Categories
Publications

Did lockdowns work? The verdict on Covid restrictions – Institute of Economic Affairs

The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the effect of lockdowns, also referred to as ‘Covid restrictions’, ‘social distancing measures’ etc., on COVID-19 mortality based on available empirical evidence. We define lockdowns as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). We employ a systematic search and screening procedure in which 19,646 studies are identified that could potentially address the purpose of our study. After three levels of screening, 32 studies qualified. Of those, estimates from 22 studies could be converted to standardised measures for inclusion in the metaanalysis.

https://iea.org.uk/publications/did-lockdowns-work-the-verdict-on-covid-restrictions/

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Publications

Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses – Cochrane Library

There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory‐confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under‐investigated.

https://archive.today/2023.01.31-212459/https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

Categories
News

Massive spike in excess deaths sparks calls for an ‘urgent investigation’: Nearly 3,000 more Brits than usual are dying each week – Daily Mail

MPs have called for an urgent investigation into Britain’s soaring death rates as thousands more people than usual are dying each week.

Some 17,381 deaths were registered in England and Wales in the seven days to January 13 – 2,837 above average for the time of year.

This is the highest number of excess deaths since 3,429 in the week to February 12, 2021, when the UK was experiencing its second wave of Covid-19 infections and vaccination had only just begun.

On that occasion, deaths involving coronavirus accounted for 37 per cent of all those registered, according to the Office for National Statistics.

https://archive.today/2023.01.24-173156/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11671587/Massive-spike-excess-deaths-sparks-calls-urgent-investigation.html

Categories
Videos

UK excess deaths increase – Dr. John Campbell

  • UK shows an alarming increase in non-Covid related excess deaths.
  • This is consistent with data from November 2022.
  • This merits an official government response.
  • Data shows there are more infections but fewer cases are symptomatic, which is good news.
  • Infections are high but hospitalisations are not high.
  • Deaths due to Covid are not increasing. It’s the non-Covid deaths that are increasing.
  • Previous infections reduce the likelihood of getting re-infected.
  • Protection from the vaccine against re-infection only lasts 10-11 weeks, which is not very long.
  • Most people admitted to hospital as incidental infections (not admitted for Covid).
  • We’re not seeing many deaths in younger age groups.
  • Other than age, obesity is the biggest risk factor of dying from Covid.
  • It is strange that the government is not talking about these excess deaths which would constitute a public health emergency.
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News

Wot’s in the shots? – The Spectator

So is there graphene oxide in the Pfizer shots? What Nixon found, and filmed, is bizarre to say the least. Inside a droplet of vaccine are strange mechanical structures. They seem motionless at first but when Nixon used time-lapse photography to condense 48 hours of footage into two minutes, it showed what appear to be mechanical arms assembling and disassembling glowing rectangular structures that look like circuitry and micro chips. These are not ‘manufactured products’ in the CDC’s words because they construct and deconstruct themselves but the formation of the crystals seems to be stimulated by electromagnetic radiation and stops when the slide with the vaccine is shielded by a Faraday bag. Nixon’s findings are similar to those of teams in New Zealand, Germany, Spain and South Korea.

…Nixon has shared his findings with Wendy Hoy, professor of medicine at the University of Queensland who has called on the Australian government and its health authorities to explain the apparent spontaneous formation of chips and circuitry in mRNA vaccines when left at room temperature, and the abnormal objects that can be seen in the blood of vaccinated people. Hoy thinks that these are ‘undoubtedly contributing to poor oxygen delivery to tissues and clotting events, including heart attacks and strokes’ and asks why there is no systematic autopsy investigation of deaths to investigate the role of the vaccine in Australia’s dramatic rise in mortality.

http://archive.today/2022.11.06-144656/https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/11/wots-in-the-shots/

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Publications

Controlled studies ease worries of widespread long Covid in kids – STAT

These studies indicate that long Covid in children is rare and, when it does occur, is short-lived. In one study, 97% of children ages 5 to 11 with Covid-19 recovered completely within four weeks. In the small group that had bothersome symptoms after four weeks (usually loss of smell or fatigue), most had fully recovered by eight weeks.

http://archive.today/2022.02.15-210719/https://www.statnews.com/2022/02/14/controlled-studies-ease-worries-widespread-long-covid-kids/

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News

Number of Covid patients in ICUs plummets – The Sunday Times

A report from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre suggests a collapse in the number of patients becoming very unwell. It put the number of admissions to ICU of patients with Covid at 19 on January 23. About 400 people were being admitted daily at the peak of the second wave in January last year.

http://archive.today/2022.02.06-053528/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/number-of-covid-patients-in-icus-plummets-rvkbl3qh2

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News

Warring scientists fight on as Omicron retreats – The Sunday Times

“There are some scientists who have absolutely loved being media stars for the first time and they don’t want to stop. We don’t hear as much from the paediatricians, disease physicians, academic virologists and the immunologists who really know about these things.” (says Professor Allyson Pollock.)

Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said many prominent Covid voices have never written papers on infectious diseases. “It’s like me deciding, ‘I did a course on health and economics a year ago: maybe I should set up a group advising the chancellor on how to manage the tax system.’”

http://archive.today/2022.01.23-170611/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/warring-scientists-fight-on-as-omicron-retreats-hq2dz6kjd

Categories
Publications

COVID-19 total deaths – weekly summaries All data up to 4pm 19 January 2022 – NHS

Commentary from Paul Embery of UnHerd:

Fresh NHS data shows that the total number of covid-related deaths in hospitals in England involving patients under the age of 80 and with no pre-existing condition is 3,037. This covers the entire period of the pandemic.

Screenshot with comment of Table 3 – Deaths by Condition

https://england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-20-January-2022-weekly-file.xlsx

Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220122113121/https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-20-January-2022-weekly-file.xlsx

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Publications

COVID-19 deaths and autopsies Feb 2020 to Dec 2021 – Office for National Statistics

An Office for National Statistics FOI request revealed 6,183 deaths recorded where COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate, between 1 February 2020 to 31 December 2021.

You asked

Please supply deaths caused solely by covid 19, where covid is the only cause of death listed on the death certificate, broken down by age group and gender between feb 2020 up to and including dec 2021.

Please supply the number of autopsies carried out on those where covid was the only cause stated.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

We have provided analysis on COVID-19 as the only cause of death by age and sex in England and Wales for your requested time period.

Table 1: Number of deaths where COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate, 1 February 2020 to 31 December 2021, by sex and age group, England and Wales
Age groupMalesFemales
<110
1-400
5-900
10-1401
15-1910
20-2441
25-29123
30-34247
35-394215
40-445224
45-498743
50-5413852
55-5923492
60-64254102
65-69279119
70-74357204
75-79395252
80-84492402
85-89470533
90+520971

http://archive.today/2022.01.18-223112/https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/covid19deathsandautopsiesfeb2020todec2021

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Publications

Deaths from COVID-19 with no other underlying causes – Office for National Statistics

You asked
Please can you advise on deaths purely from covid with no other underlying causes.

We said
Thank you for your request.

…Please see below for death registrations for 2020 and 2021 (provisional) that were due to COVID-19 and were recorded without any pre-existing conditions, England and Wales.

2020: 9400 (0-64: 1549 / 65 and over: 7851)

2021 Q1: 6483 (0-64: 1560/ 65 and over: 4923)

2021 Q2: 346 (0-64: 153/ 65 and over: 193)

2021 Q3: 1142 (0-64: 512/ 65 and over: 630)

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/deathsfromcovid19withnootherunderlyingcauses

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News

England and Wales records more than 70,000 excess deaths in private homes since start of COVID-19 pandemic – Sky News

New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have revealed the number of people dying in their homes has risen dramatically over the last 18 months.

At least 70,602 excess deaths in homes were registered between 7 March, 2020 and 17 September, 2021 across England and Wales.

However, only 8,423 (12%) of these deaths involved COVID-19, according to PA news agency analysis of data from the ONS.

http://archive.today/2021.10.01-172526/https://news.sky.com/story/england-and-wales-records-more-than-70-000-excess-deaths-in-private-homes-since-start-of-covid-19-pandemic-12420482

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News

Israel is now the world’s Covid hotspot: Cases soar despite country’s trail-blazing vaccine roll-out – sparking fears other highly-vaccinated countries will be hit by another wave due to jabs’ waning immunity – Daily Mail

Israel has become the Covid capital of the world just months after leading the charge on vaccines, according to data that shows jab protection is waning. Stats compiled by an Oxford University-based research platform show Israel recorded 1,892 cases per million people on Wednesday — nearly 0.2 per cent of the entire population in a single day. That was significantly higher than second worst-hit Mongolia where the rate was 1,119 per million and double the figures for Kosovo (980), Georgia (976) and Montenegro (909), which rounded out the top five

http://archive.today/2021.09.02-232457/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9951117/Israel-worlds-Covid-hotspot-0-2-population-catching-yesterday.html

Categories
Publications

Deaths in Children and Young People in England following SARS-CoV-2 infection during the first pandemic year: a national study using linked mandatory child death reporting data – Research Square

25 CYP died of SARS-CoV-2 during the first pandemic year in England, equivalent to an infection fatality rate of 5 per 100,000 and a mortality rate of 2 per million. Most had an underlying comorbidity, particularly neurodisability and life-limiting conditions. The CYP who died were mainly >10 years and of Asian and Black ethnicity, compared to other causes of the death, but their absolute risk of death was still extremely low. 

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-689684/v1

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News

Hospital admissions per year in England 2006-2021 – The Blogmire

Hospital admissions [in England] were down by 6.7 million (39%) on the year before, when we didn’t have a deadly pandemic.

Source: The Blogmore, 15 June 2021
Categories
Opinion

The ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ horror shows we need to get out of lockdown to get back our humanity – The Telegraph

How many more patients were left to die as a result of this hidden prejudice? Office for National Statistics figures from last year show nearly six in 10 who died with coronavirus in England were disabled. These vulnerable people’s families have a right to know whether their beloved relatives were sacrificed on the altar of NHS capacity and so do we.

For if they were effectively regarded as “collateral damage” during a national emergency, what does it say about the treatment of patients with learning disabilities or mental illness, in general?

The pressure of the pandemic has clearly been used as an excuse to explain away some of these decisions – but there can surely be no justification for refusing to resuscitate otherwise physically healthy patients, regardless of the state of their mental faculties. And in a world when everyone seems to be banging on about discrimination of one kind or another, where is the clarion call for equality for disabled people seemingly being treated like second class citizens in a health service that is supposed to care unequivocally for all?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/11/do-not-resuscitate-horror-shows-need-get-lockdown-get-back-humanity/

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News

People with mental illness and learning disabilities given ‘do not resuscitate’ orders during pandemic – The Telegraph

Patients with mental illness and learning disabilities were given “do not resuscitate” orders during the pandemic, The Telegraph can disclose.

Families, carers and doctors have said that medics decided that patients with these conditions should not be resuscitated if their heart stopped – a decision which in one case appears to have led to the patient’s death.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/09/patients-mental-illness-learning-disabilities-given-do-not-resuscitate/

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News

Death rate in England is lowest since records began – The Telegraph

Just 851.2 people per 100,000 died last month – the lowest figure since the ONS started recording mortality rates in 2001. At the height of the first wave of the Covid pandemic last April, death rates were 1,859 per 100,000.

The latest figures show that 38,899 people died in April – 6.1 per cent fewer than the five-year average.

Just 2.4 per cent of all deaths mentioned Covid on the death certificate, a 77.6 per cent decrease from March and the largest month-on-month decline since the pandemic began.

The new data provide more evidence that the NHS is in little danger of being overwhelmed in the near future, with deaths from most causes lower than normal. Covid is now the ninth most common cause of death in England and Wales, behind conditions including heart disease, dementia, several cancers and influenza.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/20/death-rate-england-lowest-since-records-began/

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News

Wales to launch pilot universal basic income scheme – The Guardian

A pilot universal basic income (UBI) scheme is to be launched in Wales, the first minister, Mark Drakeford, has revealed.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/14/wales-to-launch-universal-basic-income-pilot-scheme

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News

SAGE admits risk of catching Covid in a pub or restaurant is ‘relatively low’ with just 226 outbreaks in them since pandemic began – despite England’s hospitality sector being shut for another three weeks – Dail Mail

The risk of catching coronavirus in a pub or restaurant is ‘relatively low’, the Government’s scientific advisers have admitted.

Analysis by SAGE found the chance of contracting the virus in hospitality settings appeared slightly higher than in gyms or shops, but concluded the risk was still small.

…SAGE found there had been just 226 outbreaks in pubs and restaurants in England since the pandemic began, despite the sector being heavily penalised throughout the Government’s Covid response.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9530225/SAGE-admits-risk-catching-Covid-pub-restaurant-relatively-low.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK