April 25, 2020 - 12:30pm
Earlier this month, Swedish epidemiologist Johan Giesecke claimed in an interview with UnHerd that the UK was wrong to implement its lockdown measures, and singled out Professor Neil Ferguson’s Imperial study for being too pessimistic in its prediction of 500k corona deaths. Describing it as “not very good”, Giesecke was surprised it had such an impact on policymakers.
Today we heard from the other side when Freddie Sayers spoke to Prof Ferguson to get his response to the Swedish critique and much else. He said that:
- The majority of epidemiologists agree with his position.
- Sweden is still seeing day-on-day increases in death and infection rates, whereas the UK’s has fallen.
- Maintains that UK infection-fatality rate is 0.8-0.9%.
- No allowance was made in the original model for avoidable deaths due to lack of treatment for other conditions.
- The lockdown strategy has been effective, but it it is not sustainable in the long-run.
- Lockdown has had a significant mental health and social impact on mortality in terms of not just isolating people, but in cancelled treatments.
- He is surprised by how much adherence to these measures has taken place – higher than he had assumed in his models.
- The UK should employ the South Korean model.
- Shielding the elderly and re-opening the country is idealistic and has not occurred anywhere in the world.
- If this strategy was attempted, there will still be over 100k deaths.
- Health service capacity is a good guide to lifting restrictions — and capacity is there.
- There will have to be social distancing until we have a vaccine — we won’t be normal society until then.
- Politicians make the decisions, not SAGE.
- Dominic Cummings observed, but did not get involved in decision-making at SAGE.
- New model expected out in days.
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SubscribeTata Steel turning our virgin steel plants into tin can recycling centres and building a battery factory, all subsidised by the taxpayer for a ‘green’ ideology. A sad indictment of what this country has become.
“……. in these atomised times, of an associational life based on shared interests, fun, and a kind of everyday camaraderie.” Simply having fun and enjoying life. Long may it continue.
I really enjoyed this essay. Good stuff. Land Rover is definitely a status symbol in Canada, not a work vehicle.
I need to change a front signal light bulb in my 2016 Dodge Ram. I might have to bring it to the dealer. It’s so damn complicated and I need a ridiculous socket wrench extension. I knew something was up when the YouTube vid was 10 minutes long.
“a story of manufacturing prowess unlocked by foreign capital”
And the tragedy of that story for Britain is that there was always plenty of domestic capital to unlock that manufacturing prowess, it’s just that so much of it was being allocated to perennially more expensive houses – one of the least productive assets a nation can accumulate, but one of the least risky for shiftless bankers to lend against.
And that happened during 2 1/2 decades where the low birth rate meant house prices should have fallen. Without 400k+ net immigration a year since 2003 we would have had flat or falling house prices and people could have invested excess money into the productive sector.
We still could!
Perhaps it’s a delicious irony that the Parsi compradors of Bombay like the Tatas first flourished on account of the East India Company’s opium trade with China in Bombay.
They are now ruling the roost in twenty first century Britain.
From steel to car making.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Parsis+of+India+and+the+opium+trade+in+China.-a0210368290
Britain and America both made the decision to adopt free trade policies that helped greatly reduce world poverty.
This was accomplished at the cost of obliterating their industrial base, and enriching a newly obstreperous China.
It’s also impossible to manufacture ships, planes, and weapons when you have no factories.
Banks and software companies can do a lot of good. But a nation needs an industrial base to survive, particularly in a hostile world.
I agree. It was a hugely selfish decision to obliterate manufacturing.
“.. luxury goods are not a promising basis for a modern economy ..”.
Oh I don’t know, LVMH is bigger than the rest of the Paris stock exchange put together.
I think the take away from this article is not the cars, but the people. The industry and creative energy of self selected hobbies seem to support groups of energized joyful people. Definitely a path worth following.
All I can remember is sitting in the back of a land rover, on metal, with a bunch of kids and fistfuls of halters, being driven up the Downs, to be unloaded and catching the ponies and riding them back down to the yard, bareback, leading one or two, often cantering, no helmets. That is what land rovers mean to me.
(Circa 1958).
A great article, thank you, it brought make fond memories.
I owned a series 2A and series 3 Landy, awesome vehicles that would go anywhere, slowly! I used to regularly drive my 3 from Cirencester to Reading and use the hard shoulder on the M4 so as not to slow down lorries.
The 2A had a split windscreen with wipers that barely worked and had individual motors that had to be spun to get the wipers working. The door locks were shot, and I used a hasp and staple and padlock to lock the doors. I once left it open in a car park, the car wasn’t stolen but the Mars bar on the seat was!
I wouldn’t touch, nor could afford, a modern one, and have used Isuzu for many years, but they too are not as good as they used to be.
Rather than stand for ‘manufacturing prowess,’ these gas-guzzling, road-hogging pieces of crap are an excellent way to identify people whose brains have been practically embalmed with money (to borrow a phrase from William S Burroughs) or are just so insanely foolish they’re willing to spend half their pay leasing one. The designers and marketers of these things are even more culpable. I’m tired of having local air quality destroyed for my children by stupid people who want the ‘status’ of a monster SUV, or — as a cyclist (the bicycle is how real tough guys travel) — having my already limited road space even further limited. The problem is even more urgent in Canada where, according to the IEA, people drive the least fuel-efficient vehicles of anywhere on the planet, and almost none of these vehicles are necessary — that is, almost never used for their purported off-road capability. Well, Canada is especially stupid…
The modern Landrover sits very lightly on the planet because of its superb modern engineering. The old ones, which I prefer, last so long that that largely compensates for the inefficiency at the exhaust pipe
Lightly on the planet indeed! A comparison of the 2024 Defender hybrid versus the 2024 Toyota Corolla shows it uses twice as much fuel. Then there are the extra resources needed to make it because it’s so huge, and then the extra wear on public roads due to the same.
The Range Rover is the most stolen vehicle in the UK, insurance will set you back on average £6k.
No it’s not, no it isn’t. How many Range Rovers were stolen in the UK last year? 11. Eleven.
But that reputation is a great excuse for increased insurance costs!!
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been disgusted by people complaining about gas prices. People say gas prices are too high but I look around and see people driving Escalades, Navigators, Explorers, and even people in trailer parks with their Rangers and F150’s and I think actually they’re not high enough. Some people just drive around as a form of recreation, which strikes me as basically lighting money on fire to watch it burn. I suppose back before the Internet there wasn’t much to do out in the countryside. Perhaps this behavior finally dies off with the boomer generation.