- “Extra testing to start in east London after overseas Covid variants detected” – New cases of the South African and Brazilian variant has prompted surge testing in parts of East London, the Guardian reports
- “Councils use smart lighting to reduce crowds in fight against Covid” – Energy efficient “smart” streetlighting is being used to “nudge” people into correct behaviour, according to the Telegraph
- “No lockdown and a vaccine within three months: what we can learn from America’s 1957 pandemic” – Writing in the Telegraph, Tim Stanley reviews Niall Ferguson’s new book covering the 1957 pandemic which was handled very differently to the COVID-19 panic
- “More music festivals due to take place this year face being axed because of lack of Covid cancellation insurance, organisers warn” – “Around a quarter of UK festivals have already been called off over uncertainty surround the pandemic,” MailOnline reports, and organisers are saying that more could be cancelled unless they get Government-backed insurance
- “Colds are even more common as Covid lockdown eases” – The easing of lockdown has been followed by a “torrent of rhinovirus”, the Times reports
- “Aggression over Covid vaccines is overwhelming… Everyone expects to get theirs first” – The Times interviews Adar Poonawalla, the CEO of the Serum Institute, who has come to the UK on Business and to escape the pressure he is under in India
- “Pandemic Reaction” – An essay by Ernest A, examining how the Government’s response to Covid has caused more harm than the virus itself
- “My Declaration of Independence, 2021” – Jon Ellwood brings the famous document of 1776 up to date for the modern day in the Conservative Woman
- “Mike Yeadon’s warning: ‘Vaxpasses’ could put us under total control” – A summary of the ex-Pfizer scientist’s interview with America’s Frontline Doctors by Kathy Gyngell at the Conservative Woman
- “Liberal Spring – Ten pledges to unleash a decade of liberty” – A grassroots campaign aiming to widen the parliamentary debate about the national response to COVID-19 via the Liberal Democrat Party
- “The Scandal Special: Government leaks, Covid kids and antisemitism” – The 17th episode of The Week in Review by Bournbrook takes in the latest Covid developments amidst much else
- “Lockdown restrictions loosened in several European countries” – Portugal, Hungary and Italy have all relaxed their lockdowns, according to Euronews
- “Police break up anti-lockdown party in Brussels” – Deutsche Welle reports that police in Brussels fired tear gas and water cannons to break up an anti-lockdown party in a park
- “Pfizer partner looking to mix mRNA vaccine with Chinese products” – BioNTech, which worked with Pfizer on its vaccine, is “considering to evaluate” mixing its mRNA product with the vaccine manufactured by the Chinese company Fosun Pharma, according to Breitbart
- “Coronavirus affected by warm temperatures, may follow a seasonal path – study” – The Jerusalem Post flags up a study, recently published in Scientific Reports, which found “a statistical significance in the prevalence of COVID-19 in populations living in warmer climates versus those living in more hibernal sections of the world”
- “Inside the mental health shadow pandemic caused by COVID-19” – “Many who survived the virus just couldn’t handle the new normal of quarantines, lockdowns, record unemployment, the fear of the unknown,” writes clinician Dr. Nicholas Kardaras in the New York Post of the patients he has seen in the Omega Recovery Mental Health Clinics
- “Oregon restores restrictions amid Covid surge boosted by vaccine hesitancy” – The State of Oregon has re-imposed restrictions, with 15 of 36 counties now deemed to be at “extreme risk” of spreading coronavirus, according to the Guardian
- “Washington D.C. drops mask mandate for ‘fully vaccinated’ individuals, with some exceptions” – The Washington Examiner says that under a new order signed by the Mayor fully vaccinated individuals in Washington D.C. can “gather indoors with other fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask or staying six feet apart”
- “Kenyan president lifts COVID-19 lockdown imposed last month” – Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has lifted the lockdown imposed last month, Reuters reports, allowing for a reopening of bars and restaurants, religious services and schools. But political gatherings are still banned
- “The BBC ‘never offers any context about the daily death toll from Covid in India‘” – Toby appeared on Kevin O’Sullivan’s show on talkRADIO to point out a key failing in the mainstream media’s coverage of the Covid situation in India
- “Thousands of revellers attend Wuhan music festival” – Thousands of people attended the first day of the Wuhan Strawberry Music Festival yesterday, according to Reuters
- “Western Australia in lockdown limbo as officials sweat on COVID tests after latest community cases” – Further cases of community transmission, from a quarantine hotel worker in Perth to his housemates, has put Western Australia on tenterhooks for a fresh lockdown, Perthnow reports
- “Covid madness – and sanity – in Trudeau’s Canada” – The latest episode of the Tom Woods Show sees Tom talk to Adam Schneider about Canadian lockdowns and high-profile cases of resistance
- “Dr. John Lee, Prof of Pathology UK – Unlocked Documentary” – Watch the latest Unlocked interview with Dr. John Lee
Dr John Lee is retired from the #NHS he is not afraid to speak out…
— Unlocked
He believes many in the NHS cannot speak up due to the fear of losing their jobs.
