Why are some countries surging this autumn but others aren’t, at least not yet? Much of Europe is now seeing sharp rises in reported infections. In some it appears to be a delayed Delta surge, but in others like France, Netherlands, Norway and Finland it comes after an earlier summer Delta ripple that looked like it had gone away. Yet India, which had (quite literally) the mother of Delta surges, has not seen any new rise despite only 29% of its population being double-vaccinated, and despite the festivals of Diwali and Durga Puja, widely warned about as a transmission risk, taking place in the autumn.
Sweden, meanwhile, has somehow so far managed to avoid Delta surges altogether, after being hit relatively hard in spring 2020 and winter 2020-21. The country famously imposed only light restrictions (no stay-at-home orders, school or business closures or mask mandates at any point). Similarly, few restrictions were imposed in India in 2021, and there is also doubt about how far Indian citizens have followed any restrictions that were brought in; in any case, high population antibody rates were subsequently reported. Are India and Sweden benefitting from a more robust immunity owing to greater exposure prior to this autumn? What happens this winter will help to clarify this question.
The U.K. meanwhile is experiencing a strangely drawn-out Delta epidemic. Beginning in June, it has now been simmering away at around about the same level for five months, neither exploding as the models predicted, nor dropping off again back to low levels, as earlier waves have done.
Why is the U.K.’s Delta epidemic so long, drawn-out and relatively flat, unlike the outbreaks in say India, Florida and Texas? The answer appears to be that it has consisted of a series of waves occurring one after another in different age groups.
Initially, the surge in June and July occurred in all age groups. Note that the sharp drop in raw cases in mid-July was largely an artefact of reduced testing as schools broke up for the summer, though infections certainly did not continue to increase at that point.
Then came an extra bump among students and young adults. Was this driven by summer festivals? The subsequent bump in 40-59 year-olds may have been their parents.
Then it was the turn of under-20s, and especially secondary school children (aged 11-16), getting up to a massive 9% prevalence in mid-October before coming down again fast. Their parents (age 35-49) may also have been affected. More recently there seems to have been a rise in all under-60s, possibly owing to the onset of winter.
Being frank, I didn’t expect this five-month long, demographically-staggered wave, and I’m not sure why it’s happened here and not so much elsewhere. Did we reopen more than other countries in the summer, triggering an earlier Delta surge, but not resume normal interaction enough for it to be a traditional big wave, like in India and the southern United States? How much do restrictions and behaviour changes affect transmission anyway when most studies suggest they make at most only modest impact? I’ve also been surprised by how many secondary school children caught it in this wave, given it had already gone through the country twice. How did they avoid exposure in both spring 2020 and autumn and winter 2020-21? Perhaps they were more susceptible this time round. But it’s still pretty baffling.
As I noted in a previous post, SAGE is now predicting the epidemic will decline during the winter, which would be most unusual. I would expect instead a modest surge, as usually happens in December. Either way, though, this is clearly a virus in an endemic state, and the Government should stop treating it as a special threat and de-escalate their response as soon as possible.
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Some thoughts:
I read somewhere that other endemic coronavirus infections tend to run on a 4 year cycle, suggesting that cross immunity wanes and people become more susceptible.
Could the sudden wave of infection among school children this autumn be a result of this natural waning of cross infection across a lot of the population? Possibly combined with the delta variant which may be more transmissible?
My own children have caught the virus this year, while there were positive cases in both their schools last year and each failed to catch it then. This time it has come in a big wave with a great many more infected (75 children out of 400 at son’s school, very few of whom are vaccinated ).Nobody seems to be very ill with it, by the way.
How do you know it was THE virus. Please say you didn’t test them….
well, my son’s symptoms mirrored my own. Which include the anosmia, which is not quite like that with a regular bunged up cold.
And I was tested – not just pcr and LFT (as were all the kids) but antibody too. So I am as certain as I will ever be.
It’s no biggy, clearly, for the vast majority of people. I’ve defo had much worse viruses.
Your last line doesn’t read well, LOL. I don’t ever get colds or anything else, had flu once that was nasty, but what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.
NHS says loss of smell can be caused by colds, flu, sinus infection, allergies etc https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/lost-or-changed-sense-smell/
Zinc deficiency can also cause anosmia during respiratory infection.
Does it also cause phantosmia, which I also had/have (it’s improving thank goodness) – nothing has ever given me this before.
That is true, but I am telling you it is different. You will see once you’ve had it. It’s NOT like a typical cold.
Yeah I have to agree here. A cold typically gives you a loss of smell because of congestion. I’m totally clear now but still only have a slight sense of smell that’s slowly returning. Some other strange things that are not comparable to a cold (for me anyway) were a) no loss of appetite b) symptoms such as feverish pains that disappeared during the day completely and came back at night. Definitely a synthetic virus
Same e
erience. The covvie was far less unpleasant than a bad cold, but the anosmia is taking ages to wear off. No bunged-up nose at all.
I had a terrible bug at Xmas 2019, knocked me right off my feet for a few days, which is unusual. I went docs got antibiotics and sorted. Was it covid, flu, pneumonia, norovirus or something else? Who cares? I dont. Only cultists want to lay claim to covid.
Same as me. SARS2 wasn’t even the worst virus this year!
3 days of lemsips and 7 days of house arrest boredom.
I thought the PCR and LFT tests were not fit for purpose. But they are when someone thinks they have ‘Covid’ and wants to ‘prove it’.
“I had the Covids”
“We used to live in a cardboard box in middle o’ t’road”
They are not when prevalence is low – the specificity is not 100%.
I would say they are supporting evidence, but not definitive. A positive LFT, PCR and antibody test, combined with symptoms, give me a fair degree of confidence.
I’m afraid those tests would give me no confidence at all – a plastic box with a rag inside Made in China, and a PCR that can magnify anything up into anything.
I still don’t know if ‘the virus’ exists at all – conflicting opinions as to whether it has been isolated/properly identified or not abound.
What does seem to have become clearer is that it was not worth destroying the lives of so many – the ‘cure’ has become worse than the disease. Or, perhaps it was all worth it if one’s career has been advanced by this opportunity, as well as one’s bank balance.
Since March 2020 we still know of absolutely no-one (in our circle) who has ‘had Covid’ and of no-one who has died of it. I see no ‘pandemic’, and I have no fear of getting on a plane with 200 people without face masks. I do have a fear of being banged up in some slummy ‘quarantine hotel’ for 10 days, all for nothing but the chance to rip me off.
tell you what, come back when you’ve had it, and tell me it felt like a cold.
It kind of does initially (tickly throat), but it’s noticeably different. In my experience anyway.
You have convinced yourself you had covid and nothing it seems will change your opinion. Your illness could have been a result of many things but no, it has to be covid.
Yes. All the evidence points that way. Why are you determined to disbelieve me? do you think it’s all made up?
You do know that the Sars 2 ‘genome sequence’ is largely computer generated – in other words, it doesnt exist in the real world so had to be conjured up out of thin air – much like the pandemic.
I am aware. Are you saying there is no virus?
If so, I would disagree. There is a virus. It has some unusual symptoms compared to a regular cold. It is not serious for the vast majority of people and would have passed without much remark if it were not for the ridiculous overreaction.
It may or may not be man made (I suspect, on balance of the evidence, it is man made).
Sophie, I can’t prove to you either way that Sars-Cov2 exists. And truth be told, it doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things anymore.
What we do know now exists is synthetic spike protein produced in the Vaxxed. And it appears they are transmissible.
I caught something about 6 weeks ago. It was a bit like Flu, but not as bad. I didn’t take any time off work. The loss of smell though, lasted for about 10 days.
I put the blame of ‘Covid’, as I had the symptoms. Though I firmly believe I caught it off a vaccinated person. Not the original virus, if it ever existed. If it did, we are way passed heard immunity anyways.
What we are all getting now would be the synthetic junk being spread by the vaxxed. As they are Spike Protein producing factories now.
I had both tests prior to an overnight in an acute ward three weeks ago; believe me when I say that you don’t get much of an option in such circumstances.
Yesterday the results arrived on the NHS Mycare Patient Information Portal. Did I mention three weeks ago?
One result said “Not found” which means Covid not found because it probably isn’t there’ but that took a while to figure out the first time.
The other one said something similar but different.
I’d like to see the study that proves the SARS-CoV2 virus likes to hang out at the top of people’s nostrils!
Funny how we never see that challenged. If it’s that contagious, why not just breathe on a cotton bud?
I still firmly believe the ‘lean-back-and-up-the-nose-rape’ was designed to make people feel uncomfortable, fearful, and compliant. It’s the first stage to make people subservient to their masters.
Well, that’s my opinion. I’d ignore ‘Covid’ tomorrow if it were all shut down, but day after day I am faced with twits wearing face masks and keeping The Show going.
I do believe in virus and vaccines, I have no reason not to – just not this virus and these ‘vaccines’ which have come along to dovetail nicely into creating this series of co-incidences, such as kids suddenly becoming the infectious carriers of a ‘Fourth Wave’ just as the ‘vaccines’ for them are ready… it’s almost like the canned laughter of an American soap, all staged.
I self administered both my LFT and PCR super lightly and both were positive. I don’t believe a brain scrape is remotely necessary for an actively replicating virus.
Stress & anxiety could easily account for your more severe symptoms, I do believe there’s a SARS-CoV-2 virus, i’m sure Covid-19 is real, it clearly isn’t a highly infectious disease & all the evidence suggests most cases have mild disease.
There’s evidence that some cases evolve in to something more than a respiratory disease, most people recover after a few days, but rare cases seem to show recovery then 8-9 days later symptoms can become very serious affecting vital organs.
I just don’t believe it warrants vaccination, prophylactic supplements are highly effective at preventing serious disease, especially zinc, everyone should be taking zinc supps.
You need a delivery agent for the zinc. HCQ is the one of choice but Quercitine is an OTC alternative.
Not having a telly I didn’t see them but I’m aware of the propaganda ads showing green covid ‘vapour’ emerging from someone’s mouth then floating around the room or train carriage as a mist implicitly infecting everyone else.
I’d like to know why the results took three weeks to arrive, not that I care since I won’t be going anywhere more exotic than Tesco for the foreseeable future.
I agree, covid holds no worries for me at all .
On the other hand having a glorified cotton bud stuck up my nose for a few seconds is of no consequence if the alternative is having my acutely required scan and diagnosis delayed for however long it takes them to get me isolated to make the other patients ‘safe’ is of very great consequence.
