COVID-19

COVID-19 is a disease defined by symptoms and is not a virus. It’s therefore not transmitted nor can you test for it using nasal or throat testing kits. SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that prompted the worldwide pandemic response.

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Opinion

UK Government Vaccine Damage Payment Sheme

  • In July Health Secretary Matt Hancock claimed that conspiracy theorists are putting lives at risk
  • The UK government’s Vaccine Damage Payment scheme is proof that vaccines can be unsafe
  • Eligibility criteria Vaccine Damage Payment changed in 2015
  • Update October 2020: AstraZeneca protected from vaccine liability
  • Update November 2020: MHRA expects high volume of COVID-19 vaccine adverse drug reaction
  • Update December 2020: Pfizer is given protection from legal action by the UK government

Discussion around vaccinations can be very contentious. There’s great nuance in this area and a short post will not do justice to the complex issues surrounding the usefulness and safety of vaccines. Nevertheless, while vaccines may have their role in protecting target populations from disease, not all have been proven safe to an acceptable level as shown in the resources below.

The UK government’s Vaccine Damage Payment scheme is probably the strongest proof that vaccines can be unsafe. Under the Vaccine Damage Payment scheme, people who have been severely disabled as a result of a vaccination against certain diseases can be eligible for a one-off tax-free payment of £120,000.

Conspiracy theorists are putting lives at risk?

It is an objective fact that a compensation scheme exists for those who have been damaged by vaccines. Nevertheless, Health Secretary Matt Hancock claimed that conspiracy theorists are putting lives at risk:

“Those who promulgate lies about dangers of vaccines that are safe and have been approved–they are threatening lives…”

Source: The Independent, 20 July 2020

Clearly, concerns about the safely of vaccines cannot be lies if there is a vaccine damage compensation scheme in place.

Eligibility changed in 2015

Eligibility requirements for vaccines covering certain diseases are listed and change over time. Interestingly, sometime around 2015, damage from vaccines for influenza caused by pandemics are explicitly listed as not eligible.

Source: archive.org

We do not know how the government compiles is eligibility criteria or why this change was made. However, it would be worthwhile to keep an eye on this list to see if the status of the upcoming COVID-19 vaccines.

AstraZeneca protected from vaccine liability

Update 1 August 2020: On 30 July 2020, Reuters reported that AstraZeneca, the UK government’s partner for developing its COVID-19 vaccine, will be exempt from coronavirus vaccine liability claims in most countries. The countries have not been named but Ruud Dobber, a member of Astra’s senior executive team, commented:

“This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in … four years the vaccine is showing side effects.

In the contracts we have in place, we are asking for indemnification. For most countries it is acceptable to take that risk on their shoulders because it is in their national interest.”

MHRA expects high volume of COVID-19 vaccine adverse drug reaction

Update November 2020: It came to light in mid-November that the UK’s Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) put out a contract award notice for an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool. It appears they expect a high volume of COVID-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs) from the upcoming vaccines:

…it is not possible to retrofit the MHRA’s legacy systems to handle the volume of ADRs that will be generated by a Covid-19 vaccine. Therefore, if the MHRA does not implement the AI tool, it will be unable to process these ADRs effectively.

Pfizer given legal indemnity

Update 2 December 2020: According to the Independent, Pfizer now has a legal indemnity from being sued by patients who develop any complications from its new mRNA vaccine that will be rolled out in the UK. NHS staff providing the vaccine will also be protected.

Resources

View all articles related to COVID-19 and vaccination.

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Publications

A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes – The Lancet

Increasing COVID-19 caseloads were associated with countries with higher obesity (adjusted rate ratio [RR]=1.06; 95%CI: 1.01–1.11), median population age (RR=1.10; 95%CI: 1.05–1.15) and longer time to border closures from the first reported case (RR=1.04; 95%CI: 1.01–1.08). Increased mortality per million was significantly associated with higher obesity prevalence (RR=1.12; 95%CI: 1.06–1.19) and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) (RR=1.03; 95%CI: 1.00–1.06). Reduced income dispersion reduced mortality (RR=0.88; 95%CI: 0.83–0.93) and the number of critical cases (RR=0.92; 95% CI: 0.87–0.97). Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people. However, full lockdowns (RR=2.47: 95%CI: 1.08–5.64) and reduced country vulnerability to biological threats (i.e. high scores on the global health security scale for risk environment) (RR=1.55; 95%CI: 1.13–2.12) were significantly associated with increased patient recovery rates.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30208-X/fulltext

Categories
News

Keeping schools open had no impact on contagion, Swedish study suggests – The Telegraph

Shutting down primary schools may have been unnecessary as a Swedish study suggests that keeping them open had no impact on contagion.

There was no measurable difference in the number of coronavirus cases among children in Sweden, where schools were left open, compared with neighboring Finland, where schools were shut, the research showed.

A working paper, published by the Public Health Agency of Sweden and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, compares the two countries’ approach to education during the pandemic.

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News

AstraZeneca to be exempt from coronavirus vaccine liability claims in most countries – Reuters

AstraZeneca has been granted protection from future product liability claims related to its COVID-19 vaccine hopeful by most of the countries with which it has struck supply agreements, a senior executive told Reuters.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-astrazeneca-results-vaccine-liability/astrazeneca-to-be-exempt-from-coronavirus-vaccine-liability-claims-in-most-countries-idUSKCN24V2EN

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News

World Health Organization Hired PR Firm To Identify Celebrity ‘Influencers’ To Amplify Virus Messaging – Daily Caller

The World Health Organization hired a high-powered public relations firm to seek out so-called influencers to help build trust in the organization’s coronavirus response.

WHO paid $135,000 to the firm Hill and Knowlton Strategies, according to documents filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. 

WHO has come under intense scrutiny for amplifying the Chinese government’s false claims about the coronavirus. 

Hill and Knowlton proposed identifying celebrities and other social media users with clout to ‘amplify’ WHO’s messaging about the pandemic.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/17/world-health-organization-coronavirus-celebrity-influencers/

Categories
Opinion

Why vaccines are less effective in the elderly, and what it means for COVID-19 – The Conversation

A critical factor that makes the elderly more susceptible to infectious diseases is what immunologists call “immunosenescence”: the decline in the immune system’s functionality as people age. This is also associated with an increase in the incidence of inflammatory diseases, because an elderly body tends to be in a state of chronic low-grade inflammation. This “inflamm-aging” is one reason why older people have tendencies to develop more severe forms of respiratory diseases.

The key problem with SARS-CoV-2 infection is inflammation in the respiratory tract, which can be exacerbated in individuals predisposed towards potent inflammatory responses.

Immunosenescence also results in diminished responses to vaccination. Indeed, annual flu vaccines are notoriously less effective in the elderly. This phenomenon is very important in the context of the massive efforts and funds being invested worldwide into the ultra-rapid development of vaccines for COVID-19.

The fact that elderly people do not respond well to immunizations has largely been ignored in most discussions of COVID-19 vaccines, despite this being the group in greatest need. Most of the scientific community’s experience with vaccine development for any disease has been focused on vaccinating the relatively young.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200721234031/https://theconversation.com/why-vaccines-are-less-effective-in-the-elderly-and-what-it-means-for-covid-19-141971

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News

England’s test and trace programme ‘breaks GDPR data law’ – BBC

The Department of Health has conceded the initiative to trace contacts of people infected with Covid-19 was launched without carrying out an assessment of its impact on privacy.

The Open Rights Group (ORG) says the admission means the initiative has been unlawful since it began on 28 May.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53466471

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News

Lockdown may cost 200,000 lives, government report shows – The Telegraph

As national restrictions were imposed, experts from the Department of Health, the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the government’s Actuary Department and the Home Office forecast the collateral damage from delays to healthcare and the effects of recession arising from the pandemic response.

It estimated that in a reasonable worst case scenario, around 50,000 people would die from coronavirus in the first six months of the pandemic, with mitigation measures in place.

[T]he report published in April they calculated that up to 25,000 could die from delays to treatment in the same period and a further 185,000 in the medium to long term – amounting to nearly one million years of life lost.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/19/lockdown-may-cost-200k-lives-government-report-shows/

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News

Choirmasters and conductors claim ban on singing in churches is based on “assumptions, not science” – The Telegraph

Britain’s leading choirmasters and conductors have criticised the ban on singing in churches as based on “assumptions, not science” as they urge ministers to reverse the veto. 

http://archive.today/2022.11.19-184421/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/10/choirmasters-conductors-claim-ban-singing-churches-based-assumptions/

Categories
Opinion

The masks u-turn shows it has surrendered its authority to ‘the science’ – Spiked

  • Some experts argued that masks would help slow the infection rate.
  • Others pointed out that improper use of face masks can amplify risks, for instance by acting as a reservoir for virus particles.
  • It seems that today’s mantra of ‘listen to the science’ is not as straightforward as it seems.
  • Claims to wear masks are untested and unchallenged, then elevated to the status of ‘the science’.
  • The hasty assembling of research articles in support of a policy position is not science. This is as likely to be to be dangerously misleading as it is to yield even negligible benefits.
  • Scientific controversy in the 21st century is settled by institutional weight and muscle, not by experiment.
  • The president of the Royal Society wants to have his cake and eat it: he wants the government to defer to institutional science, but not for science to be accountable for this influence.
  • The government, weakened by its capitulations to breakfast TV anchors, politically motivated scientists and scientific institutions, may find itself unable to roll back policies which turn out to do more harm than good.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/16/the-government-has-lost-control/

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Opinion

The Media’s Jihad against Sweden’s No-Lockdown Policy Ignores Key Facts – The Mises Institute

  • Sweden’s total deaths per million in population as of July 14 is 549. That’s considerably lower than the deaths per million rate in the UK, which is 662, and in Spain, which is 608. In Belgium, the death rate is 884.
  • Sweden deaths per million is many times better than the rates found in New Jersey and New York: 1,763 and 1,669.
  • Articles condemning Sweden’s “failure” rarely if ever mention these comparisons.
  • Nonlockdown Sweden has a death rate similar to harsh-lockdown France can only be explained by claiming France didn’t lock down harshly enough or long enough.
  • Two weeks after the WHO’s prediction that Sweden will have a resurgence in COVID-19, both cases and deaths in Sweden continue to trend downward.
  • Thanks to Sweden we know what both lockdown and nonlockdown countries look like: they look remarkably similar in some cases.
  • After all, after failing to implement a lockdown for months, Sweden is still nowhere near matching the death rates reported in New York.

https://mises.org/power-market/medias-jihad-against-swedens-no-lockdown-policy-ignores-key-facts

Categories
News

Coronavirus tests halted over safety fears, as Matt Hancock to make statement – The Telegraph

Coronavirus tests used by the NHS may be unsafe and have been halted, the Government has announced.

The Department of Health said the NHS Test and Trace service had been notified that some test kits produced by Randox Laboratories may not meet required safety standards. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/16/coronavirus-tests-halted-safety-fears-matt-hancock-make-statement/

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News

Revealed – 16 care homes given £1,000 to take Covid-positive hospital patients – Birmingham Mail

  • 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

Categories
News

Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data – CIDRAP, University of Minnesota

  • There is no scientific evidence that masks are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
  • Sweeping mask recommendations will not reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, as evidenced by the widespread practice of wearing such masks in Hubei province, China.
  • Cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control or as PPE.
  • Surgical masks likely have some utility as source control from a symptomatic patient in a healthcare setting to stop the spread of large cough particles and limit the lateral dispersion of cough particles.
  • Surgical masks may also have very limited utility as source control or PPE in households.
  • Authors do not know whether respirators are an effective intervention as source control for the public.
  • A non-fit-tested respirator may not offer any better protection than a surgical mask.
  • Respirators work as PPE only when they are the right size and have been fit-tested to demonstrate they achieve an adequate protection factor. 
  • There is no evidence to support use of cloth masks by the public or healthcare workers to control the emission of particles from the wearer.
  • Wearing surgical masks in households appears to have very little impact on transmission of respiratory disease.
  • There is no evidence that surgical masks worn by healthcare workers are effective at limiting the emission of small particles or in preventing contamination of wounds during surgery.
  • There is moderate evidence that surgical masks worn by patients in healthcare settings can lower the emission of large particles generated during coughing and limited evidence that small particle emission may also be reduced.
  • Data from laboratory studies indicate masks offer very low filter collection efficiency for the smaller particles.
  • The authors were unable to locate any well-performed studies of cloth mask leakage when worn on the face—either inward or outward leakage. 
  • Many references to coverings employ very crude, non-standardized methods or are not relevant to cloth face coverings because they evaluate respirators or surgical masks.
  • The National Academies of Sciences Rapid Expert Consultation on the Effectiveness of Fabric Masks for the COVID-19 Pandemic: “The evidence from…laboratory filtration studies suggests that such fabric masks may reduce the transmission of larger respiratory droplets. There is little evidence regarding the transmission of small aerosolized particulates of the size potentially exhaled by asymptomatic or presymptomatic individuals with COVID-19.”
  • Authors concerned that many people do not understand the very limited degree of protection a cloth mask or face covering likely offers as source control for people located nearby.
  • Cloth masks and face coverings likely do not offer the same degree of protection as physical distancing, isolation, or limiting personal contact time.
  • Transmission is not simply a function of short random interactions between individuals, but rather a function of particle concentration in the air and the time exposed to that concentration.
  • A cloth mask or face covering does very little to prevent the emission or inhalation of small particles. 

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data

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Videos

Corona – The Simple Truth in Under 6 Minutes

https://youtu.be/IRlPPzydSyM

References for the video can be found at the content creator’s website at https://the-iceberg.net

Categories
Publications

Why no-one can ever recover from COVID-19 in England – a statistical anomaly – CEBM

Here, it seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not. PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the COVID test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community. Anyone who has tested COVID positive but subsequently died at a later date of any cause will be included on the PHE COVID death figures.

By this PHE definition, no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness. A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-one-can-ever-recover-from-covid-19-in-england-a-statistical-anomaly/

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Publications

Preventing a covid-19 pandemic – BMJ

A randomized placebo-controlled trial in children showed that flu shots increased fivefold the risk of acute respiratory infections caused by a group of noninfluenza viruses, including coronaviruses. (Cowling et al, Clin Infect Dis 2012;54:1778) From Table 3, vaccine recipients had 20 noninfluenza virus-positive ARIs and 19 virus-negative ARIs; non-recipients had 3 noninfluenza virus-positive ARIs and 14 virus-negative ARIs. These figures yield an odds ratio of 4.91 (CI 1.04 to8.14).

Such an observation may seem counterintuitive, but it is possible that influenza vaccines alter our immune systems non-specifically to increase susceptibility to other infections; this has been observed with DTP and other vaccines. (Benn et al, Trends in Immunology, May 2013) There are other immune mechanisms that might also explain the observation.

https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m810/rr-0

Categories
Opinion

This is what we amputated a limb for – Hector Drummond, The Critic

In reality many of the people who died from Covid-19 were likely to die this year anyway, so in one respect this estimate is likely to be too high. In another respect it’s likely to be too low, as it will not include ‘lockdown deaths’, that is, the deaths from delayed cancer and heart treatments, and so on, but as I was interested in the effect of Covid-19 I didn’t want those in my graph anyway. (Another complication is that not everyone who is classed as a Covid-19 death actually died from it, but I decided to ignore this.)

The five year average for 2015-19 is 531,355 deaths per year. As of writing this there were 42,462 Covid-19 deaths in the UK. There are likely to be a few more deaths in the next few weeks, but not many more, as the disease is (barring an unlikely second wave in winter), on its way out. Besides, the number we are adding on here is for the whole of the UK, not just England and Wales, so if anything this number is inflated. That gives us 573,817 deaths for 2020. Then I got hold of the historical population figures for England and Wales, and calculated the death rates per 1000 from it, so that population increases are taken account of. Here is the result:

https://thecritic.co.uk/this-is-what-we-amputated-a-limb-for/

Categories
Opinion

Evidence-based medicine and COVID-19: what to believe and when to change – BMJ

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge of information being presented to clinicians regarding this novel and deadly disease. There is a clear urgency to collate, review, appraise and act on this information if we are to do the best for clinicians and patients. However, the speed of the pandemic is a threat to traditional models of knowledge translation and practice change. In this concepts paper, we argue that clinicians need to be agile in their thinking and practice in order to find the right time to change. Adoption of new methods should be based on clinical judgement, the weight of evidence and the balance of probabilities that any new technique, test or treatment might work. The pandemic requires all of us to reach a new level of evidence-based medicine characterised by scepticism, thoughtfulness, responsiveness and clinically agility in practice.

https://emj.bmj.com/content/early/2020/07/09/emermed-2020-210098

Categories
Publications

A Study to Evaluate Efficacy, Safety, and Immunogenicity of mRNA-1273 Vaccine in Adults Aged 18 Years and Older to Prevent COVID-19 – ClinicalTrials.org

The mRNA-1273 vaccine is being developed to prevent COVID-19, the disease resulting from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The study is designed to primarily evaluate the efficacy, safety, and immunogenicity of mRNA-1273 to prevent COVID-19 for up to 2 years after the second dose of mRNA-1273.

Actual Study Start Date  :July 27, 2020
Estimated Primary Completion Date  :October 27, 2022
Estimated Study Completion Date  :October 27, 2022

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04470427