Watch Saturday 7pm the @unlocked_uk_ exclusive short film
"Covid is the cure worse than the disease?" pic.twitter.com/PjN7qHreTt
(@Unlocked_UK_) April 28, 2021
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Good talk by Dr. John Lee apart from all the plugs for the vaccine.
Which is why I dont listen to him or read anything he writes. His absolute belief in the efficacy, need for and safety of the vaccines makes him as stupid as the rest of the morons running this debacle.
There is the possibility that you may be mistaken
“makes him as stupid as the rest of the morons”
No. That remark is stupid. I disagree with John over vaccines, but have talked with him regularly over the past year (normally, and without masks), and if you think that he is ‘stupid’, then you may as well go and lock yourself in a ‘safe’ cupboard to protect your isolationism, because you don’t stand a chance of having many allies in this shit-show.
So reccomending people take an experimental vaccine that the majority don’t need and any longterm side effects are unknown isn’t a sign of stupidity?
I’m intrigued to know what it is then, ignorance or evil?
No – it isn’t ‘stupidity’ in this case. Certainly misinterpretation of partial data, (an issue that I’ve constantly emphasized here re. absolute risk reduction) but not ‘stupidity’.
For various reasons, we haven’t had a recent catch-up, so I’ve not explored the vaccine issue with him in depth – but it should be obvious from the video that he’s not ‘stupid’. Name calling essential allies isn’t very clever.
The all-cause mortality curve certainly does not show any overall evidence of vaccine effectiveness, with the decline from the January peak being slower than that in April 2020, whilst there appears to be an upturn following the introduction of the vaccine.
Anyone who insists the vaccines are necessary to return to a normal life is not an ‘essential ally’ in my book.
Fair enough. Virtue signal as much as you like and enjoy the isolation.
Yes, “stupidity” is probably the wrong word. On the evidence, “deviousness” seems more apt. However, I think many of us feel the former is the kinder accusation to make.
Mass deployment of experimental, genetically-engineered, injections into perfectly health people, who have been determined as being at extremely minimal risk from the virus, is so obviously more dangerous, and more negligent, than are the ludicrous “face coverings”, or the “lockdowns”. Not only could no intelligent person fail to spot the atrocity of the “vaccination” programme, but it would require a weird species of stupidity to miss it while, nevertheless, seeing through the mask or lockdown nonsense.
Some of the controlled opposition are brilliant at their craft, and the recognition of having fallen for an O’Brien is invariably a painful one to make.
“deviousness” seems more apt.”
No – it’s another daft epithet based on ignorance – which is not a good look for an intelligent and rational opposition.
Bluntly – you’re just wrong in your assessment,
Ignorance? Yes, ignorance of how any, reasonably informed, reasonably intelligent, person could view a mass programme of experimental injections as anything other than a crazy solution to a disease with an IFR of 0.23% (but, choose your own small number) that is highly selective in whom it kills.
