Financial Times Elides Excess Deaths In UK with Deaths From Coronavirus, Triggers Call For Coup From Ex-SAGE Member
Professor Anthony Costello, the former WHO Director and now a member of the “alternative” SAGE, got very over-excited on Twitter earlier today in response to an FT article showing the UK had the highest rate of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic among a group of 19 countries that produce comparable data. According to the article, the UK has registered 59,537 more deaths than usual this year since the week ending March 20th. In Costello’s brain, this became: “The FT report the UK has the highest rate of excess COVID19 deaths in the world. 59,537 more deaths than usual with a rate of 891 deaths per million.”
Costello’s tweet set off a chain of responses, each more hysterical than the last, with Robert West, a Professor of Health Psychology at UCL and a former member of the SP1-B subgroup of SAGE, seemingly calling for a coup on the back of it. “We cannot wait until this is ‘all over’ to find out what is going wrong,” he said, referring to Costello’s tweet. “But to learn from its mistakes the Government has to admit it is making them. This is something they appear completely unwilling to do. Time for NHS and public health to take over?”
Let’s gloss over the fact that in Costello’s fevered imagination the highest excess death toll in 19 countries became the highest in the world and focus on the other bit of hyperbole in his tweet. How did 59,537 excess deaths, which the FT says may have been “directly or indirectly” caused by the virus, become “COVID19 deaths”? After all, according to the latest ONS data, 47,343 deaths in the UK have mentioned “novel coronavirus” on the death certificate, more than 10,000 fewer than the excess death total. The six million dollar question is whether all excess deaths since the week ending March 20th have been from COVID-19 or whether some have been due to the lockdown itself? As I pointed out yesterday, the number of deaths from COVID-19 in care homes in England and Wales in Week 20, according to the ONS, is less than half the total number of excess deaths in care homes in Week 20. In the graph below, the green shaded area represents the excess deaths not linked to COVID-19.
Could it be that it’s not undiagnosed COVID-19 that is responsible for those excess deaths, but the hysterical over-reaction to the pandemic by the authorities, preventing people with other diseases seeking medical help?
To be fair to Costello, the FT makes the same elision as him in the headline: “UK suffers highest death rate from coronavirus.” From that, it sounds like the FT is assuming all the excess deaths are due to COVID-19 as well. It doesn’t try to justify this directly, or point out the discrepancy between the number of excess deaths and the number of deaths in which “novel coronavirus” is mentioned on the death certificate. But it does say: “Excess deaths is internationally recognised as the best way to compare countries’ performance in handling infectious diseases. Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical officer, called excess deaths ‘the key metric’.”
Well, yes, they might be a good way of measuring how countries have handled infectious diseases – maybe even the “key” way. But it doesn’t follow that, as the headline suggests, excess deaths are a reliable way of measuring how many people have died from coronavirus.
Costello is a long-standing member of the Labour Party and Robert West is a leftie who retweets all the usual suspects – George Monbiot, Carole Cadwalladr, Paul Mason, James O’Brien, Owen Jones, etc. They have a vested interest in eliding “excess deaths” with deaths from COVID-19 since it supports their contention that the Government’s delay in locking down led to a higher number of Covid fatalities. But I expected better from the FT.
Are We Counting Covid Deaths Correctly?
Dr John Lee’s latest piece in the Spectator points out that the way Covid deaths are being counted is incredibly unreliable. He writes:
Normally, two doctors are needed to certify a death, one of whom has been treating the patient or who knows them and has seen them recently. That has changed. For COVID-19 only, the certification can be made by a single doctor, and there is no requirement for them to have examined, or even met, the patient. A video-link consultation in the four weeks prior to death is now felt to be sufficient for death to be attributed to COVID-19. For deaths in care homes the situation is even more extraordinary. Care home providers, most of whom are not medically trained, may make a statement to the effect that a patient has died of COVID-19. In the words of the Office for National Statistics, this “may or may not correspond to a medical diagnosis or test result, or be reflected in the death certification”. From March 29th the numbers of ‘Covid deaths’ have included all cases where COVID-19 was simply mentioned on the death certificate – irrespective of positive testing and whether or not it may have been incidental to, or directly responsible for, death. From April 29th the numbers include the care home cases simply considered likely to be COVID-19.
So at a time when accurate death statistics are more important than ever, the rules have been changed in ways that make them less reliable than ever. In what proportion of COVID-19 ‘mentions’ was the disease actually present? And in how many cases, if actually present, was COVID-19 responsible for death? Despite what you may have understood from the daily briefings, the shocking truth is that we just don’t know. How many of the excess deaths during the epidemic are due to COVID-19, and how many are due to our societal responses of healthcare reorganisation, lockdown and social distancing? Again, we don’t know. Despite claims that they’re all due to COVID-19, there’s strong evidence that many, perhaps even a majority, are the result of our responses rather than the disease itself.
Dr Lee’s conclusion is withering:
One of the unappreciated tragedies of this epidemic so far is the huge lost opportunity to understand COVID-19 better. We like to beat ourselves up for having the worst Covid death toll in Europe — but we will never know, because we decided not to count properly. In a country that has always prided itself on the quality of its facts and figures, the missing COVID-19 data is a national scandal.
ONS Seroprevalence Survey
The ONS released some data today about a seroprevalence survey it has carried out involving a sample size of 885. Of this group, who were given an antibody test between April 26th and May 24th, 6.78% tested positive, which works out at 4,542,600 people nationwide if we scale it up to encompass the whole population.
