One of the main conclusions of the recent House of Commons report is that our first lockdown “should have come sooner”. The authors even take seriously Neil Ferguson’s ludicrous suggestion that if we’d locked down one week earlier, “we would have reduced the final death toll by at least half”.
As I noted in my response, this ignores the fact that suppressing the epidemic in the spring could have led to an even bigger epidemic in the winter, when the NHS would have been under greater pressure.
In other words, even if you only consider Covid deaths (i.e., ignore all the collateral damage from lockdown), suppressing the first wave wasn’t necessarily the right thing to do. The boffins in SAGE were actually aware of this, as the report notes:
Modelling at the time suggested that to suppress the spread of covid-19 too firmly would cause a resurgence when restrictions were lifted. This was thought likely to result in a peak in the autumn and winter when NHS pressures were already likely to be severe.
However, the report’s authors dismiss this very legitimate concern on the basis that suppressing the first wave would have “bought much needed time”. And that’s true, but so is the point about risking a perfect storm in the winter.
The correct way to frame the issue (again, ignoring the costs of lockdown) would be to say: the UK faced a trade-off between the benefits of buying time versus the risks of postponing the epidemic until winter. Acknowledging this (or any other) trade-off was apparently too much to ask of the report’s authors.
As a side note, suppressing the first wave would have probably required us to act in January, and we’d have needed to completely seal the borders, in addition to imposing a temporary lockdown. The horse had already bolted by the time anyone knew what was going on, so this discussion is mostly academic anyway.
One simple way to illustrate the risks of postponing the epidemic until winter is to compare European countries that got hit in the first wave with those who missed the first wave but got hit in the second.
To do this, I noted for each 42 European countries whether the official COVID-19 death rate reached 5 per million before 1st September, 2020. Those where it did reach this level were deemed to have been hit in the first wave. Those where it did not were deemed to have missed the first wave.
I then calculated average excess mortality since the pandemic began in the two groups of countries, using the estimates reported by Karlinsky and Kobak. Note: I’m not pretending this is a comprehensive analysis. But it’s still informative.
If the benefits of buying time outweigh the risks of postponing, you’d expect excess mortality to be lower in the group that missed the first wave. However, it was actually slightly higher in this group: 21%, compared to 19% in the other group.
What’s more, the 42 countries in my sample include places like Iceland and San Marino, which you might say aren’t really comparable to the UK. If we remove all six countries with a population of less than 500,000, the disparity is even greater: 22%, compared to 16%.
Now, there are of course other factors to consider, and it’s possible that once you took those into account, there wouldn’t be any disparity, or there’d be a slight disparity favouring the first group. But there’s no evidence that ‘buying time’ led to substantially lower excess mortality.
Someone might respond as follows: it’s implausible that suppressing the first wave would have made a difference in the second. After all, only about 10% of the population had antibodies by December of 2020, and that’s nowhere near herd immunity.
There are two points I’d make in response. Some people may have cross immunities to Covid, so the 10% figure could be an underestimate. But even if it’s about right, we know that transmission is driven by super-spreaders, and such individuals will be heavily overrepresented among the 10% who got infected in the first wave.
All else being equal, therefore, transmission would have been greater in the second wave if those individuals had not acquired immunity in the first. (Recall that age-adjusted excess mortality was actually lower in the second wave.)
The House of Commons report is in no sense a disinterested attempt to consider the arguments for and against lockdown, so it’s hardly surprising the authors would brush aside the risks of a suppression strategy. We can only hope that the official inquiry next year takes a less tendentious approach. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
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‘Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Isaiah 59.14
Yes, it’s backward Suppression was the goal, everything else is just an excuse.
The government utilised the Public Health Act 1984 as the basis of its ability to respond.
The powers it had were set down simply in S.45C.
There was a rider though – S.45D imposed an obligation for the government’s measures to be ‘PROPORTIONATE’ to what they were aiming to achieve.
This joke of a report never once acknowledges this legal obligation – never mind examine whether or not the government’s response was proportionate.
p.s.
Noah – your recent Substack article on Japan refers. I think that you only briefly touch upon the issue of previously acquired natural immunity.
Japan, HK, Macau, Taiwan and many SE Asian countries – all on China’s doorstep – saw very, very few C-19 deaths in 2020……..similarly Australia and NZ.
The only explanation is prior immunity acquired after 2003.
You’ll note too that deaths have risen in some of these countries SINCE THEY STARTED JABBING…….be interesting to analyse in more detail – including which countries use which jab.
Ah, yes, but it is a subjective rather than an objective test (my bold):
Matt Hancock issued a memorandum with all his regulations brazenly stating that he had not conducted an impact assessment, i.e. an assessment of all the adverse consequences that would likely ensue, his explanation for his omission sometimes being that he didn’t have time, or that the secondary legislation was only temporary so he couldn’t justify doing the work to find out.
It’s OK, then, to trash the economy,destroy lives and livelihoods, terrorize the population by not considering the impact of the measures you are introducing. So long as you are ‘the appropriate minister’ and you ‘consider’ that to be satisfactory.
Hancock’s continual hubris was an admission that he didn’t consider objectively what was proportionate, and could always fall back on the refuge of scoundrels that he was ‘the appropriate minister’ and it was his opinion alone that counted, which could therefore never be challenged in court.
They are very clever those lawyers who draft these bills always to ensure that ministers will be kept off the hook, and to deflect judicial review by making the test subjective.
Sadly, in the several failed legal challenged to the despotism, their Lordships have decreed that the regime’s response has been both necessary and proportionate.
It has of course been neither, but those living high off of State largesse aren’t going to give the hand that feeds them more than a token toothless gumming every so often.
Australians have been well and truly sold down the river by their Lordships.
Justice Robert Beech-Jones of the NSW Supreme Court has ruled that it is perfectly OK for the unvaccinated to get heavily discriminated against on the orders of a government minister:
As I mentioned earlier, this is how Matt Hancock and the government will play it: it is no business of the courts to determine what ministers do when the law gives them a completely free hand to do whatever they want, provided their own personal opinion is that it is reasonable or proportionate.
One important take away from this court ruling, though, is that if the plaintiffs had framed their arguments as political (and presumably also religious) instead of practical then they might have got somewhere. So it was in the judicial review in Scotland about the closure of churches – the moment the Scottish government couldn’t justify the closures wholly on health grounds, without any mitigations, and admitted that there was a political element it was game over, because discrimination on political grounds is the very thing outlawed, without any possible derogations, under the ECHR.
We will never know for sure as there are so many variables. What we DO know with 100 pc certainty is that the collateral damage of lockdowns is off the scale and shock waves from it will be felt for years to come.
Not only that but we will never know how many of those deaths were directly caused by Covid. My personal guess (backed up by personal experiences) is that it is nowhere near as high as the ‘official’ figure.
Almost every Government or Parliamentary report on anything of major importance is usually:-
In other words, the usual hot-air stuff from interested parties, eventually expressed in verbiage.
They must re-watch Yes Minister/Prime Minister now and the to remind them how it’s done.
Hunt merges into Hacker so perfectly, the ultimate superficial opportunist. The shallowness of his pitch in the Tory leadership contest was dismaying – barely got beyond “I’m an entrepreneur”.
Don’t forget that it has to demand that the government do more governing.
Yes – and people think that MPs shouldn’t have concurrent jobs outside politics!
I hope there will be some sort of independent inquiry, if such a thing is possible.
That can only be held without the Government’s consent.
We knew from the very start that any ‘inquiry’ would come up with this result.
What were the terms of reference for the report?
What was the brief?
Who briefed it?
“only about 10% of the population had antibodies by December of 2020, and that’s nowhere near herd immunity. “
As antibodies start to wane after about 3 months and are gone by 5 to 6 months far greater numbers would have had Memory B and T Cell natural immunity so we actually were nearer to herd immunity.
Monopoly – a Fascinating Documentary on How the World Works – YouTube
The conspiracy?
Off topic, but::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSZMtSPX3iE
tl;dr version – the government investigated the government’s governance and determined that the government should do more governing.
Straight out of “Yes Minister”
“We can only hope that the official inquiry next year takes a less tendentious approach. But I wouldn’t bet on it.”
I would bet on the opposite. Why on earth would any inquiry anywhere in the world come to a conclusion other than that we broadly did the right thing? Can anyone name a powerful institution on this planet that did not embrace the coronamadness or embraced it but then repudiated it? I think we need to start to accept that for now this war is lost, and expecting any letup is not realistic, and prepare ourselves for a lifelong campaign to slowly chip away at the madness.
I guess that’s why I feel as I do about Noah pissing about on the fringes of the report’s nonsense. It’s not treating it with the analytical contempt that it deserves.
Ignore the report. Smoke and mirrors. This is not about health. It’s about executing a plan: Agenda 30.
Create a crisis: climate change. Add another crisis: Covid-19. Add propoganda. Add Nudge Units. Add a compliant MSM and parliament. It all equals what the technocrats want: Chaos. The path to digital IDs.
Hi downtick. Do your thing…
Yes.
I fail to see the point in discussing this so called report unless the intention is to point out what it really reports.
The report takes as a starting point the notion that the country was facing a national emergency a la WWII when of course the reality was that this was BS. There was not and never has been a medical emergency still less a “pandemic.” We have had a Govt funded fear campign and psychological manipulation of the population on an industrial scale the like of which is unprecedented.
The conclusions if the real starting points – depopulation and control – were considered would of course be much darker; Govt and it’s officials would be guilty of crimes against humanity, mass murder and treason.
Accept the pandemic lie and it is very easy to reach the conclusions that the numpties on the various committees arrived at.
The real purpose of this report is to condition people into accepting that we are living through another plague. In other words this exercise is a con. Gas-lighting, smoke and mirrors, however you choose to view it.
I don’t know about you but I’m starting to enjoy all of this
I have developed a quiet sense of fulfilment from watching really really stupid people being fucked about by cunts
The highlight this week was the MP’s who committed genocide and crimes against humanity publishing a report that awarded themselves a clean bill of health. The Covidians who responded to the report in the MSM were of the opinion that they were not punished enough and if they had been punished more it would have been oh so much better
During the past twenty months The Pig Dictator has used every resource available to him to whip up the hysteria and fear. Now the hysterics are starting to turn on the cult leader and blame him for the deaths that occurred because ‘lock down’ didn’t arrive sooner
It would be somewhat ironic if this winter the cultists dragged their leader into the street and did unto him because of something he cynically invented in the first place
How do you unhysteric the hysterics? (Yes I know it’s not a proper word)
Anyway, whilst conducting my research I have discovered that during our last civil war the fish and chip shops closed early at 6pm each evening. It is not clear what the situation was with Indian Takeaways so I have ordered copies of the VAT returns from Kew and will report back
“Now the hysterics are starting to turn on the cult leader and blame him for the deaths that occurred because ‘lock down’ didn’t arrive sooner”
You’re really not cynical enough, Cecil.
This is part of the planned process :
Meanwhile the GBP (Great British Public) at large carries on regardless and heedless of the hand up their collective arse.
The Chinese government knew, but declined to tell the rest of us, quite deliberately (for whatever motive). When they finally advocated lockdowns, and pressured the WHO and the Italians to recommend them, they knew that the virus would have been circulating around the world for at least 3 months, and that economies and societies would be suffering to nobody’s advantage but theirs.
Yes. The point is not that China is run by the communist party. It’s that they have a much more controlled and clever governance that is better at playing Monopoly.
They really have stuffed the West in alliance with global capital.
Oh, like when other countries spend billions trying to change the climate whilst the CCP go on with building coal fired power stations?
“As a side note, suppressing the first wave would have probably required us to act in January, and we’d have needed to completely seal the borders,”
And of course those of us with memories can recall that in January the very same people who are now screaming that we should have locked down earlier were busy screaming that closing borders was racist…………hug a Chinaman anyone?
Noah is still jerked around by the official narrative, even when critiquing it.
“even if you only consider COVID deaths”
… which you can’t do – because nobody knows what they are!
“whether the official COVID-19 death rate reached 5 per 100,000 before 1st September, 2020. Those where it did reach this level were deemed to have been hit in the first wave.
That’s a ‘wave’ ?????!!!!!! Give me strength!
“I then calculated average excess mortality”
Doh! – A modeller’s variable variable!
‘Concede the language and you concede the argument’
I know the conclusion is that the Committees’ report is a load of bollocks – true. But you don’t have to travel this particular fictional road to get to the bleedin’ obvious. I mean – that’s like taking Fergie seriously – the man who has made a career of getting it wrong. Not least in the immediately irrelevant autumn projections of deaths. It’s not even a career best.
This ‘Report’ is compiled by an assemblage of the trembling complicit who have collectively failed to do their job at every stage of this shit-show.
BTW – I don’t think these non-representatives are, in the main, devious or lying. From experience I think the majority will actually believe the crap that their meagre intellects are fed.
The Parliamentary report is all part of the plan to derail the inquiry next year.
Sir Patrick Vallance has stated this week that his take away is that we should have locked down faster, harder and longer, thus echoing both the Leader of the Opposition and the Dear Leaders of North Britain and the Western Principality. (He is also pushing for government to be more technocratic, which is the complete opposite of what we need.)
There was always a possibility that the inquiry might have looked at the massive harms that the lockdown has done, and done a fair assessment that it did far more harm than good.
However, having adopted the same position of the government’s political detractors they have raised expectations that any inquiry will look to find a position somewhere between the government’s position and the ‘faster, harder, longer’ nonsense. And this will be a common position that MPs will be able to sign off on, thereby excluding ay consideration of whether lockdown was a bad thing of itself.
In respect of the vaccines of course, the report raises expectations that there will be no fault found, and thus all the vaccine harms, coercion etc will not even get a hearing.
I think, then, that the government must be very pleased with this report. They can say that they generally did the right thing but were reluctant to deprive of of our liberties, and did not want to induce social tension.
This report is thus all part of the plan to justify the general narrative and forever disown any need to consider the real impacts.
This is classic ‘controlled opposition’ – actually normalising the egregious behaviour of government.
The lock-up issue is typical. No examination of the fundamentals – just a further bout of modeller’s speculation.
“There was always a possibility that the inquiry might have looked at the massive harms that the lockdown has done, and done a fair assessment that it did far more harm than good.” Why on earth would they have done that? They are all up to their necks in it. They will fight to the death to cover up the Big Lie. Who will pressure them into telling the truth? There’s no force anywhere that will do that. We have virtually no powerful allies. A handful of sceptics in public and business life and in the media, a couple of TV and radio stations, some minor journals, and some US Republican Party Governors. That’s it.
Apart from anything else Hunt was superintending an inquiry into a system he’d been in charge of for several years until only a few months before – it’s unpreparedness was a reflection of his own failure.
One of the most fascinating bits of covid is that the models presented by Ferguson were ever taken seriously.
If only we had listened to the Amish:
https://fullmeasure.news/news/shows/amish-covid
We are all Amish now
There are no risks in a ‘suppression strategy’, disaster is ensured by such a mediaeval superstition as policy.
We should’ve hermetically sealed the government and SAGE in their houses for 3 months, that would’ve got rid of it completely.
FFS
The absence of reason and logic at an official level is one of the most worrying aspects of the response to the pandemic. Prof Ferguson’s claim that locking down sooner would have saved thousands of lives has become part of the accepted wisdom despite it being totally unsupported by objective evidence..Lockdowns and their supposed effectiveness is part of a quasi religious dogma practised by MPs, civil servants and journalists who clearly do not know what they are talking about. Are most other country’s leadership elites spouting the same guff? If so we are in deep trouble. The end of the world is nigh.
As with much of public life, the groupthinkers have decided on a narrative. Now it is established, no amount of examination or analysis will be allowed to change it. The promised inquiry into the pandemic will change nothing.
Ferguson has never been right on anything – we may as well quote the neighbours dog!