There probably are quite a few things I should be embarrassed about not knowing. However, ATM, that is not one of them.
But, OK, then, go ahead and provide the missing information, and see how silly it will make me look!
Bluntly, you’ve just asserted.
I was very suspicious of this video. It dropped in my youtube box last night. The first person commenting thanked Ivor Cummins for reposting as the video had apparently originally been deleted by youtube. I couldn’t fault what John Lee was saying apart from his constant harping on about the injectate. I felt that if a jab waverer had been watching they might have been persuaded to go for it because a) the apparent deletion gave kudos to the video and b) all the rest of the talk was on point. Is this another way of getting to waverers?
Yep! Limited hangout / controlled opposition.
I thought these ‘ vaccines’ were not erm, vaccines and only supressed symptoms, apart from being experimental and gene altering, nice one doc!.. nice to have another expert on the case. Oh, did he mention the yellow card.. ?
Music festivals, concerts, choirs and all the rest have been denied to us for over a year. Music is good for the soul, soothes or rouses our emotions. Now, as revolutionaries, we need a marching song. Or two or three. What would you suggest?
My starter for 10, fairly obvious
“Do you hear the people sing” from les mis
‘Dr John Lee is retired from the NHS. He is not afraid to speak out…
He believes many in the NHS cannot speak up due to the fear of losing their jobs.’
Fascism: A governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc….
‘Placing its creation in the context of a broader social transformation aimed at empowering workers – and diminishing what Marx referred to as “the wages system” – (Aneurin) Bevan describes the NHS as “the most revolutionary feature of the British Socialist programme.”
‘He described the National Health Service as “a piece of real socialism,” and spoke of how it stood “opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society.”
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/07/aneurin-bevan-on-the-socialist-ambitions-of-the-nhs
Socialist fascism.
We’re off again!
This latest manifestation of socialist fascism has killed thousands, small numbers as yet compared to the Stalinist death toll, but the effects on the developing world have been seismic, millions returned to extreme poverty, starvation and an early grave. That point, the very real evils of socialist fascism, cannot be repeated too often. It will never go away in this country until the NHS undergoes root and branch reform.
.
If, as the Times reports, there’s a wave of rhinovirus colds it would be safe to suggest that those people would be unable to contract SARS-CoV-2 as it could not gain a foothold against the rhinovirus. However, will those people go and get a test because they think they have CoViD19 symptoms.
We know so little about complex interactions concerning the immune system. For all we know, in the absence of lockdown, rhinoviruses (and who knows what else) could have helped to halt a coronavirus epidemic. For those that didn’t know already, Rhinovirus actively inhibits coronavirus in the body.
To think that we can model a system as complex as immunity with such a patchy knowledge is utterly arrogant. Ferguson and co are dangerous fools, who have no ability to understand the limits of what they know.
“Rhinovirus actively inhibits coronavirus in the body.”
Do you have a link you can share please?
Well, you are never going to believe where this link comes from:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56483445
It is virologists and pathologists that should be listened to and not people like Ferguson et al.
How are the colds spreading with masks and social distancing in place?
Because masks and distancing don’t actually work perhaps?
We seem to have evidence that lockdown slowed the transmission of colds, though. (Which isn’t actually inconsistent with the observation of the same lockdown have had no significant effect upon CoViD-19 test results.)
…. in fight against Covid” – Energy efficient “smart” streetlighting is being used to “nudge” people into correct behaviour……
What next? Re-education camps for those not suitably ‘nudged’?
LED area lighting, which I presume is the technology used, is a crime against humanity, animals, and plants. We evolved to deal with broad band solar radiation, and to an extent firelight, and have useful vision in daylight and under moon and starlight. So did every other form of life on the planet with any photosensivity. Our diurnal rhythm, and hence how well our immune system functions, is governed by the proportion of short wavelength light (blue). Sleep is not a passive activity, it’s when all essential maintenance occurs. Buggering up our immune systems with LED lights (which have way too much short wavelength light in them) is similar to disturbing our rest with constant loud noise. Sodium lights were selected, probably 80 years ago, as being the ideal compromise to preserve our night adaptation but also give us useful central vision. Incandescent bulbs are ideally matched to human vision requirements in the evening. LED lights are tailored to surveillance cameras, not human vision.
