As the Autumn Covid Surge Declines, is SAGE Right to Predict No Winter Epidemic?

SAGE is predicting no winter Covid surge. But this could end up being a trap for ministers, as if the usual winter epidemic does occur it could become a reason to bump the Government into new restrictions.

3 min read

As reported daily infections fall once again, giving a temporary reprieve from calls for social restrictions to be re-imposed, the new ONS Infection Survey data published today shows record levels of prevalence in the country in the two weeks ending October 22nd.

One in 50 people in England or 2% of the population are estimated to have had coronavirus during that fortnight. In Wales it was around 2.5% or one in 40.

Importantly, this recent epidemic is almost exclusively in children, especially those aged 11-16, and to a lesser extent in their parents (aged 35-49). Prevalence in primary school children rose to around 4.1% by October 22nd while in secondary school children it was 9.1% or one in 11.

Since then reported infections in children have begun to fall, leading some experts to declare that, with an estimated 75% of the cohort now having been infected, “England has seen the peak of cases in children“.

Modelling for the Government is now predicting a persisting slump in infections going into the winter, with some estimates envisaging as few as 5,000 daily reported infections by Christmas.

This puts me in the unexpected position of being more pessimistic than SAGE, as I would be frankly amazed if there was no winter surge in Covid infections. We’ve seen before how SAGE models seem not to take sufficient account of seasonality, and this may be another example of that.

We learned last winter that it doesn’t help sceptics not to anticipate surges. We don’t want to be in the position where the Government’s resistance to lockdowns depends on these unusually rosy predictions of a Covid-free winter coming to pass. Besides, if Covid did abandon us this winter more than likely there would be some other seasonal virus to take its place.

The epidemic since June has been mostly in the young, initially in students and young adults, and latterly in those under 16. Oddly, the ‘freshers’ flu’ and university outbreaks that usually occur in September and October and dominated autumn 2020 are missing this year, at least with Covid. This autumn it’s been the turn of school children to have an epidemic, and just like last year, it has declined as we head into November – though this time the Government did not allow itself to be bumped into a lockdown (though not for lack of trying on the part of the health establishment).

What will the winter bring? There’s still no new variant emerging anywhere, but winter has always brought waves of respiratory illness. Take a look at the curve for flu in 2019-20 below. Big surge around the end of November, and then sudden sharp decline from the end of December, just like Covid in winter 2020-21.

You can really see the effect of the January 2020 lockdown to cut flu transmission there. What’s that you say – there was no lockdown in January 2020? But why then did infections suddenly plummet? I’m sure Neil Ferguson can tell me.

Winter will almost certainly bring its usual respiratory viral epidemic, and it’s still likely to be Covid this year. The NHS needs to be ready for that, though hopefully the vaccines will limit mortality (something potentially thrown into doubt by the recent Swedish study suggesting declining effectiveness against severe disease). But no, of course we shouldn’t lock down or re-impose restrictions on people because of this entirely foreseeable and expected eventuality.

If we’re still a free people somewhere under all this madness, we need to stop thinking that winter flu bugs are a reason to smother our social, cultural and economic life. It’s not good for our health.

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81 Comments
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Think Harder
Think Harder
4 years ago

If there isn’t a massive outbreak after the boosters I will be surprised. I hope not as then we will see if the government is willing to put this behind us. I am however pessimistic.

186NO
186NO
4 years ago

Folks, we have all seen and read “bombshell” disclosures to date and what one might deem to be “bombshell” is seen by others as something entirely different.

I implore ALL to view this if you have not already done so and make your minds up as to its impact:

https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/30/gov-reports-show-fully-vaccinated-and-children-developing-ade/

I especially implore you to spend circa 26 minutes watching the embedded video by Dr Richard Fleming and without being dramatic, prepare to be shocked.

If you then take the time to read this – I defy anyone wavering in their personal assessment of the events over almost 2 years to be a waverer afterwards:

https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/29/responses-to-fois-say-mps-dont-have-to-take-covid-tests-or-disclose-their-vaccination-status/

Again , if there is anyone in doubt of the moral and ethical deficit that the vast majority of our elected representatives have personally incurred, I hope that doubt is misspelled immediately.

Trying desperately hard to contain my anger towards a host of shit people who have made knowingly shit decisions that have killed thousands because other shit people have vacated any position of responsibility dictated by their alleged profession, qualifications and experience.

