There follows a guest post by the Lockdown Sceptics’ in-house medic, a former NHS doctor.
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
I hope the readers will forgive a little self-indulgence on my part if I relate an anecdote from the tail end of my 12 years as a junior doctor in the early years of the first Blair government. At the time, the Health Secretary Alan Milburn (advised by the youthful Simon Stevens) had issued strict waiting time targets to all hospitals.
I was tasked with sorting out the numbers of patients on the surgical waiting lists at a large teaching hospital. It became apparent that if a patient had a date for surgery, they were no longer counted as ‘waiting’, even if that date was many months in the future. Accordingly, I issued dozens of patients dates for surgery and achieved compliance with the waiting time targets at a stroke.
There was just one problem. Both the managers and I knew that all those patients had virtually no chance of getting into the hospital on their designated dates. Due to lack of available beds, they would all be cancelled a couple of days before admission. At a meeting with the CEO of the Trust, I pointed this out. He looked me in the eye and said, “Let me make one thing clear to you. There is no problem with beds in this hospital.”
I briefly considered debating the assertion, but realised it was a pointless endeavour. The facts did not fit the Chief Executive’s preferred narrative – so the facts had to change. He was subsequently awarded a Knighthood for services to healthcare.
And so, here we are twenty years later – still believing six impossible things before breakfast. We might call it the ‘rule of six’!
Here is my first example where a target failed to be matched by real world data. When considering facts there are three basic components. Understanding the collection process and the inherent errors and bias within that, the interpretation process, during which there will be a range of opinion, (although currently only one viewpoint is permitted) and finally presentation of the data which is open to the greatest amount of bias.
Graph 1 shows the actual number of patients admitted with COVID from the community in June (orange bars). The blue line indicates where SAGE predicted it would be as a consequence of easing lockdown restrictions. How annoying – the data does not correlate with the prediction. In fact, hospital admissions are stubbornly refusing to increase significantly.
Never mind. If we simply state loudly that something nasty ‘could happen’ in the future that will cover just about every situation where the observable data do not support the required conclusion. And we can also show Graph 2 – which records the number of positive ‘cases’ in May-June 2021. The public won’t realise that most of these cases were asymptomatic and they may well think that they are the same as people being admitted to hospital.
We should try not to show Graph 3, which puts the recent rise in ‘cases’ into its proper context. Graph 2 better supports the preferred narrative, so that is the preferred one to show at press conferences. By presenting the data in this way, we are not actually lying, just presenting to the audience the information that supports our preferred outcome and not referencing information that does not support our narrative. You may very well think this is misinformation. I could not possibly comment.
Second on my list of six is the Vaccine Minister, Nadim Zahawi. Before entering politics, Mr Zahawi ran YouGov, the political polling company. At the Government press conference on June 23rd, Mr Zahawi claimed that delaying the final milestone of ‘unlocking’ on June 21st had saved “thousands of lives”. How did he arrive at this statement?
A recent PHE document had this to say about the number of lives saved by the vaccines:
PHE estimates to May 30th 2021 based on the direct effect of vaccination and vaccine coverage rates, are that that 11,800 deaths were averted in individuals aged 80 years and older, 1,800 in individuals aged 70 to 79 and 400 in individuals aged 60 to 69 years giving a total of 14,000 deaths averted in individuals aged 60 years or older in England. There is increasing evidence that vaccines prevent infection and transmission.
Did Zahawi simply parrot the PHE estimates up to May 30th, wrongly using them as an estimate of the effect of delaying unlocking past June 21st? Is this a simple misattribution error on his part, or a deliberate attempt to mislead? I note that none of the bovine journalists in attendance at the press conference challenged him on these implausible figures. On the contrary, his assertion was obligingly retweeted by Beth Rigby from Sky.
I also note the heavy skew in prevented deaths to the older age group. Presumably, that’s because the more vaccinations are given to younger people, the Number Needed to Treat (NNT) to prevent one death goes up substantially. Based on recently published analysis of the Israeli experience, the NNT across the whole population was 16,000. Zahawi asserted that as of June 21st there were two million people over 50 who had only had one dose – let’s be generous and assume all these two million either are or are going to be vaccinated in the period between June 21st and July 19th. Using the real-world Israeli experience, this gives a predicted prevented death number attributable to vaccination of 125 for the period June 21st-July 19th (and that may be a substantial over-estimate).