Making streets safer by reducing the lighting? That’s out of the box (or is it out of their mind?), thinking.
I can only get bits of the article as I try to defeat the paywall, but is there something about using red and green lighting on stairways?
That amounts to criminal negligence. Monochromatic narrow waveband illumination will lead to people unable to judge steps and falling. Acuity and contrast detection needs lighting equivalent to what our vision evolved to use.
And what about red/green colour blindness?
Our night time vision is monochromatic through the rods. If you’re dark adapted then red light does not destroy your night vision. Which is why anyone who wants to observe the night sky should sit in the dark for 30 minutes and only use red light for illumination. Although the sun emits white light, the green yellow part of the spectrum dominates.
It is all highly complex, with overlapping systems of varying performance. Peripheral vision is rod mediated, and rod peak sensitivity is around 505 nm, and as you say takes 30 mins to reach peak sensitivity. Rods are relatively insensitive to red light which is at the 780 nm end of the visual sensitivity band. But although rod vision has high sensitivity, it has poor acuity. For more complex tasks than leaving your cave to go for a pee in the middle of the night, you need some central vision, ie a light source that provides enough light for some central cone vision, in the mesopic range where both rods and cones are involved. The middle wavelengths trigger focusing and give best acuity. That’s why we need headlights in cars, bright enough for central vision but not so bright, or with the wrong spectral mix, that it bleaches the rods. The modern ones with too much blue mean it becomes impossible to see the kerb on unlit roads at night when there is oncoming traffic. It might be ok to use a red light in a dark room in a place you know well, but not to light a stairwell used by a population with different visual requirements arising from age etc.
Meet your new, weaponised, radio-linked, carcinogenic, blindness-inducing, LED streetlights, from the people who just crashed the economy and destroyed all human freedom in order to “save lives”, especially the lives of the very elderly and the very ill, because they are the lives HMG wants to “save” the most. That’s why they just destroyed your life, because they have so much heart and soul and empathy
“Blue light” of LED streetlights linked to breast and prostate cancer
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_655460_en.html
The “blue light” emitted by street lights including LEDs, and commercial outdoor lighting such as advertising, is linked to a significant increase in the risk of breast and prostate cancer, innovative new research has concluded.
LED light can damage eyes, health authority warns
https://www.france24.com/en/20190515-led-light-can-damage-eyes-health-authority-warns
The “blue light” in LED lighting can damage the eye’s retina and disturb natural sleep rhythms, France’s government-run health watchdog said this week.
New findings confirm earlier concerns that “exposure to an intense and powerful [LED] light is ‘photo-toxic’ and can lead to irreversible loss of retinal cells and diminished sharpness of vision,” the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) warned in a statement.
Hertfordshire’s LED street light changeover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5WMVTymeps
Video where programmed robot from Hertfordshire Council confirms the new LED lights are radio-linked which means they are constatly emitting radiation, next to peoples’ homes, where they sleep etc. This is in addition to the pollution from the toxic light itself. As with everything the vile people who run the UK do, it’s all about “saving lives”.
TRANSLATIONS ON USSR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY – page 57 documents health effects of millimeter waves, a fundamental element of 5G – coming to a streelamp near you! The microwaves and frequencies they are already exposing us to are horrendous but this is set to become exponentially worse with the rollout of 5G
https://thefullertoninformer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/cia-millimeter-waves-1.pdf
Morphological, functional and biochemical studies conducted in humans and animals revealed that millimeter waves caused changes in the body manifested in structural alterations in the skin and internal organs, qualitative and quantitative changes of the blood and bone marrow composition and changes of the conditioned reflex activity, tissue respiration, activity of enzymes participating in the processes of tissue respiration and nucleic metabolism.
The degree of unfavourable effect of millimeter wave depended on the duration of the radiation and individual characteristics of the organism.
5G = 24/7 exposure to millimeter waves plus a whole range of nefarious microwave frequencies
In the theme of Skinner and Baddiel’s English football anthem:
“WE’RE SAVING LIVES, WE’RE SAVING LIVES, WE’RE SAVING, WE ARE SAVING LIVES!
WE’RE SAVING LIVES, WE’RE SAVING LIVES, WE’RE SAVING, WE ARE SAVING LIVES”
Hence this:
ICC Asked To Investigate Allegations of Genocide Against UK Government
https://www.thebernician.net/icc-asked-to-investigate-allegations-of-genocide-against-uk-government/
“There now follows a Press Release from a highly qualified Barrister and a Justice of the Peace who has presided as a JP in south London Magistrates Courts for the past twenty years, who also happens to be a highly qualified pharmacist.
On 21/04/2021, they courageously lodged a ‘Request For Investigation’ with the International Criminal Court, alleging genocide, crimes against humanity and breaches of the Nuremberg Code against numerous UK government officers and their accomplices.
Please share far and wide, as well as promoting the case in any way you can because we have the prima facie evidence to sustain each of the serious allegations they are making. Therefore, whatever the outcome, they are more than worthy of the vociferous support of everybody living on these ancient isles.”
Yep. Nurseries and schools now bathed in EM, wifi, telephone masts on buildings, children forced onto screens, and forced to use computers for homework. Even the ruddy blackboards are now giant screens. The power consumption in schools must have rocketed over 20 years. The new-fangled LED tube type lights in the school’s science lab are so bright they trigger an aversion reflex for me, and my eyes are considerably older and hence yellow filtered than the kids.
The Russians and French recognise these hazards. In the UK we cave to vested interests, and those in charge are mostly scientific illiterates.
Toby making a good point but still saying ‘of’ instead of ‘with’ when talking about deaths in India. Especially relevant in a country with huge pollution issues where any respiratory problems are likely to cause more fatalities.
Also his unqualified support for the experimental Gene Therapy, calling it a vaccine and crediting it with the reduced numbers of cases/deaths should not be our position.
On another subject the CDC has apparently said that if your vaccinated any PCR test should be run at a Ct of 28, as opposed to up to 40 if you’re not!
Re. the other subject this is just flagrant cooking of the books. Ridiculous. Do you have a source?
Here you are.
I don’t think it’s quite what you suggest.
Possible “break through” infections are going to be sequenced, if they have Ct of 28 or below. That’s something of an acknowledgement that Cts above 28 do not represent good samples. However, the document does not indicate that “vaccinated” individuals, who are RT-PCR positive above Ct 28, are not going to be counted as CoViD-19 “cases”.
Er….No. It clearly states that for this exercise the Ct of test being looked at should have been equal to or less than 28. No such limit is specified for ‘everyday’ PCR testing.
You’ve disagreed, and then agreed!
The document relates to the submission of samples to a genetic sequencing programme. (I think the programme aims to monitor which variants are beating the “vaccines”.) It is not an instruction of when to count a “vaccinated” person as RT-PCR positive.
No limit is specified for “everyday PCR testing”, because specimens from “everyday” testing are not being submitted for sequencing. (There, very probably, is a programme that sequences a subsample, and, for all we know, that may also specify a Ct threshold, to ensure only high quality samples are investigated genetically.)
We can, however, agree that there should be a limit, for “everyday” testing.
You’ve missed the point. I’ve confirmed with colleagues in the US. The program is to detect whether vaccinated patients can contract the virus. To minimise the numbers they are limiting the Ct. My colleagues are trying to find out more.
“program[me] is to detect whether vaccinated patients can contract the virus”
That’s not what it says in the picture you posted. The pictured text says the programme is for investigating trends (etc.).
If you’ve taken a different point, from your “colleagues in the US”, then, of course, I’ve missed it; I don’t know your colleagues!
