Johan Giesecke, an advisor to the Director General of the WHO, former Chief Scientist of the EU Centre for Disease Control, and former state epidemiologist of Sweden, returned to UnHerd yesterday to resume his discussion with editor Freddie Sayers, adjourned a year ago. He was one of the first major figures to come out against lockdowns last spring, saying they are not evidence-based, the correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only, and the Imperial College modelling was “not very good”.
While he admits he made some mistakes, he believes that history will judge him kindly, and says: “I think I got most of the things right, actually.”
He gives a solid defence of the outcome in Sweden, ably batting away the “neighbour argument” that says Sweden failed because Norway and Finland did better.
The differences between Sweden and its neighbours are much bigger than people realise from the outside – different systems, different cultural traditions…If you compare Sweden to other European countries [such as the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium] it’s the other way round. On the ranking of excess mortality, Sweden is somewhere in the middle or below the middle of European countries. So I think it’s really Norway and Finland that are the outliers more than Sweden. … They’re more sparsely populated. There are less people per square kilometre in these two countries. There are also much fewer people who were born outside Europe living in these two countries.
He is also rightly dismissive of the charge that Sweden is currently the worst for infections in Europe. While positive cases are up, so is testing, and besides on the most important metric, excess deaths, Sweden has been far below average since the start of February.
Giesecke is direct in his unflattering comparison of the UK’s outcome with Sweden’s:
They’re very similar. And yet one of the countries has had three severe lockdowns and the other has only had voluntary or mostly voluntary measures. That tells us something I think. That lockdowns may not be a very useful tool in the long run.
He admits that he misjudged how quickly vaccines would become available, and is now quite the enthusiast. He has had the AstraZeneca jab and wants everyone to have it: “If we really want to get down to small numbers – we won’t eradicate it, but to small numbers – then I think even children should be vaccinated… I can’t see why not.” He sees vaccines as providing a way out:
If you are vaccinated with two doses and wait the right number of weeks, then… you should be able to live like you did before the pandemic. This disease is sometimes seen as something supernatural, mystical, mythical – but it’s a viral disease like all other diseases. More dangerous than some of them, but it’s not unique, Covid. So a proper vaccine used correctly protects you and means that you don’t infect other people as well…. No vaccine is 100% effective, but we don’t have this discussion about any other vaccine.
He is full of praise for the Swedish approach, and in that his liberal motivations are clear.
Look at the good things with the Swedish system…. One is the schools: we are not destroying the future for classes of children. Another is that Sweden kept to its international agreements — for example in the EU you are not supposed to close your borders with other countries, but that has happened in several countries in Europe. We have made it possible for small businesses like cafes or bicycle shops to survive the pandemic. We have kept democracy. We have trusted people. I think there are a number of benefits from not having a severe lockdown and more of them will come as we do research on this in the future.
He is dismayed by how readily people surrendered their liberty – even in Sweden. A new law has recently been passed giving the Government the power to lock down in the future if it deems it necessary.
People were willing to give up more freedom than I thought they would. It worries me — there are many democratic rules and freedoms that have been curtailed. I think that may be one of the dangerous results of this pandemic.
There is a new law — a pandemic law — which gives the Government more power than it had before, and curtails part of the freedom of the Swedish population… It’s shifted power away from parliament to some extent, which is a new thing in Sweden at least in peacetime.
During the interview Giesecke makes a number of concessions, some of which are more understandable than others. He accepts his predictions about population antibody prevalence were too high, which is fair enough. But he still appears to regard antibodies as the definitive indicator of spread, despite the considerable evidence that a significant proportion of people are exposed or infected but do not develop antibodies because they fight it off with other parts of their immune system, such as T cells. He also seems oddly unfamiliar with the scientific literature on the ineffectiveness of lockdowns, appearing to accept that they may make a difference.
One of the things I got wrong a year ago is the rate of spread of this disease. I thought it would spread quicker. And I also thought it would be more similar in different countries. We can see now that there are big differences in the rates of spread in between countries. It may have to do with lockdown, it may have to do with cultural things in these countries. But there is a big difference between countries.
He also argues that Sweden effectively did lock down, just voluntarily, saying the country had “severe restrictions”.
Sweden has had rather severe restrictions, but we based them on voluntary participation by the inhabitants instead of using laws and police. A lot of people in the world seem to think that Sweden did nothing about the Covid pandemic. That’s wrong. The entire population changed their way of living and it had profound effects on daily life for millions of Swedes, even though you weren’t fined if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. So I would still advocate the Swedish model, even knowing all that.
The problem with this argument is that it essentially accepts the lockdowner position, that “severe” lockdowns are necessary and effective, and that the only reason Sweden could get away without one is because they did it without being forced to. It also suggests going back to normal will be fraught with risk of resurgence. These ideas are not supported by evidence, such as the evidence from US states that reopened last year and stayed open throughout the winter.
Giesecke also seems to concede Sayers’s bizarre claim that Neil Ferguson’s forecasts – of up to 510,000 deaths in the UK from an unmitigated epidemic, 250,000 from a mitigated epidemic and 20,000 with a suppression strategy – were accurate. “You may be right,” he says. “There is quite a difference between half a million and 130,000 – but, yep.”
There certainly is a difference between between 510,000 and 130,000 – a multiple of four in fact – and it’s mathematically illiterate for Sayers to suggest otherwise. Unless, of course, you assume that the lockdowns have prevented hundreds of thousands more deaths. Which lockdowners do believe, naturally, as a fundamental article of faith, despite the clear evidence from places like South Dakota and Florida that did not lock down that they are mistaken. Indeed, Ferguson’s modelling was applied to Sweden by a team at Uppsala University and the predictions were laughably wrong – they predicted 96,000 deaths by the end of June if Sweden stuck with its current policy; the actual figure was 5,333. Sayers makes no mention of this modelling embarrassment, and Giesecke does not draw his attention to it.
But perhaps Giesecke was just being polite to an interviewer who, for all his admirable open-mindedness in who he is willing to interview, does not seem to have developed antibodies to the evidence-free lockdowner ideology. Sayers even claims at one point that the Infection Fatality Rate for the UK and Sweden is as high as 0.9%. A recent meta-analysis by Professor John Ioannidis concluded that the IFR in Europe is more like 0.3%-0.4% (0.15% globally). Sayers doesn’t say where he gets the 0.9% figure from.
The interview is well worth watching in full.
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What, the Vatican is morally corrupt?
I’m shocked, truly shocked…
Because you are a Good Man
Satan’s stooge
This is entirely consistent with both Catholicism and the open totalitarianism of the current Pope, a declared Marxist.
“Pope Francis was vaccinated in January and has advocated for Roman Catholics to get the jab, with the firm stance from the Holy See being seen as a message to Catholics across the word.”
Also entirely consistent with the testimony from John OLoomey – the undertaker who blew the whistle a week ago where he said that the vaccines are being dished out on an ‘advocacy’ basis – and 80% of them are placebos and harmless so that those who have had them say they are painless, great protection and advocate for others to do likewise. And here we see living proof of that policy in action.
Bollox
–
Oh Lord, save us from the vaccine negationists.
“humanity has a history of friendship with vaccines”
Maybe it does, but what a bizarre argument. Humanity has a history of friendship with all sorts of things, like the seven deadly sins for example, and being in league with Satan.
Don’t forget the friendship with minors that is popular around Vatican. You can bet that the senior priests would not like their young “friends” to be unvaccinated while not keeping distance.
Using the term ‘friendship’ to describe sexual abuse is the exact opposite of a virtue.
Yet I suppose it would match the way of thinking of those holy fathers quite accurately.
Sounds like you’re the expert on this question.
You being a good virtuous atheist man, ya?
