Month: January 2021

Most of those sceptical of the Government response to COVID-19 have concluded that the recent uptick in cases is seasonal. COVID-19 appears to recur in winter and seems to have partly replaced the flu this year. We will call this the ‘flu hypothesis’. If this is correct, then we may be able to make some predictions about what is about to happen in the United Kingdom with respect to Government policy and the public response. Now that the new lockdown is upon us we can use the ‘flu hypothesis’ to imagine two possible outcomes and assess their relative likelihood. First let us try to get into what passes for the minds of those dealing with the response. The Financial Times, which seems well plugged in to the mindset of the political class, published the following helpful graphic: What this tries to show is that the lockdown worked. If you glance at the chart and don’t really think about it – you know, like a public official would be inclined to do – it looks like a lockdown was imposed at the beginning of November and cases in the North and the Midlands fell. Now, lockdown sceptics will say that this was just a coincidence. After all, robust cross-sectional studies – the sort of studies honest scientists use to evaluate these ...

by Sinéad Murphy In his article on January 3rd David McGrogan sought to persuade us lockdown sceptics that a more emotionalised response to the lockdown zealots is likely to produce a better effect than calm and reasonable arguments based on facts. I was struck by David’s piece. I believe he is correct. Both sides of the lockdown debate make appeal to scientific facts and statistical analyses. But those who argue in favour of lockdowns have done so and continue to do so with a righteous energy and moral fervour, which those of us who argue against them have tended to steer clear of, on the assumption that such energy and fervour would weaken our arguments rather than make them stronger. This assumption comes naturally to our Enlightenment habits of thinking and acting, which have been formed on the premise that reason and feeling are separate faculties and hardly compatible. The assumption is false and has disabled our position from the outset. A little while ago, I happened into discussion with a new neighbour, on the matter of Covid and lockdown. When I indicated my support for a Great Barrington-like policy of assistance for the vulnerable who wished to have it, allied with normal life for everyone else, my new neighbour demurred, saying: “That’s very able-ist of you.” Just the kind of ...

by Dr Clare Craig FRCPath One thing that Public Health England has been world beating for before and during this pandemic has been the sharing of data. Data is collected from every aspect of the healthcare system and we now have the full dataset for 2020. The beginning of the graphs therefore give an indication of the levels expected at this time of year. A selection of this data is presented that tells the story of a Spring pandemic. However, what this data reveals about Autumn and Winter does not fit the hypothesis that there has been a second wave. PCR testing results are an outlier in the data and only data related to PCR test results has led to the impression that there is currently a Covid problem. Let’s take each dataset in turn. NHS 111 data Patients phoning NHS 111 or visiting online are classified according to their symptoms. A Spring pandemic can easily be identified with a spike in presentations of patients with cold/flu symptoms; cough, fever and difficulty breathing. In September, when schools returned, there were epidemic levels of common cold symptoms and cough but not difficulty in breathing. A few of these were classified as Covid and there were regions of the country, which had been affected last and least in Spring, where excess deaths ...

Lockdown 3.0 – If at First You Don't Succeed... Boris Johnson gave a televised address to the nation yesterday in which he announced a new national lockdown, instructing the population yet again to "stay home, protect the NHS, save lives". The Telegraph has the details: Boris Johnson has plunged England into a third national lockdown to try to curb the rapid spread of coronavirus, as the country moved to Covid Alert Level 5.The lockdown means people will only be able to leave their homes for limited reasons, with measures expected to stay in place until mid-February.In an address to the nation, the Prime Minister said the new coronavirus variant – which is 50 to 70% more transmissible – was spreading in a "frustrating and alarming" manner."As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic," he said.The regulations are expected to be laid before Parliament on Tuesday, January 5th, with MPs retrospectively being given a vote after they are recalled early from the Christmas break on January 6th.The third national lockdown, the strictest since last spring, begins immediately. The new rules include: Everyone living in England has been told to stay at home, and only to go out for specific reasons. Mr Johnson said: "You may only leave home for limited ...

by Dr David McGrogan Of all the tragic, unnecessary and shameful consequences of the 2020 lockdowns, school closures may be the worst. A healthy society prioritises its young; we have sacrificed their life chances to ameliorate the terrors of the old. But the educational consequences of our collective reaction to this virus are more far-reaching than ‘just’ the closure of schools. Indeed, it is my fear that the death of liberal education is happening right in front of our eyes. This is a strong statement and requires some explanation. Thoughtful liberals have always recognised that education is the very foundation of liberalism itself. (And here, it is important to make clear that in using the word ‘liberalism’ I am not referring to the soft-left progressivism which is sometimes meant by that term. Rather, I am referring to classical liberalism – the political philosophy that, in a nutshell, considers it foundational that the power of the State ought to be legally constrained by a system of individual rights, such as those to property, freedom of association, freedom of expression, and so on.) This is because, contrary to how its adherents are often caricatured, they have long recognised that there is nothing inevitable about liberalism. Indeed, liberalism rather goes against the grain of innate human characteristics. It sits uncomfortably alongside democracy in ...

by Jonny Peppiatt This topic is a particularly interesting one for a number of reasons: first, because you’re probably thinking, “Of course loneliness is a major cause of mental illness, so why should I spend five minutes reading about something I already know?” – read on and find out; second, because we are all aware of quite how particularly pertinent it is right now; and, third, because it was the most significant factor in my experience with depression. Before we go any further though, I think it would be a good idea to explain what loneliness is, because it isn’t as simple as not having friends or being alone. It is a process within the brain that has been designed by evolution that gives you a feeling as a result of believing you have limited or no connections that provide a sense of mutual aid and protection with other individuals. Human beings began as a species on the savannahs of Africa but survived as a species because of cooperation and tribal support. If you were an individual who became separated from your tribe, no one would care for you should you fall sick, you would be unable to hunt effectively, and you would be vulnerable to predators; and it is because of this that the brain developed a way to ...

by Jake Woodhouse On February 4th 2004 the technological equivalent of a Trojan Horse was quietly rolled onto the internet. There had been others of course, Google being the obvious example of a new kind of business which provided a service to customers for free, but none which have come to symbolize the new era as much as Facebook. Do we even remember a time before Facebook? Or any of the other companies such as Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube who have come to dominate our society, changed the way we interact, how we do business, how we live our lives? And could we have predicated how this massive garnering of our attention has turned out? It seems not. At the beginning of 2021 it has now become alarmingly clear that we have given up our freedoms for a few shiny baubles. We have scrolled, clicked and liked our way into a trap so large and so dangerous, that our very liberty is now at stake. And yet, unbelievably, many of us have yet to pull back from the constant stream of notifications on our screens long enough to see it. The Internet has given us many good things. It has facilitated the dissemination of ideas quicker and more widely than at any other time in history, it has given artists ...

New Year, New Lockdown Restrictions Andy Davey's cartoon in today's Telegraph Appearing on The Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Boris Johnson warned the country that COVID-19 restrictions are "alas, probably about to get tougher". The Spectator has a summary: The Andrew Marr Show returned this morning, and with it came an in-depth interview with the Prime Minister. It will surprise no one to hear that the bulk of the interview focused on the coronavirus, and Boris Johnson signalled throughout that the new year could see fresh restrictions being brought into place. He did not go into any detail about what measures could be introduced under a potential "Tier 5", but it was clear enough that his 5pm Downing Street press conferences were not yet a thing of the pastBJ: It may be that we need to do things in the next few weeks that will be tougher in many parts of the country. I’m fully fully reconciled to that, and I bet the people of this country are fully reconciled to that... Alas, is probably about to get tougher, but we'll review it. Boris said that we need to see if the "extra steps that we've all taken in Tier 4 areas are going to work in driving the virus down" and insisted that the Government has got to keep things "under ...

by Guy de la Bédoyère David McGrogan’s judgement about the the failed strategy of lockdown sceptics and the failure to address emotion is absolutely correct – for the most part, but he’s missed something out. What I’m most surprised by is that he’s surprised. I’ve been an active supporter of this website from the start, but I will freely admit that from the outset I thought we were probably making a futile gesture – sorry Toby – though it was one worth making, nonetheless. There is nothing new or special about the phenomenon David describes. We don’t live in an age that is any more emotional than any other time. The French historian and political theorist Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was quite convinced that emotion and myth were the driving forces behind human action. He said a man must have in himself some source of conviction which must dominate his whole consciousness, and act before the calculations of reflection have to enter his mind. Sorel added we do nothing great without the help of warmly-coloured and clearly defended images, which absorb the whole of our attention. In short, human beings are primarily driven by the forces of irrationalism and emotion. They always have been, from the ancient Egyptians exulting in the theatre of pharaonic rituals to the visceral response felt by most Britons ...

by Dr Clare Craig FRCPath, Jonathan Engler MBChB LLB and Joel Smalley MBA When a notifiable disease, such as COVID-19, is recorded the location of the patient involved is also recorded. If notifiable disease data is a reliable measure of symptomatic COVID, then there is a striking South West predominance in the Autumn (Figure 1). The latest data shows continuing decline in notified cases of COVID-19, with only 50 cases notified to Public Health England in the week ending 20th December and 85 cases in the week ending 27th December. Other datasets including, 111 triage data, 999 triage data, ambulance surveillance data, accident and emergency attendance data and excess death data all indicate a Spring epidemic which ended at the end of May or beginning of June, a regionalised Autumn second ripple, and then a return to baseline. This baseline will be a normal level for winter as COVID is now endemic. The only data that does not fit with the other measures is the data dependent on PCR testing. Figure 1. Notified instances of COVID-19 by location. The numbers of cases that have been notified are a very small percentage of PCR positive results, despite it being a statutory obligation for the treating doctor to notify even a suspicion of a case. We have previously discussed why notifiable disease ...