Only a third of the excess deaths seen in the community in England and Wales can be explained by covid-19, new data have shown.
Of those 30 000, only 10 000 have had covid-19 specified on the death certificate. While Spiegelhalter acknowledged that some of these “excess deaths” might be the result of underdiagnosis, “the huge number of unexplained extra deaths in homes and care homes is extraordinary. When we look back . . . this rise in non-covid extra deaths outside the hospital is something I hope will be given really severe attention.”
BMJ
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At the current time, children do not appear to be super spreaders. Sero-surveillance data will not be available to confirm or refute these findings prior to the urgent policy decisions that need to be taken in the next few weeks such as how and when to re-open schools. Policies for non-pharmacological interventions involving children are going to have to be made on a risk–benefit basis with current evidence available.
https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/05/archdischild-2020-319474
Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%.
This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection. Further research is needed to inform the widespread use of cloth masks globally. However, as a precautionary measure, cloth masks should not be recommended for HCWs, particularly in high-risk situations, and guidelines need to be updated.
Scientists who advised the World Health Organization on its influenza policies and recommendations—including the decision to proclaim the so-called swine flu a “pandemic” had close ties to companies that manufacture vaccines and antiviral medicines like Tamiflu, a fact that WHO did not publicly disclose.
Many clinical research studies, even in the major general medical journals, do not satisfy the identifiable features that make them useful. These features include:
- problem base;
- context placement;
- information gain;
- pragmatism;
- patient centeredness;
- value for money;
- feasibility;
- transparency.
Most clinical research findings false. Further, most of the true findings do not result in huge human benefit. Reform and improvement in the clinical research are overdue.
See also: Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals by Richard Smith at the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
Quoted summary points
Blue-sky research cannot be easily judged on the basis of practical impact, but clinical research is different and should be useful. It should make a difference for health and disease outcomes or should be undertaken with that as a realistic prospect.
Many of the features that make clinical research useful can be identified, including those relating to problem base, context placement, information gain, pragmatism, patient centeredness, value for money, feasibility, and transparency.
Many studies, even in the major general medical journals, do not satisfy these features, and very few studies satisfy most or all of them. Most clinical research therefore fails to be useful not because of its findings but because of its design.
The forces driving the production and dissemination of nonuseful clinical research are largely identifiable and modifiable.
Reform is needed. Altering our approach could easily produce more clinical research that is useful, at the same or even at a massively reduced cost.
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002049
In conclusion, as opposed to Greenhalgh et al., we believe that the context of the current covid-19 pandemic is very different from that of the “parachutes for jumping out of aeroplanes”,[7] in which the dynamics of harm and prevention are easy to define and even to quantify without the need of research studies. It is necessary to quantify the complex interactions that may well be operating between positive and negative effects of wearing surgical masks at population level. It is not time to act without evidence.
There needs to be a more effective and sustainable strategy to manage Covid-19 than the current economically ruinous policy, argue vets Dick Sibley and Joe Brownlie.
[Nicola Oliver ] tells us that 15,969 people died of flu (in England) last year, although only 320 died in hospital, and 15,649 were apparently left to die without due medical attention at home. What she fails to note is that the 15,969 deaths were not recorded deaths but a projection derived from the Flumomo algorithm [2] for ‘flu attributable deaths’ based on all cause mortality [3], so it does not really get us anywhere (except that it is just kind of thing I am complaining about!)
Polio vaccines are not only ineffective in preventing paralysis, they carry the risk of contamination with many harmful adventitious microorganisms, of which only some monkey viruses have been researched in more detail. Many other potentially dangerous microorganisms remain unaddressed.
https://web.archive.org/web/20201207083415/https://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e2398/rr/599724