I’m grateful to Will Jones and the Daily Sceptic for highlighting my article in Spiked on Dr. Ashley Croft’s report for the Scottish Covid Inquiry. You do, though, criticise me for saying that the vaccines had some benefit in 2021, suggesting that I’m being misled by a ‘Healthy Vaccinee Effect (i.e., that folk already near death are unlikely to be given a vaccine, creating the illusion that the vaccine has a survival benefit for those who did receive it).
I completely accept that a Healthy Vaccine Effect is a likely confounder of non-randomised vaccine cohort studies, particularly if the very elderly are included. I agree also with Prof Norman Fenton’s oft-made criticisms that cohort studies are distorted by counting the newly vaccinated and partially vaccinated among the unvaccinated and by the fact that the size of the UK’s unvaccinated population is grossly underestimated by the ONS. All these distortion lead to an over-estimation of vaccine efficacy.
However, my view of the vaccines’ benefit in 2021 is not based upon cohort studies. Rather, it is based on the changing death:case ratio, as illustrated below.
What I’ve done here is to take data for England and calculate a daily ratio of Deaths attributed at Day 20:Cases recorded on Day 1. Twenty days is a typical period from infection to death in a case that goes bad, and death peaks lag case peaks by around 20 days in epidemiological series. I have then smoothed the line by converting it to a 7-day moving average and, since I’m averaging ratios, I’ve preferred a geometric mean, not an arithmetic one. The dates on the X axis are the mid-point in each 7-day series: so ‘4/11/20’ is for Cases in the period 1-7/11/20 inclusive related to Deaths in the period 21-28/11/20 inclusive. I’ve kept case date rather than death date on the X axis because, obviously, cases drive deaths, not vice versa.
The graph shows a falling trend for the ratio from December 2020 to April 2021, indicating that – so long as case ascertainment and the attribution of death to Covid remained essentially unchanged – Covid became considerably less lethal through the tail of the Alpha wave, encompassing the period to April 2021.
This was precisely the period of major vaccine deployment; 2.3m doses had already been given by the data start date of Jan 10th 2021 and, by April, the vast majority of older citizens had been vaccinated (figure 2)
Notably, the Death:Case ratio remained low throughout the Delta wave of summer/early autumn 2021.
It is hard to think of a factor, other than vaccine deployment, that could cause the lowering of this ratio. There was no dramatic improvement in the care of severe cases that would have reduced the death rate; such changes, notably steroid use and avoiding ventilators where possible, came earlier. Delta, unlike later variants, was associated with substantial mortality so one can’t say that the ratio remained low because it was a mild strain.
Under-recording of cases would raise my ratio and may be a factor right at the start of the graph, so I’m not convinced that the drop is as large as 10-fold, but it is substantial. Moreover, the insanity that was mass testing was well underway by Jan/Feb 2021. I walked the two paths around London – the Capital Ring and London Loop – during that winter’s dismal third lockdown and vividly recall testing centres with snaking queues of people who looked perfectly well but had chosen to stand among the potentially infected. This testing madness really didn’t end until the omicron wave, which came after the period I’ve reviewed.
I suppose you might argue that all the most vulnerable had already succumbed by the late winter of 2020/21, so the ratio inevitably fell. This may be true to a degree; however, the majority of the population remained infection-naive until the later omicron waves, so I don’t think it can provide a substantial explanation.
So, I stand by my comments in Spiked on the vaccines’ achievements in 2021. But would add six further points, all underscoring vaccine limitations.
First, these are novel types of medicine, hurriedly developed. It was reckless to give them to groups, particularly healthy children, at zero risk of severe Covid. I consistently argued this case.
Secondly, the vaccines failed to stop infection and transmission. This weakness was apparent as early as the summer of 2021. That autumn’s coercion to be vaccinated ’to protect others’ was medically as well as morally unsound. This should have demolished the argument for vaccine passports, as I said in the Spiked article and many times previously. Yet vaccine passports were most extensively and severely imposed in that very autumn, both in Scotland and across much of the EU, where President Macron notably promised to “piss off the unvaccinated”.
Thirdly, by summer 2021 it also was clear that natural immunity confers more durable protection than vaccination. This further negated the case for vaccinating low-risk groups. It is particularly pertinent to healthcare workers. They’d better protect their patients by being infected and recovering rather than by being vaccinated. Yet care home workers in England were sacked for refusing vaccination and the same threat was held over NHS staff.
Fourth, the multi-dose boosters regimens deployed from autumn 2021 were never trialled, and ‘variant-updated’ vaccines have only been subjected to the most cursory human trials. The Cleveland Clinic’s study of its own staff suggests that repeated vaccination is associated with increased vulnerability to infection, and original antigenic sin makes it doubtful whether SARS-CoV2 vaccines can be repeatedly adapted to each emerging variant. In autumn 2021 the vaccine strategy’ departed from the last threads of evidence-based medicine.
