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Covid 19 X-Factor in Spain – Nursing Homes: UNDERSTANDING WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

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Author

Alfonso Longo


Covid 19 X-Factor in Spain – Nursing Homes: UNDERSTANDING WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

Hypothesis

The nursing homes, their structure and management, explain the impact of the covid-19 pandemic in Spain.

DIRECTLY: because of the weight of its mortality

CAUSALLY: because of its effect on the transmission of the virus to the rest of the population

Therefore, in order to minimize the impact of covid on society, its impact on nursing homes must first be minimized.

Download the document here.

(Note that the document is hosted on Google Drive.)

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Videos

T-cell immunity and the truth about Covid-19 in Sweden – Dr. Soo Aleman, UnHerd

“Intensive care units are getting empty, the wards are getting empty, we are really seeing a decrease — and that despite that people are really loosening up. The beaches are crowded, social distancing is not kept very well … but still the numbers are really decreasing. That means that something else is happening – we are actually getting closer to herd immunity. I can’t really see another reason.”

“I can’t say if the Swedish approach was right or wrong – I think we can say that in one or two years when we are looking back. You have to look at the mortality over the whole period.”

“I don’t think that we have more new cases, I think we are just detecting more cases”

“We found that if you have a mild case you can be negative for antibodies afterwards … in those almost all of them had strong T-cell activity. This study says that there are cases that you can have a strong T-cell response even though you have not had antibodies, meaning that you have encountered the virus and built up immunity.”

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Publications

80.9% of care home residents who tested positive were asymptomatic – Department of Health & Social Care

  • 2.4% of all tests were positive (9,674 out of 397,197)
  • 3.9% of residents tested positive (6,747 out of 172,066)
  • 3.3% of asymptomatic residents tested positive (5,455 out of 163,945)
  • 80.9% of residents who tested positive were asymptomatic (5,455 out of 6,747)
  • 1.2% of asymptomatic staff tested positive (2,567 out of 210,620)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vivaldi-1-coronavirus-covid-19-care-homes-study-report/vivaldi-1-covid-19-care-homes-study-report

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Videos

Alistair Haimes – on being a lockdown sceptic – Freethinking with Laura Dodsworth

Laura Dodsworth interviews Alistair Haimes on Freethinking with Laura Dodsworth.

Support Laura Dodsworth through Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/lauradodsworth

Interview notes and charts

  • The difference between what the government was telling us and what their information was telling us was so extreme and outrageous.
  • Exponential means a “constant rate of growth.” The government data in March was clearly showing that the COVID-19 was declining, not growing exponentially. This was the same in all countries you could see the data. [See chart 1]
  • A constantly declining growth rate will make a bell curve. The government were standing in front of bell curve graphs during their briefings yet they were telling us we were in the middle of the epidemic.
  • It was very clear that we were heading to a peak sometime around early to mid-April.
  • You don’t have to be complicated mathematics to see that COVID-19 was running out of steam almost from day one.
  • The conclusion from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine seems to be that it’s impossible to predict if there will be a second wave.
  • Sweden’s epidemic looks identical to the UK’s but they did not lockdown. Their datapoint indicates there won’t be a second wave. There has been no spike in Denmark either. [See chart 2]
  • Unknowns: has summer affected COVID-19 and will there be a mutation?
  • Will illnesses during the autumn and winter be mis-attributed to COVID-19? Poor media coverage means that we can’t be sure.
  • Symptoms of COVID-19 are very similar to the flu. Something could look like a second wave but will we really know?
  • The lockdown is costing a Brexit bill a week.
  • The government response seems to have been skewed by Neil Ferguson’s modelling data. The make-up of government advisors seems to be a recipe for groupthink, which is very dangerous.
  • Epidemiology (the way a disease spreads through the population) is not complicated science. The government could have had lots of people who were very good at this but they didn’t.
  • We should have cocooned the vulnerable, make sure the NHS has capacity and “let it rip” through the population.
  • We should never have had an open-ended lockdown.
  • The ‘R number’ is just the difference of in the number of people infected after each generation of a disease. Britain crossed the ‘magical R of 1’ line a few days before lockdown and the same day as Sweden. Whatever interventions have been done doesn’t seem to have had any effect. [See chart 3]
  • COVID-19 is mostly a care home and hospital disease. This was obvious very early on. Old people should not have been moved from hospitals into care homes. It seems as if we knowingly seeded the most vulnerable environment with the disease.
  • 37% of our deaths are care home residents but they are only 0.5% of our population. Of them are dementia sufferers.
  • Over 20% of the infections were picked up in the hospitals. COVID-19 seems more like MRSA than influenza in that it’s an infection control problem.
  • COVID-19 is much more comparable to flu for the rest of the population.
  • 1968 flu killed 80,000 people in the UK.
  • This last winter was a low flu winter. It’s quite possible that the people who died of COVID-19 are those who didn’t die.
  • If you overlay COVID-19 deaths with the 2000 flu season, they look very similar. [See chart 4]
  • 95% of deaths have had another serious disease. Most people have almost no chance of dying from COVID-19.
  • If you are under 40, you have more chance of being struck by lightning that dying of COVID-19.
  • If you are under 60, you have more chance of drowning.
  • At any age, you have more chance of dying on the roads than dying of COVID-19.
  • Lead indicators of 111 and 999 calls with COVID-19 symptoms show there was no spike after VE Day celebrations or BLM protests. In fact, it was even coming down at lockdown. That lockdown was big change for COVID-19 is invisible in the data. [See chart 5]
Charts

Chart 1: COVID-19 was declining in Europe as of march. It was not growing exponentially

Heading to zero? @AlistairHaimes, 29 March 2020

Chart 2: Sweden’s epidemic looks similar to the UK’s but they did not lock down.

Sweden has had fewer covid deaths per capita than Belgium, Spain, Italy or the UK, and its children <16 have missed no school. @AlistairHaimes, 17 June 2020

Chart 3: Britain crossed the ‘magical R of 1’ line a few days before lockdown

UK Rt (“R number”), late Feb to early April. Lockdown did the square root of nothing. Hand-washing advice early March does look to have caused a massive drop in R, as you’d expect. @AlistairHaimes, 5 May 2020

Chart 4: COVID-19 deaths overlayed with the 2000 flu season

If covid deaths had happened in winter rather than spring. Shown against two recent moderately bad influenza years, for comparison. @AlistairHaimes, 23 June 2020

Chart 5: No spike after BLM protests

No uptick in covid cases following the BLM protests. @AlistairHaimes, 22 June 2020
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News

25,000 people discharged from hospitals to care homes before government started routine testing – PoliticsHome

A new report by the National Audit Office confirms that 25,000 people moved from hospitals into care homes between mid-March and mid-April.

Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative former health secretary who now chairs the Commons Health Committee, said the findings were “extraordinary” and came “despite widespread knowledge that the virus could be carried asymptomatically”.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/coronavirus-25000-people-discharged-from-hospitals-to-care-homes-without-tests-at-height-of-pandemic-watchdog-confirms

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News

Dying of neglect: the other Covid care home scandal – The Spectator

It is remarkable how many deaths during this pandemic have occurred in care homes. According to the Office for National Statistics, nearly 50,000 care home deaths were registered in the 11 weeks up to 22 May in England and Wales — 25,000 more than you would expect at this time of the year. Two out of five care homes in England have had a coronavirus outbreak; in the north-east, it’s half.

Not all these deaths, however, have been attributed to Covid-19. Even when death certificates do mention it, it is not always clear that it is the disease that was the ultimate cause of death. The data refers to people who died with Covid-19 present in their bodies, whether or not it was the direct cause. This raises questions about whether there’s another reason for many of these deaths which has gone largely unnoticed while attention has been focused on Covid-19. This is not just a British phenomenon, but one seen across Europe.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/dying-of-neglect-the-other-covid-care-home-scandal

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News

Calls to lift lockdown in UK care homes over fears for residents’ mental health – The Guardian

Senior social care leaders are calling on ministers to prioritise unlocking care homes amid growing concerns that mental health problems are contributing to the deaths of residents.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/30/calls-to-lift-lockdown-in-uk-care-homes-over-fears-for-residents-mental-health

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News

MPs hear why Hong Kong had no Covid-19 care home deaths – The Guardian

“Most important is stopping the transmission from hospital to nursing home,” Lum said. “We do a very good job on isolation. Once we have any person infected we isolate them in hospital for three months and at the same time we isolate all the close contact people in a separate quarantine centre for 14 days for observation.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/19/mps-hear-why-hong-kong-had-no-covid-19-care-home-deaths

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Opinion

How Covid panic caused the carnage in care homes – Spiked


Shockingly, the UK government was not alone in pushing the crisis into care homes. In New York, the centre of the world’s worst outbreak, it is a similar story. Care homes were not only neglected for PPE and testing, but were also ordered to take in Covid patients. Homes could be fined $10,000 or lose their operating licence if they refused to comply with the rules. In Lombardy, the hardest-hit region of Italy, care homes were paid extra to take in Covid patients from hospitals.

The carnage in care homes ought to be the biggest scandal of the Covid crisis.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/19/how-covid-panic-caused-the-carnage-in-care-homes/

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News

Isolated UK care home residents ‘fading away’, say staff and families – The Guardian

Care home residents confined to their rooms and forbidden visits from loved ones are giving up on life and “fading away”, say staff and families.

“The virus won’t be the killer of these people, it’s the distress and fear of not seeing family that is doing it,” said one carer who asked to remain anonymous but has reported her concerns to the Care Inspectorate in Scotland.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/14/isolated-uk-care-home-residents-fading-away-say-staff-and-families

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Publications

The invisible pandemic – Professor Johan Giesecke, The Lancet

It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes—a population the lockdown was designed to protect.3 Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK’s experience with that of other European countries.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31035-7/fulltext#%20

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News

Misallocated NHS resources fuelled spread of virus in care homes, say bosses – The Observer

A failure to provide care homes with enough NHS expertise and hospital equipment has exacerbated the growing coronavirus crisis among their residents, senior care figures have warned.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/03/misallocated-nhs-resources-fuelled-spread-of-virus-in-care-homes-say-bosses