We’re publishing another critique today, this one by Glen Bishop, of the new paper in Nature by Neil Ferguson and others claiming that a lockdown in Sweden would have resulted in a two- to four- fold reduction in mortality. Hard to credit they’re still banging this drum, given that Ferguson’s team originally predicted the absence of a lockdown in Sweden would have resulted in up to 90,000 deaths by July 2020. The real number was 5370. When will Ferguson admit he simply got it wrong?
In the latest episode of the Imperial modelling saga, Imperial have dusted off old modelling techniques and cherry picked the time scale and countries in a study to try to disparage the Swedish success, the Achilles heel of the lockdown lobby. In the paper published in Nature, Imperial propose a counterfactual model, whereby the Danish, Swedish and British responses to coronavirus are transposed to the other two countries respectively, to compare the effectiveness of each approach in reducing covid mortality when accounting for the heterogeneities between the countries.
Imperial’s team models the respective change in R value through the first months of the pandemic using the death data from each country. Interestingly, it implies that the R0 value of the virus in March 2020 in the U.K. was around 4.5, far higher than previous estimates of 2.5 to 3. These changes in the R-value are then applied to the other countries. The problem is that the Imperial team then retrospectively model the pandemic for each hypothetical scenario using the same flawed modelling techniques which have consistently been wildly inaccurate. Despite Professor Ferguson misleading Matt Ridley at a select committee hearing to suggest Imperial had not produced estimates for Sweden, his Imperial team had in fact predicted between 30,000 and 42,000 deaths in Sweden with social distancing lockdowns and up to 90,000 deaths by July 2020 if the pandemic was left unmitigated. By July 2020 the actual figure was 5370, an order of magnitude below Imperial’s predictions.
The logic to supporting the lockdowns has thus become cyclical, relying on the modelling that influenced lockdown policies in the first place, with Imperial inevitably concluding the following: “Sweden adopting U.K. policies would have resulted in a two- to four- fold reduction in mortality (Table 1). Had the U.K. adopted Swedish policies, deaths would have increased deaths by a factor of between 1.6 and 4.”
This is naïve and misleading at best. The scenario modelled only runs up to July 2020 and had the U.K. or Sweden suppressed the spread to reduce mortality during that period it would have led to increased mortality in future waves, particularly with the rapidly increasing infectiousness of the variants. Hungary is perhaps the best illustration of this point. It was celebrated last year after suppressing the first wave and experiencing very low mortality, yet went on to have the highest mortality rate in Europe after coronavirus surged the following winter within a population with little natural immunity and at a time when hospitals are under pressure.
The evidence within the paper to support the conclusion – that “small differences in the timing and effectiveness of control strategies have dramatic effects on the resulting numbers of cases and deaths” – relies on the non-existent credibility of the team’s previous attempts to model the pandemic and is easily negated with the reality all over the world. Across the globe, a wide range of interventions have been tried at different times over the past 18 months, with varying levels of severity, but little evidence of an correlation between those variables and different outcomes. We only have to look at the similar outcomes in Peru and Brazil, for example, or Florida and California, to see how different approaches yield the same results in regions with similar populations.
Professor Samir Bhatt, a Professor of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen and a member of the Imperial team that pushed the U.K. into lockdown, even admits: “Many times I would have thought that the situation would have gone a different way, but it worked for Sweden… They achieved infection control; they managed to keep infections relatively low, and they didn’t have any health care collapse.” Yet, as the Telegraph has highlighted, “real benefits of Sweden’s radical policy, however, can be seen in the economy, the psychological impact, and in schools”. The U.K. experienced a 9.8% drop in GDP compared to Sweden’s 2.8%, with Sweden’s economy back at pre-pandemic levels by June 2021 after the fastest economic rebound in Europe. While young people in the U.K. suffered large educational disruption, few Swedish students missed any school.
The paper continues to support lockdowns as if they were a laboratory experiment on rats with no damaging side effects or moral hazards involved. It remains completely blinkered to anything but an obsession with controlling one particular virus, with a reckless disregard for the wider societal consequences of the lockdown policies they advocate. In the ethics declaration on the paper, the Imperial team declare “no competing interests”, yet this is not the case. It is clearly in the interests of the Imperial team to denigrate Sweden’s policy as best they can. If their paper was to conclude anything else, they would have to admit that they have caused enormous damage to society and cost countless excess non-Covid deaths in the UK and around the world because of their advice. It is strongly in the interest of their careers, reputation and standing in society to spin Sweden as a failure in any way they can.
Glen Bishop is a maths student at Nottingham University.
