Refreshing to hear a grounded, unbiased debate like this, What a shame that this level of experienced and medically informed discourse is so rarely found on mainstream tv. From the very beginning Covid19 was politicised and the instant blame game distorted debate, prevented a common sense approach from being applied and sustained, and tipped us into an media led frenzy that induced the kind of chaos that does not encourage good decision making. The catastrophic mistakes alluded to by Tom Jefferson don’t need to be enlarged on because they were and are apparent to many as is the fact that there seems to be a deep resistance to learning real lessons from the crisis of this pandemic.
LUKE LOZE
3 years ago
Excellent, informative and worrying – I too have wondered about the NZ approach, will they stay locked away from the world forever?
My biggest gripe is still with the modellers, ignoring the embarrassingly bad bug ridden code – even if it was written by competent software engineers the models are still useless. The infection rate, fatality rates, how infections are passed on, pre existing immunity etc are still poorly understood with no concensus. Feeding these wild estimates into even the best model will result in meaningless figures out by massive factors.
The best approach was to look at other countries like Italy and be rightfully scared, you did not need a fancy model to understand that it could kills 10,000s. I think the panic of the models and the disinformation about it killing anyone regardless of age led to the UK and others not protecting the elderly. In fact I believe they were sacrificed by policy makers, pushed into care homes to clear beds that were never needed.
The government is still pushing that everyone is equally vulnerable and using models – the only thing they’ve learnt is to never admit being wrong.
I live in NZ. At the moment the country is being carried along by a euphoria at having “conquered” CV, and everyone I have spoken believes we are now back to normal, mainly because they themselves have not been financially impacted by the lockdown. On the other hand I have had to return to full time employment as my business has been destroyed. When the school holidays are over, and the wage subsidy finishes in September, and the business closures and job losses start to mount up, and prices start to rise because of supply chain issues, I believe many NZ ers will be devastated at the real economic cost to the country
You are describing other countries not New Zealand and appear unable to recognise every country is experiencing an economic downturn. If you do not understand and appreciate what we have achieved I suggest you get on a plane and go look overseas even Australia.
What I found remarkable is that protocols had not been standardised in advance. I mean working definitions of what is “a case”, what is “an xyz death”, and what various measures should be tested and how. Everything was just made up as people went along, which raises considerable questions about the competence of people in charge of all this. Though that is probably because competence counts for little when truth is subverted to Big Money hoax agendas.
steve.g.fuller
3 years ago
Another good, calm and informative interview. Thank you Freddie! These 2 guys should be helping to forge our future responses to anything contagious. Proper infrastructure, process and trained people to deal with whatever comes our way without destroying our lives “by following the (very one-sided) science”. Who knew that in the early 90’s we closed down all the isolation hospitals?
Side note regarding isolation hospitals – I was admitted to one when I was about 8 with meningitis. Remember it well and as described. I was isolated in a single room and hardly saw staff. The site is now a housing estate to the best of my knowledge. I obviously survived a very serious condition and the memory remains with me not least because I was so isolated, even my mother could not visit me initially. Yes knowledge about such places is off the radar. Which may lead to another reflection about the current generation of health care staff being unprepared for an epidemic such as covid and the potential impact of this.
Steven Sieff
3 years ago
We’ve known all along that suppression has no exit. On ‘learning to live with the virus’ there is a viable strategy out there. https://greenbandredband.com sets out a way of achieving targeted distancing measures for those who want/need it, with minimal invasion on freedoms. And it could be implemented now, with zero cost and maximum effect. No need for a confusing rash of ever changing measures for each context.
Paul Hayes
3 years ago
Disappointing to hear EBM advocates again making the classic error(s) which that movement is prone to making (and which has also led medical science to an unwarranted tolerance of even the most absurd quackery).
“No direct / RCT evidence” is not “no evidence” and it simply isn’t true that there is “complete uncertainty”; that we have no good (evidence based) reason to believe in the efficacy of face masks here. Parachutes very probably prevent injury and death, homeopathy very very probably does nothing, and face masks probably usefully prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
That parachute study is an admirable cautionary tale of the incompetence of much (especially corporate-sponsored) medical research. But the criticism of these profs is not justified. They rightly recognise that there are just so many unknowns. As for the notion that face masks “probably” help, there has been much proper research which has shown that they actually do not help. And they have considerable negatives. Not just lack of evidence but evidence of lack.
The parachute paper is a satirical criticism of the flaw in EBM, corporate sponsored or not, that has led those profs to do little more in the way of science – evidence based [statistical] inference – than merely recognise that there are many unknowns. In some contexts that doesn’t matter much (RCTs will be necessary anyway). In this context it does matter. Here’s another review making this point:
The lack of clear recommendations for the general public and low uptake of wearing face masks and coverings may be attributed to: (i) over-reliance on an evidence-based medicine approach and assertion that evidence was weak due to few conclusive RCT (randomised controlled trial) results in community settings, discounting high quality non-RCT evidence. There have been no clinical trials of coughing into your elbow, social distancing and quarantine, yet these measures are seen as effective and have been widely adopted; […]
Whatever proper research there may be that has generated negative evidence will have been taken into consideration in the proper reviews.
I don’t think the adverse physiological effects of long term mask use are fully appreciated. Even this is not their worst effect. Once you put healthy people in masks you spread a message of fear discouraging everyone from interacting normally, travelling, shopping, etc. Masks will always be accompanied by restrictions. New normal will kill millions. It is not a viable condition. It is not an option.
P B
3 years ago
I think the interviewer gave up trying to get direct answers to most of his questions. Maybe the panel format didn’t help with the clarity.
The professors did provide some helpful context and perspectives (including highlighting why it is so difficult to give clear/direct answers), but I suspect were less helpful for laypersons such as myself trying to understand the relative merits of the very difficult policy choices that are being made around the world.
One is left with greater sympathy for policymakers who have to implement these type of scientific insights into practice. Perfect is the enemy of the good and all that.