Would Zahawi have been so cavalier with the facts if he had been giving a statement to the House of Commons? Is his carelessness with attributing statistical estimates a reflection on the practices of YouGov? The reader can decide for themselves on the second impossible thing before breakfast.
My third impossible belief is the assumption that people working for the government or supranational bodies such as UEFA or the G7 are either not susceptible to COVID infection and are therefore excused the requirements for regular testing and quarantine, or too important to be inconvenienced by the regulations for normal people.
Kate Andrews writing in the Spectator has helpfully outlined various ‘pilot schemes’ by which Government figures and other privileged people can move around the globe freely on the basis that their activities are more important than those of the people who elect them. Here is the official extract in relation to exemptions from the regulations.
How plausible is it that such arbitrary exemptions to the ‘rules’ will be limited to the Euro football competition or the G7 meeting? Isn’t it more likely, that, over time, the rich, powerful and well connected will be able to obtain exemptions? Maybe held on a mobile phone app for example as a ‘super vaccine passport’ allowing them to travel freely, unhindered by the majority of the population prevented from free movement by regulatory cost and red tape.
My fourth impossible belief relates to the data on COVID spread at mass gatherings and positive test ratios on people returning from overseas travel. Here is the link to the Events Research Programme report published on June 25th I encourage readers to explore this document in detail for themselves and discover the depth of population monitoring and control it contains. I find it deeply sinister.
The headline figures are that out of 58,000 people attending nine events, a total of 28 positive PCR cases were recorded (0.0005%). This has been reported in the press as good news from the perspective of re-opening public mass events and indeed it is.
But delve deeper into the actual report which heavily caveats the results and recommends ongoing and more in-depth surveillance. Against a backdrop of a population antibody positivity of 80% (ONS statistics), with 60% of the adult population having received two jabs and over 80% having had one, the idea that surveillance of this type has anything to do with protecting public health seems completely implausible to me. Mark Harper MP, chair of the COVID recovery group thinks it is implausible as well – on June 16th he tweeted: “Documents I have seen confirm that work is underway in Govt to plan for Covid restrictions this autumn and winter.”
My fifth impossible thing happened yesterday, Saturday June 26th. An enormous crowd marched from Hyde Park to Parliament Square with only the most cursory comment from the national broadcaster – and that attributed it to multiple protesting groups, rather than anti-lockdown protestors. If I hadn’t been there, I would not have believed it. I’m not a natural demonstrator – only ever attended one previous protest in 1984. Today convinced me that if there is a route out of this crisis, it will be by direct political action. What limited coverage there has been on the mainstream media has claimed the anti-lockdowners on the march were led by Covid deniers and anti-vaxxers. There is no doubt that some people on the protest were carrying such banners, but the vast majority were normal people, similar to myself. The frustration and rage at the deceptions and propaganda practiced by our elected representatives and salaried state servants were palpable. I’m already looking forward to the next one.
Last on my list are the actions of the recently departed Health Secretary. According to his press statement on Friday June 25th, Mr Hancock believed that his recent indiscretion captured on CCTV with his close personal assistant was a purely private matter. Much has already been written in the press and on social media about this issue and I will not add to the commentary, except to suggest that if Mr Hancock really does believe his personal conduct is a purely private matter, we really are through the looking glass.
Anyway, he’s gone and the prurient speculation around Hancock’s sexual activities are quite irrelevant to our main dilemma, the root of which lies in the dysfunction of government in a ‘managed democracy’. We are in a position where the skills and attributes needed to get elected are totally divergent from the skills needed to govern well. Elected politicians have become PR spokespeople for their factions, while unelected and unaccountable career civil servants actually run the process. Having spent my entire career observing such characters at work in ‘our NHS’, that’s something to be very worried about.
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I think the “impossible things” description is very accurate. People are unable to believe the impossible thing that they are being lied to wholesale by their leaders, and that the whole world has gone mad, so instead they choose to believe them despite it being obvious nonsense. The whole experience is profoundly disturbing for people.
And even more profoundly disturbing for those of us who can see the nonsense for what it is. 16 months and I still wake up not quite able to believe where society has got to.
Yep that’s much more frightening than a non existent pandemic.
a genuine Pandemic doesn’t nee 24/7 media fear mongering
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Double vaccination is no guarantee of protection.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15407549/andrew-marr-positive-covid-both-jabs-g7/
Apparently 50% of Covid cases in Israel involve DVs.
People forget that vaccines attempt to co-opt your natural immunity system. If your system is totally effed up you aren’t going to survive even with double vaccination.
Back in February Imperial found that 12% of the over-eighties tested negative for Covid antibodies after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine:
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/latest-findings-antibody-surveillance-study-published
Not a huge surprise really; the age-related Covid mortality is partly down to immune systems that become less effective with increasing age – less effective at fighting actual infections and less likely to react adequately to vaccines. However, that same 12% will now be classified as “double jabbed” along with everyone else…
Yet those commenting on Marr’s admission state that: “you didn’t end up in hospital, therefore the vaccines work”.
Too thick to concede that the vast majority of those catching Covid in the first wave, didn’t end up in hospital either.
Unbelievable stupidity, or perhaps rearranging facts to suit their world view; a bit like the CEO of the hospital trust in this excellent article.
“Too thick to concede that the vast majority of those catching Covid in the first wave, didn’t end up in hospital either.”
Spot on.
“you didn’t end up in hospital, therefore the vaccines work”.
That he was so ill proves the vaccine he had doesn’t work.
Luckily, he has an immune system that should stop him getting ill again with CV19.
But then, the gene therapies f*ck with your immune system, especially young peoples one.
Which could well wreak havoc on their ability to respond to other future infections.
But then, maybe that’s also just another part of the plan.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210510/Research-suggests-Pfizer-BioNTech-COVID-19-vaccine-reprograms-innate-immune-responses.aspx
And Andrew Marr reports that he was double vaxxed early on, and got Covid covering the G7 summit. And it was nasty, ie symptomatic. He is pretty fit for his age, and not fat (leaving the stroke aside).
So it either didn’t work or has worn off,
Don’t stop you getting it, don’t stop you spreading it?
I’m also an ex-NHS doctor, though since cancelling my direct debit to the GMC (still waiting for them to notice) I feel slightly fraudulent using the title. I’m also the same vintage as the author, and can confirm all that they say about what is essentially propaganda released by the NHS and HMG. However, I fear the worst is yet to come. The vast waiting lists will take many years to clear, so long that the current charlatans are highly likely to face their next election with appalling NHS statistics hanging over them like a Damoclean sword; “unprecedented times” will surely sound a bit jaded by 2024? Of course, some patients will leave the waiting lists by being treated, and others by obligingly dying, but yet more will join those lists, partly fuelled by the economic and social consequences of prolonged lockdowns. Meanwhile, the NHS staffing problem will have got worse. No, really. Last financial year saw a record number of hospital doctors retiring, though their proportion of early retirements has yet to catch up with GPs, around half of whom have been exiting prematurely for several years running (last year’s figure actually fell to only 42%). This year should see that increase again and as for next year… A large cohort will retire early in 2022 thanks to the pensions debacle, which is complicated. Let’s just say that our gold plated pensions are being replaced with silver plated versions, most of which comes off after a few passes through the dishwasher. Expect so many lies, that the odd truth may well go completely unnoticed!
… and, of course, Covid comes to hand to explain any legacy cock-ups from this political disease.
If you’re calling yourself ‘doctor’ without holding a doctorate you are a total fraud, not slightly fraudulent.
What is far, far worse is that several governments throughout the world are foisting the shite in a syringe onto people in the pretence it is a ‘vaccine’.
Of course he has a doctorate, that is a qualification and never goes out of date. Registration with an accrediting body is something entirely different.
Well… Billy’s somewhat dismissive comment also contains a grain of truth. Some medical doctors do hold doctorates in the UK – as separate qualifications – but their medical qualifications are only bachelor degrees, and ordinary ones at that. Strictly speaking, the title Doctor is an honorary one, complicated further by fellows of surgical colleges (which I am) adopting the title Mister (if male). There remains some debate about what to call retired doctors…
I stand corrected, thank you. Billy’s comment was still uncalled for.
I hate to inform you that medical doctors in the UK do not have doctorates. The title ‘Doctor’ is an honorary title given to those who graduate with a bachelors degree in medicine and who then enter the medical profession.
Advice to HMG: “If all else fails, try honesty”. Nah, that’ll never catch on
Now, that was worth reading in full..
Agreed, really well written and thoughtful. Working for the NHS myself, the doctor’s description of their experiences doesn’t surprise me at all. The level of dysfunction and double-speak (especially around NHS “values”) is off the chart.