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H1N1 or ‘normal’ flu with its IFR of 0.03% overtakes in ‘cases’ the terrifying Rona virus with its IFR of 0.03%….surely diapers, forced stabbinations and LDs must be imposed? For Granny. For the children. For Gaia. No one is safe from the ‘normal’ flu until we all are. Think of others. Do your duty. Sacrifice. Fight. $cience. This is the greatest battle since well. er…ah Rona, or climate thingy.
Without compelling evidence to the contrary I assume by default that government statistics are lies or distortions, therefore I can’t take seriously anything that talks about “flu hospitalisations” and “covid admissions”. We all know how the phoney concept of a “covid admission” was used to enact the biggest evil and stupidity ever perpetrated in this country.
And also now that the medical establishment has demonstrated just how inept/unethical/corrupt/unscientific/compliant/complicit they are, can we really trust doctors and hospitals to diagnose and report accurately on any and all respiratory illness now? Is the flu replacing Covid as this year’s villain given that they aren’t getting the desired effect from Covidmania any more? I smell a big fat rat because none of these jokers can be trusted to give us reliable information any longer, least of all the flipping mainstream media!
You have said it for me Mogs. For some reason ‘flu and pneumonia disappeared as they rolled out the C1984 but this year they have found both ‘flu and C1984. Wow. The testing procedures must have become ever so much more wonderfully refined, or:
“I smell a big fat rat ….”
197 000 ‘flu & pneumonia deaths to date since January 2020, about the same as alleged CoVid deaths. It is likely a number of the latter were misdiagnosed ‘flu and pneumonia.
But is it not interesting such a large number of ‘flu deaths is not reported?
Source here… choose United Kingdom from drop down.
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/selected-deaths-vs-covid-19-united-kingdom
Very nicely put M
I don’t think so. The data is accurate. What’s the difference?
Population wide uptake of a toxic substance that lowers the immune defences.
Look around you ask about and there are tons of people with very nasty flus snd other seasonal illnesses including their second or third bout of Rona.
This is the result of immunodeficiency caused by a BIOWEAPON.
Well during the “pandemic”, “covid cases”, “covid admissions” and “covid deaths” were defined as anyone with a positive PCR test within X days, regardless of what else was wrong with the patient. I don’t know how they define it now, nor do I know how they define a “flu case/admission/death”.
I agree that the evidence points to the “vaccines” harming public health, but I would base this on the increase in all-cause mortality which is a more reliable figure.
I’m only looking at hospitalisations for flu like things. These are up. It’s not necessary to distrust whether it’s covid or flu. They are way up in an environment full of jabbed people. They want to say it’s flu because they don’t want to show that these jabs don’t stop you getting Covid, in fact they make the cases more likely.
We agree that these are jab related. The thing is just anecdotally, I’ve never seen so many people bed ridden all around me, hospital or home. The hospitalisation numbers reflect this.
Quite a number of CoVid ‘deaths’ were assumed, based on reported symptoms by doctors who hadn’t seen the patient particularly in care homes. Therefore many did not have PCR tests.
Wonder if this increase of a very similar flu virus might be down to vaccines that effect your natural immunity and your t cells ability to fight any similar flu virus?
People turning down their heating to minimum probably won’t help either. But at least those plucky Ukrainians will thank us!
Yes it does!
I’ve never believed the official line that the flu, a regular visitor that has been with us since time immemorial, just so happened to disappear for one year only ( or was it a 2 year hiatus? ) but it’s now decided to return with a vengeance. Pull the other one! If all of this data being reported is based on inappropriate and highly inaccurate PCR testing then it’s just a really bad joke.
And on a related note, I thought this was some very interesting detective work done by Jikky the mouse on ”viral pneumonia”;
https://twitter.com/TheJikky/status/1603327735853629441
Also, can anybody say how the doctors are able to specifically diagnose flu and distinguish it from all other respiratory viruses that are circulating just now? Or are we just going by the judgement of the doctors assessing the symptoms the patient presents with as opposed to basing that diagnosis on actual lab work?
This quality article by A Midwestern Doctor, goes into great depth explaining the futility and negative effects of flu vaccines, amongst other things, and touches on how the flu magically vanished when Covid came along;
”In a separate 2013 BMJ article, Doshi showed that marketing strategies by authorities designed to increase influenza vaccinations (which before COVID-19 were the most widely visible public health initiative in the Western world) lack moral integrity and scientific support.
A key point Doshi mentions is that the majority of upper respiratory illnesses are caused by viruses other than influenza, thereby making claims influenza vaccines can prevent them disingenuous and also helping to explain why cases of influenza “disappeared” once the pandemic incentivized providers to instead classify all those other illnesses as COVID-19.”
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/why-do-vaccines-consistently-fail
Doctors Jefferson and Hennegen discuss this in a recent substack. Essentially, health organisations have been very sloppy about definitions for decades and the term ‘influenza’ covers a wider variety of illnesses caused by various pathogens. All of which underlines the absolute futility of try to vaccinate against them (my words, not theirs).
You’re right. I think the term ”flu” is now just a catch-all label, flung around willy nilly with the sole intention of scaring people stupid so that their behaviour can be controlled. It’s become less of an illness in its own right and more of an umbrella term it seems. I think I prefer Dr Ryan Cole’s more appropriate name for ”flu season”; ”low Vit D season”.
What is evident is the degree of marketing in favour of ‘flu jabs. Plenty of advertising of it at the pharmacy in my local supermarket, and no doubt at most others as well.
Do the UK health authorities attempt vaccine effectiveness calculations for flu? Hopefully, without counting vaccinated people as unvaccinated until a couple of weeks after they have been vaccinated.
“Or are we just going by the judgement of the doctors assessing the symptoms”
Assessing symptoms virtually / remotely, from home?
Wow that is really creepy what Jikky uncovered. Coincidence? NOT!
By any chance could it have something to do with the weather and cost of living?
The winter of 17/18 was pretty cold for the usually mild UK, with one hit of very heavy snow (waist deep, and we’re South of the M4).
Now, the last two weeks have been particularly cold, plenty of snow, yet unlike before there’s not only rampant inflation hurting finances, but also high energy costs and propaganda telling people to save energy at all costs, rather than putting their health first.
Hence we have people being cold for days at a time, which weakens their immune systems.
So even without outside factors, just the weather can screw you up.
No.
Get ready. This is restarting the paranoia. Once again everybody is to be seen as a threat. Mrs Lemming, who works at GP surgery, has just received a text stating that “MASKS ARE BEING REINTRODUCED. For all staff and patients.”. The shouting, panic-inducing, sensationalising, use of uppercase is insightful; there’s something sickeningly gleeful about it. Anyway, a precedent has been set, one which the authoritarians and the fearful will keep falling back on now. I expect the prospect of lockdowns to be spoken about next.
How much longer are we going to sit around talking about this, standing in parks, filling out petitions? There is a time for pitchforks. We are long past that time.
Never mind the pitchforks I’m all for the 50 calibre!
You don’t have to be Einstein to work this out. The quackine jabs injures the immune system, then the jabbed are injected with the flu jab = outbreak of influenza. A few decades ago a friend who worked in a laboratory told us if we knew what went into flu jabs you wouldn’t have them. Well we never had any flu jabs nor covid jabs and we’ve lived to tell the tale. There is a lesson to be learnt here.
‘This is not going to help the NHS crisis.’
Every Winter for at least two decades prior to the Scamdemic was a ‘crisis’ for the NHS.
Why?
1) Year on year reduction in beds and staff.
2) Increasing age of population which is the cohort most susceptible to respiratory viruses and the complications therefore most likely to end up requiring hospital care. So increasing number of patients.
3) Closure by 2000 of all the isolation hospitals many of which had been repurposed for geriatric care, meaning care for geriatric patients and infectious patients was transferred to general hospitals.
Only one thing will help the ‘crisis’ – removal of State monopoly and allowing insurance and provision of medical care in the competitive, free market private sector.
And…
How many of those Covid cases over the previous two years would have been ‘flu or misdiagnosed?
Viruses are competitive so one new one can replace an older one, and as we well know ‘diagnoses’’ of CoVid are very untrustworthy.
And… how many millions are now less able to resist ‘flu and other respiratory viruses after having had their immune systems banjaxed by repeat doses of experimental gene therapy?
“And… how many millions are now less able to resist ‘flu and other respiratory viruses after having had their immune systems banjaxed by repeat doses of experimental gene therapy?”
Exactly.
And it’s resistance to everything. Colds that turn into pneumonia. Flu that becomes life threatening. Cancers re-emerging.
New mRNA shots coming soon
This X Files compilation Episode is interesting….
https://substack.com/redirect/9b13fb5e-bc13-4ea6-ba1c-4c0a104f63f8?j=eyJ1IjoiaXp0d2gifQ._ql2SkTynasKWDMKiHYH3f7y8SdWhVzs3ESsghHsAjo
No calls for lockdowns, masks and restrictions yet…
Except of course in some of the fringes of the USA, such as LA and Killadelphia. And probably San Fransicko soon as well. Otherwise, We the People will NOT be fooled again!