Ministers are “reflecting” on plans for mandatory jabs for NHS staff, the Health Secretary has said, with the policy “under review”, despite the fact the deadline falls next week. The Telegraph has the story.
Sajid Javid said that while the principle behind the stance remained unchanged, the “very different” nature of the Omicron variant had to be taken into account.
The Health Secretary said around 77,000 NHS workers remained unvaccinated against Covid, saying it was the “professional duty” of every NHS worker to be vaccinated.
He said efforts to boost uptake in recent weeks meant that at some trusts as few as 25 out of 5,000 staff had given a “firm refusal”.
Nationally, around 5% of NHS staff have yet to be vaccinated.
Mr Javid hinted that the deadline of February 4th for staff to have their first jab – or face dismissal in April – could still be delayed, or see a booster added to requirements.
The Health Secretary said the decision to introduce mandatory jabs was driven by the need to protect patient safety.
Mr Javid told the Health and Social Care Committee: “That was the principle and we weighed it up. The dominant variant at the time was Delta … the dominant variant now, in fact, almost all cases, is Omicron.”
He said people had “made representations” to him about Omicron being “very different” to Delta, in that while the former is more transmissible it is “intrinsically less severe”.
Mr Javid said while some people had urged him to add boosters to the mandatory requirement, others have called for it to be scrapped altogether.
He said: “I think it is right in light of Omicron that we reflect on all this and keep all Covid policies properly under review. Because Omicron is different to Delta. Equally, we don’t know what the next variant is going to be … But we are reflecting on all this.”
We don’t know what the next variant is going to be – but there’s no reason to think it will evade the vaccines less than Omicron, as that’s not really how viral evolution works.
Worth reading in full.
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a fascinating study showing the fabulously successful results of misinformation from the MSM. TPTB will be extremely pleased.
It’s not all the media’s fault – people are plain and simply a bit . . . thick (I know I’m over generalising here, but you get my meaning (I hope)).
There used to be an expectation that the media would to some degree behave responsibly, but that’s no longer the case and provided they whip up hysteria and continue to promote hatred of the government’s chosen enemies (people not wearing masks, people who don’t want the vaccine) they are pretty much free to do what they like now.
There is a strong element of stupidity permeating the masses, but how did they get to where they are now.
When I was in High School 1980s (former Grammar School reduced to Comprehensive of which I was first year intake) critical thinking was still encouraged in many subjects.
Since then I gather that learning by rote and being told what to think have returned to being the norm.
The people who excell under this system are those with good memories. Reasoning abilities not required.
I’ve been thinking that before COVID. Met too many supposedly well qualified people who re-assert what they’ve been taught in face of opposing logic and when asked for supporting evidence come up with no better explanation. In fact they generally get louder and angry.
I believe I possess both, had two years in grammar school, then it went comprehensive and CO-ED. The dregs of the town then were mixed with what had been two (girls and boys) top grammar schools with disastrous results. A collapse of standards in learning and teaching and the import of some of the most left wing teachers imaginable. They all came first in the race to the bottom.
The captured institutions started telling them all ills in their life were someone else’s fault or responsibility in return for their votes, support or popularity. It became easier to let others think for them.
And lazy. They’d rather abjugate their responsibility for themselves and their children.
They are only repeating the Government misinformation (lies in other words).
“It’s staggering that 18 months after the start of the pandemic, almost one third of Americans say the risk of being hospitalised from COVID if you’re not vaccinated is at least 50%. Clearly there has been a failure of communication on the part of public health authorities.”
Very dry.
But surely you could have just written the plain truth:
“It is remarkable that 18 months after the start of the pandemic, almost one third of Americans say the risk of being hospitalised from COVID if you’re not vaccinated is at least 50%. Clearly the systematic overstating and over-dramatising of covid risks on the part of public health authorities has had a very significant effect.“
I was just about to post something similar! It’s a clear win for government propaganda and lies – probably far more successful than they ever dared to hope.
Absolutely. There has been no ‘failure of communication’. They got the results they desired.
“Clearly the systematic overstating and over-dramatising of covid risks on the part of public health authorities has had a very significant effect.“
“Clearly the systematic overstating and over-dramatising of covid risks on the part of public health authorities has been highly successful.“
For the education of Noah, the denominator is the part of a fraction that is below the line, not the part above the line as Noah has assumed.
Can you explain what you mean, ewloe? As I can’t see anything wrong with Noah’s statement.
‘What percentage of people who have been infected by the coronavirus needed to be hospitalized?’
So if, out of every 100 people who have been infected, 5 have been hospitalised, 5 is the numerator and 100 is the denominator. 5 out of every 100, 5/100, 5%.
“What percentage of people have been hospitalised due to the coronavirus?”
So, in this question, ‘people who have been hospitalised’ is the denominator.
And even I can’t get it completely right. What I meant to say IS, in the second question, ‘people’ is the denominator! So, as Noah says, ‘different denominators’! I’ll blame the rain waking me up early this morning. Perhaps we all can. Can the three people who upticked ewloe’s post explain what Noah has got wrong?
I don’t know, wearing a mask whilst urban cycling might be sensible to help reduce diesel exhaust particulates. What was it, about 70000 deaths per annum in the UK can be attributable to air pollution. Of course, there might be other deleterious effects of said garment whilst cycling..
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/40/20/1590/5372326?fbclid=IwAR2Z0uFbFz5WuO4mK7F_OOuEP5D-3DsC7xKIED9WxVnM87U4I21Ttv7P-4M
I still remember the bloke out cycling just into lockdown lite last summer. He was not wearing a mask but had donned a welders face shield (worn at 45° LOL).
In order to do this he was unable to wear his cycle helmet that might have afforded him some actual level of protection in the event of a collision.
I’ve seen a group on bikes with mask, but no helmets…
recently seen a no helmet, and mobile phone glued to ear wobbling along the pavement past children.
When i cycled around london I used to use a exhale-vented mask as public buses kicked out some horrid crap and you tend to use the bus lanes.
That 70,000 figure was pulled out of someone’s arse based on modelling. As ever, the simple response is to ask them to “name one”.
I recommend compulsory reading of Camus, The Plague, for an insight into how fear, however perceived, causes most to behave.
Fear was, is, and always will be the key necessary to manipulate a populace.
The Nazis were mere amateurs compared to this lot, although to be fair to them they only had recourse to control of newspapers and radios – which they virtually gave away, to spread the light.
Us 20% have a good idea of what the bastards will do next. Hold the line.
re fear was, is, and always will be the key necessary to manipulate a populace.
Greed is just as important. Fear and greed work on populations. The populace, on the other hand are poorer than the general population and hence more susceptible to both fear and greed, perhaps?
….and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope..
Oops, sorry, wrong sketch
(I’ll get me coat)
I was sat outside my local Tesco (other sh1t supermarkets are available) last week and was thinking about risk perception, I know it’s a bit nerdy but it’s part of my job. I counted 100 people leaving who appeared over 40, 18 came out wearing a mask. Interesting that they think the mask is protecting them and they are at ‘less risk’. However, 23 lit a cigarette upon leaving and a significant number of the smokers were mask wearers (?) And Its well understood that smoking leads to at least a 50% risk of dying from a smoking related disease?
Cognitive dissonance and general lack of risk perception amongst the public is a nightmare, no wonder Government nudging has overstepped the mark recently, we need to start having sensible discourse on risk. The earlier you can speak to your kids about it the more balanced they’ll be in later life. Don’t leave it to teachers, some think the world is going to die in 10-15 years and have actually told kids this.
I got tired of pointing out to people that you can inhale and exhale cigarette smoke through a mask and that tobacco particulates are vastly larger than bits of Covid.
“Government nudging has overstepped the mark recently, we need to start having sensible discourse on risk.”
I think that you are far too generous to government. This cannot be due to a beneficent intent; it is the result of the intended distortions of propaganda (aka ‘nudging). The last thing wanted is ‘sensible discourse’.
You are right, however, that the general ability to estimate risk is appalling and disconnected from reality in the majority of circumstances. Within the framework of poor mathematical understanding amongst the population, two elements are almost totally neglected in the curriculum – the crucial (and related) skills of estimation and probability. You’re more likely to have spent time on pointless long division exercises rather than getting a grasp of such basic concepts, such as the reading of graphed data.
This is true even for those who may have studied mathematics formally to an (allegedly) reasonable level. Just try asking a cross-section of medics what is the difference is between absolute and relative risk – a crucial piece of knowledge in medicine.
I would like to have a conversation about risk with a smoker or overweight person demanding that others be vaccinated.
It wouldn’t be a friendly one.
This is one reason I stopped regularly contributing to LS some months ago.
Todays Roundup contains several interesting links but only remained as Lead Article from midnight to 7am, when most readers are fast asleep, only to be supplanted by two not particularly arresting articles that could have waited until tomorrows Roundup.
Further contributions to the todays Roundup are not worthwhile as many busy readers only comment on the first article.
“It’s staggering that 18 months after the start of the pandemic, almost one third of Americans say the risk of being hospitalised from COVID if you’re not vaccinated is at least 50%. Clearly there has been a failure of communication on the part of public health authorities.”
Not just a failure of communication from the public health authorities, but a general absolute failure of common sense. We have all seen lots of friends and relatives get covid and very very few of them end up in the hospital. It does happen, but it is clearly not half of them.
people are poor at evaluating risk
Whitty actually did a nice job of putting it into context in March 2020 – just before they decided to lockdown and scare the shit out of us so we would comply.
Its always been a nothing disease for normal people who aren’t dying of old age.
Its a real shame that the government wound us up rather than calming us down (as they did in Sweden)
Actually, the recommended proper strategy has always been to damp down panic – not wind it up.
I have always been intrigued by imagining what happened between the sensible & accurate Whitty statements (on age-related risks and on proportions who he expected not to notice the virus vs that which may result in a death) and The Madness.
Initially, it sounded like some SAGE folk were in ongoing exchanges with public health people in Sweden.
Then something happened. What?
I don’t think many people on SAGE knew that the objective had changed & was now to terrify the wits out of the politicians & public. At a guess, Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson, Farrar, Van Tam & a couple of others.
At minimum, surely Ferguson, Farrar, Vallance & Whitty were in the tent during some part of the run-up to this event?
My own surmise is that almost everyone who’s been told anything has been sold the line that this is all about saving the planet. Imagine how effective multiple decades of anthropogenic global warming tales has been in imprinting the implicit belief that “if something major isn’t done, there’s a substantial chance that we’ll destroy the climate & this will lead to mass starvation, displacement, war & huge loss of life”.
And of course in a world of nations, leaders of countries want others to live at a lower standard of living, so that they can continue to live “high on the hog”. It’s unlikely that voluntary changes will cut CO2 releases.
A blend of threats & bribes will generally get almost everyone to do what they’re told. And if you’re told that the underlying intent is to “save the planet”, using necessarily undemocratic means, democratic approaches having manifestly failed, it is very much less likely you’d resist.
“There’ll be a Great Reset, and history will regard you as a heroic leader, but once we come out the other side, living at very much lower CO2 outputs, a new normal will be established. Oh, you & your family get Golden Tickets, meaning you won’t be impacted now or afterwards….think of it as humanity’s gift to you for the hard yards ahead. Talking of rewards, on this piece of paper is the numbered account in Lichtenstein & the bearer bond details. Completely untraceable. As you contemplate your decision, a reminder: the threat if you decline is precisely as summarised. You wouldn’t want to have to explain to your partner how both children met their tragic ends, would you? You’ve an hour to think it through”.
I recall Johnson leaning on a doorframe, clapping the NHS & looking awful. I can’t remember if that was before he apparently tangled with Covid19. I’ve often wondered if he’d just been told.
“Though of course, wearing a mask under such circumstances does approximately nothing – other than raise the question of how on earth you got into Stanford.”
Exactly. Some young people today are so brainwashed it doesn’t bode well for the future.
Now bringing young people the New Normal range of emojis. Enjoy!
A more accurate headline would be “Mainstream Media Consumers Have Highly Distorted View of Reality”
Bang on. Mass psychosis was the aim, mass psychosis achieved.
It’s going to get very difficult for us minority that view reality in a more rational/data driven way.
I find this survey a bit irritating, because there is no clear overall assessment of perceptions against the reality, and a confusion about the question asked. The breakdown by political allegiance is interesting – but really should be presented a subset of the overall data.
It’s not a failure, it’s exactly what they want the idiots to believe.
You must dig deeper for the truth.
The Dems needed the Covid crisis to permit the mass issue of postal ballots, which forensic audits now prove to have been massively inflated with fraudulent votes for Biden.
Biden and Co are bought and paid for by the CCP, where of course Covid was launched on the world from its Wuhan Bioweapons lab.
You couldn’t make it up.
“You couldn’t make it up.” And yet you did.
Is this meant as a joke?
It has been the policy of the health authorities to terrify the public. There is no failure here. On the contrary, it has been a spectacular success.
Regarding the “vanishingly small” health risks to young people.
This author links to the same comprehensive UK study I linked to in a story I wrote. This study – of EVERY hospitalized child in the UK in the first year of the pandemic – found that only 25 children died of COVID in the first 12 months of the pandemic.
However, only six of these children had no pre-existing “chronic” or “life-altering” medical conditions at the time of their death.
Nineteen (19) of the 25 deaths were among children with very serious pre-existing conditions.
Context is always important and there are approximately 12 million children aged 0 to 17 in the UK.
To perform my own extrapolation, I estimated that 1 in 50 children live with “chronic” or “life-altering” medical conditions. This, I think, is a very conservative estimate.
To get the mortality percentage for “healthy” children one would need to subtract 240,000 children who do live with chronic or life-altering medical conditions. This leaves us with approximately 11.76 million “healthy” children in the U.K.
From this cohort of healthy children, six died of this disease. This makes the probability a healthy child will die from COVID 0.0001 percent. One has to go out to four decimal points to capture this mortality “risk.”
Expressed differently, the odds a healthy child in the UK will die from COVID is 1 in 1.96 million – which rounded up is 1 in 2 million.
The odds are even more microscopic if one controls for race as minority children have higher mortality risks. The probability a healthy white child would die from COVID are approximately 1 in 5 million
Yes, this is a “vanishingly small” risk. Indeed, the risk is about as close to 0.0000 as one can get via mathematics.
https://uncoverdc.com/2021/07/30/for-majority-of-uk-children-covid-mortality-is-0-000/
I also think it’s noteworthy that this team of researchers performed very detailed “cause of death” assessments in this study. Based on close examination of medical records, the researchers determined that the true number of deaths that could be attributed to COVID was 25 (not 61). That is, they reduced the number of deaths “from” COVID by 59 percent.
As noted, 19 of these 25 deaths involved children with chronic or life-altering medical conditions, leaving only six deaths from COVID alone.
Still, one wonders if researchers also looked at mortality records of older age cohorts if they would also find that many of these deaths were not directly attributable to COVID. One assumes this would be the case. That is, it’s very possible we could reduce the number of “confirmed” deaths by approximately 50 percent (perhaps more).
So in America instead of 650,000 deaths from COVID, there might be 325,000 deaths. This is still a large number, but not nearly as alarming.
Furthermore, reducing the number of deaths reduces the fraction that is the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR). To get this figure, one simply divides the total number of “cases” into the total number of deaths. And we also know that the number of “cases” has been dramatically understated. That is, for every PCR-confirmed “case,” there must be four or five (or more) people who actually had the virus (and just didn’t know it or never bothered to get tested).
So you can reduce the numerator (legitimate deaths) and INCREASE the denominator (total cases). This leaves us with an IFR that, for most age cohorts, is lower or equal to the IFR of influenza.
Certainly among children and young adults influenza is much deadlier than COVID.
I’m sure these polls have given Mr Yougov Zahawi a few ideas.
Do these people who write this type of gibberish believe we are all idiots?
It continues to be surreal witnessing apparent intelligent people going on and on about a fabricated illusion: C19 doesn’t exist because it fails Koch Postulates, therefore absolutely everything else are LIES!! Propaganda!! Bla bla bla!!!
And trying to mix politics in this illusion is really an insult to my intelligence!!!