Yesterday, a short paper titled “SARS-CoV-2 elimination, not mitigation, creates best outcomes for health, the economy, and civil liberties” was published in The Lancet. The authors claim, “Countries that consistently aim for elimination – i.e., maximum action to control SARS-CoV-2 and stop community transmission as quickly as possible – have generally fared better than countries that opt for mitigation – i.e., action increased in a stepwise, targeted way to reduce cases so as not to overwhelm health-care systems.”
This claim is supported by three charts, each comparing “OECD countries opting for elimination” with “OECD countries opting for mitigation” (see below). The first chart shows that “OECD countries opting for elimination” had fewer deaths per million; the second shows that they had smaller declines in GDP; and the third shows that they had less restrictive lockdowns.
The authors note, “With the proliferation of new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, many scientists are calling for a coordinated international strategy to eliminate SARS-CoV-2.” They also note, “Countries that opt to live with the virus will likely pose a threat to other countries” whereas those “opting for elimination are likely to return to near normal”.
One might be tempted to conclude that “elimination” (or “Zero Covid” as it’s sometimes termed) is a sensible strategy going forward. However, I don’t find the authors’ analysis very convincing.
First, they don’t explain how they classified countries as either “opting for elimination” or “opting for mitigation”. For example, did they simply look at outcomes (which would be circular), or did they examine statements by politicians from the spring of last year? (E.g., “This Government will pursue an elimination strategy.”) It’s not clear.
Only five countries were classified as “opting for elimination”: Australia, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. All other OECD countries were classified as “opting for mitigation”. It may have occurred to you that the five “eliminationist” countries are not exactly representative. Four are islands and one is a peninsula (with a fairly impenetrable border to the north). Two are East Asian. And in fact, these two – Japan and South Korea – are the only East Asian countries in the OECD.
As I argued in a piece for Quillette, all the Western countries that have kept their death rates low are geographically peripheral countries that imposed strict border controls at the start (Norway and Finland, plus a few islands). Their geographic circumstances not only made border controls practical, but also gave them a head start in responding to the pandemic.
It’s very unlikely that large, highly connected countries like France, Italy or the US would have been able to contain the virus during the deadly first wave. And although Britain is an island, we probably wouldn’t have been able to either. The epidemic was already more advanced in London and other international hubs by the time most Western countries introduced lockdowns and social distancing.
In other words, “elimination” was probably never a realistic option for Britain and other large Western countries – even if it could have a passed a cost-benefit test. But what about Japan and South Korea?
Although South Korea did use a combination of early lockdowns and strict border controls to contain the virus, the same cannot be said for Japan. According to the Oxford Blavatnik School’s COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, Japan has had only two days of mandatory business closures and zero days of mandatory stay-at-home orders since the pandemic began. (And the two days of mandatory business closures were the 25th and 26th of April this year.)
Japan did introduce border controls quite early, which may have protected it during the first wave. However, these were not sufficient to prevent an epidemic from burgeoning in the winter of 2020–21. (By early February, the number of daily deaths was in the 90s.) Yet this epidemic retreated without any real lockdown measures being imposed, which suggests that some other cultural or biological factor accounts for Japan’s success.
Second, even if you believe an “elimination” strategy was feasible for Britain and other large Western countries in the early weeks of the pandemic, that ship has arguably sailed. This is particularly true for Britain, where almost 70% of adults now have COVID antibodies. In other words: while it might have been sensible to “eliminate” the virus last spring (assuming that was possible), the costs of doing so now would almost certainly outweigh the benefits.
Overall, the Lancet study does not provide a strong case for “elimination” of COVID-19. And in fact, a survey by Nature of 119 experts found that 89% believe it is “likely” or “very likely” that SARS-CoV-2 will become an endemic virus. As Michael Osterholm – an American epidemiologist – noted, “Eradicating this virus right now from the world is a lot like trying to plan the construction of a stepping-stone pathway to the Moon. It’s unrealistic.”
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This whole level of discourse is a joke. If you hadn’t noticed the most remarkable trend of the last few years is the utter disenchantment and rejection of mainstream political discourse. Just normal people who never bothered looking into anything are know beginning to ken it. In a time like this more can happen in a few weeks than happened in the prwvious few decades.
Osborne is a delusional quomble just like Boris.
For the Tories to gain the centre ground would mean they have to move a significant amount to the right of where they currently are.
I hope they stay where they are or move to the left so they occupy Osborne’s “centre” ground; that will ensure their deserved extinction so that a truly conservative party can take its place.
Osborne is peeved.
The fake tories managed to hold on to 121 seats but the Davos Deviants wanted them wiped out. The tory hierarchy, which of course includes people like Osborne – another non-flushable turd – failed to do their job properly so he is encouraging the rump to go back to their Bliar lite ways thus guaranteeing that if there is another election they will finally be disappeared for good.
“George Osborne has said the Conservative Party must resist chasing Reform voters and instead move back to the political centre ground if it wants to return to power.”
And what part of the political battlefield does Osborne believe the criminal, lying tories are occupying exactly?
The only reason Ozzy doesn’t want the tory remnants chasing the Reform position is because he knows this might prolong their miserable lifespan and as stated above the DD’s don’t want that.
This is the woke circling their waggons around the Tories in the hope that they won’t be able to escape from their clutches. Simply put, Osborne, like Johnson, is a globalist traitor who wants British people to suffer and to diminish the UK as much as possible because that’s what his masters demand.
How does one remove the neocon globalists from power, that is the question.
Coming from a fully enrolled attendee of Bilderberg meetings, George Osborne’s musings on trying to lure back voters hold about as much weight as a Gary Glitter announcement on childcare.
I like that we can see that they try to maintain the mainstream narrative and yet people look upon it with scorn and derision and laughter. In that sense this is a fine time to be alive.
The centre ground is code for “my views and policies”.
I have been trying to work out what “centre” means and that is the best I can do. The only alternative is “policies the BBC will report without either a smile or a sneer”.
“The centre ground” is code language for: Sunak has cautiously back-pedalled from Net Zero a little and overseen a slight pushback against trans-ideology. This goes against the established political dogma the Osbornes and Johnsons of this world claim to be in favour of (while they’re really just sock puppets moved by invisible forces). Sunak lost an election Labour won. Labour is still fully in bed with Net Trans and Zero Economy hence, it’s now occupying “the centre ground” Sunak Right-Wing Radikalinski carelessly vacated and hadn’t he done so, the muppet show of non-conservative Tory government had certainly just continued. The Tories must therefore, urgently transition back to Net Zero True Believers and champions of the notion that human children are born sexless if they ever want to win an election again.
Under no circumstance must they become so populist to try to do what the voters they lost want to be done. That would be very bad for the puppetmasters.
Read Janet Daley in yesterday’s DT. Excellent piece and says it all in her inimitable way. Osbourne is half the trouble and Cameron is the other half. The way they went o with the Liberals from 2010 set the path of going Left and away from Conservatism.
Remember that Cameron said, when he resigned outside No 10, that his greatest achievement in 5 years as PM was single sex marriage legislation. Was not even in the Manifesto. I rest my case.
Slightly Off-T.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-have-to-deal-with-the-anti-vaxxers-says-kier-starker-next-uk-pm-with-the-endorsement-of-the-wef/5858558
Kneel is a serious threat to the people of this country as this article makes clear.
When Scamdemic ll launches it could become extremely nasty particularly in relation to killer ‘vaccines.’
Centre means complete adherence to neoliberal orthodoxy. Neoliberalaism is basically a scam masquerading as an ideology. Keep the charade going on long enough so that you can get away with all the spoils. It is a perfectly natural approach for someone who considers themself to be on the upper rung of humanity, Just get what you can from the peasants and store it up and weather the storm. Sadly for them things will not work out that way.
Lol back to the centre ground, from the far left…
Why doesn’t he piss off and join Labour or the Lim Dems or the Greens?
This was first asked of the Tory left at the time of Maastricht. For some the answer was to avoid the consequences of daring to deny the blackmail.
The answer since 1992 has been to use the brand of the CP to act as an anger sink and thereby facilitate a further globalist left drift.
Sadly true
It is like a predator appearing among a flock of animals or a remote SIberian village that is being terrorised by a bear. A point comes when it doesn’t matter what you know. You are alerted to the main thing which is that you are being hunted by a predator. Birds might go quiet. When Jeffrey Dahmer walked past the cells of fellow mass-murdering convicts they all stayed silent until he was past. It is never wise to take counsel of your fears but in our time everyone will get it because we have that spark. This is a serious anti-human agenda that requires a serious response.
Focus on getting the spunk. If you haven’t got the spunk then all else fails. Courage is a cardinal virtue according to Plato because without the spunk you won’t do anything. If you feel that your nutsack is depleted then store it up, That can make a big difference, Taoist alchemy involves holding the seed for many years. It is basic and primal but you have to do it. Don’t succumb to this culture that tells you that it is okay to jerk off as much as you want because it really isn’t.
Oh, for crying out loud.
Logged in to upvote.
As someone that trains, there is truth in that.
There are definitely certain individuals on here that would benefit from taking your sage advice. Depleted nutsacks indeed.🤏🔍👀
Plus, there’s also oysters.🦪
You were given a big pair of swollen bull testicles for a reason. Now put them to use.
Pack it in.
“But the actual way the party has governed has frequently been centre-Left if not outright Left-wing, with extraordinary levels of immigration and tax, a fanatical commitment to the anti-capitalist Net Zero agenda and only a very limp-wristed effort at reining in the spread of wokery across the public sector.”
Indeed, though oddly Mr Jones forgets to mention their crowning achievement – CONVID!
Yes
Throughout MacMillan, Heath, Hague and everyone since except Maggie and theoretically Truss they have moved significantly left.
The people haven’t.
Hauge was a fake Eurosceptic. Once the 2016 Referendum came where was he!
Osborne brought us Austerity , which in reality was , do nothing . Ever since , they have done nothing and Brexit was a complete surprise to everyone except those of us could not believe how lucky we were . The final message from the Pseudo Tories , was that they were all too ready to become Autocrats and completely destroy our Trust . We are now in an age when There is No Trust and Osborne was in at the beginning !
Osborn was such a success I hope the Tories take his advice. His mate Cameron-Clegg was/were just as skilful politically and I’m sure they endorse this view.
A bigger question is just why a political party would change its values (sic) just for electoral success. If it was about values and policies rather than holding office with mates for its own sake they would campaign accordingly.
As the Tories have no values they can do no other than “let’s outflank the Labour Party to please those nice people we met at the WEF/Gates/etc conference or weekend break”.
This apparent conundrum is nothing of the sort. In Westmonster the center is assumed to be somewhere between Tories and Labour, which means it’s all part of the indistiguishable groupthink. In the real world the centre is to the right of all of them. Moving right and occupying the centreground is the same thing!
In the real world 86% of voters chose left wing parties in the last UK GE
I wonder if we can envisage something new over the rainbow free from these levels of corruption. I think it is possible. You speak to the average person now and you are pushing at an open door. They just lost their old world schema and are hoping that there is a new vision. The new vision will be formed out of the horror of our collapse and our last days might be breadcrumbs. But it has to happen. It will be harsh in Britian though how they suddenly pulled the props out of the way and lifted the curtain and you are faced with the coldness of the brick wall at the back of the thatre.There is still some native genius left I hope it manages to overcome this Satanic impulse.
We have to do something the alternative is an everlasting hell of their device.
Centre ground, isn’t as central as I remember. I used to consider myself centre-left, but magically without changing my views substantially, I have become ‘extreme far-right’. The whole concept of left and right is out of date. I would propose ‘realists’ for right and ‘idealists’ for left.
It is a terrible situation in regard to what we are dialled into in terms of the launch of missiles. All the other crap counts for nothing. For me I don’t even know how to look at such a deterioration in intellectual standards and that is before even considering the dreadful consequences to our country. I think we assume that because we are an island we are therefore immune to missile attacks. This is simply not true, We should try to avoid such an exchange in my view.
If missiles start flying about the UK will be hit before the chief warmonger Uncle Sam.
Those Bollox to Brexit leftist Lib-Dems played a part as Nigel stood down, and once he stood down, the Tories pushed the ladder away. Shame they weren’t completely annihilated.
They think of you as less than vermin. Your might might’ve served their purposes for a brief while. There was no thought for your long-term sustenance. Like they might’ve watched a million go into battle in the first world war a century ago. You are just as expendable now to them in fact even more so because they want you out of the way. As long as you understand that you are being attacked by an enemy that wants you out of the way.
These creatures still don’t get it.
As Norman Tebbit pointed out, there is no centre ground, there is common ground.
Chasing some imaginary ‘centre’ ideology misses what people actually want. It is a play ground for a disconnected political elite.
It has become dehumanised. It’s all about abstractions, generalities: the planet, the environment, stopping climate change, saving the forests, fish, apes, equality, fighting racism and obesity, etc all at the expense of Humans as individuals their prosperity, wellbeing, freedom, property rights.
👍 👍 👍
Mr Osborne, if you’re reading this, great, read on…
People who voted Reform are, in the main, precisely the people you should chase. They left you because they were sick of voting Conservative, having the Conservatives win and then getting something that was more Labour than a Corbynista’s wet dream.
But then I forget – you’re not really a Tory, are you?! Silly me. No – you are, as others here have already elucidated, an unflushable turd.
Remind me which General Election Osborne won? Oh yes, that’s right. None.
What is a “moderate voter”? Is it just a particular shade of vanilla on everything? Maybe the vanilla moderate wants only some mass immigration. Maybe he wants to save the planet, but only at the weekend. Maybe he wants men in frocks in their daughters toilet if they would only just have a badge saying “Really a Man” on their chest. Maybe the vanilla moderate wants to be tough on crime but not too tough because that wouldn’t be nice.
——-Yes Politicians just love all the vanilla moderates as their votes are so easy to hoover up. It is so much easier to sell silly Kylie Minogue records than it is to sell proper music.