Can we calculate an IFR based on this? It’s not as simple as dividing 4,542,600 by the total number of Covid-related deaths in the UK – 47,343 at last count – since the people the ONS gave the antibody tests to were “in the community”. None of them were in hospitals or care homes. So how many of those 47,343 deaths were of people “in the community”? If we assume that people “in the community” would simply transfer to hospital when they fell ill with COVID-19, but people in care homes are a separate, self-contained population, the way to calculate the IFR is to strip out all those Covid-related deaths that have occurred in care homes, which we can estimate at about 21% of the total (the ONS estimated that 21% of all Covid-related deaths in England in the week ending May 8th were in care homes). So scaling that up to the entire population gives us ~9,942 Covid-related care home deaths, leaving ~37,401 deaths in the community.
If we divide that 4,542,600 by 37,410 that gives us an IFR of 0.82%. That’s roughly three times higher than the CDC’s IFR of 0.26% – pretty robust, in my view – which suggests that either the numerator or the denominator is wrong. It’s likely to be both, obviously, but which one is more wrong? If we assume the seroprevalence data is broadly accurate – and a sample size of 885 is quite high by antibody survey standards – that suggests the number of deaths in which doctors are ascribing the cause of death to COVID-19 is being exaggerated three-fold.
“Didn’t you see the arrows?”
Good lockdown joke sent to me by a reader:
I was in Tesco today, and midway through my shop I realised I’d forgotten something. I walked back to get it, much to the horror of the shoppers behind me.
“There is a one way system!” screamed one terrified lady. “Didn’t you see the arrows?”
“Arrows?” I said. “I didn’t even see the Indians!”
Simon Dolan Legal Challenge Goes Forward
The High Court judge has ordered the Government to respond to businessman Simon Dolan’s legal challenge to lockdown by June 12th. The date, set by Mr Justice Swift, came after Government lawyers again asked for more time to prepare and respond following the formal launch of proceedings.
“Such is the magnitude of our fight, we pushed hard for an earlier date,” says Simon Dolan. “But true to form, the Government wants delay after delay.”
The crowdfunder is now up to £147,135, well on its way to hitting its target of £175,000. Thanks to all those readers who’ve donated.
You can read the evidence in support of the legal challenge here. I was pleased to see Lockdown Sceptics get a mention in the evidence. See pp.43-44.
Michael Moorcock’s Prophecy
Good quote a reader has sent me, this one by the science fiction writer Michael Moorcock:
If we continue to make any sort of social progress, I suspect that the political battle lines of the twenty first century will not be between socialism and capitalism but democracy and paternalism.
People Are Drowning Because of Irrational Fear of Covid
There’s a depressing story in the Mail today about three people drowning over the Bank Holiday weekend, in part because the RNLI suspended coastline patrols when the lockdown was imposed and haven’t fully reinstated them. “More casualties are now feared on unsupervised beaches after two deaths near Padstow in Cornwall on Monday, and a third at Teignmouth in Devon on Tuesday,” the Mail reports.
The RNLI had a total net income of £186.6million in 2018, so it’s not lack of resources that’s preventing the RNLI getting back out there.
RNLI chief Mark Dowie blames the Government for not banning people from going to beaches and for not giving the RNLI more notice of the easing of lockdown restrictions. Apparently, this has meant it hasn’t had adequate time to work out how to operate during the pandemic.
We have to work out how to do in-water rescues and give first aid – normally conducted at close quarters and often with people coughing up water. We have to find PPE that will work on a beach and in the water – visors and aprons are no good on a rescue board. And we have to train our lifeguards in procedures to reduce the risk of infection. All this takes time and we learnt of the lifting of restrictions at the same time as everyone else.
Bad news, Mr Dowie. No PPE is going to protect people pulling drowning people out of the sea and giving them first aid. But the good news is the chances of one of your people dying from COVID-19 are quite small. Let’s work them out.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) estimates that around 2,000 new people are being infected every day. People remain infectious for no more than 10 days and each infected person is currently infecting less than one other person. So that means that no more than 20,000 UK citizens are infectious at any one time – and that number is falling. So the chances of the person you’re pulling from the sea being infectious with COVID-19 are 20,000/67,000,000, or 1/3,350.
According to the Center for Disease Control, the infection fatality rate for Covid is 0.26% so the chances of an RNLI employee dying if they catch the virus from the person they save from drowning is 1/385.
Combine those two figures, and the chances of an RNLI lifeboat person dying from rescuing someone at sea are roughly 1/1,250,000. By contrast, the chances of a drowning person pulled from the sea dying if they’re not given first aid are 1/1.
You do the maths, Mr Dowie.
Stop Press: In a bulletin earlier today, the ONS estimated that ~54,000 new people were being infected each week between May 11th and May 24th, which works out at 7,714/day, or 77,140 infectious people in the UK at any one time. According to my calculations, that would increase the above risk to 1/334,392. Still quite low.
Donald Trump Responds to YouTube Censorship
President Trump is due to sign an executive order later today that will supposedly regulate or “close down” social media companies he perceives as censoring conservative voices. I’d love to say this was in response to YouTube censoring me yesterday, but in fact the final straw was Twitter flagging up two of Trumps tweets on Tuesday as requiring a fact check. The tweets weren’t about coronavirus, but potential voter fraud in California. The Mail has the story.
Test-And-Trace Fiasco
The ongoing saga that is Matt Hancock’s attempt to roll a test-and-trace programme across the UK hit a new peak of comic hilarity today when the Mail disclosed that the website crashed when it went “live” this morning.