I would certainly not be their first priority.
Your last sentence says all.
“nobody seems to be very ill with it . .”
75 pupils out of 400 coming down with a runny nose or this years flu sounds pretty normal.
Why is Will Smith still banging on about cases? It’s that which keeps this baloney alive in the press. Serious illness and death is all that matters.
Not my downtick btw, can’t see why anyone would.
India can’t afford to be shut down by a virus that doesn’t make many people very ill so best not to obsess about finding Covid in every nook and cranny.
Pakistan discovered this very early into its ‘1st wave’ when it cancelled Lockdown because the country could not afford the economic impact despite Covid still being thought of as a more dangerous disease than has since been shown to be the case.
Agreed K, what clearly comes out of the graphs is what we have ALWAYS known, the elderly who have the ‘least’ number of ‘positive tests’ are the ones who predominantly get Ill and die from ‘Covid’.
The high number of supposed ‘cases’ in children don’t cross over to hospital admissions or death.
It’s looks exactly like the normal cold….everyone gets it, most don’t suffer badly or die, very elderly and those with co-morbidities might get a worse version, like flu, and die.
Plus ca change!
The UK can afford this Game of Covid – everyone driving around in their cars, everyone can afford petrol, so many people in the supermarkets, plenty of money for ‘hand sanitiser’ and face masks.
No money for the homeless, hungry, those who can’t afford heating, no money for new hospitals… but oodles of dosh for billions of ‘vaccines’, loads of wonga for Serco’s Take & Take.
Every time someone says they’ve ‘had Covid’ that’s another reason to keep the Show going.
Indeed – and the whole Covid theatre performance seems to appeal to a certain type of person, in this and many other western countries.
No – that’s wishful thinking. It affects a wide range of personalities.
“Why is Will Smith still banging on about cases?”
A good question (see my post) – I think he’s developed a data bias allergy. I am getting a bit tired of ATL articles that take the Narrative too much for granted, and thus reinforce what surrounds me – vastly exaggerated perceptions about Covid.
Its Will Jones of course, my spellchecker error as I was searching for Smith on Amazon last night.
I saw your post earlier and was going to reference mine as we seem to be on the same wavelength.
All anyone needs to do is read sohphie123s opening comment to see how pointless looking at ‘cases’ is, and has been for a very long time.
I was picturing Hollywood star will smith and thinking “why is he weighing in on this?!” hahaha
Sorry for the confusion.
Yeah same here. It’s because the public are now under multiple layers of lies including the conditioning that cases matter. There are three underlying lies that has made this entire agenda possible and arguments such as this 100% useless 1) The shift to making decisions on restrictions gradually from deaths to cases, and now future cases 2) The suppression of readily available and highly effective prophylactics and for me the most important 3) the lies about asymptomatic spread
I got it two weeks ago- late 30s. Took a week to shake off and still have the “no sense of smell” symptom. Didn’t even take a day off work…
I’m going to visit a private clinic to get an antibody test done
So…. Covid does exist… everybody back indoors!
My wife would probably be glad of a lack of smell lately, my diet has been awful since lockdown one.
Funny how schoolkids have all been ‘infected with a big wave of Covid’ just when their ‘vaccines’ are ready! Handy, no?
“My own children have caught the virus this year” – proof?
I don’t think any proof would satisfy you.
And actually it IS convenient. So many of them have had it now that they CANNOT be vaccinated (new advice is to wait – I think 90 days? – for children who are recovered to get the vaccine. Some parents might regain sanity in the interim, and others might decide naturally acquired immunity is enough.
The pupils should be having Covid parties to get it out of the way given the singularly low levels of illness that you report
I tested positive on both LFT and PCR. Could have been standard Flu or Cold. However the key differences that make me think it was Covid were:-
Complete loss of sense of smell and taste. Currently coming back slowly but many things taste very salty. Now four weeks post infection but still not great.
Fairly uncomfortable gastrointestinal symptoms.
unexplained shortness of breath for 2-3 days.
None of the above have ever been a factor previously when having Flu/Cold. Of course could have been Flu, but the evidence says Covid for me.
I’d definitely wager herd immunity has been reached.
Ssssshhhhhhh… We aren’t allowed to discuss herd immunity. It’s been banned from the official narrative.
“One word Ben…. IVERMECTIN..”
1/3 people are infected with helminths around the world, primarily in places such as India. The immune system response, Th2, is modulated by the presence of the parasite such that it doesn’t respond as well as it should to viral infections. Ivermectin affects the helminth infestation, which enables the immune system to respond to the viral infection through Th1. I can provide references.
I wonder are the older people in the west similarly affected by demodex?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demodex
“Herd immunity” has been unworded. It was never a phrase. The idea that the phrase existed is enemy propaganda.
A universal vaccine mandate is the shining path to community protection.
NATURAL herd immunity is what is banned.
Herd immunity is now defined as population immunity achieved through vaccination. No kidding.
Natural immunity has now officially ceased to exist as a phenomenon.
It’s a bleedin ex
parrotphenomenom innit.Herd immunity via a vaccine? Bit of a bugger in this case as we don’t have any vaccines.
Has herd immunity ever been achieved for the common cold? What does herd immunity even mean!
