During a Covid surge, what proportion of the population is exposed to an infective dose of the virus, which they either fight off with no or minimal symptoms or are infected by? This is one of the most important questions scientists need to answer.
It’s closely related to the question of whether lockdowns work. If lockdowns work then, as per SAGE and Imperial orthodoxy, the restrictions successfully prevent the virus from reaching most people, who remain unexposed and susceptible – and hence in need of vaccination to protect them when the protective restrictions are lifted. If lockdowns don’t work, however, then they don’t prevent the virus spreading, and thus the majority of people will be exposed to it as it spreads around unimpeded by ineffectual restrictions.
Another related question is: What proportion of exposed people are infected? Using ONS data we can estimate that around 10-15% of the country tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 over the autumn and winter. How many were exposed to the virus to produce this number of infections? Was it, say, 10-20%, with half to all of them catching the virus? Or was it more like 80-90%, with around 10% being infected? It’s a question that makes all the difference in our understanding of the virus and how to respond to it.
If almost all are exposed during a surge, and relatively few of them are infected, then a number of things follow. First, most people have enough immunity to fight off the virus when exposed to it, and only a small minority become infected. Second, the surge ends when enough of that small minority who are particularly susceptible to this virus or variant acquire immunity through infection, i.e., when herd immunity is reached. Third, there won’t be another surge or wave until there is a new virus or variant which evades enough of the existing population immunity to require herd immunity to be topped up via a further spread of infections.
If, on the other hand, very few are exposed during a surge, and most of them are infected, none of these things is true. It means: Most people have little immunity and are highly susceptible. A surge which infects 10-20% of the population has exposed not much more than that. The surge does not end because of herd immunity but because of restrictions. And there will be another surge as soon as restrictions are eased or behaviour changes and the unexposed begin to be exposed again. SAGE orthodoxy, in other words.
The evidence, however, is strongly supportive of the first position – ubiquitous exposure – not the second, limited exposure.
Consider the secondary attack rate (SAR, the proportion of contacts an infected person infects). Data from Public Health England consistently shows this figure sits around 10-15%, meaning around 85-90% of the contacts of infected people do not become infected. It rises during a surge, which is typically due to the higher SAR of a novel variant, and then falls after the surge, as the new variant’s SAR also falls.
Such data is much more consistent with ubiquitous exposure than with limited exposure, as it shows that only a minority of those exposed to an infected person are themselves infected (10-15%), meaning ubiquitous exposure with a minority infected is the much more plausible scenario. This meshes with the data on high levels of prior immunity via T cells and other mechanisms. It is also broadly in line with the data from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in February 2020, where an unmitigated outbreak resulted in 19.2% of the 3,711 people on board testing PCR positive (18% of those without symptoms).
Another key data point is the fact that surges consistently peak abruptly and begin to fall, independently of the imposition of restrictions. For instance, as Professor Simon Wood has shown, all three lockdowns in England were imposed after infections had peaked and begun to decline. Similarly, multiple peer-reviewed studies have shown no relationship between the imposition of restrictions and Covid infections or deaths across different countries and U.S. states.
The pattern of abrupt peaks and falls in incidence, independent of restrictions, is strongly indicative of hitting a herd immunity threshold (or overshooting it), as the virus or variant runs out of susceptible people to infect and exhausts itself.
Similarly, when restrictions are lifted there is typically no immediate surge, as there wasn’t in Europe last summer and in numerous U.S. states such as Texas and Mississippi in spring 2021. Surges only tend to occur when a new variant arrives, which again suggests it is not restrictions that are preventing spread to a still highly susceptible population but herd immunity that is preventing it, at least until a new virus or variant arrives to temporarily disturb it.
How, though, does the virus circumvent restrictions to achieve ubiquitous exposure of the population, and apparently without being noticeably even slowed down by the restrictions or voluntary distancing behaviour?
The answer, as I have suggested previously, likely lies in the airborne transmission of the virus. It is likely that the virus primarily spreads through building up to infective levels in the air, and that people are infected by breathing it in (a form of transmission which face masks do little or nothing to prevent). During a surge the virus becomes increasingly ubiquitous in the air at higher concentrations, accelerating exposure and infections until the herd immunity threshold is hit, at which point it abruptly enters decline. This explains why even though it is at its highest point of prevalence and was spreading at its fastest rate just a few days before, it suddenly stops and enters sustained decline. It is hard to see how any explanation other than herd immunity can explain this consistently abrupt change in the rate of virus transmission, particularly as there is no evidence of a similarly abrupt change in public behaviour in the mobility data.
