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Opinion

Coronavirus doesn’t care about politics – UnHerd

So as you read, in coming weeks, furious news stories about technical incompetence, citizen non-compliance, threats of stricter enforcement and blame in all directions, as if everything was hanging on the latest government policy, remember the humility of scientists instead of the solipsism of the political class. Yes, the Government action plan will most likely be ineffective, but politicians were never in charge of this anyway. It’s bigger than they are — the best they could ever hope to do is tinker around the edges. Coronavirus is nobody’s ‘fault’.

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Opinion

I’ve signed death certificates during Covid-19. Here’s why you can’t trust any of the statistics on the number of victims – Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, RT

As an NHS doctor, I’ve seen people die and be listed as a victim of coronavirus without ever being tested for it. But unless we have accurate data, we won’t know which has killed more: the disease or the lockdown?

It matters greatly for two main reasons. First, if we vastly overestimate deaths from Covid-19, we will greatly underestimate the harm caused by the lockdown. This issue was looked at in a recent article published in the BMJ, The British Medical Journal.  It stated: “Only a third of the excess deaths seen in the community in England and Wales can be explained by Covid-19.

If Covid-19 killed 30,000, and lockdown killed the other 30,000, then the lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time. and should never happen again. The great fear is that this would be a message this government does not want to hear – so they will do everything possible not to hear it.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/490006-death-certificates-covid-19-do-not-trust/

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News

Coronavirus: 12,000 more than usual die at home – The Times

A total of 12,335 more people than usual have died at home during the coronavirus pandemic, raising fears about the knock-on effects of telling people not to go to hospital.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-death-toll-passes-40-000-and-excess-deaths-approach-60-000-rx3r29b2p

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Videos

Ep78 Stanford Professor and Nobel Prize Winner Explains this Viral Lockdown – Professor Michael Levitt, The Fat Emperor Podcast

Podcast highlights

  • There were many signs that were really available by the end of February indicating this is a virus that has ‘weak legs.’
  • The data was all available by the end of February [2020] and anyone who can use Excel could analyse it.
  • “The best statistical test is the eyeball test.” And if you chart things in Excel, you can very quickly make an instinctive judgement.
  • No country succeeded in protecting the elderly and nursing homes–it’s hard thing to do.
  • We had a soft flu season. The people who would have been susceptible to a generic flu were hit by a virus that came late and swept through rapidly. This could explain the high COVID-19 death numbers among the vulnerable.
  • Many analysts agree that the lockdown did nothing to affect the peak of infections and deaths.
  • None of the pro-lockdown people seemed to analyse the data and used the data to support lockdown.
  • Many pro-lockdown scientific colleagues are academics receiving salaries; their lives would not be negatively affected by the lockdown. Scientists love nothing more than staying at home to work.
  • What really matters is the years lost rather than the number of dead. Life is risky and when you’re old, life is more risky. You’re expecting younger people to give their future to get two more months of life.
  • While COVID-19 is not the same as the flu, the numbers look very similar.
  • People rolled over for a lockdown based on no real solid science.
  • There’s a whole fallacy about the R value because it is dependent on the time you’re infected and no one knows what the time infected is, no one knows about hidden cases.

Source website: https://thefatemperor.com

Transcript: https://thefatemperor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Ep78-Stanford-Professor-and-Nobel-Prize-Winner-Explains-this-Viral-Lockdown-Fully-2.pdf

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News

Revealed: 90,000 ‘void’ UK Covid tests – The Spectator

Currently, over 8 per cent of people who were tested in ‘pillar two’ have been told that their test result is ‘unclear’. Pillar two is the strand of the government’s testing strategy that deals with at-home tests and those carried out at drive-through centres. This pillar is designed for certain key workers and those who have been randomly selected for testing.

Yet the NHS instructions given to Sarah make clear that while the test might be ‘uncomfortable’, patients should stop if they ‘feel strong resistance or pain’. In other words, she was told to stop swabbing if it hurt. The tests may be accurate in a clinical setting but the problem comes when people are expected to try to carry out the procedure themselves in the real world. 

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/revealed-90-000-void-uk-covid-tests

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Publications

A systematic review and meta-analysis of published research data on COVID-19 infection-fatality rates – medRxiv

Introduction: An important unknown during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the infection-fatality rate (IFR). This differs from the case-fatality rate (CFR) as an estimate of the number of deaths as a proportion of the total number of cases, including those who are mild and asymptomatic. While the CFR is extremely valuable for experts, IFR is increasingly being called for by policy-makers and the lay public as an estimate of the overall mortality from COVID-19.

Results: After exclusions, there were 13 estimates of IFR included in the final meta-analysis, from a wide range of countries, published between February and April 2020. The meta-analysis demonstrated a point-estimate of IFR of 0.75% (0.49-1.01%) with significant heterogeneity (p<0.001).

Conclusion: Based on a systematic review and meta-analysis of published evidence on COVID-19 until the end of April, 2020, the IFR of the disease across populations is 0.75% (0.49-1.01%). However, due to very high heterogeneity in the meta-analysis, it is difficult to know if this represents the “true” point estimate.

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News

Lockdowns failed to alter the course of pandemic and are now destroying millions of livelihoods worldwide, JP Morgan study claims – Daily Mail

  • JP Morgan research said infection rates had fallen since lockdowns were eased
  • It suggested the virus ‘has its own dynamics’ which are ‘unrelated’ to lockdowns  
  • Report said they were imposed with little thought of ‘economic devastation’
Infection rates after national lockdowns were lifted
R0 during and after lockdown by US state

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8347635/Lockdowns-failed-alter-course-pandemic-JP-Morgan-study-claims.html

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News

Lockdowns made NO difference to coronavirus but destroyed millions of livelihoods worldwide, JP Morgan study claims – The Sun

LOCKDOWNS have not altered the course of the coronavirus pandemic but have devastated the global economy, a study by JP Morgan has claimed.

A paper by Marko Kolanovic, a strategist at the investment bank, argued that governments were “spooked” into imposing lockdowns that were “late” or “inefficient”.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11687699/lockdowns-difference-coronavirus-destroyed-livelihoods-jp-morgan/

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Videos

COVID19 Never Grows Exponentially – Professor Michael Levitt

Part 1: Exponential Growth is Terrifying

This is my first podcast and they will improve. This is Part 1 and it describes how COVID may grow exponentially and how we flatten the growth curve.

Part 2: Curve Fitting for Understanding

This is Part 2. Fitting viral growth data with simple mathematical functions can give important insights into how epidemics will grow. Here we illustrate two commonly used growth curves, the Sigmoid Function and the Gompertz Function. While superficially similar, they are really very different.

Part 3: COVID19 Never Grows Exponentially

Part 3. The total case numbers in South Korea and New Zealand have exponential growth rates that decrease linearly on a log-scale. This is not ever exponential growth.

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News

Diabetics make up a third of England’s Covid hospital deaths – The Telegraph

Experts said the major study, which included all patients hospitalised with Covid-19 over 10 weeks, showed that diabetes – which is often fuelled by obesity – is driving Britain’s death toll.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/19/one-third-covid-19-deaths-england-have-among-diabetics/

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News

Huge rise in number of people claiming benefits – BBC

The number of people claiming unemployment benefit in the UK soared to 2.1 million in April, the first full month of the coronavirus lockdown.

But the labour market is set to worsen, according to politicians and analysts, with Therese Coffey, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, telling the BBC on Tuesday that the unemployment rate was likely “to increase significantly”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52719230

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Opinion

Can we trust Covid modelling? More evidence from Sweden – The Spectator

One reason why the models failed is that they – just like most countries’ politicians – underestimated how millions of people spontaneously adapt to new circumstances. They only thought in terms of lockdowns vs business as usual, but failed to consider a third option: that people engage in social distancing voluntarily when they realise lives are at stake and when authorities recommend them to do so.

As countries plan how to leave lockdown, they can look at Sweden and ask: what happens if you don’t involve the police, if you don’t issue edicts about how many of your relatives or neighbours you can visit, and just ask people to be careful? Might that work? The Swedish experiment casts huge doubts on the models, and makes the case for trusting the public.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-we-trust-covid-modelling-more-evidence-from-sweden

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Opinion

When will our leaders wake up to reality? – The Conservative Woman

  • COVID-19 is about as deadly as flu, averaging between 0.1 and 0.8 per cent death rate.
  • The general population under 65 with no pre-existing conditions are more likely to die in a road accident.
  • Infections peaked and began to decline in many places including the UK before lockdown began
  • Social distancing shows no consistent relationship to the slowdown of infections in cities around the world?
  • Studies show that people confined to their homes may be as at much risk as those out and about.
  • ‘R number’ rise happened in the middle of lockdown and probably linked to ongoing spreading in hospitals and care homes.
  • Shutting down the world economy may result in of the order of 1,157,000 additional child deaths and 56,700 additional maternal deaths in low- and middle-income countries.
  • Former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption: “The lockdown is now all about protecting politicians’ backs. They are not wicked men, just timid ones, terrified of being blamed for deaths on their watch. But it is a wicked thing that they are doing.”
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News

How the coronavirus death toll compares to other pandemics, including SARS, HIV, and the Black Death – Business Insider

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-deaths-how-pandemic-compares-to-other-deadly-outbreaks-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

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Opinion

Europe’s COVID19 Excess Deaths plateau at 15% more than 17/18 Flu – Professor Michael Levitt

Professor Michael Levitt, Stanford Prof. of Biophysics, Cambridge PhD and DSc, 2013 Chemistry Nobel Laureate (complex systems), says that Europe’s COVID19 Excess Deaths plateau at 153,006, 15% more than 17/18 Flu with same age range counts.

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Opinion

We should be very wary of the R value – UnHerd

A rise in the Covid-19 infection rate actually means that lockdown is working

Categories
Publications

“Staggering number” of extra deaths in community is not explained by covid-19 – BMJ

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.”

https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1931

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News

Under-40s make up less than one per cent of coronavirus deaths in England – The Sun

FEWER than one per cent of Covid-19 deaths in England’s hospitals has been among people under the age of 40, NHS data reveals.

Just 11 people below the age of 20 have been killed by the bug out of 22,049 confirmed fatalities. And there have been only 155 deaths in the 20 to 39 age bracket — with many of those tragedies coming among people with underlying health conditions.

That equates to just 0.75 per cent of hospital fatalities within the under-40s. Conversely, 52 per cent of those whose deaths are tied to coronavirus have been in the over-80s.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11566129/under-40s-less-1-percent-coonavir

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Videos

Chris Whitty effectively explains why lockdown is a waste of time

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News

More people dying at home during Covid-19 pandemic – UK analysis – The Guardian

About 8,000 more people have died in their own homes since the start of the coronavirus pandemic than in normal times, a Guardian analysis has found, as concerns grow over the number avoiding going to hospital.

Of that total, 80% died of conditions unrelated to Covid-19, according to their death certificates. Doctors’ leaders have warned that fears and deprioritisation of non-coronavirus patients are taking a deadly toll.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/08/more-people-dying-at-home-during-covid-19-pandemic-uk-analysis