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Periods of society-wide threats are danger-times for rights. Anxious populations tend to accept restrictions on liberty which would be strongly resisted at other, more peaceful, moments. During the “War on Terror” which followed the 9/11 attacks, detention without trial, mass surveillance and torture were authorised by liberal democracies. We may be seeing that dynamic repeated today, as the legally enforced social-distancing restrictions put in place to slow the spread of Covid-19 raise some of the most difficult questions in modern times about life, liberty and the basic tenets of democracy.
Human rights law has built into it a deep scepticism of state power, particularly of the untrammelled variety, and so it is a useful lens through which to consider lockdowns. After the Second World War, human rights laws were created to ensure that even during those danger times certain basic rights were protected. But the basic psychology of threats and emergencies remain.
So let us consider a year of Covid-19. Twelve months ago, the first two cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the UK. Fifty days later, on 23 March, the Prime Minister announced that he would “give the British people a very simple instruction — you must stay at home”. Three days after that, the first set of emergency lockdown regulations arrived. These were undoubtedly the most severe restrictions on liberty imposed in peacetime, and Health Secretary Matt Hancock reportedly described them as “Napoleonic”. “In lockdown”, he told the Cabinet, in a reversal of the usual principle of English law that whatever is not explicitly prohibited is permitted: “people would be forbidden from doing anything unless the legislation said, in terms, that they could”.
It is extraordinary that restrictions which a judge described as “possibly the most restrictive regime on the public life of persons and businesses ever”, could be made without prior Parliamentary scrutiny. But it took just 11 pages of law and one signature for Matt Hancock to impose the 26 March lockdown, which came into effect the moment he put down the pen.
Those 11 pages closed all non-essential businesses, meaning that people could only leave their homes if they had a “reasonable excuse”, and largely banned gatherings between people not of the same household. Any breaches could be punished. The police were also given power to take “such action as is necessary” to break up gatherings or ensure business closed.
That first lockdown — all 11 pages of it — was, in fact, stricter than the two that followed. The current lockdown law is over 120 pages, and a long list of exceptions — involving bubbles, animal welfare, picketing and “death bed visits” — have been added to the (deceptively) simple edict to stay at home. The rules for businesses have become more complicated too. 64 sets of regulations have followed the first, all using the same emergency procedure. And while the severity of social distancing measures has ebbed and flowed, at no point have they been entirely withdrawn. It is therefore possible to argue that lockdown has never ended, just changed shape.
Indeed, the meaning of “lockdown” remains elusive. It is generally understood as not being able to leave our homes except in limited circumstances. But there are other measures, such as non-essential business and school closures, and bans on gatherings, which some people, and the government, consider part of “lockdown”. There are also the self-isolation rules which became legal requirements at the end of September. These are stricter than the lockdown rules themselves, allowing for leaving home only in emergencies
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SubscribeAdam Wagner says: The starting point must be the indisputable seriousness of Covid-19, a once-in-a-century virus. It spreads easily and in many cases asymptomatically, has a relatively high fatality rate which, when combined with excessive transmission, has already led to over 100,000 deaths in the UK alone. It also causes lasting damage in some survivors. If it is allowed to move through the population at speed, there would be too many serious cases for hospitals to manage.
Is the seriousness of ‘Covid-19’ indisputable?
Remember that many people who encounter the virus SARS-CoV-2 will not progress to serious disease, i.e. ‘Covid-19’.
We also need more evidence about ‘lasting damage’ after this virus, this also occurs with other viral infections.
There’s also a very big question mark over the classification of ‘cases’ with this virus, due to unreliable PCR testing.
As for the 100,000 deaths attributed to Covid-19 in the UK over the past year, this must be viewed in the context of a country with a population of over 60 million, with around 600,000 deaths expected each year.
The way in which deaths are attributed to Covid-19 is also very questionable, just how many deaths are accurately attributed this way?
As for hospitals having too many ‘cases’ to manage, every year the NHS experiences problems dealing with flu etc. And if treatments and preventatives such as vitamin D had been promoted, instead of being suppressed to facilitate the fast-tracked experimental coronavirus vaccine products under very questionable FDA Emergency Use Authorizations, perhaps the death toll attributed to Covid-19 would have been much reduced?
There is a growing ageing population. Longer lives don’t mean people will be in good health, more likely the opposite in fact, with ageing populations being an increasing burden on the health services. So if people want to live longer, the health services will have to grow and adapt.
It’s insane to expect the general population should give up their social and economic lives to supposedly protect the health services, how has this ridiculous idea been allowed to take hold?
The bureaucracy needs to be overturned, particularly the likes of SAGE and the politicians in their thrall, time to bring these individuals to account for the social and economic disaster that has been allowed to unfold.
Yes
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And then in a couple years time you have the evidence, then what? Turn back time? After millions have had it? Pretty wreckless strategy there
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If you’re struggling to trust any data you’re coming across, take a stroll down memory lane and read accounts of how quickly this spread in Italy of MARCH 2020 and how quickly their hospitals were collapsing in a matter of weeks – that’s a good datum for a starting point.
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Most illnesses don’t affect hundreds of thousands of people all at the same time. That’s a very very different situation.
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Once again if you can’t trust any numbers you hear, just talk to a doctor or nurse or literally anyone near a hospital in a city in the UK (or any country for that matter). One group of people who aren’t suspicious of the numbers they hear is the people seeing what’s happening first hand – curious no?
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When was the last time that most cancer treatment was cancelled because of the flu? Speak to any hospital worker, none of them would describe this as akin to flu season
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Again you’re focusing entirely on deathrate here, but what do you think it looks like when there is no hospital capacity, and millions of people needing medical attention, all at the same time?
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What bureaucracy, the global one? Every single country on the planet is responding with different but extreme measures.
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It would be great to hold these viruses to account yes, but they have rights too no?
Excellent response.
“Every single country on the planet is responding with different but extreme measures”. Except for Sweden, Croatia, Florida, South Dakota, amongst others.
South Africa only had one hard lockdown last year and still the epidemic curve rose and fell. The surge we have just experienced had no hard lockdown, just some restrictions many of them which had no bearing on the virus.
Despite a lighter lockdown, SA has 775 deaths per million population compared to the UK’s 1,651. Meanwhile, the UK Government is whipping up fear about the SA variant and imposing even stricter measures, such as hotel quarantine, when there is no evidence to show that it is any more deadly than the variants currently circulating in the UK.
You do have to look at the age profile of the UK compared with SA
Re Italy, who could possibly forget all the dramatic footage that flooded the media when this thing started…
The blueprint for the response to this virus is Event 201, a simulation of a coronavirus outbreak, which was held in October 2019, convened by the World Economic Forum, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. An amazing coincidence this occurring before the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.
Check out Segment 4 of the Event 201 videos, the Communications Discussion, where the participants in the simulation discuss flooding the media with information about the pandemic, making sure they control the narrative.
And that’s what we witnessed in the mainstream media in the real world event, non-stop alarm, and constant reporting re ‘cases’ and deaths, with a particular emphasis on ‘cases’ because they really had trouble cobbling together the death numbers…
In the Event 201 scenario, their simulated pandemic resulted in 65 million deaths in the first 18 months, but in the real world they’re up to around 2.3 million deaths over 12 months, and those figures have to be seen in the context of a global population of around 7.8 billion, where 59 million would have been expected to die in the past year.
Back to Italy, it appears there have been problems with hospitals in the Lombardy region for a while, for example look for this article published in January 2018, titled Milano, terapie intensive al collasso per l’influenza: già 48 malati gravi molte operazioni rinviate. English translation:Milan, intensive care collapsing due to flu: 48 seriously ill patients have already been postponed many operations. (I was able to translate the article to English on the internet.)
Also, I understand treatment via ventilators was a problem, a deadly problem.
What’s desperately needed now is independent and objective retrospective critical analysis of the handling of this coronavirus situation, including careful examination of global statistics, including the definition of ‘cases’, and the attribution of deaths to Covid-19.
And yes, there may well have been excess deaths due to this virus, as has happened in the past without society being upended.
I question the ill-targeted and disproportionate response to this virus, and those responsible must be brought to account.
You’re missing the point. Stop focusing on deathcount for a second; what do you think it looks like when there is no hospital capacity, and millions of people needing medical attention, all at the same time?
The point was not about the specifics of Italian healthcare, it is about looking at the rate of spread of a virus and having and some understanding of multiplicative events. If you’re convinced that the events in Italy were a mere strategic fabrication by the folks at TheMedia .com , just speak to anyone that works at a hospital in a city, wherever you live.
With regards to modelling, it is almost impossible to model such events because they are just too complex. A lot of those models are run on assumptions that everybody continues behaving exactly as they do, but that isn’t true. In places where there are no governments to enforce anything, people take matters into their own hands by naturally avoiding people and wearing masks etc. (And they certainly don’t sit on facebook bickering about whether they work or not). And in that 12 month period in which you say that more people were predicted to die, you’re ignoring how much connectivity had reduced already. Fewer flights, lockdowns had begun all over the world, mask-wearing, instinctive social distancing etc. which the models don’t, and can’t factor in.
Really Stan Glib, what is your point?
You just want the world to shut down forever?
Despite all the opprobrium shovelled on them, Sweden seemed to be doing pretty well, a neat little control group for us to observe.
And then…when the vaccine was ready to be rolled out…it all seemed to change. All of a sudden things weren’t so good apparently, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven and King Carl XVI Gustaf said so, and Anders Tegnell folded.
Was it anything to do with the British-Swedish AstraZeneca, and the lucrative global market for coronavirus vaccine products that beckons?
This is bad reasoning, again. Imagine for a second that every single country OTHER than Sweden had a zero-covid approach, and Sweden carried on as it was. It would still slow the spread inside Sweden because there would be no connectivity to the rest of the world! All countries are intertwined, what is China’s problem is Sweden’s problem is Australia’s problem is your problem and my problem.
What do I want? What I want is to stop seeing the Unherd comment section flooded with rattled, useless rants by people who can’t wrap their head around how this is different to a bad flu season.
And what I want is to stop seeing the UnHerd comment section dominated by people who want to wallow in this virus forever.
Fix it. Find effective treatments. Promote appropriate preventatives. Encourage people to live healthy lives. Expand the health service as necessary.
It is weird and sinister that there are people who want to curb people’s lives and shut down society.
Agree with your solutions, but they won’t be delivered, this week/month/year, will they? What do you suggest we do until the world is a better place as far as Covid is concerned?
What I want to stop seeing is *illogical* people wallowing in lockdowns and the virus. Truly this is bad for the health of millions more people than will ever get the virus.
Yes. There is indeed a fate worse than death.
One significant preventative measure is masks, but not many here want any measures that change their way of life. You won’t even persuade them to make a minor irritating adjustment, so what now?
Well put. I too wonder why massive resources weren’t put into expanding public health services, even temporarily, right at the start of the pandemic, so there wasn’t a risk of the whole system “collapsing” under the weight of an explosion of seriously ill people, the whole justification for jailing an entire population. It’s not like those resources were never available, in the wealthiest countries of the world, and with ample warning and time to prepare. I keep thinking of the Navy hospital ship sent to NYC harbour, which never got used. How could such a resource remain unused, in a supposed public health crisis?
Because it doesn’t matter how much you scale up the hospital capacity, when the virus spreads at an exponential rate. If you’re going to ask these silly questions over and over at least read the answers.
The projections about how this virus would spread, and how fast, were all wrong. They were based on absolute worst-case scenarios, imagining this virus was both far more easily transmitted and far more deadly than any other virus ever known, eg., “Asymptomatic person exposed to virus gets on bus with 30 other people, every person on bus infected, every person gets sick and dies, after each infecting at least 5 other people, who all get sick and die…” It was unscientific and nonsensical. If the virus had just been allowed to run its course, the health care system would have coped, or if they hadn’t, they would have been piss poor at their jobs, for which the taxpayers pay a huge amount of money. They are SUPPOSED to be able to cope with occasional, temporary crises like this one. What were people with cancer told during the Blitz, that they couldn’t go in for surgery or treatment because hospital beds had to be freed up for bombing victims?
Literally no models were predicting
It was already clear that only about 5 – 15% needed hospitalization in around Jan 2020.
– It was, between December 2019 and Early 2020, and eventually no populated place could handle the number of people needing hospitalization.
‘They are SUPPOSED to be able to cope with occasional, temporary crises like this one.’
This is like blaming a nurse because they couldn’t handle the number of burns victims from a building that is still on fire and still spreading. Hospitals won’t reduce human connectivity, it’s just damage control. Firefighters stop fires, not the nurses.
It does not matter how much capacity/staff a hospital has, if transmission is going up exponentially quickly. Google the terms ‘exponential’, ‘multiplicative’, and ‘second order effects’ for a start.
My point was that they probably came up with that ridiculously inflated deaths projection number by assuming that all or most people within proximity of a person carrying the virus would be infected. That’s not the way it works, even with the most infectious viruses. Especially not when a carrier has no symptoms. If they did work that way, I would have gotten the flu or at least a cold every time I attended a crowded indoor event in the past. When I lived in Japan I regularly traveled in sardine-packed trains and subways and went to nightclubs so crammed with people one could barely move. I also went to many galleries and museums, which were always very crowded on weekends. Most people didn’t wear masks, and certainly not in bars or nighclubs. Never got sick, except a couple of times in the dead of winter.
– so this is wild speculation based on nothing so I’ll just ignore this part.
Aside from that, you’re talking about other illnesses there, such as cold and flu. This is a completely different virus.
In the scenarios you gave here, you’re right that *surely* you would have caught something. But remember, you were likely sharing pathogens which didn’t develop into anything because of your and others’ immune system. At a certain viral load, they will develop if you can’t fight it off, right?
And for whatever reasons, it is clear that COVID either somehow transmits easier than other viruses, or, peoples’ immune systems can’t fight small viral loads off as easily as colds/flus and all the viruses we catch which never amount to anything.
If you disagree with me regarding all that, just strip things down to the bare basics; Without knowing anything about the way a virus spreads, one could look at the rate at which people were needing hospitalisation with similar symptoms to know that something was spreading at a rate that would soon overwhelm hospitals, thus transmission had to be reduced somehow.
One can expand physical infrastructure and equipment more quickly than doctors and nurses can be trained. Already there was a large shortage of medical professionals prior to Covid. They can’t be magicked into existence in the space of a few months.
Some of us “ranting” people are actual virologists/scientists/doctors/epidemiologists working in the field with many years of experience.
Whereas this virus was a disaster for a small percentage the old and infirm, it is now an economic and social (by extension health) disaster for the young and healthy. Congratulations, we’ve ruined the lives of our children to save ourselves.
I agree. A society that sacrifices its young for its old does not have my respect, and I’m 64. This doesn’t mean that I “want old people to die.” I’m just more concerned about giving young people the opportunities that I had and creating the conditions for them to live fulfilling lives.
Hear! hear! I’m 68. 🙂
So Sweden’s hospital weren’t over-run because all their neighbours locked down?!! I’d love to be on your side of the argument – you don’t need any facts, just assert when challenged that Armageddon happens unless you trust what I say.
In a globally connected world, what happens in one country affects all other countries. You dispute that?
You are doing a great job and I don’t want to steal your thunder. For some reason, people believe that they can do a summary of events as they see them and that it is useful. How is it useful to anybody?
I have been with UnHerd for 5 weeks and find it stuck in a groove like a record. Constant facts and analysis of things people have said or done. Meanwhile, the Left has real ideas. With the wisdom of maturity these facts are rubbish but as a young person they would be devastating.
‘The old people on the Right, the fat cats, have destroyed the world for us. Time for them to go and make a new world for us. Who cares about civil liberties or industry or wealth or property. Take it all away, scale down, grow our own vegetables and be happy again.’
Are there any counter ideas instead of constant analysis of the problems?
Because it isn’t worse than a bad flu season, look at the statistics by the ONS. Overall mortality for 2020 is not worse than an average year. So where are the thousands of extra covid deaths? Also many of those deaths were CAUSED by the lockdown, by withdrawing treatment and undiagnosed serious illnesses.
What do you mean, where are the excess? The lockdowns are to prevent the spread in the first place, hence they don’t happen, hence the figures are what they are. They’re preventative measures, that’s the whole point.
