The U.K. relied too much on “very scary” SAGE models to decide on lockdowns, according to the man behind some of those very projections who repeatedly called for longer lockdowns. MailOnline has more.
Just months after SAGE predicted 6,000 deaths per day and called for a Christmas lockdown in response to Omicron, Professor John Edmunds said the models were only supposed to be “one component” of decision-making but were leaned on too much by ministers.
He accepted the models failed to account for the economic harm and the knock-on health effects that lockdowns caused.
Professor Edmunds admitted that these harms “in principle” could have been factored into models “but in practice they were not”.
His remarks come as Britons face the harsh reality of two years’ of shutting down the economy and health service, with the NHS grappling a backlog crisis that has seen one in nine people in England stuck on an NHS waiting list for treatment and inflation at its highest point in 30 years.
The epidemiologist, who was among the most outspoken members of SAGE, said some of the death projections in the model were “truly eye-watering”.
Speaking at a medical conference on Tuesday, he said: “The epidemiological model is only one component [of decision-making] and I wondered and I worried that we’d had too much weight.”
He added: “There is of course an enormous economic impact from many of the interventions and other indirect impacts on psychological health and so on. Now these in principle could be included but in practice they were not.”
Professor Edmunds called for the first lockdown to be extended in summer 2021, warning Britain was “taking a risk” by unlocking while still logging 8,000 cases per day and that the decision was “clearly” political.
And he warned against easing the third national lockdown in early 2021, warning it would be a ‘”disaster” and put “enormous pressure” on the health service.
Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth and all that – but you can’t help feel the recantation is very convenient as we move on from the pandemic and people start to look back with more objectivity at all the crazy, costly things that were done in the name of ‘science’ and at the behest of modellers.
Worth reading in full.
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The independent review of the UK response to swine flu in 2009 was very critical of the role of modelling, but this was all forgotten and ignored in 2020. I expect the same thing to happen again, and modellers will continue to wreak havoc in many domains of life.
You don’t think that independent reviews are actually done to inform future policy, do you? They are sops to the electorate, when the politicians will take orders from Gates et al every single time.
Counterpoint: I don’t expect the pending review to be at all critical of modelling. It may throw a couple of the lesser modellers under the bus, but The Science itself cannot be questioned, as it will be “needed” again.
Modelling should be the job of Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell.
Presenting ‘modelling’ as science is presenting the work of apocalyptic fiction as fact. Chris ‘Science’ Whitty referred to modelling as if it were somehow superior to observation of reality, which was unintentionally revealing on his part.
Your showing your age with those three. As for modelling the government would have got more sense asking Justin de Villeneuve about modelling (connected to Twiggy for those that don’t know)
Yes but they are quite fit and no more need be said.
As for the government, they purposefully made everything as nonsensical as possible, all the better to gaslight.
We will have to endure a lot more of this rubbish in the months ahead. Part of being a herd animal, as many in this country have revealed themselves to be, is a total absence of self-reflection.
You won’t ever get to see these people admit they were wrong, apologise or learn from their mistakes. They’ll just follow the prevailing narrative wherever it goes. Everyone pretty much knows lockdowns were a disaster now but these people have forgotten the part they played, or how how treated those who warned against them.
Let’s think of all the businesses destroyed; the business hopes ended; the people whose jobs were lost through no fault of their own.
Models that fail to address the consequences of their application are not simply inept, they are grotesque, and extremely dangerous.
Apparently, they didn’t realise that ministers would “lean on” their models. Even when they repeatedly referred to them?
At the very least, those who produced these “models” should experience unemployment, and fines so large that they make that unemployment as uncomfortable for them as it has been for those whose lives they helped damage and destroy.
It’s the way in which they fervently went out and proselytized their doom mongering message to the enthralled and fear ridden masses. Knowing that what they were modelling was at best utter garbage, at worse a pile of pure sh;t, they KNEW the impact lockdown would have on society, but meh, we weren’t asked to factor that in, As if that’s a fcking good enough reason not too!! And then to do a complete character assassination on the Great Barrington Declaration and other well meaning scientists who wanted a full debate…
It’s is unforgivable in my book.