Is there any concrete evidence that SARS-CoV-2 or other airborne viruses like influenza are ubiquitous in the air? Yes, there is. As HART notes in its bulletin this week:
For novel influenza viruses, between 7% and 8% are susceptible and develop antibodies in the first winter, much as we saw with SARS-CoV-2… If a certain proportion of the population are susceptible to infection in any one season, those individuals will end up infected sooner or later, regardless of which day they are exposed.
Studies have demonstrated that influenza is transmitted by aerosol particles and that such particles are prolific, indeed ubiquitous, in all indoor settings during the winter season. What stops people contracting the virus is their level of susceptibility, not their level of exposure.
HART refers to a study on influenza from 2014, which argues:
There are some amounts of the virus in the air constantly. These amounts are generally not enough to cause disease in people, due to infection prevention by healthy immune systems. However, at a higher concentration of the airborne virus, the risk of human infection increases dramatically. Early detection of the threshold virus concentration is essential for prevention of the spread of influenza infection.
The idea of a “threshold virus concentration” at which an outbreak is triggered (rather than just low level transmission) may be important for understanding how airborne viruses spread, and how they can become ubiquitous during a surge. Seasonal factors such as temperature, humidity, UV radiation, human behaviour (e.g. gathering indoors with little ventilation), and cycles in the human immune system may play a role in how easily this threshold concentration is reached.
A study in JAMA tested the air in hospitals for SARS-CoV-2 and found plenty, particularly in the public areas:
Overall, 14 of 42 samples (33.3%) in public areas were positive, with 9 of 16 (56.3%) in hallways, 2 of 18 (11.1%) in other indoor areas, and 3 of 8 (37.5%) in outdoor public areas (P = .01).
There isn’t yet much evidence from other settings, though a study, COVAIR by Imperial College, is underway and the results will be of great interest when they eventually appear.
To my mind, this is the explanation that (at least for now) explains all the known facts better than others – the low secondary attack rate, the ineffectiveness of lockdowns, the outbreaks that explode then suddenly end, the absence of resurgence when restrictions are lifted, the repeated hitting of herd immunity, and so on. At the heart of it is the idea of ubiquitous exposure – that almost everyone, not just a small percentage, are exposed each time the virus passes through, and the vast majority are already immune.
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Wouldn’t this also mean the vaccine rollout was entirely pointless?
You’ve either had it already and so are immune or you haven’t had it, presumably because you were never susceptible.
Pointless now, with the virus endemic and herd immunity reached. Still, I don’t doubt the “vaccine” narrative will be pushed worse than ever when they get full approval next year. Friends in high places for these big pharma crooks isn’t the half of it.
It may also explain why influenza vaccination is so ineffective https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3674152
This has never been about public health.
Plese keep up.
I agree the data doesn’t support the Sage view of how the virus spreads. They had massive failures of analysis right from the beginning. I remember when Nadine Dories caught Covid-19 and said she didn’t know anyone or have any contact with anyone from the “infected groups” – not Northern Italian or Chinese. Two days later Chris Whitty said at a briefing, there were only two known people infected where there was no known contact with the Italians or the Chinese. I was crying at the TV for a journalist to ask if Nadine Dorries was one of those two (which of course she wasn’t). Anyone with a grasp of probabilities could see it if an MP had contracted it by that early stage, it was most likely to have spread through a substantial portion of the population. This was right back at the beginning.
But now an even more significant indication they have it completely wrong is that the Zoe App is showing delta variant infections have peaked in the unvaccinated, but continue to rise in the vaccinated. These groups don’t live in two different parallel living spaces within this one country, each hermetically sealed from the other, so what can bring about such a disparity? Stratification by age might, but of course still ages and generations mix up in all manner of contexts, which make the math of such a differential very hard to explain.
I’ve thought hard about this, and there is only one, relatively parsimonious explanation I can think of, and it is not quite the same as what you are saying in this piece. I read some time ago how Covid inhabits mainly the dermis and epidermis. In my attempts to understand the the very strange infection patterns of this disease, for some time I have harboured a theory that the virus is relatively weak but mostly evades the immune system by inhabiting the boundary between the dermis and epidermis where blood flow and therefore immune response is marginal. Overweight people have additional fatty tissue pathways into the body which increase the chance of a full blown infection. But a downside of occupying this space (for the virus at least) is that replication is stunted. Viral load is accumulated from exposure to infected aerosols in the environment. So the host becomes infected when passing a threshold and the “weight” of infection can no longer be resisted.
Clearly there is a hell of a lot of conjecture in this, but I’m putting it out there because it is the only solution I can think of that explains the very odd infection patterns observed.
