The unprecedented measures of universal lockdowns, tight institutional lockdowns of care homes, universal masking of the general population, obsession with surfaces and hands, and the accelerated vaccine deployment are contrary to known science, and contrary to recent leading studies. There has been government recklessness by action and negligence by omission. Institutional measures have been needed for a long time to stem corruption in both medicine and public health policy.
Care Homes
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Nearly half of care home staff won’t take the coronavirus vaccine, with bosses desperately calling on ministers to make jabs compulsory among healthcare workers.
Nadra Ahmed, chairman of the National Care Association, said as many as 40% of carers could choose not to take up the option as it is rolled out over the coming days.
Ms Ahmed told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We know that between 50-60%, depending on individual services, the staff are actually saying they will definitely have the vaccine and are very keen.
‘We understand between about 17-20% of staff in services are saying they definitely won’t have it, and then you have the rest who are waiting to see.
‘So we are looking at potentially 40% who decide not to have it.’
To guard against censorship, this is a mirror of the video posted by Leandra Ashton on 5 December.
New guidelines right? We can all see our loved ones if we have a negative test right?
On Dec 2nd my Mum asked for an in-person visit and was told ‘We have no tests’. Don’t worry, replied my Mum, I’ll get one done. The next day, having been tested she emailed a negative test result. This was met with another no: “We’re waiting for vaccinations before visiting can take place”.
The only option? Another inhumane window visit. Today, at the end of her 10 minute ‘visit’, kneeling on concrete by the window trying to connect with my Nan, my Mum raised concerns with the care assistant about how my Nan was looking. This is the response she was greeted with…
- SAGE admitted early virus modelling based on figures from online encyclopedia
- Committee of scientists advising PM also had no expert on human coronavirus
- Dubious data formed the basis for the group’s calls for first national lockdown
- Experts predicted that the peak would be in June – but it actually came in April
- Impact of care home staff spreading Covid by working in multiple sites not considered
- Scientists failed to consider the impact agency workers would have on spreading Covid in care homes by moving between several different sites to work
- There were more than 30,000 excess deaths in care homes because of Covid in 2020
Professor Mark Jit, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and member of SPI-M, said the group used data from Wikipedia in the UK along with hospitalisations in China and Northern Italy to inform their modelling.
There is a case to be made that we as a country have been led by a conversation about the virus which has been unbalanced and disproportionate, writes Daniel McConnell
https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-40081700.html
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A Rational Reopening Guide
In the interest of public debate, we allow visitors to share opinions, experiences and research that may be of value to others. This is a visitor contribution from our Discussions page.
The views expressed are those of the individual posters themselves. Please read our Comments and contributions disclaimer.
Author
Megan Mansell
- Credentials: Megan Mansell is a former district education director over special populations integration, serving students who are profoundly disabled, immunocompromised, undocumented, autistic, and behaviorally challenged; she also has a background in hazardous environs PPE applications. She is experienced in writing and monitoring protocol implementation for immunocompromised public sector access under full ADA/OSHA/IDEA compliance.
- E-mail: [email protected]
- Twitter: @mamasaurusMeg
A Rational Reopening Guide
A framework for operating any facility or business during COVID
The United States already has a body of law that requires making accommodations for persons with disabilities; if we start from the premise that Americans should be able to determine the level of risk they’re willing to take, all of those concepts can be extended to provide accommodations to anyone who is concerned about exposure to COVID, whether because they are vulnerable or because they live with someone who is vulnerable.
The first step is to ask everyone whether or not they consider themselves immunocompromised (IC). This can include people who themselves are immunocompromised or who live with someone who is immunocompromised. Allowing people to identify whether or not they consider themselves immunocompromised allows us to create reasonable accommodations for accessing the public sector. Some people cannot mask, and others prefer not to, but we can still allow them to safely access shared spaces if we know how many individuals are truly in need of accommodation.
Those who cannot or prefer not to mask should be free to assess their own risk, especially for a contagion with a 99.6% recovery rate.
If we ask everyone to identify the population they belong to, it all falls into place.
Read the full article on Rational Ground.
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The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
In the interest of public debate, we allow visitors to share opinions, experiences and research that may be of value to others. This is a visitor contribution from our Discussions page.
The views expressed are those of the individual posters themselves. Please read our Comments and contributions disclaimer.
Author
George Michael
- Credentials: Physics graduate, University College London (UCL); Senior Research Analyst
- Contact: LinkedIn
The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the world at a horrific scale, and people are trying to form their own opinions — rightly so — on topics ranging from disease severity to government policy. However, the general public are not exposed to a consistent flow of reliable information, so many are suffering from fear, confusion, and isolation, exacerbated by extreme differences in opinion on how seriously any aspect of the pandemic should be taken. These are the problems that this report aims to address.
Read the full article on Medium: The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
Exact approximations vary but the survival rate for Covid-19 is thought to be somewhere above 99 per cent, and maybe as high as 99.8 per cent.
…The average age of someone who dies from coronavirus is 82.4, which, by the way, is nearly identical to the average life expectancy in Britain (81.1).
…In the first week of October, there were 91,013 cases of coronavirus reported in England and Wales, and 343 Covid-related deaths. That same week a total of 9,954 people died from various causes. Of those, just 4.4 per cent of the death certificates mentioned Covid-19.
- Scientists should not be involved in devising and implementing policies.
- The window of opportunity to suppress the virus is gone.
- The toll on public health caused by closed borders will be absolutely awful.
- Indefinite suppression may not have ever been an option.
- Vaccines may be helpful but won’t be a silver bullet.
- The virus is here to stay.
- Vaccines may be effective in reducing symptoms but we can’t gamble on an infection blocking vaccine.
- Some vaccines aren’t always suitable for the entire population.
- Banking everything on a vaccine is not a reasonable approach.
- National level measures are not convincing; targeted measures have more potential.
- Communication has been problematic so public trust has been lost.
- Fear over a long period of time is physiologically unhealthy and doesn’t ever just evaporate.
- The cost of allowing people to choose their own risk-level would be much lower than the current blanket proposals.
- Well-targeted testing can be extremely effective but mass testing in schools is not a good use of tests.
- The ‘medicalization’ of society is worrying.
- Blanket testing of asymptomatic people is completely new and presents multiple ethical problems.
- Proportion of asymptomatic cases for 2009 influenza pandemic was around 50%-75%; this is similar to what we’re finding COVID-19.
- COVID-19 is not so different from other viruses but the global approach is completely different.
- Normalising the mass testing of otherwise healthy testing is very dangerous.
- There’s not much to be gained from comparing the measures and results between countries; the move to technocracy is dangerous.
- Whole societies should not turn around public health.
- A constant climate of fear is counter-productive.
- There were other countries that took a similar approach to Sweden, such as Switzerland.
- Past pandemics have been comparable to COVID-19 but did not have the same response.
- Outbreaks in care homes is nothing new.
- The pandemic phase of COVID-19 should eventually be over by mid to end of 2021 and in all likelihood become endemic.
- The most important message: COVID-19 presents a severe health crisis but it is not a ‘new normal.’
- As of October 2020, there are >1 million documented deaths with COVID‐19.
- Many early deaths may have been due to suboptimal management, malfunctional health systems, hydroxychloroquine, sending COVID‐19 patients to nursing homes, and nosocomial infections; such deaths are partially avoidable moving forward.
- About 10% of the global population may be infected by October 2020.
- Global infection fatality rate is 0.15‐0.20%
- Global infection fatality rate in those younger than 70 years old is 0.03‐0.04%.
- Targeted, precise management of the pandemic and avoiding past mistakes would help minimize mortality.
- UK Government’s pandemic policies ‘violated the fundamental human rights of vulnerable older people in care’, Amnesty report claims.
- Measures exposed elderly residents to Covid then blocked them from care.
- Ministers ‘know from the outset’ that the virus posed ‘exceptional danger’ to 400,000 residents of UK care homes, many of whom are vulnerable.
- Care home residents were subjected to ‘inhuman and degrading’ treatment.
- Report says UK Government is ‘directly responsible’ for the care home tragedy.
- 8,186 excess deaths recorded in care homes, with 18,562 of these attributed to Covid-19 – 40 per cent of all deaths from the virus.
- Care home residents with suspected Covid-19 were ‘outright refused’ hospital treatment and died in distress from the virus without appropriate medical care – despite local hospitals having ‘hundreds’ of empty beds;
- Health chiefs instructed GPs to pressure care home staff to put blanket ‘do not resuscitate’ orders on all residents without discussion. Instructions were often given verbally rather than written – leaving no paper trail;
- One manager who tried to get a severely unwell resident into hospital in March was told: ‘He’s at the end of his life anyway, so we’re not going to send an ambulance’;
- Care bosses have continued lockdowns – banning families from visiting loved ones, causing further distress and death – because they feared not following ‘excessive’ Government guidance would lead to them being sued or stripped of their licence to operate;
- Despite repeated appeals, the Government and public bodies have withheld crucial data about the spread of Covid-19 in care homes and refused to reveal how many key decisions came to be made.
Care home chiefs fear deadly mistakes made at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic risk being repeated as councils offer them extra cash to take Covid-positive hospital patients.
…Now, despite a Government pledge to place a ‘protective ring’ around vulnerable residents, care homes in Cumbria are being offered £1,500 – double the local weekly fee – to take Covid-positive patients from hospital.
…Tony Carling, a care home operator in Cumbria, has decided not to take Covid-positive patients, but fears it could be a costly move. He said: ‘The majority of our clients are funded by local authorities, so it’s very difficult to turn down. You are under extreme financial pressure as to whether you get further business from that authority if you don’t support their needs.’
Dear Prime Minister, Chancellor, CMOs and Chief Scientific Adviser
We are writing with the intention of providing constructive input into the choices with respect to the Covid-19 policy response. We also have several concerns regarding aspects of the existing policy choices that we wish to draw attention to.
In summary, our view is that the existing policy path is inconsistent with the known risk-profile of Covid-19 and should be reconsidered. The unstated objective currently appears to be one of suppression of the virus, until such a time that a vaccine can be deployed. This objective is increasingly unfeasible (notwithstanding our more specific concerns regarding existing policies) and is leading to significant harm across all age groups, which likely offsets any benefits.
Instead, more targeted measures that protect the most vulnerable from Covid, whilst not adversely impacting those not at risk, are more supportable. Given the high proportion of Covid deaths in care homes, these should be a priority. Such targeted measures should be explored as a matter of urgency, as the logical cornerstone of our future strategy.
In addition to this overarching point, we append a set of concerns regarding the existing policy choices, which we hope will be received in the spirit in which they are intended. We are mindful that the current circumstances are challenging, and that all policy decisions are difficult ones. Moreover, many people have sadly lost loved ones to Covid-19 throughout the UK. Nonetheless, the current debate appears unhelpfully polarised around views that Covid is extremely deadly to all (and that large-scale policy interventions are effective); and on the other hand, those who believe Covid poses no risk at all. In light of this, and in order to make choices that increase our prospects of achieving better outcomes in future, we think now is the right time to ‘step back’ and fundamentally reconsider the path forward.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Sunetra Gupta; Professor of theoretical epidemiology, the University of Oxford
Professor Carl Heneghan; Director, Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, the University of Oxford
Professor Karol Sikora; Consultant oncologist and Professor of medicine, University of Buckingham
Sam Williams; Director and co-founder of Economic Insight
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-needs-to-rethink-his-covid-strategy
Since the pandemic began, Goerke’s wife, Denise — 63 years old and afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease — had declined dramatically. Left alone in her nursing home, she had lost 16 pounds, could not form the simplest words, no longer responded to the voices of her children.