I can tell you it doesn’t mean disease disappears, in nature or through artificial vaccination.
Humans don’t bother to acquire immunity to the common cold because it does not present a sufficient problem.
That’s why some people get a cold several times a year.
I don’t.
》》”some people”《《
This is true of many humans, but not all.
A big fat dose of vitamin C every day, together with a decent amount of exercise and the absence of obesity, should prevent most people from getting colds.
This is true. I would get a lot of colds, especially when I used to smoke. Since giving up, improving my diet (5:2 and lots of salad or veg on the days I do eat) and taking a vitamin C and zinc supplement every day, I hardly get them at all now.
since I gave up smoking I get colds but they don’t bother me and never go to my chest
Or at least getting severe symptoms right
I seriously doubt that lots of Vitamin C, or D, or whatever, prevent you from getting colds. They do not create some sort of Star Trek force field a few millimeters away from your skin through which viruses cannot pass.
Rather, you get the cold but your body fights it so well, and nails it so fast that you do not notice you have been infected (or maybe you feel a bit off one day and thing “am I getting a cold” but next day you are fine).
So yes, lots of Vitamin C, and D, and other stuff, which is what the wife and I do. Not 100% sure that any one affects any particular infection, but it like throwing enough s**t at a wall: some will stick
PS: OK, you could define “cold” as “symptoms” but that is much less useful than defining it as “infection”.
Don’t knock the power of C, I’ve first-hand experience of its strength. But it’s true there are no miracles or always in nature.
Yes, this is true. There has been the odd occasion when I’ve woken up convinced I’m getting a cold…scratchy and mucus lined throat, aching all over, itchy nose etc and by the next day I’ve knocked it on the head. I put this down to “fighting it off” from having a good immune system and the vitamin C and zinc supplements helping.
Presumably not from the same ‘cold virus’ as they would have had… err… ‘natural immunity’. And if ‘cold viruses’ are mutating at least several times a year, trying to prevent this would be a bit like trying to dry the ground under Niagara Falls with a mop and bucket.
There is no natural immunity to the common cold precisely because it is so sleight a threat that it is not worth the body using resources to do so.
This is why the clever people at Porton Down pretended to be investigating it when in reality they were studying Anthrax.
They might well have done, although the Common Cold Unit did do a lot of work on “common colds”, and did invent the term “coronavirus” when they were discovered. Of course, the complex range of different viruses that cause “common colds”, some coronaviruses and loads more rhinoviruses came to light. Just as well they didn’t invent one-to-one names for every illness caused by an individual virus in those days! The health services would have been overwhelmed by unnecessary work to do with minor infections (or maybe it has been…..).
There’s over 200 different viruses that make up the common cold family and that’s including the coronavirus. This is the reason we keep on catching colds year after year. We’d have to catch 2 colds a year and live to over 100 before we’d reach any sort of immunity. And even then I’m pretty certain after 100 years our immunity to the first colds we caught will have waned by then. So the cycle would start over again. Although by then the majority of us will de long gone. So far covid 19 is one virus that has tiny differences for each variant. But in the whole is still the same virus. Hence we’d definitely build up natural immunity for it which should last decades. Like the sufferers of the first SARS virus have after nearly 2 decades. PS. Love your work.
Is covid (I don’t mean the virus SARS‑CoV‑2) all the same disease, just asking for a friend
Another question is are the results of SARSCoV2 tests influenced by the presence of SARSCoV1?
Virus naming is very “political”…or should that be “economic”?
Covid-19 used to be called NCIP, Novel Coronavirus-Infected Pneumonia, i.e. pneumonia following a positive SARSCoV2 test.
You are thinking of specialised antibodies. But the immune system has a first line of defence that is more generalised. This is beating off bugs all the time and you don’t notice because since no antibodies get called out you don’t get any symptoms.
A person who looks after themselves properly is unlikely to get any kind of a cold ever, or perhaps they might get a bit of a sniffle every few years and it’s over within half a day.
‘A person who looks after themselves properly is unlikely to get any kind of a cold ever’
i run 5 miles at least 3 times a week and still manage to catch at least one cold a year. Although I work in an environment that brings me in close contact with the general public.
I get one or 2, probably more when the children were small.
I do look after myself. I did travel a ridiculous amount though, pre pandemic.
thank you for typing out what I was going to say.
The awesome Sunetra Gupta explains herd immunity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8r3PRtKITQ
You do know she’s a socialist, right? But i’ll take a look anyway.
Yeah, it’s pretty much as I’ve always understood the term, sadly vaccine zealots seem to think it means disease extinction.
in her defense, she is from the sub-continent which has such extreme issues of inequality it looks superficially attractive
Community immunity is not a single stationary event, according to Sunetra Gupta, it is a dynamic equilibrium that can shift.
Pandemic of Fear: Proof That COVID Is a Hornet’s Nest of Lies
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/11/24/who-institution-of-corruption.aspx?ui=1fb065e0c4152b58bd4ed94cf29c7cbfad40307fb723460ddabacd55f3c58b0c&sd=20210518&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20211124_HL2&mid=DM1042369&rid=1331062506
The seeds were sown more than a decade ago during the swine flu pandemic. Make no mistake – there’s a hornet’s nest of lies and corruption inside the WHO (driven by Big Pharma), which allows them to make a pandemic (with help from the media) whatever they want.
