HART’s must-read report “COVID-19: an overview of the evidence“, written about in Lockdown Sceptics on Thursday, has been making waves today. Former Supreme Court Judge Jonathan Sumption praised it in the Telegraph this morning, and then this afternoon Times Science Editor Tom Whipple did his best to bury it under smears of being anti-vaccine and “extremely irresponsible”.
In a mean-spirited piece that makes no effort to engage with the arguments of the report, Whipple rounds up the usual suspects to heap opprobrium on anything that deviates from the establishment line or raises awkward questions.
Originally headlined “Scientists condemn report claiming vaccines caused second wave deaths”, it now reads “Scientists condemn report questioning role of vaccine in second wave deaths”, presumably after someone pointed out to the editors that the report never makes such a claim but only raises questions based on patterns in data. The report clearly states that “we cannot infer causation from correlation”.
Whipple writes:
Among arguments about the harms caused by lockdown the 50-page document also states that the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine coincided with a large number of deaths and this may not have been a coincidence. “When something in data is this unusual, we have to ask questions, no matter how uncomfortable they may be,” it states, in a chapter written by a “quantitative analyst” called Joel Smalley. “It would be extremely unscientific and even negligent not to investigate whether the rise in deaths during this period is linked in some way to the vaccine rollout.” He suggested the Pfizer vaccine had not been tested sufficiently on older people.
Jeremy Brown, from UCL and a member of the Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said this was “ridiculous”. He pointed to the now extensive real-world data showing the vaccines were safe and reduced deaths. “It is quite conclusively true that the vaccine offers protection in the real world,” he said. Far from killing people, he said, “if you’ve been vaccinated you have around an 85% lower chance of ending up in hospital”.
The rise in deaths was caused by infections, he said, rather than vaccines.
He added that academics should not be endorsing the idea vaccines may be causing mass death. “The only way out of this mess is the vaccine so anything that undermines that is distinctly unhelpful,” he said.
Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, added that to make the link “shows a blatant disregard for the facts” and “is irresponsible in the extreme”.
HART this evening published a response that clarifies they are not making claims so much as raising questions.
While scientists quoted in the article have dismissed HART’s suggestion that there is a possible link between vaccination and COVID-19 infections, it is worth highlighting that earlier this month a study led by Public Health England found a “notable” rise in COVID-19 infections in the over-70s immediately after receiving a vaccine.
We are not asserting that vaccines are the only possible cause of “second wave” cases and deaths. We are not asserting that the vaccines are, in and of themselves, dangerous or deadly. There are many factors at play here. For example, the increased contact from the vaccination programme or from possible relaxation of social distancing following vaccination have been suggested as possible causes for the correlation. It has also been shown that lymphocyte levels fall in the first three days after Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination. The phase two trial of AstraZeneca showed a transient neutropenia in 46% of patients in the vaccine arm (compared to 7% in the control arm). Whether this suppressed immunity sufficiently accounts for increased susceptibility is uncertain. These observations have no bearing on the efficacy of the vaccines which is a separate issue.
They draw attention to a number of studies that show a spike in infections in the days following vaccination: the FDA Pfizer report that found a 40% increase in the vaccinated versus placebo arm in the first week of the trial; an Israeli study reporting a doubling in daily incidence until about eight days after the Pfizer vaccine had been given; a Danish paper showing a 40% increase of COVID-19 in the vaccinated in the first two weeks; and a Public Health England study that noted a 48% increase in Covid in the first nine days after vaccination.
Whipple also takes the report to task for supposedly getting the false positive rate of PCR tests wrong.
The report, which has been backed by other Tory MPs, also states that the false positive rate of Covid tests is 0.8-4%. To support this claim, which contradicts all the real-world evidence, it cites a paper that explicitly says the true rate must be lower.
However, as HART point out in their response, the figure they use is simply the Government’s own current estimate of the false positive rate. If that “contradicts all the real-world evidence” then Whipple should take it up with Public Health England, not HART.
Whipple is also unhappy with the claim that “50% of the population is already immune to the coronavirus”. It appears from the report that this figure is drawn from a review of evidence on pre-existing immunity in the BMJ.
Memory T cells are known for their ability to affect the clinical severity and susceptibility to future infection, and the T cell studies documenting pre-existing reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 in 20-50% of people suggest that antibodies are not the full story.
While these results do not necessarily mean 50% of the population has pre-existing immunity, as Dr Mike Yeadon wrote for Lockdown Sceptics, with COVID-19 one must also factor children into the immune category, and between adults with T cells and children you are getting on for “about 50%”, as HART put it.
Whipple also quibbles with the report’s claim that “there is no evidence the UK variant, which has come to dominate in countries around the world, is more transmissible”. Yet this claim was drawn from a study in Nature headed: “No evidence for increased transmissibility from recurrent mutations in SARS-CoV-2.” The evidence on this may change of course, but it’s worth keeping in mind that science does not proceed by consensus and it is not “irresponsible” to cite peer-reviewed papers to support an alternative point of view.
Having amassed what he presumably regards as conclusive evidence that the report is full of falsehoods and heresy, Whipple attempts to tar others by association for daring to endorse it, including Toby, while the editors obligingly stick a picture of Sir Graham Brady at the top. That’ll teach MPs to think twice before backing anything from the renegade scientists again.
Whipple writes:
The report has found other backers. Jonathan Sumption, the former Supreme Court Judge, described it in the Telegraph as “scrupulously referenced to specialist research”. Toby Young, a journalist and founder of the Lockdown Sceptics website, described it as a “devastating” assessment by “highly qualified” experts.
In contrast Simon Clarke, Associate Professor in Cellular Microbiology at the University of Reading, said the report was “the reverse of science” and “bizarre”, adding that the authors “seem to have worked backwards, deploying only research findings which fit their ideology, or they simply don’t bother with anything so inconvenient”.
“The smearing of some of the current vaccines is particularly egregious,” he said. “It seems calculated to grab attention and frighten people, it could cost lives if anyone were foolish enough to believe it.”
The piece initially went out without a comment from HART, though one was later added:
A spokesperson for HART said, “In HART’s recently published overview of COVID-19 evidence, we noted that the January peak in Covid cases and deaths correlated both in time and geographically with the mass roll-out of the novel vaccines. However, HART is mindful that correlation does not always equal causation and we are not asserting that vaccines are the cause.”
At Lockdown Sceptics we are acutely aware that, as far as the Government and much of the public is concerned, as Jeremy Brown said, “the only way out of this mess is the vaccine”. That’s why we support the (voluntary, obviously) vaccination programmes and would never discourage anyone from getting a vaccine if that is what they consider to be right for them and their health. However, we also believe in free enquiry, and scientists raising questions, and exploring potential trends in data to see what they might be telling us – and we don’t think that that is irresponsible, pandemic or no pandemic. On the contrary, the irresponsible thing is to close down scientific enquiry for the sake of a questionable “greater good”.
Stop Press: Whipple’s article is headlined: “Scientists condemn report questioning role of vaccine in second wave deaths.” But not all scientists, it seems. A woman describing herself as a “scientist” at UCL wrote this Rapid Response in the BMJ on Monday: “After the initiation of vaccine programme, almost all countries experienced a sudden surge of transmission and most countries had to impose strict lockdown measures.”
Stop Press 2: Hector Drummond was unimpressed with Whipple’s mudslinging, tweeting: “The establishment is badly rattled. This is a hatchet job of unprecedented partisanship by the Times‘ tame science lapdog Tom Whipple. They’d prefer to say nothing about HART’s report, but have been forced to attack it because it is getting noticed.”
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Who cares? I mean really, in the grand scheme of things, this crumb/carrot is just classic misdirection.
Loss of civil liberties? Well at least we’ll let you leave the country, get a tan and get pissed one last time before you’re 100% enslaved, controlled and trapped.
Great! I can travel to Iceland without worrying about dying from covid , but then be killed by some volcano whose name I could never hope to pronounce.
Hey, what do you know! I got the right reason, but just the wrong country.
I will stick to my original post though because I can pronounce La Soufriere even if I don’t know how to type grave accents.
Well “green” is a misnomer. You still have to take a test. I won’t be doing it, not for a holiday. I feel for anyone who has close family/loved ones in other countries as they have a dilemma.
Jab, test and go!
Well done, citizen, your social credit score will reflect your compliance.
When it’s jab, test, pay carbon credits and go, we expect equal submission.
Hello though… those are some spicy comments you’ve been making on Facebook. We’re not sure you’re the best brand ambassador for Our Nation. Your travel privileges have been revoked until you have paid for, taken and passed the completely voluntary mandatory sensitivity, diversity, social and climate justice training.
I won’t go abroad until this nonsense is over. But I feel sorry for people with relatives to visit
I think you’ve put your finger on one of the wider aspects of this. With all the downsides of artificially cheap (essentially subsidised) air travel, the fact is that internationalism is a fact of life, despite little ‘nation state’ dreamers. There is a generation that has grown up with a wider Europe as their home – thus the generational resistance to the damaging old fart irrelevance of Brexit – an irrelevance that has been brought home by the Covid scam.
Rick with a silent P ?
LOL
Oh, don’t be silly.
Why is it that remoaners are simply incapable of displaying a little dignity?
What if this nonsense is never over, and this is the New Normal?
Sorry to break the bad news Steve – it is only just beginning
Why would vaccination rates make a difference when Dear Leader Johnson is just after saying that Our Vaccines don’t stop you catching or spreading the China Virus?
And why all the testing if everyone is vaccinated?
It must be time for Hancock and Schapps to get the dartboard out to decide which countries are on each list.
Only in zero covid world would you have that system as HART bulletin told us some weeks ago. You are going from one country with endemic virus to another country with endemic virus and you are supposed to believe that this dangerous traveller coming back can spark a full blown epidemic in a population close to herd immunity.Utter nonsense.
So, you won’t need a test in some countries if you show that you’ve been vaccinated. As we know, the vaccination doesn’t 100% stop you contracting or transmitting covid. So at the point of entering a country, it’s ok I’ve been vaccinated but actually I have covid and can pass it on, but Ssshhhh don’t tell anyone just let me in. How dangerous the false sense of security people are being given is. Although that said, given its very low mortality rate, the decision makers will pat themselves on the back and say it was the right think to do.
When are people going to realise that this pantomime, right from December 2019, has been set up in order to prepare and hold us down until the Great Reset can be put in place?
This ridiculous tory govt is just playing for time until the Real People in charge of this Reset tell it to stand down because they are in charge.
Unless we get our brains in gear and start pulling together to rid the world of these psychos who want to rule it, we are well and truly stuffed.
I don’t know how we can do this when so many are rushing to get themselves vaxxed without knowing what the long term effects are, its going to be very difficult to get people to wise up.
We must get rid of the so-called elite and also the ones who are making shedloads of money right now. Does anyone have any useful ideas how ?
Where is my comment ?