Staff employed to warn Britons they may have been infected have also struggled to log-on to the system, with one calling it a “complete shambles” after revealing they had not even received their password to access the website and start their shift while another questioned why the COVID-19 system wasn’t perfect before it went live…
Shocking pictures today also showed deserted drive-through testing centres in Twickenham, Heathrow, Edinburgh and Chessington in Surrey, while flat-pack furniture giant Ikea reclaimed a key swabbing location in west London because it plans to reopen to the public in the coming weeks.
Needless to say, the much-touted NHS track-and-trace app was nowhere to be seen, having encountered a number of “teething problems” during its trial run in the Isle of Wight. I asked the IT expert who’s been following this saga for Lockdown Sceptics to comment on today’s launch.
Today the Government launched its track-and-trace programme. Personally, I am not celebrating 25,000 new Government employees paid to trawl over my private life on the assumption that I am a bio-hazard. So forgive me if it seems churlish to ask, but what happened to your app, Mr Hancock?
Now relegated to a “supporting” role, readers of this site will recall the May 4th Independent front page headline heralding the app as part of the government’s “roadmap to end lockdown”. What went wrong? As this site pointed out on May 4th, the choice of a home grown, Government-developed, centralised database was a bad idea from the start. The famously IT-savvy Matt Hancock begged to differ and commissioned the National Centre for Cyber Security to agree with him.
The resulting 13-page report used a lot of impressive-sounding crypto jargon, but the issue of a centralised verses distributed database wasn’t addressed until the very last page. “This paper does not make a case for either a centralised or decentralised […] model,” it said, but then followed up with three justifications Mr Hancock could use for not opting for the decentralised Apple/Google approach. That didn’t convince 173 security academics who signed a letter saying so, nor did it persuade Harriett Harmon’s Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, which pointed out that it wasn’t just bad software, it was very likely illegal. The much-lauded NHS app was dead in the water.
But Mr Hancock wouldn’t let go of his conviction that high-tech wizardry was the solution and he found £3.8m to commission Swiss software company Zulke to build another app, this one utilising Apple and Google’s technology. That answered the academics and human rights committee, but had the disadvantage of not providing a single byte of intelligence data for track-and-trace purposes.
The upshot is that today’s big track-and-trace programme launched with no surveillance app and a fledgling testing service. This article in the Conversation gives some idea of the problems ahead, revealing that “the average number of tests required per case was 52 in South Korea, and 64 in Australia”. What that means is that for each person the South Korean team discovered was infectious, they then had to track down 52 additional people as having been exposed to the infectious individual – and in Australia that number was 64. The article adds: “In South Korea the testing was conducted on a base of well-funded and efficient public services and an effective infrastructure, including widespread digital surveillance.”
In other words, the South Korean track-and-tracers had access to extensive surveillance data – far more extensive than that currently available in the UK.
How will Hancock’s army of 25,000 amateur detectives cope, particularly as as they’re being paid minimum wage and have received, at most, a few weeks “training”? And what’s the likelihood of them making mistakes when trying to identify the 50+ people each infected person has made contact with using an ordinance survey map and a telephone directory?
Rather ominously, Hancock announced yesterday that it was every citizen’s “civic duty” to place themselves in quarantine for 14 days if identified as at risk by his 25,000 crack sleuths – and if they neglect to do this voluntarily, swingeing fines will be just round the corner. I think we can pretty much guarantee that every person ordered to self-isolate by some muppet on the end of the phone claiming to work for “the Government” will be one less vote for the Conservative Party at the next General Election.
But will the Government really be able to fine people if they refuse to self-isolate in these circumstances? No, according to the employment lawyers Jackson Bourne. See this blog post.
And just to add to the comedy of errors, the Executive Chair of NHS Test and Trace is one Dido Harding, whose record when it comes to data protection is less than golden. This was a good spot by Simon Dutton in the comments beneath yesterday’s update. He quoted the following passage from Harding’s Wikipedia entry:
In October 2015, TalkTalk experienced a “significant and sustained cyber-attack”, during which personal and banking details of up to four million customers is thought to have been accessed. City AM described her responses as “naive”, noting that early on when asked if the affected customer data was encrypted or not, she replied: “The awful truth is that I don’t know”. Her “inflexible line” on termination fees was also criticised. Marketing ran a headline, “TalkTalk boss Dido Harding’s utter ignorance is a lesson to us all”. The Evening Standard noted that “It has been a tough week for TalkTalk boss Dido Harding, facing complaints from customers and calls for her head.” The company admitted the hack had cost it £60 million and lost it 95,000 customers.
Round-Up
And on to the round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘More bad academic thinking about lockdown‘ – Hector Drummond eviscerates this paper by Professor Richard Layard, an economist at the LSE. Among its many faults, it accepts Neil Ferguson’s apocalyptic projections without a murmur of criticism
- ‘Norway health chief: lockdown was not needed to tame Covid‘ – Fraser Nelson reports on an interview given by Camilla Stoltenberg, director of Norway’s public health agency, in which she acknowledges locking down the country was pointless
- ‘43% Of COVID-19 Deaths Are In Nursing Homes & Assisted Living Facilities Housing 0.6% Of US‘ – Good piece in Forbes, pointing out how few people are at risk from the virus
- ‘End the lockdown now and cut taxes to avoid a depression‘ – Dan Hannan talks straight on the City AM podcast
- ‘It’s time to end police-enforced lockdown – and trust the British public‘ – Editorial in the Spectator urging the Government to end the police-enforced lockdown and trust the British public to use their common sense
- ‘Webinar COVID-19 – Epidemiological monitoring and measurement of infectivity rates in key countries‘ – High-level seminar on whether Brazil should lockdown, featuring Nobel Prize-winner Michael Levitt and a couple of boffins from Imperial College. Levitt doesn’t think Brazil should lock down
- ‘The ecstasy of sanctimony‘ – A neighbour of Dominic Cummings writes in the Critic about the ghastly spectacle of the mob hounding him outside his house
- ‘Isolation “can increase chances of early death by 50 per cent”, new study suggests‘ – Article in the Standard warning of the dangers of self-isolation
- ‘The lack of evidence lockdowns actually worked is a world scandal‘ – No shit, Sherelle. Telegraph columnist Sherelle Jacobs on top form
- ‘Medical Professionals and Scientists for Health, Freedom and Democracy‘ – More on the new German group in Off-Guardian
- ‘Has Sweden made a fatal mistake with Covid 19 coronavirus?‘ – An epidemiologist in New Zealand predicts a final Swedish death toll of 60,000. What planet are these people on?