And I appreciate the irony about sensationalist headlines (“Oxford epidemiologists: we don’t really know” doesn’t have quite the same click-appeal). I’m glad at least that the bullet points are now direct quotations.
I agree. It seems that by admission they don’t Know. We don’t know whether the decline is due to weather, immunity or social distancing. Freddy asked all the right questions. As yet there seem to be few answers and perhaps best to revert to precautionary principle. I asked Dr. Levitt if once we passed 20% would we still have to social distance (the new normal In Freddy’s parlance). He candidly replied that he wish he knew. Seems to me right now we need some form of social distancing and reasonable people can disagree as to how much. It would be nice to know if we are playing golf (cases bad) or baseball (cases good as long as we don’t overload hospitals). I have watched most of the interviews and Freddy has always been terrific.
Richard Hooper
3 years ago
Very interesting discussion thanks. It would have been helpful to clarify that “no evidence for masks” doesn’t mean evidence against masks. If there is at least a reasonable chance that masks might work, then the only argument against using them would be that they cause harm, and the appears to be no evidence for that. If RCT evidence is available to support policy decisions, that’s great. But if you don’t have RCT evidence (and for the vast majority of policy decisions you don’t) then you have to use other sensible criteria. You can do good science without RCT.
In fact you can do a lot of bad science waiting for RCT evidence. Often, as with covid, you cannot ethically create trials which will provide this sort of cut and dried evidence.
Mercola has published an article reviewing the evidence on masks, concluding not that we don’t know but rather that we do know that they do not help. And have considerable negatives.
Joseph Mercola is a notorious quack and crank. His article is, in the language of our other discussion here, an improper review of improper research (see e.g. Myth #4 here).
j.lee
3 years ago
” If you want a solution, you’ve got to get people to stop clicking on this sensationalist stuff.” Good luck with that. If this is the only way to get sense into the politics, we are doomed.
roslynross3
3 years ago
If as some scientists have said, Covid came out of a laboratory vaccine experiment where various other diseases were spliced into the genetic code of a coronavirus, it is not surprising that the ‘virus’ is still not understood.
johnbabb70
3 years ago
CH says 50 % of the cases in care homes came during the lockdown. But is it not the case that the lockdown for carehomes was broken by admission of covid patients from hospitals etc. I assume CH is using care home situation to argue against lockdown effectiveness but this argument is weakened by the covid leakage from hospitals. A care home I am in touch with had only 2 coivid cases, both of whom had a spell in the local hospital. CH is quoted ( incorrectly?) as saying ” the lower the humidity the more stable the virus in the atmosphere” and then that Australia is having outbreaks because it is winter i.e. higher humidity. These statement seem contradictory.
Are there features of Covid that mean “lockdown” does not work as a strategy or are you arguing that lockdown does not work as a strategy against pandemic viruses per se?
ianmac3801
3 years ago
Well done gentlemen. We in Australia are now getting the seasonal effect and as usual the politicians are blaming people for it.
Robin P
3 years ago
Thanks for this great double interview. It accords with the view I have had for many years, that there are competent people out there but the people in charge are the incompetents.
More widely, I have had a long interest in the causality of society and gradually reached a number of general observations. One is that in politics and society in general, the Big Money determines what the politicians do and what the media (BBC) say.
And using that principle one can neatly explain why there was such a peculiar lurch of policy, at first downplaying the problem, and thereafter going into our current hyper-scare. The thing is that two competing Big Moneys were involved.
In 1945 Berlin, there was the violent victory of the ideology/religion of Greed Globalism (EXACTLY the same as Political Correctness). I hardly need to tell you that the greatest of all sins in this religion is “racism” (whatever that word means or doesn’t).
Central to Greed Globalism is the notion that it is a REALLY GOOD IDEA to have loads of people constantly jetting off between continents, and whizzing up and down motorways, and likewise with marketing of goods. And Greed Globalism has some REALLY Big Money behind it, the whole of the airline industry, international tourism and trade, even people trafficking aka “Refugees welcome “here” (i.e. over there in Benefits Street)”.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong with all that flying around? You a bigoted little englander hey?
So it was impossible to admit that all that flying around and transporting around might have a significant downside. (It actually has even worse downsides, but that is for another day….) And so there was complete lack of taking seriously of the many warnings, and the complete lack of preparation even of stocks of PPE.
But then a different lot of Big Money started to get their tanks into formation. That is Big Pharma, with their grand agenda to pretend that there was a desperate need for “a cure” for the virus, and not least a vaccine.
This agenda was as dishonest as the international whizzing about agenda. We have known for years that viruses are no problem if you build up your immune system with vitamins c, d, a, zinc, selenium, garlic…
But Big Pharma controls puppet organisations such as the bbc. And our “democratic” governments.
So the Big Pharma got together their “experts” to declare that this was a REALLY SERIOUS problem that warranted recognising as a global emergency. And of course they could churn out any number of “professors of epidemiology” and “professors of infectious diseases”. The tourism and international trade don’t tend to have so many such medical professors in their professional/social circle.
So it was inevitable that the BIG Money of Big Pharma defeated the international-whizzing-about Big Money, and so we ended up with our media and “democratic” regimes imposing the Big Pharma agenda and the BBC now spends hours drivelling on about the “search for a cure” and the supposedly sensible vaccine research, while also drivelling to us about the “misinformation” (vitamins c and d) which is having to be removed from social media sites.
Meanwhile I still talk to people in the streets. And am noticing a high level of people thinking we are in the grip of a Big Pharma scare story hoax. Deleting health information and asserting it to be “misinformation” is a great way to lose people’s trust. And once they lose it you will never get it back.
the ideology/religion of Greed Globalism (EXACTLY the same as Political Correctness)
I should clarify that many persons and groups refer to this same thing as “the left”, even though it has not the slightest in common with trade unionists organising strikes, and is certainly not supported by working class types such as T*mmy R*bins*n supporters, and its hyper-immigration policies are certainly not what low class people want, and it doesn’t even accord with the definition of “left” as seeking to overturn the establishment, because this ideological group IS the establishment and has been for decades now.