This is pure misinformation and a loony conspiracy theory. In fact, Sweden has very high excess deaths starting from last spring, just as U.K. does. Also a big economic hit.
Debate policy on the basis of the world as it is, not as you want it to be.
(I posted a link to the Swedish government stats showing excess deaths in a comment to Mr Sayers’ “Zero Covid” article, so you can check that. I won’t post it again here because the moderators take days to approve any comment with an external link in it.)
I have to defend Elizabeth here – she is raising a valid point (or many valid points actually) about the lockdown strategy and the negative reporting by the media to dumb us down into defeat, without any positive news at all. Daily Sky reports figures of doom and gloom without qualification. Death rate seems to be a dead cert, without questioning what the causes were. Save the NHS? What a joke. As some doctors friends of mine said – the NHS is supposed to save us! Not the other way round. The NHS must be overhauled and refitted to suit the country’s needs.
Failure of governments to anticipate and plan for seasonal viral hospitalizations results in many unnecessary deaths. Medical personnel have been warning and pleading for more beds/help for years. This is a monumental world wide government failure – wrecking the lives of many of their citizens in the process.
And still they do not stop. Vaccination for Coronavirus and despotic measures will never bring this mess under control. Pay attention to prophylaxis and community health and we might get somewhere
You’re missing the point. NHS capacity isn’t a static and can be and is increased during times of stress. The trick is to learn how to do this effectively every winter. And have something in place – like for instance a million trained ‘reservists’ – to help when the next pandemic arrives. Not easy for sure and will require significant military-esque style planning.
You don’t get it, at all: It doesn’t matter how much you scale up hospital capacity, all that does is delay the point at which it becomes overwhelmed. The virus spreads at an exponential rate, you cannot scale hospital capacity at the same exponential rate.
Except it did not spread exponentially in those areas with the least draconian measures. If Ferguson had been right there should have been 40000 deaths in Sweden.
Like the idea.
Everything you are saying is with hindsight. How easy it is to sit in front of your computer and analyse everybody’s thoughts and errors. Either this post is not sincere or it is a total waste of time.
Really? You don’t think it’s appropriate to try and evaluate the shambles of the past year?
Maybe others should be taking a closer look at the World Health Organisation, which is now an operating front for the vaccine industry, and see how things have been changing there in regards to handling ‘pandemics’…
And also a very close look at the ‘philanthropic’ Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which appears to be dominating this area of public health, with politicians such as Boris Johnson at their beck and call.
I don’t think that constant analysis is of any use at all – and it is easy to do.
Its always difficult not to join in the panic / run with the pack. Its even more so when any attempt to think about the issue and respond in a way different to the majority is castigated by the media.
… not to mention the keyboard warriors. For questioning the proportionality of the lockdown policies I have been called a sociopath, Trumptard, flat-earther, neckbeard, and all the rest. (I’m a 64-year-old left-leaning woman.) The suppression of dissent has been off the charts.
Not to forget covid denier, covidiot and antivaxxer… Oh and granny killer!
Well put.
This says it all – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQc...
Elizabeth, I vote for you to be on SAGE. Thank you for your clarity. Also, Stan’s name would imply you don’t need to take him seriously. And further, there are two Elizabeth Harts on this thread, one with a picture of a Victorian-looking gentleman. What is going on?!
Thanks Helen.😊
I can’t see the picture of the Victorian-looking gentleman, although that is an avatar I use, i.e. a picture of John Stuart Mill…gosh, I wish he was around now, what would he make of it all?
More official propaganda. “Speak to any hospital worker etc”.
Many of us have – and were told that the official figures and narrative have been largely exaggerrated and while some hospitals were under a lot of pressure – as they are every winter, as much due to lack of organisation and poor management as due to increased workload – many hospitals were around half of usual capacity and some even less than that.
I guess it’s your word against mine then isn’t it. I have one friend who’s a surgeon in an East London hospital who’s had to cancel most cancer surgery over the last year, because beds were needed for covid patients. Other friends who are nurses across London confirm that almost all admissions since Christmas have been people needing ventilators. Entire teams have been reconfigured and desperately retrained to deal with these. They would all agree that hospital management is not optimal, but none of them would see the situation as anything but a crisis, wildly different to a flu season.
But these are just some examples of many; my point is, stop searching for data that leads to the conclusion you wish to hear; talk to people who are seeing the bare reality of what’s happening. Some countries will fare better than others, and no country will respond optimally.
I have one friend in a East London hospital who’s had to cancel most cancer surgery over the last year, because beds were needed for covid patients.
How’s that worked out for the people whose surgery was canceled? They were only cancer patients, so no big deal, right? No doubt, some of those patients have since died and unnecessarily so. This is not to downplay covid, but what kind of policy tells a cancer patient needing surgery to suck it up for a while.
Oh I agree with you completely – he had one patient in his 20s with bladder cancer whose app was delayed indefinitely. Most people would agree this is terrible. But consider the alternative; all standard protocols continue, regarding who to help, and the government says ‘If you get covid, stay at home and if you die, we’re very sorry’. Imagine the response to that.
The virus has been prioritized above all else, irrespective of what impact such steps will have. It’s one thing to delay a nose job, quite another to do so with cancer. In the US, thousands of hospital personnel were laid off because of the fixation with covid. That makes no sense at all.
I’ve spoken to you in other threads elsewhere and you still haven’t grasped the problem here. It is a systemic problem.What do you think happens when millions of people need medical attention at the same time, and all hospitals are full?
I know what happens when people are denied care. I know what happens when the economy is shut down for months at a time. I know that thousands of medical workers being furloughed is not an indicator of hospitals being full. And I also know what happens when Naval hospital ships are brought in and secondary facilities are created for an overflow that never comes.
All the hospitals are not full. All the hospitals have never been full. Using bold font and underlining the question does not change that. Again, nose jobs vs cancer; one is elective, the other really isn’t. When the same excuses and approaches do not work, it may time to question the wisdom of the steps taken.
Dude, answer my question, what do you think would happen?
Hypothetical scenarios are just that. It hasn’t happened. It is likely to ever happen. I pointed to several other things that have happened and you ignore them all.
Governments can’t just respond to crises after they’ve happened though. Some measures have to be precautionary, preventative and based on uncertainty. All of the problems you listed would happen anyway, on top of all the other second order effects of a pandemic.
It’s completely reasonable for some measures to be taken in times of uncertainty that then turn out to be less than optimal. I think that applies to the authorities’ reactions during the first few weeks or even months of the pandemic and we should view those actions with charity. What we see now though is a lack of political will to change those approaches after new data emerges and after we’ve had time to evaluate the trade-offs. Politicians are mostly terrified to change these harsh approaches. I saw that coming last February—once imposed, any deaths that occur after lifting a lockdown will be laid on that politician. It’s his/her fault that people are dying. From a pandemic; from a natural disaster.
Can I answer that question IF we ever see it happen.
But I’d also ask – what happened to the Nightingales? If the NHS is so desperate why did they come up with an absurd “training” program to give an injection?
What about the angel hospitals?? where are they still ???
Get those brain cells whurring please.
So, someone in his 20s dies of an otherwise treatable cancer, so someone in their 80s can be hospitalised and intubated for a respiratory infection and probably die anyway (from the tube, if not the infection itself). Yes, that makes total sense. Probably many of the elderly patients who died (supposedly) of COVID in hospital would have had a greater chance of recovery just being looked after at home, in their own beds.
Again, this is with hindsight and, possibly, not relevant. I have members of my family who have cancer and are delayed with their treatment but I know for a fact that they are not blaming people who are in hospital with Covid.
Well, no; they are not going to blame sick people but delaying cancer treatment isn’t good. In the US, thousands of hospital personnel were furloughed, so the issue was not a system being overrun with covid.
Exactly!
So why close down the back up hospitals then ??? Answer that please. They were built only to be never used. This fact is extremley important in your analysis of this crisis. This doesnt make sense and is the common theme running through the whole pandemic.
My impression (I am a retired GP) is the same as yours Stan. A friend who is nursing in ITU says that this year the patients are younger and sicker..the virus is much nastier than your average flu because it damages blood vessels as well as preventing oxygenation of the blood. I thoroughly dislike lockdown and hope that March will see the end of it…but our previous virus-lite travel- rich life has changed forever.
I read a very interesting article in Sciencemag org entitled – Why covid 19 is more deadly in people with obesity – even when they are young. By
Meredith Wadman.
Could this account for the number of younger and sicker people presenting in hospital?
The increase in younger people is because of the increase in cases full stop. If 1 in 100 patients is a 30 year old, by the time 100,000 have covid, one thousand patients will be a 30 year old. And so you’ll hear about more cases of younger patients.
Hmmm, a rather glib response to a more nuanced problem, if you don’t mind me saying!
Far more younger people are getting tested now. If they weren’t, even the most severe cases requiring hospitalization or antibiotics prescriptions would have been put down to ordinary pneumonia or other respiratory infections common at this time of year. Pneumonia can still be a killer of the young if it isn’t caught and treated early. I knew a young woman who had most of one of her lungs removed due to a bad case of pneumonia, back in the early 90s. She had had no other health problems before that.
Why, then, is the solution widespread application of severe, unproven (and sometimes ludicrous) mandatory lock-down rules? If the main problem is medical capacity, then our efforts and economic resources can and should be applied to fixing that.
Imagine that instead of ruining a country, we got on with as much of business as usual as we reasonably could, and used the resulting economic health to fund targeted approaches such as adapting medical capacity and implementing new and innovative standards of care. As everyone knows, this is not the last pandemic.
As far as having to cancel cancer treatments due to hospitalization of covid patients, why was there was no emergency plan to be able to expand medical facilities to begin with? Why hasn’t this been done, going on a year now? In the US, there is no particular issue with lack of ability to treat other illnesses along with covid patients. What we do have is a huge wave coming of people who will die of cancer because they have been made too afraid to seek treatment and regular exams.
Because, even if you expanded the medical capacity by x10 tomorrow, all that does is delay the day on which hospitals become overwhelmed. The problem is that transmission happens exponentially quickly, and has to be prevented sooner than later, like a fire.
Lockdowns aren’t necessary, what’s necessary is the most efficient and cheap way of reducing human connectivity. Masks for example. But the indignant vitriol towards masks on this site is perhaps even greater than towards lockdowns, which tells you something – many people actually don’t want anything in their lives to have to change.
You sound rather like the person on Twitter who claimed that “22 family members” had either died or been seriously ill from COVID. How the hell many people these days have that many family members that they see regularly and know by name, other than Mormons? Never knew of someone not in the health care field having that many friends who happened to be doctors and nurses.
Thanks for this – it has to be repeated again and again as the official horror narrative is hammered home by all media every day – morning till night!
Hopefully, something will get through to the hopelessly indoctrinated, who are currently busy helping this new tyranny along!
I read as far as “has already led to over 100,000 deaths in the UK alone.” What utter rubbish
Even the ostensible ‘sceptics’ throughout the media are now using the 100,000 deaths figure as though it were true. It beggars belief.
It may well be more.
Or it may be a lot less. Just like in the US, we don’t have accurate statistics on how many people have actually died from COVID-19, because deaths are being recorded as COVID-19 deaths automatically if the patients tested positive for the virus. We are just being told to accept that every one of those people – the vast majority of the m very elderly and/or with at least one other serious health condition – would still be alive now if i weren’t for that dastardly virus. It’s nonsensical.
Kathy Pendergast you make these same claims over and over again, if you cannot bear to trust any of the data you hear, just talk to literally any hospital workers in any city in this country, get some feedback from them about your suspicions. Throughout each peak they have been inundated with patients needing ventilators. Just talk to actual people who are seeing the bare reality, if you can’t trust anything you read.
Compared to the plague, or ebola, or malaria or rabies, or the 1919, we knew right at the beginning, very specifically who is vulnerable to this virus, the people who might die from it. They could very easily have been protected, while the able-bodied memebers of the family could continue working and earning money to be able to provide for the vulnerable members. And the old saw that “what to do about multi-generational families?” Well, what are you doing about them now? How did the lockdowns work for them? The elderly were carted off to care homes where they became infected by staff coming and going, and died.
Right on, sister.
If the matter were “indisputable”, one would not have to belabor the point.
Power is in the hands of the people… It is time for us to practice polite civil disobedience
But most people support lockdown. Rightly or wrongly.
That is the problem, you start with ‘indisputable seriousness’. That IS disputable. It is a form of pneumonia. Many fragile and elderly people will die of pneumonia
Excellent piece! Wagner’s starting point virtually cancels the rest of his article with its rote-learned, standard offering, unchallenged Covid Horror narrative .
Instead of wondering whether our rights will be affected he should be asking why, specifically western Governments and media , have co-ordinated to close down all dissent and use the virus as the excuse to withdraw all the most basic human freedoms – then he might just wake up and smell the coffee.
As for bringing anyone responsible to account her seem to be no courts interested in the UK ( not so in Europe though), which surely makes the sinister agenda even more obvious?
Perhaps he should bother take a look at the players involved in the US election result as well?
Future generations ( we hope!) will ask why this was all allowed to happen with no resistance?
Points well made.
Has all dissent been closed down? I read a lot of ‘dissent’. I see protesters outside hospitals shouting that the staff inside are propagating lies.
Most people believe Covid is serious and believe it kills people and leaves people very ill. Most people know this because they know people, or know of people, who have been affected.
Most people also believe that restricting contact between individuals in certain circumstances reduces transmission.
You still get to say you disagree with most people so dissent is not being closed down – it’s just that most people continue to disagree with you.
Dissent is being closed down all over the place. I was “permanently suspended” late last year from two major social media platforms, simply for questioning the official COVID narrative in the comments sections. At least, I’m assuming that’s why, as I don’t post racist or otherwise abusive or offensive comments. This kind of silencing of dissenting voices is far more insidious than chasing groups of protesters away from hospitals. It makes the government look good, to tolerate the odd group of people standing out in the cold, waving placards and shaking their fists, all the while shutting down the real flow of information where it matters. The CCP in China are experts at that.
Thank you very much for this, Elizabeth. My heart sank as I reached that paragraph of the article. It seems that there is no honest analysis of the virus anywhere in the media.
Do you live under a rock Julian
Far from it!
Excellent comments.
well said
I couldn’t have stated the case better myself. At least, however, Mr. Wagner is raising the very real issue of the impact of lockdown policies on civil liberties, including the right to protest and dissent against government policies”the key cornerstone to any functioning democracy. We risk forgetting that our ancestors fought and died for these freedoms. We shouldn’t be so willing to give them up for a virus that is barely worse than seasonal flu.
You’re free to argue about how to respond to COVID, but as long as you post bonkers conspiracy theories about PCR, Bill Gates, and general anti-vax nonsense, serious people will ignore you, never mind anyone in Government with any power to actually change anything.
This is the problem with most of the “lockdown sceptics” I’ve seen so far: they are clearly unqualified if not actually crazy. They just can’t seem to help themselves: every attempt at looking serious ends up with them tripping over their own feet: see Yeadon’s failure to delete his old racist tweets after he got Twitter-famous; or the “fair and balanced” Hart Group coincidentally setting up their web site on the same server as a Yeadon fanclub and a PCR conspiracy group who are trying to get people to sue the government.
In your own case, you have both complained that the low number of positives in Australia means their lockdown was not justified and complained that the PCR test has too many (false) positives, without apparently realising you’re talking self-contradictory nonsense.
What do you understand by the terms “linear” and “exponential”, and how do they apply to the growth of hospitals vs the growth of the virus?
The ‘Lockdown happened and then only X died so Lockdown wasnt necessary’ line of logic crops up time and time again.
I hope the current generation of maths teachers do a better job of teaching about linearity/exponentiality in prep for future pandemics or god help us all
At the beginning of all this I had the deluded fantasy that ‘Ah, but we now have magnificently illustrated free youtube videos to help people grasp exponential virus spread and act early’. Ha ha ha
All I can say is that some of the dissenting epidemiologists & Doctors i’ve listened to obviously need to watch those youtube videos or learn from your expertise. Then maybe one day they too will understand exponential virus spread.
Unless of course those ones are the ones paid by corporations..(which is something i’ve heard from people who were..a hot minute ago ready to ridicule anyone who remotely questioned the wisdom of the current approach as being a ‘cinspiracy looney’)
What point are you making about Bill Gates?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is exerting extraordinary influence over international vaccination policy.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the largest funders of the WHO, along with the Gates Foundation-backed Gavi Alliance, and Germany, USA, UK and the EU Commission (as noted on the WHO’s Contributors webpage updated until Q3-2020).
