This morning I wrote that despite the British Covid variant – supposedly much more deadly and contagious – being dominant in the UK since December, positive cases peaked 10 days before the January lockdown, and instead of a Christmas surge, infections plummeted in January and also failed to spike in schools when they reopened in March. In Denmark, too, the dominance of the British variant in January and February was marked not by a new surge in positive cases but precipitous decline, confounding predictions.
Now we have two more places that show the Kent variant is failing to live up to the hype. The table below from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows that as of February 27th, Florida was the state with the highest prevalence of the British variant (B.1.1.7) at 13.2%, and Texas comes in third at 7.1%.
These are also two of the most open states. Florida ended its restrictions in September and did not reimpose them in the winter, while Texas removed its remaining ones back at the start of March. So, for the past month neither has had any restrictions at all, let alone a lockdown “tough enough” to hold back the British variant. And what do we see? No new surge at all. The reopening in Texas even saw positive cases decline to their lowest level since last spring.
This isn’t modelling or prediction. It is cold, hard data on what happens when a state opens up or stays open for the winter. It is therefore also solid proof that restrictions are not needed to “control” the coronavirus. We already knew that from Sweden in the spring. Now we know it from Florida in the winter, and Texas, which is near the bottom of the pack when it comes to vaccinations, shows us what we can expect when we open up, British variant or no British variant.
Of course, there will still be new outbreaks of COVID-19, as some countries in Europe are currently experiencing. But how much more proof do governments and their scientists need that the threat is manifestly manageable without unprecedented restrictions on liberty, the efficacy of which is anyway unproven?
Kent Covid – not so much a tiger as a pussycat.
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The Scary Fairy falls flat on its ugly face once again. But a majority of the populace will carry on regardless – seeing that it as thing of hypnotic enchantment..
Just a general thought – prompted by coincidental circumstance.
Yesterday, I came across a mislaid envelope of my father’s photographs – images (probably illegal) of the North Atlantic convoys and escorts, taken from a destroyer around 1943. This afternoon ‘The Cruel Sea’ is on the box – a film which, given the memes of the 1950s, pretty accurately captures the time and the place without much bullshit.
The clash between the real hazards and sacrifices of then and the shameful, pathetic and submissive fearfulness about a common-or-garden virus is hard to contemplate for those of us who reaped the benefits of what that previous generation actually went through. I found myself tearing with a massive sense of shame and loss.
My dad was WW2, RN CPO Wireless Telegrapher. His war ended in the Med somewhere off Italy having previously seen action off North Africa and before that the Atlantic Convoys.
It was only after his death that I discovered he was entitled to a medal from the Russians for those who had taken part in the Murmansk and Archangel convoys, he was never one for medals so I did not apply.
To be honest he would have been 100% compliant during lockdown 1. but by now his patience would have been severely tried.
Yes the contrast is striking. My parents both lived through WW2, on different sides, and ended up in England, free from Nazism and from East German Communism. I imagine they would be appalled at where we’ve ended up.
It’s easy to think that the change from stoic resistance to preserve freedom from tyranny to supine capitulation is the sign of a civilisation in decline, but one should probably be wary of facile judgements. In truth people have been hoodwinked into thinking that the virus is the enemy, not the government or other forces of evil.
You are of course right, Julian : this time the propaganda war has been aimed at subduing the native population by its own government. But the contrast still hurts.
I can relate to that. My father saw active service in WW2 from 1941 to 1945. He was on the front at the battle for Cassino and was badly wounded. He and many others fought for the freedoms that have been singularly trashed by this ship of fools government.
Was it Tony Abbott who recently said “we used to give up our lives for freedom now we’re giving up our freedom for lives”?
The book by Montserrat is even better. The risks these guys took to supply our then allies in Russia were awesome. Yes, it just makes the feel sick in the stomach when looking at today’s society.
I noted Local Live excitedly informing readers during the first week of January that
‘the new Kent mutant virus is not only more virulent than normal Covid but that it is already the dominant strain throughout the Region !’
I spent most of January and February asking people, where appropriate, if they remembered that and where was Kent Mutant now ? It had vanished from local media by the middle of January with just myself keeping its memory alive.
I find it extremely offensive to be giving these various editions of this flu localised names. I thought it was “wacist” to call Mark 1 WuFlu Chinese?
Just what are those Kentish Men or Men of Kent going to feel like having a flu named after them?
It’s because the rest of the world still call it the English Variant.
Worth repeating.
Astra Zenica trialled their vaccine in
England
Brazil
South Africa
Three major mutant variants to date
England (Kent).
Brazil
South Africa
As Wankok used to say, let the virus R.I.P.
Has Prof Pantsdown seen this? Will he throw a chair across the room when he does?
You think he could lift a chair?
To be honest, Whitty and the gang could stand up and say ‘Covid has been completely defeated, the virus is 100% gone and will never come back…but we must all be aware that Covid has still not been defeated, is still with us and will definitely come back’ and nobody in the media would blink an eyelid. It’s as if the country has undergone mass dementia.
It has.
Not all the country, but definitely the media. We wouldn’t be in this mess if they asked proper questions and wrote the truth.
The number of news outlets challenging the government narrative is minimal. They’re behaving as if it was wartime and they need to tell lies to keep up public morale, only this time they’re doing it to destroy morale.
Deleted
If and when there are COVID “outbreaks” why aren’t countries using early tx’s like ivermectin and hcq?
Sorry Guys but as my Brother keeps on telling me, it doesn’t matter what we say, how many facts, figures, graphs or logical sensible arguments we throw at them they will just carry on with their agenda come what may. Heads and brick walls spring to mind. Spoke to my stepson yesterday. He’s a Cambridge graduate a really bright bloke but he’s convinced Lockdowns work no amount of proof would persuade him otherwise. Mind you he’s a teacher so there’s probably indoctrination and groupthink involved. It’s very strange and depressing really.
The hype of the Kent virus is in overdrive in Europe. Merkel speaks about a new virus. An interview with an ICU consultant in Upsala, Sweden, “this is a new pandemic virus, we have younger patients in our ICU wards”.
They are of course both wrong. The virus is 99,7% identical to the previous one. It is more transmissible as the virus, in Darwinian fashion, the most successful spreading virus will survive.More younger people? Did not seem so in the UK statistics. A lone ICU Consultant view of his own department is not a national overview. In fact, Sweden has a striking low deathrate of C-19 despite ongoing spike of Kent variant, even suggestion that vaccination of care home has been effective. There is no excessive mortality in February even negative.
In the hypothetical situation where we had no sequencing of the virus, what would this has been called? Second or seasonal wave affecting mainly those not affected in the first wave. No international travel restrictions or indeed any different SD would have any effect on the second wave, as anybody knows when the virus become endemic.
After the wave everybody would have just calmed down and expected a possible smaller wave (there is something called immunity) in the future. The only discussion would be when and most would have opted for a minor wave next winter.
The information about variants has not helped at all. It has only increased a senseless hysteria and doubling down on deadly LDs. It has possibly destroyed any efficiency of the preventive effect of immunisation for the next wave by introducing this vaccination in an ongoing wave making sure the vaccine will be useless the next time.
The narrative about the situation in Europe regarding covid is completely at odds with the current mortality data. The latest Euromomo figures on excess mortality are very telling, as reflected nicely in this figure.
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
The whole thing is a great big lie based on utter nonesense.
The young have been thrown under the bus in the name of the old and without the permission or support of either.. we had a plan; we should have stuck to it. More obvious than ever that we should go back to it now post vaccination