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.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
JHB talking about being treated like an enemy of the state :- https://twitter.com/i/status/1717888317071790188
Bought ECR Lorac’s “Theft of the of the Iron Dogs” recently from British Library Crime Classics. with the following sentence in a note from the publisher “The following text is reproduced from the original with minor edits made for consistency of style and sense. We welcome feedback from our readers, which can be sent to the following address”. Love to know what changes they have made, and I will be asking them.
I missed that and it’s a good clip..and a reminder that all the ‘institutions’ they set up, are still there and haven’t gone away…
Let me know what your feedback is about the book….
that is if it’s in words and not just blaspheming and asterisk’s! LOL!!
EVs Myths, Dreams and Reality
I do feel that the EV issue is going to prove the issue where reality hits the net-zero dream. The net-zero enthusiasts have demanded that EVs come in as a net-zero replacement for ICE vehicles and yes they are a means of transport but in so many ways they fail to do what ICE vehicles can do. Whilst people use their cars mainly for utilitarian day to day activities, they dream of the days they can load up the car with surf boards, tents, canoes or fishing kit and head off for carefree holiday and leisure activities. Well EVs may manage the utilitarian stuff but people can see the limitations for the role of EVs in leisure activities.
Given all the issues with EVs, fires, insurance, cost, repair problems, poor electric supply and lack of re-cycling facilities; increasingly EVs are being seen as more a liability than an asset. In that respect, whether or not they provide transport, the last thing you would want is to actually own one! Many of the EVs on our roads are corporate leased EVs, very few private individuals can run to a leasehold deal for an EV. Will we end up with a healthy active secondhand market for EVs the way we currently have for ICE cars? the jury is out on that one.
With all the issues and given current technology I reckon that the UK can only manage to handle a fleet of 3 – 5 million EVs. This compares to around 30 million ICE cars currently registered in the UK. If TPTB force ICE cars off the road that is a huge number of people who will no longer be motorists. That represents a huge if not to say monumental social and economic change in the UK society. This may be just what the extreme net-zero and great reset advocates want but I do wonder how many of our politicians can see where the current EV policy is taking us? and are they ready for the very different society that will be the result?
There’ll never be peace in the Middle East as long as there’s homicidal Jew-haters ( with everybody else not far behind ) that do not do tolerance or respect human life, including that of their fellow Muslims.
”We should feel compassion for all sides. The Palestinians’ situation is appalling. As human beings they deserve much, much better than being used as human shields for the Muslim Umma’s proxies in a long fight to the death with Israel.
One must also feel deep compassion for the Israelis, who want to be left in peace. Despite many Jews having repeatedly expressed their willingness to work towards a two-state solution – from the 1930’s through to the Oslo Accords – Arabs driven by hate keep insisting on their right to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Palestinian leaders have repeatedly made crystal clear that they will never accept a two-state solution. The Arabs opposed partition in the 1930’s, and they oppose it still. The truth is that Israel must defeat its enemies or be defeated.
Can Hamas be defeated?
My answer is “Yes, to an extent.” The theological ideology of Hamas is not unique, but is shared by many other Islamic militant groups, including Al Qaida, the Taliban, and ISIS. This theology is persistent and it will endure, in one form or other. It can be discredited – and now, after decades of trauma caused by radical Islam, a great many Muslims are turning away from Islam – but Islamist ideology will most likely never completely disappear. Be that as it may, the hold of Hamas’s ideology on Gaza can and must be broken.
What does Israel need to do now?
Sadly, it has to fight for its security. Hamas has slammed all other doors shut. Israel must win against Hamas. It must, yet again, discredit the old Qur’anic lie about Jews loving life too much to fight.
The battle ahead is not about achieving a “proportionate response.” This is not a tit-for-tat war, in which one side’s casualties justify or validate an equal number of deaths on the other side. That would be a morally repulsive idea. On Israel’s side this is a war for security and survival, while for Hamas, it is a war to eliminate Israel.”
https://www.meforum.org/65112/a-primer-on-hamas-part-8-some-concluding-thoughts
I recall a former member of ISIS being interviewed on Triggernometry a couple of years back. When asked if ‘re-education ‘ was the solution. He said, ‘only with about a half to two thirds of them. The rest are so deeply indoctrinated, the only re-education that works is a bullet to the head.
Shank Louk’s body has not been found..there is no evidence to suggest she was beheaded, it grieves me to see DS lower themselves to this crap..but another day, another round of propaganda.
As if the story isn’t tragic enough, the original interview with Shani’s parents can be found in the German Newspaper, Bild..(if you speak Herman)…or this is a more accurate account…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67260093
As I pointed out yesterday, I can’t imagine the repetition of these gross stories are a kind thing to do to her parents and family….
When you believe the Hamas-run Ministry of Health give reliable data…This corpse is so dead their head is still moving;
https://twitter.com/Imamofpeace/status/1719240719309640167
And here is the clip of the Met police showing exactly what they think of the Jewish community and how ‘impartial’ they are. Perhaps if they’d genuinely wanted to ‘avoid inflaming tensions’ they’d have done something about the pro-Jihad and antisemitic behaviour, along with the waving of many Jihadist flags in the massive pro-Palestine demonstrations, which involved NO Jews, as opposed to this disgusting display. They are as sick as they are useless.
https://twitter.com/kwilliam111/status/1719109298603594178
“They are as sick as they are useless.”
I agree Mogs. What message does this send to Jewish people?
What message does this send to pro Hammas?
Why are police doing this? Because they know that law abiding Jewish people won’t fight back.
Plod – sick and pho#kin’ useless.
Pantsdown version 2023: ‘denies ever calling for a lockdown’
Pantsdown version 2020: ‘“I think people’s sense of what is possible in terms of control changed quite dramatically between January and March,” Professor Ferguson says. When SAGE observed the “innovative intervention” out of China, of locking entire communities down and not permitting them to leave their homes, they initially presumed it would not be an available option in a liberal Western democracy: It’s a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought… and then Italy did it. And we realised we could.’
“These days, lockdown feels inevitable. It was, he reminds me, anything but. “If China had not done it,” he says, “the year would have been very different.””
‘To be clear, SAGE does not recommend policy. SAGE makes judgements about science, looking at scientific evidence, including about how rapidly the epidemic is moving and what the likely lethality is, and not recommendations about interventions but insights into what interventions might have what effect.’
‘When it became apparent that actually there would be no way of managing the epidemic to the extent that healthcare demand in that first wave would not overwhelm the NHS, we moved—in some ways slightly reluctantly—to looking at much more intensive strategies.’
‘I think the UK, more than many countries but not all countries, did intensive assessment of whether alternative strategies were possible in terms of avoiding the country needing to be in lockdown, or equally effective measures, for a very long period. We concluded that that was not possible’
So Pantsdown never actually called for a lockdown, simply concluded that no other approach was possible……..
A new career as a ‘novelty dancer’ dancing on the head of a pin beckons……
I have a question.
I like to think I am a Free Speech absolutist, however I often hear that you cannot be an absolutists if you use the word ‘but’ after defending Free Speech.
I like to use ‘but’ in that I don’t think Free Speech applies if there is incitement of violence.
Does that mean I am not an absolutist or is the ‘incitement of violence’ covered by law as not being allowed.
If that is the case, I would suggest calling for Jihad falls under ‘incitement of violence’ and then why is this allowed during protests?
My own rule of thumb is generally people can say what they want…even if I think it’s wrong or vile…(I think that about some of the comments I see on here, and in the Telegraph..LOL) …but I’ve no intention of ‘capping’ anyone…!!
In this instance I think it’s hard to go against your own natural bias..and the prevailing propaganda….we all do it..but I think if you do believe in free speech you have to question yourself….and I include myself in this…..
Whether you agree or not with the end result…I’ll Just play Devils Advocate here…
I suppose you would have to prove that by shouting Jihad….they are actually threatening you..or inciting someone to do something…and clearly the bias here says that in this case there’s an assumption that Jihad has a particular meaning …and that it is a bad meaning….and from that you can extrapolate incitement to violence ?
In the context of what we are seeing in Gaza, Instead of ‘Jihad’ if they were shouting ‘struggle and fight against the enemies of Islam’…(which is one of its most basic meanings) it might not seem entirely unreasonable…?
Would it, in reality and law, be any different to a similar mass protest of people shouting ‘struggle and fight against the enemies of Israel”….?
Is the difference a real difference, or one of bias? One scares you, one doesn’t…one has a wrongness one has a rightness?…..one you believe, one you don’t….?
but the ‘free speech’ bit is the same in both I would argue….
I think lawyers would have a field-day, wouldn’t they?.. and I suspect I haven’t helped…LOL!!!
Climate Change Hoax
latest leaflet to print at home or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
https://off-guardian.org/2023/10/30/why-are-the-globalists-calling-climate-change-a-public-health-crisis/
The excellent Kit Knightly with a look at howclimate change – something we have always lived with – is now responsible for health scares.
(Don’t mention the jabs).
““British society will pay a terrible price for indulging extremism” – We have imported hatreds and lost our common identity. Policy will have to be more muscular as a result”
Yes, no doubt against the indigenous white population to bring them into line. At least the thuggish police enforcers will be happy.
“Fury as Met Police officers pull down posters of kidnapped children”
Everything happening in the uk at the moment is becoming seriously uneasing!
It’s like history repeating itself only, that history was German in the 1930s!
God help Britain because it seems to weak to help itself anymore
Couldn’t find the sketch elsewhere, but this is darkly funny and speaks volumes Ten minutes in: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-30th-october-2023
Toby, the continuing campaign against electric vehicles is risking the integrity and reputation of The Daily Sceptic. I fear that Will’s vehement opposition to EVs is based on his dislike of the net zero crowd who love these vehicles. I am equally opposed to these people but my mind is not so crazed that it cannot see that EVs are technically superior, are and will continue to become cheaper, and will replace petrol and diesel transport. His impression of King Canute will embarrass his future self.
If they are superior people will chose them in preference to ICE vehicles and there would be no need for the state to dictate to car dealers what proportion of sales have to be of EVs.
Maybe, just maybe? in the end we will develop technology to enable EVs to be a viable option? But at the moment, given current technology, mineral resources, poor electric infrastructure, safety concerns, insurance costs, purchase cost, repair costs and the current lack of re-cycling ability, we cannot replace all the UKs 30 million ICE cars with EVs. If TPTB force ICE cars off the road and insist on EVs or nothing, there will be a lot of people who will be forced to stop motoring. With motoring being a key part of our economy and our social structure; this will be a huge change and could lead to social unrest. It will certainly divide society between the corporate lease hold EV drivers and the rest of us hoi-polloi who will be obliged to take the bus.
Yes indeed for sure; new technologies could change all this but we have not got these new technologies yet. Usually we get the technology sorted and then change society, with EVs we are trying to do it the other way about and in my view it will not end well.
“obliged to take the bus”
When I moved to this village in 2011 there were 6 buses a day to Corby and 5 a day to Market Harborough.
Now there’s one a week to each destination.
Good, well-researched substack by simplicius76 on the increasingly eschatological nature of the discourse surrounding the situation in the Middle East (the Crooke article and deVillepin interview in particular are worth reading in full). Amalek and Moloch return.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/world-plummets-into-eschatological
Brilliant round up of the ‘global’ politics being played out….and a realistic take on what is actually happening around the world….and brings some much needed balance…
I have stated a few times, and put on the evidence that Netanyahu and his Government are spewing fascist, genocidal and racist speech on a near daily basis…but as they are the ‘good guys’ we are not to supposed to notice, or comment on it…
The de Villepin interview is excellent..and shames Western Politicians of all stripes who should be having this sort of debate…I have found an ‘English captioned’ version…finally…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_wzmAYKZUQ
I suspect those of us interested in world politics, and the larger issues will very much appreciate this collection..but sadly those who don’t understand the larger ramifications won’t care…
Absolutely, Gums. I take some small comfort from my researches far and wide and from all sides that, generally speaking, the majority of global commentators are taking a much more balanced and humanitarian approach than can be gleaned from recent DS BTL. The persistent and ongoing conflation of calls for mediation and peace as exactly equivalent to malicious anti-Jewish sentiment – even if stated by those of that religious persuasion – has been particularly distressing.
Company law and regulatory regulations require all information to be kept (The Scottish First Minister has revealed there was a “social media messaging policy” that required Scottish Government figures to “routinely delete” WhatsApp messages, reports the Mail.).
Indeed, theb FCA reequires that every iteration of a financial promotion is kept for years (I cannot recall if 5 or 7 years) and each must show evidence of review and authorisation. It ought to be a requirement that all elected representatives and senior staff retain all messages that refer to policy development or presentation.
Besides all of which, I strongly suspoect WhatsApp will have the data in a server somewhere.
I cannot get past the pay wall. “The presenter of The Sky At Night has warned that science being “all just done by European white guys” may lead to a “blinkered view of the world”, reports the Telegraph.”
Therew is a solution. Black men and women should start doing more serious science. Much of science does not need expensive machines or laboratories. Besides, the aid sent overseas would have built many labs by now.
How many patents and Nobel Aewards have been granted per million of the population in countries around the world?
Paste the URL in to https://archive.ph/ then add the extension to make it easy…
Ban ALL seed oils. They are industrial waste.
Did a double take with this link header, thinking about fat trans people being banned which would have set off a powder keg of wokedignation hurty feelings. But no, thankfully it’s just about poisons which seem to be in just about every processed food. I never buy anything processed and haven’t for a long time.
People are waking up to this nonsense…
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/10/vw-orders-are-down-50-ford-loses-38000-on-each-car-toyota-chief-says-people-are-waking-up/
“Ford loses $38,000 on each car”.
They can’t support that for long…
Like everything going on in the world, particularly when government & supra national organisations get involved, “Cui bono?”
In relation to the ongoing & long standing situation between Palestinian & Israeli politicos this update may prove insightful
Israel ramping up gas output, looks to help supply Europe:
ROUTE
Choosing a supply route is challenge which requires navigating the region’s politics, but one option would be to export to Europe via liquefaction plants in Egypt and then pipe it north via pipelines which are in various planning stages.
A floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility also being discussed would allow shipments to Europe directly from Israel.
Other possibilities include the proposed Eastmed pipeline, an ambitious and costly project that would connect the gas fields to mainland Europe, or a shorter pipeline to Turkey.
Egypt is the quickest route to Europe, an FLNG would offer independence from any transit country, while a direct pipeline would provide the cheapest end-consumer price but take longer to build, gas consultant Gina Cohen said in a report presented to both Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the European Parliament.
“Israel must act as quickly as possible as the window to sign contracts and become a significant gas supplier to Europe will only be opened for a limited time,” Cohen said.
Israel, Cyprus and Greece have already signed an agreement to build an underwater power cable linking their electricity grids and offer back-up power during emergencies.
Europe due to the war in Ukraine is looking to halt supply from Russia, provider of about 40% of its natural gas. Russian deliveries last year totalled around 155 bcm.
Israeli gas would help Europe diversify, along with supply from others such as the United States and Qatar.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/israel-ramping-up-gas-output-looks-help-supply-europe-2022-05-16/
The power of enough of us saying NO to their ludicrous plans.
A U-turn on closing all railway station ticket offices.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/31/rail-ticket-office-closures-in-england-train-operators
Thunberg syndrome will permiate for years to come! We must accept reality to advance the human race or dreams and wishes will result in our downfall