- ‘Locum GPs forced to claim benefits as work dries up‘ – Good spot by a doctor reader: locus GPs are having to claim unemployment benefit because so few people are now coming to GPs’ surgeries
- ‘New York State quietly deletes controversial Cuomo order that forced nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients‘ – Busted!
- ‘Police prepare for post-lockdown gang violence fuelled by social media‘ – Another lovely by-product of the lockdown fiasco
- ‘Banks’ emergency lending to companies hits £27bn’ – The lockdown bill is still climbing, according to the Times
- ‘Pubs could reopen before July‘ – Finally, some good news!
Theme Tune Suggestions From Readers;
Some more suggestions for theme songs from readers: “Panic” by the Smiths, “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher (from Groundhog Day, obviously) and “Self-Inflicted Wounds” by Joe Bonamassa.
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
A couple of weeks ago, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have reopened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have opened near you. Please visit the page and let us know about those brave folk who are doing their bit to get our country back on its feet.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. It still takes me about nine hours a day, what with doing these updates, moderating your comments and commissioning original material. If you feel like donating, however paltry the amount, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in tomorrow’s update, email me here.
And Finally…
In my Spectator column today I write about the puppy-mania that has accompanied lockdown, the risk of newly-acquired pets being abandoned when the crisis is over and the fact that, in the case of my household’s latest addition, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. We have a five month-old cavapoochon called Malinky, or Mali for short, and her cute appearance can be deceptive. Very deceptive. Here’s an extract:
Mali has a disgusting habit of actually eating other dogs’ faeces. Whenever I take her for a walk on Wormwood Scrubs, she will sniff it out like a forager looking for edible mushrooms and, as soon as she finds any, happily start munching away. Sealed in a little plastic bag? No matter. She’ll gobble that up too. And when she’s finished this little treat, she’ll flip over on to her back and roll around in the residue so as not to leave the tiniest bit behind. What a delight it is to stick her back in the car after that! And to cap it all, the little horror suffers from travel sickness, so all the poo she’s consumed on her walk will often come back up on the way home. Suffice to say, my one-year-old VW Touran no longer has that nice new car smell. When I fling open the door on arrival back home, gasping for breath, sparrows fall out of the sky and roses wilt on their stems.
You can read the entire piece here.
Update: An earlier version of today’s update included a letter purporting to be written by F Scott Fitzgerald about quarantining in the South of France in 2020. It was in fact a parody so I’ve removed it.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Toby
Came across this sceptical blog site that might be of interest…
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/gang-monkeys-attacks-lab-assistant-escape-coronavirus-test-samples
A gang of monkeys in Delhi, India assaulted a laboratory assistant and escaped with coronavirus test samples from three patients, according to Sky News, citing local media.
A monkey could steal his job.
I left home today and travelled to a community gathering There must have been at least 50 people inside the same building. Some seemed to want to stand well apart from others; most just acted normally and avoided direct contact. .
I have survived.
I went to the local supermarket.
How is this different to going to the pub?
Lockdown serves no worthwhile purpose and should be ended NOW.I am an adult and I can make my own judgement of risk, I do not need to be told what to do.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8369207/Confusion-coronavirus-alert-level-NOT-reduced.html
It really seems to me that it’s the scientists who are desperate to keep us locked up. Boris if anything is doing a Trump.
My perspective on this has been completed turned on it’s head.
He’s trying to deflect from Cummings story.
Wel if it means getting us out of lockup I hope he deflects a lot more!
All we need at the moment is for him to show Boris how to grow a backbone and man-up (not PC bollocks I know but the modern equivalent doesn’t have the same effect):
https://nypost.com/2020/05/28/trump-signs-executive-order-against-social-media-companies/
On my tweets I’ve done exactly that.
MAN UP. Admit lockdown was wrong. There will be no 2nd wave. Get our country back to work!
Had no reply from HMG but plenty from bedwetters…
Not sure what the RNLI problem is as they must already have protocols for first aid that take account of infection risks (hepatitis and HIV at the very least), it’s not as if Covid is the first infectious disease to have turned up and require a whole set of new protocols. Adaptation of existing protocols to current issues should be something they are doing normally and no reason to shut the service down, we didn’t see paramedics and fire service not turning up.
I gave up donating to the RNLI when they hired that twat professional manager as the big boss who promptly forgot they are a charity and voluntary organisation and the people do it because they WANT top do it and “sacked” the 2 lifeboatmen (who I have great respect for) for taking the person they rescued to hospital in their land rover as the ambulance was over an hour away.
Their new management are basically common purpose idiots who do not have a clue – same as RSPCA among others.
I focused my charitable giving to an autism charity and RNLI – and dropped RNLI for the same reasons as you. Common Purpose has infiltrated all institutions and NGOs, so I will only give to charities that are very local or where I know the people involved.
