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News

Number of Covid patients in ICUs plummets – The Sunday Times

A report from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre suggests a collapse in the number of patients becoming very unwell. It put the number of admissions to ICU of patients with Covid at 19 on January 23. About 400 people were being admitted daily at the peak of the second wave in January last year.

http://archive.today/2022.02.06-053528/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/number-of-covid-patients-in-icus-plummets-rvkbl3qh2

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News

UK is ‘set to bin 3.5million Pfizer vaccine doses’ despite their shelf life already being extended as rollout slows – Daily Mail

Up to 3.5million Covid vaccine doses are set to be binned after reaching their expiry date, it was revealed today.

A leaked memo last month revealed that tens of millions of jabs sent to hospitals, GP surgeries and pharmacies in the run up to Christmas to fight Omicron had largely went unused.

Now NHS sources say more than half of the doses sent to some clinics are still ‘sitting in fridges’ amid falling demand for the booster shots. 

One well-placed official estimated up to 3.5m doses are likely to be binned, based on stock counts in several English regions, the Health Service Journal reports.

http://archive.today/2022.02.05-174202/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10476167/UK-set-bin-3-5million-Pfizer-vaccine-doses-despite-shelf-life-extended.html

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News

Britons facing biggest drop in living standards – The Times

Households will experience the biggest fall in their living standards since records began as they face soaring inflation, tax increases and rising energy bills.

In a bleak assessment of the year ahead, the Bank of England warned people that take-home pay would fall by five times the amount it did during the financial crisis of 2008. It will be the worst hit to real incomes since comparable records began in 1990.

http://archive.today/2022.02.04-010615/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britons-facing-biggest-drop-in-living-standards-ttw2rnnf5

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News

‘Shambolic’ Covid PCR testing rules meant one in three who isolated were never contagious – The Telegraph

Up to a third of people who tested positive for coronavirus by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests were not contagious and did not need to self-isolate, a new study suggests.

Research led by academics from the University of Oxford found that many laboratories are setting the positivity bar very low, meaning they are picking up people who are “a danger to no one”.

…However, Freedom of Information requests made by members of the public and compiled by the University of Oxford show that NHS trusts are using vastly different cut-off thresholds, with little regulation from the Government. Some are as low as 25, while others are as high as 45.

The figures also show that between 23 and 37 per cent of people who were told they were positive had a cycle threshold value above 30. For one in 20, it was higher than 40. 

http://archive.today/2022.02.05-023319/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/04/shambolic-covid-pcr-testing-rules-meant-one-three-isolated-never/

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News

Children’s mental health: Record number referred for specialist care – BBC

More children than ever have been referred to the NHS for the most serious mental health problems, the latest figures show.

Some 409,347 under-18s were referred for specialist care for issues such as self-harm and eating disorders between April and October 2021.

That was 77% higher than the same period in 2019.

http://archive.today/2022.02.04-092323/https://www.bbc.com/news/education-60197150

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News

Energy bill price rise may cause heart attacks and strokes, says TV GP – WalesOnline

A doctor has warned that today’s huge hike in gas and electricity prices for 22million homes across the Uk could mean a rise in heart attacks and strokes.

Dr Amir Khan spoke out on ITV’s Lorraine this morning, as he fears the huge new bills will have a devastating effect on people’s health. As a doctor, he said he knows he will see the effects on patients attending his GP practice.

…”It has a really devastating impact on their health. The first thing – if you can’t afford to heat your home, it actually causes an increased risk of developing heart attacks and strokes because your blood vessels contract to conserve heat, which pushes your blood pressure up, and over time that has an impact on your heart attack risk.”

http://archive.today/2022.02.03-160450/https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/energy-bill-price-rise-cause-22971008

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News Opinion

Rejoice! An end to the dreaded Covid count… now let’s get rid of quarantine and testing too, writes GP Dr RENEE HOENDERKAMP – Daily Mail

The Government last month signalled its intention to scrap the legal requirement for infected people to self-isolate on March 24, and yesterday it was claimed that it will stop releasing daily Covid updates in April.

…The truth is that the advent of the highly infectious (although markedly milder) Omicron variant has changed everything.

Last week the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) – the proportion of infected people who died of Covid – was hovering at around 0.95 per cent.

That is way below the 15 per cent recorded when the death rate was at its peak in May 2020 when testing was minimal.

And since Monday, when the Office For National Statistics included ‘reinfections’ – people who have contracted the virus more than once – on its daily Covid dashboard for the first time, the CFR has plummeted still further.

With the addition of hundreds of thousands of cases to the weekly total, by Tuesday the CFR had fallen to 0.19 per cent, a percentage akin to that of flu, an illness which currently has a fatality rate of between 0.1 and 0.2 per cent.

The average age of death from Covid, meanwhile, remains at the pre-pandemic 82, with data from the US showing that 75 per cent of people who die with Covid have no fewer than four underlying serious conditions.

http://archive.today/2022.02.03-100712/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10470585/An-end-dreaded-Covid-count-lets-rid-quarantine-testing-says-NHS-GP.html

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News

‘80% of serious COVID cases are fully vaccinated’ says Ichilov hospital director – Prof. Yaakov Jerris, Israel National News

Are Israeli hospitals really overloaded with unvaccinated COVID patients? According to Prof. Yaakov Jerris, director of Ichilov Hospital’s coronavirus ward, the situation is completely opposite.

“Right now, most of our severe cases are vaccinated,” Jerris told Channel 13 News. “They had at least three injections. Between seventy and eighty percent of the serious cases are vaccinated. So, the vaccine has no significance regarding severe illness, which is why just twenty to twenty-five percent of our patients are unvaccinated.”

Jerris also revealed some of the confusion in reporting cases. Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, he told ministers, “Defining a serious patient is problematic. For example, a patient with a chronic lung disease always had a low level of oxygen, but now he has a positive coronavirus test result which technically makes him a ‘serious coronavirus patient,’ but that’s not accurate. The patient is only in a difficult condition because he has a serious underlying illness.”

http://archive.today/2022.02.03-193036/https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/321674

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Publications

A LITERATURE REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF LOCKDOWNS ON COVID-19 MORTALITY – Johns Hopkins University

This systematic review and meta-analysis are designed to determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality. Lockdowns are defined as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). NPIs are any government mandate that directly restrict peoples’ possibilities, such as policies that limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel. This study employed a systematic search and screening procedure in which 18,590 studies are identified that could potentially address the belief posed. After three levels of screening, 34 studies ultimately qualified. Of those 34 eligible studies, 24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis. They were separated into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-placeorder (SIPO) studies, and specific NPI studies. An analysis of each of these three groups support the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. More specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average. SIPOs were also ineffective, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average. Specific NPI studies also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.

While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.

https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

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News

Lockdowns, school closures and limiting gatherings only reduced COVID mortality by 0.2% at ‘enormous economic and social costs’, study finds – Daily Mail

The original coronavirus lockdowns had ‘little to no’ effect on pandemic death tolls in the US, UK and Europe, a controversial report suggests.

Economists who carried out a meta-analysis found draconian restrictions imposed in spring 2020 — including stay-at-home orders, compulsory masks and social distancing — only reduced Covid mortality by 0.2 per cent.

They warned that lockdowns caused ‘enormous economic and social costs’ and concluded they were ‘ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument’ going forward.

View archive of study.

http://archive.today/2022.02.02-165510/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10466995/New-study-says-lockdowns-reduced-COVID-mortality-2-percent.html

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Opinion

Why Academia Is Drawn to Fascism – The Brownstone Institute

Most academics since January 2020 have lined up obediently behind even the most improbable self-deceptions of the covid leaders. Chillingly, they’ve acted out a rough reprise of the performance of their professional forebears in 1930s Germany, when a large fraction of German scientists supported the irrationality of the Nazis. 

At the start of the current madness in many Western countries, thousands of academics signed petitions (like this one) that effectively begged their democratically elected governments and their supporting bureaucracies to transform themselves into cadres of despotic thugs. 

Through what means was this to be achieved?  By using the machinery of state itself to force unproven social and medical experiments onto entire populations, and in so doing running roughshod over constitutional liberties and internationally recognised human rights.

Bizarrely, academics applauded as covid leaders around the world ignored the accumulated public health knowledge of decades and even tampered with the well-researched blueprints that had been prepared for just such an event. Most academics fell hopelessly in love with the illusion that expert-led totalitarianism was the answer to this new threat, and that preservation of freedoms had no meaningful benefit. They were, in short, smitten by the lure of fascism. 

https://brownstone.org/articles/why-academia-is-drawn-to-fascism/

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News

The land where Covid is now no worse than a cold – The Telegraph

Welcome to Denmark, where Covid is over – again. Yesterday, the Scandinavian nation became the first country in Europe to put an end to all coronavirus-related laws. In the eyes of the Danish government and, crucially, the vast majority of its 5.8m citizens, the virus is no longer deemed a “critical threat to society”. Cases remain high – very high – but the Danes have moved on. Even if you test positive, there is no longer a legal obligation to self-isolate.

In the capital, Copenhagen, there was an atmosphere of cautious relief on Tuesday morning as people crammed into the Metro, onto commuter trains and buses, and into shops without face masks for the first time since November.

http://archive.today/2022.02.02-232657/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/land-covid-now-no-worse-cold/

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News

MPs say Kosovo bombing was illegal but necessary – The Guardian

Published 6 June 2000

Nato’s bombing of Kosovo [in 1999] was illegal under international law, the Labour-controlled foreign affairs select committee is expected to report today.

