We’re now approaching the tail-end of 2022 and the Government appears to have much on its plate, including the financial echoes of the 2008 banking crisis, the consequences of shutting the country’s economy for two years, the impact of the conflict in Eastern Europe, sabre-rattling by the USA (both in Europe and Asia), the NHS falling apart, political infighting and having to deal with a new monarch. The Government certainly appears to be too busy to have to bother with Covid anymore and would probably prefer it if it went away – the Covid infection reports that were once published every Thursday are published sporadically, the once daily infection reports have been relegated to a weekly update and the endless TV appearances by a succession of politicians to proclaim on Covid has slowed to a trickle.
Alas, Covid doesn’t care about the Government’s preoccupations and we find ourselves yet again at the start of a Covid wave, with increasing numbers infected and surely non-trivial numbers of hospitalisations to come.
Given that the Government seems to want Covid to go away, perhaps now is a good time to review the history and performance of the Vaccine Surveillance Report produced by UKHSA, the Government’s main infectious disease monitoring agency, and arguably originally intended to declare the pandemic finished 18 months ago.
The first Vaccine Surveillance Report was issued on May 13th 2021, from what was then Public Health England – the name change to the Orwellian-sounding Health Security Agency was yet to come. Way back then the vaccine appeared to have had a positive impact on cases, hospitalisations and deaths – we’d suffered a brutal winter wave of the Kent variant (later renamed Alpha variant, because the World Health Organisation didn’t want to blame the gentle folk of Kent for the emergence of the disease), but as vaccination had progressed to ever higher proportions of the population Covid had seemingly gone away. Some might think that the Vaccine Surveillance Report was produced as an exercise in self-congratulation, promulgating the success of the vaccines at eliminating a plague that had caused immense harm to the countries and populations of the world (mainly as a result of the various non-pharmaceutical interventions that nearly all Western Governments seemed very keen to implement).
That week of May 13th 2021 marked the last time that the U.K. saw new Covid infections below 2,000 a day and Covid deaths in single figures.
Unfortunately, the low in Covid ‘cases’ was short lived – after that first Vaccine Surveillance Report cases started to rise again, slowly at first but by the end of summer 2021 our Government was responding with an increased urgency, first imploring individuals to get vaccinated to build herd immunity, then to protect granny and eventually, when it was clear that the vaccines were not offering any meaningful protection from infection/transmission, to protect the NHS.
Seventeen months after that first Vaccine Surveillance Report from Public Health England we’re in a very different position. Recent Covid infectious waves have exceeded 4 million concurrently infected individuals for the U.K., an infection rate of approximately one in every 16 individuals, and it is likely that we’ll see many more infections again this autumn. Note a couple of aspects to the infection ratio that is sometimes missed:
- Infection rates aren’t the same across the population, and in particular for different age groups. Typically, infection rates in the very old are lower than for young adults and the middle aged – this implies that infection rates in those aged 20-60 will be higher than the rate that applies for the whole population.
- This is a snapshot at one point in time – during the peak of each Covid wave there will be people infected in the early part of the wave that have recovered, and there will likely be as many people again that will be infected before that wave dissipates. I estimate that between the start of June and the end of July this year we saw around 20% of the population infected; I’m sure that this autumn will see similar numbers infected, if not more.
Of course, the rate of hospitalisation and death have fallen to relatively low levels with the arrival of Omicron variant, but it is important to note that the risk of any particular pathogen is the combination of infectiousness and the seriousness of infection – while each individual infection with Omicron variant is far less likely to cause serious disease than earlier variants, the huge infection rates and short interval between infectious waves that we’ve seen so far this year have nevertheless resulted in hospitalisation rates higher than seen last year other than in the January 2021 Alpha variant wave, and death rates comparable with those seen last summer. Sure, we’re hearing lots of reassuring voices saying that these are ‘with not of’ hospitalisations and deaths, but I note that 12 months ago we were still in the age of ‘enthusiastic’ medics attributing many unrelated hospitalisations and deaths to Covid simply because of a recent positive test, rather than the ‘with not of’ hospitalisations being insignificant at that time.
The first UKHSA vaccine surveillance report really only covered three topics:
- A presentation of official estimates of the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines at preventing symptomatic infection, hospitalisation and death. In these early days the vaccines were all thought to be magnificent at preventing Covid infection, which is probably why the Vaccine Surveillance Report existed in the first place.