Another ‘impossible thing’ to believe
‘The removal of Cummings and Hancock were not intelligence agency operations’
The intelligence agencies would not consider themselves doing their job if they did not know the contents of every phone in Whitehall
Remember that the Pig Dictator moved GCHQ into Downing Street
So they knew what was on Cummings phone. But how to get it out in the public domain so they could use it to sack him
Leak a story (a new lockdown on the way), have a leak investigation and ‘find’ what you already know
Bang he’s gone
They would have known from the phones who Matt was shagging and where. Covert cameras in government offices? One would need to be in possession of ‘intelligence’ to be able to know where to place the camera.
Leaked to the Sun by a ‘whistle blower’. Is that what they are calling spies now?
Make no bones about it that video clip would not have appeared in the press unless the Pig Dictator and the intelligence agencies sanctioned it
From one photo I’ve seen of the office or wherever it was Hancock was snogging his mistress, the camera was of the type regularly used in supermarkets, etc. It’s wasn’t exactly hidden, but in plain view on the ceiling. I assume he’d forgotten it was there, or assumed he could carry on with his affair without being snitched on.
The question less about the camera and more about who leaked it.
Agreed. Schools in which I have taught have these in all the corridors, which is where a lot of misbehaviour occurs (!) during lesson changes.
On one occasion a recording proved that I did not hit a pupil as she claimed.
Very lucky for you.
I hope she was punished for lying.
Plausible, but why get rid of Hancock now, when he still could be useful? He was never going to rock the boat.
Do you believe it was because Carried wanted Javid to have a better job?
Damned auto- correct: Carrie…….
Occam. It was a balance which, in the end came down in favour of him going. I thought it was more likely to end in him continuing for a while, which might have been a smart move. But, there you go.
Nah. Hancock could have been moved in the coming shuffle. He’d obviously pissed off his entire office staff, one of them contacted the Sun, and either took a video of the security footage on his phone, or was given a little kit by the Sun for the nookie room. Pre nookie room. Wotever. And congratulations to whoever took that step, and cheered up the entire nation.
Why are the dates on the graph using the American system of month before the day?
Because it makes it look as if it goes back to January, (5/1), instead of May, (1/5), thus giving the impression of things being worse for longer. There really is no other explanation- someone MUST have altered the settings to show the US date format- it simply doesn’t happen by chance.
Only if one were a simpleton.
Not really sure what you’re getting at, but the date format must have been altered regardless.
The software uses US date format by default, possibly?
The rest of the world uses tthe US format, possibly?
(December the 23rd or the 23rd of December, which is ‘correct’?)
Graph 1 has ‘months’ 13 to 21.
Graph 2 has ‘months’ 15, 22, and 29.
Graph 3 is labelled Jan to June 2021, and yet the ‘month’ is always January, of which, only the first 6 ‘days’ of 2021 are displayed.
Anyone who had not sussed mmddyyyy by Graph 1 should not be attempting the interpretation of data at all.
“it makes it look as if it goes back to January, (5/1), instead of May, (1/5), thus giving the impression of things being worse for longer.”
A simpleton.
But you must be aware, (as are the Government), that absolutely no one who glances at these charts will take any notice of any of the finer details. That is my point. Just because someone doesn’t pore over the fine details doesn’t make them a simpleton. They certainly should not trust this, (or any), government to present data in an unbiased manner, but sadly most people do. I analyse charts for a living and long ago learnt to look closely because if someone is trying to make you look at one thing it is almost certainly because they don’t want you to see something else.
I love the articles by this doctor. Thoughtful, measured, wry, well-written.
Yes, I wish he was my doctor instead of the current cretins
Brilliant as always.
Here’s a fun thing that I have started doing, for my own amusement, and for disconcerting the maskoids.
As the masked zombie passes, I mutter, in a dead, flat monotone (but loud enough and distinct enough for the zombie to hear): “Build Back Better, For The Greater Good”.
Accompanied by the following ritualistic hand movement: Right hand to left ear, imitate hooking a mask strap to said left ear; then right hand drawn across the face, to the right ear, imitating hooking the other mask strap in place.
The zombies really don’t know how to react. Not only because of my strange, cultish incantation – but also because they can clearly see my unmasked, human face.
Next week, I am going to vary the formula, with “Build Back Better, Grab a Jab”.
