Yeadon at 60 and semi retired may be a softer target to smear as a “Covid denier” than e.g. Gupta or Heneghan both currently employed by substantial organisations, with access to substantial resources of all kinds.
Anyone who hasn’t done so should access Dr Yeadon’s arguments directly e.g. from the links I have given, and weigh them against this article.
Because of the verbal coincidence of COVID with corona virus, the meaning of COVID: Certificate of Vaccination ID is insufficiently acknowledged. Otherwise the most telling refutation of the kind of propaganda above comes in the statement from German corporate fraud lawyer Dr Reiner Fuellmich, ‘Crimes against Humanity’ detailing class action based on ‘criminal PCR tests’, citing official sources contradicting their own propaganda, as well as scientists who are mostly sidelined by the media.
Man eaten by Shark,dies Of SARS2 ?
Bookmarked, thanks.
When 5 nurses find the amount of positive tests dubious they send off 5 swabs swabbed on nothing, and they came back positive. Then you had 3 dental nurses do the same thing with the same result, this started to question the validity of the tests and the “virus” It got even worse when a family waited so long for their test appointment they gave up and went back home and received text messages the following day saying they were positive. There are people on video swabbing a dog, an orange and a yucca plant, all coming back positive. Its getting that comical we are thinking of starting a Face Book page to upload these types of videos. To a more serious note. Here is the real reason for this plandemic. https://www.youtube.com/wat…
The authors, seemingly disciples of The New Normal, quake in terror at a return to “our terrible former hygiene habits” (sic). Incidentally and even more bizarrely, I take it they’re referring to the West, not Chinese wet markets. Ah, let us warn our children to beware of Filthy Humanity and embrace our move into pristine transhumanism!
I read the Yeadon paper some weeks ago and the flaws were obvious then. Nevertheless it was greeted by the anti-lockdown brigade as gospel – they’ve been clutching at straws of one sort or another for 8 months.
Another thing on false positives pointed out by Tom Chivers is that with a given testing regime, even with false positives, a rise in +ve results still means a rise in true positives. It has been obvious in the data since August because the ratio of the number of tests to +ve results has decreased. Yet people still claim the rise is because of false positives. And if it is a problem it is easily solved by re-testing people who test positive once.
Anyway it is good to see at least one piece of nonsense debunked.
One needs accept that back in the winter, the virus was so new that scientists didn’t even recognise it. It then took months to develop effective tests to find people who were currently infected. We still do not have an effective test to show if someone was previously infected and recovered. All the while the virus has been spreading.
All of which does make it as near as makes no difference, impossible to determine exactly how many have been exposed. The very wuestions abkut the Yealdon paper being asked demonstrate the fact.
Yet without testing and effective measurement, the government is flying blind in fog without a radio whilst trying to land. All the boffins are doing at present is little more than navigating by dead reckoning. Meanwhile they are t lling the captain what to do.
It’s worth noting that U.S. study estimating 9.3% national seroprevalence used blood draws (from dialysis patients) in July. The authors only needed to add the words “as of July”, which would have conveyed more information. There have obviously been many more cumulative people exposed to COVID in the U.S. as of November than there were as of July.
The U.S. had a first wave in March/April that hit the Northeast hardest, along with parts of the Midwest (mainly big cities in the latter). There was then a summer wave that peaked in late July and mostly hit warm weather states (the South, Arizona, and some increase in California). The third, current wave is showing some increases in those areas but the hardest hit areas per capita are parts of the Midwest that previously hadn’t experienced much COVID.
Anyway, my overall point is that seroprevalence number is now 3-4 months old. It may have missed a significant part of the summer COVID wave depending on time to seroconvert and when in July those samples were gathered. One could also argue that dialysis patients might have been more careful in avoiding COVID than the overall U.S. population, because they know that they’re at higher risk. A counterargument could be that they’ve been at risk of exposure due to the need for more healthcare interactions, both dialysis and otherwise.
Put that all together, though, and this 3-4 month old study should extrapolate to current U.S. seroprevalence is *at least* 15%. I think it’s at least 20% if the timing of the study missed much of the summer wave, and extrapolating as high as 25% or even 30% isn’t out of the question.
Why is the top voted comment “awaiting moderation” all day?
No doubt this article will help with their political ambitions in the future.
I’m in the middle here, neither a denialism nor a lockdown isn’t, clearly cases are riding but viruses don’t do waves, it is just being seasonal now.
Hi, Covid is a terrible disease,
But does anyone, know anybody, who has had ordinary Seasonal Flu, or a bad cold this year?? If you went for a PCR test, it would probably come up as Positive. They say it’s not that reliable.
Mike Yeadon Isn’t a Covid Denier. He made most of his videos before the New Variants came. Not saying he was completely correct about everything, however, the media is quite narrow minded. If you question the official narrative at all, your classed as someone who doesn’t believe it here.
You can’t say the Great Barrington Scientists are Covid deniers, it’s ridiculous.
Dr Yeadon knows what he is talking about. Enough said.
Great work Saloni. I have hardly no medical or scientific knowledge, but felt strongly that Dr Yeadon was wrong, based purely on the numbers I was witnessing not just here, but around the world, with my own eyes. You have helped me understand why I knew he was wrong. People are now delighted that it looks like “Christmas is saved”, regardless of how many thousands of people get sacrificed in the process. I can’t help thinking how much better things would be if people could just think for themselves and replace the word “allowed” with the word “safe”. We really can be disappointing as a species sometimes. Thank you for your insight.
Yes. Other people are disappointing, aren’t they?
Interesting, Phil. I look at this a little differently.
As I understand it, immunity doesn’t mean you don’t become infected. It means your body can successfully kill off the virus.
Given that 99.5% of people who become infected recover – as many as 80% of them without developing symptoms of any kind – surely that suggests that immunity is already endemic within the human population?
Especially, as so many people kill off the virus before symptoms can even develop.
It may be due to innate, rather than acquired immunity – or even combination of the two – but does that matter?
And whilst I’m not dismissing deaths – because every one is a tragedy – the vast majority of those who die have one or more co-morbidities that are suppressing their immune system, which is probably why they die.
I believe our focus should be on helping them by developing treatments to fight the virus and, yes, a vaccine that’s used to target and protect the most vulnerable. I just don’t get why we need to vaccinate the world when 99.5% already have the means to fight it.
The cynical part of me thinks about the £Billions that Big Pharma are going to make out of this by vaccinating the world when it doesn’t appear to be necessary.
Like you, I’m not a medical professional, I’m just looking at this logically.