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Vaccines the Cause of Britain’s Drop In Covid Cases, Not Lockdown, Says KCL Epidemiologist

by Michael Curzon
15 April 2021 2:08 PM
Influenza vaccine injection. Injection into a patient's arm of the 2018/2019 seasonal influenza (flu) vaccine for the northern hemisphere season. This is a quadrivalent inactivated vaccine designed for intramuscular and subcutaneous injection. Inactivated influenza vaccines contain dead influenza viruses. When injected, these stimulate the body's immune system to produce antibodies that protect against future infection by live viruses. Influenza vaccination is recommended for the elderly, the very young, and anyone suffering from respiratory or circulatory disease. It is provided annually because of the need to protect against new strains. This is a vaccine from the Sanofi Pasteur Europe company.

Influenza vaccine injection. Injection into a patient's arm of the 2018/2019 seasonal influenza (flu) vaccine for the northern hemisphere season. This is a quadrivalent inactivated vaccine designed for intramuscular and subcutaneous injection. Inactivated influenza vaccines contain dead influenza viruses. When injected, these stimulate the body's immune system to produce antibodies that protect against future infection by live viruses. Influenza vaccination is recommended for the elderly, the very young, and anyone suffering from respiratory or circulatory disease. It is provided annually because of the need to protect against new strains. This is a vaccine from the Sanofi Pasteur Europe company.

A King’s College London epidemiologist has said that Britain’s “exemplar vaccine programme” – which has seen almost 40 million first and second doses administered – is behind the drop in Covid cases since January. Professor Tim Spector’s view contrasts with that of the Prime Minister who believes lockdown – not the vaccine – has delivered “this improvement in the pandemic“. The Mail has the story.

Vaccines are behind Britain’s sharp drop in coronavirus cases since January, top experts claimed today – despite Boris Johnson insisting lockdown was the reason for the fall.  

Professor Tim Spector, a King’s College London epidemiologist who runs the UK’s largest Covid symptom tracking study, said the epidemic had “mainly” been squashed by the “exemplar vaccine programme”.

With more than 60% of the population jabbed with at least one dose and up to 10% protected due to prior infection, Professor Spector added Britain was “starting to see herd immunity take effect”.

His comments come after data from his symptom-tracking app showed a 17% drop in daily cases last week, with an estimated 1,600 new symptomatic infections a day across the country – down from 60,000 at the peak in January.

Separate Test and Trace figures showed new cases in England had dipped by 34% last week, with 19,196 positive tests recorded in the seven days to April 7th – compared to 29,178 at the end of March. 

Professor Spector said: “As the UK slowly exits lockdown, I’m encouraged to see Covid cases continue to fall with our rates among the lowest in Europe. 

“In fact, the UK closely mirrors cases in Israel with its exemplar vaccine programme. Based on our data and countries like Israel, I believe the fall in cases since January is mainly thanks to the vaccination programme and less about the strict lockdown the UK has been under since late December. 

“With up to 60% of the population vaccinated and around five to 10% with natural immunity due to infection, we’re starting to see herd immunity take effect. This should prevent future large-scale outbreaks.”

Professor Spector warned it was inevitable cases would pick up again as restrictions are eased over the coming months. But he said any outbreaks would be “smaller” and “manageable” and among groups yet to be vaccinated.

The Prime Minister has been underplaying the impact of the vaccine for some weeks. As well as pinning the fall in Covid cases on lockdown rather than on the vaccine rollout, he recently said that vaccinated people must not meet indoors because jabs “are not giving 100% protection” – this despite the fact that the risk of catching a symptomatic Covid infection for two people who have been vaccinated is about one in 400,000. His confidence in lockdowns has, however, stood firm, despite an increasing number of studies showing they’re ineffective.

The report by the Mail is worth reading in full.

Tags: CaseExit strategyLockdownsTim SpectorVaccine

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29 Comments
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Rogerborg
Rogerborg
4 years ago

It’s been a peculiar year, but perhaps the weirdest part is coming to the conclusion that the Daily Mail is the last legacy media bastion of actual investigative, in depth, and nuanced reporting (as well as putting on a VERY busty display).

18
0
realarthurdent
realarthurdent
4 years ago

No. It was the arrival of the spring sunshine, in combination with increasing immunity in the population, which resulted in the disappearance of this seasonal virus

So in short, It Was The Sun Wot Won It.

47
0
Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  realarthurdent

So why hasn’t the spring sunshine caused a similar decline across Europe?

1
-14
realarthurdent
realarthurdent
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

If you look at excess mortality now (rather than the easily manipulated case or “death with COVID” figures) it is now close to, or below, zero across most of Western Europe.
The so-called “3rd wave” is a mirage.

Capture.JPG
26
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RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  realarthurdent

‘Excess mortality’ is a modeller’s construct, and introduces additional assumptions into the picture, when we know that inter-country comparisons are problematic.

A pity, because the point made is important – but should have used better, clearer data.

4
0
RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

It is naive to think that this is a single variable issue. That it most definitely isn’t, is one thing that should have been conclusively learned over the last year.

6
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Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
4 years ago
Reply to  realarthurdent

The WHO changing the PCR testing guidelines to require a confirmatory test for asymptomatic cases and restricting the Cycle Threshold also dun did it.

Combine this with the government switching to a much larger proportion of Lateral Flow Tests at the same time and the cases are going to disappear.

It’s amazing how you can fool people if you control the testing policies.

26
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BillRiceJr
BillRiceJr
4 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

And rapidly accelerating (natural) “herd immunity” and a lot more people being tested in the first place.

5
0
Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
4 years ago
Reply to  realarthurdent

It clearly can’t be the vaccine, otherwise there wouldn’t have been a similar sharp decline last year. I agree it’s most likely the sun, plus increasing naturally aquired immunity.
Was slightly disappointed that it was Tim Spector giving credit to the vaccine as I thought he was one of the few epidemiologists who knew had a clue.

13
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MikeAustin
MikeAustin
4 years ago

So-called ‘cases’ are totally meaningless when there is no reliable method of determining them. This has been the situation since mass PCR testing was introduced, because the government has failed to meet all four WHO criteria for PCR usage:

  1. PCR tests are only for diagnostic purposes when symptoms require medical intervention
  2. A positive result from a PCR test needs to be backed up by a second test
  3. The cycle threshold (Ct) should be reported for each PCR test
  4. PCR tests should not be used for predictions in populations with low prevalence

This has allowed the government to play whatever tunes they wish on this discordant instrument. The only gauge of the situation is all-cause mortality. That is reduced because of seasonality.

33
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iane
iane
4 years ago

Seasonality: they all know it; we know it; history of all respiratory tract viruses shows it. Strange how few will say it publicly.

31
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TheFascistCoronaFraud
TheFascistCoronaFraud
4 years ago

Professor Knutt Wittkowski who headed up the BioStatistics department at the Rockefeller University for 20 years gave his expert insight into how respiratory diseases behave in this interview from early in the scamdemic. Nature is what kills these “viruses” off, not the criminals from Big Pharma with their experimental mRNA shite, not Bojo and the deceivers from HMG with their lockdowns……God’s perfectly balanced processes do this work. What they are calling coronaviruses are part of God’s plan, which serve a function that we do not understand. These snakes taking credit for God’s work are a bunch of crooks, and little else.

Banned By YouTube Perspectives On The Pandemic: Professor Knut Wittkowski
https://banned.video/watch?id=5ec2dda2244ac5001d2a5d76

10
0
Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  TheFascistCoronaFraud

Some of KW’s comments in this video haven’t aged very well.

Aside from that I don’t believe he is anti-Vax.

The vaccine is clearly responsible for the sharp decline in UK hospitalisations and deaths,

1
-14
Monro
Monro
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

UK vaccinations seem to be improving outcomes not just in this country but right across Europe

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country

‘Sunlight will cut the virus ability to grow in half so the half-life will be 2.5 minutes and in the dark it’s about 13m to 20m. Sunlight is really good at killing viruses.’

‘The data coming out of China seems to indicate that it’s those with the co-morbidity that are most at risk.’

‘Basically this is a severe form of the cold.’

Prof John Nicholls, Univ of Hong Kong, Coronavirus expert, 06 Feb 2020

4
0
Catee
Catee
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

So absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the vulnerable have already succumbed during the last thirteen months and there is therefore less ‘dry tinder’ around?

17
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swedenborg
swedenborg
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Partly agree with you. The old Wittkowski interview predicted no second wave because I think he under estimated the R factor requiring higher herd immunity than predicted. The same mistake by many saying only one wave for this highly transmissible unstoppable virus. But there is a new Wittkowski video circulating , where he is also over estimating the variants almost like this was a new virus(to defend his prediction of no second wave inventing a “new” virus of the scariants). He also wanders into the van den Bosche apocalyptic scenario of a possible new variant not giving immunity.

I think Will’s article gives you the price we had to pay before the 8 weeks period before the cases and deaths came down due to vaccinations but still difficult to tell whether it was also due to the usual decline of the virus.
Sweden is probably a better example of success of vaccination of care homes, they are still(like many in Eastern part of Europe) in the end of second wave with high CU and cases but surprisingly low mortality, the most elderly seem protected.

1
0
LMS2
LMS2
4 years ago
Reply to  TheFascistCoronaFraud

Viruses, bacteria, other diseases serve the purpose of limiting the population. Same for all species on Earth.

4
0
Fear is Finite
Fear is Finite
4 years ago

Johnson: The vaccination programme is faltering! Everyone’s getting in a twist about a few tiny blood clots from the AZ and J&J potions.

Public health officials: Well it could be worse, they haven’t noticed that the mRNA vaccines have the same problems and more, they’re getting a boost in ratings actually. Silver linings.

Johnson: We still have to do something! Even the DM is publishing stories about post vaccination deaths.

Behavioural Scientists: May we just intervene? Why don’t you go on telly and say that the reductions in cases/deaths was caused by the lockdowns not the vaccines. People will be very confused. Media commentators will jump to the defence of the vaccination programme and even produce graphs showing how effective it is. They’ll also whip out all the scientific papers which say lockdowns don’t work, strengthening the vaccines position even more. We’re very confident no one will mention seasonality, I mean we’ve successfully labelled that as a conspiracy theory already with a nice bit of summer death and destruction modelling.

