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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‘…where was the consent procedure, where was the control group and where was the evaluation?’
And where was the cost/benefit analysis (central to any application of the ‘precautionary principle’) that only Jesse Norman, out of the entire cabinet, asked for?
Does this admission mean that that they won’t do it again? Since it’s a ‘failed’ experiment? In chemistry or physics, if an experiment fails, you don’t do it again. I think they’ll try. It’s just a matter of time waiting for the perfect moment. Like another pseudo health emergency. What gets me is that this ‘experiment’ was carried out throughout the world bar a few exceptions without much thought or any oversight about any of the possible consequences. It therefore follows that either our leaders were working to a plan or not very bright. I would say it’s both. The plan was to see if they could do it. And they succeeded in that and subsequently ruined lives, businesses, relationships, hopes and dreams. That was the plan, in my view, to set us on a course of destruction. Destroy society, cut the ties, break us on a wheel. Drakeford and his ilk, in fact the whole rotten lot of them, deserve nothing but jail and no parole.
Next time they want to ‘experiment’ on us, I suggest they show us how it’s done first and when they’re in their homes with their masks on, twitching at the net curtains, we’ll weld them in and feed them insect burgers down the chimney.
Absolutely bang on the money Aethelred.
Cheers HP!
People do repeat failed experiments, sometimes they give a different p value. That is why CERN, having been bitten in the past, uses a very low p value. There is a behaviour called p value hacking in which people try to reduce their p value so that they can get published, get their drug approved, etc.
Point taken, Zeb!
I think he just means that local lockdowns weren’t “enough”, and we should have been in an earlier, longer and tougher national lockdown instead. But the nasty old Tories wouldn’t let Wales have one!
I’m sure you are right
His handlers, if he has any, will not be happy with his choice of words, but I think the damage is limited. People will think the experiment was worth it. The implication is that the national “lockdowns” were not an experiment but were based on solid science. Interestingly the only “evidence” I’m aware of for “lockdowns” came from China and that one was local, but an actual lockdown, unlike ours which were a dog’s breakfast. Assuming that what we saw from China actually happened.
I think “covid” had experimental aspects but these were nothing to do with public health but rather to discover what control measures they could get away with. I think “covid” is best thought of as an exercise rather than an experiment.
Did Wales even have local lockdowns anyway? The main controversy I remember was the ridiculous two week “circuit breaker” Wales had in Autumn 2020 (I think, it’s all a blur), which had zero effect on anything much but was used to highlight how reckless the English were for not doing the same thing. He is not even admitting that circuit breakers were pointless, and if Wales didn’t even do local lockdowns anyway then all he is doing is further criticising English policies (I believe Leicester was the first to enjoy being locally locked down by Wancock, for months on end while its case rate stayed stubbornly high…).
That’s a lie. In reality it was a failed policy, and gross abuse of power. Within that, they lost the plot and led to establish organisations losing their reputation, with various follow on problems via that route. Some might say that Drakeford should spend time with his kid in the slammer to start with.
Malfeasance in a Public Office – an Offence under Common Law.
Those responsible should be charged.
Carries a maximum sentence of Life Imprisonment.
Just charge one of the pro lockdown brigade aka most of SAGE. They touted themselves as “experts”. They persuaded a too willing Government to implement lockdowns. They wheeled themselves into and were lauded by the MSM. They traduced anyone who disagreed with the “Science.”
So may I offer up the one and only Sir (Christ) John Edmunds as one who most certainly should face trial. Oh, and as an added incentive, never forget that he vociferously advocated on/in the MSM that schools should be closed to children until vaccinated.
It seems he has very little knowledge of immunology/vaccinology/mRNA therapies. Personally I’d have thought some knowledge thereof must be an essential prerequisite for any epidimiologist.
Apparently not.
Never forget that people like him are direcly responsible for a large part of the utter mess the western world is in.
Power without responsibility does not mix well.
SAGE needs to be made an example of.
By redefined as a Prohibited Organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000, perhaps.
Covidians were/are extremists!
“SAGE needs to be made an example of.”
I don’t disagree but it is the height of naivety to believe that the people nominally running this scam were actually in charge. Bozo and his bunch of murderous traitors were simply order takers for the likes of the WEF, UN, World Bank, IMF and the Blackrock gang. Put this lot in court and their defence will be “only taking orders m’lud.”
The same destructive actions occurred in Lockstep throughout the West. Thousands of establishment persons didn’t arrive at the same murderous enterprises at the same time without a high degree of coordination. Such a belief defaults to cock-up theory and what has happened since March 2020 is certainly not cock-up. Some conspiracy realists prefer to borrow Charlie Chuckles’ terminology and refer to it as the Great Reset.
I agree wholeheartedly but unfortunately there’s zero chance of the RPTB meeting justice on this earth.
But it is perfectly possible to charge the bag carriers in the UK but at the moment the justice system is still in clown world.
When it emerges, those in a Public Office should begin to worry….a lot.
In 1840 Dr Farr said that epidemics do not grow exponentially. In 1927 Kermack-McKendrick said the growth was logistic – their work was the basis for the computer models during Covid-19.
The Common Cold Unit said masks don’t work before they closed in the 1980s. The Cochrane Review said and continues to say they don’t work.
And that unit in Salisbury did a lot more good work. They actually invented the term “coronavirus” following electron microscopy studies, and realised that vaccination (using the older definition) was unlikely to be effective, given the number of various viruses, both a group of coronaviruses, and many more rhinoviruses, that have a habit of mutation as they develop. But as you say, it was obvious given the small physical size of the viruses that masks were a useless idea.
Thank you.
Short, sharp, brutal but not nearly brutal enough.
Thank you Professors Heneghan and Jefferson for all you have done and continue to do.
Hear hear.
My modelling, of last year, shows that flattening the curve leads to extended duration and reduced acquired immunity so that when you unlock you get another wave – unless you extinguish the virus or have an effective vaccination programme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4kWbYlopN4
Surely the paid advisers could have told Drakeford the same thing at the time?
“unless you extinguish the virus or have an effective vaccination programme.”
It is not possible to vaccinate away from a viral respiratory infection.
The evidence agrees with you, the modelling is neutral as it is only a SIR model so it has no knowledge of vaccination. If it did then you would have to guess at extra parameters and then it could be pushed one way or another.
Indeed and they knew that
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/vaccination-video-is-emotional-blackmail-and-dishonest-too/
Not exactly giving up are they? Still cynically using indoctrinated children to manipulate parents in to taking their youngsters for a dangerous jabbing. And when June Raine is in charge we know this is as crooked as F.
Despite all the deaths and miseries unleashed by the C1984 fake injections they are still pushing poisons.
“Lessons will be learned” is definitely NOT an excuse this time.
Rather cringeworthy than evil, although the intent behind it doubtlessly is. I’ve been vaccinated against polio and smallpox when I was a child. At that time, measles was considered a benign childhood disease children will invariably get sooner or later. Whooping cough was a bit more exotic but still nothing seriously out of the ordinary, such as scarlet fever (I got the latter, my brother the former).
Apparently, readily available vaccination products cause illnesses to become much more dangerous.
This is a plain lie. At the height of Corona madness, all of the measures were marketed as tried and trusted NPIs whose value had been proven in the real world and was obvious to everyone but conspiracy theorists. Drakford wasn’t experimenting when he prohibited the sale of non-essential goods in supermarkets in Wales, he claimed to be following the scientific consensus of the finest minds on the planet re: infection control when being confronted with an extremely dangerous disease.
Experts also advised that women should not be allowed access to sanitary products in shops! This idiocy alone showed the “experts” were clueless and no idea of unintended consequences.
Clueless idiots? I don’t think so. These are criminals who were making it up as they went along; all the time laughing up their sleeves at the ‘plebians’ and ‘useless eaters’ sucking up their maniacal evil agenda. They still are. It must be hilarious for them, watching the masses blindly foxtrotting to their delirious composition.
Mr. Drakeford why not just go the whole hog and admit that you and your silly collectivist government and every other central planning bunch of busy body’s are all “failed experiments”, and to show some contrition why not tear down all those daft 20mph signs.
We could perhaps experimentally hit Drakford with 20mph signs for some time, just to see if this will improve his health and well-being.
Anyone remember this?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54662795
Indeed. Bloody unbelievable then. Off the scale now.
Yes. Like it was yesterday! It’s long past time these criminals were made to face the consequences of their crimes.
On May 7th 2020 I wrote to my member of the Welsh Senedd and my Westminster MP saying that we needed to stop lockdowns etc immediately and gave a list of 10 reasons. I will NOT accept “in hindsight” excuses from these officials and so-called experts.
*10 reasons based on those put forward by Dr John Lee at the time.