I agreed with your first paragraph. I was lost after that. I think there’s bits of insight sprinkled throughout your narrative, but it’s not entirely accurate and certainly oversimplified.
Suggesting that viruses are “no problem” so long as you take your multivitamin is dubious at best. I also think these special interests you delineate have some significant overlap and common objectives. You also indicated that Big Pharma controls democratic governments. Certainly to a degree, but they’re only one well-moneyed, influential lobbying group among many.
Stephen Kennedy
3 years ago
One thing I did not hear in this discussion and I think is important, is to study those countries that had a very good result. The most important by far, is Germany. This is a large country, with no great genetic differences with say, France. Germany had 1/5 the deaths in France and Italy. Why? I suspect the key will be how Germany deals with the elderly/sick. Both prior to, and during the epidemic. This would be in a sense the most important ‘experiment’ that could be studied. I also believe that the very steep, unnatural rise in deaths in many countries, was caused by the lockdown policies themselves. The Canadian Physicist / Public Health Scientist, Denis Rancourt, has discussed this in some detail.
jencastle3
3 years ago
Re: seasonal theory. I’d like to know more about the COVID spike in Texas & some other states in USA. Why did they spike during their summer? Does this make the seasonal theory a bit of a dodgy one?
At the same time, we have to factor in that COVID tests – from what I’ve read – aren’t very accurate or specific to COVID. They might be testing positive for other viruses, colds with similar symptoms to COVID. This would apply to all of the data on cases/death tolls globally.
In any case I’d like more discussion on the seasonal theory of virus peak & fall.
Glyn Reed
3 years ago
Refreshing to hear a grounded, unbiased debate like this, What a shame that this level of experienced and medically informed discourse is so rarely found on mainstream tv. From the very beginning Covid19 was politicised and the instant blame game distorted debate, prevented a common sense approach from being applied and sustained, and tipped us into an media led frenzy that induced the kind of chaos that does not encourage good decision making. The catastrophic mistakes alluded to by Tom Jefferson don’t need to be enlarged on because they were and are apparent to many as is the fact that there seems to be a deep resistance to learning real lessons from this crisis that arose around this pandemic.
Pradeep Atluri
3 years ago
Please display the dates of these interviews and/or articles. It’s important context.
michaelgray77eve
3 years ago
A simple question to UnHerd – any chance of getting Matt Hancock or Boris interviewed by you and questioned on the above? Approach some top Tories who may have open minds (sic) and question them? The above needs to be mainstream and may offer some hope of redemption from the utter lunacy of what we are currently witnessing. Perhaps it’s time for the UnHerd to be heard and we all need to become more vocal and start becoming mainstream. Get the likes of Nigel Farage onboard – he’s been slow to sniff an opportunity here – may sound a tad bonkers, but it would have traction. Sad as it is, sometimes you have to be compelled to shout. Sometimes it’s time to stand and resist the tide. Hopefully food for thought.
Elizabeth Hart
3 years ago
Is research being undertaken into whether flu vaccination can impact on coronavirus susceptibility?
Consider for instance the Canadian studies that raised the possibility that receiving a seasonal flu vaccination in the 2008-09 season made it more likely that Canadians would become ill from 2009 pandemic H1N1 flu.[1]
Could something similar be possible in the current situation?
The elderly in particular are encouraged to have annual flu vaccination, eg people in aged care facilities, and travellers on cruise ships come to mind…
The elderly have apparently been the most affected by SARS-CoV-2/COVID 19, could flu vaccination have made them more vulnerable?
Reference: 1. New Canadian studies suggest seasonal flu shot increased H1N1 risk. CIDRAP. Apr 06, 2010.
Yes, that could be the case. Not only the elderly but, I believe, those with certain underlying health conditions are also encouraged to have flu vaccines. It’s odd no-one is looking into this. However all policy makers seem only interested in ensuring they are not blamed for any decisions taken so far. Pushing vaccines is part of that because they’ve already spent a fortune paying for them in advance of them being created. They couldn’t possibly admit vaccines pose any sort of problem to anyone.
ishel99
3 years ago
“Aside from people who are exposed on the frontlines, there is no evidence that masks make any difference..” – there is no evidence because there has been insufficient time and opportunity for a properly conducted evidence-based study. However, if it is accepted that facemasks are of value ‘on the frontlines’, it stands to reason that they will be of value to anyone seeking to either avoid passing the virus to others, or to avoid receiving it from others. Sometimes, in the absence of an opportunity for evidence to have yet been gathered, a little application of intelligent common sense goes a long way. Academics are sometimes so constrained by their self-imposed rules that they become a strait jacket preventing any kind of movement at all.
andrewandkaz
3 years ago
If masks are so useless why do medical staff ware them. Agreed a rag might not do it but if your are going to ware a mask ware a good one.
Medical people wear masks for an entirely different reason from the general hoo-haa going on in our society currently. Mercola has now published a review of numerous studies which make clear that the masks do not help.
They wear properly fitted masks and change them frequently. They also combine them with other measures and PPE since masks alone aren’t sufficient.
John Berlioz
3 years ago
I would like the doctors to respond to what this Dr claims as convincing evidence for masks: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
akcita
3 years ago
These are interesting viewpoints that highlight the general disarray of actual knowledge about the virus rather than theories. I find the most egregious failure is the actual conduct of research institutions in handling studies of therapies and vaccine programs.
Bias in reporting is derigeur these days, but the characterization of studies, anecdotal results, and poorly formulated or seemingly intentionally flawed approaches to validating cheap therapies makes one question their motives if not their competency.
mexbungalows
3 years ago
Unclear on the concept? You folks sound like you’re isolated from the world. We are isolating until a viable vaccine becomes available. Virologists tend to be confused. They measure success by presence of antigens. This is like measuring whether to invest in a company via dirivitives. HOW MANY POSITIVES HAVE BECOME SICK A SECOND TIME?