You had some misgivings? Well you sure as hell kept them, well and truly buried, deep down in your dark, twisted, self aggrandising soul.
These fckers should not be allowed to get away with this.
That’s right: these public sector functionaries should lose their pensions and their homes and the funds sourced that way should be handed to the private sector SMEs that were forced into bankruptcy.
Might teach those smug self-satisfied cretins that there is a downside risk to useless unprofessional behaviour..
Who is going to make this happen?
Answer: No-one.
If they genuinely “hadn’t realised” Ministers would lean on their models so heavily, it was blindingly obvious after 3 weeks that that is precisely what they were doing … so Edmunds had plenty of opportunity to tell Johnson and his fellow lunatics they had to consider the wider implications of lock downs.
None of them did.
They plan to destroy more businesses and lives with their i permanent Ukraine was and the attack on heating, lighting our food and our standard of living .
They are after all “at war” with us! We are their biggest problem … in the way and holding up their Great Reset .
Wait until they crash the economy… any time soon!
Agreed.
That’s why it’s up to the likes of us, to make sure that never happens. I’m never going to forget this man’s mealy mouthed words. His face is imprinted on my memory, along with all the others.
No amount of backtracking, memory holing, pitiful excuses, will atone them of their Covid sin making. It’s going to take a whole lot of contrition, grovelling, repentance, acceptance on their part that they fckd up the world, heck maybe some good old jail time, certainly professional annihilation, loss of lucrative jobs, shame and ridicule in academic circles…
Do I sound bitter. Hell, I’m just getting started.
You don’t sound bitter, you sound generally outraged, incensed, unbelievably angry, trying to ensure that you don’t actually commit violence against them.
“That’s why it’s up to the likes of us, to make sure that never happens.”
It’s still happening – there are still Covid restrictions as far as international travel is concerned, Test & Trace is still operating (simmering in the background collecting huge sums of money from the Government), the ‘megalab’ doing PCR testing in Leamington Spa is still operating, ‘vaccines for Covid’ are still being dished out, the EU Vaxx Pass scheme is still running.
So long as they got to go abroad on holiday, that’s what mattered to a lot of people.We have friends who believe everything in 2020/21/22 was for the greater good of everyone – they’ve been on cruises and holiday abroad so are Happy People.
Yes, the rules and regulations were a price many people were quite happy to pay (and still are) and it didn’t spoil their experience in the slightest. For many it was probably quite exciting as they were jabbing, testing and masking all for the common good with a ‘we’re all in this together’ mentality. There is no way they are ever going to believe any different.
Absolutely which is it’s not a topic for discussion with certain people as they need to be in the herd.
Exactly! But they would all do the same again when the next invented crisis is launched by teh sold-out Media
This was the tie Doris wore when announcing the first lockdown. Anyone notice this???
Anyone remember this phrase? “Follow the white rabbit.” Extra 10 points for remembering the film.
Anyone familiar with Alice In (God Help Us) Wonderland?
More importantly, WHAT is the significance of Doris wearing this tie as promoted by his ‘ADVISORS?
They think we are all STOOPID!!!!!! In BROAD DAYLIGHT they take the proverbial. What is it gonna take for the sheeple to WAKE UP. FFS really??
I’m sorry, I’m not arguing, but I don’t understand. Is it something to do with “The Matrix”?
I am curious, please can you explain?
Following the White Rabbit brings Neo to the truth. This white rabbit tie could be seen as mocking the nation in that they are kept in a ‘Matrix’ of deception. People are still in fear of catching ‘The Virus’, to this day.
‘Covid’ – biggest con/fraud/scam ever – and still people can’t see it. But it is backed up by force – fines from the Police, stopped at borders unless ‘fully vaccinated’, being sacked from your job for refusing to take the experimental ‘vaccines’, etc.
Not just force but continuous surveillance of everything you do, everything you buy, everywhere you go, who you talk to, who your friends are, and everything you say on-line.
Thank you, that’s helpful.
Could not have said it better myself. Simply excellent.
Bojo breeds like a rabbit so why not?
And now the government just want to leave it to the WHO?
They don’t want to, they’ve been ordered to. Upon pain of having all their booze ups, philandering, corruption, insider trading etc etc put on the front page of their least favourite newspaper.
Ducking any responsibility for anything or answering hard questions honestly seems to be a Johnson trait!
I didn’t notice an apology. Did you notice an apology..?
Nope.
This snivelling little wretch was responsible for so much scaremongering. Particularly when it came to keeping schools closed, if I remember rightly.
Not one word, and I searched for all variations.
He’s blaming others for not stopping him.
Perhaps that is the lesson we shoud learn!
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If only…
‘I want some more grant money, so I am taking the modelling knee and declaring my prior sins’….
Bingo. He’s swimming away from that sinking ship like the damn rat that he is.
Don’t worry, he’ll clamber back aboard the instant it’s refloated.
When even Bill (inject them all) Gates is admitting that covid was just like a flu that impacted the elderly it has to be incredibly difficult for the lesser zealots to hold the line.
What are the chances that the flu would disappear only to be replaced by a disease that was indistinguishable from the flu in terms of symptoms and mortality?
Luckily for us we had PCR test to let us know, the MSM/governments to scare us with propaganda and the pharma industry to
poisonsave us with their warp speed magic sauce.Gates declares he has Covid – pure theatre cooked up by his $$$$PR Machine so he can claim to be one of the “victims “- very mild symptoms he says – never mind.
When exacly did Johnson decide to emulate the CCP and impose lockdown, on what basis did he upend decades worth of pandemic preparedness research and training?
SAGE weren’t promoting lockdown before Boris imposed the policy, they only stepped into line afterwards.
Why did that fat [o[k do it, was it all down to these bloody models?
When?
When he got his orders during his enforced “Hospitalisation”!
He had a meeting with Gates in February, no Minutes taken, and the plan for the ‘pandemic’ was ratified then. The dodgy PCR test cooked up by Drosten and quickly endorsed by the WHO started to generate lots of ‘cases’…..not long after Johnson did his faux Churchill address to the nation on March 23rd. It was supposed to be 3 weeks but he knew it was to be far longer. Now he wants the UK to be signed up to the WHO pandemic treaty without any consultation with the people. Johnson is still following the script.
Each TV station had its own resident doomsayer. ITV had Dr Hilary and John Edmunds. C4 Devi Shridha whilst the BBC went into zero Covid overdrive with an entire cast of lockdown celebrities. They all contributed to a recurring narrative, We must have lockdown, lockdown and yet more lockdowns. They were the instigators and drivers of the nightmare who got away with it because the idiots in charge of us were too stupid and cowardly to ever challenge them aided by a media class determined to keep any critics off the air. It is one of the most shameful episodes in our history.
He looks like a frightened rabbit caught in car headlights who knows he’s about to be run over.
I hope so. And I hope Whitty, Vallance, Van Tam, Ferguson and the rest get flattened as well.
Jonathan ‘Don’t Blow It’ Van Tam, promoter of domestic abuse as government policy, blaming the public for his imposition of restrictions.
Looks more like a rodent than a lagomorph to me.
The tide has turned against lockdowns and the authoritarian members of SAGE who imposed them on us are scuttling back towards the water so they’re not exposed on the sands when the Public Inquiry is held.
This low-life should NEVER be allowed to advise any Government ever again ….. and that goes for the rest of the SAGE Lockdown Extremists.
Has it though?
If you offered the muzzled Karen on the Clapham Omnibus another two weeks (or two years) of “free” Netflix binging, would she demur, or bite your hand off?
Even if you explained the inevitable inflationary effect, even if you told her in no uncertain terms (as some of us did) that the currency devaluation she’s seeing now is a direct result of past shutdowns, would she put her future massive loss above her short term “win”?
Why was there such a basic lack of common sense.
Because it was doomsday cultism.
“Common Sense” is anti-woke, anti Carbon Zero BS anti –Covid Zero Tyranny, anti poison jab and of course ….. “Racist”!
“Oh I am sorry that I caused the breakdown of the economy, killed millions through non cancer detection, stroke, heart disease and untreated medical conditions, I am sorry I caused Children to have their mental and emotional development stopped and have created a tribe of emotionally detatched infants, I am sorry I stopped children playing, put them in masks, put exeprimental chemicals in their bodies and caused some to have bodily damage as a result, I am so sorry that I stood behind and supported abuse of children telling them they were disease spreaders and granny killers, that the unvaccinated should be shunned and locked up, and I am really sorry that I ruined businesses that were not those that fund my research and pay my wages, and as a result have caused economic hardship fro millions that are not me and my feloow SAGE members and advisors. As I say I am very sorry, but its time to all move on now, I have lots more important work to do, and if I play it right I can really earn lots more money.”
This man along with the others “who overplayed it”, should be held to account and deprived of their liberty and livelihood at the very least for the damage they have caused. Apologies are cheap
If you search the article, you’ll find 0 instances, of “sorry”, “apologise” or even “regret”.
This rat is squealing on the rest. He’s merely complaining that someone should have stopped him.
Like the Serial Killer who says he ought not to have been allowed to do it but ‘they’ were too stupid to stop him!!
Will the next ‘peaceful protest’ be held outside John Edmund’s house?
Answer: No.
The so called enquirey will be a complete whitewash/vindication of those responsible, taking forever to complete. It will cost millions more that could be much better spent. And the modellers covidians will applaud the result.
Meanwhile we will all suffer the consequences of this nonesense for decades.
Rats in a sack, and he even looks like one.
He’s kidding nobody who’s been following along. It was clear from the infamous ICL Report 9 in March 2020 that governmens, plural, were Hell-bent on using the worse possible numbers to justify the most possible despotism. This pip can’t credibly squeak a different tune now.
And some of his fellow rodents have already squealed that they were told to only produce worst-case scenario models, because “There’s no point in coming up with conclusion that says nothing needs to be done.”
This is a literal mea culpa that – if the same criminal junta that ordered it wasn’t still in charge – should result in him being prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
More a mouse than a rat.
Unbelievable ! Words fail me……
He is getting his denials in first, having seen the way the prevailing wind is blowing, no different to those from other historical totalitarian regimes that try to deny responsibility.
Edmunds was yet another early advocate of reasonable measures who on March 13 said live on Channel 4 that “The only way to stop this epidemic is indeed to achieve herd immunity.”
He turned on a sixpence not long after. On April 18 2020, in an interview with the blessed Cathy Newman (Lobsters be Upon Her), he rather gave the game away:
“Well we all looked at a range of different measure, which were very stringent, but it was um … you know, it’s difficult to say. You know in some sense it was difficult to imagine just how easy the lockdown was if you see what I mean? That people would actually go along with it.”
One for the trials. Left Lockdown Sceptics had his number early on.
https://leftlockdownsceptics.com/2021/02/covid-superstars-4-professor-john-edmunds-obe/?doing_wp_cron=1652344844.9972810745239257812500
This article does NOT represent repentance in any shape or form. There is no acknowledgement of the very real harms that he and his fellow ‘modellers’ actually caused and caused deliberately.
It is totally inadequate to say ‘And the social and psychological impact of the restrictions are ‘still not clear’ and were ‘certainly not clear ahead of time’,’
Where has this person been?
It was obvious to anyone with an IQ in double figures, or even single figures, that closing down whole sections of the PRODUCTIVE economy and keeping alive the bloated, incompetent and inefficient public sector would cause lasting harm. Not to mention the despair that was caused by viable businesses being closed on a bureaucratic whim. And that is only ONE example of the numerous harms that this man actually caused.
I shall take more notice of Edmonds’ repentance if he did the following:
But Professor Edmonds has no intention of doing any of this because he is not interested and does not care.
Lots of us warned about economic and health consequences, but we were closed down, ignored and labelled dangerous by social media, mainstream media and even our MPs
Now that it is clear we were right all along, what will be done about those who silenced and ignored us? Jack all, that’s what
BBC, Sky, ITV, Facebook, Twitter, Google, – they were all at it.
Is the photo a sample of those who have been deliberately creating the nightmare for us?
No wonder the country is being ruined.
Just a smidgen too late! Who led, SAGE or Hancock?
Same SAGE worthy who authored epidemiological papers published in March 2020 reporting IFR 1% on the Diamond Princess for passengers average age 58. All who died were aged over 70.
Recanter knew the reality all along.
Yes… so he is lying isn’t he- like all the others about everything – that is after all the fashion of our time.
I knew this was going to happen…. People who demanded more stricter lockdowns would then go on to say they were a bad idea or totally deny agreeing to them. That’s why I’ve got hundreds of screenshots of the famous people demanding lockdowns. Just in case they decide to backtrack
download to flash drive in case anything should happen to your laptop!!
Off with his head.
Someone said to me the other day ‘Are you a conspiracy theorist?’ I replied that most of what were deemed to be conspiracies over the past two years are now being accepted as realistic and logical appraisals of the situation.
An email from the past, showing that Edmunds didn’t have a clue about what was going on..
To: roncarlin@mweb.co.za
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 11:55:05 AM
Subject: Re: 2 processes
would not want to bet on that. Over 95% of those who are exposed mount an antibody response, so the 6% is probably quite accurate. The rest of us have not been exposed. Whether we have any background immunity due to infections from other coronaviruses is possible, but I think unlikely to play anything but a very small role. If it was a major effect then those who have not been exposed (the very young) would have the highest risk of disease. They do not. They have the lowest risk.
As for London and other cities having enough immunity to stop a second wave due to putative cross protection or whatever, I think is absolutely nonsense. These effects were presumably in play before the first wave, and they did not slow that down very much.
John
From: “roncarlin@mweb.co.za” <roncarlin@mweb.co.za>
Date: Wednesday, 9 September 2020 at 10:30
To: John Edmunds <John.Edmunds@LSHTM.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 2 processes
Hi John,
Sure, absolutely.
But you may have immunity without testing positive for antibodies, that’s the point. So we don’t know the overall immunity of the population, and therefore we cannot calculate the contribution of process 1 versus 2, not so?
It’s a dark void.
That’s why I asked the question: because I know there is no simple answer.
Kind regards
Ron
From: “john edmunds” <John.Edmunds@LSHTM.ac.uk>
To: roncarlin@mweb.co.za
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 10:31:06 AM
Subject: Re: 2 processes
I was using the specific antibodies as a marker of infection from COVID-19 and therefore immunity (possibly rather short lived). This does not mean to say that the antibodies themselves are doing the job of keeping the individual immune, it may be T-cells, or more likely a combination of Ab, B and T-cells. However, if you have specific antibodies and you have recovered, then this means that you have been infected and your immune system has fought the virus and won. You are probably, therefore, immune, and all the evidence points to this being the case.
John
From: “roncarlin@mweb.co.za” <roncarlin@mweb.co.za>
Date: Wednesday, 9 September 2020 at 03:46
To: John Edmunds <John.Edmunds@LSHTM.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 2 processes
Hi John,
Of the number of experts that I have consulted about this problem, you have given me the first coherent answer, so yes, this does help a lot.
But let me make your life a misery. Current research indicates that antibody testing is only the tip of the iceberg as far as overall immunity is concerned. T-cells and innate immunity (and other as yet unknown mechanisms) seem to be more important than B-cells.
So here is the nightmare scenario: places like London are possibly close to herd immunity because overall immunity has reached the required threshhold.
From: “john edmunds” <John.Edmunds@LSHTM.ac.uk>
To: roncarlin@mweb.co.za
Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2020 7:24:07 PM
That is a surprisingly easy question to answer if you have a reliable marker of rates of infection in the community. This usually comes in the form of a serological survey, in which people are bled and tested for antibodies to the virus. In the UK, for instance, there have been a number of such surveys, some of which are very large (e.g. the REACT 2 study which has bled 100,000 randomly selected adults over a number of time points). What these surveys tell us in the UK is that about 6% of the population have been infected.
This would then reduce the effect of the reproduction number by the same fraction (assuming homogenous mixing). So here in the UK our reproduction number is being reduced by about 6% due to immunity. Given that it is about 1 at the moment, but the viruses baseline (or basic) reproduction number is about 3, then the vast majority of this reduction is due to social distancing – your process number 1.
Hope that helps,
John
From: “roncarlin@mweb.co.za” <roncarlin@mweb.co.za>
Date: Tuesday, 8 September 2020 at 16:50
To: John Edmunds <John.Edmunds@LSHTM.ac.uk>
Hi John,
I have a simple question related to Covid-19:
We know that the virus burns itself out if R remains < 1.
There are 2 processes that reduce R, both operating simultaneously:
1) Containment which limits the spread of the virus.
2) Inocculation due to infection which builds herd immunity.
Why do we never hear of the second process, even though we know that both processes act together? What would your estimate be of the relative contribution of each process to reduction of R at the current state of the pandemic in England?
“Over 95% of those who are exposed mount an antibody response, so the 6% is probably quite accurate”. Pure thumb suck conjecture, with no scientific data to back it up. And these jokers like John were in charge of making life-and-death decisions. Never again!
“Given that it is about 1 at the moment, but the viruses baseline (or basic) reproduction number is about 3, then the vast majority of this reduction is due to social distancing – your process number 1.” A complete thumb suck at the time. SIR had a much bigger impact. which we now know is far more probable. So John simply discounted process 2, because it didn’t fit the groupthink Sage consensus at the time.
Edmunds said he “worried” but never articulated his worries….fought valiantly against them to demand longer lockdowns/ restrictions. Too cowardly too ‘go against the grain’, or too well paid in his current sinecure.
He now has the nerve to say the epidemiology embedded in the models was too scary, those models he backed to the hilt along with others in that profession, University ‘bubbles’, far above the lives of ordinary people. Six thousand deaths projected for January 2021, ergo, get people ‘locked away’ from families, friends, businesses. The elderly and disabled in the care sector not part of their models. Disgusting weasely revisionism.
I sincerely hope you go forth, multiply, and cease to exist.
Same for all your ilk.
It’s totally hypocritical to now try to weasel out of responsibility for the unnecessary and unprecedented harm that lockdown measures caused. By the time that Edmunds, Ferguson et al got busy modelling, the world had already seen the outcome of the Diamond Princess outbreak and it had already been determined that Covid-19 was not a High Consequence Infectious Disease. Any epidemiologist with even basic knowledge of respiratory viruses had to know that all of the measures that they proposed and modelled had already been eliminated as ineffective and that best-practice for such a virus explicitly ruled out curfews, border closures and the like and yet that’s exactly what they proposed on the strength of spurious claims that doing nothing would lead to a massive death toll.
What should the rest of us make of his pathetic excuses? Was the “worst case scenario” a deliberate strategy to underpin a deliberate effort to destroy small businesses and jobs and to provide a backdrop for introducing mRNA and Adenovirus-Vectored DNA products that are decades away from being ready for population-wide use, if they ever prove to be safe and effective at all. The fact that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding to Imperial College London and the rest of the usual suspects calls into question their impartiality.
We have witnessed an attempt by the Medical and Pharmaceutical Cabal to seize control of the world and make John D. Rockefeller’s dream of a world dominated by “Scientific” Medicine happen on a global scale. The WHO Treaty that is now doing the rounds is the next stage of the actual (not theoretical) conspiracy to create a “Brave New World” dominated by the makers of “vaccines” and other patented drugs where we are all just subjects of their Mengelian experiments and have no rights at all.