Fifthly, there was and is a real and justifiable concern that use of vaccines targeting one highly variable part of SARS-CoV2 – its Spike protein – might become a major driver of variant evolution favouring ever-more-vaccine-evasive mutants. Natural immunity, involving a response to multiple virus proteins, should be harder to evade.
Sixth, and last, there is no justification for continuing extensive vaccination, given that circulating strains are associated with mild disease and that the great majority of us are now survivors of Covid infection, unlikely to succumb to a second attack. The JCVI seems to comprehend this, and is steadily rowing back on who should be boosted – now just the over-65s. This is in contrast to the U.S., which still advocates vaccination for anyone aged over six months.
The tragedy is that, had these vaccines been used narrowly and briefly in high-risk groups – as Kate Bingham argued – they’d be remembered well, for the achievement in 2021 that I’ve illustrated here.
Instead, for reasons that no one will yet admit the vaccination programme morphed into something very different. My expectation is it will come to be remembered badly, as the vaccine-harmed pile up for no discernible further benefit.
And my fear is that this will have a knock-on effect, leading people to eschew other and far better vaccines against more dangerous diseases.
Dr. David Livermore is a retired Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of East Anglia.
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I thought Cleverly sounded relieved.
That is greatly to his credit.
Will it really matter who they pick – they are a busted flush
They are the official opposition and I think people will drift back to them from Reform – the nation had its chance and blew it. The time to destroy the Tory party was 2024. Too late now. Hope I am wrong.
Some may drift back …. but Reform is now gunning for Labour voters in the Red Wall. And working class voters who held their nose and voted for Johnson – who comprehensively betrayed them – are more likely to vote for Reform than a CONservative Leader who was a Minister during the Great Betrayal but, we’re supposed to believe, has now had a Damascene Conversion.
I hope you are right!
I tend to agree.
If anybody, I would be the textbook conservative voter. Yet I can’t vote for them.
My problem with the Conservative party in general is that:
My only sympathy for them is that Labour are much-much worse. The conservatives were incompetent but, perhaps, not intentionally evil.
I’m not feeling so charitable, they are weak and pretty damn stupid if they can’t see the way back to power, move back to centre right from the left
Well, if they are that stupid, then they deserve to disappear.
I think they are… or are not allowed to behave how they want to. Tend to lean towards the former tbh
I am convinced some of them are much worse than incompetent.
“despising their core voters” This never fails to make me smile: https://youtu.be/DT5tzzWhRAA?t=351
The Covid Tyranny; Net Zero economy-wrecking policy and mass immigration of 4 million in just 5 years (having “promised” to reduce it) looks remarkably like intentionally evil to me.
OFF – T. Interesting article in this months The Light Newspaper regarding the holding in Jail of Reiner Fuellmich. It is understood that his defence team has been banned from giving oral evidence. reports from the trial also suggest his lawyers are not being given details of new charges being brought against him.
It is claimed that the role of the German secret services was revealed to one of the defence lawyers in April this year in a leaked paper. The leaked paper, it is alleged, recommended finding ways to prosecute Fuellmich because of his popularity and involvement in a newly founded party could cause unforeseen political problems.
His supporters also claim that his rights were violated. Article 6 of the Convention on Human Rights which states: Everyone charged with a criminal offence must be informed as soon as possible of the charge and be able to prepare his defence.
Relevance to the article?
No relevance, hence the “Off – T[opic]” as a courtesy to the reader.
Off-T items, and I am a frequent poster thereof, get lost if they are posted in a thread earlier than the most current. It is as simple as that. Some people take exception but personally I welcome all Off-T contributions. If the subject is of no interest I ignore. In this case I believe news concerning poor Reiner Fuellmich is most welcome. A brave man who has been illegally imprisoned in the German Fourth Reich. So relevance to the current article is irrelevant.
“ So relevance to the current article is irrelevant.”
Exactly that…..It should not need pointing out on here of all places!
To be fair, we get so few comments on here that a few off-topic comments are not interfering with enjoyment of the site and any comments are IMO to be welcomed. I wish too many comments was an issue for DS.
I wonder why that might be…….
Not really:
It’s a crowded market, sceptics are few on the ground and probably the established alternative news sites have loyal followings
Or most of the comments to be found on here do not do much to encourage others to join in, debate…….
I find the comments variable but on average of higher quality/interest than comments on many much busier sites.
I think your experience is skewed because of your steadfast attempts to persuade people of the merits of military support for Ukraine and the military more generally, which most here do not agree with.
The reason that I regularly place pro Ukraine comments on here is precisely to generate debate, research, thought on that subject.
I have no interest in persuasion, only in perspective; balance; both sides of the argument.