It is not an argument but in this case Papal Bull.
Raises the question. Will it also apply to all of those working the catholic church?Right down to the local priest.
Christians have a long history of friendship with God.
Many popes have not been Christians by that definition. Here’s another of them, and possibly the worst. Move over, Borgia.
He is not a man of God.
There is a transcript of a speech given by Archbishop Vigano on Lifesite News entitled “Reflections on the Great Reset and the New World Order” which absolutely takes apart the Roman Catholic Church.
The institution has become a cruel, Satanic vehicle for the wholly evil Reset. This is a disturbing read but essential in understanding the depravity we face.
Sorry I can’t do a link.
Is this it? Viganò: Considerations on the Great Reset and the New World Order – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com)
Yes. That’s the one.
A series of 18 quesyput to the Arch Bishop: 16 posted to date
https://rumble.com/vmtvxv-the-vigano-tapes-introduction-by-dr.-moynihan.html
Has become? It has always been cruel.
Yeah, right.
Would he say the same thing about a pro vaxxer? “One of them, a pro vaxxer, was hospitalised with the virus, poor dear”. Nope.
Welby will not be far behind in this. I filled in the sham ‘Vaccine Passport consultation’ yesterday and note that ‘places of communal worship’ will be exempt from this. Just as Welby closed the churches last year, not because the government required that be it noted, so he will most likely require these accursed and Satanic ‘vaccine passports’ to enter a church.
All of the established churches are finished. A new era of small independent churches, each welcoming each other and accepting their differences in love and friendship now dawns.
Yes, Welby and the rest of the C of E leeches are up to their necks in this.
I welcome the change.It’s no use clinging to a decaying corpse when new life can burgeon elsewhere.
It’s not the first time that Evil has captured a Church, and it won’t be the last.
It has always been evil.
No it has not.
so what is it now? No jab, no salvation!
Certainly this: The unvaccinated are immoral, per the Pope.
Not ex cathedra though, just a raving psycho.
I’ll tell you what’s ironic, a pope in thrall to the devil while ‘pretending’ to do Gods work.
No argument with you on that.
All Hail Francis the Antichrist.
“I have seen him; he wears red socks”
Checks at Mass next? What a wonderful pope! Cabal’s all in, then…
So we celebrate our Mass in secret places where all are welcome. Here, in this country, at this time? Something deeply disturbing is wrong.
Of course it is. Not quite secret yet, but if passports are required it will be disturbing indeed. Keep the faith.
Yeah, because it’s okay to discriminate against other people everywhere else but on Sundays in church we are all tolerant and welcoming. A perfect fit for the usual practices of the churchgoers, actually.
That’s not very welcoming, rayc.
AKA Get a life.
God help us. The Lunatics have taken over the Asylum. The Satanists have taken over the Vatican.
The mob rules; absolute power corrupts absolutely … Who is defending the skeptics? When did dissent become, literally, a crime?
You mean the consistent Catholics have taken over.
Nothing consistent about Papa Bobolino. Sponsored by a cabal to take office, sower of doctrinal confusion, ninth rate theologian, dictator pope… the final pope if you believe the Celestine Prophecy. About time. And yes I’m a Catholic.
He is not my pope.
An antipope in the revealing. But don’t forget the script. God wins.
An apostle of hate bringing division between those that trust covid vaccination and those who for many reasons do not – which hitherto had nothing to do with religion.
On the contrary, the vaccinated/non-vaccinated divide uses the very same old mechanisms that every organized religion employs. So it’s perfectly understandable religious authority figures are recruited to sow further conflict, after all they are experts at it.
The Pope taking open delight in the serious illness of one of his senior cardinals. How charming of him.
Psychos gonna psych.
All we need to know is contained in the lede paragraph of this story summary: It is now Catholics’ “moral duty” to be vaccinated against COVID.
Moral duty or not, getting vaccinated does not prevent Catholics from getting this virus or spreading it to others. So it is now one’s moral duty to get a vaccine that really doesn’t do what vaccines are supposed to do.
