80680
Book your tickets here to the FSU’s live discussion with Matthew Goodwin about his new book. Book your tickets here to the FSU’s live discussion with Matthew Goodwin about his new book. Book your tickets here to the FSU’s live discussion with Matthew Goodwin about his new book.
  • Log in
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Nailed It! Daily Sceptic Accurately Predicts the Delta Surge in Seven Countries

by Will Jones
8 October 2021 7:00 AM

Two months ago Anthony Brookes, Professor of Genomics and Health Data Science at the University of Leicester, wrote an important piece for the Daily Sceptic in which he assembled the “Covid jigsaw pieces into a complete pandemic picture”.

To recap, this was his summary of his argument:

  • A series of SARS-CoV-2 variants have arisen, many of which possessed a transient selective advantage that led to a wave of infection that peaked some three-to-four months later. Several such variants have spread globally, though different successful variants have arisen simultaneously in a number of countries. The result is a three-to-four month wave pattern per country, which is also apparent globally.
  • Seasonality affects variant transmissibility. Colder seasons accelerate the growth and increase the size of waves, but the continually changing environment may also differentially affect the relative transmissibility of competing variants (i.e., negatively as well as positively), thereby helping to terminate previously dominant variants and promote the growth of new ones. 
  • Overall there is a minimal positive impact from quarantine policy, isolation requirements, Test and Trace regimes, social distancing, masking or other non-pharmaceutical interventions. Initially, these were the only tools in the tool-box of interventionist politicians and scientists. At best they slightly delayed the inevitable, but they also caused considerable collateral harms.  
  • Immunity created by SARS-CoV-2 infection, layered on top of pre-existing immunity due to cross-immunity to other coronaviruses, provides good protection against infection, severe disease/death, and being infectious. Immunity created by vaccination also helps protect against serious disease and death, but does little or nothing to provide protection against infection or being infectious (which completely negates the case for vaccine ID cards). 
  • Population immunity stems mainly from natural infections, with vaccines adding only slightly to this (and only in recent months). Population immunity is created by societal waves of infection and is somewhat variant-specific. An emerging new variant is able to infect (or re-infect) some fraction of individuals and this serves to top up and broaden the scope of our population immunity to also protect against the new variant. 
  • This empirical and data-driven understanding of the pandemic allows us to make predictions. Such predictions don’t look good for some of the U.K.’s new Green List countries. But in these and all other places the ongoing arms-race between viral mutations and growing human immunity will always eventually be won by the human immune system. The virus then becomes a low-level endemic pathogen in equilibrium with its human host species. If this were not the case all humans would have been wiped out by viruses eons ago!

In the piece he made some very specific predictions about what would happen over the following months, and we’re now in a position to see how close he got to the target. He wrote:

With an essentially complete Covid jigsaw picture now assembled using an empirical data-driven approach, we can offer up some testable predictions. The first is that current Delta waves unfolding in different countries will reach natural peaks around three-to-four months after this variant arrived in each location. For example, considering countries recently added to the U.K.’s Green List, we would expect: Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania (where Delta arrived little more than one month ago) will see their nascent summer waves grow further and peak in about two months’ time; Latvia (where Delta has only just arrived) will face a multi-month wave starting very soon; and Austria, Germany and Norway (where Delta has already been present for several months) will likely see their summer waves peak around the end of August. NPIs will do little to change this, and neither will vaccines (see Israel for evidence of this).

So the specific predictions were:

  • Reported cases in Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania peaking around about now.
  • Latvia to currently be on the up-slope.
  • Germany, Austria and Norway to peak around the end of August.

Let’s have a look.

Latvia is currently on the up-slope, as predicted, while Slovenia peaked on September 18th, a little early but close enough. Slovakia and Romania haven’t yet peaked but presumably will soon; in any case their nascent summer waves have certainly grown as predicted.

Norway peaked on September 5th and Germany on September 4th, right on cue. Austria was a little late on September 15th, but not far off.