One side of the argument is under-represented here, in my view, so I attempt to remedy that
Everyone is very much entitled to their own opinion
But it would be a great deal more interesting if commentators at least gave some appearance of having done a bit of general research to support their position.
As it is, much commentary on here closely resembles the off the top of the head, self indulgent, shallow, uninformed and superficial reactions of the echo chamber ‘twitterati’ who many call something else; unreadable.
I think debates could be encouraged if there was a way you were alerted to replies. At the moment it requires you to go back and search.
I receive my Daily Sceptic update in the early hours of the morning, so am often late to the party as regards to commenting, and I am sure my comments are generally not read.
Underneath the “new comment” box on each article there is an envelope icon with “subscribe” next to it which gives you the option to get notifications either for all comments on the article or just for replies your comments, and there is also a bell icon next to the “post comment” button when you do a reply that will notify of replies to that specific comment of yours. I am not however aware of a way to default that to true for your user account.
I skim all the articles and comments. I am sure your comments are read by quite a few people.
The fuellmich thing combined with the idiotic, immoral and surely illegal persecution of cj hopkins is deeply deeply disturbing.
It speaks to a willingness to stoop to any depths to shut down free speech.
If we are not careful in 5 years time any sort of dissent will be impossible or punishable by imprisonment across the western world, and truth or reason will be no defence.
Sounds like the MPs cocked up in an attempt to make sure the “right” candidate had the best chance in the final vote. Serves them right.
I don’t trust any of them – all of them (the leadership candidates and most MPs) supported lockdowns and “vaccines”. I may once have considered voting Tory again if there were to be sufficient signs of contrition for the 14 years of betrayal, but I doubt I will now. Reform are a credible alternative and I don’t see much hope that the Tories will ever be a serious “right wing” party – I don’t think many of the 6 million people who voted for them at the last election want to be seen as “right wing” or want the Tories to be “right wing” – they just want a more genteel version of socialism.
To hell with the lot of them.
A true right wing Tory would be confirming their commitment to an end to ALL immigration, immediate deportation of all illegals, destruction of all NGO’s, withdrawal from the WHO, UN, NATO and proscribing of the WEF, immediate round-up of all those involved in the imposition of the C1984 scamdemic and treason trials for the likes of Bliar, Call me Dave, Johnson, May, Kneel and thousands more. And that’s just a start.
In other words I am not interested in the bubble gum tories who will forever remain the most horrendous stain on this country.
A robust post – but I can’t disagree.
If only the Conservatives had taken “right of centre” positions in 1997 when Blair was elected. I never understood why they lurched to the left instead of opposing the labour party at the time.
I guess they saw how well Bliar was polling and thought ‘we want some of that’?
“bubble gum Tories” lol this phrase could take off
Thanks tof.
Now they really look like sincere smiles. It is like they’re living in 1987. Things are changing big time. This level of trying to cling on to the pretence because your’e petrified of the abyss is absurd. It will eat you even more quickly if you are petrified and false.
There is no stopping the Anglo-Americans now. Officials from other countries are leaving the Anglosphere quickly. You have no control over your government or your own destiny. The time is too short for you to take it back. And so you need to seriously ponder your own position.
You are not coming back. They are not coming back. If you have some concept of restroration or restitutiuon then you are very wrong. Is is more like you re being introduced to upheaval.
Only small number of Brits who liisten to the real news. If you have the eyes to see it you will see that the whole situation has spiralled out of control in the last few days. It is like an uncoiled spring it will go where it will. I just hope that you can accept defeat with magnaminity.
IMO the 4 million plus who voted Reform are unlikely to return to back to the Tories. Probably not all Tories but mostly. So Kemi B or Bobby R will need to swallow their pride at some stage and form some form of an alliance with Reform. By the next election Reforms polling may even exceed the Torys in fact.
I’m a long time Tory voter who voted for Reform his time. My worry is that a divided right will keep Labour in power indefinitely
I had kind of hoped for Cleverly to be chosen. It would have been the final straw for the conservatives.
So less likely to split the vote during the next election.
Hilarious …. the LibCON Party Grandees must be absolutely apoplectic.
Still, they’ve still got Gove protege, WEF-approved, Badenoch on the ticket, so all is not lost.
I am bemused at your preferring the obviously unsound jenrick to obviously sound kemi.
Yes you are being unbelievably naive.
Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum – both accomplices in the ruination of the Tory Party and the Country, both members of that gang of deceivers and pathological liars called The Conservative Parliamentary Party.
“The elephant in the room is that there will at some point need to be some kind of entente with Reform, if only because a divided Right can’t beat even a weak and unpopular Labour…”
That would just continue a divided Right, and anyway entente is two-way: Farage’s stated aim is the destruction of the Tory Party – following the Canadian model – with a new “Conservative” Party nothing to do with the old.
People who still support the Conservative Party as is, need to take a look round, face reality, sit down and have a chat with themselves.