And YouTube has now banned all “anti-vacine” content.
Does anyone have moral duty to protest censorship or defend free speech? No. It presumably is people’s moral duty to defend those doing the banning. And to accept it when they are censored and discriminated against.
What’s the moral thing to do has changed … Which couldn’t be a more chilling or immoral development for the people of the world.
I’m pretty sure when they threw Christians to the lions they considered it perfectly moral conduct as well. In a sense this pandemic is a great boon for humanity because it holds a mirror to who we are as a species.
Heaven help us; God has evidently given up!
And so it Ends…
One always knew that this would be the position of the C of E, but, clearly, the rot has now thoroughly infiltrated Roman Catholicism as well.
The Roman Catholic church is clearly rotten from the core as Archbishop Vigano makes abundantly clear.
We are up against not just Globocap but certainly ALL Christian religions.
Bollox. Why trust the ‘evil’ Vigano then?
I would appreciate you dismantling his case if you are up to it.
State the case and I’ll give it a shot. My point being that if everyone’s rotten how can you trust Vigano?
Apparently holy water is not enough now and we must improve God’s imperfect work?
What would Jesus do?
Of course, he’d jab up, cast out the unvaxxed lepers, invite the money changers into the temple and create a dogma based on the old pagan traditions.
I remember it clearly in the new testament, thou shalt worship idols and saints, hoard vast wealth in exchange for forgiveness and protect the pedos.
Fuck the pope.
a jesus took 3 of the 5 fish in tax and was well fed…
Well ya gotta eat sometime!
Well now at least we know the whole thing is evil.
Hey, the Pope’s on board with the agenda!
Nice one, God’s rep on earth!
How long from now until he considers Pfizer CEO for sainthood?
After what happened to Macron it looks like some young Italian is going to have to slap a Pope.
Can’t we get that Algerian bloke from the Bulgarian KGB?
Don’t forget the Macron egg thrower was locked up in a psychiatric ward, reviving the good old tradition of disposing of politically inconvenient people as insane. I bet they can jab him with many interesting drugs there. What’s next, electroshocks?
They’re not even trying to hide it at the moment are they?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxlsMe61rRg
Sarah Everard: Wayne Couzens may have used Covid laws to arrest and handcuff his murder victim
Looks like it.
They just used to pray in the past, no talk of segregation passports, how utterly disgraceful
So when you get to The Gates, not Gates, will you be asked if you have your passport or you don’t get in
So bring some Semtex.
Unlike the Spanish inquisition I was expecting this.
It’s okay because the new governor of New York said that vaccines were a gift from God and that he wanted us to have them. She also went on to say that all the people she was speaking to in the room were her apostles and to go out and spread the word of the vaccine.
Amen.
Was SARS a similar gift from the old fraud?
No your Nature did that one!
Amazingly, you summarized her comments accurately.
Now we just need the Ayatollahs to declare Israeli-made Pfizer doses as manna from heavens, and the world will be united at last.
Catholicism as an institution is nothing more than a brand to be marketed now. Like Coca Cola or Nike.
And like these corporations they have no respect for humanity.
I’ll take Catholicism over Coke, thanks
Well, they are historically famous (or infamous) for mass murder throughout history.
So, no real surprise.
Still, say a few Hail Mary’s and you will have absolution come what may.
Come to think of it, Absolution Certificates may be de rigour again – aka Vaccine Passports. History repeats itself.
What a fucking world we have become – apologies for swearing but ..
This would be comedy Gold were it not so bloody frightening.
Ignoramus.
Can’t help thinking that your critique was somewhat lacking in detail
Succinct and to the point. Learn some religion, Bob.
Great to see two of the great religions getting together – Christianity and Covid.
Better stick to yours then.
Ah, that’s the Christian spirit!
