Month: August 2020

Children More Likely to Die of Flu than Covid – Deputy Chief Medical Officer This is what England's teaching unions would like primary school classrooms to look like Dr Jenny Harries, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer of England, told Sky News this morning that children are more likely to die of flu or be killed in a road traffic accident than succumb to COVID-19. "The long term harms of children not attending school significantly, we think, outweigh those potential risks," she said."No environment is completely risk-free."Every time a parent sends their child off to school pre-Covid they may have been involved in a road traffic accident, there are all sorts of things."In fact that risk, or the risk from seasonal flu, we think is probably higher than the current risk of Covid." This message was complemented by the Times's front page story this morning, which says, "Teachers spread virus more than pupils." New research from Public Health England revealed that two thirds of outbreaks arose from staff-to-staff transmission, or staff-to-pupil.In June the number of schools open was between 20,500 and 23,400, with pupil numbers increasing from 475,000 to 1,646,000. In June and last month 200 children and staff were affected by the illness. Over the same period 25,470 cases were recorded across England as a whole.Thirty outbreaks, defined as two ...

The Left-Wing Case Against Lockdown George Orwell: Patron saint of left-wing sceptics It really annoys me that lockdown sceptics are so often dismissed as Tory-voting, Brexit-supporting, libertarian-sympathising, white, middle-class, middle-aged Gammons. Okay, yes, that's me, but there are plenty of other sceptics out there who don't fall into any of these categories. And what's really infuriating is the assumption that anyone on the Left should be a lockdown zealot. Why? As each day passes, more evidence comes to light that the lockdown has caused disproportionate harm to the most vulnerable people in our society – children, the elderly, cancer patients, the BAME community (not all of them are vulnerable, obviously), those suffering from mental illness... the list goes on. And what about the catastrophic effect the Global Economic Recession will have on the world's poorest people in the developing world, with hundreds of millions now likely to die of starvation, TB, dysentery, etc.? Are left-wing people now just expected to sign up to the mantra of "safety first" and to hell with the consequences? So it was heartening to get an email yesterday from a woman who started out by explaining she was a Guardian-reading, Remain-voting, Liberal Democrat who voted for Jeremy Corbyn at the last election, but is nonetheless a staunch lockdown sceptic. I've published it and it now ...

George Orwell: Patron saint of left-wing sceptics Thank you for publishing "The Left Wing Case Against Lockdown" by Alexis Fitzgerald. I am a Guardian-reading, remain-voting, Liberal Democrat who tactically voted Labour in the last election and I am very much in support of the information you are disseminating on Lockdown Sceptics. COVID-19 was politicised early on, as happens with every news item once it reaches social media, and sadly identity politics and fear have turned the narrative into a tragic reimagining of The Emperor’s New Clothes.  Let me preface this by saying that I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories: There was a moon landing. The earth is round. My child is vaccinated. I know there is a virus, unrelated to 5G, whose effects can be severe with tragic consequences. However, I have been sceptical about the official risk assessments since the news footage from Wuhan emerged at the start of the year. And when a global reaction is so over-archingly bewildering that it has “someone like me” thinking there is more to this than meets the eye, something is wrong. I’ve stopped short (just) of believing that China engineered the entire thing to destroy the US economy and take down Trump. I did read the article in The Asia Times that linked to last October's “Event 201” and find it rather odd this 'event' isn’t talked about more ...

For the first time in my life I fled from the Police. Running at 7am in my local park all by myself and with a mask over my face, a motorcycle with two policemen approaching on the narrow trail. I saw them early enough and was able to sprint away from the path and hide until they were out of sight. Exercising outdoors is again forbidden, and violation costs a hefty fine (equivalent to $300). My neighbourhood Chapinero was forced into strict lockdown again for two weeks on August 16th. All shops and businesses had to close again (except those which sell food or medicine) and citizens are only allowed outside for emergencies or to buy these products. Colombians have been in lockdown since March 20th and compete with other Latin American countries for the longest lockdown in the world award. When Covid threatened to arrive in March 2020, the President made a public statement that a country like Colombia with a more fragile economic and social structure compared to European countries could not lock down completely and that the government would pursue intelligent measures of tracking and isolation. Two days after this, the Mayor of Bogotá unilaterally announced a simulation of quarantine over a long weekend. This measure was the detonator for the country to lock down. Strictly for two-and-a-half months, ...

New Restrictions For Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn Yesterday, the Government announced Oldham and parts of Blackburn and Pendle are facing extra restrictions to deal with local viral outbreaks. Residents in those areas are not allowed to socialise with anyone from outside their household, as of midnight tonight. Trouble is, the case numbers in all three areas are falling as you can see from the above table. Carl Heneghan and Jason Oke wrote a post for the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine blog on Thursday urging the Government not to introduce any more restrictions in Oldham. They argue that decisions about whether to introduce local lockdowns should be based on hospitalisation and death data, not case data. We consider that lockdown measures should be predicated on the impact of the disease. NHS England’s COVID-19 data provides information on the number of people admitted and in a Pennine Acute or Pennine Care Hospital with COVID (these hospitals cover Oldham, Rochdale and North Manchester).The data shows that 1,252 beds are occupied across the Pennine Hospitals of which nine are occupied by COVID patients as the 9th of August. At the peak on the 12th of April, 290 beds were occupied by COVID patients.The data also shows that admission remains low at a 7-day moving average of 3 to 4 patients per day, which is ...