The WHO Is an Institution of Corruption
Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola
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How much of the data is being skewed by asymptomatic testing\positives – especially in children? All historic data on virus waves will be based on only those with symptoms being tested and reported.
Published data, yes. But the rulers have a much better idea of how many people are infected than can be inferred from such data. It’s a big mistake to think their data only comes from what they admit are tests. It doesn’t. There is secret testing too. There must be, for straightforward biological warfare defence reasons. Say an adversary is infecting the schools in an area, or perhaps it has infected 10 prisons all on the same day. You want to know as fast as possible. And the way to do that is to set up a testing structure so you have some kind of idea of what bugs are going around and where.
Secret testing doesn’t have to involve people getting called in for mysterious tests while medics and nurses stand around looking cagey. Loads of samples are taken from people every day in the normal course of things.
A much better question would be if there wasn’t such an obsession with it would anyone even notice it existed?
I wouldn’t have noticed. I don’t know anyone who had died or become very ill (my great Uncle died of old age but went down as a covid death because of an earlier mild infection).
My dad spent 10 days in hospital for a non-covid chest infection. I assume his immunity had hit rock bottom from not going out in 18 months.
Hardly anybody should notice. Let’s take the official UK death count of 140k (and that’s cumulative over a 2 year time frame). 67M people in the UK, that’s 0.002 deaths per person.
So out of every 50 people there might be 1 death. There will be some deaths where a lot of people know that person but there will be a lot of deaths were hardly anybody knows that person.
So in general, most people are unlikely to know somebody who’s died from this.
1 in 500 rather than 1 in 50
I hope your father has fully recovered and is fighting fit now.
Your point about not going out for 18 months being terrible for immunity is important. This is why I shuddered when Austrian chancellor Alexander Schallenberg dictated that locked-down unvaccinated people “will only be allowed to leave their flats to go to work, for food shopping or when they need to stretch their legs“. (Emphasis added.) We need much more exercise than just stretching our legs. Stopping people from getting a proper amount of exercise and fresh air equates to murdering a proportion of them.
In British prisons the usual rule is that all prisoners are allowed at least one hour in the open air every day.
Absolutely, if you stopped listening and reading the msm you would have absolutely no idea anything was happening at all.
I only know of only one person who died with covid – they had advanced dementia and she actually caught covid while she was in hospital during the last couple of weeks of their life (no symptoms just tested positive but tested negative before she was admitted) – she was 89 years of age.
Well you’re right. My usual question is “How did you get that numbers of infections, with that famous useless PCR test ?”
No. Definitely not.
People only notice what is in the popular media.
Take vaccine injuries. They are everywhere and yet most people are oblivious to them.
Whatever the BBC, ITV and Sky don’t report it goes unnoticed.
That is why governments are so desperate to get online media under control. Not because the news is fake (which it obviously is from time to time) but because it is place where the truth and real news they don’t want reported gets out.
The general population in its infinite naivety has completely swallowed the “social media is dangerous because it spreads fake news” line, not realising that the real objective is to cut off our main source of real news.
social media is just people talking to each other. if they come for that then genuine conversation will be next
You are so right.
Except in soft dictatorships people are allowed to talk to each other and even criticise as much as they like – privately.
They come for you when your chatter becomes too public and starts influencing others on a large scale.
In Britain we’re told we shouldn’t even speculate (typical grandstanding by self-important local officials, police commanders, and politicians after any “event”) – and the way the sheeple are told not to be influenced by those who do think out of line is similar to if we were spreaders of a disgusting habit…or a dangerous virus.
“You can have free speech, just not freedom after you speak.” – Idi Amin
That’s why they also want to end pubs
The Internet is a bit like The Matrix – peoples thoughts flying everywhere and being easily monitored, with some being ‘flagged up’.
My question to todays DS Author Will Smith in response to sophie123s opening comment.
Why is DS still banging on about ‘cases’/’infections’?
Will Jones
If I hadn’t heard of ‘Covid/SARS-CoV2’ I certainly would not have noticed. I have seen no-one wheezing and gasping in the shops, no dead bodies in the bushes. I’d have just carried on as usual, but have been dragged down into this total farce by people putting on face masks and acting as if everyone else is infected.
I am astounded at their brave excursions to the supermarkets and garden centres – risking it all for the sake of a packet of Pringles and a garden gnome.
You nearly made the connection.
Is it really so difficult to postulate that our high case numbers are entirely an artifact of the massive testing system we have? The ratio of positive cases to tests is a good indicator of surges (assuming factors such as PCR amplification cycles remain constant) would you not expect it to increase if a new wave was spreading? But it has been almost flat.
Looking at the US data in worldometers is also interesting because they break it down by state. If you look at the data in aggregate, you see multiple waves. However, if you look at New York focussing only on deaths, there is clearly an enormous wave in Mar/Apr 2020 and a couple of little bumps later on. If you look at California (again deaths to reduce bias), they had almost no wave in Mar/Apr 2020 and a large wave in Jan 2021. Add them together and it looks like two waves, but it was really one in NY and another in CA. The US’s third wave is other states.
I don’t see data for the UK, but I’d imagine that the waves were highly regional as well.