It seems to me the WHO is a front for the vaccine industry, being run by organisations and countries that are heavily involved in promoting vaccine markets, most recently coronavirus vaccine products.
In regards to the Gavi Alliance, this was set up in 1999 with a $750 million pledge from the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation is a key Gavi partner in ‘vaccine market shaping’.
Bill and Melinda Gates pledged $10 billion for the ‘Decade of Vaccines’. Check out the ‘Decade of Vaccines Collaboration’, consisting of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations, GAVI Alliance, UNICEF, US National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and WHO, along with others, including many governments, non-government organizations and other agencies.
At the Global Vaccine Summit, hosted by the UK in June 2020, the Gates Foundation-backed Gavi raised “more than $8.8 billion from 31 donor governments and 8 foundations, corporations and organisations to immunise 300 million children and support the global fight against COVID-19”. (See: ‘World leaders make historic commitments to provide equal access to vaccines for all’ on the Gavi Alliance website.)
And check out the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. CEPI was launched in Davos in 2017 and co-founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the governments of Norway and India, the Wellcome Trust, and the World Economic Forum.
CEPI is an “innovative global partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations. We’re working together to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and equitable access to these vaccines for people during outbreaks”.
In other words, CEPI is working to develop massive global vaccine markets.
To date, CEPI has secured financial support from Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, Denmark, the European Commission, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USAID, Ethiopia, The Republic of Korea, Indonesia, and Wellcome.
Additionally, CEPI has also received support from private sector entities as well as public contributions through the UN Foundation COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
CEPI seems to be a bit cagey about clearly defining vaccine industry involvement, but representatives of Sanofi Pasteur, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and MSD Wellcome Trust Hillman Labs are on its Scientific Advisory Committee.
Check out CEPI’s website for more info, including the about / who we are webpage.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg… There’s a massive international web behind the burgeoning global vaccine industry…and it’s time it was investigated…
Bill Gates has world leaders at his beck and call, meeting with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in November 2020 to discuss rolling out coronavirus vaccination[1], and pursuing vaccine financing with other world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayued of the United Arab Emirates[2].
Bill Gates deliberately sabotaged the establishment of a Vaccine Safety Commission in the United States. Gates boasted that when he met Donald Trump on two occasions, including in the White House in 2017, Trump asked Gates “if vaccines weren’t a bad thing, because he was considering a commission to look into ill effects of vaccines”, and that Robert Kennedy Jr. “was advising him that vaccines were causing bad things”. Gates told Trump “…no, that’s a dead end, that would be a bad thing, don’t do that.”[3] And it seems that’s when the idea of a Vaccine Safety Commission died, because Bill Gates said “…that would be a bad thing, don’t do that”.
How appalling that Bill Gates deliberately sabotaged consideration of vaccine safety, when he was awash in conflicts of interest via his own promotion of vaccine products.
References:
1. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets Bill Gates to discuss COVID-19 vaccine. WION, 12 November 2020.
2. Inside Bill Gates’ high-stakes quest to vaccinate the world against COVID-19. The Seattle Times, 23 November 2020
3. A video of Bill Gates comments is currently accessible on YouTube, under the title: Bill Gates Dishes About President Donald Trump Meetings in Exclusive Video, MSNBC, 18 May 2018. It’s notable that the transcript on this video does not include a clear transcription of Bill Gates saying “…no, that’s a dead end, that would be a bad thing, don’t do that”, despite these words being clearly audible in the video (around 2:30).
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is exerting extraordinary influence over international vaccination policy.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the largest funders of the WHO, along with the Gates Foundation-backed Gavi Alliance, and Germany, USA, UK and the EU Commission (as noted on the WHO’s Contributors webpage updated until Q3-2020).
It seems to me the WHO is a front for the vaccine industry, being run by organisations and countries that are heavily involved in promoting vaccine markets, most recently coronavirus vaccine products.
In regards to the Gavi Alliance, this was set up in 1999 with a $750 million pledge from the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation is a key Gavi partner in ‘vaccine market shaping’.
Bill and Melinda Gates pledged $10 billion for the ‘Decade of Vaccines’. Check out the ‘Decade of Vaccines Collaboration’, consisting of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations, GAVI Alliance, UNICEF, US National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and WHO, along with others, including many governments, non-government organizations and other agencies.
At the Global Vaccine Summit, hosted by the UK in June 2020, the Gates Foundation-backed Gavi raised “more than $8.8 billion from 31 donor governments and 8 foundations, corporations and organisations to immunise 300 million children and support the global fight against COVID-19”. (See: ‘World leaders make historic commitments to provide equal access to vaccines for all’ on the Gavi Alliance website.)
And check out the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. CEPI was launched in Davos in 2017 and co-founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the governments of Norway and India, the Wellcome Trust, and the World Economic Forum.
CEPI is an “innovative global partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations. We’re working together to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and equitable access to these vaccines for people during outbreaks”.
In other words, CEPI is working to develop massive global vaccine markets.
To date, CEPI has secured financial support from Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, Denmark, the European Commission, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USAID, Ethiopia, The Republic of Korea, Indonesia, and Wellcome.
Additionally, CEPI has also received support from private sector entities as well as public contributions through the UN Foundation COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
CEPI seems to be a bit cagey about clearly defining vaccine industry involvement, but representatives of Sanofi Pasteur, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and MSD Wellcome Trust Hillman Labs are on its Scientific Advisory Committee.
Check out CEPI’s website for more info, including the about / who we are webpage.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg… There’s a massive international web behind the burgeoning global vaccine industry…and it’s time it was investigated…
Are you saying there aren’t false positives in PCR testing?
This is from an article in The Lancet*: To summarise, falseÂ-positive COVIDÂ19 swab test results might be increasingly likely in the current epidemiological climate in the UK, with substantial consequences at the personal, health system, and societal levels (panel).
*False-positive COVID-19 results: hidden problems and costs.
In regards to testing in Australia, I’m challenging the enormous amounts of money, time and resources going into testing. There’s been more than 13.3 million tests, with 0.2% positive. How much is this costing? If we say $200 a test, which is likely an underestimate, that’s $2.6 billion, what a waste.
And the interesting thing to think about is whether people would have some sort of immunity if the virus was here. But who is capable of answering these sorts of questions because who has any expertise in virology and immunology?!?! The conversation is dominated by epidemiologists, medical officers and behavioural scientists, who are clueless on this matter.
Re your reference to ‘anti-vax nonsense’, what’s that?
Are you suggesting that people shouldn’t be allowed to question taxpayer-funded vaccination policy and practice?
Have you any idea how vaccination schedules are escalating, the amount of vaccine products, revaccinations, multi-component shots, aluminium-adjuvanted vaccines that are on the schedule?
Children in particular are bearing an increasing vaccine load, but adults are increasingly in the frame for more vaccines.
And now fast-tracked experimental coronavirus vaccines are being pressed on everyone, and they’re planning on including children too, so that’s more vaccines every year for children, along with flu vaccines, and everything else on their schedule. We have no idea of the cumulative long-term consequences of this vaccine load.
Are you in the UK? Have a look at the NHS schedule and let me know how many of these vaccine products you’ve had?
Woke woke woke…. And more woke
Human rights are incompatible with an infection control regime that political scholars would regard as a form ‘biopolitics’. If the primary responsibility of the state is the control of our bodies, our rights and status and citizens, which transcend our mere biology, are cancelled out. This state of de-citizenised subjugation is what philosopher Giorgio Agamben terms ‘bare life’ – life with no significance beyond the biological fact of itself. To Agamben, under lockdown the condition of bare life that was once reserved for marginalised groups or the inmates of detention centres and concentration camps has been extended to the entire populace.
Along with the biopolitical, Agamben sees the State of Emergency as the other means whereby a nominally liberal democracy can become a state with overtly totalitarian features while still masquerading on the rhetorical level as the former. For as with the the pandemic and other emergency regimes such as the post-9/11 anti-terror state, the justification is not an overtly authoritarian goal, but imperatives that are understood to transcend politics, or which are seen as rightly excused from democratic norms, such as ‘security’, and ‘public safety’. In the case of Covid, the widespread appeal to ‘the science’ further barricades the debate from political contestation. Institutionalised science, wrongly presupposed to exist outside of politics and ideology, can be used to legitimate almost anything. All rights, liberal norms and democratic standards can be suspended in its name.
Hence, what was hitherto unimaginable has become acceptable, even semi-normalised. People are being incarcerated in hotels having committed no crime. It is illegal to leave the country. Public protest has been prohibited. Essentially, if a policy is supported by ‘the science’ or enacted in the name of ‘safety’, it goes largely unquestioned.
What is particularly notable is that this state of exception has even many liberals advocating authoritarian policies that they previously would never have countenanced. In March, the New York Times had denounced Trump’s call for travel bans as racist, and condemned the authoritarian approach of China, but in September led with the headline “To Beat the Coronavirus, Build a Better Fence.” Similarly, The Guardian is now brimming with demands for closed borders, seemingly having fully-embraced the view of SAGE scientist Gabriel Scally that “the only thing that brings this deadly virus to our shores is human bodies. We need managed isolation for all people arriving.”
The demotion of human beings to “human bodies” is a perfect illustration of a politics of ‘bare life’. And if we are not careful, such an attitude will become normalised along with what Agamben terms a “techno-medical despotism”.
Yes, everything you say is so true. We are in a horrifying place.
Isn’t that exactly what we are though? One fragile animal among many?
If at any time humans appeared to have been promoted out of its nuisance of a meaty vessel, that was quite clearly an illusion.. a performance-review bonus at best.
You misunderstand. Agamben looks back to Ancient Greek societies to find a distinction between two states of social existence: Bios and Zoe. Bios is ones full-existence as citizen, ones public life with all the status and recognition that carries. In contrast, Zoe characterises the slave, the woman, the one without public status who exists outside of the law, and can be killed.
In modernity, Agamben, following Foucault, sees this distinction reformalised under institutionalised biology, in conjunction with the legal system. To both Agamben and Foucault biology has totalitarian tendencies as it sees life as something to be measured, managed, surveilled and controlled. Yes, we are given rights, but these rights can be removed at any moment, reducing us to Zoe – ‘bare life’. We do not have a right to rights. Nor is ‘life’ something that defines us in our entirety – in our full state of ‘bios’.
To give an example, I am having my rights taken away to protect my health and that of others. But the concept of health here employed does not include my mental health, or even the much evidenced interplay between my mental health and my immune system, but merely my immunological biology as though it had no connection to the rest of me as a person. I simply become a walking vector of disease.
Moreover, I don’t exist as an individual but as a member of a biological group. To Agamben and Foucault, this is where biopolitics becomes really dangerous. For paradoxically it can legitimate murder. Imagine if a government felt it had no choice but to protect the life of the the nation by killing those who attempted to cross its borders. Biopolitics is always in danger of eventuating in such dark extremes.
If biology has totalitarian tendencies then The Enlightenment is most certainly over. Don’t know Agamben, but Foucault is one of those pseudo lefties who use long words to try to persuade us that they have something worthwhile to say.
The Government apparently thought that if Covid was let rip, the hospitals would be overwhelmed and their chances of re-election would be reduced to vanishingly small. They were probably right.
Foucault wasn’t really a lefty. In fact he ended up in hot water with the left for appearing to reject Marx and flirting with libertarian ideas.
Your assumption that the concept of health ‘Does not include mental health’ isn’t true though, because you’re ignoring the toll on mental health if nothing is done to control a rapidly spreading virus. Your mental health loses, no matter what.
A global, heavily-connected and interdependent world of creatures with bodies, comes with huge costs and fragilities. The benefits aren’t some kind of innate human privelage. Humans are bodies, and we transmit disease. Microbes couldn’t give a damn about my BIOS.
I appreciate that utilitarian analyses of biological tradeoffs can very quickly start sounding dark and sinister, which I agree with. But precautionary measures neednt go down that road in the first place.
*”Microbes couldn’t give a damn about my BIOS.”*
Precisely. In this biopolitical regime, ones humanity ceases to matter.
No one is arguing that nothing is done, just that lockdowns and social distancing harm mental health. And I can tell you that my mental health would certainly not have suffered like it has had we not locked down. Though in fact there is no such thing as mental health if we reject the dualism of mind and body. There is just health (stress impairs immunity). Lockdowns therefore exist purportedly to protect health while damaging it. One may argue that health suffers less in the long-term as a result of locking down than not (though this is highly debatable), though even then not *my* health, only the health of the populace, the group, however defined and demarcated. My health doesn’t matter at all. Remember, my situation might become so intolerable that I kill myself, but from the biopolitical perspective of public health my death would not matter, only that the spread of this one disease is arrested.
Lockdowns are the least efficient, most expensive, last resort efforts by a government to reduce human connectivitty.
So long as one can’t appreciate how quickly things would get out of hand without hugely reducing connectivity, ones doomed to being uttery baffled by these measures, which will seem to be no more than an unnecessary trade-off.
You’re still seeing it as Lockdown + Collateral vs. No Lockdown but if a pandemic gets out of hand that quickly, you can wave everyone’s ‘mental health’ out of the door, before we even begin to talk about the other second order effects (let alone the unknown unknowns!).
It’s debatable insofar as ‘are lockdowns the most efficient way to reduce connectivity’ which clearly they aren’t, but clearly other measures weren’t working quickly enough (social distancing, mask usage, no large events, contact tracing, etc) and so the lockdowns arent surprising when the gov is up against it.
In what sense would my mental health be worse off had there not been a lockdown?
If no other measures have worked, and your hospitals are looking to be completely overwhelmed in a matter of weeks/days, if they aren’t already, your only choice left as a government is to lockdown, or, wait until so much chaos has ensued that people instinctively start distancing and wearing masks etc (like in places like Brazil where they have no options, and it’s already complete chaos). Maybe that would work better, who knows? But what government would take that risk?
Have a little browse for reporting on the events in busy parts of Brazil, and ask yourself, how is their mental health doing?
So long as you can’t really imagine how bad things can get and how quickly, in a pandemic, you will find measures like lockdowns utterly perplexing, unnecessary and insane.
You use the word ‘imagine’. This is the problem: lockdowns are justified by an unprovable negative: that things would be so much worse had they not been implemented. I’m interested to know whether this precautionary principal will be brought to bear on flu spikes in future years, as the NHS is reported to be struggling to cope most winters. What do you think? Lockdowns every year?
However, if the NHS is struggling to cope this would suggest there is a problem with the funding and resourcing of the NHS, not with people for feeling entitled to live a happy, prosperous, socially rich life. I find it truly bizarre that the political left are using the same logic as people on the right who place the onus on the citizen for burdening services. Apparently, the NHS no longer exists to protect me; it is my job to protect the NHS by sacrificing so much of my health, wealth and happiness. I find this logic grotesque.
You’re doing the equivalent of complaining about furniture which has been ruined by sprinklers, to prevent a small fire on the hob. We can argue about better methods to put out the fire, certainly. And sprinklers are an extreme way to tackle fires early on, but in this scenario, none of the other methods were having enough of an impact, ie masks, distancing, no large events, and so on. Once shit hath already hit the fan, what do you expect a government to do, when hospitals are in a state of total chaos, and more and more people are needing ventilators and medical attention, as they were in Italy 2020?
What we’re doing is arguing about how much damage *this* fire in particular would cause eventually. You have to ask yourself, what do you think it looks like, when every hospital is full, and millions of people need help, all at the same time? And this is where a modicum of imagination would take you a long way.
People can’t afford to just sit around and wait to see how many rooms get burnt down, see if it maybe just stops of its own accord, and then set off the sprinklers while the roof’s on fire.
You’re doing the equivalent of complaining that the furniture is getting ruined by the sprinklers, just to stop a small fire. We can argue about better methods than sprinklers, certainly. But once it’s clear that current measures aren’t slowing transmission down enough, as a government, the easiest though most expensive measure is to just shut everything down.
Government or no government, people can’t afford to sit around and wait to see how bad it gets, see if the fire maybe dies down of its own accord, and then turn on the sprinklers once the roof is on fire.