Johnson: Are you sure that will work? It seems a bit of a risky strategy, and I’ll look like a complete tool.

Behavioural Scientists: Everyone thinks you’re a complete tool already, so it won’t matter. Trust us, it’ll be so successful that even that pesky Lockdown Sceptics website will fall for it and mount a sterling defence of the vaccination programme.

Public Health Officials: Well we’re willing to give it a go, we’ve got a lot of personal financial interests at stake here.

Johnson: Ok I’ll do it, I’ll try not to laugh, maybe just a small smirk.

Lockdown Sceptics website: see article above ^^^

31
0
LMS2
LMS2
4 years ago
Reply to  Fear is Finite

Will also provide the government with the excuse to impose another lockdown next winter, and every winter, during flu season, which is bound to make a comeback…

12
0
chris c
chris c
4 years ago
Reply to  LMS2

Correlation only but I suspect the mass roll out of the flu vaccine caused a massive spike in coronavirus infections which resulted in a huge wave of immunity which was credited to The Vaccine.

I suspect this will be the pattern from now on: mass flu vaccination, massive increase in covid, back into lockdown

0
0
CovidiousAlbion
CovidiousAlbion
4 years ago
Reply to  Fear is Finite

“pesky Lockdown Sceptics website will … mount a sterling defence of the vaccination programme”

I must have missed the articles that made the “vaccine” pushers regard LS as “pesky”.

0
0
RickH
RickH
4 years ago

Another academic who seems sublimely ignorant of how to make risk calculations!

I despair.

How can a 0.01% drop in PCR+ results (Manchester study) translate into a significant, observable drop in real infections?

Last edited 4 years ago by RickH
5
0
BillRiceJr
BillRiceJr
4 years ago

Neither vaccines or lockdowns were responsible for the huge drop in cases, hospitalizations and deaths that began around January 12th – in just about every nation and U.S state. I’ve heard the same argument made about my state of Alabama, which is a preposterous claim. Daily new cases peaked at 5,450 in Alabama on January 12th. Recently, our state has been averaging about 275 new cases a day. This is a decline of at least 96 percent. Even today, only about 17 percent of our state’s population has been “fully vaccinated.” When the decline began this figure was below 2 percent. So I guess we could say that it was 98 percent of our state’s population NOT being vaccinated that caused this 97-percent plunge in cases.

14
0
peyrole
peyrole
4 years ago

For everyone who thinks this hs anything to do with ‘vaccines’ look at Portugal versus UK.
A virus moves across hosts, a coronavirus looks for mammals, not just humans. Trying to limit analysis to national borders is crass stupidity.
France has a dreadful ‘third wave’, honestly, except its garbage. Under 5% of hospitalisations are from covid. The enormous number of ‘new cases’ is mainly in the 20-29 yr group. Guess how many of this are hospitalised, perhaps just a bit more than have died, which is a big fat ZERO.
This third wave stuff is a testademic. There are pressures on ICU units in the poorer parts of Paris and the old industrialised north east, but there always are at this time of year.
I hate lockdowns, but I refuse to join in the ‘vaccines are great’ story peddled by this site. There is a big bad payback coming from their use against something with an IFR of 0.15% well within the seasonal flu range.

16
0
helenf
helenf
4 years ago

One could equally argue that the sharp increase in “cases” in late December/ early January was due to the rollout of the vaccines!

10
0
marebobowl
marebobowl
4 years ago

Will anyone be brave enough to admit seasonality is most likely the reason for the drop from the influenza virus, I mean COVID.

5
0
Elizabeth Hart
Elizabeth Hart
4 years ago

Given the alarm about COVID-19 during the past year, I’m confused by the statement below from Public Health England, can someone please clarify?
Status of COVID-19 – As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.
The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as an HCID. This was based on consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus and the disease with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase. The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID. (My emphasis.)
See: High consequence infectious diseases (HCID) Guidance and information about high consequence infectious diseases and their management in England.

1
0
Elizabeth Hart
Elizabeth Hart
4 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

Subsequent summaries don’t even mention COVID-19, see: High consequence infectious diseases: monthly summaries – These reports detail high consequence infectious disease (HCID) events that are detected during PHE’s epidemic intelligence activities.
Am I misinterpreting this? With all the alarm about COVID-19, why isn’t it classified as a high consequence infectious disease?

2
0
James.M
James.M
4 years ago

There’s one aspect of this vaccine vs lockdown debate that isn’t being mentioned and I would be very interested to hear people’s thoughts. The placebo effect.

My feeling is that the government narrative to persuade us to submissively accept our enforced isolation through fear of a deadly virus caused so much anxiety and stress that the immune systems of the vulnerable and elderly were further compromised, leading to illness and death in many instances. When the government changed the message that lockdowns were being relaxed and vaccines were going to save us, cases and deaths declined because people were feeling more optimistic.

Stress is a key factor in many illnesses. It’s a medical fact.

0
0

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