I'm starting to wonder if I'm in some sort of horror version of The Truman Show, I'm really starting to think it is time to get out of Australia before someone invites the Chinese authorities in to keep the proles under control. So latest developments… State of Emergency extended again and will reach its legal 6 month limit on Sept 13th. No worry, Kim Jong Dan is working with the solicitor general to make it possible to extend the State of Emergency indefinitely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpnRwkSoav4&feature=youtu.be Turns out in April the Victorian Government and Vicstapo were asking the military to bring in Afghanistan spec military drones to track down and monitor lockdown breakers and mask non-wearers (Better warn Mr Delingpole not to visit Melbourne for the foreseeable future he might literally get a rocket up his arse hehe). It comes to something when it is the military that said no, this isn't a good look to use military surveillance on civilians. And after a couple of days being told that 'cases' are declining but so are tests and more people must report for testing the Supreme Leader has already started wittering on about a 'third wave' and how Victoria isn't even ready to discuss a rolling back of the current lockdown. Anyway on a positive note one thing the Aussies do rather ...

Zero Hospital Deaths in English Hospitals Yesterday Several people tweeted out this graph yesterday, accompanied by the news that zero deaths were recorded by NHS England on August 19th. While that's true (I checked the NHS England website this morning), it isn't the first time that's happened as I've reported on Lockdown Sceptics many times before. In the past, the zero figure has subsequently been updated as recorded deaths for the day in question start trickling in. Will be interesting to see if that happens for August 19th, but I suspect it will. Hospital Admissions Over-Counted Must-read story in the Telegraph. According to an analysis done by SAGE, people admitted to hospital in March and April were counted as Covid admissions if they'd ever tested positive for the disease, regardless of how much time had elapsed between the test and the admissions and regardless of the actual reason they were being admitted. Science Editor Sarah Knapton has more. An investigation for the Government's Science Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) found that people were being counted as Covid hospital admissions if they had ever had the virus, and were added to those being admitted directly due to it.Government figures show that, at the peak of the pandemic in early April, nearly 20,000 people a week were being admitted to hospital with ...

Croatia Added to Quarantine List First it was holidaymakers in Spain who were told they had to quarantine for 14 days on their return to Britain, then France. Now, Croatia has been added to the "red list". According to The BBC the 20,000 Brits currently holidaying in Croatia have until 4am on Saturday to leave the country or face the consequences. Meanwhile, the Scottish government has added Switzerland to the lists of countries on its quarantine list! However, there is a scintilla of good news. Portugal has been added to the "green list", meaning you don't have to self-isolate for 14 days after returning from the Algarve. Portugal's ministry of foreign affairs welcomed the changes as "useful for all those who travel between Portgual and the United Kingdom".In a tweet, it added: "This decision is proof of the good outcome of intense bilateral work. It allowed for an understanding that the situation in the country has always been under control, with Portugal standing as one of the European countries with more tests, fewer deaths and fewer hospitalisations." A friend of mine returned from the Algarve last week. Does he still have to self-isolate, even though the Government has finally admitted the virus has all but disappeared in Portugal? No doubt he does. Another Judicial Review Into the Valley of Death ...

by Brian Gedalla We assess risks every day of our lives. We learn to do this as very small children and long before we reach adulthood we carry out most of the assessments completely subconsciously. COVID-19 is forcing us to assess the risks associated with the virus in our conscious minds and we are not very good at it. Thinking about the process we must all go through, I have concluded that what we are doing is trying to assess and juggle with three different numbers in our heads, without ever assigning an actual number to any of them. My simplistic model works like this: We assign a 'Utility Value' to an activity we are either doing, or would like to do. This is our subjective measure of the value and importance to us of that activity and will take into account our perception of the negative aspects of the risk we propose to take.The Utility Value drives us to arrive at an 'Acceptable Risk Ceiling' – the highest level of risk we are prepared to accept if we are to engage in the activity. It follows that the Acceptable Risk Ceiling is different for each activity in our lives and will be different for every person. There are no absolutes in assessing personal risk.We assess the Actual Risk (from ...

The second waves have killed far fewer people than the first waves Back in March we were facing a potentially apocalyptic scenario. An unknown and lethal disease, against which we had no immunity, was starting to run wild across the world with Europe apparently worst affected. At minimum, health systems would be at risk of collapse and some forecasts of the potential death toll put it at half a million in the UK alone. Shortages of basic foods and other essentials stoked real fears of supply chain breakdown, hunger, social unrest and worse. In response, our society and economy were effectively suspended. As a grateful public, we clapped and whooped in the street as we submitted ourselves to an unprecedented curtailment of our personal liberties. We accepted the inevitable temporary damage to our lives and livelihoods, and to our children’s education, as necessary in the face of such a grave threat. This was partly because we were afraid, and partly because the goals and logic of public policy were clear. The message ran like this: “We can’t prevent the disease from running through the population until a vaccine is available. This will take until 2021, so in the mean-time we must slow its progress, flatten the curve and make sure that our health systems don’t become overwhelmed.” Implicitly, once the ...