A study of university students and staff has laid bare the abject failure of pandemic policy interventions such as vaccination, masks, mass testing and quarantine to limit the spread of COVID-19.
When Cornell University in the U.S. reopened to in-person tuition in August 2021, it had in place an extensive testing, contact tracing and quarantine programme in conjunction with the local health department. Vaccination was mandated for all students and encouraged for employees (students as usual getting a rough deal from their university). Masks were required on campus and isolation orders and contact tracing occurred within hours of any positive result.
The university is therefore an excellent live experiment to see whether vaccination, masks, mass testing and quarantine – tools deployed to contain Covid outbreaks the world over – could succeed.
The findings – published in the Journal of the American Medical Association – could not be clearer: the measures made no visible impact on the outbreak.
Students and staff were required to take a PCR test each week as part of the university surveillance programme. Covid stayed at low levels to begin with – an outcome which the study attributes to the containment measures but this is pure speculation, particularly as New York state was not experiencing an outbreak at this time. Come December, however, with the return of students after the Thanksgiving break and the arrival of Omicron and infections rose sharply.
Within two weeks the test positivity rocketed more than 10-fold, from 0.5% in the week ending December 4th to 5.7% in the weekend ending December 18th. This was despite there being support teams helping the infected to isolate and tracing contacts to instruct them to monitor for symptoms, test and quarantine. It is hard to imagine many non-university communities achieving the level of surveillance and intervention carried out during this period at Cornell.
Over the month from November 28th to December 31st, a total of 2,797 people tested positive, of which 98.6% were vaccinated. This proportion was higher than the 97.9% of the university population who were vaccinated, implying negative vaccine effectiveness (though this may be confounded by, for example, different prior infection rates or behaviours).
The close-contact secondary attack rate (the proportion of close contacts an infected person infects) shot up more than five-fold, from 4.4% prior to November 28th to 22.6% afterwards. This dramatic change is further evidence that it was not the quarantine measures suppressing spread before Thanksgiving, as the secondary attack rate is not affected by the subsequent isolation of cases and contacts, and 4.4% is a very low attack rate and unlikely to trigger an epidemic.
Of the reported cases, 82.2% reported mild symptoms and there were no hospitalisations, confirming once more how low the risk is from this disease, particularly in a community with a high proportion of young people like a university, and how unforgivably excessive and pointless the measures are to combat it. Genetic screening and sequencing confirmed that Omicron was the dominant variant in December.
The researchers concluded that “traditional public health interventions were not a match for Omicron”. Vaccination in particular was “not sufficient to prevent rapid spread, even when combined with other public health measures including widespread surveillance testing” – and indeed, a mask mandate.
Mass vaccination programmes, along with vaccine mandates and passports, were implemented around the world on the basis that being vaccinated would stop the spread of COVID-19. But this study is the latest of many to show that the notion is false: vaccination does not prevent infection, transmission or outbreaks. Neither do face masks or contact tracing and quarantine.
These lessons must be learned. All vaccine mandates must be lifted immediately, all vaccine passport schemes (such as the continuing ban on the unvaccinated entering the U.S.) must be scrapped, and mass vaccination programmes for those not at risk from the virus must be ended. Mask mandates must be lifted; contact tracing and quarantine programmes must be axed. None of these things must be attempted again. That is the only rational response to the findings of this study and others which repeatedly show the same thing. These interventions do not work and are not worth it.
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The two-tier approach to arbitration, justice or anything where simple common sense should apply has now been deliberately inverted. The intention is to confuse and throw the population off balance, a sort of crude update to the C1984 crap of masks, social distancing and the ‘safe and effective.’
Off-com like our judicial system is being run from the outside. There is to be no concession to honesty or decency. In fact if a decision can be made which flouts or inverts common sense, honesty and decency then that is the decision that will be made. Thus, GB News challenging the Off-com decision will simply amount to pissing in the wind although they are absolutely right to have a go.
Kneel’s Davos Britain.
The BBC do it every day and counting over the Climate!
GB News voluntarily agrees to be regulated by Ofcom.
Why?
Well exactly, they had their chance with a proper journalist Mark Steyn, but realised they have no spine.
Clearly, the elite is starting to feel a little bit scared of GB News.
Can’t think why, they’ve killed off all the proper journalists and have Neil Oliver safely confined to Youtube.
When attack comes closer to the enemy the flak increases.
“Will Ofcom turn its guns on ITV in the same way it has GB News? Don’t hold your breath”
It may do but will probably do it while kicking & screaming!
They are an utter disgrace.
A little off-topic but has anyone noticed how Yvette ‘Allo ‘Allo Cooper has aged since 5th July whereas 2TKeir looks like he has not lost a night’s sleep since becoming PM.
2TK is IMHO disconnected from the significance of events as they unfold in the world around him with a total empathy by-pass from birth.
He does not understand and it all goes over his head.
This is why he can keep blathering on as if nothing has happened because to him nothing has.
David Starkey has strongly hinted at the reason why, which I reached some time ago.
Keir-Ching! is on the spectrum. He shows no empathy because he doesn’t “understand” it.
I agree and thought so too.
However, let no one be in any confusion about autstic people.
The high functioning verbal ones are used to disguise and cover up the fact the majority are non-verbal autistics who will need help and care and often residential care for the rest of their lives.
And the numbers keep on increasing and it is a real increase.
The increase has causes and no one cares less to find out what the causes are in order to stop this disaster for children.
I was shocked to learn recently from two people independently that autistic children forced into mainstream classrooms commit suicide.
The two people concerned had that distressing direct experience in their class at two different schools.
How much of that is going on I have no idea and I’ll bet the DfE keeps not records nor statistics of how common it is.
But to encounter two people simultaneously at the same time at the same place who told of each experiencing exactly the same is either a bizarre coincidence or suggests this is more common than anyone realises.
Spot on! It’s the emotionless facial expression that is the giveaway! He just doesn’t ”get it”!
PS 2TK’s insistence the Southport and other ‘riots‘ were by the ‘Far Right‘ is also consistent with his disconnect.
He just does not understand and explains it all away with a dismissive simplistic ‘they’re all Far Right‘ when he was entirely Far Wrong as usual.
Additionally, when he tipped up in Southport to lay his wreath or bunch of flowers or whatever it was it was all clumsily done and so obviously pre-planned and orchestrated as a semi-formal sort of ceremony.
Again, consistent with a man who has no conception of the significance of events happening around him.
He is wholly unable to do anything ex tempore, being incapable of spontaneity.
Everything has to be planned in advance.
This is also consistent with his inability to respond at all to Rishi Sunak’s challenges and questions when they were in a TV debate together.
‘Muppet’ comes to mind but whose hand is it up his arse pulling all the strings?
The Establishment is obviously getting very nervous about GB News.
Leading Labour politicians and Ministers now have no option but to appear on it and be interviewed when previously they could not be bothered.
Let us hope GB News will continue to address the issues other news media do not.
Will other news media ever realise that is major factor in GB News’ success? They probably already have but just carry on regardless as they have always done.
Sue Offcom?