Day: 7 January 2021

Toby appeared on Newsnight on Tuesday night to talk about whether lockdown sceptics should be outright banned or reluctantly tolerated. You can watch the segment here. A reader has written a review. Emily Maitlis: “The lockdown worked in March, it brought the R rate down from 3 to .6.” Toby Young: “It was falling before it was imposed.” EM: “We will discuss this again I am sure.” It was an exit cue of course and whilst it may not have quite amounted to an invitation, we must make sure we do discuss it again with Emily, because whether or not lockdowns work is what it is all about. The exchange came at the end of a nine-minute segment that perfectly illustrated Dr David McGrogan’s piece on “the failed strategy of lockdown sceptics”, with emotive accusations of Covid denial blocking out any light that might have been used to illuminate key areas of contention. The Newsnight segment was on whether YouTube had been right to remove from its platform the recordings of talkRADIO on the basis that its policy is “to take down content that explicitly contradicts expert consensus”. A decision that has since been reversed. Emily set out her stall. “In a time of public emergency, and in the face of so much irrefutable scientific data, is it responsible to ...

by Dr Clare Craig FRCPath, Jonathan Engler MBChB LLB and Joel Smalley MBA Viruses do not disappear. When a novel virus is introduced to a naive population there will be an epidemic. Spread will be exponential, some susceptible people will die but eventually we will reach a point where there is sufficient population immunity that spread is slowed and the virus stops spreading in an epidemic fashion. Thereafter, localised outbreaks can still occur and susceptible people can still die but there is no longer a risk of epidemic spread because every outbreak is contained by population immunity. Coronaviruses are seasonal, so it is only now that we have had some winter weather that we can assess what endemic Covid will be like. Figure 1 shows the sharp spike in excess deaths seen with epidemic Covid in spring. These deaths were in excess of the usual winter hump. Compared with previous years, this year’s winter excess deaths started earlier but the shape of the curve is consistent with previous years. However, we have now reached the bizarre situation where so many deaths are being labelled as caused by Covid that, for the first time ever, this winter there are fewer non-Covid deaths in winter weeks than there were in summer. Figure 1 Total deaths by date of occurrence shown in green ...

GPs Told to "Stand Down" Routine Care to Deliver Vaccine GPs have been told to prioritise Covid vaccinations at the expense of delivering all but the most urgent of care. The Telegraph has the details. GPs have been instructed to "stand down" routine care and prioritise providing Covid vaccinations in a bid to ensure the NHS can deliver almost 14 million jabs by next month. Doctors have been given guidance saying that delivering the vaccine should be their "top priority", with advice to "postpone other activities".It came amid confusion over attempts to recruit an army of volunteers to administer the vaccine, with retired medics told that the programme had closed despite Boris Johnson saying its expansion is vital.On Wednesday, Mr Johnson said the current lockdown could last until Easter, with vaccines offering "the means of our escape" from confinement. The Prime Minister spoke as the latest figures showed deaths in the UK have exceeded 1,000 per day for the first time since April.The Telegraph has learned that health officials have issued guidance instructing GPs to "stand down non-essential work" in the coming weeks in order to prioritise the speedy roll-out of the programme. Practices in London have been told to prioritise vaccines, with other duties restricted to urgent cases. Suspending routine medical care will of course cause yet more avoidable sickness and death from non-Covid causes. Problems and confusion ...

A piece by David McGrogan on January 3rd implies surprise at the alacrity with which the British public has acquiesced to lockdown and suggests that sceptics embrace some of the more emotive strategies of lockdown proponents. Dr McGrogan is not alone if he was unprepared for this complicity: even one of lockdown's principal architects, Prof. Neil Ferguson was surprised that Western Governments could “get away with” national lockdowns. Yet the roots of blind societal compliance in the UK surely have several components, some of which have been hidden in plain sight. The impact of disinformation has been compounded by a woeful lack of scientific literacy among Parliamentarians. This may in part explain the paucity of due process and failure of legislative oversight, for example in appointing members of SAGE, or not having it publicly audited. The ex cathedra pronouncements of SAGE may have produced unchallenged fear that has prevented un-whipped Parliamentary votes at key points in this unfolding saga. Without full and disinterest deliberation, a balanced policy approach seems unlikely, and that has turned out to be the case. The general population may be forgiven for feeling secure, a mood fostered by the comfort of recent decades and Government borrowing to cushion the economic down-side of lockdown. It has been egged on by a lamentably unquestioning and complicit main stream ...