It’s been known since the outbreak of Covid that obesity leads to higher rates of hospitalisations and deaths. Despite this, very few resources were deployed to encourage healthier eating and lifestyles. This article argues that this was a disastrous decision for the long term health of the nation and the short to medium term capacity of the NHS.
Boris Johnson (BMI 34; healthy is under 25) in his New Year message broadcast on December 31st 2020 said: “Get a vaccine, it’s far easier than losing weight” (see video from two minutes in). Well, the people of the U.K. took him at his word: we’ve had 30 months to galvanise the population into losing weight and getting fitter, 30 months entirely squandered.
First, let’s just look at how effective spending £25bn injecting 150 million vaccines into the U.K. population has been. As the NHS continues to struggle to meet demand, perhaps Covid hospital admissions are the key metric. For the vaccine programme to have been a success we should expect the unvaccinated to be disproportionately admitted to hospital. They’re not. These figures come from the latest UKHSA Weekly Vaccine Surveillance Report; table 12a on page 49 gives us the figures for hospital admissions between March 21st and August 28th of this year. In each age cohort the unvaccinated are proportionately less likely to be hospitalised than the vaccinated. As an example, in the 50-64 year-olds, 129 of the 1,342 admissions were unvaccinated, that’s 9.6%. Yet, about 14% of that age group are unvaccinated. If the unvaccinated were more likely to be hospitalised we would expect the figures to be reversed, to see a higher proportion of the unvaccinated hospitalised than the total proportion of people unvaccinated.
Demonstrably, despite the Government’s claims that vaccines have reduced hospital admissions, this can’t be true. Something has reduced hospital admissions from the peaks in the first two waves, but if the rate of admission is much the same for the vaccinated and the unvaccinated I struggle to see how vaccines can explain it. Surely, far more likely are the twin benefits of immunity brought about by prior infection and a less virulent variant. Figure 2 shows the peaks and troughs of Covid hospital admissions since the start of the pandemic.
Also worth noting, the seven-day average number of hospital admissions for Covid is currently 132% higher than it was on October 7th 2020, before anyone anywhere had been vaccinated, and 86% higher than on October 7th 2021 when most people had been vaccinated – though it should be noted that over half of Covid hospital admissions since Omicron have been primarily being treated for something else.
Despite my deep scepticism of the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines and the real world evidence presented above, to avoid any accusations of dogmatism I’m going to indulge the vaccine zealots’ figures for vaccine effectiveness. Again, with the data taken from the Government’s week 40 vaccine surveillance report, figure 3 suggests that the UKHSA thinks that the best protection a fourth dose of vaccine can offer is about 50%, soon falling to 20%.
Now let’s compare that vaccine efficacy with the impact of obesity on severe Covid outcomes by turning to a fascinating study published in June in the Lancet that looked at how BMI affects Covid outcomes. What made this latest study particularly interesting was that it used real, though anonymised, data from about 20% of the U.K. population. The data, from QResearch had over 12 million patient records but about 3 million couldn’t be used, mainly because BMI data were missing, but that still left 9,171,524 patient records to be analysed. So, again, we’re looking at real-world evidence whereas the UKHSA vaccine efficacy rates are estimates.
The data related to the period from December 2020 to November 2021. This was the period covering the initial rollout through to booster doses in older people. Part of the summary table is reproduced in Figure 4. I’ve highlighted in red hospital admissions.
There were 3,509,213 people of a healthy weight in the study, of whom 8,315 were hospitalised with Covid, that’s 0.23%. Of the 3,062,925 overweight people, 10,653 or 0.35% were hospitalised. That means the overweight were 50% more likely to end up in hospital than those classed as healthy weight.
Of the 2,278,649 obese people 13,044 or 0.57% were hospitalised. This means they were 150% more likely require hospital treatment than the healthy weight group.
Let’s now compare the relative risk of being vaccinated with that of being obese. The obese get hospitalised at a rate 150% greater than those of a healthy weight while the best you can hope for from your fourth vaccine is a 50% reduction in the likelihood of being admitted to hospital, dropping to 20% after about four months. And that’s another key point, keep the weight off and that risk reduction remains in contrast to any benefit from vaccination that soon wanes to nothing (assuming it ever existed in the first place).
But of course, it’s not just Covid where the overweight and obese have worse outcomes. The Lancet study goes on to list some of the other health outcomes for other conditions. The obese are almost six times more likely to have type 2 diabetes, more than twice as likely to suffer cardiovascular disease and over three times more likely to suffer hypertension.
Lose weight and many of these rates of disease would fall. The burden on the NHS would be reduced, the people losing weight, in most cases, would feel better and no doubt their mental health would, in the round, be improved.
I was interested in a piece by Michael P. Senger in the Daily Sceptic on October 14th 2022 highlighting the demonisation of the unvaccinated. I really don’t recall anyone in the mainstream media or in Government objecting to this vilification at the time yet it was evident from the Week 35 2021 Vaccine Surveillance Report that in each of the age groups from 40 to 80 the double dosed were testing positive for the virus at a higher rate than the unvaccinated (see an article I wrote back in June that goes into some detail on this point), so it was evident that the unvaccinated represented less of a threat than the vaccinated. Likewise, it’s been known since the Covid outbreak on the Diamond Princess back in February 2020 that obesity was a risk factor. However, can you imagine the furore that would result if people were to suggest that the obese were denied hospital treatment?
It’s not the unvaccinated who are clogging up the NHS, it’s disproportionately the obese and overweight – some of whom have been particularly vocal in vilifying the unvaccinated or in failing to promote healthier lifestyles:
- Andrew Neil (estimated BMI 32) argued for restrictions on the freedoms of the unvaccinated.
- Piers Morgan (estimated BMI 29) argued for the unvaccinated to be denied NHS care if they caught Covid.
- Boris Johnson (estimated BMI 34) attempted to bring in vaccine passports.
- Michael Gove (estimated BMI 28) was a keen advocate of vaccine passports.
- Therese Coffey (estimated BMI 30), the new Health Minister appears to be far keener on promoting vaccines rather than healthy lifestyles.
The Government spent about £12bn vaccinating the under 50s, largely a pointless exercise. As an advocate of lower taxes and a smaller state I don’t argue that this money should have been spent on schemes to subsidise healthier living. Such schemes invariably fail. What’s more, I would object just as fiercely to coercing people to lose weight as I do to coercing people to get vaccinated. However, I would like to see them campaign to raise people’s awareness of the risks associated with a high BMI. In rough terms, there appears to be about a 10% Covid hospitalisation risk reduction for each BMI point reduction and associated risk reductions for various cancers, diabetes, heart conditions, muscular/skeletal problems and mental health.
Body positivity is all well and good but being overweight is neither risk or cost free. If Andrew Neil, Piers Morgan, Boris Johnson et al. want target a group to be censorious of perhaps they should follow Jordan Peterson’s advice and go tidy their own room first.
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It is well known that we were misled from the start of this shamdemic, with, notoriously, anyone who had ever had a positive test result being counted as a “covid” death, regardless of actual cause, one of many times we were misled. What right does anyone have to demonise people who are understandably suspicious of a medication being used under emergency authorisation, with exemption of liability for the companies producing them, in these circumstances? One could be forgiven for believing that such demonisers are, more or less, craven, narcissistic cowards.
Yes, still the NHS is advertising the pharmaceutical therapy as a ‘safe and effective’ vaccine.
So many fully boostered friends are getting sick, or experiencing feelings of being unwell or in pain immediately following the wretched booster. I believe that Dr Aseem Malhotra – who has seen the light and now spreading the word regarding the potential dangers of this medication – has called a meeting of MPs at the House of Commons. He is asking that the Government calls an immediate halt to the UK’s covid vaccine programme and an immediate inquiry to assess the risks and benefits. He insists that there shouldn’t need to be a debate as the evidence is unequivocal that the harm signal from the mRNA vaccine is strong and substantial.
We must remember too, that dedicated experts in vaccines such as Geert Vanden Bosch, spoke vociferously about the danger of mass vaccination during a pandemic and begged the WHO to intervene. Of course, the big money pharmaceutical corporations carry more influence than such as he and he was gaslit and demonised for his trouble.
TPTB do not want their sins to be exposed as the payback from those vaccinated would be horrendous, probably life threatening, hence the continual push for vaccinations to save their miserable corrupt lives.
The NHS were hospitalising anyone with a positive PCR then they were isolated from their family and given a toxic concoction which eventually killed them. Their deaths were then attributed to Covid for which the NHS Trusts received a bonus. Same thing was going on in America.
I’m not fat, have never been fat, probably feel a bit of snobbishness in relation to fat people (sorry, no offence intended) but I don’t want the government to galvanise me or anyone else into anything. I want them to leave me and everyone else alone unless I am breaking the law (and I mean sensible laws grounded in basic rules of society established over millennia).
I want to see the “public health” industry destroyed.
Just wait til they have those graphic pictures and plain packaging for your chips or boxes of chocolates! Won’t Christmas be fun?
No good will come of it.
I look after my health because I want to feel good, not to avoid being a burden on the NHS. I also drink more than Chris Whitty thinks I should and skate a lot which at my age and given my lack of talent is arguably foolish. But I want to go to hell my own way.
Too goddamn right, tof!
Amen.
Dr Malcom Kendrick has pointed out that the group with the longest life expectancy is the “overweight”, the group with the lowest the “underweight”.
“Obese” covers such a wide range that it is effectively meaningless.
As we approach serious food shortages in late spring 2024 I’ll be glad that I’m carrying a few extra pounds.
Yep, BMI is a fairly meaningless number – many sportsmen/women would be classed as obese, and yet it’s all muscle and they’re superfit.
I don’t think Johnson, Morgan et al fall into that category though.
Not many extra pounds on me, so looks like I’m going to starve …
You’ll have to do some chasing, catching and cooking.
Correlation is not causation. Thus, for example, a person may be underweight because of an illness which results in a shorter than average length of life, but the shorter length of life is not due to being underweight, it’s due to the illness.
You think the studies – the results of which were hardly boldly proclaimed – were rigged by the inclusion of huge numbers of those emaciated by illness?
What would be the motivation for that?
Edit: I’ve now found his book, so I’m not going on memory.
Major study from Canada: “Our results are similar to those from other recent studies, confirming that underweight and obesity class II+ are clear risk factors for mortality” So they’re clearly not rigging the results in the way you suggest.
I didn’t say or suggest that the studies were rigged. I’m not denying that the studies honestly found a correlation between being underweight and shorter length of life. But correlation is not causation.
Missed out a classic from that list. Here’s the wonderful Nick Ferrari of LBC on how to deal with the vaccine refusers:
https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1466012605278044165
Anyone want to guess at his BMI?
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/nick-ferrari.html
We’ve known since about March 2020 that obesity is major risk factor with covid. The hypocrisy of people like Ferrari, Morgan, Johnson … is breathtaking.
Of course obesity is a major problem in our society. A lot (but by no means all) of it comes down to individual choice, and yet how much of this is down to the corporate pushing of junk food, fast food, refined sugars … ? Bit like the corporate pushing of gene therapies.
Obesity. And stress, thus lockdowns. As with medication, we will tend to be directed towards the profitable rather than the healthy. Dandelions are a perfectly healthy vegetable (and according to my Baltic acquaintance baby urine can also have health benefits). But they are also cheap and abundant. Guess when the last time was that a British government, or indeed Western government, encouraged either of these.
Stonking article, thanks, Mr Rendell!
“Underlying Medical Conditions and Severe Illness Among 540,667 Adults Hospitalized With COVID-19, March 2020–March 2021” It’s correct that the number 1 risk factor from dying from Covid 19 in hospital was obesity with a 30% increased risk.
But can you guess what was second? Asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Influenza or any other chronic respiratory disease?
No, it was actually Anxiety! Yes, you read it right, this essentially mental condition gave patients a 28% increased risk of dying from Covid 19, an airborne respiratory virus. By the way, that finding has been airbrushed by the CDC and when you know the reason for this bizarre finding, you’ll understand why they desperately wanted rid of it.
My explanation can be found on “COVID-19 Much Less Deadly Than Previously Thought, Major Study Finds”
John really is a useless sack of human excrement. My contempt for these ppl knows no bounds, one understands the guillotine more and more.
It must be a real pfizzer to the likes of Ferrari, Morgan, Gove, Johnson, Neil and Coffey to find that the non-perforated are still here to remind them how so far outside the realms of humanity they have crawled. Even worse, their despicably cruel utterances are still largely in the public domain. Of course to truly decent people these scumbags and those like them are now effectively worthless wretches and fully deserving of all the opprobrium we can throw their way.
Never forget. Never forgive.
Don’t be ridiculous! Lifestyles, healthy eating and reducing obesity aren’t approved by the FDA or the MHRA, and won’t ever be prescribed by a physician. How dare you suggest such a public health campaign when there are less-than-colossal profits to be reaped from it?!
Choose life. Choose organic greens, exercise, vitamin D. Choose yoga, embracing the natural world, de-stressing. Choose meditation, choose a life passion, religion, something to believe in other than the latest proclamations of Bill Gates, Klaus Shwab and the WHO.
But who needs all that, when you’ve got the Pfizer shot?
It would be an interesting study (maybe someone has done this already) whether the lockdowns and fear mongering has increased the level of obesity. I know of one study that found obese people did get more obese during lockdown, but I would not be surprised the number of obese people has increased.
And such a wasted opportunity. Re-assurance and telling people how to improve their health so they are better equipped to fight infections would have been such a good idea. I did say at the time that PHE was actually making matters worse by advocating lockdowns and increasing anxiety.
Tim Spector’s Zoe app published a study, I think in July 2020. There were about 1m respondents & to some extent they were self selecting, they’d have skewed towards midfle class, health aware etc. But eveb so, it found exactly what you’d expect. During lockdown 1 the fit got fitter & the fat got fatter. Again, from memory it was about 2kg on & 2kg off so the delta widened by 4kg, a couple of points on the BMI scale.
I can remember that the gent on display’s BMI was actually broadcast, after he had been in hospital with the illness in early 2020 – no doubt by someone who should not have done, but it’s interesting. It’s evident that carrying too much fat is a bad idea for our immune system – e.g. one of the important compounds, vitamin D, tends to prefer fat to other things, so it tends to get locked up a bit in the overweight. E.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25441954/ and many other sources.
I stopped eating sugar when the Diamond Princess data came out. BMI 19.5, unvaccinated, and if I’ve had covid it might have been a strange “stingy eye” thing in April 2020 that lasted half a day.
I’m in my early 60s; slim, fit, active, never smoked, drink in moderation, take no regular prescriptions, don’t have diabetes and have low blood pressure for my age. I also believe I had Covid in Nov 2019.
I know all of that; the Public Health Bureaucrats and Government authoritarians don’t ….. which is why I made the decision on jab/no jab ….. not them.
Does anyone have an estimate for the % of UK jabbed in 0 to under 40 age group?
What surprised me here is that the absolute risk for the overweight and for the obese is still almost as marginal as for the rest.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it was always such and demonstrated in the vaccine trials with their minuscule absolute risk reduction already, but still.
Re: Obesity being one of the obvious markers of “severe cases,” I note my feature story on an Alabama man who I am 99.9 percent convinced had a severe case of Covid in December 2019. This 39-year-old man, who is average height, weighed 304 pounds when he became sick.
He ended up spending 24 days in an ICU and nearly died several times. When I finally interviewed him months later he told me, “I”ve never felt better.” He did have a nagging cough and some other minor elements, but I attribute his statement to the fact that he lost almost 80 pounds while sick and then hospitalized. Now I wouldn’t recommend such a “diet,” but one does feel much better when you are carrying much less weight.
There are numerous obvious “clinical markers” of a severe case of Covid presented in this feature story. He also tested positive on the “gold standard” antibody test (just like his sick wife did. His wife also lost about 70 pounds, which she attributes more to stress and her profound loss of smell and taste (which hadn’t returned 18 months later). Food no longer tasted the same … and so she ate less food.
https://www.uncoverdc.com/2020/06/25/an-alabama-man-nearly-died-from-covid-19-the-first-week-in-january/