Oh how the vaccine makers will love you. You’ll be fed up enough with isolation that you’ll be ready to accept glorified saline. Just think of the money they’ll make with a vaccine of little or no effectiveness, just by scaring people into isolation with a virus that among younger people has a 99.9% survival rate. It easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.
peter.azlac
3 years ago
Evidence based science is important, especially in the medical area where we know from the studies of John Ionnides how unreliable most medical studies are, especially those involving epidemiology. However, reality is also important in science, such as in physics where the experiments set out to explain known facts or experiences. This is the case with Cov-2 where we have the factual data from those Asian and a European country that did not lock down but had universal wearing of masks, including those homemade of cloth, from an early stage and ended with very low numbers of cases and deaths per million population from Cov-2: Taiwan 0.3, Hong Kong 2, Singapore 5, Japan 8, Czechia 33 compared to the UK 666 with Czechia the only one using cloth masks. Unless your “experts” can explain these numbers in some other way, and tracking and tracing is not the answer, it seems to me that they make an irrefutable case for wearing masks in public. A key factor is that following the SARS-Cov-1 outbreak these countries, except Czechia, had well prepared plans including supplies of masks sufficient for the whole population whereas the UK and other countries in Europe did not, in spite of the EU setting up the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control following the SARS-Cov-1 outbreak to prepare for such a future event, but that neither issued any plans for prevention or control of Cov-2 and ironically is based in Solna Sweden.The responsibility for the lives lost in this pandemic are squarely with Public Health England for their failure to have adequate beds and PPE available and especially not using hydroxychlooquine that has proved to be the only effective treatment, instead going along with the vaccine solution that is likely to make the disease worse for those with comorbidities. False Trials to Trash Hydroxychloroquine https://articles.mercola.co… https://c19study.com/ Zinc and HCQ https://articles.mercola.co…
With regard to the allegedly high uk figure Peter, Matt Hancock has now admitted there are problems with the way figures for COVID deaths were compiled. Indeed there was a case reported on the website of one of the main newspapers this weekend of a family whose son had died in a motorbije accident complaining that the death certificate gave cause of death as COvID – 19. And that’s far from the only such case.
Similar things have been happening with “diagnoses” of autism, in order to pretend that the autism increase hasn’t really happened. If you have a typical severely austistic child, headbanging, screaming, non-verbal, un-toilet-trainable, runs into the road, etc, it is very hard to get a diagnosis. Meanwhile if an older person is merely a bit shy or unconventional, wow!, you’ve been unrecognised autistic all these years, at last we’ve “diagnosed” you. The NHS also sponsored a trash study by Brugha to pretend this information away. There is clearly a whole system of secret improper communications going on in the NHS to enable these abuses. This filth needs the light of day shining on it. More in the book Experts Catastrophe.
I’m fascinated by this idea that government is entirely responsible for public safety. I admit that there are reasonable measures to secure the relative safety of the citizenry, but I object to the notion that our political leaders must do everything possible to ensure that we never experience discomfort or uncertainty.
I also fail to grasp the case for this obsession with face coverings as if they’re a panacea. It is as if supporters of mask mandates haven’t glanced at the studies for even a moment. The overwhelming body of evidence from mask experiments shows that in the general population, mask wearing is ineffective at preventing transmission of respiratory viruses. It would be great to find out that masks would be a simple and effective solution…but they aren’t.
We can’t even begin to understand the degrees of difference in outcomes around the world and to suggest that there’s an obvious answer is merely small-minded optimism. There are a myriad of explanations for differences in outcomes and it is truly a disservice for anyone to suggest that he or she has the definitive answer.
Completely agree with everything you said- well spoken. Thank you! I also cannot understand the mask obsession and, like you, have concluded that the mask-pushers haven’t actually read a single study, whereas those of us who know they’re useless have read every word of every study. The same is try of many vaccines; those for them know nothing yet hold to them with cult-like zeal. Those who question or avoid some do so because they have researched thoroughly. It’s just ridiculous. Last, thank you for pointing out that government is quite limited and ultimately should never be in control of every aspect of our “safety”. That is a very dangerous game”¦
Jessica Bates, you don’t seem to have grasped the basic fact of politics. Truth counts for nothing. Big Money agendas count for everything. You even have to drive over to the Barnard Castle GSK vaccine plant on a Sunday while no-one else is there in order to test your eyes, such is the importance of that Big Money.
If the regime really cared about the nation’s health, they would have banned cars until proven safe, and would do something about far greater causes of death than Covid, including poisonous foods on sale all over the place (causing cancer, heart failure, etc), and the far greater number of deaths from “properly” prescribed drugs. But the Big Money rules in this “democracy”. And all the more so now that “Build build build” (translation: bribes bribes bribes) Johnson is in charge.
On masks in the countries you mentioned: Dr. Richard Bartlett believes that those countries’ super low fatality rate is due to they treatment they’ve been using, not a piece of cloth over their face, since no study whatsoever proves masks do anything. Dr. Bartlett himself hasn’t lost a single patient to covid using the same treatment, I spite of some patients with staggering co-morbidities. It’s an asthma medication via nebulizer, to calm down the inflammatory response and the cytokine storms that begin. Also, I think we may well find that in those Asian countries they have other genetic or lifestyle factors at play- for example, they tend to have low obesity rates, low inflammatory diets, walk more, possibly carry more vitamin D, etc.
What about Belarus? It is interesting to see that though they did not take any official precautions, they are fine with cases and deaths per million.
Pat Duignan
3 years ago
The Oxford epidemiologists have consistently made forecasts of herd immunity that have proved to be wildly wrong. As regards New Zealand we have demonstrated that it is entirely feasible to eliminate community transmission of Covid-19 it being 81 days since we had a community transmitted case. We all able to go about our lives without fear of getting infected. Our economy is recovering. Our international tourist industry is not operating but we can cope with that. As to the future East Asia is also pursuing an elimination strategy. We will be able in due course to travel among these countries. When the brilliant team of Oxford vaccine developers have their vaccine ready the group of elimination countries will use that to enable us to open our borders.
As a 72 year old enjoying life with my grandchildren without fearing for their or my health I pity those who have listened to the Oxford epidemiologists and are living in fear as a result.
You’ve shown that an island nation can hide out from the virus. It’s going to eventually do what it’s going to do though unless you establish some immunity.
Refreshing to hear a grounded, unbiased debate like this, What a shame that this level of experienced and medically informed discourse is so rarely found on mainstream tv. From the very beginning Covid19 was politicised and the instant blame game distorted debate, prevented a common sense approach from being applied and sustained, and tipped us into an media led frenzy that induced the kind of chaos that does not encourage good decision making. The catastrophic mistakes alluded to by Tom Jefferson don’t need to be enlarged on because they were and are apparent to many as is the fact that there seems to be a deep resistance to learning real lessons from the crisis of this pandemic.
Excellent, informative and worrying – I too have wondered about the NZ approach, will they stay locked away from the world forever?
My biggest gripe is still with the modellers, ignoring the embarrassingly bad bug ridden code – even if it was written by competent software engineers the models are still useless. The infection rate, fatality rates, how infections are passed on, pre existing immunity etc are still poorly understood with no concensus. Feeding these wild estimates into even the best model will result in meaningless figures out by massive factors.
The best approach was to look at other countries like Italy and be rightfully scared, you did not need a fancy model to understand that it could kills 10,000s. I think the panic of the models and the disinformation about it killing anyone regardless of age led to the UK and others not protecting the elderly. In fact I believe they were sacrificed by policy makers, pushed into care homes to clear beds that were never needed.
The government is still pushing that everyone is equally vulnerable and using models – the only thing they’ve learnt is to never admit being wrong.
I live in NZ. At the moment the country is being carried along by a euphoria at having “conquered” CV, and everyone I have spoken believes we are now back to normal, mainly because they themselves have not been financially impacted by the lockdown. On the other hand I have had to return to full time employment as my business has been destroyed. When the school holidays are over, and the wage subsidy finishes in September, and the business closures and job losses start to mount up, and prices start to rise because of supply chain issues, I believe many NZ ers will be devastated at the real economic cost to the country
You are describing other countries not New Zealand and appear unable to recognise every country is experiencing an economic downturn. If you do not understand and appreciate what we have achieved I suggest you get on a plane and go look overseas even Australia.
Come back and tell him that in October.
What I found remarkable is that protocols had not been standardised in advance. I mean working definitions of what is “a case”, what is “an xyz death”, and what various measures should be tested and how. Everything was just made up as people went along, which raises considerable questions about the competence of people in charge of all this. Though that is probably because competence counts for little when truth is subverted to Big Money hoax agendas.
Another good, calm and informative interview. Thank you Freddie! These 2 guys should be helping to forge our future responses to anything contagious. Proper infrastructure, process and trained people to deal with whatever comes our way without destroying our lives “by following the (very one-sided) science”. Who knew that in the early 90’s we closed down all the isolation hospitals?
Side note regarding isolation hospitals – I was admitted to one when I was about 8 with meningitis. Remember it well and as described. I was isolated in a single room and hardly saw staff. The site is now a housing estate to the best of my knowledge. I obviously survived a very serious condition and the memory remains with me not least because I was so isolated, even my mother could not visit me initially. Yes knowledge about such places is off the radar. Which may lead to another reflection about the current generation of health care staff being unprepared for an epidemic such as covid and the potential impact of this.
We’ve known all along that suppression has no exit. On ‘learning to live with the virus’ there is a viable strategy out there. https://greenbandredband.com sets out a way of achieving targeted distancing measures for those who want/need it, with minimal invasion on freedoms. And it could be implemented now, with zero cost and maximum effect. No need for a confusing rash of ever changing measures for each context.
Disappointing to hear EBM advocates again making the classic error(s) which that movement is prone to making (and which has also led medical science to an unwarranted tolerance of even the most absurd quackery).
“No direct / RCT evidence” is not “no evidence” and it simply isn’t true that there is “complete uncertainty”; that we have no good (evidence based) reason to believe in the efficacy of face masks here. Parachutes very probably prevent injury and death, homeopathy very very probably does nothing, and face masks probably usefully prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
That parachute study is an admirable cautionary tale of the incompetence of much (especially corporate-sponsored) medical research. But the criticism of these profs is not justified. They rightly recognise that there are just so many unknowns. As for the notion that face masks “probably” help, there has been much proper research which has shown that they actually do not help. And they have considerable negatives. Not just lack of evidence but evidence of lack.
The parachute paper is a satirical criticism of the flaw in EBM, corporate sponsored or not, that has led those profs to do little more in the way of science – evidence based [statistical] inference – than merely recognise that there are many unknowns. In some contexts that doesn’t matter much (RCTs will be necessary anyway). In this context it does matter. Here’s another review making this point:
Whatever proper research there may be that has generated negative evidence will have been taken into consideration in the proper reviews.
I don’t think the adverse physiological effects of long term mask use are fully appreciated. Even this is not their worst effect. Once you put healthy people in masks you spread a message of fear discouraging everyone from interacting normally, travelling, shopping, etc. Masks will always be accompanied by restrictions. New normal will kill millions. It is not a viable condition. It is not an option.
I think the interviewer gave up trying to get direct answers to most of his questions. Maybe the panel format didn’t help with the clarity.
The professors did provide some helpful context and perspectives (including highlighting why it is so difficult to give clear/direct answers), but I suspect were less helpful for laypersons such as myself trying to understand the relative merits of the very difficult policy choices that are being made around the world.
One is left with greater sympathy for policymakers who have to implement these type of scientific insights into practice. Perfect is the enemy of the good and all that.