In recent weeks, she had stopped recognizing even the man she loved.
Goerke, 61, could tell the isolation was killing his wife, and there was nothing he could do but watch. “Every day it gets a little worse,” he said. “We’ve lost months, maybe years of her already.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/16/coronavirus-dementia-alzheimers-deaths/
But where did this one percent figure come from? You may find this hard to believe, but this figure emerged by mistake. A pretty major thing to make a mistake about, but that’s what happened.
In order to understand what happened, you have to understand the difference between two medical terms that sound the same – but are completely different. [IFR and CFR.]
CFR will always be far higher than the IFR. With influenza, the CFR is around ten times as high as the IFR. Covid seems to have a similar proportion.
Now, clearly, you do not want to get these figures mixed up. By doing so you would either wildly overestimate, or wildly underestimate, the impact of Covid. But mix these figures up, they did.
…we’ve had all the deaths we were ever going to get. And which also means that lockdown achieved, almost precisely nothing with regard to Covid. No deaths were prevented.
LOCKDOWN will come to be seen as a “monumental mistake on a global scale” and must never happen again, a scientist who advises the Government on infectious diseases says.
Mark Woolhouse said lockdown was a “panic measure” but admitted it was the only option at the time because “we couldn’t think of anything better to do”.
But it is a crude measure that takes no accounts of the risk levels to different individuals, the University of Edinburgh professor said, meaning that back in March the nation was “concentrating on schools when we should have been concentrating on care homes”.
Care homes were asked to introduce blanket “do not resuscitate” orders for all residents at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, it has been claimed.
The Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI), a charity promoting community nursing, found that one in ten care homes were ordered to introduce the measure without discussion with staff, family members or the residents. It was intended to help keep hospital beds free.
Half of staff members who said that they had been asked to change DNRs worked in homes for people with learning or cognitive disabilities. The other half worked in homes for the elderly.
Alison Leary, professor of healthcare and workforce modelling at London South Bank University and the author of the report, described the findings as worrying…
Care homes have been turned into prisons, with residents “losing the will to live” as they are deprived contact with families, charities for the elderly have warned.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on coronavirus was told that restrictions on visiting homes have become so extreme that vulnerable people are being left distressed and lonely, in some cases unable to recognise their loved ones.
Charities said belated attempts to keep residents safe from the spread of coronavirus were too often creating misery and isolation.
They criticised the Government for acting so slowly to attempt to protect care homes from the pandemic that 6,000 deaths had occurred by the time testing was introduced.
A RISE in the use of sedation to manage ‘lockdown distress’ amongst the elderly may have contributed to a stark increase in dementia death rates, a charity has warned.
Figures show in all the deaths involving Covid-19 between March and June 2020, 92% had at least one pre-existing condition with dementia accounting for almost a third.
- From late-February 2020, Birmingham City Council gave care homes a £1,000 extra cash to take in hospital patients in a hurry, including some with coronavirus.
- Reason: more NHS beds could be freed up for coronavirus patients.
- Care home had to bid for the resident in a four hour window and, if their bid was ‘winning’, organise admission within 24 hours – regardless of the citizen’s Covid-19 testing or diagnosis status at the point of discharge.
- Care home manager, Jane Farr, of Digby Manor care home in Erdington, believes her rejection of the offer is one of the reasons none of her residents have been infected.
- From late February, any in-patients deemed ‘fit to discharge’ were rapidly moved out of hospital so hospital staff could focus on coronavirus patients.
- Dr David Rosser, chief executive of University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) said the city created too much capacity – indicating some of the frantic measures to empty beds turned out to be not needed.
- From April 15 the Government’s rules changed and all discharged residents were supposed to undergo a test first.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/revealed-16-care-homes-given-18550503