After an inquiry into the foreign policy implications of the Kosovo crisis, the select committee has concluded that Nato is a defensive alliance and has no powers under its treaty to conduct a humanitarian operations war without the specific authority of the United Nations.

Russia repeatedly promised to use its veto to prevent the UN backing military action.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130824155856/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2000/jun/07/balkans.politicalnews

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News

‘Explosive questions’: Court demands data from Austrian health ministry justifying Covid-19 rules – news.com.au

Austria’s powerful Constitutional Court has demanded detailed data from the country’s Health Ministry justifying the government’s coronavirus response.

The 14-member court issued 10 sets of questions to the Health Ministry on January 26 in order to prepare for a “possible oral hearing” into a number of complaints it has received against Austria’s Covid-19 measures.

http://archive.today/2022.01.31-174331/https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/health/explosive-questions-court-demands-data-from-austrian-health-ministry-justifying-covid19-rules/news-story/c3fd996e8e382ede7bb69fbc4c87f699

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Japan’s Kowa says ivermectin effective against Omicron in phase III trial – Reuters

Japanese trading and pharmaceutical company Kowa Co Ltd said on Monday anti-parasite drug ivermectin has been found effective for treating the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in a Phase III trial.

http://archive.today/2022.01.31-090451/https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-japan-kowa/japans-kowa-says-ivermectin-effective-against-omicron-in-phase-iii-trial-idUSL1N2UB0AV

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Justin Trudeau and his family flee Canadian capital Ottawa as up to 50,000 ‘Freedom Convoy’ anti-vaccine mandate truckers arrive at his office – days after he dismissed them as a ‘small fringe minority’ – Daily Mail

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family have left their home in the national’s capital Ottawa for a secret location as up to 50,000 truckers gather to protest against the country’s vaccine mandate and Covid lockdowns. 

Hundreds of truckers drove their giant rigs into the Canadian capital Ottawa on Saturday as part of a self-titled ‘Freedom Convoy’ which started as a protest against vaccine mandates required to cross the US border. 

Days earlier, he had called the truckers headed for the city a ‘small fringe minority’ before the convoy of hundreds of vehicles grew up to 45 miles long as it made its way to the capital . 

http://archive.today/2022.01.30-083403/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10456147/Justin-Trudeau-flees-secret-location-50-000-Freedom-Convoy-truckers-hit-Ottawa.html

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Opinion Videos

What a Russian assault on Ukraine would look like – Caspian Report

#Russia is at the highest combat readiness in its modern history. About 127,000 Russian troops have gathered near #Ukraine’s borders. #War remains uncertain, but if Russia is preparing for one, this is it.

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News

‘Grossly unethical’ government ‘nudge unit’ accused of scaring the public over Covid – The Telegraph

The Government’s “grossly unethical” uses of its “nudge unit” inflated fear among the public during the Covid pandemic, psychologists have said – prompting MPs to launch an investigation into scare adverts.

A group of psychologists have written to Parliament’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, warning that a team of civil servants dedicated to “nudging” public behaviour during the pandemic were unaccountable and unethical.

The letter’s 40 professional signatories – led by Dr Gary Sidley, a retired clinical psychologist – said they opposed the use of dramatic adverts, which included slogans such as: “If you go out you can spread it, people will die.”

http://archive.today/2022.01.28-183759/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/28/grossly-unethical-downing-street-nudge-unit-accused-scaring/

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Covid vaccine latest: AstraZeneca now linked to ‘transverse myelitis’ – MHRA warning – The Express

ASTRAZENECA, now referred to as Vaxzevria by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), has been associated with cases of transverse myelitis – i.e. inflammation of the spinal cord.

As of Wednesday, January 26, transverse myelitis has officially been added to the “warnings and precautions [of] neurological events” section given to healthcare professionals. The MHRA has assured that cases are “extremely rare” but the reaction can lead to: muscle weakness, localised or radiating back pain, and bladder issues. Furthermore, transverse myelitis can lead to bowel symptoms and changes in sensations.

http://archive.today/2022.01.28-233341/https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1556323/covid-vaccine-latest-astrazeneca-transverse-myelitis-spinal-inflammation

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News

HIDDEN RISK Urgent warning as 300,000 Brits living with stealth disease that could kill within 5 years – The Sun

SOME 300,000 Brits are living with a stealth disease that could kill them within five years, doctors have warned.

A third of those are likely to have no idea they are affected because they do not show clear symptoms.

Aortic valve stenosis, or AS, is a heart condition that often shows no symptoms until it’s already too late. 

http://archive.today/2022.01.26-204146/https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/17435614/300k-brits-living-stealth-disease-could-kill-five-years/