Any suggestions for further variations, to keep it fresh? I have a feeling that I will be doing this for many weeks …
I find just giving them a big smile and a cheerful Good Morning seems enough to scare them.
Must check my mirror.
Yes, they really do resemble victims or survivors in some sort of zombie apocalypse movie with the fearful glances and all the leaping out of your path don’t they?
That’s to avoid the JW handshake and cheery claptrap.
I offer them neither. I just refuse to wear a mask in the street or move out of their way.
As do I, but why post paeons of self praise on the web?
Thank you for your humbling post. I thought I was merely sharing my experiences of current affairs. I shall retreat to my rock until the government allows me to venture out.
They probably think you are a Jehovah’s Witness.
“We are in a position where the skills and attributes needed to get elected are totally divergent from the skills needed to govern well.”
I reckon that’s accurate. But if civil servants ‘run things’ – that’s also down to the uselessness of those politicians. Again – blame where blame is due. Although intent may play a large part in this shit-show, it is also obvious that a large proportion of parliamentarians are intellectually bereft. You have to be capable of matching your advisors intellectually, and in overview, if not in technical detail.
Civil servants have always run things, ‘Yes Minister’ was faction.
Two things have changed. The direction of government has changed, ie the orders, the strategy. And the external consultants have gained ascendency who are determining that strategy in common purpose ( deliberate wording) with colleagues performing the same role throughout 5-eyes governments.
I would add that the civil service has also become much more bloated, costly and mean towards citizens and the private sector.
They, quite correctly, regard it as a war between the two.
They realize that if they lose that war, they will eventially lose much of their power, income and pension privileges.
Which is why they are using their current, increased, power ever more ruthlessly to increase each of the three, to make them even more unassailable, increase their numbers even further and thereby win that war.
Until everything collapses, and that just because of this having been achieved, of course.
A wise comment re “Yes, Minister”! It’s always been like that, if only because politicians are mainly neither legally nor technically qualified to do the work they are supposed to manage. In fact, even within major pro institutions, fashions come and go – e.g. what happens in consultancy firms that deal with urban development, road planning/construction etc. Local government councils have contracts with them for that kind of work; it’s not all done in house under elected Councillors. Until I retired, I used to be an engineering ‘consultant’ in one of them (in the railway industry in my case), and I’m kind of familiar with it all.
Good stuff Toby, but ‘anti-vaxxers’ are normal people too.
I’m not jabbed with this experimental gene therapy, but am quite normal.
The ‘Events Research Programme’ seems to me typical of reports put together by government ministries to support or otherwise policy. Usually they reside in filing cabinets or hard disks in case they are required for briefing for select committee meetings etc. What is unusual with this government is that they actually seem to be operating strategy based on their results. Which is one of the reasons for the mess.
This I believe is an indication of Johnson’s complete inability to lead or indeed assume any responsibilities. He actually waits to be told what is in these reports and basically he is told what to do by a load of ‘experts’ who like most experts are completely myopic.
Intellectual pygmy.
Well, here’s one more impossible thing that is happening today. Massive rave in central London. I can’t imagine it will be reported on MSM unless spun as lunatics spreading the plague, forcing continued lockdown and all destined to be dead in a week. Good luck to all involved and hope you have a great time. P.S. hardly any masks in view except on the cops – presumably to make them harder to identify.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xmMDhFNHZo
I was at the March yesterday. I’m already dead from the deadly terrible virus. I give that lot about an hour and the bodies will be piled in the streets. Cos they’re maskless and we all know that masks are really effective. I wish I’d worn one yesterday, or better still, two. Then I wouldnt be dead.
The marches and raves actually also demonstrated and demonstrate quite clearly that the restrictions and (testing or vaxx pass) controls at mass events, particularly current ones like the Euros or soon Goodwood, completely idiotic and useless, pure chicanery to increase vaxx uptake.
Obviously, that’s also another reason to pretend that they never happened.
Dead right!
I can’t say that I am impressed by your medical ‘ethics’.
Regarding the collection of data, there can be no figures for those admitted to hospital with Covid because there is no test for the virus.
PS: I should have written accurate figures and accurate tests.
Katie Hopkins: Angela Merkel banning Brits from EU. Alright for her to fly to G7 Though?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_eCQyuETE4
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday 10am meet fellow lockdown sceptics
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell