The UK’s “Second Wave” is a Costly Myth
Lockdown Sceptics contributor Will Jones has an excellent piece in the Conservative Woman about Matt Hancock’s mysterious obsession with a “second wave” and the ruinously expensive steps the Government is taking to prepare for this non-existent threat. Here’s his conclusion:
A lockdown that was brought in without precedent or planning for three weeks to ‘squash the sombrero’ and relieve peak pressure on the NHS is still going on five months later. We face a future of continued social distancing and unpredictable new restrictions that are socially debilitating and economically disastrous. Even the much-vaunted vaccine is very unlikely to do more than mitigate the impact of the illness, making it a likely false dawn for those waiting around for it.
Yet the World Health Organisation continues to call on governments to ‘do it all’ to ‘suppress, suppress, suppress’ the virus, holding up New Zealand as an ‘exemplar’. Britain, like Sweden, must reject this preposterous and nihilistic narrative. It is not possible to suppress this virus, as New Zealand is now discovering, but only to mitigate its impact while developing collective immunity and, ideally, returning to normal as quickly as possible. The measures introduced for this mitigation must be balanced against other risks and the high importance of normal, healthy living. Right now, the government does not even seem to be attempting a sensible cost-benefit analysis of its approach, working instead on the basis of a ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ derived from discredited models. This is no way to run a country, nor a world.
Worth reading in full.
Up to 90% of People Who Test Positive Not Infectious
And this may explain why a rise in cases in countries like France, Spain and Italy hasn’t produced any corresponding rise in hospitalisations or deaths. According to a new study, up to 90% of people testing positive aren’t infectious. The Mail has more.
Up to 90 percent of people tested for COVID-19 in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada in July carried barely any traces of the virus and it could be because today’s tests are ‘too sensitive’, experts say.
Health experts say PCR testing – the most widely used diagnostic test for COVID-19 in the US – are too sensitive and need to be adjusted to rule out people who have insignificant amounts of the virus in their systems because they’re likely not contagious.
Today the PCR test, which provides a yes or no answer if a patient is infected, doesn’t say how much of the virus a patient has in their body.
The Mail‘s report is based on this story in the New York Times that we linked to a couple of days ago.
Four Charts Showing Casedemic Hasn’t Led to More Deaths
In case anyone thinks the rise in the number of people testing positive in Europe is cause for alarm, here are four charts showing cases and deaths in Italy, Spain, the UK and France.
Why Has Piers Corbyn Been Fined £10,000 But Not the Organisers of Sunday’s BLM Protest?
I got a lot of emails making this point yesterday:
I see Piers Corbyn gets arrested and fined £10,000 for “organising ” the anti-lockdown demo while Sunday’s BLM organisers “Ken Hinds, an adviser to Scotland Yard, Sasha Johnson, a youth worker and activist, rapper 2 Badda, and author Anthony Spencer” get away with “a word of advice”!
The Guardian has more on Sunday’s BLM protest here.
I disagree with almost everything Piers Corbyn has to say, but I would defend to the death his right to say it. You can contribute to his CrowdJustice fundraiser here.
Meanwhile, reader has put together a short film of Saturday’s protest.
Dispatch From Berlin
I’m publishing a “Postcard from Berlin” today that’s an account of attending the anti-lockdown protest on Saturday. My correspondent estimates a crowd of 150,000, nearly all of them sensible folk. Here’s an extract, giving you a sense of the sheer scale of the protest:
At 3.30pm the speeches started. By this point thousands of people were filling the entire length of the Straße des 17. Juni between the Victory Column and the Brandenburg Gate (2km), as well as Der Große Stern, the giant central square in the Tiergarten where the stage was set up. There were also huge numbers of protesters behind the Victory column on the Straße des 17. Juni heading west away from the Victory Column. Protesters spilled into the Tiergarten at the request of the organisers who announced several times that we needed to spread out into the garden or police would shut down the protest. Aerial footage shows the overwhelming crowds, but even this cannot show how many people were in the Tiergarten under the trees and in side streets. It took us over 25 minutes to walk from the Victory Column to the Brandenburg gate, and the whole street was full of protesters.
Worth reading in full.
Kim-Jong Dan Sued For Billions
Daniel Andrews, the tyrannical leader of the state of Victoria in Australia, is facing a multi-billion-dollar class action suit from enraged local businessmen. Yahoo Finance AU has more.
The Victorian Government is facing a potential class action expected to be to the tune of several billion dollars brought by the businesses that have been shut down during the state’s stage four restrictions.
The class action is open to all Victorian-based businesses that were shut down after July 1st, according to an AFR report, and thousands are expected to take part.
The lawsuit is being launched by Sydney-based law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, who are known for successfully winning a class action against the Queensland Government after the November 2011 floods.
The class action also names Victorian Ministers Jenny Mikakos, Martin Pakula as well as their department secretaries.
The lead plaintiff for the case is the owner of a New York-themed restaurant, Anthony Ferrara, who normally earns tens of thousand dollars a week but is now only open for takeaway and making below $10,000 a week.
“Victorian businesses don’t need charity or kind thoughts from politicians,” Ferrara said.
“We need certainty and we need it soon. Our situation is not our doing. We are calling to account those who put us in this dire position.”
The owner of Melbourne CBD’s The Carlton Club, Windsor Castle and Gertrude Hotel, Tracey Lester, is also expected to join the class action.
More power to their elbow.
The Tyranny of Coronaphobia
Professor Ramesh Thakur had a full page interview in La Nacion, one of Argentina’s two main newspapers, on August 23rd. The interview has now been published in English in the weekly Open Magazine, under the title “The Tyranny of Coronaphobia”.
Prof Thakur has sent me a summary of the points he made:
- “Coronaphobia” has taken over as the basis of government policy in so many countries, with a complete loss of perspective that life is a balance of risks pretty much on a daily basis.
- The extent to which dominant majorities of peoples in countries with universal literacy can be successfully terrified into surrendering their civil liberties and individual freedoms has come as a frightening shock. On the one hand, the evidence base for the scale and gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic is surprisingly thin in comparison to the myriad other threats to our health that we face every year. We don’t ban cars on the reasoning that every life counts and even one traffic death is one too many lives lost. Instead, we trade a level of convenience for a level of risk to life and limb.
- On the other hand, the restrictions imposed on everyday life as we know it have been far more draconian than anything previously done. Yet, the evidence for the effectiveness of draconian lockdowns is less than convincing. As one Lancet study concluded, “Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people.” The virus infection has not risen exponentially in any country; rather, it seems to climb steeply, stop, turn around and retreat almost everywhere in tune with some internal timeframe independently of government intervention strategies; and, differences in numbers of dead notwithstanding, the shape of the curve seems remarkably similar for many countries.
- The coronavirus threatens to overwhelm the health and economies of many developing countries where a billion people subsist in a Hobbesian state of nature and life is “nasty, brutish and short”. The rich carry the virus, the poor bear the burden since staying at home means foregoing daily income.
- I remain very puzzled at how so many people I considered to be liberals have been so utterly indifferent to the plight of the poor and the casual labourers who do not have the luxury of working from home, nor savings to fall back on to tide their family over until they can earn an income again.
- This is not to say that high-income Western countries are immune from the deadly effects of lockdown.
- I wonder, too, if we have set ourselves up to repeat the folly every year with annual outbreaks of flu, especially if it is a bad flu season. If not, why not? Perhaps someone will come up with the slogan “Flu Lives Matter”. Or governments could just pass laws making it illegal for anyone to fall sick and die.
- I hope that after the crisis is over, the balance between individual liberties and state power will be re-set instead of an even more powerful surveillance state being consolidated.
Worth reading in full.
The COVID-19 Assembly
The man behind Lockdown Truth, a companion website, is starting something called the COVID-19 Assembly. We asked him to do a few paragraphs explaining what it is.
The purpose of the COVID-19 Assembly is to allow the people themselves to take control of the COVID-19 narrative rather than the government and the mainstream media. By bypassing the MSM we will undertake the job of getting the real facts out to the public. One of the biggest problems with the current situation is that there is very limited information that the average person will come across without specifically looking for it. Most people simply aren’t aware that they don’t know many of the key facts about COVID-19 and “lockdown”.
We will create eye-catching and easy to understand content. Our “Top Ten Facts” can then be downloaded as leaflets, posters, roller displays, public presentations and slideshows for tablets and phones. All information will be based on official data and will avoid “conspiracy theories” which may put people off listening or helping. Volunteers will operate autonomously and present the facts to friends, families, colleagues, neighbours, clubs and amenity groups via pop-up displays in town squares and village halls or small meetings and workshops.
We will aim to create a diverse collection of people from ordinary members of the public to Nobel laureates working together to take control of this matter once and for all. Everyone has a part to play whether you just share our facts on social media or set up and run a local group. We need to work at local level changing public perception one person at a time. If we all do a little then the effect could be enormous.
If you’d like to join the Assembly, click here.
A Good Samaritan Writes…
Touching comment beneath yesterday’s update.
I thought I’d describe something that’s just happened in our local high street. My wife and I had just finished our walk and were heading home. We saw this little old lady (must have been in her 80s) obviously struggling with her shopping and could barely breath with her mask on so I stopped and asked if she needed help. I double and triple checked with her that she was OK with me handling her shopping so I carried it to the bus stop for her. My wife offered to walk with her at the same time and bless her, she linked arms with my wife.
All she did the entire time was thank us for helping her and kept asking if it was OK if she took her mask off. My wife said, “You can do whatever you feel comfortable with my dear. You don’t have to wear it but you can if you want.”
When we sat her down at the bus stop she held both our hands and said thank you ever so much. Her bus wasn’t for ages so my wife has gone back down in the car to give her a lift home
As we were walking away I actually started welling up because throughout the entire interaction, all I kept thinking was: “Can I handle her shopping, am I getting too close, is she going to feel uncomfortable?” When she grabbed our hands to say thank you, that’s what finally set me off.
All I kept thinking was, what the hell have we done to our country? Is this social damage irreversible? I hope not
Father Banned From Watching Baby’s Scan
A reader has been in touch with yet another NHS horror story.
My elder son and daughter-in-law are expecting their first baby in January 2021 and are understandably very excited about it (as are we as prospective grandparents). The first 12 week scan was in early August and my son was not allowed to attend with his wife. He offered to wear a face mask and not touch anything (or anyone apart from his wife) but was told in emphatic terms that no-one could accompany the pregnant mother and he would have to wait in the car (he was not even allowed into the hospital). The 20 week scan is in 2 weeks time, and this is an important scan as the medics check that there are no discernible abnormalities in the foetus, and if the parents wish, they can find out the sex of the baby. Again, he has been told he cannot attend and must wait in the car. This is cruel and heartless treatment. Seeing your baby on screen for the first time is a very special experience for both parents and for one of them to be denied that is unbelievable. I also wonder what happens if they do find a problem with the baby. Do they tell the mother and then leave her on her own to deal with the bad news? Or, do they decide that it is suddenly ‘safe’ for the husband to come in to the hospital so he can support his wife? They live in Solihull and this is not currently an ‘at risk’ area.
How long is this madness going to continue? Here we are nearly six months into this non-pandemic and still the government and NHS are insisting on ridiculous measures to keep the nearly non-existent virus ‘under control’. The hospitals are practically deserted anyway with very few patients attending any clinics. Next my son will be told that he’s not allowed to be at the birth itself!
Newsletter From the Society For the Elimination of Risk
James Hankins, a Harvard History Professor and lockdown sceptic, has written a brilliant spoof in Spectator USA purporting to be a newsletter from Eustace Stockstill, President of the Society for the Elimination of Risk. Here’s an extract:
Furthermore, our survey shows that, thanks to responsible selection of data by the press, the number of people who can distinguish absolute from relative risk has actually declined! Our efforts to raise awareness have led the British to believe that seven percent of Britons have died from coronavirus. Americans are even more aware, estimating that the virus has killed nine percent of their compatriots. Even if these judgments are faulty in a merely arithmetical sense, they surely serve the higher truth to which our Society is dedicated, that no risk is really tolerable. Our Society can congratulate itself for its part in creating this new and better form of rational ignorance. From now on, we and our cooperating scientists will get to decide what it is rational not to know. Who says that innumeracy can’t benefit society?
Worth reading in full.
Round-Up
- ‘Face masks: An open invitation to a virus‘ – Good piece on the science of face masks by Harold Armitage in the Conservative Woman
- ‘Reluctant office staff defy government call to commute‘ – Depressing piece in the Times about how unwilling the British are to return to the office
- ‘The complex cruelty of comedy‘ – Andrew Doyle in Standpoint on why comedy shouldn’t be censored by the woke thought police
- ‘MPs are ordered to “take anti-racism classes”‘ – The “unconscious bias” snake oil is now on sale in the House of Commons
- ‘“Sentenced To Isolation Prisons!” – College Students Across America Are Being Subjected To A Horrid Psychological Experiment‘ – Zero Hedge zeros in on the social distancing measures American students are being forced to endure
- ‘Police Go Where the Crime Is‘ – Heather Mac Donald debunks the BLM narrative about the police for Prager U
- ‘Wait to 2022 to see an NHS consultant, patients told‘ – Don’t get ill
- ‘Universities are not going to be “care homes of the second wave”‘ – Ross Clark in the Spectator ridicules the UCU’s claim that as many people could die in universities as care homes if they reopen this month
- ‘Re-Open the Campuses‘ – Sign this open letter to the UCU calling for the union to drop its opposition to uni’s re-opening
- ‘Driving the economy into recession is killing more people than Covid ever could: Risk management expert PHILIP THOMAS says the greatest danger to Britain is our empty shops, offices and factories‘ – Trenchant piece in the Mail by Philip Thomas, Professor of Risk Management at Bristol University. Scroll down to see it
- ‘Britain has become a scaredy-cat nation of masked hypochondriacs who won’t leave home‘ – Trevor Kavanagh on top form in the Sun
- ‘Facebook’s purge of left-wing radicals‘ – Good piece in Spiked by Fraser Myers. First they came for the right-wing radicals and I said nothing because I wasn’t right-wing…
- ‘Denise Welch hits out at Matt Hancock‘ – Denise Welch gives Handy Cock both barrels
- ‘Piers Morgan slams “cancel-culture” trolls who make others feel “ashamed” of their country‘ – Morgan demonstrates he’s not wrong about everything
- ‘Prof Carl Heneghan: “Children more at risk from influenza.”‘ – Prof Carl Heneghan tells it as it is on ITV’s This Morning
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Just one today: “Communication Breakdown” by Led Zeppelin.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums that are now open, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We’ve also just introduced a section where people can arrange to meet up for non-romantic purposes. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
A few months 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 re-opened, 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.
Now that non-essential shops have re-opened – or most of them, anyway – we’re focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. As of July 4th, many of them have re-opened too, but not all (and some of them are at risk of having to close again). 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 – particularly if they’re not insisting on face masks! If they’ve made that clear to customers with a sign in the window or similar, so much the better. Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a permanent slot down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (now showing it will arrive between Oct 2nd to Oct 12th). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £3.99 from Etsy here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face nappies in shops here (now over 31,000).
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s a round-up of the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mask (threadbare at best).
Stop Press: A reader has got in touch to tell us that her son’s school – Bedgrove Junior School in Aylesbury, Bucks – is insisting that children as young as six will have to wear face masks. Shocking.
We have, today been sent an email which no doubt was on “delayed send” on Bank Holiday Monday in order to prevent immediate readings of furious replies or the inevitable march of angry parents to the school gates, stating children from 6yrs –11yrs are required to wear face masks on the school grounds to “practise” for when the Government makes it mandatory.
The school have stated that masks are to be worn on the way into and out of school, into and out of classrooms and corridors.
Meanwhile, some headteachers think it’s too dangerous to let all children back into schools.
Molly Kingsley speaks for all parents when she says we’ve had enough.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is a lot of work (although I have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending me stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. (If you want me to link to something, don’t forget to include the HTML code).
And Finally…
In this week’s episode of London Calling, James Delingpole and I discuss Piers Corbyn’s £10,000 fine (he should have worn a Black Lives Matter t-shirt), why we’re both such embarrassing dads and the appalling mobbing of the singer Adele for “cultural appropriation”.
Why does the woke Left direct its most vicious abuse towards people who are basically on the same side, but deviate from the orthodoxy in some minor, entirely innocent way? It’s as if they don’t want to change society for the better, just find excuses for cancelling people.
You can listen here. And if you like it, you can subscribe on iTunes here.
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.
Slow to make the news here, but there it is transmission cut in half with one dose. Most humans would rejoice, only misanthropists and freaks would frown at such news. Well we got plenty of those bums in the anti-vaxxers.
I’m truly glad that this input pleases the computer. I appreciate anything difficult can overload a very simple CPU. However the real people still require actual scientific evidence. Nanu Nanu.
