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Why are excess deaths still so high? We can't just blame a failing NHS

A Pride march in London last year. Credit: Getty.

A Pride march in London last year. Credit: Getty.


and
January 30, 2023   6 mins

Around the middle of last year, researchers in several countries started noticing something disturbing: despite the fall in Covid deaths everywhere, excess deaths (compared to the pre-pandemic five-year average) were actually rising. Even more worryingly, a disproportionate number of those excess deaths were occurring in young people. This was the opposite of what you would expect in the receding phase of a pandemic — one which had largely spared young people in the first place.

Some researchers sounded the alarm, but were largely ignored by governments, public health authorities and the mainstream media. It was a curious response from those who in the previous two and a half years had justified the complete upending of human societies on the basis of “preserving life”. Throughout the second half of 2022, however, excess deaths have continued to rise at faster rates, and have continued to do so in the first weeks of 2023, to the point that the problem has become impossible to ignore.

The BBC recently reported that more than 650,000 deaths were registered in the UK in 2022 — 9% more than 2019. That’s around 50,000 excess deaths, most of which have been concentrated in the second half of the year (since July, there have been an average of 1,300 additional deaths per week). Excluding the pandemic, this represents the highest excess deaths level in 70 years — and only a fraction of these deaths are attributable to Covid. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that excess deaths were almost 3,000 higher than normal in the second week of January alone — more than 20% above the average. Covid-19 accounted for just 5% of the total. The week before, overall deaths were 30% higher than expected.

If we break the numbers down by age groups, the results are even more surprising. While excess deaths in most age groups, even if above average, tend to be lower than they were in 2020 and 2021, as you would expect, there is one outlier: people between the age of 0 and 24 registered lower-than-average death rates in 2020 and 2021. Throughout 2022, on the other hand, they have been dying at higher rates than expected. In other words, more young people are dying today in Britain than before, or even during, the pandemic — and we don’t know why.

And yet, despite this stark discrepancy, there has been a notable lack of public acknowledgement of the non-Covid mortality crisis — let alone any meaningful explanation as for what’s driving it. Earlier this month, Health Secretary Steve Barclay told Sky News that “it’s extremely complicated as to what the drive of those excess deaths are”. Meanwhile, health experts say the causes could include anything from ambulance delays, long waits in A&E and major backlogs for routine NHS care to high flu rates and long Covid. Indeed, the consensus seems to hold that the general breakdown of the NHS is largely to blame for the increase in excess deaths.

But there is a hole in this argument: excess deaths are a problem in a number of other high-income countries, where the “NHS is broken” argument doesn’t hold. According to EuroMOMO, a European mortality monitoring activity supported by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), many European countries are showing elevated levels of excess mortality in all age groups — around 35% above average — and did so throughout 2022. In fact, despite relatively low Covid death rates, overall excess deaths in all age groups in Europe in 2022 were as high as in 2020 and higher than 2021 — even in the oldest cohorts. Beyond Europe, the situation is much the same: Australia and New Zealand recorded, respectively, 16% and 9% more excess deaths than the historical average in 2022, while in the United States, CDC data shows that the rate of non-Covid excess deaths in the first half of 2022 was even higher than in 2020 or 2021.

In short, a significant number of Western countries are experiencing a surge in excess deaths across all age groups. And there is no single explanation for this. Rather, each country seems to have its own theory — none of which have anything to do with the NHS. In Portugal, December saw excess deaths which beat all records of the previous 13 years, including during Covid-19, which the press attributes to an ageing population, and the resurgence of other respiratory viruses alongside the summer heat waves. In France and Spain, the summer heat waves are also seen as a clear cause of the excess deaths, while in Chile one additional cause of the surge in mortality was seen as “deaths avoided during the pandemic owing to the lower risk of certain events, like traffic accidents or injuries at work”.

Where countries share one phenomenon — in this case, excess deaths — and attribute it to different causes, it is reasonable to ask some questions; the problem today seems to be that our public-health experts are not asking the right ones. At the end of last month, for instance, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Chris Whitty suggested that a lack of access to statins during the pandemic may have caused an upsurge in coronary heart disease, which has been the main driver of excess deaths. People did not attend medical services as much as usual, and the shortfall was having devastating consequences. However, as Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson pointed out shortly afterwards, it takes roughly five years for statins to have a notable impact on mortality reduction — so reduced medication since 2020 cannot have led to these outcomes.

So, what explains the rise in heart disease? The collapse in routine healthcare appointments (due to the single-minded focus on Covid at the expense of all other pathologies) is fairly obviously one part of the story, but is there anything else at play? One potential explanation is the impact of lockdowns on people’s physical health. After all, Whitty himself noted in March last year that lockdowns had increased young people’s obesity, which could lead to lowering life expectancy. Moreover, the political and social intrusion of the state into peoples’ emotional well-being, and the consequent breakdown of the pre-existing social contract, is also known to affect a citizen’s health. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, for example, there was a significant increase in mortality in Russia, much of which was triggered by vascular disease. There is a clear precedent in living memory, then, for immense social and economic shocks leading to surges in heart disease.

Also relevant to the elderly is the increase in isolation produced by lockdown policies. According to the WHO factsheet on dementia, “risk factors include depression, social isolation [and] cognitive inactivity”, all of which were widely increased by the lockdown response; one 2015 study even found that social isolation increased the risk of mortality by between 26-32%. The lockdowns therefore are almost certainly a contributing factor to what we are currently seeing, particularly as the UK government itself has noted that those who die from dementia often have proximate additional causes of death in strokes or heart disease.

Finally, there is one possible explanation that has to be considered, at least as a contributing factor for the rise in non-Covid excess deaths: the role of the vaccines, in particular those from Pfizer and Moderna that use the new mRNA technology. This is a hyper-polarising issue, so let’s start with what we know: the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are associated with a higher risk of developing myocarditis (heart inflammation), especially in younger males (possibly due to the spike protein generated by the vaccine circulating in the blood), and other serious adverse events such as blood clots. This is confirmed by a number of studies (see, for example, here, here, here, here, and here) and even by the CDC’s own data. There is quite a lot of variability between the studies, but they appear to suggest that, with young people, the risk from the vaccine may well outweigh the risk from Covid or from post-Covid myocarditis.

That said, proving a connection between vaccine-related harms and the disproportionately high number of young people dying at the moment is not straightforward. However, a number of studies — such as a recent analysis by Martin Neil, professor of computer science and statistics at Queen Mary University in London, and Norman Fenton, a mathematician and leading expert on risk assessment and statistics — do show a statistically significant correlation between vaccination rates and excess mortality.

To what extent this correlation actually implies causation does, of course, remain unclear. But just as lockdowns are clearly a factor, it seems unwise to rule out the vaccines as a contributing factor without proper investigation — the point is that we simply don’t know, as we don’t have enough data to establish or disprove a link. Ultimately, the causes of the excess deaths are probably varied, and involve a combination of factors. This shouldn’t be surprising, since lockdowns and vaccines were always connected in the pandemic response. But we shall never know for sure if we don’t start asking these uncomfortable questions — especially when our politicians and public-health experts seem reluctant to do so themselves.


Thomas Fazi is an UnHerd columnist and translator. His latest book is The Covid Consensus, co-authored with Toby Green.

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Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
1 year ago

It is the vaccines. Every single thing we have been told about Covid, the mandates and the vaccines has been a lie. 9 year olds don’t have strokes and heart attacks – or at least they didn’t before the vaccines. We are still being told they are safe for pregnant women – they were never tested on pregnant women. The mainstream press are pushing all kinds of nonsense – gardening elevates your risk of heart attacks, etc. Here is a question for you – are they having excess deaths in Africa? In Haiti? In Bangladesh? The other problem is of course that even if there was a genuine reason for this – I simply won’t believe it. I, and millions like me, simply don’t believe the physicians, university professors and other institutional ‘leaders’ anymore. Or the mainstream media. They have no credibility – or power to persuade.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter Johnson
Albireo Double
Albireo Double
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Good post.

The unnecessary deaths caused by the political lies will always be the most disastrous outcome remembered by individuals. But the catastrophic loss of of credibility of governing institutions throughout the West may yet turn out to be the most far-reaching consequence.

I wonder what the next dozen elections in the West will produce. It’s hard to guess, currently. Personally I hope it will be the start of an overthrow of the WEF-based order.

Last edited 1 year ago by Albireo Double
Russell Dale
Russell Dale
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Good article but slightly nutty ranting comments
There are parallels with excess mortality from the post global financial crisis (GFC) data.
When the pandemic started there was clear data on the costs of societal disruption – increased excess mortality in mental health, cardiovascular and cancer deaths post GFC.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-downturn-excess-cancer-deaths-atun/

Although it is not exactly the same as covid, the parallels are manifest:
Loss of employment, insurance, loss of social connectiveness, loss of health screening all equal increased risk of death.

Maybe we should learn from recent history rather than rant.

N Forster
N Forster
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Would you like to address any of the issues raised by the people you criticise, or just call them names?

Jim R
Jim R
1 year ago
Reply to  N Forster

The prominence of the ad hominem always gives away the weakness of the position. It also reveals the author to be uninterested in a fair and civil argument – the strategy is that the target (and onlookers harbouring sceptical thoughts) will stay quiet for fear of humiliation and social rejection. These anti-rational techniques have been embraced to devastating effect in the mainstream and its disappointing to see them here on a site that exists largely to try to counteract these toxins. But once all debates have collapsed into name calling, where does that leave a society with real problems to solve? When we resort to schoolyard techniques to sort out our problems, don’t be surprised that our once-enlightened society begins to resemble “Lord of the Flies”.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim R

No.

The problem has not been one of “toxic debate”. There has *been* no “debate” because of totalitarian neo-Marxist propaganda and censorship.

Helen Murray
Helen Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

I ddn’t know the Conservative Government was neo-Markist. We now know thanks to Big Brother Watch that his Govenermnt was up to some pretty unscrupulous surveillance during the Pandemic under the 77th Brigade.Not everything can be blamed on left wing politics.

Helen Murray
Helen Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

I ddn’t know the Conservative Government was neo-Markist. We now know thanks to Big Brother Watch that his Govenermnt was up to some pretty unscrupulous surveillance during the Pandemic under the 77th Brigade.Not everything can be blamed on left wing politics.