Now that the era of happy clapping the nhs is apparently over, can I suggest we replace it with jeering, booing and hissing at the lying pussies that claim to be ‘too scared to work’ along with a special jeer for the hapless government that made their paid holiday possible?
Obviously it is too late to save our economy now, but we could always send bojo to Las Vegas with the last remaining £50 note in the treasury and get him to put it on lucky 13 in a roulette game. Not much chance of winning of course, but more chance than dying of coronavirus.
Sweden on the other hand is a different case altogether. If they want to boost their economy rapidly, all they need to do is to start printing t-shirts, hats and underpants with their flag on and exporting them to the UK – I would buy all three.
Bill Gates thinks everyone should be vaccinated. I really don’t see why this particular virus is deemed so dangerous that it needs to be eradicated.
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2020/04/23/bill-gates-on-how-to-fight-future-pandemics
I think he should be incarcerated!
Incinerated
Oh fuck right off if you legit believe that “he planned this pandemic”, ” he wants to microchip US all”, population control BS. Shove that conspiracy theory BS up your ass
Never Posted here before. Informative site and some great comments. Four brief thoughts:
1 Really disappointed that after so many weeks there is no political leadership anywhere challenging the current approach. One would think some politician would take a ‘punt’ to reap the benefits on this approach being shown to be so much nonsense with staggering health and economic consequences – as well as probably illegal.
The current government approach appears to be morphing into ‘There goes the crowd; we are their leaders; we must follow them.’
2 Anecdotally have been asking shop assistances how many staff have contracted Covid 19. The answer (albeit from only 3 national supermarkets) is none; admittedly there are those who have had to self isolate from the beginning.
3 Why is there not more contempt and outrage over the 14 day quarantine for travellers coming into the UK from 8 June? Apart from Ireland where obviously they have never had any cases! It is such utter and illogical nonsense. Wrote to my MP. No reply.
4 I keep in regular touch with my brother who has lived in Sweden for over 40 years. His grand-children still go to… Read more »
http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/doi/10.46234/ccdcw2020.032
In this report from China, already sent out in Feb, anyone can read that the age profile of deaths was highly affecting the very old. Instead all our planners were fixated on CFR total 2.3 % and seemed to ignore the unique age profile. Fair enough, if our planners were suspicious of any figures coming out of China and therefore only used the worst-case scenario CFR and ignored the age structure of fatalities. But they were not so choosy in completely adapting from China the totalitarian idea of lockdown for weeks. All civilised nations never had in their pandemic planning the idea of lockdown i.e. quarantine the healthy in an effort to stop the spread. Indeed, the whole idea of lockdown was not recommended either by WHO or ECDC even as late as Oct 2019.
Perhaps this is the irony of the whole thing. They adapted the worst from China and disregarded information about the age related IFR, which was factually true.
I don’t know how many of you folk have seen this (courtesy of link in Peter Hitchens’ blog), and apologies if Toby has already linked to it, but it’s so utterly appalling I thought we should all make certain if having read it:
Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures 22nd March 2020
Question addressed
What are the options for increasing adherence to the social distancing measures?
This paper addresses the two social distancing measures that are seen as most important at present:
1. General social distancing by everyone.
2. Shielding for vulnerable people for at least 12 weeks.
The methodology for evaluating the options is given in Appendix A.
The options set out below are not mutually exclusive. In fact, there is evidence that greatest behaviour change impact is achieved by interventions that operate at many levels simultaneously and consistently (1). There are nine broad ways of achieving behaviour change: Education, Persuasion, Incentivisation, Coercion, Enablement, Training, Restriction, Environmental restructuring, and Modelling (2, 3). We have focused on those that are most relevant for this task and where there is evidence to draw on.
1. General social distancing by everyone Government guidance (4):
‘Everyone should try to follow… Read more »
Wow…. how utterly unsurprising. Copied this and will distribute, thanks! I note they don’t have a section for ‘Significant minority who see through our bullshit from the very start’
Here’s the data on Scotland:
– 1.73% of people tested in Scotland (only 109,000 tests for a population of 5,400,000) have tested NEGATIVE
– 0.28% have tested POSITIVE
– 50% of the 2,316 deaths have been in care homes. Around 45% of deaths have been in hospital
– the average age of death is around 80
– 75% of deaths are people aged 75+
– no one under the age of 19 has died
– as of today, 797 people are in hospital having tested positive
– 26 – yes TWENTY-SIX – people are in ICU having tested positive, not 40 as claimed by resident-dentist Jason Leitch today
He’s currently working on the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to model the potential spread of infection.
It’s ridiculous, if you know the people that are dying then you work out the most efficient and therefore least costly way to protect them. Stopping people from working and getting on with life is probably the most costly way to do it.
FWIW those are yesterday’s figures. The numbers published earlier today are even lower: 769 confirmed cases in hospital of whom 25 are in ICU (with a further 15 suspected cases out of 447 in ICU).
For further context: the highest number of confirmed cases in a single day in Scotland was 430 on 31st March. The total number of confirmed cases for the past seven days is… 358. There were another 39 confirmed cases in today’s figures – the same number as on 19th March four days before lockdown began.
According to the daily figures 86 people died of covid in Scotland in the last seven days. A week ago the seven-day total was 192 and a week before that 242.
The most recent NRS report (up to 24th May) lists a total of 3779 deaths. Of the 233 deaths in the week up to the 24th (week 21) nearly 54% (126) were of people aged 85 and over. This is in a nation where the average life expectancy of someone born in 2012 is 77 (male) and 81 (female). In addition to nobody under 19 having died, in the most recent figures there were, in… Read more »
The secret to Scotlands low numbers is the mass consumption of Irn Bru. Sure we’ve no teeth but after using an etch-e-sketch, the back of a fag packet and reading the tea leaves it turns out through this rigorous scientific procedure that the less teeth you have the harder it is for the virus to multiply in your mouth. Combine all this with haggis suppers and Tunnocks tea cakes and we’re virtually immune.