An excellent question, which when directed to Royal Court Astrologer Sir Patrick Vallance, was met with the reply: “It’s the tides, Your Majesty. The tides.”
and why has Sweden had no excess deaths across the entire timescale of this pandemic?
Is it really a pandemic or just old people having ‘pandemic’ written on their death certificates rather than ‘old age’?
Sweden is the perfect counterfactual and yet it hasn’t seen any deaths associated with it. As we know from the Italian data in March 2020, this is a disease of old age. Yes, it might get a few others and the media like to concentrate on them. But even in the UK with our massive and murderous OTT response, all-cause deaths are only at 2008 levels.
Look around – ignore the media – do you see a pandemic?
Down my close they have to send the council weekly to remove the bodies.
Just imagine how bad it would have been if people didn’t wear masks…
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
– Eric Arthur Blair
Your last question is the pertinent one. Undoubtedly, these viruses can be nasty – even deadly – in some cases. One such was responsible for kicking sense into my head about my smoking habit – quite a few years ago. But I always refer people to this line graph when they are in a panic of hypochondria :
Why are you buying into the narrative, “surge” & “wave” isn’t it clear it’s a seasonal respiratory disease?
And why have you adopted the notion PCR has suddenly become accurate. The facts haven’t changed covid is almost impossible to clinically diagnose, PCR is an inappropriate method to identify infectious disease, the whole official narrative rely on these debunked the points, asymptomatic & PCR case.
The plandemic is as fraudulent as its cure, lockdowns & vaccines!
you no longer need be baffled – read this 160 page paper from Dr Rancourt et al. covering all cause mortality in the US and Canada since early 2020. Apart from obvious misattribution – the big one has been overlooked – 1. Poor and social isolated (exacerbated by lockdowns), and hot Southern states hit the worse by so called Covid mortality – 2. This lowers immunity and triggers disease amd most prevalently bacterial pneomnia thrives in these conditions (highly infectious). 3. Prescriptions of antibiotics were down by 50% during this time and drugs such as ivermectin cure bacterial pneumonia. Conclusion at least 40% plus of actual deaths from covid (mainly old and already sick people) were from bacterial pneumonia which if left untreated or mal treated will kill you. Btw for the comment about NY deaths – one hospital killed thousands of poor people due to malpractice – (use of remesvedir = kidney failure and over inflating lungs etc.) …mostly NOT dying from covid … here is the link to paper. Great interview about it on The Last American Vagabond. – Read it. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355574895_Nature_of_the_COVID-era_public_health_disaster_in_the_USA_from_all-cause_mortality_and_socio-geo-economic_and_climatic_data
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10233103/Do-Covid-test-Christmas-shopping-Government-issues-new-advice-lateral-flow-test.html
Nothing says “the drugs don’t work” more than “take a lateral flow test before you head out shopping/to a party”
There will probably be people who will do this however without any critical thinking. If they “test” positive and are forced to isolate, they will see themselves as virtuous rather than gullible.
Like most government actions, the implications just have not been considered. Is there someone on work experience churning out these ideas?
It’s all designed to reinforce the sense of threat which the True Believers feel regarding the ‘deadly virus’ – those of us on here can see it for the ridiculous performance that it is!
I used to believe it actually existed and went away but not anymore.
Any data based on dodgy tests is of no value. You will get an uplift in positive tests in December, just as happened last July, as people on both sides of the school desk scam the tests for 2 weeks extra off school. That school children are still mass tested highlights the inadequacy of the current government.
Lets be honest, it didn’t require any intervention for anyone under 60.
If you saw people getting really sick and dying you would have isolated yourself somewhat and if you saw nothing of the sort you would have taken your risks accordingly.
@Will – Yes it is strange indeed. The graph of deaths in Russia is even further from the Swedish and Indian ones than the British one is – both for deaths reported to have been “with Covid” and deaths overall. The population of Russia has fallen by 1 million in the past year.
These huge disparities have f***-all to do with differences between countries in behaviour, vaccination rates, or restrictions. Every commentator wants to be a “scientist” now. This is a trap.
Testing is basically only required in schools here, a big difference towards European countries, driving up those age groups numbers and share of the total. The summer wave amongst them was natural infection due to Delta with a 3x higher R than that of prior variants. The autumn and current ones rhyme with the vaccination rollout, the window where they are more susceptible to infection. Both were and are likely also egged on by the festivals etc., or the desire to attend them without so much hassle. Big mistake, of course.
Will,
Lots of comments re why be so concerned about the dodgy PCR test and rightly so. But just a thought, what if the colds people started to catch this autumn (our kids got it and us parents) interfered with the PCR test at 40 cycles? Ie increased ‘infections’!
Having never had any tests cannot comment much on testing. Maybe worth considering?
Also could the rising cases be attributed to vaccination as these were rolled out by age group?
Julian
Interesting. Just asked the wife who is a biologist, has worked in immunology. She speculates that if the mRNA vaccines cause the spike protein to shed (to leave the body) via the respiratory system, then the tests might well spot it.
Also ask her about this
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210611174037.htm
Discovery identifies a highly efficient human reverse transcriptase that can write RNA sequences into DNA
There may ultimately be another shared causality found, but really, so far every time I see one of these articles almost everyone featured is unhealthily overweight. We aren’t presented with comparable flu stats for a year (taking young lives) nor vaccine deaths so it could just be completely misleading even then and nothing out of the ordinary at all, apart from the medias obsession.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10237333/Mother-three-27-dies-Covid-constantly-putting-jab-busy.html
Agenda politics appears to have played a massive part in this, and along with Sweden and India, there are many places who seem to have decided not to take part in the agenda.
ohhh we all remember the “India Variant” hype that suddenly just faded. The reason why India is not among the media’s frenzy is because many of it’s states are being prescribed Ivermectin.
I note that Will didn’t mention this above the line but no doubt he knows this is the truth and is happy for us to fill in the gaps below the line, giving him plausible deniability if he gets into any trouble with the boss.
Probably rude of me to ask you as I can take some time out to check it myself but those graphs you posted of the daily cases/hospitalization between Germany and the UK were really useful. Can you show what the picture looks like in the Czech Rep and Slovakia? Would really appreciate it.
Here you are. Sorry about the mobile format, I am out and about smiling broadly at mask wearers.
You can peruse the data yourself here.
thanks! Useful website! Noticed the FT had similar charts but had conveniently zoomed right in to show the data from October this year
I thought everyone in India had died. Some survived then?
In Japan, “cases” fell off a cliff at the end of August and are now virtually zero. Dr. John Campbell does a brilliant job of explaining why this really happened (Ivermectin), while padding out the video with all kinds of other theories in order not to get banned from YouTube.
Miracle in Japan
Yeah – JC has engaged in a balancing act over the past few months. He’s been ‘dropping hints’ about various issues while not straying to far from the mainstream narrative.
He’s a decent bloke who goes where the data takes him. But he also knows the risks
In Sweden, if you look at their testing, they are testing significantly fewer people than in the UK, but their rate of positive tests is similar to ours. So perhaps they are wasting less time and money doing routine testing of people with no symptoms.
Aside from reducing the number of false positives they find, having a much smaller “cases” number reduces the screeching from the media and the health service that Something Must Be Done.
An approach we would do well to adopt.
And if you look at their numbers for patients in ICU and deaths, very similar pattern to ours, albeit with lower numbers, although they had a bit of a double peak in ICU occupancy.
So by intervening less, they had a better outcome in health terms, and also significantly less collateral damage in terms of their economy and wider public health.
This was indeed the plan here. They had essentially advised anyone who was fully vaccinated to stop testing themselves even if they had symptoms. However out of nowhere they pivoted recently and abandoned that directive. Indeed now a covidbevis (vaccine passport) will be required for cinemas, nightclubs from next week. With a new PM sworn in this morning and Tegnell reaching retirement age before too long we have to hope Sweden doesn’t go further in the wrong direction.
Interesting.
Notice how in all of the countries which are taking a more draconian approach to COVID in recent times, there has been either a recent change in PM, or we have a temporary/non-functioning government?
Italy: Technocrat was appointed
Austria: Kurz was kicked out due to “corruption”
Germany: Merkel was kicked out but is still the “caretaker”
Netherlands: Coalition discussions continue for months, old PM still “caretaker”
Biden: Appointed as President due to electoral fraud. Trying to be draconian but not succeeding much due to the federal structure there…
Sweden: Not sure of the background but I’m guessing there is no election imminent…
There is a general election in autumn next year. Although it is widely considered that crime/immigration are bigger electoral issues currently than covid here.
crimigration is a great portmanteau
low productivity migration is a massive economic harm.
It’s all quite complicated. I’m a Brit living in Sweden rather than a native so cannot claim to be an expert.
But as an observation – the native Swedes are very trusting in their government ; for example see the high vaccine take up despite the prior issues with the pandremix H5N1 vaccine in Scandinavia.
The first and second generation immigrants are (quite naturally) a lot less trusting in authority. So many of the unvaccinated here likely fall into these groups.
Therefore you now have a situation reversed to many other countries where the right wing party (Sweden Democrats) are actively supporting the vaccine passports and the only party to vociferously reject the idea is the Left party.
My hunch is that quite a few Swedes believe that the vaccine pass will force some of the immigrants to conform more to Swedish norms. Of course in reality it will only drive the segregation further.
For now business owners affected by the new rules have the option to not use the pass but will instead have to follow other distancing regulations etc.
The worry is that if the authorities have introduced the covidbevis now whilst cases are still very low, what is to stop them rapidly increasing and mandating its use as soon as cases start to rise, as they surely will do in the height of winter?
It’s not baffling at all, it largely follows the vaccines which have been given at different times in different age groups. Most of the people I know with covid since spring (a lot more people than last year) have been double jabbed.
Exactly how I read it. Took a lot of reading in the comments to find someone post it
“Why Are Sweden and India Not Seeing a Covid Surge”
On this wider question I think the short answer is:
God help me, its called the onset of WINTER for europe! UK with also have a rise, but probably flatter due to opening up in july (sweden from the start). Nature, not human stupidity (the mantra of public health) rules. Vaccinate the vulnerable (if they consent), redesign the holy mess that is called the nhs and get on with life. Oh, don’t move to austria due to the current and future riots. Blah, blah, blah!
Who knows why random populations are seeing/not seeing this, that or the other happening. Why not ask the chaps in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or Anthony Fauci, who used US taxpayers’ money to pay for their work?
I bet their record-keeping is diligent.