Betsy Arehart
Betsy Arehart
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim R

What we have here are a lot of very angry (myself included) people expressing their anger at the whole lying covid-management debacle, and their anger at realizing that the societal institutions can no longer be believed or trusted in. When you have been brought up to trust these institutions—with fairly good reason—and then find they no longer can be believed, it is a bitter pill to swallow. Perhaps contributing to excess deaths.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim R

No.

The problem has not been one of “toxic debate”. There has *been* no “debate” because of totalitarian neo-Marxist propaganda and censorship.

Betsy Arehart
Betsy Arehart
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim R

What we have here are a lot of very angry (myself included) people expressing their anger at the whole lying covid-management debacle, and their anger at realizing that the societal institutions can no longer be believed or trusted in. When you have been brought up to trust these institutions—with fairly good reason—and then find they no longer can be believed, it is a bitter pill to swallow. Perhaps contributing to excess deaths.

Jim R
Jim R
1 year ago
Reply to  N Forster

The prominence of the ad hominem always gives away the weakness of the position. It also reveals the author to be uninterested in a fair and civil argument – the strategy is that the target (and onlookers harbouring sceptical thoughts) will stay quiet for fear of humiliation and social rejection. These anti-rational techniques have been embraced to devastating effect in the mainstream and its disappointing to see them here on a site that exists largely to try to counteract these toxins. But once all debates have collapsed into name calling, where does that leave a society with real problems to solve? When we resort to schoolyard techniques to sort out our problems, don’t be surprised that our once-enlightened society begins to resemble “Lord of the Flies”.

Kevin R
Kevin R
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Excellent comment. Expect many downvotes.

Julia Waugh
Julia Waugh
1 year ago
Reply to  Kevin R

A comment only those jabbed and boosted could make or applaud.

G A
G A
1 year ago
Reply to  Kevin R

That’s because you are wrong and weak

Julia Waugh
Julia Waugh
1 year ago
Reply to  Kevin R

A comment only those jabbed and boosted could make or applaud.

G A
G A
1 year ago
Reply to  Kevin R

That’s because you are wrong and weak

Albireo Double
Albireo Double
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

I think your comparison has some validity in the US. But very little in the UK.

Paige M
Paige M
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

It’s a fair statement, however, if we were asking the hard questions right now people wouldn’t have to “rant” as you suggest. This requires more than ranting at this stage, it requires shouting at the top of your lungs to have an independent investigative body struck that digs in, asks the hard questions, leaves no stone unturned and and does the proper data analysis. This will never happen – all manner of perverse incentives are driving our institutions to the complete opposite side of real science now. We are so far beyond a rant now.

Susie Bell
Susie Bell
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

None of this answers the question, why so many deaths in the young? Obesity? 20 pounds (even 50 pounds) overweight in the young would not be significant. Social isolation? They were not behaving like curtain twitching pensioners and carried on seeing their mates. Screening? What healthy 20 and thirty somethings spend time getting health screens?

Nick Wade
Nick Wade
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

And the 9 year olds having strokes?

Chris Haley
Chris Haley
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Two obvious problems with drawing this parallel: the excess deaths we are currently experiencing are *much* higher than those following the GFC. And a large proportion of the deaths are sudden cardiovascular issues, not problems arising from the delayed treatment of treatable cancers.
I would also take issue with your description of ‘ranty’ comments: people have been raising concerns about excess deaths for many, many months but have been persistently censored, down-played or ignored – and so have had to shout.

P Branagan
P Branagan
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

One can only assume Mr Dale is an investor in Big Pharma or directly or indirectly a paid beneficiary of their ‘largesse’.

Helen Murray
Helen Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Yes indeed, the Lockdowns were not only harmful to physical health but the dire economic consequences are playing out now. We all know that one of the biggest factors in higher death rates is poverty which the lockdowns have caused in abundance. Professors and doctors who warned about the harmful consequences of lockdowns in the Great Barrington Declaration were suppressed and ridiculed. See the Twitter files.

G A
G A
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Such a naive comment from someone sounding intelligent. This is your issue, you can’t see common sense! If it’s that obvious how can it be ignored. It’s people like you stopping us getting to the crux of the issue.

N Forster
N Forster
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Would you like to address any of the issues raised by the people you criticise, or just call them names?

Kevin R
Kevin R
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Excellent comment. Expect many downvotes.

Albireo Double
Albireo Double
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

I think your comparison has some validity in the US. But very little in the UK.

Paige M
Paige M
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

It’s a fair statement, however, if we were asking the hard questions right now people wouldn’t have to “rant” as you suggest. This requires more than ranting at this stage, it requires shouting at the top of your lungs to have an independent investigative body struck that digs in, asks the hard questions, leaves no stone unturned and and does the proper data analysis. This will never happen – all manner of perverse incentives are driving our institutions to the complete opposite side of real science now. We are so far beyond a rant now.

Susie Bell
Susie Bell
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

None of this answers the question, why so many deaths in the young? Obesity? 20 pounds (even 50 pounds) overweight in the young would not be significant. Social isolation? They were not behaving like curtain twitching pensioners and carried on seeing their mates. Screening? What healthy 20 and thirty somethings spend time getting health screens?

Nick Wade
Nick Wade
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

And the 9 year olds having strokes?

Chris Haley
Chris Haley
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Two obvious problems with drawing this parallel: the excess deaths we are currently experiencing are *much* higher than those following the GFC. And a large proportion of the deaths are sudden cardiovascular issues, not problems arising from the delayed treatment of treatable cancers.
I would also take issue with your description of ‘ranty’ comments: people have been raising concerns about excess deaths for many, many months but have been persistently censored, down-played or ignored – and so have had to shout.

P Branagan
P Branagan
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

One can only assume Mr Dale is an investor in Big Pharma or directly or indirectly a paid beneficiary of their ‘largesse’.

Helen Murray
Helen Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Yes indeed, the Lockdowns were not only harmful to physical health but the dire economic consequences are playing out now. We all know that one of the biggest factors in higher death rates is poverty which the lockdowns have caused in abundance. Professors and doctors who warned about the harmful consequences of lockdowns in the Great Barrington Declaration were suppressed and ridiculed. See the Twitter files.

G A
G A
1 year ago
Reply to  Russell Dale

Such a naive comment from someone sounding intelligent. This is your issue, you can’t see common sense! If it’s that obvious how can it be ignored. It’s people like you stopping us getting to the crux of the issue.

Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Given that the article gives several plausible candidates for excess mortality what makes you so sure that it’s solely the vaccines?

My feeling is that for many who vehemently opposed the lockdowns they want it to be the vaccines because that would give them a weapon with which to punish the those inflicted the Covid restrictions on them.

I can understand this. Personally I feel like I was robbed of two years of my life, time we will not get back, by the lockdowns but this doesn’t mean we should throw reason out the window and adopt a kind of monomania with regards to the vaccines.

We know the vaccines can cause myocarditis but we also haven’t seen an associated increase in death rates from those diagnosed with vaccine induced heart problems, nor has a mechanism for how they would go on to cause death been identified. Given that studies find much higher rates of myocarditis in Covid patients, if there was an increased death rate due long term damage to the heart, how could it be distinguished that this was due to the vaccine and not Covid?

I still feel that the most likely explanation will be a combination of a wide number of factors: Lack of health care during the pandemic, later diagnosis, social isolation worsening health conditions or increasing deaths of despair, increased waiting lists due to backlogs in the health care system, potential immune naivety from certain viruses not been encountered for the last two years, rebounds in accidents from high risk behaviour which were suppressed by lockdown, the possibility that a disproportionate number of the very vulnerable were highly sheltered by the lockdown and now their mortality rates are returning to normal.

When faced with this Gordian knot of potential causes, the temptation might be to say, it’s all down to the vaccines, and cut it but expedient answers rarely are the correct ones.

Last edited 1 year ago by Matthew Powell
John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

“My feeling is that for many who vehemently opposed the lockdowns they want it to be the vaccines because that would give them a weapon with which to punish the those inflicted the Covid restrictions on them.”

Surely such people would blame the lockdowns, if that’s what they opposed? I can speak as one myself: I opposed the lockdowns on the grounds of their potential human cost, and it looks as if I was right. Why would I need to blame the vaccines, even if I also believe that the vaccines may well have had serious side-effects outweighing their benefits for certain groups?

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Andrew Horsman
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Whatever combination of vaccines, lockdowns, or any of the other interventions or their economic consequences it might be, it’s clear that political and other authorities across the world and in the UK threw a generation of young people and children under the bus in a desperate, blind moral panic to protect, or be seen to be protecting, the elderly and the “vulnerable”.

Why don’t they try and find the humility and courage to try and learn lessons from this catastrophe, instead of burying their heads in the sand or trying to find someone else to blame? Truth and reconciliation is desperately needed.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

Well said. But they will not. They cannot for fear of criminal sanction . Everyone in authority is complicit in the NHS First catastrophe. Everyone. But our media/BBC – to its eternal shame a guilty lead propagandist party in inducing public hysteria – will protect themselves, all the craven political parties and the authoritarian health Industrial complex with censorship and lies. And our supposed protector – the law – remain silent and unused. Human rights?? Yeh right. Magna Carta did ut better. It is like living under communism. They speak one false truth after another. Covid. Net Zero. Climate Emergency. Equality mania. We know it is a State ideology and riddled with lies. But we cannot remove the unelected technocracy which holds the levers of real power. So are are mute frustrated disempowered. And they get away with it.

Betsy Arehart
Betsy Arehart
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

Because the Blob doesn’t do humility and courage, or truth or reconciliation.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

Well said. But they will not. They cannot for fear of criminal sanction . Everyone in authority is complicit in the NHS First catastrophe. Everyone. But our media/BBC – to its eternal shame a guilty lead propagandist party in inducing public hysteria – will protect themselves, all the craven political parties and the authoritarian health Industrial complex with censorship and lies. And our supposed protector – the law – remain silent and unused. Human rights?? Yeh right. Magna Carta did ut better. It is like living under communism. They speak one false truth after another. Covid. Net Zero. Climate Emergency. Equality mania. We know it is a State ideology and riddled with lies. But we cannot remove the unelected technocracy which holds the levers of real power. So are are mute frustrated disempowered. And they get away with it.