Oh and I should add, of course this would explain the difference between the infection “curve” of unvaccinated versus vaccinated because the cumulative load of a new variant takes longer to pass the symptomatic threshold for those who have been vaccinated. It also explains the weird interplay of putative evidence of asymptomatic versus symptomatic transmission.
And I should further add, it also fits with the oddity of long covid. I suspect developing antibodies doesn’t necessarily rid the body of the disease, but pushes the virus back out to the hinterland between the dermis and the epidermis. It remains ready to re-enter the body when defences are low. Hence the fatigue and recurring symptoms. But the body remains able to fight it off.
Interesting thoughts. However I suspect “long covid” like other post-viral syndromes involves damage to the mitochondria.
A further thought, do the spike proteins from the “vaccines” affect the mitochondria? That could be disastrous.
I hope if and when the dust settles these so called experts face justice or at the very least imprisonment for their lies and propaganda.
It may take time, even years, but it will happen. Every detail of their crimes will be exposed. They will be looked back on with the same loathing as Himmler and his concentration camp murderers.
Just hang on to the evidence, including the evidence on LDS. Store it where it can’t be got at.
No chance, Annie
They won’t. The narrative will always be that lockdown policies were not only correct but the only thing to do. Maybe in a hundred years historians will question the stupidity but there will no doubt be other viruses before then and lockdowns will occur time and time again.
In a hundred years our natural immunity will have been so weakened by endless vaccines that what remains of the population will be dying from a slight case of the sniffles.
One of the worrying things about the current madness is that this is where it might lead. No consideration seems to have been given to this.
None whatsoever. I knew from day one it was never going to be ‘three weeks to flatten the curve’ and we were heading for, well ….. this.
Wanna bet? I fear some of them know exactly what they are doing, and why.
A thoughtful analysis. One that SAGE should at least consider. But that would require open minds.
SAGE may read such but they will not entertain it.
I have always thought ‘herd immunity’, however you want to define it, was the only plausible explanation for the ending of these ‘waves’. I don’t really buy the seasonality argument as they come and go too quickly. I suppose what we have seen since last March is just that ‘herd immunity’ is rather unstable. But if we hadn’t been obsessively testing, even in winter I don’t believe we would have noticed anything completely out of the ordinary, it was only the initial onset in March/April 2020 that was a genuine ‘event’.
And yet, right on cue, comment just now:
Sage adviser Sir Jeremy Farrar said he always opposed chasing a herd immunity strategy, despite some public health officials initially believing it to be a viable approach.
“Herd immunity by natural infection is a mirage,” he said.
“It would take decades. I don’t know where the idea came from; it beggars belief.
“From a public health or clinician’s perspective, laying out a strategy which you knew would lead to 400,000-500,000 deaths and not trying to do something about that would just be unacceptable.”
400,000 – 500,000 spread over decades would mean annual mortality would be unexceptional. Hasn’t he just demolished his own argument?
We wouldn’t have noticed anything because there was nothing to notice.. The testing is seeking to find so called cases to justify restrictions. The real test would be an increase in illness and subsequent deaths. People have been so caught up in the purposefully confusing messages that common sense has long since vanished. Don’t trust a word SAGE say. They are a bunch of evil liars
In normal legal terms, it would be called ‘fraud’, would it not?
I have been suspicious of the ‘seasonality’ argument since spring 2020 when it became apparent that Covid 19 had no problem spreading in places such as Texas and Brazil where it was very hot.
Seasonality depends on the climate, but in northern european countries it does exist – which of course isn’t to say that that seasonal viruses completely go away at any time (hence summer sniffles). There is no evidence for high levels at the moment – it’s mainly down to obsessive (and inaccurate) testing. If the same was done for other cold viruses a similar pattern might be seen, but this has never been done so can’t be demonstrated.
This is Ivor Cummins’ favourite reference page on seasonality and latitude:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2134066/?page=5
Seasons happen outdoors. In places where it’s well above 30°C in the middle of the day, many people prefer to stay indoors in air conditioned rooms, cars, shops, etc. It’s even more true when the temperature is above 40°C.
At least some of the differences due to seasons are from the direct effect of sunlight hitting your skin. Many benefits come from vitamin D production. And you can only produce vitamin D during the middle of the day for just a few hours around solar noon. Wearing clothing and sunscreen block vitamin D production as well.
Which helps to explain why some of the highest rates of rickets caused by severe vitamin D deficiency and calcium deficiency are found in some of the hottest parts of the world like Bangladesh and Nigeria.
