Winter deaths are usually running high in January, but this year is different. According to the ONS, in the week ending January 14th there were 6.1% fewer deaths than the five-year average. Time to accept it's over.
T-cells from common cold coronaviruses can provide protection against COVID-19, an Imperial College London study has found. But why has it taken 16 months for it to be published?
A recent viral tweet claims the Government would not have pursued "herd immunity" if the virus targetted "Etonians and bankers rather than working class and poorer people". But it gets pretty much everything wrong.
by George Santayana Informed consent is one of the cornerstones of modern medicine and the foundation of the patient/doctor relationship. The principle of informed consent is a core part of the Nuremberg Code on human research ethics and states that consent for any medical treatment must come from the patient themselves who needs to understand both the benefits and risks. Likewise, the opposite, which we might call “informed refusal”, is just as important and a patient can refuse treatment or withdraw consent at any time. The “informed’ part of informed consent can occur in a number of ways such as provision of written materials (the piece of paper you throw away when you open a packet of headache tablets) or a discussion with your doctor. Regardless, the information given to a patient needs to be accurate, balanced and cover both the benefits and risks. Consent must also be given freely and without undue influence or coercion. Of course, a clinician can express their opinion and offer advice as to what course of action a patient might take, but ultimately the decision to proceed (swallow the pill, take the test, have the operation) resides with the patient. Informed consent places the individual patient at the heart of clinical practice and given that they are the person receiving the treatment and taking any associated risks that intrinsically feels like the right thing. And so it used to be for vaccinations, where it was up to the individual whether they wished to have a specific vaccination or not. Yes, there ...
A panel of experts has told MPs that we should stop "frightening ourselves" with community testing because the Delta variant means there is no way of stopping Covid from spreading through the entire population.
Bristol's Prof Philip Thomas admits he was wrong about the size of the Delta wave, but now predicts no winter surge. I think he's wrong again, and for the same reason – a misunderstanding of herd immunity.
Infections are surging in America, driven by the Delta variant, but there is little appetite for new restrictions now the vaccines are here. Is the curve already peaking in the early hotspots?
The link between cases and deaths has weakened substantially in recent weeks. However, the situation is actually even more positive: measured by excess deaths, the pandemic hasn't taken any lives since early March.
Do Covid outbreaks happen when enough people become infectious at once that the virus becomes ubiquitous and unavoidable? Is that why lockdowns don't stop it?
Prof Tim Spector dismayed many of his Twitter followers by calling for the vaccination of children to combat the Delta variant. But his arguments ignore key risk-benefit concerns and anyway make no sense.