Just went for a walk by Kingston riverside. It was teaming with people. Pubs were serving food and drinks to take away. Nobody was bothering staying 2 metres apart. Lots of groups and gatherings. There were a few (maybe 10%) idiots wearing masks. Some had them on under their chins, which always makes me chuckle.
Anyway here’s the point. We are winning this battle. People are slowly starting to see through the BS. Maybe we’ll have a few more months of silliness, but I’m convinced that within six months max we will be back to the old normal.
I also have a sneaking suspicion they will drop the 14 day quarantine order from international travel. It’s not sustainable and it has too much resistance. Patel, Gove and Handjob can go stick their stupid rules where the sun don’t shine. 🤪
Have a great weekend everyone. ☀️
I’m sure there are some zombies who breathe through their chins. Or maybe even lower down, from where they talk.
This is great to hear. Unfortunately we’ve been told in Scotland to avoid all the behaviours you describe lest we kill people and end up with the lockdown back in place. The virus is our behaviour.
I say ignore it and live your life as you wish. The more people who resist, the quicker wee Jimmy Krankie realises it’s game over for her dictatorship.
Agreed. Been doing that, literally, from day one. Very little has changed in my life. I have a small, tight social circle, none of whom are lockdown enthusiasts.
Ordinarily when do Scottish schools close for the summer break? I know it is earlier than England which is approx. the third week of July.
Been looking to book a holiday in Scotland and it seems July 4th is the date when holiday accommodation will become available again.
Odd that lettings companies know 4th of July it will be safe to go on holiday.
If social distancing will hasten the demise of our tourist and heritage industry, that 14 day quarantine will be the final nail in the coffin. No wonder there’s too much resistance.
Thanks for this RDawg and let’s stay positive!
Resistance! One has to wonder what sort of idiot decided to implement it 12 weeks after it was too late in any case.
Agree. They forgot three words – stable, horse, bolted.
Our daughter is “popping” over tomorrow! From London! We live in Rugby. Not seen her since Feb. She’s coming here on the train then driving her car back. She hates public transport in London in normal times, so wants her car with her. Can’t wait! 🥰
My daughter lives in Paris with her baby boy born in January, we have seen him once in February when we visited her. Don’t know when we will be able to see them again….have a great visit with your daughter (I’m not jealous really….🙂😉)
Enjoy your day Adele.
I work in the travel industry and there is a huge lobbying movement to stop the quarantine and it is gathering traction. Here’s hoping.
Surely, if we were being told by Vallance and Whitty in March and April that there was no evidence to suggest that letting International Flights in to the UK would spread ChinaVirus then where’s “The Science” now?
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.26.115832v1.full.pdf
Important newly published paper (26 May) about immunity to Covid-19 among non exposed patients.Study from Singapore (which has world famous experts on SARS). They tested old sera from SARS patients all having cross immunity to Covid-19. But most interesting non SARS non Covid-19 exposed persons, in half of them, had cross immunity to Covid-19 from other betacoronaviruses of animal origin .
Very interesting. It seems you might end up with T cells that spot the parts of the proteome that are generic to almost all coronaviruses and this may help your immune system to see off the infection in the very early stages.
This is all +1 reason why it’s probably rather unhealthy to spend your whole life locked up– you’re generally better to get infected with a few of these things and let your immune system take part in the rich tapestry of life out there.
The other piece of good news is they were looking for memory T cells to see how long immunity might last for. The SARS1 ones were still kicking after 17 years, and there’s every reason to believe SARS2 will work the same (in fact the SARS1 T cells are good for SARS2 anyway, but not many people had SARS1).
Isn’t the risk to the RNLI far lower than you calculate? Firstly, how likely is it that an infected person is going to want to go swimming, if symptomatic? Secondly, a typical lifeguard is younger and more healthy than average, and hence less likely to die if infected, e.g. by a factor of four for a forty-something. Your 1/2.5M drops to 1/20M or so. The RNLI certainly seems to have made a poor call.
It’s all part of the culture of fear and preservation of life at all costs.
The whole point of emergency services is that they risk their lives to save others. And while they shouldn’t be exposed to frivolous risks, they absolutely should not be where they are, whether it’s coastguard, fire service, police or whatever, if they aren’t prepared to run risks much greater than the ludicrously small ones involved in this particular disease.
In fairness, most likely apart from a few coronapanic zealots, the problem is almost exclusively in the admin. The rank and file volunteers probably would be quite happy to get on with it.
Be wary of articles in the Daily Hatemail, not exactly known for it’s balanced reporting, when it prefers to incite bitterness and wrath among its more nasty-minded readers.
The reason there’s a shortage of lifeguards is because of lockdown and government regulations, not because the RNLI are a bunch of stupid wimps. Lifeguards are retrained every year and this year the lockdown has prevented that. In addition, lifeguards are seasonal workers so don’t qualify for fulough. Many have had to find other jobs.
The RNLI started this year £4million short of the budget it needs to maintain the service. Meanwhile, we had severe floods, in which the lifeboats were a large part of the rescue work. I live about as far inland as you can get, yet there is a lifeboat station about 2 miles from my house. The hundreds of stations and all the equipment must be maintained and updated, which doesn’t come cheap.
And before anyone starts screaming about salaries, RNLI admin staff are happy to earn less than they would if they worked in similar jobs in the commercial sector because it’s such a good cause.