Of course, it’s not actually possible for regular people to interrogate the testing process starting from specification and manufacture. I think it entirely possible that the tests or the testing process are being manipulated to secure particular outcomes either in age groups or geographical areas. Equally there is no way to verify the numbers reported by the govt. Always think it’s funny that the National Lottery people have to make a big deal about the draw equipment being ‘independently verified’ but when it comes to the big bad lurgy anything goes.
Mass vaccination across all age groups during a pandemic has never been done before. We have no clue what the end result might be. It’s clear that vaccinees with sub-optimal immunity (i.e. antibodies not fully matured) have been exposed to the virus.
Sweden – could have developed more natural (broad-based) immunity before the vaccination rollout.
India – early intervention treatment of those testing positive for Sars-Cov-2.
Sorry. I can’t tolerate this amount of inaccuracy, even if well meant. I (like others here) fight every day in conversations to put over the foundational myth of ‘Covid’ – that it is wildly exaggerated :
“India, which had (quite literally) the mother of Delta surges”
My recollection is that India has never had a mortality rate above the world average – always lower than the majority of Europe. The ‘Indian’ so-called ‘surge’ was patently a propaganda initiative built out of an uptick.
The irrelevance of masticating bogus data on ‘cases” also needs a firm grip, instead of the wide-eyed innocence of a novitiate to the Narrative cult. The results of testing always needs much more critical examination, even if we accept that there may be some loose-coupled relationship with actual disease.
… but once again, we have graphs of ‘cases’ – largely unqualified.
We also have ‘estimates’ – i.e. modelling data – being given undue prominence.
The following is a massive bloomer :
“The U.K. meanwhile is experiencing a strangely drawn-out Delta epidemic.”
NO. There has never been an ‘epidemic’, any more than a ‘pandemic’ except by the distortion of language to an extent that makes it fictional. Just check the data on community surveillance in the CEBM website.
This exaggeration is reinforced by over-use of the terms ‘surge’ and ‘wave’ to describe the ups and downs of an endemic virus.
Must do better, Will Jones.
very well said
This does get on topic.
You will remember the embarrassment when Hancock and SAGE were obliged to stop using statistics which included anyone who ever had Covid and subsequently died were automatically shown as Covid deaths rather than falling under a bus deaths.
UK’s total dead covids suddenly went down from 60k to 40k overnight.
India took Uks place in the highest Covid deaths league but what the BBC picked up on and shouted about was
‘India now has third highest Covid fatalities in the World, 50,000 !’
Never a mention of Indias population exceeding 1billion.
.
Because of natural immunity, not “vax” nonsense
Your first chart shows the percentage of positive tests for India and Sweden, which is useful.
Your second chart (the one the newspapers love to show), is the number of positive tests for the UK, which is not.
The number of positive tests (i.e. “cases”) is at least partly dependent on how many tests are carried out. By this measure, here in the UK, we are experiencing a Covid wave equal to or greater than the one back in January.
An inflated number of cases can also increase apparent vaccine effectiveness. The relatively low number of hospitalizations and deaths compared to last winter is attributed to the vaccines breaking the link between cases and severe outcomes.
The percentage of positive tests for the UK paints a much less scary picture of where we are right now. Which, presumably, is why it is never publicized.
Indeed.
The Graph They Never Show.
Interestingly, the WHO specified 5% as the threshold below which a pandemic is deemed “under control”. Look how long our share of positive tests has been under 5% now.
Because they let it go instead of trying to fasten everyone up?
While the MSM condemns the use of ivermectin, the most populated state in India just declared they are officially COVID free after promoting widespread use of the safe, proven medicine. In addition to this, Ivermectin attaches to covid spikes and prevents them from binding to ACE2. Get your Ivermectin today while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com
India had Ivermectin.
Now it has a good chunk of the population with excellent natural immunity.
In the UK, the virus follows the vaccinated. Draw your own conclusions but this may help:
https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/11/25/pandemic-of-fully-vaccinated-89-percent-covid-deaths-vaccinated/
A cynic might note that the statistical output is self promoting, in as much as the testing regime probably varies due to seasonal patterns – like school summer holidays and so on.
In the case of India I would say..Ivermectin! Just like it has had the same results in Japan.
This article should have built in a comparison of the levels of testing in these populations. Without this the raw numbers are almost meaningless (IMHO)
While it’s good news to see that both India and Sweden are doing well when it comes to infections,I can’t help wondering the reason India is doing better is because they use Ivermectin.
Yesterday I commented that Japan began to prescribe Ivermectin in mid-August and now there’s virtually no covid. Mind you Japan’s vaccination rate is high while India is low and we know vaccination doesn’t prevent infections only severity of illness so vaccines are only having a minor effect if any. What India and Sweden do show is as we’ve always said lockdown only suppressed covid not stopped it. We should have stuck to our pandemic plans and allow society to function as normal.
India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, 70% that of the USA, began handing out a cheap kit including Ivermectin and, what a surprise NOT!, the ‘virus’ has all but gone. Elsewhere in India they followed the narrative and still have it.
Japan found contaminants in some ‘vaccines’, ceased jabbing and began using Ivermectin. Same again; for them the ‘virus’ is melting away. New ‘cases are flat-lining’; latest worldometer shows 77 new cases and just ONE new death. And their population is about double that of the UK.
Because they did not drink the koolaid