I await the jab agenda warriors attempting to deflect these real world hard facts.

iane
iane
4 years ago

SAGE will continue on this path until 2 or 3 days after FLOP26. Prepare for a dramatic handbrake turn then!

lorrinet
lorrinet
4 years ago

For the life of me I cannot see why ANYONE is still listening to these “experts”. Especially Ferguson, whose one area of expertise is getting everything wrong and causing much suffering in the process. Why he’s not cowering with embarassment is a mystery to me – but then, when you look at those cold empty eyes you can see that the lights are on but nobody’s home.

banjojo
banjojo
4 years ago

”The return of flu”? It never went away. Surely I can’t be the only one who remembers the government (or one of its agencies) stating quite categorically, in September 2020, that ‘flu figures’ and ‘covid figures’ would henceforth be conflated?

Martin Frost
Martin Frost
4 years ago

All SAGE predictions whether up or down need to be ignored. Our measurement of daily Covid rates should stop and the industry supporting it reallocated to more useful activities. Instead of acting like leeches sucking the life force out of a frightened and cowered population they would be more usefully employed communicating this simple message; pull yourself together.

Sforzesca
Sforzesca
4 years ago

It’s a good job they haven’t got a dodgy pcr test for Flu in case the ghastly cycle of fear and repression re covid runs out of traction – how much more could the sheep take.
Oh, wait….

George L
George L
4 years ago

How Has the NHS improved since 2010 ?

From the Daily Mail of all people, but I’m glad of it, because it shows up the political bed stripping that has been going on despite the money thrown at it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10144577/Just-NHS-improved-2010.html

marebobowl
marebobowl
4 years ago

Why would lockdown sceptic ever refer to sage, ever. They have proved themselves wrong over and over again. Don’t wear a mask, wear a mask, track and trace, temperature checks at all venues, lockdown in your home forever, ignore the safety signals of the experimental biologicals, stay home if you have Covid til what? You die? Ignore early effective treatments for Covid, inject adults, children and young people despite the serious adverse events and deaths now in the thousands. Cdc VAERS.

We now have world renowned scientists, researchers and doctors who are armed with clear, data and science based on studies and research. We are no longer fumbling in the dark for answers. Please, delete sage from the equation. Seek other resources for your Covid info it is all there. Thank you.

juliakurzeja
juliakurzeja
4 years ago

High levels of “cases” in children… Anything to do with obsessively TESTING children??

lumina
lumina
4 years ago

I have a better question. Why would we ever believe SAGE again? (Let alone in a first place?) The predicted illness and deaths will most likely be due to the injectible wreaking havoc with immune systems and children’s hearts.
(At least a dozen deaths reported in UK alone but we don’t hear SAGE talk about that do we? )
and people being so overwhelmed psychically and emotionally that some will likely “go” because there’s not much worth living for. It’s not called a Depop shot for nothing. Let us start to see the bigger objective if these egregious government actions. No more playing nice, they never were to us.

JohnK
JohnK
4 years ago

More to the point, are the bookies offering odds on it? Potentially more accurate, a cynic might say.

cloughy
cloughy
4 years ago

Irrelevant data as they’ll be some scary figures coming after COP26

Will
Will
4 years ago

Whilst I hope SAGE are actually right, for once, I have had a dreadful sense of foreboding about this winter aas the vaccine efficacy is challenged by weakening natural immunity. I know many people don’t trust it, and he was certainly got at back in July, but the Zoe app does appear to be peaking at infection levels seen previously so, hopefully, my fears about ADE, as vitamin D levels fall, will prove unfounded.

Mogwai
Mogwai
4 years ago

What about that A.30 variant that somebody shared a paper about recently? They’re meant to have found a variant in 2 continents which can evade the current “vaccines” completely. Maybe nothing more than a storm in a teacup as it was back in spring and I expect we would’ve heard more shitting of pants by now..

Aleajactaest
Aleajactaest
4 years ago

Infections or positive tests?

Idiot.

Moderate Radical
Moderate Radical
4 years ago

If this is true (and I see no reason to believe it’s not; on the contrary, given the numerous contradictions over the last 18 months, we have every reason to believe it), then it sums up the absurdity of this whole ghastly affair. Are they taking this piss out of us? These people are begging to be punched on the nose.

b4abe1782b2a248f.png
Star
Star
4 years ago

Yes, they are taking the piss. But do they “know” it? In a way (subconsciously), yes. In another way (because they are so up themselves), no. This is passive aggression. If someone did punch them on the nose, they would be like “I was helping your child (as was the system I’m a cog in) and this is how you behave, you nutcase of a violent antisocial element” – and they’d believe that. They wouldn’t be able to reflect on whether they’d done something they could reasonably have avoided doing that constituted a large part of the reason for why their nose was hurting. Not even if the same morning they’d made it clear to a naughty child who’d thrown a stone through a window that “actions have consequences”. File under “up themselves”…or an ever more insane texture of much of social life…

It’s quite revealing that among the “crush the dissenters” discourse there’s a big strand of “don’t let dissenters say what they think anywhere near schools”.

I am Spartacas
I am Spartacas
4 years ago

WORLD WIDE WALKOUT

Whatever you’re doing on Nov 3rd stop and walk out onto the street in protest.

Worldwide Walkouts will demand a return to freedom and democratic principles. Citizens around the globe are protesting loss of liberty, illegal mandates and tyrannical government overreach. Every man, woman and child is important to this movement!

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/child-health-topics/health-freedom/worldwide-walk-outs/

Star
Star
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

Smartphone owners should consider leaving their phones at home when they take part in these actions. As well as the consideration of not being so easily tracked, that will also work very nicely with the themes of both health and freedom.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

If only the Behavioural Psycopaths would brainwashed the sheep into thinking that masks don’t work, that jabs are for passports, that working from home is antisocial, that colds and flu are still normal in winter, it would happen, it works both ways.

BJs Brain is Missing
BJs Brain is Missing
4 years ago

Slightly off-topic, but I have to ask question: if the ‘powers that be’ are confident they can vaccinate the world, how come they can’t feed the world?

Anti_socialist
Anti_socialist
4 years ago

The vaccines are one thing Africans & developing countries will be lucky to be without.

caipirinha17
caipirinha17
4 years ago

They could, if they really wanted to. If it’s not happening, there must be some benefit to those who have the ‘power’ in keeping some people hungry. Same goes for all those ads for charities building water pumps in remote dusty villages.

Tee Ell
Tee Ell
4 years ago

Because it is not up to the government to feed people.

It is up to individuals to feed themselves.

A good government facilitates this. A bad government supports those wanting to hoard the resources and keep them to themselves, instead acting as a hindrance.

Demanding that government get out the way may be more effective than demanding they “do something”.

No-one important
No-one important
4 years ago

As we edge closer to Xmas a number of things will happen:

  • The Ferguson muppet will predict dreadful, hitherto unforeseen, levels of “infection”
  • The Gove gargoyle will assert that no extra measures will be needed
  • Carrie Antoinette will deny the Johnson priapic his conjugal rights until he obeys the instructions of the puppet-masters
  • A few short days before Xmas, the Johnson glove-puppet will gravely intone that, “it is my sad duty to advise the British public that further fascist measures are needed to grind them into subservience”.
Andrea Salford
Andrea Salford
4 years ago

• And the majority of the peoples will say FU and carry on as usual.

No-one important
No-one important
4 years ago
Reply to  Andrea Salford

Looking at the fearful masked people who are still legion, I rather fear that it will be the minority who will resist. But I hope you are right and that I am wrong!

Andrea Salford
Andrea Salford
4 years ago

🤷🏻‍♀️ May be a north / south, poor/posh thing?

Star
Star
4 years ago

“Grind” is a good word. We get more annoyed about the difference between being pickpocketed of 10p and staying as we are, than we do about the difference between staying as we are and picking up a free 10p coin from the pavement. The line that “we won’t lock you down again, we’re practically sure of it now” gives added “grind” to the decree “you’re locked down again – it hurts us far more than it hurts you, and just make damned sure you obey absolutely everything to the letter even when it’s new” when it is issued, which won’t be long now. The rulers know what they’re doing with people’s emotions. They know damned well.

They’re imposing a variable schedule of negative reinforcement (also known as punishment) in order to maximise learned helplessness.

Star
Star
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

I should correct myself before somebody else does: “negative” reinforcement isn’t necessarily an act of punishment instead of a reward – it can also be the withdrawal (“negation”) of something enjoyed, or the not giving of something expected that would be enjoyed (e.g. a family Christmas). That’s to the extent that “enjoyment” has any meaning for behaviourists, because what they are most interested in is whatever stimulates or extinguishes a behaviour. To describe their outlook more precisely, there is a “quadrant” given by the two axes of reward/punishment and positive(“giving”)/negative(“taking away”).

lorrinet
lorrinet
4 years ago

We’ll do the same as we did last Christmas – we’ll take the risk of being reported on and have family come to stay as usual. We’ve known this is all nonsense since Johnston banned pharmacists from doing antibody tests a year ago last August. Our local pharmacy told us they’d been ‘advised’ to stop the blood tests under threat of being shut down – a bit extreme, what!