Taking nothing away from the terrible situation in India but it was reported that they recorded their worst daily death toll of 3,700 recently.
Now India’s population is more than 20 times larger than the UK.
Has the MSM forgotten when Funguson, the bogeyman forecast 4,000 deaths a day here?
No surprise there, then!
The average daily death rate in India is around 25,000. Mostly from heart disease, diarrhoea and respiratory diseases.
Kevin O’Sullivan: ‘We will semi forgive them (the government, for scaring people into obeying the rules).
The British people are unlikely to forgive a government that has killed thousands of its own citizens through its own incompetence, by following the maunderings of a proven charlatan.
The developing world is unlikely to forgive this country for plunging millions back into extreme poverty, starvation and an early grave.
Re. the Telegraph’s review of Fergusson’s book :
“But the most striking thing about the pandemic of 1957 is that no one remembers it, that it left almost no mark on its generation.”
This is actually not true, as other old farts here have mentioned. If you caught a bad dose, you remember very well indeed.
Which is why a lot of my generation have absolutely no illusions about what a virus can do, but also have a sane view of this much milder one and the absurdity of the induced panic.
I’ve been looking at these plots from ONS. They present information nice and clear. In Figure 3 you can see excess deaths and compare them to covid19 and non-c19. There is spring excess (lockdowns have for sure contributed in part to the excess). Winter excess period has seen c19 deaths being clearly overcounted (plus lockdowns have for sure contributed in some part to excess). The whole point of looking at excess deaths is because of the way c19 deaths are labeled (mass testing with high thresholds / oversensitive tests, deaths within a month of positive test, c19 symptoms the same as any ILI symptoms, etc.); the age and health status of people (it follows natural mortality in age and health. actually it is even slightly more skewed towards older people). From the start the question was: is it ‘from’ or ‘with’ c19.
Which brings me to Fig 2. There are 2 panels, 1st for c19 and 2nd for influenza & pneumonia. They separated deaths “due to” and “contributing factor”, but this is what is being questioned so ignoring this.
c19 deaths seem to roughly follow excess deaths (even if they overcount them in winter) so it has been concluded that they do cause premature death. Topic of mortality displacement for another time. Just to quickly say that even common colds often “kill” people in nursing homes and such, and shorten their lives by several months. But no one is crazy to say that common cold is responsible for death, we call it natural death as we should.
I’m interested in panel which presents influenza & pneumonia. First of all it shows influenza in winter but there has been talk of influenza disappearing. So, what is going on? Second, and more important, the influenza & pneumonia also follow excess deaths. If same standards in attributing cause of death were applied to influenza, other ILI and respiratory pathogens, as they were applied to c19, could all of the excess deaths be explained by these pathogens as well then? Ans also, all those deaths “involving” influenza during summer of 2020, if the same standards were applied, how many influenza death would be there? For sure a lot more.
I saw a long time ago on LS that someone approached this topic but haven’t seen being talked about ever since by LS or by other people on social networks.
Can someone more experienced (an LS contributor) approach this topic. I think it is worth exploring, especially since it stands right there on all weekly ONS bulletins.
-example of latest ONS bulletin:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending16april2021
Milos
I can answer a couple of your points. ONS does not record pneumonia and influenza deaths separately (unlike Covid neither is a notifiable disease) so it has no option but to lump them together. It might be better described as influenza or pneumonia. There are separate lines of evidence that there is virtually no flu this year and so in fact these are almost all cases of pneumonia. In particular UK testing labs report the number of requests to test for flu (from doctors etc) and how many are positive. There are almost no positive results. See https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports.
The flu + pneumonia graph shadows the excess deaths pattern this year and last year. But this doesn’t normally happen (unfortunately older reports are archived and hard to find) because excess deaths are deaths in excess of what is expected for the time of year and flu and pneumonia deaths are expected to increase in the winter. So excess deaths show deaths in excess of what you usually get for flu and pneumonia – if that makes sense.
Thanks for the information. It’s clearer now about influenza and how they check for it. I bookmark the link and will read it in more detail. But it seems clear they don’t check for these common respiratory pathogens as nearly (x1000 less at least) as they did/do for covid19 with mass PCR testing. They do some kind of estimate for influenza each year based on these small number of samples. Imagine if they developed PCR test for all types of influenza, and did this kind of mass testing with ct thresholds to high (oversensitive) in 2019, 2018, 2017 for example and every death within 28 days of positive test was influenza death. There would be x10-100 more influenza deaths.
It still seems very weird that influenza disappeared this winter. In any case efforts should be put to investigate this more. How much money every country is wasting on covid19, this ‘missing influenza’ might provide some important information for now and future if real. The same holds true for now about 10 studies showing coronavirus19 being present few to several months around the globe before first official detections. If true (at it seems it is), this would change almost everything. If governments and WHO really cared about covid19 they would invest a lot of money (which would still be small part of money wasted on covid19) in investigating this.
The pneumonia part in 2020-21, these should be recorded deaths, not estimates. Pneumonia is caused by some ILI or other respiratory pathogen. Unless they included in pneumonia deaths c19 deaths, then it still shows non-c19 respiratory pathogens contributing to pneumonia and it roughly follows excess deaths.
But in any case, when you look at 5y average for pneumonia in summer. These are a lot of deaths. Most probably they were in people very old and frail (like c19 btw). If in the last 5y they took PCR mass testing for any respiratory pathogen that cases pneumonia, and defined death as 28 days from positive test, then all these relatively mild respiratory pathogens would become deadly killers, in summer as well as in winter.
Anyway, the plot bellow shows official c19 deaths below 5y average (all cause) in winter 2020/21 (2 weeks of bank holiday around new year excluded). It looks like it’s natural peak, follows excess deaths, but these are fake c19 deaths. Having something following excess deaths does not mean it is the cause of them or that it is real.
Milos
I am a bit confused about your comment. I hope what I am about to write addresses your points but I may well be wrong!
Record of Flu and Pneumonia deaths
I am not sure how these are done but just because the ONS lumps them together it doesn’t mean they can’t be counted separately elsewhere. Doctors have to specify a primary cause of death on the death certificate – so that is one source. Also there is a PCR test for flu which is used in the labs – pretty much everyone who dies of flu is going to be tested beforehand – so that’s another source.
It really isn’t surprising that flu disappeared this winter. Lockdowns work even better for flu than they do for Covid! (I know you won’t like this explanation but it satisfies me). Note I am not suggesting we impose lockdowns to combat flu – it is just a handy side effect.
Estimating Covid Deaths
There are two main ways – one is death within 28 of a positive test, the other is Covid specified as main cause of death on the death certificate. (There is a third – Covid specified as a cause but not necessarily the main cause but I am ignoring this as rather dicey). The two methods are remarkably close and interestingly the death certificate method tends to give a slightly higher result than the 28 days method. This gives me quite a lot of faith in them.
Your Plot
It looks interesting but I don’t understand it. What exactly do the numbers mean?
Toby Young is wrong to use official all India death rates to downplay the crisis. The epidemic is concentrated in a few states – three of them account for 50% of all deaths. If you look at these states the current death rate is similar to the current highest country – Hungary – and the UK rate when it peaked. Maybe we should call it the Delhi or Maharashtra or Chhattisgarh crisis (Each of them has populations larger than most countries). But while Hungary’s rate is going down, the Indian rates are going up. And while the Hungarian figures are reliable, there are multiple lines of evidence that the Indian figures are a gross underestimate (e.g. cemeteries handling many times more bodies than reported deaths).
Note that this is nothing to do with with whether lockdowns work or are a good idea. It is simply recognising there is an exceptional tragedy unfolding, treating it with compassion, and hopefully supporting efforts to help. You can be an ardent lockdown sceptic and still recognise the problem.
You’ve made a critical point, very thoroughly.