These are some of the most accurate predictions made by anyone in the pandemic to date, and underline the accuracy of the jigsaw pieces Prof Brookes has assembled to explain the inner dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On noting the success of his predictions, Prof Brookes commented:

The basis for the growth and decline of waves of Covid infection now seems clear and predictable. But not by computer modelling! Instead, the main pre-requisite seems to be the emergence of a new variant that partially evades existing immunity against infection. The resulting wave then (re)infects about 10-15% of the population and thereby restores sufficient herd immunity to stop the wave growing. A degree of fading of population immunity, along with some mechanism(s) by which winters promote viral spread, can also strengthen the growth of a new variant wave – but these are ancillary phenomena and not main drivers.

The really great news is that Delta has now spread worldwide and been around for many months, without there being any evidence in any country of any major new variants emerging that would cause new waves to occur. It therefore looks increasingly likely that Delta-related variants, in practical terms, mark the end of the pandemic. Delta is, as expected, resolving into a low-level endemic pathogen. Its prevalence may rise and fall somewhat as the seasons change, but the overall Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) in populations where those who are vulnerable to severe illness (i.e., the old and those with comorbidities) have been vaccinated, is now tolerable and of the same order as that of influenza. Vaccination of all others (i.e., the young and the healthy) is no longer medically required or justified, given what we now know about the significant rate of vaccine harms, and the fact that vaccines at best only slightly delay rather than prevent infections.

Maybe ministers should be asking Prof. Brookes to advise them on the future course of the pandemic, rather than the perennially predictively-challenged Professor Neil Ferguson?

Tags: Delta variantModellingVariants

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

News Round-Up

Next Post

Firing Nurses Who’ve Worked Through the Pandemic Is a Disgrace

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

55 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

 

DONATE

PODCAST

Nick Dixon and Toby Young Talk About Philip Schofield’s Swift Exit, the BBC’s Fondness for Satanists and the Target Boycott

by Toby Young
30 May 2023
4

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editors Picks

Rowan Atkinson Challenges Electric Cars as Environmental Panacea

3 June 2023
by Richard Eldred

Antarctica Sensation: Ice Shelves Surrounding the Continent Grew in Overall Size From 2009-2019

4 June 2023
by Chris Morrison

News Round-Up

4 June 2023
by Richard Eldred

Suella Braverman Warns of “Orwellian” Policing

3 June 2023
by Richard Eldred
A participant holds a drawing depicting Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg during a protest march to call for action against climate change, in The Hague, Netherlands September 27, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

Net Zero ‘Grocery Tax’ Will Push Shopping Bills Up by £4 Billion, Tories warned

4 June 2023
by Toby Young

Why Putin Won’t Go Nuclear

85

News Round-Up

41

Rowan Atkinson Challenges Electric Cars as Environmental Panacea

55
A participant holds a drawing depicting Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg during a protest march to call for action against climate change, in The Hague, Netherlands September 27, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

Net Zero ‘Grocery Tax’ Will Push Shopping Bills Up by £4 Billion, Tories warned

22

The Woke Movement is an Attempt by Young, Privileged Whites to Wrest Power from Older, Privileged Whites

21

As Enthusiasm For Covid Vaccines Wanes and Millions of Unwanted Doses Expire, German Press Finally Starts Scrutinising Contracts Between Big Pharma and Government

2 June 2023
by Eugyppius

Say it Loud – I’m Plus Size and Proud!

2 June 2023
by Tony Morrison

Don’t Tell the Doomsters and Gloomsters, But Ice Around Antarctica’s Thwaites ‘Doomsday’ Glacier Was Eight Times Thinner Around 8,000 Years Ago

2 June 2023
by Chris Morrison

The West’s Hypocrisy on Uganda’s Anti-gay Law

31 May 2023
by Noah Carl

How Theresa May Made Modern Britain

31 May 2023
by J Sorel

POSTS BY DATE

October 2021
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Sep   Nov »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Please note: To be able to comment on our articles you'll need to be a registered donor

Already have an account?
Please click here to login Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment