China’s sudden pivot away from zero-Covid is striking, to say the least. Less than three months ago President Xi Jinping declared, at the Communist Party’s quinquennial conference:
We have adhered to the supremacy of the people and the supremacy of life. We are committed to putting people and lives first and adhere to dynamic zero-Covid.
Now, following protests and a growing failure to contain outbreaks, the CCP has dictated a 180-degree turn to ‘Let it rip’. Mass testing is gone, along with quarantine hostels. Borders have been opened, both for incoming and outgoing travel. Infection rates have spiralled as a result, with estimates of c. 250 million cases in the first three weeks of December, or a little more than a sixth of the Chinese population. This is massive, to say the least, compared with last spring’s omicron spikes elsewhere in the Far East. Half the travellers on incoming flights from China to Italy have proved to be infected, supporting the view that cases have increased explosively.
If anyone believes that masks – still worn everywhere in China – have merit, these numbers should disabuse them. There are no data on the vaccination status of the infected, but it’s likewise clear that the locally used vaccines – classical inactivated virus preparations – have failed to prevent mass transmission and circulation of SARS-CoV2.
Hong Kong’s omicron wave showed that these Chinese vaccines reduced short-term COVID-19 mortality among the over-80s compared with the unvaccinated, though less than for those given mRNA products. Whether a reduction will be achieved or maintained in China is anyone’s guess: many of those vaccinated received their shots months ago and any protection is likely to have diminished markedly.
We’ll likely never know: China has helpfully stopped publishing daily figures for infections and deaths. The only useful signal is that crematoria are unduly busy. Even with a mortality rate of 0.1%, 250 million cases translates to 250,000 deaths.
The West is, or should be, a spectator at this fiasco. We should merely hope that the long-suffering Chinese recognise the futility of what that has been inflicted upon them – mandatory testing, vaccine passports to enter shops and offices, or to catch the train; being quarantined or sealed in their own apartments if they have the misfortune to test positive; having their infected children taken for lonely separate isolation; having their pets slaughtered.
We must hope that, in time, the Chinese have the opportunity repay Xi Jinping and the CCP for its callousness. Particularly for persisting with this cruel insanity through 2022, even when every other country in East Asia had recognised that omicron was milder and unstoppable.
Unfortunately, China’s infection spike is causing a recrudescence of folly in her neighbours and in the West. Japan, Taiwan, India the U.S. and Italy have all taken to testing incoming visitors from China for Covid. This list looks set to grow. Lord Bethell, a former U.K. Health Minister, is calling for the U.K. to follow, and the Telegraph tells us that Rishi Sunak has the topic ‘under review’, as does the EU.
The ‘logic’ is that China’s surge may generate new SARS-CoV-2 variants and that import of these might “put us back to square one”. Assorted academics have been wheeled out to support this claim. Shares in Novacyt and Genedrive, who manufacture Covid tests, have surged. But the ‘logic’ is nonsense, and should be called out as such, for two reasons.
First, experience shows that, even in a time of strict international restrictions, the global spread of major SARS-CoV-2 lineages cannot not be stopped. New variants will continue to emerge. If they have an advantage, they will disseminate worldwide. We can’t do much to prevent this, and should stop trying.
Second, there is no good reason to suppose that China will prove an especially fertile ground for the proliferation of new variants. Mutants gain traction where they have an advantage. That is how Darwinian evolution works.
Advantages comes when spread of the established type is limited but the mutant evades the limitation. An example is if non-pharmaceutical restrictions constrain the established type but have less effect on its more-transmissible mutant – for example, one with a lower infective dose. The alpha variant’s initial rise to prominence during the U.K.’s second (November 2020) lockdown, provides a plausible example. A second case is when existing immunity – from vaccination or infection – constrains the established type, but not its variant. The briefly-protective adenovirus vector and mRNA vaccines used in the West (and Russia) solely target the virus’s highly mutable Spike protein. As immunity wanes, this creates selective conditions favouring partly or substantially evasive types – e.g. omicron – with an altered Spike protein.
These conditions don’t look to apply in China, where the already-very-transmissible omicron variant is ripping into an infection-naïve population, poorly protected with inactivated-virus vaccines. Since these are based on the whole virus, not just the Spike protein, they might provide a broad selective pressure if they were effective. But the sheer speed of omicron’s expansion shows that they aren’t effective at all, and therefore they will not advantage any mutant.
There is much to blame the Chinese Government for. The virus most probably escaped from a lab in Wuhan. The CCP have done their utmost to prevent and confuse investigation of this topic. They provided the terrible lockdown model, causing massive collateral damage to the rest of the world, as well as to themselves. Chinese twitter bots encouraged panic in the West, pumping out clips of plague victims dropping in the Wuhan streets. China’s own citizens have been treated appallingly.
But suggesting that China is now the likeliest source of new variants, simply owing to its infection surge, is to misunderstand how evolutionary pressure works. And imagining that we can stop new variants, wherever they come from, is to disregard everything we should have learnt these past three years.
Dr. David Livermore is Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of East Anglia.
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Israeli situation is discussed here.
https://www.rintrah.nl/suppression-of-the-innate-immune-system-the-main-cause-of-the-pandemic-of-the-fully-vaccinated/
We’re two months behind Israel.
Many thanks for posting that. It explains so much that is puzzling.
I thought of trying to summarize it, but no. It really does require reading in full. Just never get on the treadmill of these mRNA vaccines. (The Chinese may have got away with this, though the worry with their vaccines has always been ADE, so the jury is still out on that one.)
I think it’s rather telling – or rather, not telling – that we don’t distinguish between the experimental non-mRNA and the experimental mRNA pre-infection treatments when recording “vaccination” status along with critical care and deaths.
I’d love to see the breakdown in AZ versus Pfizer and Moderna.
This one I can corroborate – my sister-in-law, an ICU nurse, has reported empty, or nearly empty covid wards at the two hospitals she works at for several weeks. Given what most of us believe about the dangers of the ‘vaccines’ esp. OAS/ADE, wouldn’t we expect to see something more akin to Israel? How can we account for the difference? I’m baffled.
One difference would be that many-to-most UK citizens at high risk (i.e. the elderly) were dosed with Astra Zenica, the non-mRNA experimental treatment.
Apparently:
“Since more than half of ICU admissions have not been vaccinated, this suggests an intrinsically milder virus rather than just increased protection from vaccination.’”
According to the UKHSA there are around 5x more deaths in the vaccinated compared with the unvaccinated — now, that’s perhaps just because the vaccines are protecting them, but…
…Why aren’t these dying vaccinated people getting a bed in ICU? Are they dying before they get a chance to get admitted? Or maybe there’s a secret society of unvaccinated doctors turning the vaccinated away from ICU?
Or are these figures just really dodgy, as usual.
3 things spring to mind. Anecdotally, there seems to have been an upsurge in sudden deaths. These would appear to be predominantly among the vaccinated, so yes, dead before they get to ICU. Secondly, isn’t it possible that the treatment of patients may differ according to their vaccination status? If the unvaccinated are getting poorer treatment due to nhs staff bias, then maybe they’re more likely to deteriorate and need intensive care. Thirdly, I believe that ICNARC and UKHSA use different estimates for their unvaccinated population. ICNARC uses the ONS estimate, which likely underestimates how many people are unvaccinated, and therefore overestimates the proportion of unvaccinated that end up in ICU.
I have suspected for some time that treatment given in hospitals will differ according to jab status.
I’ve no proof, just a gut feeling as 20+ yrs experience of working with the medical profession means I am well aware of what some of them are capable of.
If everybody gets the same treatment why is one of the first questions about your jab status?
I agree. I can’t help but think there is something sinister, or at least very questionable, going on. A few weeks ago a relative (also a sceptic) told me he’d read an article in The Times which presented an anecdotal frontline report from an A&E doctor. In the report, reference was made (in passing) to having to identify the vaccine status of covid patients, as they were put in different areas “reflecting the need for different treatment”. What this meant in practice wasn’t explained.
The almost 5x was pure numbers, not proportion — in the last figures it was 5012 deaths with 2 or 3 doses, and 1177 unvaccinated.
I realised that. My comment about defining “unvaccinated “ denominators was just in response to your comment “or are these figures just really dodgy, as usual”. (If they can fudge something as basic as the uk population, what else will they fudge? Another one, clearly, is their definition of “unvaccinated”.) It wasn’t intended to explain the discrepancy per se. Perhaps I should have clarified at the time.
Yes these figures are definitely “dodgy”. I believe they don’t include admissions from care homes and have my suspicions that unvaccinated patients are rested much more regularly (and possibly at a higher cycle rate?) than the vaccinated. As you point out the vaccine shows completely different figures for deaths – around 80% jabbed. So the vaccine means that once hospitalised you are at a much higher risk of dying then? Or the figures are manipulated junk?
Spiegelhalter is a regime gatekeeper. Nothing he says can be taken at face value.
Israels problems may be related to the number who have been quadruple stabbed.
As the damage to the immune system is acknowledged to be cumulative, it may well be that the Israelis have many more over a threshold where their immune system can no longer cope?
This is just abuse of the term “vaccinated.”
Hospitalised but no injections – unvaccinated.
Hospitalised after one jab but exceeding the timeline for injection two = unvaccinated.
Hospitalised after two jabs, but not boosted to heaven, yet = unvaccinated.
I completely agree (see post). Add to this list “Unknown” which are also classed as “Unvaccinated”.
One can only suppose that this misinformation is being supported by doctors, just as they don’t report teenage heart attacks as adverse reactions (see Tommy Robinson’s Telegram posting yesterday – sorry, I can’t link to it) and continue to cash in on injecting while refusing to do their job of actually seeing patients.
The Australian tyranny is just a test run
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-australian-tyranny-is-just-a-test-run/
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Delingpole’s article is superb – and the film is well worth watching (especially if they’ve sorted out the original volume problems)!
I think it is important that any time the term “Unvaccinated” is used it really needs to be in quotation marks since an unknown number of them have been vaccinated.
We need to show scorn and contempt for the way the term is used, as we should also for the term “Cases” and “Asymptomatic Infection”.
The German health and panic minister stated yesterday that Israel’s problems stem from too few elderly being vaxxed and boosted in comps with Europe.
As far as I can tell, that statement is completely fact free/a lie, it contradicts the statements from doctors there that 3/4 of the ICU patients are vaxxed and the general booster overload and lead there.
But even if it was true, it would then confirm that vaccinating people not at risk and younger ones was and is a misguided strategy and that any vaxx mandate for them, which he is now planning to introduce, is medically ridiculous.
Omicron seems to be having a much more significant impact on the population in both Israel and the USA.
Both of these countries used almost exclusively mRNA vaccines. The majority of adults in the UK were vaccinated with the Oxford Astra Zenica vaccine (at least the first two doses) Could it be that AZ is more effective at protecting from serious illness in the longer term than the mRNA vaccines?
It could be, yes. I’d note that while all the vaccines induce a pretty poor cellular immune response (but lots and lots of antibodies), AZ produced the highest amount of t-cell response (still poor, but higher than the others). We’ve little idea how any of the vaccines are modulating the innate immune response (there’s some papers saying that the mRNA vaccines at least have an impact on the innate immune system, but really we need much more data).
Alternatively, it could be a vaccine dose separation issue — in the UK we started vaccinating at the same time as Israel, but delayed the second dose by two months. This has put us two months behind Israel ever since.
It is called immune erosion. This is from the head of healthcare in Israel.
The Israelis have had 4 jabs. Their natural immunity has been more effectively suppressed (wrecked) than our population with a sizeable number who haven’t been jabbed, or have only had one or two.
Why “excluding Scotland”. Surely with vaxpässen and muzzle mandates still in force here, we must have reached zero by now? That’s what The Science demands, and reality must defer to it.
”One mystery is why Israel’s Omicron wave is proving a rougher ride in terms of ICU admissions and deaths compared to ours.”
Really? A ”mystery” is it? Not to a lot of us who’ve read about what jabs do to the immune system – and Israel has certainly done a lot of jabbing.
The Propaganda Loyal BBC & the Highly Trust worthy health & Prime Minister, with their Cameras & Photographers would have been all over this if they had a few patients. Lest not forget how much we spent on Nightingale Hospitals either!
Why is Israel’s situation as regards ‘COVID’ ICU numbers and deaths recently than here in the UK? Probably becuase:
1) They’ve used the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines throughout, which appear (in my view from reports) to cause immunity fatugue, i.e. their effectiveness wears off quicker and quicker and once it doesm the more vulnerable people’s immune systems are worse off.
They may be ‘dependent on the jabs’ so much that it could induce many auto-immune diseases, as some scientists and clinicians have speculated. Unfortunately, some many not know until years down the line, whereby it’s too late to make much of a difference.
The Oxford/AZ one did not seem to be anywhere near as ‘bad’ on that front, whilst lower initial immunity, it appears to last longer and not induce this immunity deficit so much/soon. Noticeably most oldies here got the AZ jab (my elderly parents did).
Whether this now changes in the coming months, as most of the booster jabs appear to be of the Pfizer/Moderna ones.
2) The has been a lower take up of jabs in the UK, especially in younger people, and also young children have not had them at all – yet.
Combine this and, in England (which makes up the majority of the UK population) lesser lockdown restrictions and more ignoring of those rules, the virus (especially since it ‘got milder’) has been far more extensively circulating in the below 50s population here, giving many more the better, longer-lasting natural immunity.
3) Israel rolled out the boosters quicker than we did, they are now on No. 4, but they rolled them out at a time of the year when they were least needed, and thus, IMHO, wasted before the aforementioned immune system problems kicked in just as the worst of winter illness was approaching.
It also means that the immune system problems are worsened because many have 2, not 1 booster and in quick succession.
What appears to be now coming out is that the effects of mRNA vaccines are still relatively unknown over the medium to longer term. To expect entire populations, inculding under 50s who in theory have decades of life to live, to have these jabs which are not fully tested despite them predominantly not being those seriously ill is an utter disgrace.
As more have said, any vaccines should have gone to just the most vulnerable, with them and everyone else using a holistic approach to both treatment and boosting the immune system by way of better diet, exercise/fresh air/sun, including vitmain D, zinc and a couple of other supplements, especially in colder less sunny months.
All the less vulnerable/younger people should then have just got on with their lives as before, shielding the vulnerable at the lowest level required without destroying what life they have left.
To show the Covid daily death figures are nonsense if the current trend continues we’ll shortly have fewer people seriously ill with Covid in ICU’s than die every day with Covid. A clear contradiction.
What “mystery” re Israel? The “vaccines” make many more susceptible to illness, as their immune systems get attacked by the snake oil. As per Mike Yeadon. mRNA mayhem is in the pipeline now…
Medical clinics and hospitals in USA are denying life-saving Ivermectin medicine even with court orders. Big Pharma doing all that they can to push the vaxx and inoculate us while effective and cheap COVID cures exist. There turns out to be censorship that we have never seen before for those who are looking for these treatments. We say over and over again that indepenedent researchers found Ivermectin safe and very effective for these Flu-Corona symptoms. Getting Ivermectin is easy https://ivmpharmacy.com