‘a problem with the funding and resourcing of the NHS’ is like saying ‘well, if we had more nurses, we could handle even more burns victims!!’
Hospitals aren’t for stopping transmission (even though that’s now partly their function). Reducing connectivity is what slows transmission.
To be clear, I think lockdowns are the end result of bad, early decisions, a sprinkler approach rather than putting out the fire on the hob before it spreads. But to try to claim that lockdowns have no effect is defective reasoning. A better question is How long can a country afford to rely on lockdowns and vaccines to reduce connectivity?
What you can learn from this pandemic is that the UK government won’t be prepared for the next one.
No lockdown = worse mental health is a strange, counter-intuitive assumption.
In many countries you can see that numbers of covid cases / deaths flattened off naturally, before lock down had a chance to take effect. Sweden, Uruguay, Japan didn’t bother with lock-downs, and Switzerland didn’t bother with a second one. None of those countries stands out as having had a more difficult time dealing with the virus than countries that did lock down. Their health services were not overwhelmed. So for that reason I do see lock downs as an unnecessary trade off.
The virus may be rapidly spreading but it doesn’t kill
Now that’s a hot take
Too true! I am writing a novel about just that, “killing to protect”.
Joe, you say, what was hitherto unimaginable has become acceptable, even semi-normalised. People are being incarcerated in hotels having committed no crime. It is illegal to leave the country. Public protest has been prohibited. Essentially, if a policy is supported by ‘the science’ or enacted in the name of ‘safety’, it goes largely unquestioned
This virus is a Trojan horse, being used as the excuse to exert dramatic control over our lives. Unelected medical officers and academics have astonishing power over us, exerting medical tyranny through ‘our political representatives’ who have become our masters, relishing exerting control via ’emergency laws’.
How has this happened?!?!
It’s bewildering that we’ve been trapped like this, subject to knee jerk incarceration in our homes or quarantine, muzzled with masks, for a virus that isn’t a problem for most people.
Some people suspect Australia has been a testing ground for the controls, closing its international and state borders, draconian lockdowns, particularly in Melbourne, with police menacing ordinary citizens protesting for their freedom.
We thought we were free people in liberal democracies, but it seems there has been a coordinated effort to put in place a regime that strips us of our autonomy.
Again, how did this happen? Where are the checks and balances that should have protected us from this coup?
We were never free, we just didn’t notice. For a while the leash placed around our necks was a little longer than it has historically been, but our overlords have decided to give it a good sharp yank and pull us all to heel. You’re free to do as your masters tell you.
Yes Mike, I wonder if it was an illusion…
And maybe we don’t want to ‘go back to normal’…
A ‘new normal’ is in order, and I don’t mean the ‘Great Reset’.
Do you personally want this “new normal”?
Recently this is a question I have ponder at length. I have to say you must be right.
Depends on how you define “free”. I’m content with accepting that it’s a matter of degree; in 1989 it was easy enough for millions of people in the Eastern Bloc countries and the Soviet Union to see that they were far less free than people in the West, and not like it at all. I think human beings are biologically hardwired to want to be as free from tyranny as possible; they’re always going to hate, and bitterly resist, impersonal, governmental restriction on their freedom of movement, commerce, and assembly and personal lives, because – and this is where the paradox is – those kinds of restrictions clash with our social nature. If we were naturally solitary animals, like tigers, instead of naturally social ones, like lions, it might be a lot easier for governments to control us.
Can I add that people who advocate stricter and stricter controls and lockdowns are generally people who have
1. large garden and other ‘luxuries’ that 90% of the country cannot even fathom! a swimming pool anyone?
2. have no life – no relative, no family, no love, no interests, no sports etc.
3. don’t know what isolation and loneliness feel like, and no apathy for others
Prof Whitty mentioned his mother in a care home early last year, and that he had to ‘sacrifice’ blah blah to save the NHS.
Then we hear this week how 2 elderly couples, married for over 60 years, and are not ALLOWED to see each other! Eventually when the one was offered a vaccine, he complained that he could be released to have the vaccine but now allowed to see his loving wife?
This is what the tragedy we are facing today. A so called liverbal PM, a democratic society and country, and a fairly elected government – all trying to kill all that we have lived for, all that we’ve voted them to protect….
Cannot say I entirely agree. I found that I have been practicing social distancing for at least 20 years and I am very much against stricter controls
It’s one thing to live like a hermit out of free choice, but another thing to be forced by the government to do so. I’m a bit of a solitary misanthrope myself, but that may just be due to my age and the fact that I had plenty of non-socially-distanced fun in my youth.
That’s appalling for you! We are so lucky here, all because of geography, nothing else
I am happy English speaker as well read Giorgio Agamben.
I have been re-reading all his articles (available in italian in quodlibet website) he wrote in the last year since the First prophetycal “the invention of and epidemy”
Well said!
Govts are treading a fine line between docile compliance and revolution. There is a lot of data analysis which shows that in fact lockdowns have little effect on the spread of this disease. That mortality rates in different countries depend far more on demographics and underlying health of populations than on any govt mandated measures. At present this information is largely supressed by mainstream media and govt bit it is there. People are restive. They are accepting this on the basis of a deal with govts. ‘ We will take the vaccine but we expect our lives to return to normal if we do ‘ If govts try to renege on that deal I predict civil unrest or at the very minimum simple non compliance to grow. Govts can only push people so far. And if they do not allow open debate and discussion they are in fact damaging their own ability to govern by consent in the longer term. And short of martial law they cannot enforce these rules without consent of the population.
I saw some anti-lockdown stickers on lampposts for the first time yesterday. People who were previously pro-lockdown are starting to grumble. People are snapping at shop staff who demand that they use hand sanitizer. There’s a general air of surliness and weariness about… We’re a long way from revolution, but another 3 months of this would put us a lot closer to it, and when/if the current lock down lifts, the next one will be met with active resistance by a lot of people.
I urge everyone to look at the euromomo graphs & see if they can find any correlation with lockdowns. Look at Portugal & Spain for example. A lot of countries didn’t even see any excess mortality in the spring outbreak. It’s bonkers.
I’m no covid denier but we need to be a lot more focussed on what we can & can’t do & how to target the most efficient means to ameliorate the effects of the disease & limit its spread to the most vulnerable rather than simply locking down willy-nilly in the hope of achieving zero virus – which apparently some people believe is possible. There is of course logically one certain way to eliminate the problem: eliminate the human race. I suspect there are a surprisingly large number among us who would consider this to be the best option.
And looking at epidemic curves presented together with when lockdowns and e.g. masks were introduced, you see that lockdowns had no impact.
No one is a covid denier. They do not exist. To question the strategies employed to get on top of this virus must be encouraged. Please people do not feel shame by challenging the current narrative.
But that’s what I am so surprised about! How the Brits just take it all with a stiff upper lip! I am a new immigrant and I am adapting fast. But how come people would protest and jump up and down for Captain Tom, the NHS, BLM, Extinction R etc but sit quietly at home like a mouse without a sound?
I am an active tennis player and a gym goer, and without these actives I am depressed and moody. I am not yet suicidal but the thoughts (without any history of such things) have been circling around in my head.
Sometimes I dream of myself self-isolating in front of No 10, with placards saying lockdowns kill lives! Depression kills.
There is no evidence that I’m aware of that shows you are at greater risk playing tennis on an outdoor court and, from all that is known about the way Covid spreads, it seems highly unlikely that anyone would contract it playing tennis, particularly if you’re sensible about distancing. It is the lack of logic/science around so many of the restrictions that is really galling.
Robin, you have identified one of the worst aspects of this problem. These restrictions and laws and policies are so often devoid of logic and science. How can I accept being ordered by my own government to give up my liberty to, say, walk outside, alone, for as many hours as I please, when I KNOW that it is literally impossible for me to contract, or to spread, this virus by doing so? Where is the rock-solid evidence and clear explanation of why this type of restriction is completely necessary? Where is the acknowledgment that any severe restrictions must be based on the strongest of reasons and lifted as soon as possible? Some of these rules make as much sense as being ordered by the Ministry of Silly Walks to use only a step-hop-step when in public—on alternate Tuesdays.
‘ We will take the vaccine but we expect our lives to return to normal if we do ‘
The UK Government is already ramping up project fear about the SA variant and is introducing more stringent measures, such as hotel quarantine. The AstraZeneca vaccine is not very effective against the SA variant, which is already circulating in the UK, so it might be some time yet before “our lives return to normal”.
I must say I have lost patience with these on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand considerations of so-called “lockdowns.” Sweden and the American state of South Dakota give the lie to the whole proposition. They never “locked down” or imposed mask mandates, and they have done just fine. They didn’t escape, they didn’t come up with a magic bullet, but their experience indicates that “lockdowns” had no meaningful effect on the course or impact of the pathogen.
It is quite clear to me now why Sweden and South Dakota (in particular its governor, Kristy Noem) have been the subject of such relentless attacks and derision. If they had given in to the bullying, we would have no evidence as to the true worthlessness of “lockdowns”, at least in terms of contagion control. But they didn’t, and so we do. They have exposed the lockdown nuts for what they really are.
The true purpose of “lockdown” is to punish and demoralize people, and at least in this respect, they have been highly effective. They have isolated and depressed people, wrecked small business, wrecked public education and so forth. They have brought hell on earth to ordinary people. Please see “The Thirty Tyrants” on the Tablet magazine website, tabletmag.com. It is chilling. The people behind these policies are evil.
Well said indeed Sir.
Sadly this has a very long way to go.
Here in the wretched UK the average age of C-19 death is a staggering 82.4, whilst life expectancy is 81.1.
With circa 3.5 million people over the age of 80, and a mere 100K culled so far, the ‘Reaper’ is going to have up his game considerably. Can we really wait that long? Or are we on the cusp of the Apocalypse, which frankly is long overdue.?
Would you be prepared to say that to the face of someone who lost a mother or father as a result of Covid?
Yes, but more delicately I would hope.
I’ll send you my address.
1 Corinthians 15:55-57.
I certainly would.
They’ll say yes, but judging by their moral stances, I think in reality they wouldn’t have the courage. They would, however, be happy to hide behind Bible quotes as a means of avoiding reality.
I would not. What I would offer is that I, personally, along with my husband, are in a somewhat vulnerable category if we contract this disease. So my life is on the line, and I oppose any unnecessary restrictions, period, even if it leads to my death. My husband feels the same. Any serious mandatory restrictions should be justified only by rock-solid evidence and should be tailored as narrowly as possible. Western democracies used to understand this principle. I don’t recognize this Cowardly New World and I do not want to live in it nor do I want our children to inherit a world broken by over-reactions and thoughtless policies.
I have a cunning plan, developed after your comment last week about most people over 80 wearing nappies.
Why don’t we help these 3.5 million to survive by moving them to a large holiday camp, full of attentive nurses who can ensure that they are treated well and never run out of nappies. Since, as you said, they are not the future we should really disenfranchise them to ensure that they don’t have any stress about who to vote for.
As I am thinking about this I realise that the NHS could save a lot of money by allowing the camp members to share nappies.
Just think, when people reach 79 (don’t need nappies) they can look forward to a future where they never have to worry again.
Given the bureaucracy of the NHS there would soon be ‘nappy shortages’.
However to refine your plan slightly why not some sort of exam at 80? To keep with tradition let’s call it the ’80 plus’.
That would sort out those who need nappies and those who don’t.
The holiday camp smacks a bit of Gulags or Adolph, although perhaps another Plantation of Ulster might work.
They must retain a vote, but ‘others’ should have more than one, perhaps based on income, property, number of children etc.
Anyway thank you for your stimulating ideas! It keeps Lock Down Fever (LDF) at bay.
Without being callous I’d like to know the percentage who would notice if they were wearing nappies or not.
I’m in this bracket. Great idea but how old and what gender would the nurses be? 🙂
Just to clarify – life expectancy at 82 is around 7.3 years for men, 8.6 for women. So C19 is not just knocking off a cohort of old bastards who should have died the year before, as I think you are trying to imply.
No; I’m implying that those killed have used up 90% or so of their life expectancy. How much more do they want?
There is also the quality of life to consider. Is life in an excrement packed nappy, confined to a wheelchair, with Alzheimer’s really a good quality of life or mere vegetive existence?
Plus there is always I Corinthians 15: 55-57 is there not?
An odd reference for a neo-pagan like yourself to cite, Mr “Lake”! Wouldn’t Lucretius be more to your liking?
Yes I agree, but Epicureanism might enrage the Censor, so I decided, uncharacteristically to exercise caution on this occasion.
I dare say ‘Fortuna’ will smile on me in due course, she normally does.
meantime, how many people well below 82 are going to die from the economic harm done by lockdowns? Because economic harm always leads to health harm. It happened after the global recession in 2008 and it will happen again, with far more than 7.3 or 8.6 years of life expectancy cut short. People hate the idea of tradeoffs while engaging in them.
I should have added I’m one of those “old bastards”, so I am not entirely disinterested in this topic, and the untold damage it is doing to the fabric of our somewhat feeble society.
This is not exactly true. Many if not most of of those 82+ year old killed by Covid will have been in the last stages of life anyway, and it would have been as toss up as to whether they died this month or next month and whether Covid or a.n. other was the actual cause.
Also, perversely, if Covid has hastened the deaths of a lot of people aged 82+ who were already in poor health, then it has, as of now, statistically lengthened the life expectancy of all those individuals aged 82 or over.
In the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Swedish national response continues to be an outlier with cases and deaths increasing more rapidly than in its Nordic neighbours.1, 2 On Dec 20, 2020, COVID-19 deaths in Sweden had reached more than 80003 or 787 deaths per 1 million population, which is 4·5 to ten times higher than its neighbours.1, 2, 3 This difference between Nordic countries cannot be explained merely by variations in national cultures, histories, population sizes and densities, immigration patterns, the routes by which the virus was first introduced, or how cases and deaths are reported. Instead, the answers to this enigma are to be found in the Swedish national COVID-19 strategy, the assumptions on which it is based, and in the governance of the health system that has enabled the strategy to continue without major course corrections..
The Lancet, 22/12/20, just for balance.
There’s something wrong with the people, and it isn’t covid. The entire western world closed down on the strength of a virus that has a 99% survival rate? No, I’m sorry, but it’s just cowardice and nothing more. The Boomers and the Millennials, if they really want to do something for the world and the human race, are going to have to publicly own up to being the utter disgraces they truly are, admit to the upcoming generations that they have absolutely nothing to teach them except as a negative example, encourage them to look to the past for their values, not to them, and then retire from the public square. Really, as a species, we’re at the “kill or cure” phase now.
Joe, see my comment below re Event 201. If you haven’t seen the videos for this pandemic simulation, you should take a look, at least watch the highlights reel and Segment 4 re communications.
People have been terrified by this virus, particularly older people who feared it was a death sentence for anyone over 70, via a horrible death that was described as resembling drowning when the lungs are too full of fluid to breathe.
When you think back to media reporting at the beginning it was non-stop fear-mongering.
It was portrayed as ‘us against the virus’…this is a war…and we’re all in it together.
So everyone is expected to do their bit, and not put others at risk.
And people were paid off with furlough so they would comply. And for good measure the police force was turned on the community to make them comply, including the threat of hefty fines.
Get tested, lock down, wear a mask, isolate from family and friends, live in fear. And now…get vaccinated with fast-tracked experimental vaccine products…and even then they’re not promising you’ll be out of lockdown!
Honestly, it’s inspired, how else could they have controlled people like this?
Only problem is, this virus doesn’t justify the over the top response, it’s been disproportionate and ill-targeted. They couldn’t have handled it worse really.
And we need analysis of all this now, including how unelected medical officers and academics, and manipulated politicians, were able to implement drastic emergency laws that denied people freedom of movement and association on the back of this virus that currently isn’t a serious threat to most people.
‘Manipulated politicians’? You mean ‘ordinary, everyday politicians’, just unfortunately (in this instance) taking actions with which you disagree. Also, very few doctors and academics are ‘elected’ in order to carry out their main functions, thank goodness- they tend to be ‘trained’.
I am sorry but I cannot agree. The job of a politician is to lead and to take difficult decisions. on this occasion they sought to hid behind the skirts of the experts in the hope that this would shield them from criticism. This was not only an abdication of responsibility and cowardice, it was also wrong. If you allow experts to dictate government policy it only goes one way, the wrong way. To quote Churchill, “nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character.”