There may be direct antiviral effects from ultraviolet light as well. But again, this only helps you when you’re outdoors as windows block UVB. So when you spend the shortest amount of time possible in the sunshine in Texas, you might as well be in Alaska in the middle of winter. In both cases, you’re living in a synthesised indoor environment without seasons.
I think you are right, but I would word it slightly differently.
If most people are exposed but only a small proportion are infected, the rest are not susceptible rather than have “immunity”. They may not have measurable immunity in the form of antibodies; they may or may not have sIGA (mucosal immunity) to stop the virus entering in the first place; they may or may not have T cells and immune memory.
The vast majority may have means of strength ranging from healthy diet, exercise, fresh air, social stimulation, experience of more pathogens through more mixing – creating greater immune strength.
The reason I suggest not saying 80% have immunity is because the opposition will quickly claim “we can prove they didn’t have antibodies” at that point, and open their minds to the other factors in our immune strength. Evidence of testing T cells, sIGA levels and general immune strength is generally non-existent or has been positively ignored as an area of research.
My OH caught Covid last year, for him it was like a flu (who knows maybe it was flu). No one else in the house caught it, and we were all together, all of the time. I was picking up his hankies, taking him food and drinks, we all sat on the bed together with the kids watching TV in the evening, there was no way we weren’t all exposed. Everyone at the time kept telling me that the kids and I must have been asymptomatic, and in my head I kept thinking, or maybe we just didn’t catch it.
The weird thing is that my OH catches flu every year, it’s like a long standing joke between us as I think I have only ever had flu once or twice in my life that I remember. Maybe some folk are more susceptible than others.
Though I would say that I know people who, with a person in the house ill/tested positive with covid have left the dinner at their door etc etc. I’ve no idea how typical this is.
I’ve heard of that also. A workmate of someone I know made his teenage daughter self isolate in her room, and her food was left outside. I think that is cruel.
It’s cruel and yet the person I know who did this is a very nice person, who has been driven mad by the evil government and their collaborators
Yes. Fear is the key that can open many doors.
or, in this case, keep them closed!
When being “nice” is a bad thing: agreeableness and conscientiousness increase compliance in a Milgram-like setting https://psychologyrocks.org/begue-et-al-2014/
This government is beyond evil, and I say that as a lifetime Conservative whos mother worked for the party tirelessly for 74 years to raise funds and elevate her local MP to the House of Lords eventually.Those were the days when integrity stood for something. We are heading for Revelations.
This is the advice you get when you test positive and someone from track and trace calls you. It’s not at all reassuring, in fact it is quite scary. You are told that said infected person should isolate in a room and for food to be left at the door, use a separate toilet if possible. They go through all your movements/contacts and tell you how long you should all isolate for based on when your symptoms started. OH had had symptoms for quite a few days before he finally went to get tested, and this was the only reason we didn’t bother keeping apart because we knew we had all been together. We reasoned that it was pointless as we had all been exposed and thought why make life more miserable living with OH in quarantine for the remaining few days track and trace advised. I didn’t want to frighten the kids leaving his meals outside a door and telling them dad is infectious and disease ridden you can’t see him sorry.
I have to say it was horrible counting down those last few days until we were past the point the kids might be infected, but at all times I was determined to keep things in the house as normal as possible for them. Which turned out the right thing for us to do. OH still wishes he hadn’t been tested ( he had to for work reasons) because it was track and trace getting involved that made the whole thing scary and frightening.
A family I know did all this of isolating in their rooms in the house. They all caught the disease anyway.
Yes indeed and people do seem to follow that advice. Some, anyway. What you did is absolutely right – keep things normal.
I’ve never been tested and don’t intend to – leaving the house to get tested when you feel unwell seems a bit odd to me – though I suppose one benefit is that, in the fullness of time, there MIGHT come a point where a covid vaccine seems safe and worthwhile, and knowing if you’ve had it or not would be useful because getting a vaccine if you have had it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I did at one point have a fairly open mind about a vaccine, and was just waiting, but now I am not sure if I will ever get one as the long term trials have been compromised and the data around the vaccines and around covid in general is so corrupted as to be useless for any rational decision making.
‘seems a bit odd to me – though I suppose one benefit is that, in the fullness of time, there MIGHT come a point where a covid vaccine seems safe and worthwhile, and knowing if you’ve had it or not would be useful because getting a vaccine if you have had it doesn’t make a lot of sense.’
Unfortunately, the PCR and LF tests can’t help much in that regard, can they?
True.