Betsy Arehart
Betsy Arehart
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

Because the Blob doesn’t do humility and courage, or truth or reconciliation.

Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Because it was always known on some level, even if the if governments failed to quantify it, that lockdown would cause harms. However, it could be argued that lockdown was to protect the most vulnerable therefore can be justified as an act of solidarity, whether you agree with that or not.

The vaccines, whilst they reduced the rates of deaths and serious illness failed in the end to prevent transmission, meaning that the mass vaccination of the under 50’s has no such justification. If it was to emerge that as well turning out to have been unnecessary, they also caused harm, this would be far more damaging for authorities. That’s why I think vaccines are the preferred target.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

I am far more outraged about the pointless loss of my freedom – and I had it pretty easy – than a vaccination programme which actually was not coerced in the UK.

jules Ritchie
jules Ritchie
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

If you wanted to keep your job as the wage-earners in thousands of family had to do, you were coerced into having a vax.

Iris Violet
Iris Violet
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Andrew this is inaccurate. There were many way in which the uptake was enforced. I could not travel to help my elderly father who was unwell and in need of urgent care as he lives – now lived – in another country if I did not take it. I have thus been coerced. Many would have lost their jobs.

Alison Wren
Alison Wren
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

As a person over 70 I had 2 emails 3texts and 2 phone calls trying to get me to be vaccinated. As a former biology teacher/lecturer I was aware that having contracted Covid (very mildly) before the vax was released I would have natural immunity. I was thrown out of my choir, my discussion group and slurred as an “anti-vaxxer” by many. Had I been less secure in my knowledge of immunology (and less bolshie) I would have submitted. 150,000 health care workers (mostly working class women)were sacked for refusing the vaccine (probably most had already got natural immunity from infection) and it was only when highly paid consultants in the NHS refused that the mandate was removed. One reason for the bed-blocking in hospitals at the moment……..
All this is coercion-not as bad as the USA (most congressmen have shares in Big Pharma) but coercion nonetheless.

Last edited 1 year ago by Alison Wren
John Dee
John Dee
1 year ago
Reply to  Alison Wren

I would never have submitted. Two reasons spring to mind:
A ‘safe and effective’ vaccine that the manufacturers insisted on being held unaccountable for.
No long-term effects of multiple mRNA jabs are known. Nor will be for some years yet. I thought I’d be fit enough to survive covid (true as it turned out) but didn’t think embracing an unknown was in my own interest.
I suppose a third (rather more latterly) would be the unfathomable drive to inject all those over 6 months of age, some of whom were at almost zero risk from covid.

William Murphy
William Murphy
1 year ago
Reply to  John Dee

“unfathomable drive”? As per the best advice in the history of journalism – follow the money. There’s no money in natural immunity.

William Murphy
William Murphy
1 year ago
Reply to  John Dee

“unfathomable drive”? As per the best advice in the history of journalism – follow the money. There’s no money in natural immunity.

William Murphy
William Murphy
1 year ago
Reply to  Alison Wren

All health workers are equal. It’s just that the consultants are much more equal than others. What did those consultants know that made them reluctant to get jabbed?

John Dee
John Dee
1 year ago
Reply to  Alison Wren

I would never have submitted. Two reasons spring to mind:
A ‘safe and effective’ vaccine that the manufacturers insisted on being held unaccountable for.
No long-term effects of multiple mRNA jabs are known. Nor will be for some years yet. I thought I’d be fit enough to survive covid (true as it turned out) but didn’t think embracing an unknown was in my own interest.
I suppose a third (rather more latterly) would be the unfathomable drive to inject all those over 6 months of age, some of whom were at almost zero risk from covid.

William Murphy
William Murphy
1 year ago
Reply to  Alison Wren

All health workers are equal. It’s just that the consultants are much more equal than others. What did those consultants know that made them reluctant to get jabbed?

Judith Corstjens
Judith Corstjens
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

There was coercion. If you wanted to preserve your freedom to travel, for example, you had to give into the coercion to get jabbed and show the certificate on demand.

William Murphy
William Murphy
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

I agree about the pointless loss of freedom. But as for: “… vaccination programme which actually was not coerced in the UK”. I did not get the vaccine and was not actually coerced in the sense of being forced to march to a vaccination centre. But I was certainly conscious of continual pressure from all sides. At the top, it was the repulsive Boris urging us to get jabbed. And the late Queen describing vaccine refusers as selfish. And the BBC ‘s ceaseless propaganda. At local level, it was the near horror from family and friends that I was unjabbed.

jules Ritchie
jules Ritchie
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

If you wanted to keep your job as the wage-earners in thousands of family had to do, you were coerced into having a vax.

Iris Violet
Iris Violet
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Andrew this is inaccurate. There were many way in which the uptake was enforced. I could not travel to help my elderly father who was unwell and in need of urgent care as he lives – now lived – in another country if I did not take it. I have thus been coerced. Many would have lost their jobs.

Alison Wren
Alison Wren
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

As a person over 70 I had 2 emails 3texts and 2 phone calls trying to get me to be vaccinated. As a former biology teacher/lecturer I was aware that having contracted Covid (very mildly) before the vax was released I would have natural immunity. I was thrown out of my choir, my discussion group and slurred as an “anti-vaxxer” by many. Had I been less secure in my knowledge of immunology (and less bolshie) I would have submitted. 150,000 health care workers (mostly working class women)were sacked for refusing the vaccine (probably most had already got natural immunity from infection) and it was only when highly paid consultants in the NHS refused that the mandate was removed. One reason for the bed-blocking in hospitals at the moment……..
All this is coercion-not as bad as the USA (most congressmen have shares in Big Pharma) but coercion nonetheless.

Last edited 1 year ago by Alison Wren
Judith Corstjens
Judith Corstjens
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

There was coercion. If you wanted to preserve your freedom to travel, for example, you had to give into the coercion to get jabbed and show the certificate on demand.

William Murphy
William Murphy
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

I agree about the pointless loss of freedom. But as for: “… vaccination programme which actually was not coerced in the UK”. I did not get the vaccine and was not actually coerced in the sense of being forced to march to a vaccination centre. But I was certainly conscious of continual pressure from all sides. At the top, it was the repulsive Boris urging us to get jabbed. And the late Queen describing vaccine refusers as selfish. And the BBC ‘s ceaseless propaganda. At local level, it was the near horror from family and friends that I was unjabbed.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

“The vaccines, whilst they reduced the rates of deaths and serious illness”

The evidence says otherwise, but don’t let that trouble you.

John Dee
John Dee
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Since they managed to kick all those elderly patients out of hospital (untested) and back to their care homes, the argument for protecting the most vulnerable looks rather weak. It would have been kinder to shoot the ‘bed blockers’.
Add to that all the weak and vulnerable elderly who were locked up to die alone and unvisited.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

I am far more outraged about the pointless loss of my freedom – and I had it pretty easy – than a vaccination programme which actually was not coerced in the UK.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

“The vaccines, whilst they reduced the rates of deaths and serious illness”

The evidence says otherwise, but don’t let that trouble you.

John Dee
John Dee
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Since they managed to kick all those elderly patients out of hospital (untested) and back to their care homes, the argument for protecting the most vulnerable looks rather weak. It would have been kinder to shoot the ‘bed blockers’.
Add to that all the weak and vulnerable elderly who were locked up to die alone and unvisited.

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Speak for me, too. Sums up my position as well.
Aside from the creeping totalitarianism, I’ve not said much of anything regards to the vaccines.

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

I opposed both the lockdowns and the vaccines. Even if the vaccines were perfect the lockdowns were completely overdone especially for children. They achieved nothing in the end and people who tried to say so were suppressed on social media and in the press. For 2 years we were told that no sacrifice was too high if we could save just one 83 year old life. The drumbeat of alarm was beaten relentlessly. But suddenly there is a glaring lack of interest in excess deaths – including the very young. The media doesn’t talk about it at all. When young people literally stroke out live on TV – the response is a shrug. “Hey $@&$ happens – chill out.”

William Murphy
William Murphy
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

I remember the totally deranged comment from a guy interviewed on BBC radio in 2020. He declared that no price was too high to save one life from COVID… “a trillion pounds….” Which is about seven years expenditure on the whole of the NHS.

Which reminds me of the often repeated comment that the NHS is the nearest thing to a national religion in the UK. In our local Waterstones a few days ago, there was the history of 70 years of the NHS. It was in the religious books section between the Synod of 1559 and C S Lewis.

William Murphy
William Murphy
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

I remember the totally deranged comment from a guy interviewed on BBC radio in 2020. He declared that no price was too high to save one life from COVID… “a trillion pounds….” Which is about seven years expenditure on the whole of the NHS.

Which reminds me of the often repeated comment that the NHS is the nearest thing to a national religion in the UK. In our local Waterstones a few days ago, there was the history of 70 years of the NHS. It was in the religious books section between the Synod of 1559 and C S Lewis.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Too many people in my eyes aren’t able to do as you say unfortunately, they’re far too tribal. They didn’t like lockdowns (which I didn’t) therefore everything that was done in regards to Covid must have been wrong. We see the same in politics, where they believe everything one side says is right and the opposition always wrong when most of us know that’s nonsense

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Everything that was done in regards to Covid *was* wrong.

But some people are just too cowardly to form an evidence-based opinion. They’d rather believe the garbage fed to them by the BBC and corrupt politicians.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Everything that was done in regards to Covid *was* wrong.

But some people are just too cowardly to form an evidence-based opinion. They’d rather believe the garbage fed to them by the BBC and corrupt politicians.

Andrew Horsman
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Whatever combination of vaccines, lockdowns, or any of the other interventions or their economic consequences it might be, it’s clear that political and other authorities across the world and in the UK threw a generation of young people and children under the bus in a desperate, blind moral panic to protect, or be seen to be protecting, the elderly and the “vulnerable”.

Why don’t they try and find the humility and courage to try and learn lessons from this catastrophe, instead of burying their heads in the sand or trying to find someone else to blame? Truth and reconciliation is desperately needed.

Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Because it was always known on some level, even if the if governments failed to quantify it, that lockdown would cause harms. However, it could be argued that lockdown was to protect the most vulnerable therefore can be justified as an act of solidarity, whether you agree with that or not.

The vaccines, whilst they reduced the rates of deaths and serious illness failed in the end to prevent transmission, meaning that the mass vaccination of the under 50’s has no such justification. If it was to emerge that as well turning out to have been unnecessary, they also caused harm, this would be far more damaging for authorities. That’s why I think vaccines are the preferred target.

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Speak for me, too. Sums up my position as well.
Aside from the creeping totalitarianism, I’ve not said much of anything regards to the vaccines.

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

I opposed both the lockdowns and the vaccines. Even if the vaccines were perfect the lockdowns were completely overdone especially for children. They achieved nothing in the end and people who tried to say so were suppressed on social media and in the press. For 2 years we were told that no sacrifice was too high if we could save just one 83 year old life. The drumbeat of alarm was beaten relentlessly. But suddenly there is a glaring lack of interest in excess deaths – including the very young. The media doesn’t talk about it at all. When young people literally stroke out live on TV – the response is a shrug. “Hey $@&$ happens – chill out.”

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Too many people in my eyes aren’t able to do as you say unfortunately, they’re far too tribal. They didn’t like lockdowns (which I didn’t) therefore everything that was done in regards to Covid must have been wrong. We see the same in politics, where they believe everything one side says is right and the opposition always wrong when most of us know that’s nonsense

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Just to correct you somewhat. (a) In young men age 18-50 the frequency of myocarditis post-vaccination vastly surpasses that post-covid. (b) from a purely biological perspective, covid, in the vast majority of cases, is not a systemic disease but limited to the respiratory tract so the spike protein does not circulate in the blood; in the case of vaccination, the spike protein (synthesized within cells from the mRNA or DNA for the AZ vaccine) circulates throughout the body and is found in virtually every organ. That’s a completely different situation.
As for the causes of excess deaths one has to look at the age group and demographic where you don’t expect people to die of cardiovascular disease. i.e. very few people less than 50 are going to be on statins, for example, so Whitty’s argument/proposal is just idiotic (Not to mention that statins have absolutely no effect on mortality for those who haven’t yet experienced a cardiovascular event, except in very rare cases of inherited hyperlipidemias.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

The virus has also been shown to cause myocarditis, so seeing as almost the entire population would have had at least one of the strains by now woukd that not also explain the rise rather than just the vaccines?

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Yes indeed, but only in very rare cases does a covid infection result in myocarditis. That’s because the infection has to systemic and general it isn’t. For the vaccine, it is always given systemically.

Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Totally correct, but that doesn’t fit with the conspiracy.

Carmel Shortall
Carmel Shortall
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob
P Branagan
P Branagan
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Nope. Why no excess deaths in Africa and India where the vast majority of the population got Covid and herd immunity eventually kicked in?

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Yes indeed, but only in very rare cases does a covid infection result in myocarditis. That’s because the infection has to systemic and general it isn’t. For the vaccine, it is always given systemically.

Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Totally correct, but that doesn’t fit with the conspiracy.

Carmel Shortall
Carmel Shortall
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob
P Branagan
P Branagan
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Nope. Why no excess deaths in Africa and India where the vast majority of the population got Covid and herd immunity eventually kicked in?

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Yes but it’s supported by many papers in the literature including the recent studies out of Switzerland and thailand. As Vinay Prassad has pointed out, you cannot just put everybody in the same pot and compare 85 year olds to 18-29 yr olds! probably a good idea to understand the medical literature.

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

I’m not quite sure what to make of this study.
It compares the incidence of myocarditis in those who had Covid BEFORE receiving the ‘vaccine’ with those who contracted Covid AFTER the shot, reporting a higher incidence of myocarditis in the former.

Surely what is required is simply a comparison of the incidence of myocarditis in the UNVACCINATED with those who have received the ‘vaccine’, either before or after contracting Covid?

All along, I believed the forceful coercion, including the mandates, were a desperate bid to eliminate a most useful control group – the unvaccinated!

P Branagan
P Branagan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Sansom

We have a control group – Africa!

Michael Spedding
Michael Spedding
1 year ago
Reply to  P Branagan

We dont have a control group in Africa as coronovirus infections (non SARS) are quite common so there may well be a natural cross-over immunisation.

Michael Spedding
Michael Spedding
1 year ago
Reply to  P Branagan

We dont have a control group in Africa as coronovirus infections (non SARS) are quite common so there may well be a natural cross-over immunisation.

P Branagan
P Branagan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Sansom

We have a control group – Africa!

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Yes but it’s supported by many papers in the literature including the recent studies out of Switzerland and thailand. As Vinay Prassad has pointed out, you cannot just put everybody in the same pot and compare 85 year olds to 18-29 yr olds! probably a good idea to understand the medical literature.

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

I’m not quite sure what to make of this study.
It compares the incidence of myocarditis in those who had Covid BEFORE receiving the ‘vaccine’ with those who contracted Covid AFTER the shot, reporting a higher incidence of myocarditis in the former.

Surely what is required is simply a comparison of the incidence of myocarditis in the UNVACCINATED with those who have received the ‘vaccine’, either before or after contracting Covid?

All along, I believed the forceful coercion, including the mandates, were a desperate bid to eliminate a most useful control group – the unvaccinated!

John Dee
John Dee
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

 so Whitty’s argument/proposal is just idiotic 

“Next slide, please”.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

The virus has also been shown to cause myocarditis, so seeing as almost the entire population would have had at least one of the strains by now woukd that not also explain the rise rather than just the vaccines?

John Dee
John Dee
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

 so Whitty’s argument/proposal is just idiotic 

“Next slide, please”.

Jim R
Jim R
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Obviously when faced with problems arising in complex systems, we grasp at simplistic solutions. The answer is unlikely to be simple – inconvenient as that may be for our need to understand. The problem the authors identify is a serious one – the vaccines have been prematurely ruled out as a cause of anything by our governments without anything near a sufficient level of study. And they are actively silencing and shaming anyone who wants to do those studies. The conspiracy theorizing around vaccines will only start to subside when the actual conspiracy to silence all criticism of the vaccines subsides.

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim R

You mean simplistic solutions like the contention that the entire global temperature is controlled by one variable – man made CO2? I can guarantee you that most people who believe fervently in vaccines – believe that simplistic story as well. I guess I am old fashioned and tend to believe in things that I have witnessed – like my child being vaccine injured – like the fact I don’t know anyone who has died from Covid who wasn’t old and sick – like the fact that I have had Covid three times despite being vaccinated. We have reached a certain intellectual nihilism where we literally don’t know who to believe anymore. I am as interested in hearing what a crackpot handing out flyers on a street corner has to say these days as I am in hearing what the head of the CDC is saying. They are both about equal in credibility – except one of them hasn’t already intentionally lied to the public to my knowledge.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter Johnson
Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Sometimes simple solutions are actually correct! We’ve known CO2 is a greenhouse gas for 150 years, (it’s why Venus is so much hotter than it ‘should’ be at its distance from the Sun), we know we are producing more and more of this gas, and we know world temperatures are rising. That doesn’t prove the case but makes a pretty strong ‘case to answer’. I’m rather mystified as to how anyone who has for example visited the Alps or any other mountain area with glaciers couldn’t be aware of the warning tendency. No one is saying that world climate is ‘controlled by one variable’, just that the one that has changed the most quickly happens to be man-made emissions of CO2.

None of that of course means that the world is going to end, humanity will become extinct or that current Net Zero policies are sensible (almost certainly not in my view). Bjorn Lomborg has a very balanced view

Last edited 1 year ago by Andrew Fisher
John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Clown. You’re seriously comparing the Earth’s atmosphere to Venus?

https://johnsullivan.substack.com/p/the-dummies-guide-to-uk-net-zero

Alison Wren
Alison Wren
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Don’t be discouraged by the downvotes! The science is there, I was teaching about “global warming “ from 1968 onwards but the fat controllers wouldn’t listen and didn’t act soon enough. Always follow the money!

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Alison Wren

Sorry the Science isn’t there. There’s a lot more to it than CO2, not to mention that the effect of CO2 saturates rather quickly. Interestingly, a recent study published in one of the Nature Journals noted that the temperature in the alps was much much higher in the middle ages than it is now (based on tree line level, bison grazing, etc…).

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Alison Wren

Sorry the Science isn’t there. There’s a lot more to it than CO2, not to mention that the effect of CO2 saturates rather quickly. Interestingly, a recent study published in one of the Nature Journals noted that the temperature in the alps was much much higher in the middle ages than it is now (based on tree line level, bison grazing, etc…).

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Clown. You’re seriously comparing the Earth’s atmosphere to Venus?

https://johnsullivan.substack.com/p/the-dummies-guide-to-uk-net-zero

Alison Wren
Alison Wren
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Don’t be discouraged by the downvotes! The science is there, I was teaching about “global warming “ from 1968 onwards but the fat controllers wouldn’t listen and didn’t act soon enough. Always follow the money!

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Sometimes simple solutions are actually correct! We’ve known CO2 is a greenhouse gas for 150 years, (it’s why Venus is so much hotter than it ‘should’ be at its distance from the Sun), we know we are producing more and more of this gas, and we know world temperatures are rising. That doesn’t prove the case but makes a pretty strong ‘case to answer’. I’m rather mystified as to how anyone who has for example visited the Alps or any other mountain area with glaciers couldn’t be aware of the warning tendency. No one is saying that world climate is ‘controlled by one variable’, just that the one that has changed the most quickly happens to be man-made emissions of CO2.

None of that of course means that the world is going to end, humanity will become extinct or that current Net Zero policies are sensible (almost certainly not in my view). Bjorn Lomborg has a very balanced view

Last edited 1 year ago by Andrew Fisher
Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim R

You mean simplistic solutions like the contention that the entire global temperature is controlled by one variable – man made CO2? I can guarantee you that most people who believe fervently in vaccines – believe that simplistic story as well. I guess I am old fashioned and tend to believe in things that I have witnessed – like my child being vaccine injured – like the fact I don’t know anyone who has died from Covid who wasn’t old and sick – like the fact that I have had Covid three times despite being vaccinated. We have reached a certain intellectual nihilism where we literally don’t know who to believe anymore. I am as interested in hearing what a crackpot handing out flyers on a street corner has to say these days as I am in hearing what the head of the CDC is saying. They are both about equal in credibility – except one of them hasn’t already intentionally lied to the public to my knowledge.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter Johnson
Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

The few studies I’ve seen seem to show that the vaccines increase the risk of myocarditis by an extra 10 people per million. By contrast catching Covid appears to show an increase of myocarditis by around 40 people per million.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Maybe you actually need to read more carefully. The best studies and data out of Israel, Thailand and Switzerland all indicate a rate of overt myocarditis in 18-29 yr old men of between 1 in 2000 to 1 in 10000, with a risk of sub-clinical myocarditis pegged at 1-2 orders of magnitude higher. You’ve got to read the literature a little more carefully and actually understand what you’re reading. You cannot lump 85 yr old women with 18-29 yr old men. That’s garbage science.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Maybe you actually need to read more carefully. The best studies and data out of Israel, Thailand and Switzerland all indicate a rate of overt myocarditis in 18-29 yr old men of between 1 in 2000 to 1 in 10000, with a risk of sub-clinical myocarditis pegged at 1-2 orders of magnitude higher. You’ve got to read the literature a little more carefully and actually understand what you’re reading. You cannot lump 85 yr old women with 18-29 yr old men. That’s garbage science.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Thanks for your measured comments Matthew, but those who ‘vehemently oppose lockdowns’ might be better placed to directly blame lockdowns!

I am personally far more outraged at having my liberty removed for no good reason – and I had it pretty easy – than a vaccination programme, though I tend to agree that was probably directed at far too great an age range (Denmark now doesn’t recommend vaccination below the age of 50).

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Ostrich.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

The most important point is to get your fact right. It is absolutely not the case that the rate of myocarditis following covid is greater than that following vaccination. You have to look at the appropriate age group and you cannot mix up 80 yr old ladies with 18-30 yr old young men. The risk of myocarditis in your men between the ages of 15-50 post-vaccination is real and very well established now (and varies anywhere from 1 in 1000 to 1 in 5000 depending on the study). The risk of sub-clinical myocarditis is 10-100 fold higher in young men. This was found both in the studies out of Switzerland and Thailand.
The second key point is not to throw out straw men arguments. Death in the less than 30s, other than by car/motorbike accidents, is just very very rare. For sure, young people can die from sudden arrythmias but this is super super rare.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

“My feeling is that for many who vehemently opposed the lockdowns they want it to be the vaccines because that would give them a weapon with which to punish the those inflicted the Covid restrictions on them.”

Surely such people would blame the lockdowns, if that’s what they opposed? I can speak as one myself: I opposed the lockdowns on the grounds of their potential human cost, and it looks as if I was right. Why would I need to blame the vaccines, even if I also believe that the vaccines may well have had serious side-effects outweighing their benefits for certain groups?

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Just to correct you somewhat. (a) In young men age 18-50 the frequency of myocarditis post-vaccination vastly surpasses that post-covid. (b) from a purely biological perspective, covid, in the vast majority of cases, is not a systemic disease but limited to the respiratory tract so the spike protein does not circulate in the blood; in the case of vaccination, the spike protein (synthesized within cells from the mRNA or DNA for the AZ vaccine) circulates throughout the body and is found in virtually every organ. That’s a completely different situation.
As for the causes of excess deaths one has to look at the age group and demographic where you don’t expect people to die of cardiovascular disease. i.e. very few people less than 50 are going to be on statins, for example, so Whitty’s argument/proposal is just idiotic (Not to mention that statins have absolutely no effect on mortality for those who haven’t yet experienced a cardiovascular event, except in very rare cases of inherited hyperlipidemias.

Jim R
Jim R
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Obviously when faced with problems arising in complex systems, we grasp at simplistic solutions. The answer is unlikely to be simple – inconvenient as that may be for our need to understand. The problem the authors identify is a serious one – the vaccines have been prematurely ruled out as a cause of anything by our governments without anything near a sufficient level of study. And they are actively silencing and shaming anyone who wants to do those studies. The conspiracy theorizing around vaccines will only start to subside when the actual conspiracy to silence all criticism of the vaccines subsides.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

The few studies I’ve seen seem to show that the vaccines increase the risk of myocarditis by an extra 10 people per million. By contrast catching Covid appears to show an increase of myocarditis by around 40 people per million.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Thanks for your measured comments Matthew, but those who ‘vehemently oppose lockdowns’ might be better placed to directly blame lockdowns!

I am personally far more outraged at having my liberty removed for no good reason – and I had it pretty easy – than a vaccination programme, though I tend to agree that was probably directed at far too great an age range (Denmark now doesn’t recommend vaccination below the age of 50).

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Ostrich.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

The most important point is to get your fact right. It is absolutely not the case that the rate of myocarditis following covid is greater than that following vaccination. You have to look at the appropriate age group and you cannot mix up 80 yr old ladies with 18-30 yr old young men. The risk of myocarditis in your men between the ages of 15-50 post-vaccination is real and very well established now (and varies anywhere from 1 in 1000 to 1 in 5000 depending on the study). The risk of sub-clinical myocarditis is 10-100 fold higher in young men. This was found both in the studies out of Switzerland and Thailand.
The second key point is not to throw out straw men arguments. Death in the less than 30s, other than by car/motorbike accidents, is just very very rare. For sure, young people can die from sudden arrythmias but this is super super rare.

Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Folks seem so certain it’s the vaccine yet there is no evidence. Maybe it’s just ingrained bias?

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Robbie K

You’re right, there’s no evidence.

At least, not if you squeeze your eyes tight shut and stick your fingers in your ears.

Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Maybe you should read the article again

Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Maybe you should read the article again

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Robbie K

You’re right, there’s no evidence.

At least, not if you squeeze your eyes tight shut and stick your fingers in your ears.

Dennis Taylor
Dennis Taylor
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

At 72 years of age not taking the COVID vax and not buying into the governments masks,social distancing,lock downs,forced inoculations and all the other BS they were peddling at the time was the wisest choice I eve made in my life.I’m in excellent health and feel as good as when I was 40.I have been to far to many funerals of people younger than me by decades who have dropped dead for no good reason and most of them were fully vaxed and boosted! I’ll never trust our government ever again for as long as I live because if you do so its at your own peril.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Dennis Taylor

You see, I find this hard to believe personally. I’m a few decades younger than yourself and presumably know a lot more people of that age group than a retired man would through friends, work and coming from a large family, and yet the only person in that age group that I know who has died in the last few years did so because of a car crash. It seems rather convenient that you know lots of vaxxed young people who have died unexpectedly when it just so happens to prove the point you’re trying to make about the vaccines.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  Dennis Taylor

You see, I find this hard to believe personally. I’m a few decades younger than yourself and presumably know a lot more people of that age group than a retired man would through friends, work and coming from a large family, and yet the only person in that age group that I know who has died in the last few years did so because of a car crash. It seems rather convenient that you know lots of vaxxed young people who have died unexpectedly when it just so happens to prove the point you’re trying to make about the vaccines.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

I’m not quite sure why you are so outraged about vaccinations but don’t even mention the imprisonment of the population in own own homes for months on end. I’m actually far more outraged about that, and it is very likely to have adverse medical effects.

Vojin Subasic
Vojin Subasic
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Please stop this misinformation and baseless conspiracy theories! Follow the science!
Its a well known fact, that the “vaccines” give 100% (!!) IMMUNITY!
That is, it gives legal immunity to the producers, so no risk (for them) AT ALL!
A totally safe product!

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

The data on age adjusted mortality rates for never vaxed and at least one vax are available from the ONS. The main graph (which shows all-cause mortality among the never vaxed was higher than than the vaxed over 2021 and 2022) and a list of the and the ways that data can be misued by anti-vaxers are at https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1549170827354062849
The latter part of this article is an odd mix of links to papers and conspiracist websites, and would be better with those sites removed. Google “HART leaks” if you want a laugh, but otherwise ignore Fenton, Yeadon and the rest.

Greg La Cock
Greg La Cock
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

In Africa, we had very little vaccine and minimal lockdown. Where it was tried, it was shambolic. There has been no mention or discussion of excess deaths.

Vyomesh Thanki
Vyomesh Thanki
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

For Herd (funded by a Tory supporting millionaire) to survive it has to pander to Covid-Vaccine sceptic commentators who often make unsubstantiated assertions. If interested read this very carefully with an open mind: ‘Covid-19: Study provides further evidence that mRNA vaccines are safe in pregnancy’
https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj.o2013

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Vyomesh Thanki

Just read that article and it has to be the stupidest commentary ever on an article in the Lancet aimed at showing that the vaccine is safe in pregnancy.For heaven sake, even ibuprofen or a glass of wine isn’t safe in pregnancy and should be avoided. Moreover, since the vaccine currently fails to prevent infection or transmission, one might very well ask why subject oneself to double the risk: the risk from the vaccine and the risk if one catches covid.
The truth of the matter is that during pregnancy you want to avoid taking any type of medication if at all possible. Of course, that may not be possible, but one should always proceed with great caution, especially during the 1st trimester.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Vyomesh Thanki

Just read that article and it has to be the stupidest commentary ever on an article in the Lancet aimed at showing that the vaccine is safe in pregnancy.For heaven sake, even ibuprofen or a glass of wine isn’t safe in pregnancy and should be avoided. Moreover, since the vaccine currently fails to prevent infection or transmission, one might very well ask why subject oneself to double the risk: the risk from the vaccine and the risk if one catches covid.
The truth of the matter is that during pregnancy you want to avoid taking any type of medication if at all possible. Of course, that may not be possible, but one should always proceed with great caution, especially during the 1st trimester.

Albireo Double
Albireo Double
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Good post.

The unnecessary deaths caused by the political lies will always be the most disastrous outcome remembered by individuals. But the catastrophic loss of of credibility of governing institutions throughout the West may yet turn out to be the most far-reaching consequence.

I wonder what the next dozen elections in the West will produce. It’s hard to guess, currently. Personally I hope it will be the start of an overthrow of the WEF-based order.

Last edited 1 year ago by Albireo Double
Russell Dale
Russell Dale
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Good article but slightly nutty ranting comments
There are parallels with excess mortality from the post global financial crisis (GFC) data.
When the pandemic started there was clear data on the costs of societal disruption – increased excess mortality in mental health, cardiovascular and cancer deaths post GFC.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-downturn-excess-cancer-deaths-atun/

Although it is not exactly the same as covid, the parallels are manifest:
Loss of employment, insurance, loss of social connectiveness, loss of health screening all equal increased risk of death.

Maybe we should learn from recent history rather than rant.

Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Given that the article gives several plausible candidates for excess mortality what makes you so sure that it’s solely the vaccines?

My feeling is that for many who vehemently opposed the lockdowns they want it to be the vaccines because that would give them a weapon with which to punish the those inflicted the Covid restrictions on them.

I can understand this. Personally I feel like I was robbed of two years of my life, time we will not get back, by the lockdowns but this doesn’t mean we should throw reason out the window and adopt a kind of monomania with regards to the vaccines.

We know the vaccines can cause myocarditis but we also haven’t seen an associated increase in death rates from those diagnosed with vaccine induced heart problems, nor has a mechanism for how they would go on to cause death been identified. Given that studies find much higher rates of myocarditis in Covid patients, if there was an increased death rate due long term damage to the heart, how could it be distinguished that this was due to the vaccine and not Covid?

I still feel that the most likely explanation will be a combination of a wide number of factors: Lack of health care during the pandemic, later diagnosis, social isolation worsening health conditions or increasing deaths of despair, increased waiting lists due to backlogs in the health care system, potential immune naivety from certain viruses not been encountered for the last two years, rebounds in accidents from high risk behaviour which were suppressed by lockdown, the possibility that a disproportionate number of the very vulnerable were highly sheltered by the lockdown and now their mortality rates are returning to normal.

When faced with this Gordian knot of potential causes, the temptation might be to say, it’s all down to the vaccines, and cut it but expedient answers rarely are the correct ones.

Last edited 1 year ago by Matthew Powell
Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Folks seem so certain it’s the vaccine yet there is no evidence. Maybe it’s just ingrained bias?

Dennis Taylor
Dennis Taylor
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

At 72 years of age not taking the COVID vax and not buying into the governments masks,social distancing,lock downs,forced inoculations and all the other BS they were peddling at the time was the wisest choice I eve made in my life.I’m in excellent health and feel as good as when I was 40.I have been to far to many funerals of people younger than me by decades who have dropped dead for no good reason and most of them were fully vaxed and boosted! I’ll never trust our government ever again for as long as I live because if you do so its at your own peril.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

I’m not quite sure why you are so outraged about vaccinations but don’t even mention the imprisonment of the population in own own homes for months on end. I’m actually far more outraged about that, and it is very likely to have adverse medical effects.

Vojin Subasic
Vojin Subasic
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

Please stop this misinformation and baseless conspiracy theories! Follow the science!
Its a well known fact, that the “vaccines” give 100% (!!) IMMUNITY!
That is, it gives legal immunity to the producers, so no risk (for them) AT ALL!
A totally safe product!

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

The data on age adjusted mortality rates for never vaxed and at least one vax are available from the ONS. The main graph (which shows all-cause mortality among the never vaxed was higher than than the vaxed over 2021 and 2022) and a list of the and the ways that data can be misued by anti-vaxers are at https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1549170827354062849
The latter part of this article is an odd mix of links to papers and conspiracist websites, and would be better with those sites removed. Google “HART leaks” if you want a laugh, but otherwise ignore Fenton, Yeadon and the rest.

Greg La Cock
Greg La Cock
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

In Africa, we had very little vaccine and minimal lockdown. Where it was tried, it was shambolic. There has been no mention or discussion of excess deaths.

Vyomesh Thanki
Vyomesh Thanki
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Johnson

For Herd (funded by a Tory supporting millionaire) to survive it has to pander to Covid-Vaccine sceptic commentators who often make unsubstantiated assertions. If interested read this very carefully with an open mind: ‘Covid-19: Study provides further evidence that mRNA vaccines are safe in pregnancy’
https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj.o2013

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson
1 year ago

It is the vaccines. Every single thing we have been told about Covid, the mandates and the vaccines has been a lie. 9 year olds don’t have strokes and heart attacks – or at least they didn’t before the vaccines. We are still being told they are safe for pregnant women – they were never tested on pregnant women. The mainstream press are pushing all kinds of nonsense – gardening elevates your risk of heart attacks, etc. Here is a question for you – are they having excess deaths in Africa? In Haiti? In Bangladesh? The other problem is of course that even if there was a genuine reason for this – I simply won’t believe it. I, and millions like me, simply don’t believe the physicians, university professors and other institutional ‘leaders’ anymore. Or the mainstream media. They have no credibility – or power to persuade.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter Johnson
Albireo Double
Albireo Double
1 year ago

I was supportive at the start of the first lockdown and the first vaccines. But I think that everything that happened after that was both wrong, and unforgivable.

The problem was that our political class along with others in the West did not dare to consider changing course. A “sunk cost – bet the farm” mentality took over and cowardice prevented any questioning of it. That is the “wrong” part.

Meanwhile governments harnessed every resource at their disposal (along with some that should not have been at their disposal) to terrorise the populations into belief, while they bankrupted whole countries as their “easier softer route” rather than being honest and rigorously questioning their advisors, the evidence, and their own actions. That is the “unforgivable” part.

It really is unforgivable, and authorities should remain unforgiven until they apologise fulsomely, wholly and personally, to their populations for the weakness, dishonesty and cowardice that they have shown, and the countless thousands or millions of deaths they have deliberately caused..

Last edited 1 year ago by Albireo Double
Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Albireo Double

We’ll, that’s not going to happen. I agree with you though.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jeff Cunningham
Iris C
Iris C
1 year ago
Reply to  Albireo Double

At one time the opposition opposed and different points of view were voiced in parliament but there is little difference now between the political parties and no politician wants to take a controversial stance which could be exploited by the press,causing aggro. Too fatiguing!
As a result, we have lost the benefits of being a democracy. Freedom of speech is curtailed and decisions are taken through the strength and publicity given to all sorts of pressure groups( which only have minority followings.
It is a sorry state of affairs and we are lucky to have Unherd where different viewpoints can be aired. Unfortunately they don’t reach the mainstream media.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
1 year ago
Reply to  Iris C

Expecting a few brave people to speak out was our wish but that was rare. When did nearly all our leaders become so sensitive? Perhaps because we wouldn’t proclaim “Let them speak”. Too many of us allowed the press to attack. We accepted cancelling and mocking attacks. OTOH, our governments have become quite skilled at using PsyOp tools that we are ill trained to deal with. Our press needs to identify and call out the use of those tools so we might learn.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
1 year ago
Reply to  Iris C

Expecting a few brave people to speak out was our wish but that was rare. When did nearly all our leaders become so sensitive? Perhaps because we wouldn’t proclaim “Let them speak”. Too many of us allowed the press to attack. We accepted cancelling and mocking attacks. OTOH, our governments have become quite skilled at using PsyOp tools that we are ill trained to deal with. Our press needs to identify and call out the use of those tools so we might learn.

Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Albireo Double

Deliberately caused? Baffling, this seems to be the ranting of a drunk in the street.

Paige M
Paige M
1 year ago
Reply to  Robbie K

I have not known one person who has died from Covid. What I have personally experienced in my community, three suicides, multiple overdoses, failed marriages, financial ruin, anxious and overwrought kids and teens, future potential decimated. I could go on and on. I feel fortunate that Covid took no one I know, but do I turn a blind eye to all the rest that was a direct consequence of our response and hence deliberate? And after all this, we still have no leads on where Covid came from? The person who doesn’t think something is seriously amiss here is not only drunk but willfully blind.

Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Paige M

You truly believe the government murdered thousands of people? Ok.

Albireo Double
Albireo Double
1 year ago
Reply to  Robbie K

The government went ahead with a course of action involving lies deception and propagandising of the population knowing perfectly well from its own advisors that lives would be lost as a result of their actions.

So yes – deliberately killing…

Albireo Double
Albireo Double
1 year ago
Reply to  Robbie K

The government went ahead with a course of action involving lies deception and propagandising of the population knowing perfectly well from its own advisors that lives would be lost as a result of their actions.

So yes – deliberately killing…

Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Paige M

You truly believe the government murdered thousands of people? Ok.

Paige M
Paige M
1 year ago
Reply to  Robbie K

I have not known one person who has died from Covid. What I have personally experienced in my community, three suicides, multiple overdoses, failed marriages, financial ruin, anxious and overwrought kids and teens, future potential decimated. I could go on and on. I feel fortunate that Covid took no one I know, but do I turn a blind eye to all the rest that was a direct consequence of our response and hence deliberate? And after all this, we still have no leads on where Covid came from? The person who doesn’t think something is seriously amiss here is not only drunk but willfully blind.

Douglas McNeish
Douglas McNeish
1 year ago
Reply to  Albireo Double

Cowardice, above all, is what made this unfolding tragedy possible. Some medical experts, infected by the sensationalism of a looming pandemic, spun their doomsday scenarios to the media, drowning out more reasoned voices from the scientific realm. Any support for the concept of herd immunity became a dangerous place for both the experts, and more importantly, for politicians. They opted for Safetyism as the best route to avoid career damaging cries of “blood on your hands” from the media. Then, looking for kudos as they slid into the role of saviours, championed the cause of finding a vaccine to make the whole horror show go away. In pursuit of a fawning, hero-worshipping public, government oversight was waived to push an untested vaccine upon them, with the now unfolding tragedy a result.
Cowardice again, will preempt any official acknowledgement or atonement for bad decisions and governance.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
Reply to  Albireo Double

We’ll, that’s not going to happen. I agree with you though.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jeff Cunningham
Iris C
Iris C
1 year ago
Reply to  Albireo Double

At one time the opposition opposed and different points of view were voiced in parliament but there is little difference now between the political parties and no politician wants to take a controversial stance which could be exploited by the press,causing aggro. Too fatiguing!
As a result, we have lost the benefits of being a democracy. Freedom of speech is curtailed and decisions are taken through the strength and publicity given to all sorts of pressure groups( which only have minority followings.
It is a sorry state of affairs and we are lucky to have Unherd where different viewpoints can be aired. Unfortunately they don’t reach the mainstream media.

Robbie K
Robbie K
1 year ago
Reply to  Albireo Double

Deliberately caused? Baffling, this seems to be the ranting of a drunk in the street.

Douglas McNeish
Douglas McNeish
1 year ago
Reply to  Albireo Double

Cowardice, above all, is what made this unfolding tragedy possible. Some medical experts, infected by the sensationalism of a looming pandemic, spun their doomsday scenarios to the media, drowning out more reasoned voices from the scientific realm. Any support for the concept of herd immunity became a dangerous place for both the experts, and more importantly, for politicians. They opted for Safetyism as the best route to avoid career damaging cries of “blood on your hands” from the media. Then, looking for kudos as they slid into the role of saviours, championed the cause of finding a vaccine to make the whole horror show go away. In pursuit of a fawning, hero-worshipping public, government oversight was waived to push an untested vaccine upon them, with the now unfolding tragedy a result.
Cowardice again, will preempt any official acknowledgement or atonement for bad decisions and governance.

Albireo Double
Albireo Double
1 year ago

I was supportive at the start of the first lockdown and the first vaccines. But I think that everything that happened after that was both wrong, and unforgivable.

The problem was that our political class along with others in the West did not dare to consider changing course. A “sunk cost – bet the farm” mentality took over and cowardice prevented any questioning of it. That is the “wrong” part.

Meanwhile governments harnessed every resource at their disposal (along with some that should not have been at their disposal) to terrorise the populations into belief, while they bankrupted whole countries as their “easier softer route” rather than being honest and rigorously questioning their advisors, the evidence, and their own actions. That is the “unforgivable” part.

It really is unforgivable, and authorities should remain unforgiven until they apologise fulsomely, wholly and personally, to their populations for the weakness, dishonesty and cowardice that they have shown, and the countless thousands or millions of deaths they have deliberately caused..

Last edited 1 year ago by Albireo Double
Elliott Bjorn
Elliott Bjorn
1 year ago

Hahahaa – these guys are beginning ‘THE GREAT BACKPEDALING’ they were so involved in the agenda which to any sane person was obviously 100% deceit, lies, corruption, betrayal – but now the evidence is overwhelming and so they begin the great Non-Mia Culpa. The great excuse that they pushed this horror because they thought it the right thing; they were told it was the right thing, the Nuremberg excuse……

The – ‘Yes, we have destroyed the global economy and education and health, and freedom, and education, and mental health, and pensions, and will cause Famines which will kill hundreds of millions with the economic Armageddon they created, and made the old die alone with strangers in space suits ignoring them’ – ‘But we meant well’, they will say. ‘They told us to do this‘ they will say…..

”a disproportionate number of those excess deaths were occurring in young people. This was the opposite of what you would expect in the receding phase of a pandemic —”

I knew the truth, I 100% expected this. I refused the Vax, refused the mask although it took great nerve and effort – I did it to make a statement – as I do with words here.

You people injected alien Genetic Material into yourself with NO trials. Well, some short ones which showed the vax was much more harmful than the covid – but hushed that bit up. But NO Long Trials! None! The vax (this is widely said – dr Malone et al) – the mRNA vax was developed as part of a Bio-Weapon system, and you put it in you!

The Nuremberg Trials made ‘Informed Consent’ a Human Right. NO ONE WAS ‘INFORMED’ on risks – this is a violation of Human Rights. Many were coerced – ALL were Lied to.

Under the Nuremberg Code, responsibility for violations of informed consent rests upon individual doctors, government officials – and their aiders and abettors – each of who can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. ‘

The guilty must get Justice as must the innocent harmed.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

I must congratulate you on your persistent and vociferous opposition to this simply appalling scandal.
Under many ‘persona’, you have relentlessly exposed this nonsense from Day 1 (if not before!). Bravo!

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

A bit more forceful than I’d say but ultimately I don’t disagree.

I said at the start of this that there would be huge costs both measurable (resource scarcity, inflation, debt from furlough and bailouts etc) and non measurable (education, mental health and civil liberties etc). Nobody in government would cost it and barely anyone in the media would question them about it.

We’re now paying the piper and the media are attempting to gas light the sceptics by claiming no one ever thought any of this would happen.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

It’s worth pointing out that if one looks at the original Pfizer and Moderna trials of their vaccines, there were in fact slightly more deaths in the vaccinated arm than the control arm! Unfortunately, the end-point for both trials was not hospitalization and death but symptomatic covid (at any level of severity including very very mild cases).

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

I’ve seen this stated on several occasions and maybe it’s just cognitive dissonance on my part, but how exactly does this happen without some major investigation by the regulatory bodies?
Granted, maybe those deaths were the result of a statistical anomaly with trialists being hit by buses but surely some major oversight would have been triggered?

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Dalton

Surely.

Dream on.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Dalton

Well unfortunately the regulators are under control of the regulated given that the regulators are paid by the regulators (at least in the case of the FDA but I believe the same is true in the UK) and there is a revolving door between regulators and regulated. On top of that, the people in power had too much invested in the vaccines, especially in the US (think Fauci and Collins) and were so excited by the vaccines at first that they simply could stand back and look objectively at what was really happening. Hard to go back on “safe and effective” when safety had never been demonstrated but more and more serious adverse events were being reported, and the efficacy of the vaccines and boosters were falling very rapidly and in short order.

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Indeed – I was being a little rhetorical with that but some part of me just really finds this hard to believe.
However, something that has irritated me a lot during this two year period is how close this is to the 737 Air Max, which highlighted how little separation there was between the manufacturers, airlines and regulators. This has been memory holed quite quickly, but if we’re prepared to have such poor regulation of aviation, why exactly would expect pharmaceuticals to be any different?

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Indeed – I was being a little rhetorical with that but some part of me just really finds this hard to believe.
However, something that has irritated me a lot during this two year period is how close this is to the 737 Air Max, which highlighted how little separation there was between the manufacturers, airlines and regulators. This has been memory holed quite quickly, but if we’re prepared to have such poor regulation of aviation, why exactly would expect pharmaceuticals to be any different?

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Dalton

Surely.

Dream on.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Dalton

Well unfortunately the regulators are under control of the regulated given that the regulators are paid by the regulators (at least in the case of the FDA but I believe the same is true in the UK) and there is a revolving door between regulators and regulated. On top of that, the people in power had too much invested in the vaccines, especially in the US (think Fauci and Collins) and were so excited by the vaccines at first that they simply could stand back and look objectively at what was really happening. Hard to go back on “safe and effective” when safety had never been demonstrated but more and more serious adverse events were being reported, and the efficacy of the vaccines and boosters were falling very rapidly and in short order.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Weren’t both groups vaccinated in the end anyway,so no control group?

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

I’ve seen this stated on several occasions and maybe it’s just cognitive dissonance on my part, but how exactly does this happen without some major investigation by the regulatory bodies?
Granted, maybe those deaths were the result of a statistical anomaly with trialists being hit by buses but surely some major oversight would have been triggered?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Weren’t both groups vaccinated in the end anyway,so no control group?

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

And just to rub salt into the wounds the Government have requested Moderna to build a factory here and supply 210 million vaccines. Then suddenly out of the blue they have decided not to give the vaccines to young people. I wonder what changed their minds? Andrew Bridgen perhaps?

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

You’re possibly too far gone to hear this, but you sound mental (caps, bold, italics). For your own health, spend less time on your Telegram groups reading about how the WEF has a secret plan to kill us all, and more time outside.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

I must congratulate you on your persistent and vociferous opposition to this simply appalling scandal.
Under many ‘persona’, you have relentlessly exposed this nonsense from Day 1 (if not before!). Bravo!

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

A bit more forceful than I’d say but ultimately I don’t disagree.

I said at the start of this that there would be huge costs both measurable (resource scarcity, inflation, debt from furlough and bailouts etc) and non measurable (education, mental health and civil liberties etc). Nobody in government would cost it and barely anyone in the media would question them about it.

We’re now paying the piper and the media are attempting to gas light the sceptics by claiming no one ever thought any of this would happen.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

It’s worth pointing out that if one looks at the original Pfizer and Moderna trials of their vaccines, there were in fact slightly more deaths in the vaccinated arm than the control arm! Unfortunately, the end-point for both trials was not hospitalization and death but symptomatic covid (at any level of severity including very very mild cases).

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

And just to rub salt into the wounds the Government have requested Moderna to build a factory here and supply 210 million vaccines. Then suddenly out of the blue they have decided not to give the vaccines to young people. I wonder what changed their minds? Andrew Bridgen perhaps?

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

You’re possibly too far gone to hear this, but you sound mental (caps, bold, italics). For your own health, spend less time on your Telegram groups reading about how the WEF has a secret plan to kill us all, and more time outside.

Elliott Bjorn
Elliott Bjorn
1 year ago

Hahahaa – these guys are beginning ‘THE GREAT BACKPEDALING’ they were so involved in the agenda which to any sane person was obviously 100% deceit, lies, corruption, betrayal – but now the evidence is overwhelming and so they begin the great Non-Mia Culpa. The great excuse that they pushed this horror because they thought it the right thing; they were told it was the right thing, the Nuremberg excuse……

The – ‘Yes, we have destroyed the global economy and education and health, and freedom, and education, and mental health, and pensions, and will cause Famines which will kill hundreds of millions with the economic Armageddon they created, and made the old die alone with strangers in space suits ignoring them’ – ‘But we meant well’, they will say. ‘They told us to do this‘ they will say…..

”a disproportionate number of those excess deaths were occurring in young people. This was the opposite of what you would expect in the receding phase of a pandemic —”

I knew the truth, I 100% expected this. I refused the Vax, refused the mask although it took great nerve and effort – I did it to make a statement – as I do with words here.

You people injected alien Genetic Material into yourself with NO trials. Well, some short ones which showed the vax was much more harmful than the covid – but hushed that bit up. But NO Long Trials! None! The vax (this is widely said – dr Malone et al) – the mRNA vax was developed as part of a Bio-Weapon system, and you put it in you!