TruthHurts2077
TruthHurts2077
4 years ago

“If we’re still a free people somewhere under all this madness, we need to stop thinking that winter flu bugs are a reason to smother our social, cultural and economic life. It’s not good for our health.”

It’s not supposed to be good for our health, it’s supposed to make us slaves to the New World Order, under a One World Government, ruled by Illuminati & Artificial Intelligence.

TruthHurts2077
TruthHurts2077
4 years ago
Reply to  TruthHurts2077

https://www.bitchute.com/video/C1MntPwi4jnZ/

MAG BITTER TRUTH on BitChute – “The Future Of Human Beings”.

Fear is Finite
Fear is Finite
4 years ago

Actually there was a bad freshers flu going around, my daughter and everyone in her Uni halls were extremely unwell. It just wasn’t COVID so no one worried about “killing granny”. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Bella Donna
Bella Donna
4 years ago
Reply to  Fear is Finite

A result of isolating people, jabs and wearing masks their immune systems aren’t up to date. Ive been expecting this to happen.

Sforzesca
Sforzesca
4 years ago
Reply to  Bella Donna

Good job there isn’t a dodgy pcr test for Flu isn’t it otherwise the sheep would be panicked over that.
Oh, but wait…..

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  Bella Donna

The government was banking on it happening. Some of those flu victims will nevertheless have been Covid tested and so help to swell those “case” numbers.

Catee
Catee
4 years ago

I was out doing yellow boards today, they basically said.. The vaccinated can catch it and spread it so what’s the point of vaccine passports? and that if the government can mandate what medical treatments you have where will it stop?…
We had one lovely woman shout ‘I hope you’re all the ones who die” and another “stop telling lies” oh the irony!!

Bella Donna
Bella Donna
4 years ago
Reply to  Catee

But on the other hand there are hopefully a few others who take notice. I was pleasantly surprised to discover my sister and BiL now fully onboard although they have been jabbed they say they won’t be having any more.

JayBee
JayBee
4 years ago

Whatever it was, is or will be, whether SARS Cov2, another old Coronavirus, flu viruses, Beriberi, Herpes or whatever, it never justified and never will justify any of the responses done sofar.
Least of all withholding cheap, safe and readily available treatment options.
For that alone, many people should spend the rest of their lifes in jail.

186NO
186NO
4 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

I agree 100%; that would be a principled approach for a charge of malfeasance in public office; every single one of the advisers involved should also be examined at a fully televised public enquiry – no in camera sessions – and if found to have been incompetent on the basis of the standard required in a civil law suit, barred from any position in public life/the public sector, where remuneration is paid by the taxpayer, for life.

I also want the same charge to be brought against all elected politicians who voted in favour or abstained in all votes relating to the CVA 2020; I fail to see why these damned idiots should ever be allowed to repeat the disastrous errors of judgment ever again.

Trouble is, who is going to press the start button?

rockoman
rockoman
4 years ago

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/positive-rate-daily-smoothed?tab=chart&country=~GBR

According to the above link there had been no decline in the share of PCRs in the UK which returned positive results. The data goes up to the 26th of October.

In fact the share is trending gently upwards.

Sure enough – the number of tests was falling over the weeks leading up until the 26th of October, resulting in fewer ‘cases’

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-19-tests-smoothed-7-day?country=~GBR

Why should the UK be different from elsewhere in Northern Europe?

The PCR diagnoses nothing in any case – we know that.

Stop investing hope in numbers of ‘cases’.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  rockoman

“Investing hope in numbers of cases” is playing the government’s game. Now why would they do that?

A Sceptic
A Sceptic
4 years ago

I generally assume that whatever Sage/Ferguson predicts, the opposite will happen!

RickH
RickH
4 years ago

The epidemic since June”

There is no epidemic – everything is below that level.

Stop jumping at shadows.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

The Daily Sceptic need a pan/epidemic to be sceptical about.

sjonesy1999
sjonesy1999
4 years ago

I am bored off my tits with this shit.

Andrea Salford
Andrea Salford
4 years ago
Reply to  sjonesy1999

🙌🏻 🙌🏻 🙌🏻 Best comment of the last 20 months. 🤣🤣

Moderate Radical
Moderate Radical
4 years ago
Reply to  sjonesy1999

Indeed. The mundanity of the treadmill of Covid cultism renders drying paint a blockbuster film I’m dying to go and see at the pictures.

Anti_socialist
Anti_socialist
4 years ago

A stopped clock.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

Ferguson simply provides the predictions that the oligarchs, Big Pharma and our corrupt governments want. Bill Gates very much likes a return on his investments and so he hasn’t been pouring untold millions into Imperial College for nothing.

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