At last someone who has the courage speak out against this madness. Well done.
However David Ford (below) maybe a little unhappy.
At last? Almost all the Unherd articles about covid are plastered with comments by ‘courageous’ plonkers like this.
Hey, plonkers are people too. We have an inalienable, God given right to plonk. We form a vital and indispensable part of the ecosystem and we have a function: to stop, or at least obstruct and inhibit, ideas which, to quote George Orwell, are so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.
Plonk on
LIfe’s too short for plonk. I prefer vintage curmudgeonliness.
It is indeed very refreshing in these troubled times that we can have a candid exchange of ideas in such a forum as UnHerd don’t you think?
Very rare. As the guy says below, vintage.
Is a plonker someone who drinks plonk?
99% survival rate when hospitals aren’t full
Imagine being arrogant enough to think that billions of people are mere cowards, rather than considering that there may be something they’ve grasped, that Joe Francis hasn’t.
Billions of people are mere cowards. That’s because everyone is a coward. It’s just that sometimes, you get tired of being a coward and you just have to say, “enough”.
Have you tried asking the Boomers if they support lockdown or if they’d be willing to take their chances?
Did the boomers give us a choice when the looted the system and left us to pay for it
The lockdowns will never work, they only delay the natural course of spread. Those who brag of zero Covid do so with extreme restrictive measures in place and that comes at a high price to humanity. As a senior member of society, born in the 1950s I refuse to live my life in fear of a virus that has a 99% survival rate. Most of the 1% of reported deaths are associated with the vulnerable groups and that cannot be said enough times.
I am truly staggered by how society have accepted the shocking tactics of induced fear to bring about compliance and control. There can never be any justification of the draconian measures, “to save the NHS”, that have brought the rest of society to its knees. Nobody wants to really talk about the hardship and suffering that so much of our society has now endured due to the lockdowns. The list is endless.
The NHS has suffered decades of under-funding in a growing population and yet our government, in the knowledge that the threat of a worldwide pandemic had been known for more than 20 years, made it our problem.
As if all of that isn’t bad enough our society now welcomes a vaccination program with very few questions asked. I for one would like to know how did we manage to produce “safe” vaccines in 10 months that usually take up to 10 years. Furthermore, forgive my ignorance of understanding the manufacturing processes of vaccines but its seems incredulous that millions of doses have been made in such a short period of time.
I will never concede to the lockdowns, they have brought about more harm and untold damage to human society that will leaving us bleeding for years to come.
We’ve piled so many new normals on top of eachother that it’s not enough just to go back to the old normal. We need to go back to three or four normals ago to set it right.
The next question is what restrictions on other liberties, such as preventing ordinary family interactions or stopping children attending school, can therefore be justified and if so to what extent.
The “next” question is an exercise in missing the point. Once you have accepted that it’s okay to restrict some liberties, you do not get to quibble about restrictions on “other” liberties. The precedent has been set. Plenty of folks tried to warn about never-ending, poorly thought out lockdowns beforehand, but they were ignored.
To date, no one can explain why closing bars makes sense but not adult stores, why churches but not groceries. It was considered out of bounds to discuss the impact of lockdowns themselves and how forcing people into unemployment would lead to increases in other issues. Well, here we are.
“If it is allowed to move through the population at speed, there would be too many serious cases for hospitals to manage.”
This fact is often offered to us (usually phrased in terms of exhortations to “protect our NHS”) as if the fundamental issue is the virus. But what if the main issue is the hospitals? That a viral epidemic should lead to there being “too many serious cases” for hospitals to manage suggests that we don’t have enough of them. This is surely the result of three factors:
1) The dominance during the last forty years of neo-liberal economic policies, which have dramatically reduced tax revenues and made it difficult to fund a public health system.
2) The notion that the health service (and other public services) can and must be “efficiently” run, which is to say, that they should aim to deliver treatment while spending as little as possible – thus ensuring that services are stretched to breaking point at as matter of course, and inevitably leading to crisis when rates of disease surpass normal expectations.
3) The actual inefficiency of the health service (and other public services) as a result of a bloated managerial superstructure devouring funds that ought to be paying for more doctors, nurses, beds, equipment, etc, etc.
I’m not really opposed to the lockdowns although their rights implications do worry me. I am angry at the thought that lockdowns and other draconian solutions may have become necessary because our health services aren’t set up to cope with an epidemic.
Completlely agree with this. The same neoliberal Tories who eviscerated the NHS during austerity are now blaming the public for it’s inability to handle the case load of a pandemic….
Re: #2: it is lockdown policies that ensure services “stretched to the breaking point” by prolonging the impact of the virus for as long as possible. And what’s wrong with running public services efficiently? That you’re spending someone else’s money does not eliminate all responsibility to spend it in a smart way.
Of course public services should be run efficiently in principle, but it’s the definition of efficiency I’m taking issue with. A health service which is placed under strain every winter by ordinary seasonal flu – let alone an unexpected viral epidemic – is hardly efficient. A health service which spends vast sums on managerial bureaucracy (see point 3) is also inefficient.
As an extension to your number 3 I’d add
The insertion of “professional” managers who’s response to everything is “give us more money”. I’m not sure how much of that more would be to improve their bonus.
I’ll be 70 in October and I can remember lots of “we won’t be able to cope” during flu seasons, and yes there were some bad occasions. But I can only remember these after the “professional” managers got there. My often fallible memory says that before that the NHS just got on with it.
I’m long past knowing what to think or caring for my own sake (being very low risk). But I care deeply for the country’s sake that we learn from the difficult and painful experience we’ve been through.
I value UnHerd not for any particular bias, but for the fact that discussion of opposing ideas is much more civil than is typically encountered elsewhere.
Please keep it up! Those who troll here and try to put down discussion by being uncivil in discourse are the only voices I consider unwelcome.
I suggest you write a couple of lines to say that you support Socialism and then wait to see how unbiased UnHerd is.
The problem is that the biggest curtailment of peoples liberties at the moment is their own fear of the virus. If people gave any signs of wanting their freedoms back they would get them – the cost and effort of keeping this up would be too much in the face of widespread public opposition. You just need a shift in peoples priorities as reflected by political pressure.
Unless people start to fear the permanent loss of their freedom as much as they fear the virus, then there doesn’t seem much hope that this dystopia will ever end or – if it does – will not be defaulted to again in the face of similar threats.
I think the mistake many lockdown sceptics have made is trying to contextualise the threat of the virus in order to produce that change in priorities. The problem is, when the sceptics do then get something wrong about the virus, they are held to account for it harder than the lockdown advocates are for their errors. The advocates mistakes are numerous – but as they are all made whilst erring on the side of caution against the threat that has primacy in the peoples imaginations, they get more of a free pass.
You can also see this because lockdown sceptics are often said to have been proven wrong because of the existence of the ‘second wave’. However, multiple waves of the virus do not validate lockdowns – they just validate the lockdown advocates fear of the virus. You could even make the case that the lockdowns – if you believe they suppress the virus – also increase the selection pressure on the virus to mutate to a more transmissible form, thus contributing to the very problem now being used to validate lockdowner’s continual fear. However, that would be to miss the point of why it keeps coming up as an argument.
Pointing out the unprecedented nature of lockdowns doesn’t seem to work either, despite the fact this response has more in common with Hollywood than history – a kind of romanticised apocalyptic-ism (I am sure the Vallance’s and Ferguson’s of this world currently consider themselves the heroes in a disaster movie).
Yet people seem oblivious to the bizarre nature of all this. If a sceptic points out that covid – whilst deadly – is not uniquely deadly and therefore not requiring of a unique intervention, it just doesn’t land.
I have come to the conclusion that it is not worth trying to argue about the virulence of Covid to get people to reverse their support for lockdown, just focus on the observation that it is ethically indefensible. The harms that it causes – and that have been inflicted to maintain it – are so heinous that it’s difficult to justify in any circumstances.
Beyond that, I think we are just living through the frightening consequences of widespread fear and it’s impact on what it means to be human, something that would have been familiar to our plague experiencing ancestors. I just wish I knew why it was a virus no more deadly than others we have had in the past 100 years that has done it.
An excellent synopsis.
The fear you speak of is generated by the ‘usual suspects’, the Press/Media. We used to say of the Press that, “after the battle is over, they come down from the hills and bayonet the wounded”. This present synthetic crisis has taken them to new Olympian heights of absurdity.
For many of us this Chinese Virus is the third in living memory, the others being 1957-8 & 1968-9. Both these pervious ones killed between 1-4 million world wide and around 30K on each occasion in the UK.*
Was there Government inspired national panic aided by an overtly grovelling and obsequious media? No.
In 1957 the Daily Mail did attempt to ‘throw a hissy fit’ but was quickly brought to heel by the then Conservative Prime Minister,
Harold Macmillan. The same phlegmatic approach was followed in 1968.
So in answer to the question posed in your final sentence, we are not the same people, something terrible has happened to the national character in the last fifty years. To lapse into the vernacular ” we have lost our bottle”, and, sadly, will almost certainly never regain it.
* source:Wikibeast.
I wouldn’t call Covid-19 the “Chinese Virus”, both because there have been other significant Chinese viruses this century (SARS, bird flu) and because as far as the Western world was concerned it was more of an “Italian Virus” (or perhaps an “Austrian Virus” even, given the pivotal role of Ischgl).
The vast majority of European countries including the UK were able to avoid large-scale infection direct from China, only to be swamped by infections from other European countries.
I disagree, this wretched plague originated in the Biological Warfare
Establishment in Wuhan, China. That it spread to Austria is of little consequence, it its the origin of the source that really counts.
.
As you correctly state: “there have been other significant Chinese viruses this century (SARS, bird flu)”.
How long the world community will tolerate this pestilential plague pit is a matter of conjecture, but next time, and there wii be a next time, maybe too late.
Why? Because the Twitterati et al started to spread the panic a year ago and as journalists are too lazy to find their news elsewhere, they picked up on it.
The question of Human Rights, in the way that it is referred to is not an Anglo Saxon question. We have Magna Carta and the Declaration of Rights, we have constitutional rights along with constitutional protections and we are a Christian country.
It is the Napoleonic approach to ‘Human Rights’ which has allowed this dreadful mess to occur (mostly as a result of 40 years of EU membership). It is disgraceful that the politicians who fought so hard for our sovereignty during Brexit had no idea what that meant in reality.
The end result of this must be that we get back our Anglo Saxon attitude to Common Law and freedom, that the existing constitution (not some new fangled version dreamed up by Jonathan Sumption et al) is reaffirmed and we move forward on our ancient footing, so that torture and violence to liberty, such as has occurred this year can never occur again.
Interesting article and very concerning over the shift in what we consider to be normal life. I would question the underlying premise “The starting point must be the indisputable seriousness of Covid-19, a once-in-a-century virus. It spreads easily and in many cases asymptomatically, has a relatively high fatality rate which, when combined with excessive transmission, has already led to over 100,000 deaths in the UK alone. It also causes lasting damage in some survivors. If it is allowed to move through the population at speed, there would be too many serious cases for hospitals to manage.”
Sar-Cov2 and its associated disease has killed a great many people – that is indisputable. But we are mistaken in putting it into a category of unique seriousness. It is not flu, but we have relatively recent experience of flu pandemics – WHO reports two in the last 70 years 1956/7 and 1968/9. Both are reported to have killed between 1 and 4 million people. These numbers are higher when adjusted for population growth – 1956 adjusted would be 2.7 – 11 million deaths, 1968 adjusted would be 2.2 – 9 million deaths. The Sar-Cov2 pandemic is currently at the low end of the impact of these two pandemics. In neither of the two flu pandemics did we resort to nationwide lockdowns. Having lived through both I do not recall any great alarm from the pandemics, or the NHS being seen as about to collapse.
I am delighted that we have been able to develop vaccines so quickly, but these will not eradicate Sars – Cov 2. We will eventually have to adapt to live with it as we have adapted to live with other pathogens. There are indeed many serious questions to be discussed about what that adaptation will look like and the discussion is not helped by categorising Sars- Cov 2 as uniquely serious.
History will surely see this whole panic as the greatest self inflicted wound of all time – There could hardly be a milder pandemic where total deaths are near average and most have to be tested to know they are infected so mild are the symptoms – Also what we are doing via Lockdown and Mask if they actually do restrict infection could make things worse as follows – If the restrictions work then a disease will become more infectious as only the more infectious overcome the restrictions – Normally the more debilitated leave the arena leaving those infected with less or no debilitation to pass on that less debilitating variety this process is lost or even reversed when everyone regardless of debilitation is removed from the arena – Also if your restrictions work herd immunity can be held off long enough for mutations to occur – Wonder if that will happen…oh yes it has.
Well put, in less than twenty lines you have encapsulated the full horror of this fiasco. Bravo!
May I be so insolent as to suggest that the primary cause was a belief that a National Treasure, namely the NHS was about to collapse. This paragon of virtue, the one (great?) legacy of the Attlee government, bloated by years of gargantuan, self indulgent bureaucracy was finally to be exposed in front of the World for the Byzantine horror it really is.
The shame would have been just too great, hence the humiliating slogans such as ‘Protect the NHS’ or the simply dreadful ‘Don’t kill your Gran’. How future historians will explain how one of HM’s Ministers of State could have uttered such emotional nonsense, will be entertaining to say the least.
Perhaps predictably, I have noticed on this forum that it is NHS workers, one even claiming to be a Doctor, who are the most vociferous in defending this putrefying corpse, and national disgrace. We need a fresh start, but sadly as we now embark on a Hundred Years War with Covid, that is somewhat unlikely.
“To put it bluntly, this is as serious a pandemic as the modern world has faced. It therefore requires the kind of restrictions to limit social contact which we have seen during other plagues, such as the quarantine of infectious individuals and gatherings bans. […] So we have to ask: have our lockdowns been strict enough to be worth it? This raises something of a paradox from a rights perspective. The UK has one of the highest death rates in the world. Is this because our lockdowns been too late and too loose, particularly in their later iterations? Might our looser lockdowns, taking into account their collateral damage, been all sound and fury without accomplishing very much, and might stricter, earlier lockdowns have been more justified?”
This, I think, is a very good point that is frequently lost in the “lockdown” debate (in addition to the point that the meaning of “lockdown” is ill-defined).
For example, Sweden’s Anders Tegnell has suggested on more than one occasion that in practice the UK and Sweden’s behaviour during the pandemic has not been that different overall, when one takes into account mobility data, public transport usage, working from home, reduced cinema/restaurant/bar attendance etc etc.
I have certainly questioned the wisdom here in LA of outdoor dining being closed (temporarily) over Christmas/January when so many continued to socialise in public and private anyway (LA’s “stay at home” orders, incorrectly described in the UK press as a strict “lockdown”, were totally unenforced and the streets and beaches have been crowded pretty much throughout the pandemic). It seemed possibly the worst of both worlds in terms of trying to balance the healthcare and economic harms.
Thank you for this article. I would suggest that the legal and democratic implications of Lockdowns can often be lost in all the noise of whether or not they work as a policy.
Mr Wagner expresses it in a nutshell when he says
“It is essential that we don’t enter a semi-state of emergency laws and basic rights switched on and off by the government at will and without democratic scrutiny.”
This would be a very bad state of affairs for us all.
Isn’t that precisely where we are now, and have been for nearly a year? We’ve passed that rubicon… Any time there’s another “emergency” (new variant, climate change, terrorism, killer bees, take your pick) your “rights” will disappear faster than you can say “it’s for your own good”
I fear in my darker moments that you are right.
The lockdowns were a mistake because Mother Nature was in charge all along, as the recent seasonal downturns in case numbers across many northern hemisphere countries demonstrates.
We are destroying the private sector to protect an inefficient public sector – what is wrong with this picture?
Was listening to an “expert” called Simon Clarke from Reading Uni today and he seemed to be so negative and pessimistic, saying we would be in this for years, not months and almost implying that mass events like Glasto would be things of the past. He then seemed to backtrack and say not for “this year”. I then did a bit of research on him: as late as October, he was saying there was no imminent vaccine (having said in March that we should not hope for one) Got me thinking, do some of these guys almost have a vested interest in this continuing as it means they can draw attention to
themselves. it is as if they want us in a permanent state of lockdown and restrictions
Simon Clark, a thoroughly ill mannered and arrogant man. I listened to him a few months ago on the Nicky Campbell radio 5 live show. He spoke with utter contempt to those callers who happened to have a different opinion to him, telling one man he was “talking through a hole in his head”.
The arrogance and vileness of the man prompted me to phone the 5 live number to lodge a complaint about his behaviour. I also considered writing to his University, as he is representing them, however I did not. Folk like him should be put back in their box forthwith.
Stick to Radio 3, it is sheer nectar by comparison, and doesn’t harbour the sort of ill- mannered toads that you speak of.
Now is that Clarke or Clark as A Gibson Esq has it below?
Either way if he had come from the ‘dreaming spires’, 23 miles to the north I might just have been impressed.
My mistake, it is indeed Clarke.
i must disagree with the main paragraph of this article regarding the seriousness of Sars-Cov 2! the number of people who go on to develop Covid19 is minor, it does not have a high fatality rate, and as for asymptomatic transmission, that has now been shown to NOT occur! as for long-covid what numbers please? Lockdowns have now been shown scientifically to have had no or very little impact on viral transmission (as decades of science knew before 2020). we have willingly destroyed society, killed people, destroyed businesses and above all our childrens futures to `save Granny` (i know i will not be popular there!) Sweden were the only country to follow WHO guidlines, and it now seems they have important community immunity! This madness has to end!
The pros and cons of “lockdowns” should be thoroughly debated, and it’s fair that you point out some of the costs. But it’s absolute nonsense to claim that such measures “have now been shown scientifically to have had no or very little impact on viral transmission”.
It is a very simple fact that viruses cannot spread if humans are adequately socially distanced. And it is also a fact that Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, China etc have suppressed outbreaks using draconian local “lockdowns”, i.e. stringent social distancing measures (coupled with strict border controls).
However, as Mr Wagner points out, there is very much a question as to whether the UK’s attempts at “lockdown” were so late/half-hearted that they actually resulted in the worst of both worlds, in terms of healthcare and economic harms etc. That’s certainly debatable. The fact that social distancing reduces virus transmission is not.
And you are also wrong on Sweden, which does not show any greater signs of community immunity than the UK. Indeed, Anders Tegnell warned only last week that Sweden could see a third wave. He admits now he was wrong last summer to say that Sweden would not be hit by a second wave because they had not “locked down” i.e. his theory that they had greater community immunity was wrong. Like the UK, Sweden’s excess deaths are very high (I have attached the link to the Swedish government website showing their excess deaths in another post.)
Of course you are right but there is an after-the-fact virus running through the comments here. It is called SARS – Cov-Hindsight. It starts with a huge amount of analysis, followed by a list of ‘facts’ which just happen to support the opinion of the writer. I think it is no longer valid to have a discussion – you have an opinion and that is the end.
I don’t follow. It’s not a fact that viruses cannot spread between humans when they are spaced too far apart? It’s not a fact that Sweden had a second wave? It’s not a fact that Australia suppressed outbreaks through draconian measures?
I’ve re-read my comment and the only opinions I express are that I think the pros and cons of “lockdown” are debatable and that I think Mr Wagner’s point about whether the UK’s measures were worth it is debatable too. But I do not express an opinion as to what the correct policy is.
Everywhere had a second wave. Some places had third waves. Australia had repeated waves. How is that suppressing anything? It isn’t that viruses can’t spread when people are too far apart, it’s that you can’t keep people that far apart.
Hahaha, sometimes I can’t tell if you’re having fun or being serious Annette!
Everything is relative. You apparently can’t see the massive (40x) difference between, say, Covid deaths as a % of total population in Australia (0.003) versus Sweden (0.12). Yet you regularly assert on this site there are big differences in quality of life between California versus Iowa or Florida or wherever. You can’t have it both ways.
COVID deaths are not counted the same way between countries, Eva. You have been reminded of that repeatedly.
Of course I can say that COVID deaths are not strictly comparable between nations and at the same time say one US state has a better quality of life than another. One has zero to do with the other.
That’s why statisticians use excess deaths as the best measure, dude.
Would that be statisticians using non comparable stats that aren’t very accurate, dude?
Sigh. You’re saying that e.g. Australia and Sweden and the US and the UK all count actual deaths (not causes of death) so differently that excess deaths are meaningless? I’m going to simply suggest you google the work on this of one of the world’s top statisticians, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge and the Royal Statistical Society, and leave it at that.
It would be great if you would leave it since you aren’t getting any traction on it. You don’t want to become a bore, do you?
Sure. But I hope you’ll eventually understand that I’m not trying to change your opinion on what the best policy solution to the pandemic is. I’ve never expressed a view on that myself. All I’m trying to do is to point out where people can find authoritative data analysis from the Office of National Statistics and Prof Spiegelhalter. You say I’m being a bore, I say there’s no point having these debates if you won’t engage with authoritative factual sources.
We can all legitimately prefer very different policy choices based on the same data; there’s a difference between facts and policies/opinions/philosophies.
Clearly you are trying to convince posters that they should be like NZ and Aus. The data as has been pointed out to you repeatedly is not reliable. We already have evidence of that.
If you truly believe that we can all prefer different policy choices (and even that’s not correct since being a remote island with a tiny economy is not a policy choice) then stop trying to convince everyone that one person is the sole repository of all wisdom, he isn’t and he has been repeatedly wrong and said so himself. Excess deaths does not mean COVID deaths. It includes deaths from cancer, suicide and all other causes. Lockdowns are CAUSING excess deaths because people are not being treated for other things. We all know that people are going to die because of lockdown and because they have been intimidated into not leaving their homes even for critical care.
Will take a look! All I’ve been trying to do since my first comment on Mr Sayer’s Zero Covid article is point out the weakness in his suggestion that maximal suppression/”Zero Covid” is a pathway to Chinese-style totalitarianism, because he didn’t bother to address what is going on Down Under.
I’ve never opined that NZ/Aus/South Korea/Vietnam/Taiwan-style suppression could be (or could have been) achieved in Europe and the Americas. But I am open minded and will be guided by authoritative statistical analysis.
If your government can force you to cover your face, lock you down, controlling your every movement, prohibit you from seeing other family members, fine or jail you for disobeying orders to stay in your house, create conditions in which your teenager falls behind in school and suffers serious mental issues, cause you to miss critical healthcare, kick you out of your job and leave you dependent on the state for survival, that is indeed a pathway, in fact, it’s the highway to totalitarianism. It doesn’t matter what country it is doing it. There is nothing about Australia that would prevent politicians from doing or trying to do any of this. By the way how do 1000 hotel workers catching COVID from people forced to quarantine fit into your suppression narrative?
We’ll see, Annette. In liberal democracies, we have check and balances including independent courts to ensure governments do not overstep their powers — as Mr Wagner describes — and ultimately, elections.
I generally have a high degree of trust in our key public institutions, but that’s arguably because as a professional with a graduate degree I have a relatively high degree of familiarity/interaction with them. I know a lot of people do not share my experience/confidence, and I empathise with them.
Tangentially, Francis Fukuyama argues that levels of trust in government (as well as government competence) is a big factor in effective crisis response.
To me, the quarantine hotel outbreaks confirm that Covid is very contagious and difficult to suppress. Fortunately, neither Nz nor Aus (nor S Korea, Vietnam etc) have widespread community transmission at the moment, i.e. they are apparently succeeding in suppressing transmission. Let’s hope they can continue as they go back into their winter, which we can reasonably assume will be a tougher proposition (given the apparently seasonal nature of Covid that has been witnessed in Europe). As ever, I take no view as to whether they can succeed; I only point out that they are trying and it has not (thus far) turned them into Chinese-style totalitarian states.
You’re welcome to believe that politicians have your best interest at heart and that it isn’t about power for them. Others see this differently and it isn’t about education. Lots of people have graduate degrees and still don’t care for the government controlling their every move. Some of us have two graduate degrees, in fact.
There is no zero Covid plan and there is no covid suppression. You’ve been sold a marketing effort, even people with graduate degrees are susceptible to marketing. Australia is not suppressing Covid as evidenced by 1,000 hotel workers getting it. They got it BECAUSE of what the government did. And they don’t get to work from home. How you don’t see this is a mystery.
Posters from NZ and Aus have disagreed with you about whether or not measures their governments have taken amount to totalitarianism, perhaps you should listen rather than assume you know better than they do.
“There is no zero Covid plan and there is no covid suppression.” This is getting a bit too metaphysical for me, Annette. I’ll stick to the empirical evidence.
I said I have faith in institutions, not that I don’t believe politicians are interested in power. We have independent courts, a free press, an independent central bank etc.
Me too. Including COVID cases.
Courts are not setting COVID policy, neither is the media or any bankers. Btw, Newsom just got smacked around by SCOTUS over his attack on churches. More, please.
As you’ve just pointed out haha, the courts do place limits on government policy (and one’s politics tends to determine how welcome such interference is, as you’ve just indicated yourself haha). The free press holds government to account too. Meanwhile, the central banks direct monetary policy, as well as taking part in the monetary financing of the deficit, which is highly relevant to Covid policy generally.
I didn’t say courts couldn’t slap politicians around. I said they don’t make policy. And they don’t. Newsom got slapped around over the 1st amendment. How is that not a matter for the courts?
The media holds no one to account. For anything. I know what a central bank does. It just has no relevance to this discussion. Does the deficit seem important to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer?
Speaking as a lawyer, I can assure you courts in the US and England do make policy 😉
Yes, they do. But that isn’t their role. Of course as a lawyer I’m sure you can point out courts constitutional responsibility for policy making. They did teach that at the Barack Obama School of Law, didn’t they? Hopefully the changes in SCOTUS will stop some of that unconstitutional behavior. 😉
You misunderstood. SCOTUS was looking at was a 1st amendment case, not COVID policy. First amendment cases are clearly within the courts purview, while COVID policy is not. Even in a pandemic, we can’t toss the constitution, as a lawyer, I’m sure you’re aware of that.
It is not after the fact to state some very simple basic features of controlling the spread of diseases. It’s all pretty basic stuff! Stuff which the Government seemed reluctant to accept – like rabbits in headlights they sat , paralysed by the glare of the oncoming disease
A -H B C E COVID-19
https://www.americasfrontli…
from one of the top epidemiologists on the planet!
The link you provided doesn’t work, but appears to reference John Ioannidis.
As a general observation, one has to weigh the authority of one’s sources. Courts, for example, are often presented with opposing evidence by scientific experts credentialed to the moon and back, and judges have to decide whose evidence is more persuasive.
On the one hand, Ioannidis is tenured with a substantial research record, but on the other hand his views on Covid have been rejected by the majority of tenured epidemiologists and his predictions last spring about IFR and seroprevalence have since been proven wrong, which do not help his credibility. Certainly important to consider his views (whatever they may be; as I say, I can’t open the link), but important too to weigh them against others’.
Can you show me the evidence for your claim that asymptomatic transmission does not occur? Similarly, you make a very clear claim that lockdown does not have any impact on transmission. Please do point us and the rest of society to the evidence, research that backs up this statement .
Did A Study Find COVID-19 Asymptomatic Transmission Does …
https://www.boomlive.in/wor…
I think that if you actually read the article is says quite clearly that the authors did NOT say that asymptomatic transmission doesn’t occur.
It’s just one of those endless list of rumours that have been spreading
I agree with you that lockdowns didn’t work anywhere. Which is why places that used draconian lockdowns had to repeat them, sometimes several times. And even with draconian lockdowns, people cheat all the time. That’s going to happen especially if they have to be repeated. If they worked, they would not have to be done again. What worked somewhat was border closure and some places have an easier time closing their borders than others due to geographic location,
Unfortunately we have been prevented from talking about the costs and benefits of lockdown. When we eventually have that frank conversation the costs will surprise a lot of people.
On this site, Mr Revealed has talked many times about £800 billion and still rising.
Yes, this site does discuss it but you will not find any such discussion on the BBC, in the Guardian, on CNN, etc and Google, Facebook, etc appear to be deleting links to any discussion that are ongoing. That is what I was referring to
Is that eight thousand million, or the proper eight billion of earlier standards?
Please Mr Revealed, do not take it out on me, but I think he meant eight thousand million.
I think everyone knows perfectly well what any sensible cost / benefit analysis would produce, which is why there will never be one.
How ridiculous! Your starting points are assumptions which have been proven to be false. Asymptomatic transmission – not proven, never been worthy of mention in any other viral infection. You also talk about it being unprecedented. It is not that different to other viral infections which we already live with all the time. The only thing which makes it novel are people SAYING that it is and generally they have their own agendas. If your assumptions are incorrect then pretty much your arguments about lockdowns and their efficacy (which have been proven to be ineffective anyway) are null and void
Have you spoken to anyone who works at a hospital in a city?
Proven to be ineffective? Do you have some evidence for this assertion of yours, or, to use your own phrase, do you just have a personal agenda. I am thinking that the answer to those two questions are – no and yes
STANFORD ““ Effects of NPI on Covid-19 ““ A Tale of Three Models
LANCET NO EFFECT ON MORTALITY Paper
Was Lockdown in Germany Necessary? ““ Homburg
KOCH Institute Germany Analysis
BRISTOL UNIVERSITY Paper
NATURE Submission Flaxman et al Response
PROFESSOR BEN ISRAEL ANALYSIS
NIH Paper
WOODS HOLE INSTITUTE Paper
EDINBURGH STRATCLYDE UNIVERSITY Paper
BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL BMJ Paper
ISRAEL MASSIVE COST OF LOCKDOWN Paper
EPIDEMIOLOGY Too Little of a Good Thing Paper
Smart thinking: lockdown and Covid-19 Implications-for-Public-Policy
SCOTLAND Life Expectancy Paper
LOCKDOWN COSTS MORE LIVES Paper Federico
DID LOCKDOWN WORK? Paper
FOUR STYLIZED FACTS ABOUT COVID-19
HOW DOES BELARUS”¦
LIVING WITH CHILDREN IN UK
PANDATA COUNTRY ANALYSIS
NEJM MARINE STUDY QUARANTINE
A MATTER OF VULNERABILITY STUDY
Government Mandated Lockdowns do NOT Reduce Mortality ““ New Zealand Wrong
Dec 30th Longitudinal variability in mortality predicts Covid-19 deaths
Lockdown Effects on Sars-CoV-2 Transmission ““ The evidence from Northern Jutland
Assessing Mandatory Stay”at”Home and Business Closure Effects on the Spread of COVID”19
COVID-19 Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink
The-effect-of-interventions-on-COVID-19.pdf
MILLION DOLLAR SOCIAL DISTANCING
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF LOCKDOWN
BMJ IOANNIDIS DEBATE
NIH NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF LOCKDOWN
BMJ: HERD IMMUNITY POLICY COULD SAVE LIVES
IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN DISORDERS
BMJ DELAYED ACCESS TO CARE
CAMBRIDGE: LIVING WITH COVID ““ BALANCING
PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH ““ LIVING WITH COVID
JAMA HOSPITALIZATIONS FOR CHRONIC DISEASE
IRISH CANCER SOCIETY SUBMISSION
ECLINICAL DEATHS OF DESPAIR
ONS EXCESS DEATH MESS
DEATH BY LOCKDOWN
LOCKDOWN ““ A FOCUS ON THE POOR AND CHILDREN
MENTAL HEALTH AND LOCKDOWN
PROJECTED DEATHS OF DESPAIR FROM LOCKDOWN
THE PRICE OF PANIC
WHO Oct 2019 Pandemic Guidelines
Enough for you to get started with and of course, don’t forget Sweden
This article puts the focus on the absurdity of lockdowns, yet fails to apply the critical lens to any of the other factors, most importantly pondering over whether it was a late lockdown or that it was not strict enough, instead of looking at the data. UK is the 2nd most obese nation, could this have anything to do with having high numbers dying of a respiratory disease? How about the blatant deficiency in Vit D? We know too much now to accept such rubbish.
We keep having this discussion on vitamin D. Where is the evidence?
Vitamin D deficiency is the number one comorbidity. Also goes a long way to explain the BAME severity. Patients given Vitamin D had better outcomes.
If you are prepared to give up a bit of time, Dr John Campbell has presented a resume of some compelling peer-reviewed evidence on his YouTube channel. If you have even more time, he conducted an absorbing (and long) discussion on this subject with David Davis that is well worth watching, too.
OK, thanks for this. But still the same argument as a few paras above. What good is YouTube when people follow the BBC and The Daily Mail, not to mention the NHS?
https://news.sky.com/story/…
See also Dr John Campbell on YouTube. He normally just follows the Government line but has deviated a bit on this issue.
“The starting point must be the indisputable seriousness of Covid-19, a once-in-a-century virus. “
No, no, no! Please check out the ONS statistics. Last year the overall mortality is still within the 5 year average. Please don’t repeat the same misleading lies of the MSM.
We have no post mortems being carried out, so a ’cause of death’ is a speculation.
The PCR test is NOT a diagnostic test for an infection according to it’s inventor; it has been grossly misused.
Misinformation. The ONS data shows substantial excess deaths. See also Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge, one of the world’s leading statisticians and who works with the ONS, on excess deaths and years of life lost prematurely.
If we did have post mortems we would find a lot of CIVID deaths actually were not. Just what has come out so far indicates we have a stats problem. They aren’t reliable. You can’t determine excess deaths when your data is not reliable. We may have excess and premature deaths from other treatable illnesses such as cancer that were ignored so we could save the elderly. Those are yet to come.
Your Covid denialism is not grounded in fact. You can go to the ONS website and their weekly statistical bulletins discuss excess deaths.
In the meantime, here’s some info from renowned statistician Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge and the Royal Statistical Society (that you can google and easily source yourself):
“From ONS data, we can calculate that between September and the end of 2020 there were around 21,000 excess deaths in England and Wales. Yet there were 29,000 deaths with Covid on the death certificate, so there has been a substantial deficit of around 8,000 non-Covid deaths. We are, then, faced with a statistical challenge ““ how could this happen?
First, around half of this 8,000 will be people whose primary cause of death was something else: they died “with”, rather than”’from”, Covid. Second, there has been almost no flu. But sadly, we are seeing the absence of the many elderly people who were among the 59,000 excess deaths between March and June, but would otherwise have survived until later in the year.”
David Spiegelhalter, “Behind the numbers: how to make sense of ‘excess’ deaths”, The Guardian, 17 January 2021
And on his Twitter account, on 22 December 2020, Spiegelhalter wrote:
“For time of year, total and excess deaths are without recent precedent. But deaths without Covid as primary cause are at lowest level for 10 years. Minimal flu, and some brought forward by first-wave?”
Is it actually that serious? Is it a threat to the continuation of the state and government? Various politicians have used the language if conflict and war, but is it… really?
It is easy to say 100,000 deaths within 28 days of a positive test result. That is not the same as 100,000 deaths from active covid. And of those 100,000, how many would have died within 12 months from old age?
Yes this is a nasty virus and it spreads easily, but so far it disproportionately affects the elderly and particularly those with existing morbitities. If this virus ran unchecked through the population, would it cause the food supply to break down leading to riots and fundamental breakdown of law?In other words threaten the government. Or has this been provoked by the thought of photographs appearing on social media rather than an actual threat?
Surely if this is all about the NHS as it is presented it is necessary to ask, does the cost of the response meet NICE guidelines in terms of QALYs as providing value for money? Looking at the actual mortality rates and how those “saved” have mostly been from the very elderly against the cost of lockdown.. The answer can only be NO!
In short this lockdown is not justified.
What leads you to equate “serious” with the collapse of society/the government?
I’m not saying I agree with their policies, but my understanding is that the UK government is trying to achieve a number of objectives, including reducing the number of lives being cut short prematurely (see Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter on average years of life lost during the pandemic), trying to prevent the health service from being overwhelmed and/or having to ration care for non-covid patients (or alternatively avoiding the situation in Sweden last spring, where the elderly were denied hospital care in favour of palliative care in homes), and also trying to prevent huge swathes of the workforce being off work sick at any one time. Whether or not you think the government should be doing this, I think these type of problems can reasonably be described as “serious”. (And to head off the usual Covid-sceptic retort that Covid hasn’t actually put unprecedented pressure on healthcare: please refer to Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter and the ONS on excess deaths and hospitalisations.)
In any event, I am not aware that the government’s Covid measures have ever been justified on the basis they are necessary to prevent societal collapse.
That’s a good question. If it is about saving the NHS, why hasn’t NICE determined the QALYS of massive efforts for end of life patients to be unjustified? It would in any other illness would it not? Would people in their 80s and 90s be given heart transplants? I doubt it.
These are not lives cut short for the most part, it’s end of life care. They were retirees in large part, not active contributors to keeping the economy going. Instead, young people who needed care that WOULD prolong and improve their lives were, in many cases, denied it. Cancer patients for example. It makes no sense to throw everything at saving a 90 year old and let the 40 year olds cancer advance. Sweden did the opposite. It focused on saving and improving the lives of people who did have longer to live while offering palliative care to the very old. It refused to sacrifice younger people to save the very old, while crashing the economy to boot. Sweden may avoid some of the societal problems that have and will continue to impact young people whose lives were traded for the very old.
I can’t see how framing all this with regards to rights gets anyone anywhere. A scenario like this is yet another example of the insolubility of conflicting rights, no? They come and go, and are upheld when possible, however fleetingly, as with the reintroduction of torture (under fancy new names) which previously wouldve seemed impossible to many.
Also the question is not whether lockdowns work, but are there not cheaper/better ways to reduce connectivity. Once it becomes apparent if it isn’t already that locking down and frantically vaccinating is too costly and slow a strategy, consider:
“¢ Hugely strict border controls (Bye rights to travel wherever and whenever)
“¢ Wearing protective gear (Bye rights to breath on everyone in public)
“¢ No large events, ever again (Bye rights to sports, gigs, festivals)
“¢ Constant testing and tracing (Bye rights to privacy)
Something’s gotta give. There’s no scenario during a global pandemic in which all ‘rights’ are maintained, if those rights were contingent on there not being an extremely contagious virus about. Anyone who thinks their past freedoms won’t be restricted is in denial (or very rich).
The question is also whether these restrictions make a material difference anyway to the so called “spread”. The evidence on masks and lock downs is highly mixed. At best.
The vaccines are also looking increasingly ineffective in the face of expected mutation. Just as people who study respiratory illnesses for a living suggested might be the case. The Flu Vaccine is an existing example of this. Not that the rushed trials were overly convincing of a material benefit anyway, and medical science has a long and disgraceful history of creating “cures” that either do not help, or make things worse. Think the Polio Vaccine. Think the craze for mastectomies. Doctors and scientists are not quite as omnipotent as they would have us believe. Their claims need to be subjected to major scrutiny before accepting any of their remedies; either collectively or individually.
We were told also to wait for a vaccine as the miracle salvation. Now the goalposts are shifting again. This will never end. There will always be a reason to carry on.
My reflection is that our interventions have made this far worse in terms of both short term and long term deaths than if nature had just run its course. Our interventions have not stopped Covid and they have led to major collateral damage. We are now in an evil era of authoritarian government and a fearful population that has lost its reason.
You say ‘this will never end’ rather indignantly, as if pathogens give a damn. Pandemics are the rule, not the exception. And the more connected the world becomes, the bigger a problem they become.
What do you think happens when too many people need medical attention at the same time, and all hospitals are full?
Masks are cheap, lockdowns aren’t. Do you think the Brazillian mother and son, driving around trying to purchase an oxygen tank for his dying father, are going to fanny about online, searching for studies about mask efficacy? I suggest to you that no, they would exercise some brainpower and take a very cheap option.
An interesting debate is available on the
Cambridge Unions You Tube channel entitled – The Lockdown was a mistake
With Sir Graham Brady MP arguing that it was.
It was published a week ago, so is still relevant.
A counter argument could wel be that in its reluctance to impose and police ( yes , impose and police’) an immediate and hard 3 month lockdown way back in the early days, in it’s terrible reluctance to impose robust border measures and it’s unbelievable enthusiasm to encourage us to go out and holiday, to spend spend spend and eat out, this Government has totally failed in its primary role of protecting citizens and given us a quite unjustified long long period of restrictions and deaths. A double whammy of deaths and years of restrictions , a double whammy of failures. All because Johnson and Co couldn’t grasp the nettle at the outset and even now seem unbelievably reluctant to quarantine all entrants to the UK. One could be forgiven for thinking that Johnson is keen to leave open doors for new variants to invade the Uk and thus give him reasons for further and longer restrictions under the controls,of himself.
Hmmm – a three month hard lockdown. I’m not sure I had enough food in the house. Still if we were all corpses it might stop covid from spreading.
There’s a lot of difference between isolation which would have been effective and lockdown which wasn’t.
Exactly, didn’t we used to joke that “cancer cures smoking”, so “death cures covid” seems apposite.
Are lockdowns necessary in rural areas? I live on a small farm in a county of 600 square miles-so far we have had less than 30 deaths, almost all elderly in facilities. The infection rate is nominal, and most do not wear masks outdoors. Many businesses were closed for a while ( but not large retailers or grocers…)-most are now open. When I visit the city, the fear and paranoia is palpable, whereas in the rural it is close to business as usual. That this has been politicized is clear, regardless of the danger-it is the perfect opportunity for authorities to sharpen their control skills and power, and a fine way for “right-thinking” and “concerned” persons to virtue signal. HIV/AIDS had, as of April 2020 (WHO) killed over 32 million people world wide, but no quarantine was ever imposed because of the “stigma” and political implications of singling out a protected victim group…even though the disease was 99% fatal, and transmission was easily prevented. This matter of politicians and special interest groups inserting themselves into medical situations is clearly distorting the ability of society as a whole to come to terms with whatever the real problem is, and find true solutions. Meanwhile, out here, we live, work and continue to watch, askance, as the iron hand of overweening government grows stronger, and many seem to find an odd security in it…
A human rights lawyer worried that the trough will get smaller. No surprise there. The inexorable mission creep of ever more irrational, impractical, and infantilising ‘human rights’ has done far more damage to society than the pandemic ever could. Those ancient societies which used religious shibboleths to cement good practices into people’s minds didn’t need ‘rights’. They recognised that most so-called rights are merely the beneficial outcomes of responsibility. Discard responsibility, and rights become meaningless, except for lawyers.
Brilliant!! All of the old people on this site are getting very excited when they talk about human rights but, as you say, human rights without responsibility don’t mean anything at all – just an academic subject.
The article starts promising and for a while it is even to be taken seriously but then he says: ‘The starting point must be the indisputable seriousness of Covid-19, a once-in-a-century virus.’….. Ppppffhhhh….Thank you drive through, Beavis and Butthead would say…
I now see, luckily, that I am not the only one, thank god.
Yes, that’s true – even the WHO have said this is not ‘the big one’ (once in a century); its not even clear where that ‘once in a century’ trope for pandemics comes from – its not like they’re volcanic events or earthquakes whose occurrence is based on geological observations. Apart from an estimate someone made once it just seems to be based on an assumption.
Deaths from Covid are a fraction of those from heart disease. It really is overblown how serious this disease is. Banning sugar would have a greater effect on public health.
Philosophers have long doubted the viability of rights based ethics for its tendency to be black and white, steamrollering over every other consideration. e.g. Transwomen assert a human right to enter female toilets. Radfems assert a right not to have physical males in single sex spaces. How far has this got us in resolving the problem? Nowhere at all.
Rights based analysis has failed completely in the context of lock down. Courts that were until recently granting rights to those convicted of serious crimes based on a tendentious “right to a family life” are refusing to rule on whether the entire population has a right to free association.
If rights are a useful concept, we either have rights or we do not. There is no third state. That is the whole point.
If political considerations drive the selective application of “rights” law, it undermines the entire weltanschauung.
Conclusion: we need to radically reduce the role of lawyers like Mr Wagner in our political system and make these legal issues, political issues once again.
n.b. I agree with Wagner on the material issue that permanent lockdown is a possibility that must be prevented.
What is wrong with this article? It is written AFTER lockdowns when everyone is angry and bored and needs someone to blame. To whinge about civil rights because you can’t go down the pub with your mates must be, in itself, close to the end of life.
Today our life is miserable. Everybody is miserable. We all are pretty sure that we should be returning to life (life but not as we know it Jim). But to just complain about how everybody was wrong in a NEW situation for our civilisation is a waste of energy. Please don’t bring up the Spanish Flu because that killed young people who were suffering from malnutrition and TB after the war.
To try to attach the last year to some form of philosophy, as in Plato or Aristotle is a sign of too many graduates in the Arts subjects with nothing to do anyway.
A year ago we were panicked into believing that this ‘Chinese Death Flu’ was the new Black Death, and as such we behaved accordingly.
Now that it is abundantly clear that this is the greatest confidence trick played on humanity since the Resurrection, people are justifiably irritated.
As Heraclitus said “War is the father of all things”, we shall soon see if he is still correct.
I haven’t had the opportunity to meet Mr Heraclitus. All of these discussions may be true. I am not arguing with that. At the time in March 2020 NOBODY knew what was happening, people were afraid, governments all over the world were spinning around copying each other, there was panic in the stock exchange, etc. Now, today, all of these comments are with hindsight and do not really help.
You and others may say that you were always against the principles of lockdown. So what? Even today, every single person I speak to has a separate opinion. Each opinion is just from one brain.
My argument is always the same. It never changes. I see everyone on this site as special because they have the power to write and make reasoned arguments. Therefore, they are in a tiny, tiny, insignificant minority. Almost everyone I know gets their views from the BBC or the Daily Mail. If you read what people think in the mainstream they are not talking about nappies, they are frightened. Yes, they are frightened by the BBC and The Daily Mail and the government. So we need to abolish all of them and broadcast this site over all TV stations. How long would you last with discussions of nappies and Mr Heraclitus?
Irony I assume!
Well, not long on nappies, particularly as most of the US audience probably have no idea what they are.
As to Heraclitus that is unfortunate as he and many others represent the ‘Glory that was Ancient Greece’, the very bedrock of European Civilisation.
I agree completely about the BBC and since the start of this national fiasco (NF) have only listened to BBC 3, which is virtually propaganda free, unlike BBC 4, (According to my Chief of Operations).
I have never read the Daily Mail, have never owned or intend to own a smartphone and prefer to form what limited opinions I have from my own research.
I have no doubt that the vast majority of the public do listen to the hysterical BBC and similar organs, whilst also reading piffle, which explains the quite extraordinary public reaction this NF.
It is a very sad reflection indeed that is where ‘we’ are nearly two thousand five hundred years after the death of Heraclitus.
How smug you are. Do you have a sign which says, “Look how I have read a lot of books.” To quote ‘X’ for this question and ‘Y’ for that question is a great skill but totally irrelevant.
I make the point over and over again. I admit to being boring. After this post I retire from UnHerd as a contributor : solving problems of the world is not about cute and clever answers, not about assimilating a lot of facts to show that you know more than the guy you are arguing with, not about being insulting to whole swathes of society just because you don’t have a future. You solve problems by developing ideas through discussion and then finding a way to disseminate those ideas to people of more limited understanding – I’m sure Heraclitus would have a word for them.
Oh dear! Aren’t you rather letting the side down with this intemperate post?
Here is what John Clements said today on this forum:
“I value UnHerd not for any particular bias, but for the fact that discussion of opposing ideas is much more civil than is typically encountered elsewhere.
Incidentally you seem to suffer from a pronounced inferiority complex, for how else can one interpret “I admit to being boring”? And that after a veritable Blitzkrieg of 485 posts.
You must be alone in regarding UnHerd as a forum for “solving the problems of the world”. For most of us it is more like a conversation in the snug of a friendly, smokey pub.
Heraclitus would have used two words:
hoi polloi – the masses.
People tried warnings before the lockdowns; they were accused of wanting to kill grandma. People pointed out how economic harm leads to health harm; they were called selfish.
It’s not that everyone was wrong then; as you say, this was a new thing and reaction was going to be uncertain. But in Feb 2021, there remains a March 2020 mentality while evidence showing the added problems lockdowns cause begins to surface.
You dismiss any concern about the loss of individual freedoms as “whingeing”. Fair enough, we know where you stand.
As above, individual freedoms means gangs of people descending on city centres every weekend, fighting, vomiting and generally behaving badly. Whatever you do, don’t interfere because you are infringing their civil liberties.
