The re-introduction of tests for those travelling from China shows that nothing has been learned and authoritarianism is waiting around the corner. Tests are helpful only if they can identify contagious cases, which can be isolated and slow or interrupt transmission. If you have a few cases, that is. Not if you have 100,000 ‘positives’ daily and most of the population is vaccinated or had Covid, often more than once.
What evidence do we have that ‘test, test, test’ has made any difference in identifying the number of cases, i.e., transmission or mortality? Even the WHO considers travel bans are “usually not effective”, and that they may only be justified at the beginning of an outbreak, as they may allow countries to “gain time”.
Putting aside whether the strategy works (we will discuss that in a future post), the reintroduction of travel restrictions poses three contradictory questions.
1. If we now don’t trust Chinese data, why did we trust it so much at the beginning of the pandemic?
Chair of the Defence Select Committee Tobias Ellwood said, “We simply cannot trust Chinese data”, and Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, wrote on Twitter, “China’s lack of reliable Covid data means these sensible, proportionate and temporary measures are needed ahead of their borders reopening”.
However, why are we just discovering this now? China does not report any figures for excess mortality, does not cooperate with data requests and reports implausible estimates for Covid deaths. As an example, Chinese public health authorities claim to have screened nearly 10 million residents in Wuhan over two weeks in the spring of 2020. New Zealand’s Covid deaths per population are 180 times that of China despite similarities in their approaches.
Therefore, why is Chinese data only now “unreliable” given we used it so much in 2020 to guide Covid policies? Up to March 2020, 39 of 42 reproduction number estimates were based on Chinese data, as was the Imperial College report that predicted 510,000 deaths in the U.K., but with “suppression” (evidence-free and ideological), these deaths would fall to somewhere between 8,700 and 39,000.
2. If we now don’t trust the data coming out of China, how can we trust the testing used to get on the plane?
Interpol reports illicit sales of false negative COVID-19 test certificates in Europe. In France, seven people were arrested for offering fake negative COVID-19 test certificates costing up to €300 (£271). Also, fraud and wrong Covid test results is a big problem in China. Testing is big business.
3. If we can bring back public health restrictions so quickly, what’s next?
U.K. legislation sets out legal obligations and Covid restrictions enforceable by law. The U.K. has had hundreds of laws during the pandemic: Parliament refers to these as “lockdown laws”, and there have been several travel restrictions enforced that lapsed on March 18th 2022.
The Government’s Living with COVID-19 guidance, published on February 21st 2022, stated it “will retain contingency capabilities and will respond as necessary to further resurgences or worse variants of the virus”.
The travel ban sees the reinstatement of lockdown laws, which begs the question – what’s next?
At some point, the policy setting will have to accept the endemic nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and move beyond panicked reactions that were the mainstay of policy throughout the pandemic. But, in the meantime, we have to keep paying the bill.
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 blog, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
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Impossible to comment on Miliband’s mental capacities as we’re not allowed to use profanity or abuse.
To say he is ‘out of his tiny mind’ would be inaccurate, as his mind is nowhere near that size…..
Do you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me when Stalin requisitioned all of the farms in Russia throwing off the Farmers who knew how to grow crops and maintain the food production cycle, As a result over 10 million people starved to death, but these were just a statistic to Stalin who continued with his 5 year plan.
Milliband is of the same stuff, millions of people are going to have insufficient fuel energy to heat and eat, the supply chain and farming and food production operations will not be able to operate fully and efficiently. Food will become scarce the choice will be minimal as it was in Russia and will be expensive.
They will be able to control the population through this denial of basic needs, and it will ensure a dramatic reduction in the elderly and sick during hard winters.
They did it in the 70,s this time they intend to go full throttle,it’s not stupidity it’s a deliberate plan.
The deaths will be hidden, of course, as people don’t “die of cold” but of respiratory infections, exacerbations of other conditions etc. And HMG has already proved that they can simply ignore excess deaths as a conspiracy theory. Or blame them on moneybox.
Indeed. In fact that will be an opportunity to push the latest offerings from Big Bill and his cohorts.
Didn’t Mao manage to starve a few million too? Also Zimbabwe.
The war on hydrocarbons which makes modern civilisation possible, is one of the greatest catastrophes in history, based on anti-science, anti-human and quite openly, totalitarian theologies. The fact that Millipede and his brethren, a small, shrill, corrupt miniority of hard of thinking apostles can impose such strictures on a population where the vast majority do not agree with said policies, is astonishing. One needs to reach back into the Tudor period and beyond for similarities.
At least our children and grandchildren will thank us. Thank us for inexplicably leaving accessible oil for them to burn up after these clowns have long gone with their self sabotage.
Let’s not forget Millibrain is just continuing where May, Johnson, Sunak (with the support of most illiterate MPs) left off.
He is, but he will do with the kind of zeal you see from lemmings heading for a cliff edge as fast as their legs can carry them.
The Tories have a lot to answer for. Turning into Labour Lite was not just a disaster for them but it was a death sentence for the rest of us. Having got rid of the Eco Socialist twerp years ago, he is now back in charge of our energy and there isn’t a worse person in the whole country that could be in that position. Miliband is a fundamentalist pretend to save the planet imposter who is so far up the arses of the UN and WEF they are going to need 10 bottles of Senna to get him out. The blithering idiot is promising “cheaper energy bills”. I am telling you now that all our energy bills are only going in one direction –UP UP UP, year on year on year as Labour and Miliband set about sending us back to the Stoneage where will be told we are “running out of stones”.
The Scots and Labour supporters all over the country hated Thatcher for what she did to coal mining. Miliband for what he is doing to decimate oil and gas should end up being detested even more than Thatcher. But isn’t it ironic that they all hated Thatcher for her war on coal miners, but now Labour and Miliband want to actually blow the coal mines up and shut down the North Sea. All so they can get a little gold star on their lapel from the UN. People, particularly in places like Aberdeen are going to hate the sight of this cretin before too long.
Ed Miliband Murders Our Oil Industry
Royal Society understates Net Zero cost by £500billion.
Article in today’s TCW….
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/breaking-news-royal-society-understates-net-zero-cost-by-500-million/
Without wishing to judge a book by its cover, he really is an unpleasant looking individual isn’t he?
My god you wouldn’t want to buy a second hand car off him that’s for damn sure.
With tens of thousands of jobs to go because of Labour’s stupidity, did the unions who represent them not pay enough to Labour? After all they have rolled over and given the unions everything they want so far.