Health Secretary Matt Hancock has described as “terrific” the findings of a new Public Health England study that shows one dose of the vaccines can cut household transmission by up to 50%.
This is indeed good news – and not unexpected, since the vaccines have been shown to reduce symptoms, and symptomatic disease is what drives transmission.
However, it’s worth being aware that this is the relative risk reduction. The absolute risk reduction (as always) does not look quite so impressive.
In fact, one of the remarkable findings of the study is that of 960,765 unvaccinated household contacts of unvaccinated index cases testing positive, just 10.1% of them (96,898) caught the disease. This means around 90% of unvaccinated people living in the same house as someone with COVID-19 didn’t catch it themselves. This low secondary attack rate is an indication of the level of immunity the population already has to the virus, whether from innate, pre-existing or acquired immunity, even before vaccines come into the picture.
The study identified 3,424 unvaccinated household contacts of index cases who tested positive despite receiving their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine at least 21 days earlier. Of these, 196 tested positive themselves, giving a secondary attack rate of 5.7%.
For the Pfizer vaccine the same figures were 371 secondary cases testing positive out of 5,939 unvaccinated household contacts, giving a secondary attack rate of 6.3%.
This means in absolute terms the risk for household members of catching Covid from an infected household index case was reduced from around 10% when the index case was an unvaccinated person to around 6% when he or she was vaccinated, a drop of 4%. This is encouraging, if not as big as might be hoped – though it may improve after the second dose.
For unexplained reasons the study does not look at symptoms at all, so we have no idea how many of the vaccinated positive cases were asymptomatic or how severe their symptoms were. Other studies suggest that positive cases are more likely to be asymptomatic or mild in those with immunity (whether from infection or vaccination) and this is likely to explain much of the drop in secondary attack rate for the household contacts of index cases who are vaccinated but test positive.
This cheering news on the effectiveness of the vaccines for cutting transmission gives the Government even less reason to stick to its glacial reopening strategy.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/05/23/vegan-bubble-burst/
Talking about food, Lidl Ireland is launching insect burgers made with mealworm larvae
https://plantbasednews.org/news/alternative-protein/lidl-insect-burgers/
So far here in the NL the only bug-based food I’ve come across is dry cat food in the pet shop. This line at least went out of its way to advertise itself as insect food but I’m still incredibly suspicious that they might be sneaking it in human foods, in the flours and thickening agents, for instance, so I do keep my eyes peeled anyway but, considering about 5 insects have been approved for human consumption in the EU ( with about 8 in the pipeline ) now I do find it a bit suss that I haven’t come across any. I wouldn’t even feed my cat that crud. No wonder it was way cheaper than the regular stuff. I just really hope I’m not unwittingly eating said crud also.
I check and double check ingredients lists on most foodstuffs, more so since the approval of insect derivatives. I have come across a couple of strange instances recently in the ingredients of some biscuits. Some text stating ‘may contain fish’. No actual warnings in the ingredient list, written in bold, of potential allergic ingredients and no ‘made in an environment etc…’. Just may contain fish. Why would plain biscuits potentially contain fish? I recall reading that eating foodstuffs containing insect flours etc may cause a reaction for those allergic to seafood etc. Surely the insect crud wouldn’t be added without proper labelling, would it?
I wouldn’t put it passed them. It pays to be vigilant but if they’re covertly adding the stuff we’d never know. Well, not until some independent person with the tools can analyse some foodstuff and find evidence or if somebody has a severe allergic reaction to something they’d ordinarily be safe consuming. If they were doing it covertly I’ve no idea of the quantities they’d use because they couldn’t sub too much milled insect for regular flour, for instance, because it’d affect the taste presumably. I just avoid processed foods as best I can tbh.
There was a time not so long ago that weevils in ships biscuits was considered a bad thing!
I have posted this before, but this was the reply to exactly that question from local Trading Standards:
‘The FSA [Food Standards Authority] has undertaken specific work to assess potential food safety risks arising from edible insect products. In May 2022, a generalised risk assessment was conducted by the FSA and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) and found that the safety risks associated with edible insect products are likely to be low, provided the appropriate measures are in place (i.e., labelling on potential allergy risks).
It is a statutory requirement that all relevant edible insects need to undergo a robust safety assessment stage as part of the novel food’s authorisation process. If we find credible evidence to say that edible insects could be unsafe, we will not authorise them; and local authorities, who are responsible for enforcing food law, have the power to remove them from sale.