The lockup must have prevented… Read more »
From The Telegraph:
“Boris Johnson is like an Anglican bishop in an empty cathedral, delivering a sermon on the importance of sexual restraint after the Dean has been caught at a drug-fuelled orgy.
Indeed, there is an academic, almost theological air about the latest pronouncement on outdoor reunions. At least the original lockdown had clarity. Now, confusion reigns as the strategy unravels. Why are only six people allowed to gather in England, but eight in Scotland? Is there something in the Caledonian air? Can a household host several successive parties of six people in a single day or night? We are told that visitors cannot stay overnight, so when do they have to leave? Midnight? Three am? Tents are apparently banned, but can a friend or relative stay in a camper van?”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/29/new-lockdown-rules-will-fast-become-bureaucratic-irrelevance/
Grandpa Drakeford has announced the relaxation to the lockdown rules for Wales, except seems to have made them more draconian than they were before. Now we are supposed to stay within a five mile radius of home to shop for essentials etc. There was no stipulated distance prior to today. It’s only a rule of thumb though, he says between sucking on a Werthers Original, and people in rural Wales may have to travel further. No, really? Within a five mile radius of my house there are only fields and one shut up pub.
And unlike England non-essential retailers are only being told to prepare for opening at the next review in three weeks. Is Wales more plague ridden than England? No of course not. Is Mark Drakeford a big girl’s blouse? Yes. Fortunately for those of us who live on the border we can skip over to England (as long as the border is ‘local’) do our shopping in all those lovely shops allowed to open over there, and then return home.
Devolution is an absolute nonsense.
He did say the R rate is the same now as it was 3 weeks ago so because the risk level hasn’t increased you will be required to proceed with more caution.
Because he’s looking at it taking the country as a whole, rather than regionally. In South Wales we were an early hot spot with the first cases reported around 11 March (same timescale pattern as London), but cases have dropped away here. Whereas the pandemic in North Wales didn’t start until the end of March, so those regions are 10 days behind. The R rate in South Wales will be lower than in the North.
A good example of why lockdowns have little or no affect. The pattern of the pandemic is the same in the North as it was in the South, yet in the North if lockdown was affective, it should have been snuffed out quickly.
Lucky you. I am way over in the West where there’s no escape.
The nastiest thing of all is the way the l.d. is being used as an excuse to whip up anglophobia among the Cymruzombies. Let’s all hate the English and make sure they never come here on holiday again. What? The economy depends on them? What’s an economy? We can’t understand big English words.
Only solution: London chops down the magic money tree. Then watch the Drakeford lice go scuttle.
You’re welcome to join the club again if you and Scotland can summon up the numbers of the brave at heart to get rid of the idiots.
If the lockdown was necessary and if the ONS antibody survey results are to be taken at face value – i.e that only 4 million people have been infected and everyone else is susceptible, then the Government should not be easing the lockdown. Deaths now are at the same level as they were on 23rd March. So if the lockdown was necessary then it must be necessary now.
HOWEVER, if the Government does ease lockdown and infections don’t rise, this proves that the eased measures could have been in place all along. That other countries have eased their lockdowns and not experienced spikes also demonstrates that the eased measures could have been in place there all along.
Fortunate for the government in the weeks and months ahead that the current crop of journos, who clearly do not understand ‘the science’ either, are still in post when the truth comes out!
Covid Zombie encounter of the day:
Was at M&S today and was making my way to the self-service tills when this man wearing a face mask was blocking the path, I asked him politely if he was in the queue, he mumbled something that I didn’t understand and when I asked him to repeat what he’d said he became rather rude but seeing the look on my face he moved away.
A short time later I was on my way out when I encountered the same man again who exaggeratedly moved out of my way then said something again. I just ignored him thinking he was a twat.
What is it about people wearing masks that exhibit such strange behaviour.
Jesus wept.
You were right in thinking him and his ilk are twats,they certainly are,Where I live the numbers of mask wearers seems to go up and down randomly through the week so I can’t detect if there are more of them or not,they do seem mostly to be people under thirty years old though.Most of them have an air superiority about them with a ‘look at me,I’m saving your life’ sort of aura about them.Twats.
Not your life. Their life.
Yes,that’s what they are doing and a lot of them like to virtue signal and imply they are doing it for the greater good when it’s the rest of they are scared to death of.I think the ones that wear painters dust masks from the pound shop are amusing and I haven’t seen many this week with the magic blue gloves.
Agree. In my area the vast majority of those wearing masks are old (the bloke I enocuntered today was certainly over 60 which seems to explain the patronising way he was trying to talk to me, I was having none of it), BAME and immigrants (mostly E. European) – the latter two are the worst actually as I’ve said before they tend to be the worst when it comes to not observing basic hygiene protocols – constant face touching, not washing hands and even nose picking!
Well said about the air of superiority. I also think they’re virtue signallers as if to say “I’m good because I care for my health. Poor you for not thinking about yours.”
Do watch this video (I did post it earlier) but very funny (and scary watching people comply)
https://youtu.be/pzWNyftuyk8
All I can sat is wow!
Just shows how people can become sheep. Sad.
That is class!!!
How many of you were aware of this Medieval law regarding your assets?
Ooops Sorry should have attached this to my above comment !
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/uk-uses-feudal-system-law-seize-ps150-million-bank-accounts
Have you seen Heir Hunters on BBC1? Basically there’s a time limit on inheritance before somebody’s estate passes to the the state.
That’s awful! I guess I’d better log in to my savings accounts and at least put one transaction through each so they can’t claim it’s dormant!