The Nuremberg Trials made ‘Informed Consent’ a Human Right. NO ONE WAS ‘INFORMED’ on risks – this is a violation of Human Rights. Many were coerced – ALL were Lied to.

Under the Nuremberg Code, responsibility for violations of informed consent rests upon individual doctors, government officials – and their aiders and abettors – each of who can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. ‘

The guilty must get Justice as must the innocent harmed.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

I usually love being right, but on the matter of me predicting in mid-2020 that the lockdown response to Covid19 would in time be revealed as the worst policy mistake in peacetime history, I can declare that there’s no fun in it at all now that we can see the human cost in the numbers. What’s so infuriating is that I didn’t come up with that idea myself, I read the views of lots of prominent experts in public health, virology, infectious diseases etc and decided what I believed and what I did not believe on that basis, like lots of other people.

My point is that this prediction wasn’t the preserve of some lunatic fringe of extreme attitudes, but was available to anyone in need of expert advice: the government’s own pre-existing pandemic plan was based upon rejectiing lockdown as an effective strategy, for God’s sake.

I just hope that this talk of Covid amnesties is shot down soon, because the truth is that alternatives to the chosen course of action were not merely ignored by decision makers but actively maligned, sidelined and condemned. Nobody involved has any right to expect to get away with this.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

The problem is “they” are still not ready for accept that the lockdown was a mistake

Sam Hill
Sam Hill
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

‘the government’s own pre-existing pandemic plan was based upon rejecting lockdown as an effective strategy, for God’s sake.’
This is the key point. We just took established plans and consensus and threw it on the fire. That is the core of it – everything followed from there. Why that happened is for conjecture, but perhaps I can make an addition to your good post?
What got me most was the extent of ‘me too.’ As soon as China started and Italy imported lockdowns then everyone else was bounced into it. It was the same with vaccines. Once one government started doing something on vaccines then the pressure was on everyone else to follow. So even if there were plans in place they just got swept away in a grisly mix of media (mainstream and social) hysteria, governments bouncing off each other and whole populations being battered into submission. Initial reports were that the UK was only going to vaccinate the vulnerable – that lasted exactly one 24 hour news channel cycle. I’m actually a bit surprised that social and mainstream media has been mentioned so little in comments on this article.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not just politicians to blame. Scientists seemed to think that a self publication on Twitter was the gold standard of scientific endeavour and all started bouncing off each other too. There is (or was) a reason scientific debate isn’t played out on a tacky social media company’s service. Journos sat there lapping up the drama and indeed producing it. Several gave the impression they rather liked having the opportunity to control people. We the public sat there collecting furlough cheques as though they were all consequence free.
You are exactly right. None of the pre covid plans were fringe views. They were all there published and those plans were in place for a reason. The failure was unbelievable.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Sam Hill

There *were* no sensible “plans” in place. Its a myth.

“Don’t lockdown” is not a plan.

https://johnsullivan.substack.com/p/pandemic-preparedness-in-the-uk

Felice Camino
Felice Camino
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

My daughter works for a city council. They had pandemic plans in early 2020. They had to be thrown out because all their careful planning assumed no lockdown.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Felice Camino

“Careful planning” lol. Point me at this “plan” and I’ll comment.

In the meantime, read my link and say something *concrete* to add to the discussion, if you can.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Felice Camino

“Careful planning” lol. Point me at this “plan” and I’ll comment.

In the meantime, read my link and say something *concrete* to add to the discussion, if you can.

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Thanks for this link, John. A fascinating article that I wish I had seen two years ago!

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Sansom

Thank you. Much appreciated.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Sansom

Thank you. Much appreciated.

Felice Camino
Felice Camino
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

My daughter works for a city council. They had pandemic plans in early 2020. They had to be thrown out because all their careful planning assumed no lockdown.

Jeremy Sansom
Jeremy Sansom
1 year ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Thanks for this link, John. A fascinating article that I wish I had seen two years ago!

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Sam Hill

There *were* no sensible “plans” in place. Its a myth.

“Don’t lockdown” is not a plan.

https://johnsullivan.substack.com/p/pandemic-preparedness-in-the-uk

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

The problem is “they” are still not ready for accept that the lockdown was a mistake

Sam Hill
Sam Hill
1 year ago
Reply to  John Riordan

‘the government’s own pre-existing pandemic plan was based upon rejecting lockdown as an effective strategy, for God’s sake.’
This is the key point. We just took established plans and consensus and threw it on the fire. That is the core of it – everything followed from there. Why that happened is for conjecture, but perhaps I can make an addition to your good post?
What got me most was the extent of ‘me too.’ As soon as China started and Italy imported lockdowns then everyone else was bounced into it. It was the same with vaccines. Once one government started doing something on vaccines then the pressure was on everyone else to follow. So even if there were plans in place they just got swept away in a grisly mix of media (mainstream and social) hysteria, governments bouncing off each other and whole populations being battered into submission. Initial reports were that the UK was only going to vaccinate the vulnerable – that lasted exactly one 24 hour news channel cycle. I’m actually a bit surprised that social and mainstream media has been mentioned so little in comments on this article.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not just politicians to blame. Scientists seemed to think that a self publication on Twitter was the gold standard of scientific endeavour and all started bouncing off each other too. There is (or was) a reason scientific debate isn’t played out on a tacky social media company’s service. Journos sat there lapping up the drama and indeed producing it. Several gave the impression they rather liked having the opportunity to control people. We the public sat there collecting furlough cheques as though they were all consequence free.
You are exactly right. None of the pre covid plans were fringe views. They were all there published and those plans were in place for a reason. The failure was unbelievable.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

I usually love being right, but on the matter of me predicting in mid-2020 that the lockdown response to Covid19 would in time be revealed as the worst policy mistake in peacetime history, I can declare that there’s no fun in it at all now that we can see the human cost in the numbers. What’s so infuriating is that I didn’t come up with that idea myself, I read the views of lots of prominent experts in public health, virology, infectious diseases etc and decided what I believed and what I did not believe on that basis, like lots of other people.

My point is that this prediction wasn’t the preserve of some lunatic fringe of extreme attitudes, but was available to anyone in need of expert advice: the government’s own pre-existing pandemic plan was based upon rejectiing lockdown as an effective strategy, for God’s sake.

I just hope that this talk of Covid amnesties is shot down soon, because the truth is that alternatives to the chosen course of action were not merely ignored by decision makers but actively maligned, sidelined and condemned. Nobody involved has any right to expect to get away with this.

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

Note the first post in this column, which essentially posits that virtually any observed phenomenon or statistic is a previously unknown symptom or consequence of covid.

Ever heard of Occam’s razor?

There is SO MUCH posturing and intellectual contortions going on, so let’s try something much simpler; what established medical research indicated that submitting people to years of fear, stress, arbitrary confinement and lack of social interaction WOULD NOT cause serious long-term consequences in and of themselves?

What established medical research suggested that a total disruption of treatment for a range of well-known medical problems, from cancer to TB tabloid pressure, WOULD NOT cause severe long-term consequences?

What established medical research indicated that tried and tested protocols for drug testing could be discarded or ignored?

Not hard, is it?

Hendrik Mentz
Hendrik Mentz
1 year ago
Reply to  ben arnulfssen

What experimental medical research when tested on humans WOULD NOT cause serious long-term consequences in and of themselves?
What experimental medical research that led to a total disruption of the natural immune system WOULD NOT cause severe long-term consequences?
What established medical research indicated that tried and tested protocols for drug testing could be discarded or ignored?
Not hard, is it?

Hendrik Mentz
Hendrik Mentz
1 year ago
Reply to  ben arnulfssen

What experimental medical research when tested on humans WOULD NOT cause serious long-term consequences in and of themselves?
What experimental medical research that led to a total disruption of the natural immune system WOULD NOT cause severe long-term consequences?
What established medical research indicated that tried and tested protocols for drug testing could be discarded or ignored?
Not hard, is it?

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

Note the first post in this column, which essentially posits that virtually any observed phenomenon or statistic is a previously unknown symptom or consequence of covid.

Ever heard of Occam’s razor?

There is SO MUCH posturing and intellectual contortions going on, so let’s try something much simpler; what established medical research indicated that submitting people to years of fear, stress, arbitrary confinement and lack of social interaction WOULD NOT cause serious long-term consequences in and of themselves?

What established medical research suggested that a total disruption of treatment for a range of well-known medical problems, from cancer to TB tabloid pressure, WOULD NOT cause severe long-term consequences?

What established medical research indicated that tried and tested protocols for drug testing could be discarded or ignored?

Not hard, is it?

Tim Smith
Tim Smith
1 year ago

The question of the impact of the vaccines could be answered by a study comparing the excess deaths among the vaccinated and unvaccinated (controlling for other variables such as age).

The fact that there seems no appetite to make this data available, or to undertake such a study, suggests to me that there is a strong suspicion among those in power that the vaccines are a contributory factor. But it’s an answer that would be too politically damaging, as well as damaging to trust in health professionals. So they will try to ensure it is never definitively answered.

And the cover up will end up doing more to erode trust than anything else.

Tim Smith
Tim Smith
1 year ago

The question of the impact of the vaccines could be answered by a study comparing the excess deaths among the vaccinated and unvaccinated (controlling for other variables such as age).

The fact that there seems no appetite to make this data available, or to undertake such a study, suggests to me that there is a strong suspicion among those in power that the vaccines are a contributory factor. But it’s an answer that would be too politically damaging, as well as damaging to trust in health professionals. So they will try to ensure it is never definitively answered.

And the cover up will end up doing more to erode trust than anything else.

Ben M
Ben M
1 year ago

Also the vaccine was meant to stay at the injection site -it didn’t. Unlike traditional vaccines there was no dosing factor – everyone got the same amount. It was not meant to cross the blood -brain barrier but the vaccine has a phospholipid coating and is attracted to organs which have a large concentration of fats eg brain and ovaries (hence rise in menstrual problems).
See Dr John Campbell, Dr Mobeen Syed, Dr Drew and a multiple of other front line doctors and cardiologists who have spoken out and been cancelled.