Note: “50% of Delhi population has Covid antibodies” (according to sampling completed on 21 January”. (https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/half-of-delhi-population-exposed-to-covid-virus-all-we-know-about-sero-survey-101611636740197.html)
How does this fit with surging Delhi cases now? Is Delhi suffering the CoViD-21, that had been rumoured for April? Are the malaise and deaths being caused by something other than a coronavirus – pollution (or even 5G!)?
CovidiousAlbion – thanks for reading my comment and replying. I am afraid the question is beyond my pay grade. Pure conjecture but it may be a combination of:
What do you think is happening?
A couple of things. Unlikely that reinfection is happening because of a variant. As immunity from the original SARS appears to be potent against SARS-Cov-2 a simple varient, unless more than 20% different, would seem incapable of defeating it.
There can be little doubt that the States mentioned have significantly higher population concentration and very high levels of pollution. If we have difficulty accurately allocating cause of death in the UK it must be even harder in a country like India.
It is not denial to ask questions. Either India is a harbinger of a new and apparently significantly more lethal virus or it is, due to a combination of factors, an example of how an existing URI exploits vulnerable populations.
Also out of interest, it reinforces the evidence that Ivermectin use in some Indian States seems to have significant effect on mortality.
India remains below the world average for deaths per million, and not even in the 100 countries with the highest levels.
Please read my comment above. Averaging across the whole of India is pretty meaningless. If you look at the states that are worst affected it tells a very different story.
Let me highlight the fact that the first 50% seemed to acquire antibodies, without much fuss. We didn’t have the BBC telling us about overloaded hospitals, oxygen shortages, cremations in car parks, etc. (In passing, there’s a similar report of 57% in Mumbai: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/mumbai-sero-survey-finds-antibodies-in-57-of-those-tested-in-slums/articleshow/77245665.cms.)
Any epidemiologist would expect an infection to spread markedly slower, when it’s facing a community with 50% immunity, than when it’s the new pathogen on the block. So, we’d be looking for a variant which is significantly more transmissible, plus, possibly, partly able to defeat immunity to the earlier version. I’m not qualified to judge, but I don’t think this is at all likely, for a naturally mutating virus.
A further possibility, that I’ve seen elsewhere, is that India is experiencing “vaccine” induced deaths. This hypothesis may be easy to investigate, depending upon available data.
I’m sure there is a very interesting, and important, explanation, but I can no more than guess.
” a variant which is significantly more transmissible, plus, possibly, partly able to defeat immunity to the earlier version”
these are exactly the properties that the Indian variant is suspected of having. It is based on two mutations which can easily occur by chance.
Vaccine induced deaths? There have been tens of millions of all the vaccines in use under the most rigorous scrutiny and all that has been found is a one in a million chance of blood clots if you are young woman.
Whatever is going on with the immunity (maybe they were just crap surveys or, more likely, badly reported) the fact is that people are dying at an appalling rate and at a much higher rate then ever before – hence no prior news stories about overloaded hospitals, oxygen shortages, cremations in car parks.
“suspected of having” – by whom, and how credible are those suspicions? This has the markings of a circular argument.
Toby’s interview on TalkRadio:
Why do people disparage him for trying to put the current situation in India in context. You might not like him but that does not mean he has to be a bloody Doctor or Professor to put things in context using figures we all have available. It’s lazy buggers, that believe anything, that have caused the damage this past year and, unfortunately, there’s millions of them incapable of thinking for themselves.
Rant over ….for now.
Please read my comment below. No disparagement of him as a person – just pointing out an error in the way he interprets the statistics.
Great video from Dr Lee, but why on earth are the people who made it – Unlocked UK – on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube? At least mirror on Gab, MeWe and Rumble, or other equivalents.
Toby did an excellent job, as usual, on the Teev. The Twitteraties’ response of bile and frothing at the mouth was especially gratifying.
Please read my comment below. No bile or frothing at the mouth – just pointing out an error in the way he interprets the statistics.