Is the pope Christian? Seemingly not
Being unvaccinated is a mortal sin. If you die unjabbed, your soul will be damned to the blackest pits of hell.
Er, no. Crack open that catechism, fella.
What do you expect from Satanists
Dunno, pray tell?
Since its inception the Catholic Church has been dictatorial and discriminatory. So this is hardly out of character.
Why doesn’t the Pope, who fights for the little guy and the poor, promote early treatments for Covid, costing $1.80 for a five day treatment of ivermectin, working well in India and Mexico. Instead he is pushing the BBB and great reset agenda to vaxx the world. Surely he knows better. It isn’t like the Catholic Church has an over abundance of priests. Looks like he is looking for ways to thin these numbers further.
The same man who didn’t say a word when churches were shuttered. A time when people desperately needed their church, their spirituality, their god. This man never said a word. A disgrace.
Another vote for how dare those at the top say this, when they said NOTHING against churches being forcibly closed?
Another inconsistency: I thought that it was a Catholic view to “let nature take its course” or “if someone dies from illness, it’s the will of God”. I’m thinking of the case (2002) of the conjoined twins Jodie and Mary, where without an operation, both twins would have died; but with an operation, one could be saved. The Catholic parents did not want the operation, preferring to let nature take its course, but were overruled in court.
Today I renounce myself from the Catholic church. I still believe in God, but this is not the word of God or the behaviour of a good person. I no longer want to belong to such an organisation.
I feel your disgust, but I’m staying. One or 40 bad popes don’t invalidate Christ or the Church. You’ll find no better and much worse by leaving.
We are the remnant.
Why? You can still be a Catholic, but refuse to acknowledge anything this pope states. The Church is not the Vatican!
This man is no Pope! He’s as corrupt as you can get and a puppet of his NWO masters.
Italian Town Council rejects “GreenPass” as an a criminal extortion
https://www.fromrome.info/2021/09/30/italian-town-council-rejects-greenpass-as-an-a-criminal-extortion/
Popes, I believe are all Freemasons so this would make sense currently in the world?
Religion is good for the soul. Organised religion that delegates over others in their golden thrones, not good for anything but the organisation.
I wish this website would show how many bishops are trying to oust the jesuits infiltrating this clearly non-Christian entity that is known as the Vatican.
Anyone, atheist or not, can see just how full of nonsense he is.
Ah, the National Catholic Distorter.
A few points to note. This is not an ex cathedra pronouncement on doctrine, not even an encyclical, but one of his famous interviews beginning “I believe” – basically a personal opinion.
As for the doctrinal office note, it talks of “vaccines” [for ‘Covid’]. that are “recognised as safe and effective”. It doesn’t say recognised by whom – for example “recognised by x number of independent doctors” – just recognised. So it is up to us to make our own judgment . Be assured that there are clergy (and of course laity) in his Church who believe that Catholics should not take these experimental “vaccines”. The same with other Christian churches, because Christian doctrine does not require people to take these “vaccines” based on some reasonable interpretations of the evidence available that conclude, as many independent doctors have, that they are not “safe and effective”. Christians who sincerely believe, after careful consideration, that these experimental gene therapy drugs are not safe and effective, are by no means morally obliged to take them. As I’ve said before, I have yet to see convincing evidence that they are safe and effective. Or that this virus poses an exceptional risk that would justify setting aside normal safety considerations. Or that there are not alternative treatments available.
There are lots of people at my anti-lockdown church, including clergy, who do not think we should be taking these “vaccines”, and this will continue to be the case.
Oh, and the doctrinal note, dated December 21st 2020, says : “In the absence of other means to stop… the epidemic”. If we did not know then, we have now seen clear evidence from parts of India on Ivermectin as an effective other means. So therefore Catholics should clearly not be expected to take these dangerous experimental “vaccines”, however many lies the pharmaceutical industry and their proxies with a financial interest in the “vaccines” may tell about Ivermectin (as indeed they have previously deceived about other medications that threaten their profits).