Thank you – the one who gets his news from the Beeb
The detail of that study, from an untrusted source is not a great testimonial.
Actually – the headline miracle figure of a ‘50%’ reduction immediately flags up a credibility issue, which then leads on to other concerns (See BeBop’s comments)
We’re not ‘anti-vaxxers’, you silly little person. We’re pro-science.
You missed out some important bits.
(i) secondary attack rate in households even without vaccination is roughly 10% so we’re starting at a low level.
(ii) as page 11 makes clear, the reduction is 38% for AstraZenica, 49% for Pfizer. Given the relative change on infection reduction after 2 doses its expected Pfizer will reduce further but AZ no a lot.
Its good news for the minority of people who had Pfizer.
How’s that? If Pfizer vaxxees are celebrating these transmission figures then it means their precious vaxx has failed to protect them from catching C19 in the first instance.
Pfizer also has a higher morbidity to date than AZ judging by its ‘deaths per jab’ ratio. Further, being an mRNA vaxx the long term individual and next generation impact is completely unknown.
Get out the flags, huh?
Im assuming you missed every science lesson in school.
You (i) have no idea what vaccines are or do. By your definition there are roughly 2 vaccines on the planet. In total. For all known illnesses.
Care to supply a list of any vaccines that completely protect you from catching it?
Pfizer doesnt have a higher morbidity rate and in fact is running at roughly 8x fewer yellow cards per head.
You then rabbit on about mRNA clearly without a clue of how it works, what it does and where it fits in. You then add to that by failing to understand how Adenovirus vector vaccines work.
So yes, in Pfizer you have a vaccine with few side effects, that works well against variants almost totally prevents serious illness, is 90% or so effective preventing any infection and after a single dose is already 49% effective at preventing transmission.
Its quite likely one of the best vaccines we’ve ever seen.
Far better than the 2nd division AZ in every single comparison.
You are conflating tried and trusted traditional vaccines with experimental gene therapy. And why should I supply a list of imperfect traditional vaccines – do you care to supply a list traditional vaccines that have not been fully tested, or a list of experimental medical treatments (of any kind) that the reopening of a nation’s economy has been made conditional on?
I cannot find the figure for actual number of jabs I have been advised of, so I can’t pursue that point at present. BUT I can say that as of last week the Pfizer vaxx has had 143,034 adverse reactions of which 334 deaths. AZ has had 548,495 adverse reactions of which 627 deaths. So the chance of death being an adverse reaction to Pfizer is 1 in 428 reactions. In AZ that ratio is 1 in 875. Without the number of jabs per vaxx type figure (is there a government page?) or indeed accurate adverse reaction figures from Yellow Card reporting then no conclusion can be drawn.
The main point remains that we are relying on experimental vaxx treatments that Big Pharma refuses to indemnify. Whether Adenovirus Vector (AZ) or mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna etc) doesn’t seem to matter to the government, and both appear to be used interchangeably and without respect to the recipient. In many cases no comprehensive P.I.L. has been provided at the vaxx centres, and certainly not one that is specific to the type of experimental vaxx being given.
Despite the claims you now seek to make in the light of coerced Guinea Pig evidence, at the outset it was guesswork mRNA vaccines had NEVER been approved for human usage. Even now neither you nor the government nor Big Pharma know the long term impact – and if it was so SAFE why are the companies still refusing to indemnify recipients?
As for the vaxx difference, yes I know (and in some detail) but do those governments who have been advocating mixing doses, much to the ire of many medical experts?
Now, onto your Pfizer sales pitch. You claim ‘in Pfizer you have a vaccine with few side effects’, but you can’t say that as the trial period is not finished, and long term and generational side effects have yet to be assessed. And if it is so safe why doesn’t Pfizer break ranks with Big Pharma and indemnify all recipients?
You also say Pfizer ‘works well against variants almost totally prevents serious illness’. What serious illness? Do you mean Cov19, with a lower morbidity than most seasonal influenza strains (according to WHO)? You claim ‘Pfizer is 90% or so effective preventing any infection and 49% after a single dose’. Check out this study on published last week which questions that:
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210422/How-effective-is-the-Pfizer-BioNTech-(BNT162b2)-COVID-19-vaccine-A-real-world-study-in-Sweden.aspx
Well, consider the possibility that those here not rejoicing are neither misanthropists nor freaks but that they judge claims like “transmission cut in half with one dose” differently to you, and probably judge the severity of the covid threat relative to the wisdom of a mass vaccination program before long term trials are finished differently to you.