The article is pertaining to estates where somebody has died without an heir. There’s a lot of unclaimed inheritance out there.
Just write a will – and make sure someone knows where it is!
A great discussion on the moneyweek podcast about the validity of the various testing methods and why the government totally ballsed this up!
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-moneyweek-podcast/id1048958476#episodeGuid=vnid%3A%2F%2Fepisodes%2F28520839%3Fmedia_id%3D29047081
Not sure if anyone has seen this but it is a quite brilliant video and watching how people just comply with a random person telling them to do stuff says it all.
https://youtu.be/pzWNyftuyk8
Here’s a link to a video about the “spontaneous” worldwide clapping phenomenom I first saw over a month ago and forgot to post:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/_dslfuSBY2U/
Having read Michael Moorcock’s quote: “If we continue to make any sort of social progress, I suspect that the political battle lines of the twenty first century will not be between socialism and capitalism but democracy and paternalism.”
it made me think about the number of Common Purpose ‘graduates’ who have been driving the woke social agenda for some time from the upper echelons of our public organisations, quangos, universities and charities.
Where wokeness embeds itself, it brooks no argument and is by its nature anti-democratic, this could be why it is wholeheartedly advocated by Common Purpose as they seek to lead us in a post-democratic world.
Wokeness is paternalism writ large.
Could we have a daily picture of a facemask wanker? I get it’s a little negative but it’s time to turn the screw on these whoppers trying to usher in the new normal
Geez you people hate mask so much!. I get the impression we’ve got a lot of Brendan O’Neill like “everyone is a sheep” people here!
Well, they represent the culture of cringing fear that got us into this mess.
Fear AND wilful compliance
You guys must be getting desperate lol
I don’t hate masks, on the contrary, I used masks professionally in appropriate clinical circumstances.
However, I HATE being made to feel that I am the one who’s not normal by not wanting to wear a mask as demonstration of willful compliance with a totalitarian social experiment!
If you suggest that I HAVE to wear a mask, observe my HATE transform into VIOLENCE.
Good day
Don’t hit me, I’m on your side!
sorry Annie, sometimes I wear my heart on my sleeve 😕
Go on Mr. Troll post a picture of you with your mask on so we can all have a laugh
My favourites are those who sport not just the muzzle but also those ridiculous welder style visor things. The old belt and braces approach.
Then we can blow up the picture, cut it out, and have a nice time playing a game called ‘pinning the mask on the wanker’.
Bags I have first go. I know where I want to pin it.
Brendan O’Neill today on Facebook:
A revolt in Hong Kong, riots in Minneapolis, an economic depression on the horizon, Twitter censuring the President of the United States, European leaders openly wondering if it was a mistake to enforce lockdowns, and British journalists are *still* talking about whether Dominic Cummings stopped at a petrol station on a drive to Durham. The absolute loons.
I see he’s still trying to protect his mate, even though that man was apparently one of the individuals most responsible for this lockdown disaster, and the only one we currently have any chance of seeing punished for it.
Great way to let personal and political loyalties prevent any real repercussions for the Guilty Men.
I wonder if a lot of this defence is due to Brexit….
Pretty sure it is, mostly, where it isn’t social friendship or a broader political alliance.
Whatever, anyone who defends Cummings on this can’t be trusted as a lockdown sceptic, because they’ve made it clear that it isn’t that important an issue for them. Just something to be ditched when it becomes inconvenient.
Brendan O Neil has jumped the shark in his defence of his pal.
Cumming is the idiot that was convinced by Ferguson’s bullshit model.
Cummings is the one that sanctioned the lockdown.
Cummings is fare game, even if he’s being attacked for the wrong reasons (imagine!).
Useful to keep the following in mind whenever we see these little comments implying that trying to get Cummings out of the government is somehow frivolous or “a distraction”:
“The government has confirmed that Dominic Cummings was an observer at some meetings of its Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), the secretive body which gives specialized advice to ministers on responding to the pandemic.
According to two people involved, Cummings played far more than a bystander’s role at a crucial SAGE meeting on March 18, as the panel discussed social distancing options to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because the meetings are private, the people said Cummings asked why a lockdown was not being imposed sooner, swayed the discussion toward faster action, and made clear he thought pubs and restaurants should be closed within two days. They then were.“
The Guilty Men. Never forget. Never forgive.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/28/why-they-hate-sweden/
The Nick Cohen piece linked in there is absolute comedy.
I’m never quite sure what the difference is between the Guardian and the Daily Mash.
Used to love reading the daily mash but it morphed into a permanent lefty Rant. That’s probably how nish kumar got hold of it and ruined it completly For me
….. absurd attempts to compare New Zealand to the UK (New Zealand, for one thing, has more sheep than people).
Hmm, not sure about that, though many of our sheep have only two legs.
Interesting wording on Sky News just now. Talking about weaning off the Furlough scheme the reporter made a point of saying
The Furlough scheme brought in as a result of the lockdown triggered by the pandemic
It’s the first time I’ve noticed that being used and I suspect we’ll being hearing more of this “triggered by the pandemic” moving forward.
Sky are very biased and one sided in their reporting. It’s so blatant and you can see it clearly when they’re interviewing people with contrarian views to their agenda.
Assuming the RNLI is not typically crewed by the cast of ‘The Last of the Summer Wine’ & the octogenarians are therefore taken out of the equation that IFR rate becomes significantly less & the probability shoots way back above 1 in a million…
I saw a great slogan from one of the many eviscerating comments on Youtube for BBC news yesterday regarding track and trace:
“Got the App? Stay Back!”
Obviously, you don’t want any of these idiots who actually have anything like that running on their phone anywhere near you