And I appreciate the irony about sensationalist headlines (“Oxford epidemiologists: we don’t really know” doesn’t have quite the same click-appeal). I’m glad at least that the bullet points are now direct quotations.
I agree. It seems that by admission they don’t Know. We don’t know whether the decline is due to weather, immunity or social distancing. Freddy asked all the right questions. As yet there seem to be few answers and perhaps best to revert to precautionary principle. I asked Dr. Levitt if once we passed 20% would we still have to social distance (the new normal In Freddy’s parlance). He candidly replied that he wish he knew. Seems to me right now we need some form of social distancing and reasonable people can disagree as to how much. It would be nice to know if we are playing golf (cases bad) or baseball (cases good as long as we don’t overload hospitals). I have watched most of the interviews and Freddy has always been terrific.
Very interesting discussion thanks. It would have been helpful to clarify that “no evidence for masks” doesn’t mean evidence against masks. If there is at least a reasonable chance that masks might work, then the only argument against using them would be that they cause harm, and the appears to be no evidence for that. If RCT evidence is available to support policy decisions, that’s great. But if you don’t have RCT evidence (and for the vast majority of policy decisions you don’t) then you have to use other sensible criteria. You can do good science without RCT.
Hear, hear!
In fact you can do a lot of bad science waiting for RCT evidence. Often, as with covid, you cannot ethically create trials which will provide this sort of cut and dried evidence.
Mercola has published an article reviewing the evidence on masks, concluding not that we don’t know but rather that we do know that they do not help. And have considerable negatives.
Joseph Mercola is a notorious quack and crank. His article is, in the language of our other discussion here, an improper review of improper research (see e.g. Myth #4 here).
” If you want a solution, you’ve got to get people to stop clicking on this sensationalist stuff.” Good luck with that. If this is the only way to get sense into the politics, we are doomed.
If as some scientists have said, Covid came out of a laboratory vaccine experiment where various other diseases were spliced into the genetic code of a coronavirus, it is not surprising that the ‘virus’ is still not understood.
CH says 50 % of the cases in care homes came during the lockdown. But is it not the case that the lockdown for carehomes was broken by admission of covid patients from hospitals etc. I assume CH is using care home situation to argue against lockdown effectiveness but this argument is weakened by the covid leakage from hospitals. A care home I am in touch with had only 2 coivid cases, both of whom had a spell in the local hospital.
CH is quoted ( incorrectly?) as saying ” the lower the humidity the more stable the virus in the atmosphere” and then that Australia is having outbreaks because it is winter i.e. higher humidity. These statement seem contradictory.
Are there features of Covid that mean “lockdown” does not work as a strategy or are you arguing that lockdown does not work as a strategy against pandemic viruses per se?
Well done gentlemen.
We in Australia are now getting the seasonal effect and as usual the politicians are blaming people for it.
Thanks for this great double interview. It accords with the view I have had for many years, that there are competent people out there but the people in charge are the incompetents.
More widely, I have had a long interest in the causality of society and gradually reached a number of general observations. One is that in politics and society in general, the Big Money determines what the politicians do and what the media (BBC) say.
And using that principle one can neatly explain why there was such a peculiar lurch of policy, at first downplaying the problem, and thereafter going into our current hyper-scare. The thing is that two competing Big Moneys were involved.
In 1945 Berlin, there was the violent victory of the ideology/religion of Greed Globalism (EXACTLY the same as Political Correctness). I hardly need to tell you that the greatest of all sins in this religion is “racism” (whatever that word means or doesn’t).
Central to Greed Globalism is the notion that it is a REALLY GOOD IDEA to have loads of people constantly jetting off between continents, and whizzing up and down motorways, and likewise with marketing of goods. And Greed Globalism has some REALLY Big Money behind it, the whole of the airline industry, international tourism and trade, even people trafficking aka “Refugees welcome “here” (i.e. over there in Benefits Street)”.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong with all that flying around? You a bigoted little englander hey?
So it was impossible to admit that all that flying around and transporting around might have a significant downside. (It actually has even worse downsides, but that is for another day….) And so there was complete lack of taking seriously of the many warnings, and the complete lack of preparation even of stocks of PPE.
But then a different lot of Big Money started to get their tanks into formation. That is Big Pharma, with their grand agenda to pretend that there was a desperate need for “a cure” for the virus, and not least a vaccine.
This agenda was as dishonest as the international whizzing about agenda. We have known for years that viruses are no problem if you build up your immune system with vitamins c, d, a, zinc, selenium, garlic…
But Big Pharma controls puppet organisations such as the bbc. And our “democratic” governments.
So the Big Pharma got together their “experts” to declare that this was a REALLY SERIOUS problem that warranted recognising as a global emergency. And of course they could churn out any number of “professors of epidemiology” and “professors of infectious diseases”. The tourism and international trade don’t tend to have so many such medical professors in their professional/social circle.
So it was inevitable that the BIG Money of Big Pharma defeated the international-whizzing-about Big Money, and so we ended up with our media and “democratic” regimes imposing the Big Pharma agenda and the BBC now spends hours drivelling on about the “search for a cure” and the supposedly sensible vaccine research, while also drivelling to us about the “misinformation” (vitamins c and d) which is having to be removed from social media sites.
Meanwhile I still talk to people in the streets. And am noticing a high level of people thinking we are in the grip of a Big Pharma scare story hoax. Deleting health information and asserting it to be “misinformation” is a great way to lose people’s trust. And once they lose it you will never get it back.
I should clarify that many persons and groups refer to this same thing as “the left”, even though it has not the slightest in common with trade unionists organising strikes, and is certainly not supported by working class types such as T*mmy R*bins*n supporters, and its hyper-immigration policies are certainly not what low class people want, and it doesn’t even accord with the definition of “left” as seeking to overturn the establishment, because this ideological group IS the establishment and has been for decades now.
I agreed with your first paragraph. I was lost after that. I think there’s bits of insight sprinkled throughout your narrative, but it’s not entirely accurate and certainly oversimplified.