Under food law all ingredients must be clearly labelled including edible insects. The FSA encourages food businesses to follow relevant industry guidance and good practice to appropriately label their products. Food law requires that any labelling provided must be accurate and not be misleading to consumers. However, it is possible to add specific labelling requirements, over and above food law, as part of the authorisation process if required. We will continue to consider these as the individual assessment of each application progresses.
Be that as it may, note that the newly approved ‘precision engineered’ foods approved in April by our Organic Majesty for the proles, will NOT need to be labelled. And as there has been absolutely no research done on the effects of these foods on the gut biome/allergenic potential, etc, the best bet will be to avoid any form of processed food entirely. Difficult I know, but not entirely impossible.
I honestly think that the insect food makers plans in thinking that people will start changing their diets has a fly in the ointment.
Thank goodness WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, eh?
“but the Cabinet Office warns that disclosure would be a “serious intrusion of privacy”
But intrusions of privacy are irrelevant where its the little people:
How many people were in our homes during lockdowns, how far we walked, what we put in our shopping bags, was / is a scotch egg a meal, what we said on twitter ten years ago etc
Suck it up Bozo you Next Tuesday.
And adding to my post above look what I found:
“The Australian branch of the Censorship Industrial Complex is well and truly active. As Taibbi notes: ‘Through a freedom of information request, a conservative Australian senator named Alex Antic revealed that the country’s Department of Home Affairs between 2017 and 2022 made 13,636 referrals to digital platforms to review content against their own terms of service. Of those, 9,000 were terrorism-related, but a full 4,213 were listed as “Covid-19 related” referrals.’”
From a TCW article. Link to follow.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/are-the-covid-chickens-coming-home-to-roost/
“intrusions of privacy indeed.”
Anyone would think that trawling through someone’s messages and stumbling across something incriminating should be normal police
stateprocedure (think of the children!)It also shows that just because a conversation is end-to-end encrypted does not mean the authorities can’t discover stuff.
Those same end to end encrypted messages that the Online Safety Bill is looking to abolish? Hoist by one’s own petard…. This is what happens when you dance to another’s tune. You get told to dance where you don’t wish to.
A fine comment BB.
Thank you Hux
Is this his work phone or his private phone? If it’s his work phone then everything on it should be in the public domain. If it’s his private phone then he shouldn’t be using it to discuss government business. He was working for us, paid by us.
I’m very disappointed that the DS team have not shared anything whatsoever to do with the Prof Bhakdi sham accusations and trial. So once again it is down to us lot below the line to do the honours. We know that he was found not guilty but the prosecution want to appeal the decision. It’s blatantly all politics and is pathetically transparent. I wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to leave Germany as a result of this charade.
”During the nearly nine hours which observers spent within the courtroom during the hearing (those who vacated their seats during one of a number of adjournments lost them to one of several hundred people waiting outside, so hardly anyone did) it became quite clear that Professor Bhakdi was indeed a pawn in a game with much higher stakes. “Bhakdi, Defense Counsel Martin Schwab explained, had not incited, not even insulted anyone or harmed Human dignity. “He has explained what the shots are doing! This is not about anti-Semitism”, said Schwab in his final plea, “it is about the fear of those who are responsible for the crimes committed during that false pandemic. They fear that Professor Bhakdi might be called as witness for the prosecution in the tribunal against them once all of this is over.”
Sven Lausen, the second of Bhakdi’s attorneys, elaborated: “This was a vicious charge. Very vicious! Obviously something very different was on the State Prosecutor’s mind than an assessment of arguments in criminal law.”
https://neveragainisnowglobal.substack.com/p/sucharit-bhakdi-how-a-humble-man
Yes, why hasn’t Prof Bhadki’s situation been featured on the DS website, nor on TCW? Good question.
Well I spy about 7 Telegraph articles linked above, as well as other MSM rags, so as usual there’s a heavy reliance on covering issues from that realm. But as you say, DS do often feature the odd TCW article so it’s perplexing really. Fortunately we BTL hopefully provide a balance with all of our contributions, to even things out, as it were.
Yes indeed. Nice response by the WHC:
https://worldcouncilforhealth.substack.com/p/why-prof-bhakdis-court-ruling-will
There’s a full campaign to censor, ban, intimidate, even jail or kill, people who go against big pharma and they will certainly not have finished with the persecution of Professor Bhakdi. In Australia, a few years back, the renowned herbalist Barbara O’Neill was hounded out of her profession, barred from practicing for life, and eventually had to leave the country at the risk of being imprisoned. She did nothing wrong apart from get the attention of the Australian Health (haha) Authority who made unsubstantiated claims against her. She advocates that the power of healing is in the hands of the individual rather than the health services and big pharma, that everyone has a choice and Barbara provides expert information about the human body and the power of herbs to assist healing. She makes no claims that they can cure cancer or any similar disease or condition. Anyway, she is a survivor and has a very good way of dealing with all the stress of losing her lifetime’s work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsbK5TLdAPo
You may be aware of this but you can email them on thedailysceptic@gmail.com
They do respond, sometimes
If, during my meandering searches through the Sceptic sites I find something I believe my fellow “Far right neo Fascists” (
) might be interested in I post it. If DS Editorial subsequently run the same piece it is win win.
Some sites are not even acknowledged such as Patrick Wood ‘s excellent Technocracy News, Off Guardian, Natural News, UK Column News and others. No idea why but if i think an article is valid I post it.
Quite right. Sometimes though I think it would be good if the articles were linked to in the NR or had their own article dedicated to them, as it gives them more prominence.
The gulf between trans athletes and women in sports
I saw this table on Twitter yesterday – for track and field athletics events, it shows the age at which a boy has exceeded the women’s world record. It looks like the average age across all events is round about 15.
There is a bit of a – no sh*t Sherlock – about this, isn’t there? Even the ancient effing Greeks recognised the difference and it’s been a subject of sports medicine research for years!
When women competed in the Heraea Games at Olympia, they ran 5/6 (83%) as far as men, which was the female/male performance ratio of 1928 Olympic champions when women resumed athletics competition. Regarding the Modern Olympics, for running, swimming and rowing, using physics and kinesiology, equations for the velocity ratios of female/male elite athletes were derived and then populated with parameters from studies of over 2000 athletes. Assuming equal training and efficiency, the female/male ratio for running velocity simplifies to the relative female/male lean-to- weight ratio; while for swimming and rowing, the velocity ratio becomes the 8/9th power of the relative lean-to-weight ratio, a remarkable similarity.
Raymond Stefani, Kinesiology Analysis of Athletics at the Ancient Olympics and of Performance Differences Between Male and Female Olympic Champions at the Modern Games in Running, Swimming and Rowing, Athens Journal of Sport, June 2017
You real could not make this up! De frosting wind turbines!
https://youtu.be/FHUCzSJ7Dzs
Can we just share a DS moment to mark the passing of Tina Turner, a true vocal legend. RIP Tina.
https://rumble.com/v2puyz7-legendary-singer-tina-turner-dead-at-83.html
With you, WW. She triumphed over a lot of adversity in her life and developed a strong spiritual core. An incredible singer. RIP.
Hear, Hear…
Bonus point for first correct answer – name the TT song containing the following lyrics:
“A church house, gin house
A school house, out house”
RIP, Tina Turner
No takers? It’s Nutbush City Limits
“A church house, gin house
A school house, out house
On highway number nineteen
The people keep the city clean
They call it Nutbush, oh, Nutbush
They call it Nutbush city limits”
If you don’t know it, take a listen. If you do, take a listen.
I thought your question was a bit of a wind up as the answer was so obvious.
I suppose you are right, HP, given the age demographic on this site…
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/phasing-out-petrol-and-diesel-cars-is-just-pie-in-the-sky/
Some more interesting figures behind the UK’s net zero campaign. Given that the replacement of ICE vehicles is a non-runner (
) it looks like some severe measures will be required to take us off the roads and lock us in the 15 minute ghettos.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/blood-sacrifice/
The post injection menstrual issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoso8Um9P2M “Astonishing rise in atrial fibrillation says BHF”, by JC. Nothing in particular mentioned as a potential cause by him, but no shortage of it by those who commented on it.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/are-the-covid-chickens-coming-home-to-roost/
An update on Dan Andrews’s prison kingdom.
Morning all!
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/africa-starkly-unvaccinated-and-starkly-unvanquished-covid
Africa Is Starkly Unvaccinated, And Starkly Unvanquished By COVID
Presumably the pro-jabbers will have an ‘excuse’??
https://www.technocracy.news/the-club-of-rome-climate-hysteria-and-global-governance/
Seriously fellow Sceptics this is a must read. Embedded within this article is a ten minute vid. from The Club of Rome detailing exactly what is happening now across the world. The video was recorded in 1973.
Interesting to see Neil Ferguson’s computer at work!
Indeed it is Chris as that computer must be over fifty years old now.