If that’s all that individual freedom means to you then you have my most heartfelt sympathies.
The last paragraph is almost right. I’ve never approved the concept of “lockdown” at all. It’s a crass idea and always will be. Appropriate adjustments yes, but not obsession with a single issue in a intelligent organisation. Maybe we haven’t got an intelligent one at all. The absence of a proper constitution in the UK is, perhaps, part of the trouble, with certain bureaucrats and politicians being able to make it up as they go along.
I agree even with a proper constitution in the US. The frantic demands for acquiescence without much benefit have turned into opportunities for some segments to attempt to use force. The mayor of Tampa, FL claiming that she was going to use camera footage to hunt down anyone not wearing a mask at the Super Bowl last Sunday and fine them. Meanwhile as long as you’re protesting something along with a little recreational looting, being without a mask is just fine and dandy.
Rulers will rule, unless there are restrictions (Constitution, now obsolete) or resistance. The easiest way to avoid resistance is to instill fear, and offer safety.
C.S. Lewis:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Daniel Webster:
“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
H.L. Mencken:
“”The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
Nothing new here. Move on.
“Human rights law”? Are you serious?
It’s a farce. A bad joke.
Its only justification is to keep the lawyers busy.
I am sure that people of the authors own profession will argue that the right to protest is not threatened as we can now all use social media, online petitions etc. In fact ways of protesting are now far more and varied and can easily involve far more people than even 15 years ago and certainly far more than in the days when it required people to actually gather on the streets of where ever
Love to hear a lawyer talking about Covid only a few days after Lord Falconer pointed out that for the legal profession it has been ‘A gift that keeps on giving’. I’m just so pleased for them.
This piece is an example of how lazy journalism takes the results of poorly written science and establishes conclusions that are not there.
this piece credits another piece (from National Geographic) with establishing that “lockdowns” had some “success” with respect to the Spanish Flu of 1918-2020. It is not obvious what constitutes “success”, but that original piece implies that success partly involved “saving lives”. That National Geographic piece cited studies that suggested that lockdowns did have certain success. Specifically, lockdowns may have “flattened the curve”. However, those studies did not say that lockdowns contained the number of total fatalities. Lives were not saved. Indeed, some of the authors of those studies clumsily acknowledge that flattening the curve may not save lives that would have otherwise been taken early in the course of a pandemic. They observe that “the science” would suggest that flattening the curve would merely shift a certain volume of fatalities from the present to the not-too-distant future. And, yet, when the journalists are done laundering these “facts”, we end up with the conclusion that lockdowns do more than flatten the curve. They affirmatively save lives. That remains more than debatable.
The one thing made evident by this pandemic is how fragile people are in psychological terms. One would think that the need to be cautious and understand the seriousness of the risk would be evident to everyone. Yet as long as they are not unfortunate enough to be infected themselves – or see death from up close – hosts of people insist in viewing such an emergency as an “assault on their freedom”!
It is sobering to think that this mentality can only change once the death toll gets to a point where they start to understand what is involved…
I agree that people are fragile but I don’t think it is because people are not cautious or understanding of the seriousness of Covid. Indeed, if anything, it seems that Covid has uncovered a free floating anxiety that many people always live with and the fear of Covid has just made them totally susceptible to obeying the latest advice from the experts – no questions asked.
The latest new advice is to wear two – or maybe three masks – even when walking alone outside. This from – Anthony Fauci – he of the “masks don’t work so you don’t need them” to “triple up and never be without them”
Currently there are signs on all the lawns replacing BLM ones that have a picture of Fauci and the words “in Fauci we trust” = I am not sure if Fauci can ward off everything that harms us but then you have to trust that something or someone can.
Fear is good if it inspires common sense. Perhaps not so good if it controls you life. Years ago Somerset Maugham wrote a story Appointment in Samarra. I think of it very often these days.
Yes. A pampered society where people are bored and talk about their wonderful freedoms. Basically you fall into two camps: either you are worried that you might die from Covid 19 or you don’t think you will die so you want to get out with your mates again.
Civil liberties means that thousands of people can descend on city centres every weekend, get drunk, vomit everywhere and nobody can do anything to stop it. If you try to stop it you are infringing their rights.
Sorry, but that comment is a bit ignorant and there is nothing clever about trivialising human freedom. Its also the freedom to earn a living; to feed your family; to get an education; to breathe the air you evolved to breathe unencumbered by a filthy mask; the freedom to seek medical treatment for any other conditions etc.
Also, what is so trivial about social mammals requiring their right to socialise? Replace drunks in a city centre with children wanting to see their friends or the elderly wanting that vital social interaction with families and friends that staves of mental degeneration and makes the difference between ‘living’ and ‘existing’.
Yes I must be an ignorant person. Is that like the 99.99% of the population who ignore UnHerd and get their facts from the BBC and The Daily Mail?
“Civil liberties means that thousands of people can decide on city centres every weekend, get drunk, vomit everywhere and nobody can do anything to stop it. If you try to stop it you are infringing their rights”.
I had no idea that life was that exciting in Wales!
You would soon forget about any risk if you didn’t have the luxury of furlough and working from home to stop you from starving.
No Fiona, I would be even more concerned about the risk – precisely because I want to live. In my opinion, denying/playing down the risk – or placing it at the same level of some perceived “assault on my freedom” – would be downright stupid.
And by the way, I readily understand people who lament the pandemic-driven risk to their economic situation. I have far less sympathy for the surprisingly numerous that chose to frame the government’s response to a potentially deadly pandemic as an “assault on their freedom”. To the point of denying the risk and making it worse for everybody else.
Precisely. Try telling a single mom who can’t work from home that she’ll have to find some other way to feed her kids.
I was reading with great interest until I saw the assertion that Covid is very dangerous, fatal even. That’s simply not true! Apparently anyone dying within 60 days of testing positive is said to have died of Covid-19. Thus people who have died in a motorcycle crash, or as we’ve seen today in the USA, lung cancer becomes a Covid-19 death. That reduces the UK’s 100,000 drastically. Our 25 here in NZ becomes >17 all over 70 years old.
Covid denialism. Sigh.
The best statisticians in the world, such as Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter at Cambridge and the ONS, have identified substantial excess deaths and years of life prematurely lost (ie it’s not just killing people on their death beds).
Take a look too at pressure on healthcare/hospitalisations (most Covid patients are typically under 65 in the UK) and economic data, including in non-“locked down” Sweden.
This pandemic has huge socioeconomic consequences that cannot be avoided, regardless of what policy a government implements to try to deal with it.
I would add given where you’re from that it does appear that NZ may come out of the pandemic with some of the lowest socioeconomic costs in the world, it seems because they have to date succeeded in suppressing Covid transmission.
You’re raising NZ again Eva.
We’ll never know what might have happened in NZ and Australia…
Australians remain locked into the country, awaiting the ‘magic bullet’ vaccination solution, which medical officers and politicians threaten to press coercively upon the population.
This push for global vaccination with fast-tracked coronavirus vaccine products is unprecedented, a massive experiment is underway.
Yes, Eva cannot wrap her head around the fact that New Zealand is a tiny, sparsely populated island nation in the middle of nowhere. Even though she has been reminded of it repeatedly.
As a regular visitor to New Zealand and other Asia-Pac countries, I certainly am aware.
I use Australia and New Zealand as examples here because of their obvious shared sociopolitical cultural traditions with the UK (i.e. to rebut the lazy stereotypes that frequent the UnHerd comments section along the lines of “we couldn’t do that because Asian societies are different than ours”. However, I’d be perfectly happy to increase the survey to include South Korea, Taiwan etc.
And yet neither in any way resemble the UK because they are remote island nations. Bravo. Face it, you like the authoritarianism, you like the lockdowns. You are Karen.
Btw, New Zealand society is nothing at all like that of the UK. You’d know that had you ever been there.
The wonderful irony is that you are completely mistaken as to my personal policy preferences. I simply take issue with all misinformation on this site. And I was last in NZ and Australia exactly a year ago; have family in both and have been visiting for decades.
And yet you are the main proponent of misinformation. How many times can you be corrected before you take notice?
Send me a list of the facts that you say I have misstated and I’ll take a look.
Better yet just stop posting the same things you’ve been corrected on repeatedly. Stop banging on about New Zealand. No one can turn their country into New Zealand. Or Australia for that matter.
I don’t agree that COVID isn’t dangerous, it clearly is, more so to some than others, but you are correct that COVID death counting is a huge mess. People have been counted as COVID deaths when they clearly were not. What has come out about US stats is shocking.
Not to be cynical about it but let’s not forget that hospitals receive money based on their COVID cases. You can’t identify excess deaths when the stats are not correct. Some of the incorrect data will eventually come out but if people are using death counts as they are today, they are simply wrong. On top of it, countries count differently.
Congrats on being an island nation, that certainly worked to your advantage.
Yes, “COVID death counting is a huge mess”, likewise the beaten up ‘case’ counts.
And even with all the hyperbole, they’ve still only cobbled together 2.3 million deaths over the past year, in a population of 7.8 billion, with 59 million deaths expected in a year.
We desperately need independent and objective analysis of the global figures, which have been used as propaganda to create fear around this coronavirus. Draconian lockdowns have been imposed on the back of these statistics, and now fast-tracked experimental vaccine products are being pushed as a questionable solution.
The ill-targeted and disproportionate response has been a disaster, we have to track back and understand how this happened.
‘…has already led to over 100,000 deaths in the UK alone.’
To accept that uncritically is crass, to say the least.
If one is aware of the inaccuracy of the PCR test then you will also be aware that this is NOT the worst pandemic the world has faced. Suggesting that it is worse than it is just furthers the cause of lockdowns. Please stop stoking the fire of fear and call it for what is – a strange new world order. Probably fascism of some sort – when you see Prince Charles at the helm it sparks a certain wonder??? We must stop living in fear of a virus and change our mindsets to understand that viruses are why we exist and building our innate immune systems is the only way to ensure our genetic adaptation continues. Vaccines compromise that possibility. The past 100 years has seen horrors done to our soil, our air and our water. As we work to understand and rectify the situation, while keeping the wonderful bits – our ability to share information especially – we can solve any problem. Thank you for your insightful writing.
The question is not whether lockdowns work, but are there not cheaper/better ways to reduce connectivity. This whole pro vs anti lockdown narrative (annoyingly perpetuated by Unherd) is a colossal waste of time. It comes wrapped in way too much baggage that you’re thrown into debates about rights, freedom, authority before you even get to the actual logistics of how does human connectivity get reduced as cheaply and undepressingly as possible while acknowledging that all options will be somewhat depressing?
“To put it bluntly, this is as serious a pandemic as the modern world has faced. “
To put it bluntly – writer has head up ass.
No.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
I am afraid the UK government dropped the ball on COVID-19 in 2020. History will not judge it kindly compared to nations like South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand that closed their borders, implemented and enforced strict lockdowns and implemented effective contact tracing.
https://www.thelancet.com/j…
South Korea and Japan did not have lockdowns. They basically followed Sweden with far less testing – the lowest in the OECD and Japan didn’t do much contact tracing – yet still have deaths that are no higher than a somewhat bad flu season.
No they didn’t, Todd.
Sweden, like the rest of Europe, initially treated Covid as a flu pandemic, which would spread unstoppably in one vast, rapid wave (hence Giesecke originally told UnHerd in April that most people in Sweden already had Covid and the IFR was same as flu; Tegnell made similar a similar mistake: see the Giesecke/Tegnell emails published on thelocal.se).
By contrast, Asia treated Covid as a controllable/suppressible coronavirus pandemic, like SARS. They reacted completely differently to the West, including border closures, and had well-planned test and trace systems in place.
Brings to mind the old army adage of “The 7 Ps”: “Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents P*ss Poor Performance”
That’s misinformation, Todd.
In fact, Sweden — like the rest of Europe — initially treated Covid as a flu pandemic, which would spread unstoppably in one vast, rapid wave (hence Giesecke originally told UnHerd in April that most people in Sweden already had Covid and the IFR was same as flu; Tegnell made similar a similar mistake: see the Giesecke/Tegnell emails published on thelocal.se).
By contrast, Asia treated Covid as a controllable/suppressible coronavirus pandemic, like SARS. They reacted completely differently to the West, including border closures, and had well-planned test and trace systems in place.
In the midst of the unfortunate, unpleasant and historic events that we are all currently living though, I think it is worth delving a bit deeper into the current UK mortality statistics.
One would have thought that, in the absence of conclusive autopsies, when someone dies with the Covid virus in their body we cannot always determine if it was the actual virus that killed them or if it was one of a number of factors that caused their death. This does not seem to stop Covid being listed as the official cause of death.
However, although an individual cause of death cannot always be determined we can compare average death rates in recent years to reach scientific conclusions as to the lethality of Covid. The figures can be found at:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peop…
So, the government’s own data states that mortality rates in November 2020 were 13% higher than the previous 5-year average, some 6241 extra deaths. Which works out as 200 per day. Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that Covid is responsible for these extra deaths in November last year, although of course some of these 200 extra deaths could be caused by the effects of the lockdown: suicides, missed cancer treatments, etc. At any rate, it seems significant to me that the UK mortality rate in November last year was actually worse in the early 2000s. The UK mortality rate was higher in November 2001 and 2004 than in November 2020.
The December 2020 mortality rate was 25% higher than the previous 5-year average, around 10,000 excess deaths so 333 per day. This is a significant rise but we only need go back as far as December 2010 to find a more lethal year: the UK mortality rate was higher then than it was last December.
Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peop…
I have no intention whatsoever to disparage the genuine suffering of the friends and families of those who have died of Covid. However, I must humbly suggest that the global governmental response to the Covid virus has been an irrational over-reaction which is in serious danger of becoming, by all reasonable assessments, far more damaging than the effects of the virus itself.
In the midst of the unfortunate, unpleasant and historic events that we are all currently living though, I think it is worth delving a bit deeper into the current UK mortality statistics.
One would have thought that, in the absence of conclusive autopsies, when someone dies with the Covid virus in their body we cannot always determine if it was the actual virus that killed them or if it was one of a number of factors that caused their death. This does not seem to stop Covid being listed as the official cause of death.
However, although an individual cause of death cannot always be determined we can compare average death rates in recent years to reach scientific conclusions as to the lethality of Covid. The figures can be found at:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peop…
So, the government’s own data states that mortality rates in November 2020 were 13% higher than the previous 5-year average, some 6241 extra deaths. Which works out as 200 per day. Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that Covid is responsible for these extra deaths in November last year, although of course some of these 200 extra deaths could be caused by the effects of the lockdown: suicides, missed cancer treatments, etc. At any rate, it seems significant to me that the UK mortality rate in November last year was actually worse in the early 2000s. The UK mortality rate was higher in November 2001 and 2004 than in November 2020.
The December 2020 mortality rate was 25% higher than the previous 5-year average, around 10,000 excess deaths so 333 per day. This is a significant rise but we only need go back as far as December 2010 to find a more lethal year: the UK mortality rate was higher then than it was last December.
Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peop…
I have no intention whatsoever to disparage the genuine suffering of the friends and families of those who have died of Covid. However, I must humbly suggest that the global governmental response to the Covid virus has been an irrational over-reaction which is in serious danger of becoming, by all reasonable assessments, far more damaging than the effects of the virus itself.
Excellent piece, Adam. You seem to accept that the restrictions are proportionate, at least for now. That seems to be the view of the courts, which have not overturned any of the regulations — as far as I know. Do you think the courts have got it right?
Lord Sumption does not agree.
Sumption’s views on the legality (as opposed to his philosophical/political views) of the UK government’s Covid measures are rather nuanced, not least because he is one of the foremost judicial advocates for limited interference by the courts where the issue essentially concerns a political judgment call. In other words, provided the measure is lawfully within the government’s powers (the pertinent legal issue here), he doesn’t think judges should be substituting their policy preferences for those of elected politicians.
For more context, see e.g. the December 2020 decision of the Court of Appeal in R v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and Secretary of State for Education ex parte Dolan and others [2020] EWCA Civ 1605, dismissing a claim for judicial review of government Covid measures because inter alia the minister had the power to make the regulation in response to an epidemic.
Many thanks!
That is very reassuring.
I was beginning to get the feeling that we returning to the days of Lords Denning or Hoffman.