Suggesting that viruses are “no problem” so long as you take your multivitamin is dubious at best. I also think these special interests you delineate have some significant overlap and common objectives. You also indicated that Big Pharma controls democratic governments. Certainly to a degree, but they’re only one well-moneyed, influential lobbying group among many.
One thing I did not hear in this discussion and I think is important, is to study those countries that had a very good result. The most important by far, is Germany. This is a large country, with no great genetic differences with say, France. Germany had 1/5 the deaths in France and Italy. Why? I suspect the key will be how Germany deals with the elderly/sick. Both prior to, and during the epidemic. This would be in a sense the most important ‘experiment’ that could be studied. I also believe that the very steep, unnatural rise in deaths in many countries, was caused by the lockdown policies themselves. The Canadian Physicist / Public Health Scientist, Denis Rancourt, has discussed this in some detail.
Re: seasonal theory. I’d like to know more about the COVID spike in Texas & some other states in USA. Why did they spike during their summer? Does this make the seasonal theory a bit of a dodgy one?
At the same time, we have to factor in that COVID tests – from what I’ve read – aren’t very accurate or specific to COVID. They might be testing positive for other viruses, colds with similar symptoms to COVID. This would apply to all of the data on cases/death tolls globally.
In any case I’d like more discussion on the seasonal theory of virus peak & fall.
Refreshing to hear a grounded, unbiased debate like this, What a shame that this level of experienced and medically informed discourse is so rarely found on mainstream tv. From the very beginning Covid19 was politicised and the instant blame game distorted debate, prevented a common sense approach from being applied and sustained, and tipped us into an media led frenzy that induced the kind of chaos that does not encourage good decision making. The catastrophic mistakes alluded to by Tom Jefferson don’t need to be enlarged on because they were and are apparent to many as is the fact that there seems to be a deep resistance to learning real lessons from this crisis that arose around this pandemic.
Please display the dates of these interviews and/or articles. It’s important context.
A simple question to UnHerd – any chance of getting Matt Hancock or Boris interviewed by you and questioned on the above? Approach some top Tories who may have open minds (sic) and question them? The above needs to be mainstream and may offer some hope of redemption from the utter lunacy of what we are currently witnessing. Perhaps it’s time for the UnHerd to be heard and we all need to become more vocal and start becoming mainstream. Get the likes of Nigel Farage onboard – he’s been slow to sniff an opportunity here – may sound a tad bonkers, but it would have traction. Sad as it is, sometimes you have to be compelled to shout. Sometimes it’s time to stand and resist the tide. Hopefully food for thought.
Is research being undertaken into whether flu vaccination can impact on coronavirus susceptibility?
Consider for instance the Canadian studies that raised the possibility that receiving a seasonal flu vaccination in the 2008-09 season made it more likely that Canadians would become ill from 2009 pandemic H1N1 flu.[1]
Could something similar be possible in the current situation?
The elderly in particular are encouraged to have annual flu vaccination, eg people in aged care facilities, and travellers on cruise ships come to mind…
The elderly have apparently been the most affected by SARS-CoV-2/COVID 19, could flu vaccination have made them more vulnerable?
Reference:
1. New Canadian studies suggest seasonal flu shot increased H1N1 risk. CIDRAP. Apr 06, 2010.
Yes, that could be the case. Not only the elderly but, I believe, those with certain underlying health conditions are also encouraged to have flu vaccines.
It’s odd no-one is looking into this. However all policy makers seem only interested in ensuring they are not blamed for any decisions taken so far. Pushing vaccines is part of that because they’ve already spent a fortune paying for them in advance of them being created. They couldn’t possibly admit vaccines pose any sort of problem to anyone.
“Aside from people who are exposed on the frontlines, there is no evidence that masks make any difference..” – there is no evidence because there has been insufficient time and opportunity for a properly conducted evidence-based study. However, if it is accepted that facemasks are of value ‘on the frontlines’, it stands to reason that they will be of value to anyone seeking to either avoid passing the virus to others, or to avoid receiving it from others. Sometimes, in the absence of an opportunity for evidence to have yet been gathered, a little application of intelligent common sense goes a long way. Academics are sometimes so constrained by their self-imposed rules that they become a strait jacket preventing any kind of movement at all.
If masks are so useless why do medical staff ware them. Agreed a rag might not do it but if your are going to ware a mask ware a good one.
Medical people wear masks for an entirely different reason from the general hoo-haa going on in our society currently. Mercola has now published a review of numerous studies which make clear that the masks do not help.
They wear properly fitted masks and change them frequently. They also combine them with other measures and PPE since masks alone aren’t sufficient.
I would like the doctors to respond to what this Dr claims as convincing evidence for masks: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
These are interesting viewpoints that highlight the general disarray of actual knowledge about the virus rather than theories. I find the most egregious failure is the actual conduct of research institutions in handling studies of therapies and vaccine programs.
Bias in reporting is derigeur these days, but the characterization of studies, anecdotal results, and poorly formulated or seemingly intentionally flawed approaches to validating cheap therapies makes one question their motives if not their competency.
Unclear on the concept? You folks sound like you’re isolated from the world.
We are isolating until a viable vaccine becomes available.
Virologists tend to be confused. They measure success by presence of antigens. This is like measuring whether to invest in a company via dirivitives.
HOW
MANY
POSITIVES
HAVE
BECOME
SICK
A
SECOND
TIME?
Oh how the vaccine makers will love you. You’ll be fed up enough with isolation that you’ll be ready to accept glorified saline. Just think of the money they’ll make with a vaccine of little or no effectiveness, just by scaring people into isolation with a virus that among younger people has a 99.9% survival rate. It easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.