- Graphs showing the progress of vaccination in the U.K. By May 2021 second doses had only just started to be given, but vaccination rates of the first dose were fairly high (over 80%) in those aged over 50 and rates for those aged 40-50 were catching up. However, only 10% of those aged under 40 had been given a dose of vaccine therefore there was a need to use various official publications to encourage vaccination; the attention of the Government’s various ‘nudge units’ were about to be felt by our population.
- An estimate of the number of hospitalisations and deaths saved by the vaccines. These graphs show the dual magnificence of the vaccines in their ability to reduce hospitalisations and deaths whilst at the same time reducing our spring 2021 Covid outbreak to near zero.
The odd thing about this first Vaccine Surveillance Report is that it contained very little in the way of surveillance of the impact of the vaccine – it was clearly little more than a marketing exercise to promote the vaccines. We would get some actual surveillance data later in the year, in the form of tables of Covid infections, hospitalisations and deaths by vaccination status – I suspect that these were incorporated into the Vaccine Surveillance Report because various authority figures believed that the data would support the Government’s position, that is, that the data would have showed the vaccinated to have significant protection from Covid compared with the unvaccinated.
However, as the months went by these real-world data first showed that the protective effect of the vaccines had been removed and, after a few months more, showed much higher Covid infection rates in the vaccinated. Of course, the UKHSA added a section imploring the reader to not even attempt to consider these data at face value, and instead consider only Government-sanctioned official estimates of vaccine effectiveness (which continued to show that the vaccines offered protection from infection). I suppose we must be thankful that someone in the UKHSA had a sense of moral duty, and these data on the real-world impact of the vaccines on infections remained in the Vaccine Surveillance Report until spring 2022, when the ending of free Covid testing finally provided the UKHSA with the excuse for ceasing to offer these data. While the UKHSA sort-of had a point in that there were less data available, it could have continued with infection data from those that continued to regularly test for Covid (primarily healthcare workers), and hospitalisation and mortality data by vaccination status has continued to be gathered – but the UKHSA had decided to end the release of these data and that was that.
The Vaccine Surveillance Reports have, over the weeks and months, given us a wealth of information on how the vaccines have been performing, both in terms of the overt data that they present, but more in terms of the message that the Government wished to push on the population. I’ll go through the various aspects of these data over the next few weeks, starting with perhaps the most important aspect of the vaccines – their effectiveness.
Amanuensis is an ex-academic and senior Government scientist. He blogs at Bartram’s Folly.
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Bang on with that last paragraph, Will. The hypocrisy is off the charts. I wonder how many pro-Hamassholes will be arrested for antisemitism at the weekend. Talk about perspective…Poor Bridgen was well and truly shafted wasn’t he? Anyway, my money’s on white police arresting/warning white patriots for waving their British flags and generally being patriotic. Especially if they’re all cut from the same cloth as that godawful ”Lesbian Nana” horror.
And the BBC obviously only apologized due to getting shed-loads of complaints so I’m glad ‘people power’ is still effective to some extent.
I’m glad to see this article, because I complained to the BBC about what they did just to see what they would say. They didn’t address specifically what I wrote and just sent a general reply to everyone, because clearly a lot of people complained.
This is what they wrote…..“Thank you for getting in touch about the House of Commons Adjournment Debate ‘Trends in Excess Deaths’, broadcast on BBC Parliament on 20 October.
To allow us to reply promptly to your concerns, and to ensure we use our licence fee resources as efficiently as possible, we are sending this response to everyone. We are sorry not to reply individually, but we hope this will address the points you have raised.
It is normal practice for BBC Parliament to show what are known as ‘story astons’ (or captions) which put debates into context for viewers. They are not comments, but editorial context written by journalists working on the live output.
The first aston made clear to viewers that Reclaim MP Andrew Bridgen had tabled the debate.
In accordance with the BBC’s guidelines on due impartiality, the remaining astons reflected (and are attributed to) the majority medical and scientific view that vaccines are safe.
We’re sorry if you remain unhappy. We have included your points in our overnight report. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback at the BBC, and help inform our future editorial judgements.
Thanks again for getting in touch.
Kind regards,
BBC Complaints Team”.
A complete batting away of the issue, but it seems they may have succumb to the volume of complaints.
I got that response initially, so I raised my complaint to the next level and then got the one reported in the article.
I’m still deciding whether I’ll pursue it to the next level. I suspect it would be batted away with a response that basically says “the BBC has admitted a mistake and apologised, so Eff Off” ….. but I still may do it.
