This week saw the publication of a suite of systematic reviews by the Royal Society (RS) on the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions in the pandemic.
Politico headlined with ‘Top review says Covid lockdowns and masks worked, period’. The Guardian led with ‘Lockdowns and face masks “unequivocally” cut the spread of Covid, report finds’, and the i newspaper stated: ‘Masks and social distancing did reduce Covid infections, new report shows, proving lockdown sceptics wrong.’
So there you have it, a slam dunk, sceptics, you were all wrong. You should have masked up and stayed in lockdown.
Even more so when you listen to the Chair of the report’s group, Mark Walport, who said: “There is sufficient evidence to conclude that early, stringent implementation of packages of complementary NPIs was unequivocally effective in limiting SARS-CoV-2 infections.”
Four systematic reviews informed the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in the Covid pandemic. However, here is some of what these reviews report.
A systematic review on environmental control measures:
Many of these studies were assessed to have critical risk of bias in at least one domain, largely due to confounding factors that could have affected the measured outcomes. As a result, there is low confidence in the findings.
One study, an RCT, showed that daily testing of contacts could be a viable strategy to replace lengthy quarantine of contacts. Based on the scarcity of robust empirical evidence, we were not able to draw any firm quantitative conclusions about the quantitative impact of TTI interventions in different epidemic contexts.
Effectiveness of face masks for reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2:
We analysed 35 studies in community settings (three RCTs and 32 observational) and 40 in healthcare settings (one RCT and 39 observational). Ninety-one percent of observational studies were at ‘critical’ risk of bias (ROB) in at least one domain, often failing to separate the effects of masks from concurrent interventions.
Effectiveness of international border control measures during the COVID-19 pandemic:
There is little evidence that most travel restrictions, including border closure and those implemented to stop the introduction of new variants of concern, were particularly effective.
The report makes the same errors that the UKHSA and Public Health England did. They ignored the critical biases and the confounders when drawing conclusions. Some of the comments misunderstand the evidence required for making healthcare decisions.
Chris Dye, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, who led the review on masks for the Royal Society, said if they had only looked at randomised controlled trials, they would have come to the same conclusion as the Cochrane review. However, the researchers behind the paper released Thursday chose to analyse a larger body of studies and found strong evidence that masks work.
So, if we ignore high-quality evidence, we arrive at the conclusion we want – they fully understand the politics. Low-quality evidence means the estimated effect will differ substantially from the actual effect – we’ve known this for quite some time, and it is fundamental to the delivery of evidence-based interventions. An approach that uses low-quality evidence shouldn’t inform healthcare, and it doesn’t. That’s why we have NICE, which uses the best available evidence to develop recommendations that guide health, public health and social care decisions.
Did the reviewers, for instance, ask if there was a protocol for any of these studies – something we have previously pointed out. There were none, despite protocols being essential for robust research.
There is something we do agree with in the report, that the “future assessments should also consider the costs as well as the benefits of NPIs, in terms of their impacts on livelihoods, economies, education, social cohesion, physical and mental wellbeing, and potentially other aspects”. However this report looked at none of that. The single focus on one outcome, ignoring harms, further hinders informed decision-making.
The RS report wants us to believe that RCTs are impossible during a pandemic: “While RCTs should not be discounted, it is highly likely that most information in a future pandemic will continue to be observational.”
Yet the pandemic has re-emphasised the importance of high-quality randomised clinical trials and highlighted the need for preparation, coordination and collaboration.
The Royal Society review shows that some academics are losing their ability to think critically. Instead of retrofitting evidence to preconceived conclusions, it would be much better to report the uncertainties and set out those questions that need addressing. Refusal to acknowledge uncertainties does a disservice to society and undermines public trust in research.
Staying at home decreases your risk of all sorts of hazards – in the short term, you won’t get run over and you’ll reduce the risk of an infection or an accident. But what matters is the costs of what happens when you reemerge.
Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
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So, if we ignore high-quality evidence, we arrive at the conclusion we want – they fully understand the politics. Low-quality evidence means the estimated effect will differ substantially from the actual effect – we’ve known this for quite some time, and it is fundamental to the delivery of evidence-based interventions.
Exactly.
Kudos to Dr’s Heneghan and Jefferson for having the sheer tenacity to keep taking on the never-ending, ubiquitous verbiage of anti-science. Latest (only slightly o/t) example, Daily Mail headline: “Cost of living crisis blamed for babies being stillborn”. Trusted news, anyone?
” ‘Lockdowns and face masks “unequivocally” cut the spread of Covid, report finds’, and the i newspaper stated: ‘Masks and social distancing did reduce Covid infections, new report shows”
Why is “reducing covid infections” a desirable goal? What do they mean by a “covid infection”? What does “reducing covid infections” mean? Over what time period are they making this assessment?
As soon as I hear or read the word unequivocally from these folk, my ‘BS’ sensors are auto-set to maximum sensitivity.
Why is “reducing covid infections” a desirable goal?
Because that’s the only thing Corona’s witnesses ever hoped to accomplish: They believed that they could reduce Sars-CoV2 infections. And hence, reducing them became an end to itself.
Joke I have to repeat here: I still fondly remember the Help stop the spread! signs in supermarkets as I still think that should have continued with Just say no to Marmite!
Yes, I like that and it shows the ridiculous slogans in their true light
I still don’t understand what they meant by “reduce Covid infections”. You can’t really hope to reduce the absolute number of Covid infections that ever occur as everyone will be exposed- unless you kill them all first. All you can hope to do is reduce the number in some arbitrary timeframe but even if you do, what have you achieved? You’ve bought yourself time, but time to do what? Build hospitals that never got used, ventilators that killed people, expensive treatments that killed people, and vaccines that killed people. A vast transfer of wealth, a vast scam to end up at the same place you would have ended up at doing nothing- an endemic mild virus that killed a few more frail people a bit earlier than otherwise might have happened. There was never a public health emergency.
I still don’t understand what they meant by “reduce Covid infections”. You can’t really hope to reduce the absolute number of Covid infections that ever occur as everyone will be exposed- unless you kill them all first. All you can hope to do is reduce the number in some arbitrary timeframe but even if you do, what have you achieved?
How do you (or rather, how does anyone) know that anything was achieved at all? Presence of a Sars-CoV2 infection can be assessed by doing a test for it. But what’s the proper sampling rate for these tests to ensure that no Sars-CoV2 infections will be missed? In particular, is it likely that this proper sampling rate is lower than the rate at which test results can be made available? Further, is it technically feasible to test everyone as frequently as the proper sampling rate dictates to ensure that no infections are missed? Lastly, assuming all these obstacles could be cleared away, how is causality supposed to be proven given that there’s no way to rerun the experiment?
This is all just expertly constructed pseudo-scientific claptrap from start to finish, designed by so-called behavioural scientists to fool as many people as possible for the longest possible time.
Obviously you can’t know anything like this with certainty. I suppose you could draw some broad conclusions if you saw a pattern strongly correlating level of restrictions with a measure that was harder to fiddle like al cause mortality, controlling for obvious factors like population health. I believe Sweden did pretty well.
Well the fear porn and mass hysteria has started in the US, shamefully targeting the children once more as schools are shutting due to decisions made by idiotic ( most likely fully vaxed ) Covidian teachers. It’s like the world’s stood still and no science whatsoever has happened, no data collected and no knowledge been gained since 2020. Utterly shameful, the teachers obviously hate the kids ( or their jobs ) and what this stupid doctor is saying is 100% garbage. Basically ”vaccinate, vaccinate, masks and vaccinate”.
”Just weeks into the new school year, districts in multiple states are canceling in-person classes for several weeks due to respiratory viruses, including COVID-19, among students and staff.
Two school districts in Kentucky — Lee County School District and Magoffin County Schools — said they were closing due to “widespread illness.”
LCD canceled classes on Tuesday and Wednesday and switched to virtual classes on Thursday and Friday.
“We’re seeing a lot of illness being reported consistent with COVID and influenza,” Scott Lockard, public health director for the Kentucky River District — which includes Lee County — told ABC News. “Lee County had a surge of cases and attendance dropped below the threshold needed to stay open, so they closed.”
He said there’s been an uptick in positive COVID-19 cases but the true number of infections may be higher due to at-home test results not being reported to the health department.
Lockard said there is a concern that cases could increase heading into the fall and winter and encouraged people to get vaccinated with the flu and new COVID booster to prevent others from getting sick.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/school-districts-kentucky-texas-cancel-classes-amid-surge/story?id=102561169
One of our conspiracy theory predictions was that there was no logical end to Covid based on the absurd parameters being used- the only end, which sort of came, for now, was political- the authorities sort of gave up, probably because they realised people had had enough
Well the fear porn and mass hysteria has started in the US, shamefully targeting the children once more as schools are shutting due to decisions made by idiotic ( most likely fully vaxed ) Covidian teachers. It’s like the world’s stood still and no science whatsoever has happened, no data collected and no knowledge been gained since 2020.
There’s a renewed political push to get the COVID lead zeppelin (yes, I know the story) off the ground again and the same political pressure groups are busy with pulling the ropes.
An excellent post tof.
Marmite is a key worker,and don’t you forget it!
Marmite is vegan ‘meat’ marmelade — yeast heavily flavoured with monosodium glutamate. That’s one of the avoid-ingredients, the other being sugar. With added sugar and monosodium glutamate, one could sell sawdust as food to some people. But To each their own!
My Marmite does not contain MSG or sugar and it’s the real deal, made in the UK. Ingredients; yeast extract ( contains barley, wheat, oats, rye ), salt, veg juice concentrate, vitamins ( thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vit B12, folic acid ), natural flavouring ( contains celery ).
Contrary to what you wish to believe not all females enjoy poisoning themselves at the expense of enjoying life’s little pleasures, and it hasn’t done me any harm so far.
The exact recipe is secret, hence, I wouldn’t bank on sugar not being added to it. As mildy addictive, it’s too convenient an ingredient for anything to remain free of it for prolonged periods of time, especially anything already under control of food technicians. And the whole point of creating a yeast extract is to heighten the glutamic acid concentration it it. Add salt and you get monosodium glutamate. Almost naturally, so to say. Eating flavoured sawdust also wouldn’t harm you, BTW, and – as sort-of fun fact – during the first ship voyage around the world, the crews subsisted for some time by cooking and eating all leather they could find on their ships.
I’ve worked for some time in a factory producing these kinds of foodstuffs in the past and since then, I make a point of avoiding all of them. Cows fed with something like this don’t have a choice, I do. Needless to say, production is also seriously hygienically abhorrent but hygenie is usually overrated. Nothing on this planet is free of germs.
Well we all foresaw that it’d be a huge elaborate performance that would result in a whitewash. It’s ‘TPTB’ that hold all the cards and get to fraudulently declare what ”mis/disinformation” is, after all. In Clown World the lies become truth and truth becomes a lie. We just have to keep on speaking our truth and spreading all of the info which is contradictory to the official narratives as is humanly possible, not just preaching to the choir on this site. Meanwhile, this is a good 6min vid on the psychology behind mask wearing;
https://twitter.com/Jo_Bond/status/1694118306456961478
Which is why on balance I have thought one should contribute to the Hallett Inquiry’s request for experiences to be sent to it titled “Every Story Matters” (just google it for the webpage) so it is not only those asking for more lockdowns, mandatory masking and jabs, who respond
Again, for those who have chosen to wake up, it has become clear that most of what is referred to as science is basically garbage.
And that’s even before it’s put through the political spin cycle.
If you take seriously any headline with the phrase “report shows”, you’re still sleepwalking through life
Pretty sure health authorities are baffled;
”A probe is underway to work out why thousands of NHS staff didn’t bother getting Covid and flu vaccines.
The health service has paid ‘behavioural insight’ consultants £50,000 to explore medics’ attitudes to vaccination in the North West, West Midlands and London.
Just four in 10 frontline NHS workers in England got the latest Covid booster jab and the figure falls to just one per cent at some trusts in those parts of the country. Meanwhile, fewer than half had the flu vaccine.
The health service says the jabs are vital to reduce the risk of staff becoming infected and passing the highly contagious viruses on to patients and colleagues.
NHS officials hope the project will uncover ‘nudge factors’ and ways to make its medics more eager to get jabbed in future vaccination drives.
The project has been commissioned ahead of winter, when the already under-pressure NHS is expected to face a surge in Covid and flu cases, as well as a depleted workforce due to staff absences.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12444445/Probe-NHS-staff-arent-getting-Covid-jabs.html
“The health service says the jabs are vital to reduce the risk of staff becoming infected and passing the highly contagious viruses on to patients and colleagues.”
I know nothing about flu “vaccines” (though imagine they are useless) but I know that not even the manufacturers claimed that “covid” “vaccines” stopped you getting “infected” and “passing it on”.
What is unequivocal is that Germany with its N95 masks didn’t do as well as Sweden and no masks…no ‘masked’ country did.
No country that went down the biggest, longest, hardest NPI route beat Sweden…in fact many of them did invariably worse….how’s that for evidence?
The countries which went down the biggest, longest, hardest NPI route where those where overplaying the effects of COVID was most necessary in order to justify those NPIs.
With regards to masks ( or any of the BS spouted by those in authority really ) I think there are two categories of people who follow along; stupid people and cowards. The cowards are compliant because they fear the consequences of being noncompliant and they bow under the weight of social pressure, but that is the main reason they go along with any restrictions, even if they don’t believe there really is any deadly virus lurking around each corner or that they’re in any real danger, they are life’s rule-followers and conformists.
Stupid people basically believe all of the hype and every iota of codswallop that is parroted from the MSM and anyone that is an authority figure, despite all of the real-life evidence all around them which contradicts that masks, lockdowns and jabs are effective. I can’t give any % estimates on this but we are undoubtedly surrounded by a combo of stupid people and cowards, but let’s hope their combined % is way less than it was 2+ years ago. This guy does a good deep dive into the science of stupid;
We found some answers about how numerous they are, and the Covid crisis was a worldwide case study in Law 2.
In certain social conditions, highly educated and apparently intelligent people act incredibly stupid and do not even realise it.
It was ungraspable and highly unsettling to me to watch how certain family members and highly-regarded friends, whom I considered very decent and quite intelligent, had no defence against this propaganda and turned into stupid, heartless and scared people I did not recognise anymore.
No logical argument, indisputable fact or emotional appeal would affect them. I could only withdraw from them to protect myself and my sanity.”
https://markusmutscheller.substack.com/p/stupid-people
If the authorities continue to lie the cretinous majority will believe them.
15 to 20% is enough to **** their plans.
The authors of this article made the mistake of falling for the claptrap they where then trying to refute. There is no reliable way to assess the society-wide number of Sars-CoV2 infections and hence, there’s also no reliable way to assess whether introduction of this or that social engineering measure correlated with a reduction in the society-wide number of Sars-CoV2 infections. This is all just handwaiving while muttering sciency-sounding terms™.
The very fact that the Royal Society undertook this review implies that the members of the Royal Society involved in it are – as so-called scientists – either terminally incompetent or corrupt. Or both, obviously (and likely).
Like the “climate scientists”, they like the funding.
In much the same way as “climate scientists”, they 100% agree that they want the funding to continue.
Morning All! We’re recording our next podcast this afternoon.
If you’d like us to talk about anything, or have a message you’d like read out on the podcast, please let me know.
This week’s episode ‘Get Your Bibby Stockholm’s Out’ is here:
https://therealnormalpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1268768/13442825-ep-53-get-your-big-bibby-stockholm-s-out
I am really embarrassed for Mark Walport. His grandparents were two of the finest people I ever had the privilege of knowing.
We’ll ignore the real world data, eh?
‘Royal Society’, you’re having a laugh.
It is sad. There is scope for a constructive discussion about the merits of different types of evidence in this context but the issue has become so politicised and emotional there is little prospect of this. RCTs are good but they are not some magic formula for a good trial and whether we like it or not it is almost impossible to do true randomisation in the context of an NPI.