Evidence based science is important, especially in the medical area where we know from the studies of John Ionnides how unreliable most medical studies are, especially those involving epidemiology. However, reality is also important in science, such as in physics where the experiments set out to explain known facts or experiences. This is the case with Cov-2 where we have the factual data from those Asian and a European country that did not lock down but had universal wearing of masks, including those homemade of cloth, from an early stage and ended with very low numbers of cases and deaths per million population from Cov-2: Taiwan 0.3, Hong Kong 2, Singapore 5, Japan 8, Czechia 33 compared to the UK 666 with Czechia the only one using cloth masks.
Unless your “experts” can explain these numbers in some other way, and tracking and tracing is not the answer, it seems to me that they make an irrefutable case for wearing masks in public. A key factor is that following the SARS-Cov-1 outbreak these countries, except Czechia, had well prepared plans including supplies of masks sufficient for the whole population whereas the UK and other countries in Europe did not, in spite of the EU setting up the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control following the SARS-Cov-1 outbreak to prepare for such a future event, but that neither issued any plans for prevention or control of Cov-2 and ironically is based in Solna Sweden.The responsibility for the lives lost in this pandemic are squarely with Public Health England for their failure to have adequate beds and PPE available and especially not using hydroxychlooquine that has proved to be the only effective treatment, instead going along with the vaccine solution that is likely to make the disease worse for those with comorbidities.
False Trials to Trash Hydroxychloroquine
https://articles.mercola.co…
https://c19study.com/
Zinc and HCQ
https://articles.mercola.co…
With regard to the allegedly high uk figure Peter, Matt Hancock has now admitted there are problems with the way figures for COVID deaths were compiled. Indeed there was a case reported on the website of one of the main newspapers this weekend of a family whose son had died in a motorbije accident complaining that the death certificate gave cause of death as COvID – 19. And that’s far from the only such case.
Similar things have been happening with “diagnoses” of autism, in order to pretend that the autism increase hasn’t really happened. If you have a typical severely austistic child, headbanging, screaming, non-verbal, un-toilet-trainable, runs into the road, etc, it is very hard to get a diagnosis. Meanwhile if an older person is merely a bit shy or unconventional, wow!, you’ve been unrecognised autistic all these years, at last we’ve “diagnosed” you. The NHS also sponsored a trash study by Brugha to pretend this information away.
There is clearly a whole system of secret improper communications going on in the NHS to enable these abuses. This filth needs the light of day shining on it. More in the book Experts Catastrophe.
I’m fascinated by this idea that government is entirely responsible for public safety. I admit that there are reasonable measures to secure the relative safety of the citizenry, but I object to the notion that our political leaders must do everything possible to ensure that we never experience discomfort or uncertainty.
I also fail to grasp the case for this obsession with face coverings as if they’re a panacea. It is as if supporters of mask mandates haven’t glanced at the studies for even a moment. The overwhelming body of evidence from mask experiments shows that in the general population, mask wearing is ineffective at preventing transmission of respiratory viruses. It would be great to find out that masks would be a simple and effective solution…but they aren’t.
We can’t even begin to understand the degrees of difference in outcomes around the world and to suggest that there’s an obvious answer is merely small-minded optimism. There are a myriad of explanations for differences in outcomes and it is truly a disservice for anyone to suggest that he or she has the definitive answer.
Completely agree with everything you said- well spoken. Thank you! I also cannot understand the mask obsession and, like you, have concluded that the mask-pushers haven’t actually read a single study, whereas those of us who know they’re useless have read every word of every study. The same is try of many vaccines; those for them know nothing yet hold to them with cult-like zeal. Those who question or avoid some do so because they have researched thoroughly. It’s just ridiculous. Last, thank you for pointing out that government is quite limited and ultimately should never be in control of every aspect of our “safety”. That is a very dangerous game”¦
Jessica Bates, you don’t seem to have grasped the basic fact of politics. Truth counts for nothing. Big Money agendas count for everything. You even have to drive over to the Barnard Castle GSK vaccine plant on a Sunday while no-one else is there in order to test your eyes, such is the importance of that Big Money.
If the regime really cared about the nation’s health, they would have banned cars until proven safe, and would do something about far greater causes of death than Covid, including poisonous foods on sale all over the place (causing cancer, heart failure, etc), and the far greater number of deaths from “properly” prescribed drugs. But the Big Money rules in this “democracy”. And all the more so now that “Build build build” (translation: bribes bribes bribes) Johnson is in charge.
On masks in the countries you mentioned: Dr. Richard Bartlett believes that those countries’ super low fatality rate is due to they treatment they’ve been using, not a piece of cloth over their face, since no study whatsoever proves masks do anything. Dr. Bartlett himself hasn’t lost a single patient to covid using the same treatment, I spite of some patients with staggering co-morbidities. It’s an asthma medication via nebulizer, to calm down the inflammatory response and the cytokine storms that begin. Also, I think we may well find that in those Asian countries they have other genetic or lifestyle factors at play- for example, they tend to have low obesity rates, low inflammatory diets, walk more, possibly carry more vitamin D, etc.
Here is Dr. Bartlett’s info: https://americacanwetalk.or…
What about Belarus? It is interesting to see that though they did not take any official precautions, they are fine with cases and deaths per million.
The Oxford epidemiologists have consistently made forecasts of herd immunity that have proved to be wildly wrong. As regards New Zealand we have demonstrated that it is entirely feasible to eliminate community transmission of Covid-19 it being 81 days since we had a community transmitted case. We all able to go about our lives without fear of getting infected. Our economy is recovering. Our international tourist industry is not operating but we can cope with that. As to the future East Asia is also pursuing an elimination strategy. We will be able in due course to travel among these countries. When the brilliant team of Oxford vaccine developers have their vaccine ready the group of elimination countries will use that to enable us to open our borders.
As a 72 year old enjoying life with my grandchildren without fearing for their or my health I pity those who have listened to the Oxford epidemiologists and are living in fear as a result.
Given the asymptomatic aspect of transmission early on that is being discussed recently…your confidence may be overstated.
You’ve shown that an island nation can hide out from the virus. It’s going to eventually do what it’s going to do though unless you establish some immunity.