It’s almost as if antisemitism had been a spectre of the past¹ until it was unearthed as weapon of choice against Jeremy Corbyn, presumably for want of real arguments. Since then, the powers-which-are have come to really like it and keep on antisemiting at every opportunity — after all, no one can think of a better way to argue about politics than claim the people on the other side are all Nazis or sort-of-Nazis.
¹ This is not strictly true. Governments of Israel have compiled yearly antisemites lists, usually including anyone who wasn’t a Jew and nevertheless critical of any of their policies, for a long time. But this used to be background noise until Corbyn.
While I suspect Corbyn, like many politicians, is more interested in strategy than harbouring any personal animosity towards Jewish people, he (like some others) has shown himself perfectly capable of hitching his wagon to a movement that is overtly, murderously anti-Semitic, presumably to bolster his support base. This mural has more than a few overtones of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion:
https://news.sky.com/story/senior-labour-figures-defend-jeremy-corbyn-over-anti-semitic-mural-row-11303966
It’s really useles to try to dump this story on me. Antisemitism was a political movement in Germany from the 19th to the early 20th century and that’s what the people controlling Israel are alluding to when they use the term. The large numbers of Arabs and muslims in general successive governments of Israel have – quite intentionally – alienated to the point where they’ve become their sworn enemies never had the power to do to Jews whatever they wanted to, hence, what they’d be doing if they ever had this power, something that’s exceedingly unlikely to happen, because Israel has unquestioning support of all greater powers of the world, is entirely unknown. In any case, this has no connection to what people have been trained to think of when they hear the term antisemitism namely Something like what the Nazis did!
This nazicalling in lieu of making an actual argument is childish and strongly suggests that the people who claim that the Holocaust was a singular event in human history don’t really believe this themselves. It can’t both be singular and ubiquitious.
Suggest you read the Quran if you think anti-semitism is a modern movement…
Anti-Zi*nism perhaps, but certainly not anti-sem*te. All people of the Levant are Semites.
Isn’t it nice to be an establishment corporation and to be able to get away with spurious attacks on people by simply issuing carefully worded apologies, months after the fact and that pretty much no one will read or report on (least of all, of course, the BBC itself).
Still continuing with the bias during their Kings Speech broadcast where the presenters condemned the Govt planned annual oil and gas licences.
You have to wonder about people still thinking you can power the 21st century by wind & solar power and that electric cars are feasible.
Nick was even more uninformed than Huw, and muddled the names of two officials, although one wore Army red & the other Navy blue.
The BBC have exclusive access to all, but I was finally able to move to GB News when they started their coverage and who manage better with far less resources.
Can anyone find this apology? Should it be publicly visible?
Well, it is actually buried away here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications
They should be regulated to make their apologies for these gaffs more open.
“We accept there was a lack of consistency in the use of our captions and that the number posted during the speech was not proportionate, nor always relevant which created the incorrect impression that there was an editorial approach in relation to the views expressed. We apologise for this and are reviewing the way we use such captions during proceedings.”
Twaddle!
>M1 and Clive; I am in complete agreement; this is as gaslighting in extremis.
That weasel phrase is more revealing than the admission they got it wrong – BUT THAT WAS INTENTIONAL!!!!!!
The BBC’s output is ALWAYS approached from an “editorial” pov; ffs they are an alleged news outlet!!!!! – if that is NOT (ever) the case, their content would contain a warning that, eg, “the views expressed are those of the author [ who would/must be named] and not the BBC…….” followed by the usual self absolving disclaimer of liability. I do not ever recall this being employed other than very rarely?
It is a sign of the mounting pressure that some of the UFLW within the BBC can make a disastrous editorial decision ( and the streamline banner content must have been prepared well in advance ) but STILL feel so bombproof they can issue an apology which is nothing of the sort.
The BBC are under tremendous pressure – IMHO they have made a disastrous decision to make their complaints process the personal responsibility of Davie – he of the AWG/CC “settled science” self professed bias. He is a marketing man with not one shred of journalistic or editorial acumen or experience……..massive own goal ( a non BBC journalist/MSM editor – K.Mackenzie??? just joking – would have been a far better choice to out the fires out…)
At the risk of being off topic, I know I cannot as one individual tackle the whole BBC editorial apparatus. I could vent my spleen but where does that get me? Therefore I have waged a war against The BBC via their egregious and obvious editorial bias via BBC HYS topics – I have been blocked as a result, in the past (no warning, for at least 6 months) and my posts are now instantly monitored. A significant number have been removed but because I have chosen subjects and how I post very carefully a large number have been reinstated ( but not all ); reasons given for removal are illogical and demonstrably “wrong”. The BBC HYS censors are , now, so on the back foot ( which alludes to a degree of panic ); in the past they have allowed very extreme personal abuse by publishing posts against anyone who is pro Brexit, pro Tory ( I am NOT), anti AWGCC – tbf some were removed but by no means all and remained visible for hours after the fact. The BBC therefore tolerates abusive content when it is directed at subjects their bias is self evident but not when anyone of a different view counters that abuse with facts……BBS endemic editorial bias QED.
This is the guts of a recent “attack” by me on this very subject: I complained against my original post’s removal and very forcibly put the case against its removal – The BBC HYS censor moderators rolled over ( and this is the first tacit admission that their output is NOT editorially impartial ) – they have lost that argument for good with their last email to me which appears first – it was ostensibly comments on an article about CC and I stated that AWG/CC so called science is emphatically NOT settled and I mentioned the Oregon Declaration as “evidence” . I implore all to take The BBC biased editors on in this way if their time permits….the Bridgen apology is just one more example that they know they have lost the “impartiality” argument, “we” know it, they know we know it – so “keep going”?:
Dear BBC User,
Thank you for contacting the BBC.
In this instance, it appears your comment was removed in error so we have reinstated it.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention and please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Due to the volume of correspondence we receive, we are unable to discuss this matter further.
Regards,
BBC Moderation Services
http://www.bbc.co.uk/social/moderation
From: XXXXXX
Sent: 13 October 2023 17:46
To: Central Communities Team. <Central-communities-team@bbc.co.uk>
Subject: Moderation Comment form response
This is an automatically generated email. To reply to the sender, please create a new email to
The message is as follows:
Please choose a subject: Appeal against moderation decision
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Your comments: It is the case that the study of the earth’s climate ( and therefore weather systems ) is multi disciplinary , and in many cases little understood as has been stated by scientists many times the world over – eg the influence of the Sun in all its aspects. The BBC in recent days has made a massive play that it is editorially impartial [ viz. HAMAS atrocities] – anyone who has studied the BBC’s output knows this is abject rubbish as eloquently detailed by Robin Aitken ( ex BBC…he knows); the BBC has decided as far back as 2006 that the “science is settled” as far as AWG/CC is concerned , and has trotted out this editorially partial theme ever since despite thousands and thousands of scientists ( which The BBC is emphatically NOT and which employs biased reporters – Rowlatt for one – to constantly push AWG/CC ) signing the Oregon Declaration and others which The BBC habitually ignores. Similarly The BBC constantly pushes their “Anti-vaxxers” agenda in the face of decades long evidence documenting serious issues with certain ( many ) vaccines as well as the disaster of experimental mRNA gene editing drugs with a tsunami of evidence documenting fraudulent trials (Pfizer’s own documents attest to that), historically unique levels of adverse effects, premature death, massive levels of excess deaths that are caused by repeat doses ( I doubt The BBC will report on the massive meta analysis of southern hemisphere, official government data sourced, that – yet again – proves the scale of death and adverse harms caused by these highly dangerous drugs ) You cannot argue that The BBC has NOT remained editorially impartial as far as AWG/CC/SARS COV2 drugs – The BBC spouts their settled position constantly – and in so doing refutes their own mendacious statement that, as Mr Davie has tried to gaslight everybody, editorial impartiality remains a “raison d’etre” What utter self evident rubbish – “you ” have once again fallen into a trap which highlights the total lack of impartiality but illustrates the scale of corporate mendacity as far as your sanctimonius editorial position evident with the horror of the genocidal terrorist attacks in Israel by HAMAS – a legally proscribed terroist organisation. If you do not reinstate, I do not particularly care – I have proved my point multiple times – but this act of censorship in a week when the cowardice show by The BBC plumbs the deepest depths possible whilst trumpeting the one off switch of BBC “editorial impartiality” is the final straw – I will send this to Davie’s office and publish the exchange as I see fit.
“which created the incorrect impression that there was an editorial approach in relation to the views expressed”
Frustrating isn’t it – how those pesky word things just keep spontaneously appearing on the screen, by complete chance in exactly the right order to create an incorrect impression!
Happens all the time doesn’t it: I notice that petrol round our way is £1.59/litre, which I think is absurdly expensive; I must have been given the incorrect impression – you know, by those words and that!
“It’s almost as though the Tory leadership don’t actually care about antisemitism but just weaponising it against troublesome MPs.”
Parliamentarians, double standards – well blow me down…..