Maybe fon is a fiction invented to elicit comment. In any case, his spewings well illustrate the irrationality and nastiness of many cult followers.
fon is a not very bright 77 Brigade stooge.
His username is shorthand for:
F#ck off now.
I think you might be missing the point.
Cutting transmission by 50% is meaningless without context. If the secondary attack rate is being cut from, say, 60% to 30% then it’s clearly beneficial. 10% to 5% within HOUSEHOLDS – not so impressive.
Funny, but the manufacturers don’t claim the injection cuts transmission. I wonder where these miracle effects come from?
Oh, wait. The BBC.
And how is a true infection determined? I scanned the report for the word ‘false’ and ‘second’ to find ‘second test’. It mentioned “confirmed cases using PCR-based SARS-CoV-2” but did not define what ‘confirmed’ was. Some clarity is required there otherwise noise could be drowning out the data.
Will’s article does make the very valid point that the transmission only relates to 10% of a household that gets infected when sharing with an invaccinated, infected person. So the number of people protected only increases a small amount. One could spin it both ways.
However, unlike Will, I would hesitate to say that the news is ‘cheering’. That, too, can be spun both ways. Either, “if the jab is working, lockdown can ease” or “if the jab is working, we should do more of them first.”
Somehow, I have an idea which way things are going to go, regardless.
In the Oxford study tehy said a positive was anyone <30CTs.
Which of course is still too high if used as a single Yes or No measure.
"Impact of vaccination on SARS-CoV-2 cases in the community: a population-based study using the UK’s COVID-19 Infection Survey"
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.22.21255913v1
A quote from one of the scientists at PANDA on this: "This is such a poorly designed study that I can't believe its been published. The key control group needed is totally missing (i.e unvaccinated tested after the date of vaccination). The comparison they make is with tests prior to the vaccination campaign starting, which only confirms that positivity declined during the period. P-hackers can have hours and hours of fun with table 6 in the appendix."
"The fact that they include table 6 at all denigrates the whole study. There is information to be gleaned from the data, but not by running a logistic regression on a time series without taking into account the dates of the results. When I am teaching students to analyse observational data I tell them that if the analysis throws up any implausible or impossible effect then it indicates that any more plausible or possible effect could also be a spurious result of opportunistic data collection that does not have a suitable design." @NickHudsonCT
The PANDA comments are a precise formulation of what even a brief scan raises as issues.
The use of PCR in defining infection immediately presents a red light.
I suspect its even worse in a household setting.
PCR measuring exposure and there’s likely a much greater chance of exposure in a household where someone is infected even if that exposure does not result in a secondary infection.
In other words, you are going to have bits of viral RNA or fragments stuck to you just from being in proximity.
Yet again, as all through this, we do not and are not even attempting to culture or measure actual infection. Its a lazy reliance on a test that hasn’t been calibrated against what you’re looking for as a “gold standard” diagnostic.
It’d be ripped apart by any reviewer in normal times.
They’d get more respect by acknowledging the weight of things such as t cell immunity, pre existing or acquired, and giving a full picture of what drives lower rate sof infection we see today. Also acknowledgement of the PCR drawbacks. That’s just a few conflicting forces at play.
Instead what we have is the myth of asymptomatic spread being used to pump the efficacy of vaccines, further boosted by PCR hokery.
Even then the vaccines aren’t as great as they were sold to the regulators. Not by a long way, which makes it criminal in light of the continued suppression of alternative prophylactic treatments such as Ivermectin
Edit. I say PCR drawbacks. It’s actually a total fraud and can be used whatever way they need.
SWEDEN STOPS PCR TESTS AS COVID19 DIAGNOSIS!
“Guidance on criteria for assessment of freedom from infection in covid-19
The Swedish Public Health Agency has developed national criteria for assessing freedom from infection in covid-19.
The PCR technology used in tests to detect viruses cannot distinguish between viruses capable of infecting cells and viruses that have been neutralized by the immune system and therefore these tests cannot be used to determine whether someone is contagious or not. RNA from viruses can often be detected for weeks (sometimes months) after the illness but does not mean that you are still contagious. There are also several scientific studies that suggest that the infectivity of covid-19 is greatest at the beginning of the disease period.