There was a PHE study a couple of months ago which assessed household transmission after 3 weeks with one group vaccinated and the control group unvaccinated. In the vaccinated group, there was 5 per cent onwards household transmission (pcr positive anyway) and in the unvaccinated households there was 10 per cent onwards transmission. At which point I thought well that’s not much difference and not much household transmission either way whereas the Tony Blair Institute for Global Crime said this proved the need for vaccine passports.
Was it skewed to give the results required? There are a number of ways that could be done, and I would no longer trust PHE not to do so.
Undermined by using pcr test as the deciding factor for onwards transmission or having it in the first place, certainly!
I still wonder if some folk maybe don’t spread the virus as much as others? But then OH was coughing and spluttering a lot and I was picking up loads of hankies. I was maybe washing my hands more than I normally would but that was about it. OH scorns but I take vitamin D, C and zinc every day and kids multivitamins.
You probably had prior immunity from something picked up – backpacking in the Far East, on a plane somewhere – earlier in your life.
Tony Blair, why doesn’t someone take him out please?
I am 80. I do not take any vaccines or even painkillers. I walk for an hour a day whatever the weather and I eat rather well because good quality food is an essential pleasure. I do not have colds or flu. At the start of lockdown I was talking to a young man in my village who told me that he didn’t believe there was a virus and he thought that flu or colds were the body getting rid of toxins and stress. He said at that stage that this was about the economy. Big Pharma is wicked, we need to go back to taking responsibility for our own health and our own lives.
Will, glad you came on board.
Yes of course there are trillions of virus in the lower atmosphere. They move with the weather across the globe and up and down due to differenct atmospheric conditions. The idea they wait to hitch rides on humans on planes was always stupid.
When humans change their habits the local herd immunity changes for a short period and then readjusts.
I am unconvinced that ‘variants’ actually exist. Its more a function of the RT-PCR test, looking for something and finding it. As vaccines do not confer immunity or reduce transmission they do not affect this. However if SARS2 really is ‘changing’ then mass indiscriminate vaccination during the height of infection will surely drive it to change more and more quickly.
Variants definitely exist. But the differences are small as to make them irrelevant for anyone with natural immunity. I read somewhere that these variants are the same difference to eachother as me copying myself and changing my eyebrow colour.
As ever, a very thoughtful article by Will Jones.
I too have been wondering how these spikes of infection happen, burning out before herd immunity for the whole population is reached.
could it be that the virus gets into a relatively interconnected part of the population, then sweeps through it before burning out as herd immunity is reached in that group?
They obviously knew this at the start as Whitty said on TV that the majority would not be affected if infected. But then the Agenda(s) kicked in. Plus why was the pandemic criteria changed just prior to covid by the WHO?
I agree with the author’s analysis and conclusions. It will be interesting to see what happens after ‘freedom’ day on Monday. SAGE is predicting a rapid increase in infections, but the ZOE app suggests that the wave may well have already peaked. If infections start to decline rapidly, just as restrictions are ended, that will offer strong support for the conclusions reached by this article.
That’s why they are leaning on businesses to effectively maintain the current restrictions as much as possible – if cases go down, it will be because of continuing restrictions. If they don’t, then it will be because more restrictions are needed. Either way, they will spin it to claim that restrictions are needed. And the masses will lap it up, as usual.
Isn’t there another possibility – that most people when ill with it don’t give off enough virus to spread it, and that the surges are caused by super-spreaders? But that wouldn’t explain how it seems to have ripped through hospitals and care homes – full of people with weakened immune systems. Will’s theory fits better there.
Will they be honest, after ‘Freedom Day’ and not just increase the testing cycles to either prove a point or keep the covid debacle going?
Will they be honest? Really?
This country’s response to a minor common cold coronavirus epidemic is best characterised as bovine imbecility.
There are over 160 known common cold viruses, influenza like illnesses, likely many more unknown.
Every year there is some kind of epidemic.
The characteristics, effects, are well known, well documented:
‘Parainfluenza viruses have a seasonal peak from April to June in the Northern temperate sites and during September in the Southern temperate areas. In most of the tropical regions, these viruses occur year-round with increased incidence in rainy seasons.
Rhinoviruses and adenoviruses, two non-enveloped respiratory viruses, are known to circulate throughout the year in all climatic regions with occasional peaks in autumn and winter for rhinoviruses and in winter and early spring for adenoviruses.
Epidemiologic studies of common cold HCoVs suggest that they exhibit a seasonal pattern. In a temperate climate, HCoV infections are primarily detected in winter and spring, with low-level circulation throughout the year….’
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.567184/full
‘Unexpectedly Higher Morbidity and Mortality of Hospitalized Elderly Patients Associated with Rhinovirus Compared with Influenza Virus Respiratory Tract Infection’
International Journal of Molecular Sciences 26 Jan 2017
We even had a coronavirus expert on the ground in China at the time of the ‘first’ outbreak of covid 19
‘In regards to temperature, the virus can remain intact at 4 degrees or 10 degrees for a longer period of time. But at 30 degrees then you get inactivation. And high humidity, the virus doesn’t like it either.’
Prof John Nicholls University of Hong Kong 06 Feb 2020
With so much known so early, the British health establishment, particularly the chief medical officer and chief scientific officer, have quite clearly been guilty of, at the very least, gross (grotesque) professional negligence, quite likely corporate manslaughter………..
Correct, and well explained. It’s hard to understand how it is that so many so-called experts do not seem to understand what really happens in the real world. Maybe they all need to go back to school/college to start again! The only other fact is that many infections of a minor nature are not officially recorded at all, and never have been. In the ‘old days’ it was not the norm to have a few days off work on account of a ‘cold’ or whatever. Maybe that was how it spread around, of course.
Wasn’t that Mike Yeadon’s point, they do know. They all studied the same books, same if not similar schools of learning.
They’re lying.
Liars always trip themelves up.
… there won’t be another surge or wave until there is a new virus or variant which evades enough of the existing population immunity to require herd immunity to be topped up via a further spread of infections
We’re talking about one virus type – SARS-COV-2; so the operative word here is variant.
But implicit in this statement is the hypothesis that an individual can be immune to one variant, but not another.
Can this be correct? In that case, wouldn we be seeing a whole load of re-infections? (i.e. an individual gets ill and recovers from one variant, but remains susceptible to the next.)
Doesn’t this go against the concept that the variants are a very long way from being sufficiently different to enable them to avoid the human immune system? After all, immunity to SARS-COV-1 appears to have conferred immunity to SARS-COV-2, with the differences between the two viruses being far, far greater than between individual variants.
I’m not saying the quoted hypothesis is necessarily wrong. I think there may well be something in it – just pointing out an obvious problem.
Thoughtful article, and a welcome example of trying to suggest mechanisms which explain the observed facts, rather than to serve political ideologies.
Good point
‘political virus’ (PV) could be a modern term. No physical reality, just a philosophical position for some of them.
In looking for mechanisms which explain the observed SARS-COV-2 phenomenon, are we missing something in assuming that the virus behaviour is a constant? What if there were some mechanism by which the virus itself could vary its reproductively, and thus transmissibility and infectivity?
From an evolutionary point of view, this could be advantageous in that by limiting the peak of an infectivity cycle (i.e. wave – if viruses do indeed do waves, which I’m still not fully convinced of) the virus would prolong its life cycle, and thus enhance its chances of, for example, producing large immunity-evading variants and leaping to new population categories. After all, evolution can be pretty smart.
I’ve no background in medicine or epidemiology, and have no idea if such a concept has been looked at previously.
What SAGE got wrong?
I was expecting a much longer article.
Charles Darwin was right. Survival of the fittest.
I have recently noticed that some of the anti Lockdown / Alternative media sites have been back-pedalling on their previous anti-vax stance. Even the UK Column seems a tad muted these days. Indeed Lockdown Sceptics is now on board with Vaccination. This is to be welcomed as Vaccination is possibly the only the way forward.
Some truths re COVID-19:-
1) The Vaccines are very safe and effective.
2) The Vaccines have been thoroughly tested by now, and safety issues addressed. The UK leads the World in this.
3) 30000 deaths in the UK have been prevented by the Vaccine this year.
4) Severe Adverse Reactions to the Vaccines are rare and wholly acceptable relative to the life saving record.
5) COVID-19 is a deadly disease for which there is no treatment available.
6) COVID is a new virus so we have no immunity to it.
7) COVID can kill upto 15% of those infected.
8) COVID transmission is greatly reduced by a Mask.
0) Anyone denying the above FACTS is either deluded, stupid or a Conspiracy Theorist.
10) Criticism of the NHS or expert scientific guidance must be stopped.
Ask most anyone passing by on your local street and they will likely endorse most of the above points.
Signed,
The Devil’s Advocate: UK – July 2021.
“deluded, stupid or a Conspiracy theorist”.
Oh, do fuck off.
Seriously, fuck right off.
BUT !!!!
Signed,
The Devil’s Advocate: UK – July 2021.
My real position is as follows: Please read
There is little support for the view that the COVID 19 vaccines are unsafe or suffer from serious side effects. Such ideas are frequently dismissed as Far Right misinformation being disseminated by malign “Conspiracy” web sites, indeed most people I’ve mentioned this to think I’ve taken leave of my senses – the Vaccine saves lives it does not Kill or Maim !!! Even if one points out the MHRA Yellow Card data, its not considered relevant, a frequent argument being that considering the Millions being Vaccinated the data appears about right. So OK at present circa 1500 Deaths is fine ? YES, and 300 Blind ? well that’s out of 66+ Millions.
The real problem here is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is now viewed as a very deadly pathogen that kills up to 15% (Fifteen Percent) of those it infects. The daily death tolls are scrutinised – 24 died today WOW – and the Case totals are viewed with dismay – Blimey a lot will die – The virus is viewed as possibly a larger threat than Cancer and Heart Disease and on a par with Ebola and like diseases. Also it is novel so we have no immunity and has no known treatments other than possibly a miraculous vaccine. Given these commonly held beliefs, fed by a compliant media (BBC etc), it is little surprise that Vaccine Adverse Reaction data is irrelevant, Vax the Kids, even New Borns ASAP. We’re all DOOMED !!!!! Err, but you know that the survival is greater than 98% , better if you fairly healthy etc – Sorry mate, keep your distance (2 mt) and where’s your F***ing MASK !!!
These absurd conclusions are driven by the media and total ignorance of the world we live in:- Question – Do you know that on average the normal death toll per day in the UK is about 1600 – Answer surely not, don’t see that many Funerals round here mate. I used to listen to BBC Radio 4 news. I stopped about a year ago when each time I “Tuned In” within a few Seconds, literally, the dreaded word COVID came up. Commercial media was even worse at times with seemingly endless .Gov adverts about COVID. Now, almost 18 Months later its even worse, I have developed an extreme aversion to MSM which reminds me of the old Radio Moscow english Short Wave transmissions of the cold war era. Today I keep up with the news using the RSS feeds, which only give the Headlines, no idiot Journos spewing out the .Gov propaganda. Overseas feeds like DW & France Inter at least cover more general World Events, but I still look at the BBC feed – nostalgia for the old Radio Moscow etc ???
Ignore Number 6: July 2021
Thanks for reading my somewhat Tongue in Cheek post. We have to think what’s causing or feeding the real public panic.PSYOPS in my humble opinion.
Yes, still lots of deluded people around. But I think our number is growing.
OK – this is purely anecdotal, but it is consistent with Will’s article. As an ancient and highly vulnerable person, I’m supposed to have been ‘shielding’ for much of the past year plus. My immune system is, allegedly, seriously compromised. Yet still, I’ve never had a cold since childhood, and influenza is merely a name to me, something that other folk catch.
But late last year and early this I noticed that on three separate occasions my temperature suddenly rose by around 1.5 degrees and I knew, from childhood memory alone, that I had ‘caught’ something. So I went to bed and, literally, slept it off. Between 5 and 8 hours later each time, my temperature returned to normal and all was OK again. That has never happened to me before, and my social contacts were almost zero, yet still on three separate occasions my immune system went into action and eliminated whatever had tried to take me down!
Were these incidents caused by exposure to the virus? If so, was each incident caused by the arrival of, and my inevitable exposure to, the
latest prevailing variant? And are supposedly ‘highly clinically vulnerable’ people really at much higher risk? Or was my resistance to whatever had infected me down to my taking high dose vitamin D each week – 50,000 units, as recommended by the real experts and not the abominable PHE?
All of this is consistent with Will’s argument, and no of course it’s not proof – but have others experienced this sort of odd behavior during this pandemic and, admittedly like me, not bothered to report it? It seems exactly in line with the idea that what is more important is not our level of exposure to the airborne virus but our intrinsic resistance to infection.
And if the vitamin D regime did indeed reinforce my immunity capacity, then the refusal (not failure) of the Establishment to admit that this absurdly cheap and available prophylaxis could have prevented thousands of deaths among we elderly folk must be regarded as a Crime Against Humanity, and not just yet another example of professional incompetence.
OK, possibly like you BUT I’ve been ignoring the narative the last 18 Months or so and been carrying as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. Plenty of social contacts and Family matters to sort etc, And no Mask covering my nose. NO WAY shield and F up our immune system which has evolved over Millions of years and is a F’s site better than anyone in Big Pharma can conjure up!
A good article but pointless when you know that an agenda is being followed and will continue whatever the true data says.
Is it because facemarks aerosolise what would otherwise be just droplets?
The so called “waves”, which as we’re seeing seem to also be increasingly accompanied by other viruses and tend to follow an indoor habit pattern. In northern countries, winter and wet periods. In southern countries and states, hot weather with many people indoors and an abundance of people wearing aerosol devices across their mouths..
I think it would take a mighty earth-shaking sneeze to aerosolise droplets.
“Using ONS data we can estimate that around 10-15% of the country tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 over the autumn and winter.“
I seriously don’t get this article at all. Why post it if all the questions rely on the numbers testing positive via the fraudulent PCR test?
That’s the bottom line, if they keep changing the pcr cycles to suit their narrative it could never end
Another attempt to rationalise the irrational acts of the ascientific without the data to do it.
Trying to find explanations for things is a natural human tendency, but the danger is that we disappear down endless rabbit-holes
As we know, the basic, devastating case against the whole madness is simple and easy to make. The reason it doesn’t stick is not because we need more sophisticated arguments or more explanations, it’s simply that people have been brainwashed.
What would be useful to get people out of their madness is some authenticated private recordings of the leading players (PM, SAGE etc) where they admit openly that it’s all bollocks. But they’ve probably been too careful sadly. One suspects even the leaders of the most despotic regimes are pretty careful about straying from the narrative even in private to eachother.
Like many, many others I have recovered from a nasty dose of covid and am therefore immune, and refuse to submit to their unnecessary vaccine.
On Monday I have an appointment for a Shingles jab (I had it once, it’s horrible). Because I cannot/will not wear a mask I am to be vaccinated outside in the car park (!) I’m probably being irrational, but I’ve got it into my head that they might mix a covid jab in with it. My OM says just check what it says on the container and make sure it hasn’t been opened previously.
Even to myself I sound stupid – but that is the depth of my distrust of the NHS.
Please, that’s not stupid!! I feel exactly like that, I would want to see exactly what they were injecting into me too!! Just explain your fears and ask to see the vial.
Good luck btw.
No, you’re not paranoid! PHE has long been following its own agenda, regardless of anything that a reliable scientist would regard as evidence, and its grasp on the different ethical frameworks under which public health and medicine are practiced is non-existent. Avoid it like the plague wherever possible!
It’s been utterly unsuccessful in imposing a quite different unlicensed medicinal product on the entire population, fluoridated water, for decades, thanks to a small band of ‘activists’ who do actually know better. But now, in the guise of ‘rationalization’ of these identical twins, the NHS/PHE mafia, are to be merged as one super-Quango.
And as that paragon of public health virtue Matt (‘The Mouth’) Hancock gleefully proclaimed, this merger will enable the government ‘to seize back control’ and make water fluoridation a target of future policy reforms operated by – you guessed it? – the new monster health service.
And despite his departure, this unavoidable (i.e., effectively mandatory) form of mass medication is to be included in the current policy objectives, regardless of ethics or, indeed, medicine (the MHRA claims this is not a medicinal product!”) Does that sound a bit like the argument for universal vaccination against Covid19?
So do your own thing. Shingles is a nasty condition. I had Chicken Pox at 65 (a ‘retirement present!) and in the past few years its derivative, shingles, has appeared as a consequence. I’m not ‘eligible’ for the Shingrix vaccine – too old, apparently – but standard prescription anti-virals seem to have cleared it in a couple of weeks.
If the virus spreads by being chronically in the air as an aerosol then would UV light cut down the concentration?
High frequency UV (UV-C, 280 to 100 nm) can annihilate loads of things, including viruses. Can be added to air con systems, especially useful if recycling is done.
Oh dear. Did’nt a certain Mr D Trump say something about Light ? So that’s snookered that idea along with Hydroxychloroquine and the Right Wing Conspricy Ivermectin. Also oral hygene – Too much like drinking disenfectant !
Why wouldn’t we stick with the old basic biology? It’s like a u turn has occurred on everything that was taught in schools and universities about the immune system.
Perhaps a better model for the immune system and pathogens would be an equilibrium state. Disease occurs when the equilibrium between the immune system, the bodies inherent cells, and foreign cells gets disturbed out of a normal, healthy range. This framework works much better for explaining autoimmune diseases, cancer, allergies, etc. I would suggest that we would have a much better understanding of Covid is we approached it from this perspective. We would also be forced to recognize the long term damage that we are doing to the general equilibrium that we have with other viruses and bacteria through all of these NPI’s. But for some reason, the media and public health officials present Sars-CoV-2 as a sneaky, invading intruder that is constantly attacking a person’s body and will overwhelm it’s defenses when exposure reaches a certain threshold and the only thing that can stop it is a vaccine. It’s just ignorant.