The recommended criteria for assessing freedom from infection are therefore based on stable clinical improvement with freedom from fever for at least two days and that at least seven days have passed since the onset of symptoms. For those who have had more pronounced symptoms, at least 14 days after the illness and for the very sickest, individual assessment by the treating doctor.
The criteria have been developed in collaboration with representatives of the specialty associations in infectious disease medicine, clinical microbiology, hygiene and infection control. These have most recently been discussed in the group at a meeting on 19 April 2021 due to the new virus variants. The assessment was then that no update was needed. The recommendations will be updated as new knowledge about covid-19 infectivity is added.
Vägledning om kriterier för bedömning av smittfrihet vid covid-19 — Folkhälsomyndigheten
https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/v/vagledning-om-kriterier-for-bedomning-av-smittfrihet-vid-covid-19/
The medical-industrial complex will fight back soon against this.
Ah!the beginning of the end? We travel in hope.
So, I get the vaxx BUT I still catch the virus. However, the vaxx (despite having failed to protect me) apparently reduces my chance of transmitting this (endemic) virus by 4%!! In real terms, whereas I might infect 1 in 25 people as an unvaxxed Covid sufferer, I might now infect 1 in 24 people as a vaxxed Covid sufferer (sic). And even this is dependent on age groups and household conditions (go read the report).
But for how long does this 4% bonus last – no info? And does it even matter with an endemic virus that cannot be stopped – even by the vaxx? Even if that additional 1 out of 25 no longer risks catching it from me, they sure will cop it from somewhere else! After all, even a vaxxed Guinea Pig can still catch it!
4% claimed success is utterly negligible in real terms. It is skewed statistically by the false positive conundrum, and skewed existentially by the absolute health risks of taking a still experimental vaxx that Pharma refuses to indemnify. There are 1,000 vaxx deaths so far reported so far in the UK via the MHRA’s Yellow card scheme, which the government openly admits is under reporting adverse reactions to the tune of up to 90%. Many other serious life changing side effects have also been reported – they are all online – and that is before we even consider the long term and intergenerational impacts.
Now for the ‘killer’ virus. As WHO has stated, C19 morbidity is less than many seasonal flus – it ain’t Ebola!:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/vaccine-risks-versus-rewards-what-your-gp-wont-tell-you/
Meanwhile LDS has morphed into Vaxx-Zealots, presumably to please its Tory government associates? I therefore trust TY, the BBC, the MSM, Hitchens and co will be digging deep to contribute to the experimental vaxx damages fund that Big Pharma refuse point blank to give a single dollar to.
‘Docile Guinea Pigs, Big Profits, No Financial Risk!!’ Which Multinational Corporate could resist it? As I have said many times before, JABEAT EMPTOR
https://www.deconstructingconventional.com/post/18-reason-i-won-t-be-getting-a-covid-vaccine
Sorry folks I was working off the original PDF, twisted around the figures in a typo and couldn’t correct after posting.
Correction:
(para. 1) In real terms, whereas I might infect an extra 1 in 25 people as an unvaxxed Covid sufferer, I will still infect 1 in 16 people as a vaxxed Covid sufferer.
The rest remains intact, and in particular the correlation with household size, contacts and age groups, as outlined in the report.
In the ‘real world’ I know exactly two people who tested positive and indeed did appear ill, and had to isolate. Not one other member of the family caught it, not the kids, not the wife, who was sleeping in the same bed, Not Grandma, Grandad, nobody, nada!
Exactly! This ‘survey’ is about transmission between people living in same household (the most dangerous everyday mask-less environment for transmission according to the government). It is not about the workplace, the supermarket, or the park! The transmission rate rises for two people households and falls off the more people are in the house – and varies with age – yet is still remarkably low.
As you point out in the ‘real world’ this flu is not the super virulent force it is made out to be. Indeed these wrapped up the figures are confirmation of this. If read another way it simply states that on average an infected person with C19 only has a 10% chance of infecting someone from the same household they see and mix with everyday at less than 2 metres and mask free.
How does that tie in with the dreaded ‘R‘ figure? If an unvaxxed infected person only has a 1 in 10 chance on average of infecting someone living in the same dangerous internal space, it doesn’t sound like a statistical recipe for exponential apocalyptic spread, does it?
Yes, a long time ago in an alternative universe, well just last year off Japan, a ship told us exactly all this. I keep asking, why are we reinventing the wheel?
I recall survey data from Swedish care homes that put the figure for household transmission at only 17% (prior to any ‘vaccines’)
The point is another case of the difference between using relative and absolute risk reduction figures.
Absolute figures should always be quoted, even if there can be an argument about their significance.
If they are not quoted, and if relative figures are, I always assume that there is something to hide.
Agreed. Every time there is a survey result the methodology is usually different (thus avoiding meaningful direct apples-apples comparison), and in addition what should be gold standards like ARR are often absent. As far as I am aware the government is yet to come forward with accurate vaxx death figures (despite several questions being asked of ministers) and the best we have is via the MHRA Yellow Card Scheme.
Even allowing for massive under reporting (up to 90% according to the government itself) there have still been over 1000 UK vaxx deaths to date, with Pfizer ‘deaths per jabs ratio’ being slightly higher than AZ. Let us say the full roll out has been going for around 100 days, this equates to at least 10 vaxx deaths per day on average (and posibly much higher). The current C19 deaths per day is in single figures on most days. So where is the meaningful benefit v risk of the jab – remembering that this deaths figure does not include life threatening adverse reactions and unknown long term side effects?
Like the original and ongoing gene therapy trials, this study basically only proves that the ‘vaccines’ aren’t needed at all.
And all the cases in the “vaccinated” are “21 days after being vaccinated”. What are the figures like for just “after vaccination”. A load of bollocks.
Good point.
We know from earlier studies that there is a greater chance of testing positive in the immediate few weeks after vaccination than the unvaccinated.
But this chart from the study indicates for the Pfizer vaccine that if that vaccinated person does test positive immediately after Pfizer vaccination then there is also a greater chance that a household member will test positive also than for an unvaccinated person who tested positive. So it’s a double whammy effect. Greater chance of the vaccinated person getting the virus in those first few weeks or so after vaccination plus greater chance of passing it on perhaps.
“after vaccination” is meaningless given any vaccine ever created takes several weeks for protection to start being generated.
Has this been considered?
I was half listening to the briefing while driving yesterday, so was only concentrating enough to mumble a few obscenities and be told off by my wife.
Early on someone said that most transmission takes place in the home.
They then moved on to draw some hard to challenge or prove conclusions about transmission from some partially explained new figures.
Did the latter allow for the fact that many of the people who tested positive will have caught it from other people in their household AND THEREFORE the person they caught it from would now be immune and so would not be infected by the vaccinated person anyway?.
I’m still in awe of the fact that they are still talking about meeting, touching, mixing, who on earth has been listening and following ‘the rules’ all of this time?
Guardian readers perhaps?
How can a “vaccine” which, by the manufacturers´ own guidlines (all four of them) does not reduce the chance of being infected OR reduce the chance of spreading the disease, but is only designed to reduce symptoms, cut household transmission?
How can LDS publish such a crap study without at least some semblance of journalistic integrity?
This is a strange study.
It seems to be attempting to look at whether the experimental vaccine works at stopping transmission to other household members (more than 21 days after vaccination) solely in those where the experimental vaccination doesn’t work in stopping the vaccinated person themselves testing PCR positive after 21 days.
Shouldn’t they be looking at whether the experimental vaccine works at stopping transmission to other household members regardless of whether the vaccinated person subsequently tests positive after more than 21 days?
I realise data wise why they use the positive PCR group but that doesn’t make it look any more sensible.
AN URGENT WARNING
Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, microbiologist: “They are killing people with covid vaccines to reduce the world’s population.”
Dr Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer Vice President: “That pathway will be used for mass depopulation.”
Dr Geer Vanden Bossche phD, Gates top virologist: “The vaccines are threatening humanity. They should be cancelled immediately.”
Professor Dolores Cahill: “This mRNA vaccine is killing people.”
Dr Coleman: “They want to kill six billion of us.”
Dr Carrie Madej: “They want to change our DNA.”
Dr Reiner Fuellmich, German top lawyer: “Those responsible for the corona fraud scandal must be criminally prosecuted for crimes against humanity.”
PLEASE SHARE EVERYWHERE!
(Source: thewhiterose.uk)