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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

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Publications

Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards? – MPDI

Many countries introduced the requirement to wear masks in public spaces for containing SARS-CoV-2 making it commonplace in 2020. Up until now, there has been no comprehensive investigation as to the adverse health effects masks can cause. The aim was to find, test, evaluate and compile scientifically proven related side effects of wearing masks. For a quantitative evaluation, 44 mostly experimental studies were referenced, and for a substantive evaluation, 65 publications were found. The literature revealed relevant adverse effects of masks in numerous disciplines. In this paper, we refer to the psychological and physical deterioration as well as multiple symptoms described because of their consistent, recurrent and uniform presentation from different disciplines as a Mask-Induced Exhaustion Syndrome (MIES). We objectified evaluation evidenced changes in respiratory physiology of mask wearers with significant correlation of O2 drop and fatigue (p < 0.05), a clustered co-occurrence of respiratory impairment and O2 drop (67%), N95 mask and CO2 rise (82%), N95 mask and O2 drop (72%), N95 mask and headache (60%), respiratory impairment and temperature rise (88%), but also temperature rise and moisture (100%) under the masks. Extended mask-wearing by the general population could lead to relevant effects and consequences in many medical fields.

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4344/htm

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Opinion

My darkest predictions have come true… the effects of Covid lockdowns are catastrophic – Dr. John Lee, Daily Mail

One year on from the start of the first lockdown, the brutal price of this drastic policy is all too obvious. Amid battered public finances, rising unemployment and widespread business failures, entire sectors of the economy have been devastated.

…Indeed, the average age of Covid fatalities is over 82, higher than the UK’s average age of death from all causes. And among those who contract the disease, just two in 1,000 (or fewer) actually die.

…But, while every death is a tragedy for bereaved families, 7 per cent above average does not strike me as a particularly shocking figure, especially since some of those deaths were caused by lockdowns themselves.

…In fact, there is no authoritative research that reveals a clear correlation between the severity of lockdowns and the avoidance of viral peaks.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9386953/DR-JOHN-LEE-darkest-predictions-come-true-effects-lockdowns-catastrophic.html

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Publications

The QCovid risk calculator – Oxford University

QCovid is an evidence-based model that uses a range of factors such as age, sex, ethnicity and existing medical conditions to predict risk of death or hospitalisation from COVID-19.

It provides nuanced information on people’s risk of serious illness due to COVID-19 and has the potential to help patients and doctors reach a shared understanding of risk.

It is a ‘living’ risk prediction model which will be updated regularly as our understanding of COVID-19 increases and more data become available.

The risk calculator can be found at the link below. You will be asked to accept the license terms but it does not ask for any personally identifiable information.

https://qcovid.org/Calculation

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News

School attendance has ‘minimal impact on serious Covid-19 infection’ – ITV News

Adults who lived with children during the pandemic’s second wave were only slightly more at risk of Covid-19 than those who lived without them, suggesting school attendance has minimal impact on infection rates, a new study has found.

While there was a small increased risk of infection and hospitalisation for those aged 65 and under who lived with school-aged children between September and December last year, they were no more likely to be admitted to intensive care or die than those who lived without children.

The peer-reviewed study, published in the British Medical Journal, found no evidence of a noticeably increased risk of infection during the first wave in the UK between February and August, compared to those adults who do not live with children.

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-03-19/school-attendance-has-minimal-impact-on-serious-covid-19-infection

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Publications

Outcome Reporting Bias in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trials – NCBI

Abstract
Relative risk reduction and absolute risk reduction measures in the evaluation of clinical trial data are poorly understood by health professionals and the public. The absence of reported absolute risk reduction in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials can lead to outcome reporting bias that affects the interpretation of vaccine efficacy. The present article uses clinical epidemiologic tools to critically appraise reports of efficacy in Pfzier/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine clinical trials. Based on data reported by the manufacturer for Pfzier/BioNTech vaccine BNT162b2, this critical appraisal shows: relative risk reduction, 95.1%; 95% CI, 90.0% to 97.6%; p = 0.016; absolute risk reduction, 0.7%; 95% CI, 0.59% to 0.83%; p < 0.000. For the Moderna vaccine mRNA-1273, the appraisal shows: relative risk reduction, 94.1%; 95% CI, 89.1% to 96.8%; p = 0.004; absolute risk reduction, 1.1%; 95% CI, 0.97% to 1.32%; p < 0.000. Unreported absolute risk reduction measures of 0.7% and 1.1% for the Pfzier/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, respectively, are very much lower than the reported relative risk reduction measures. Reporting absolute risk reduction measures is essential to prevent outcome reporting bias in evaluation of COVID-19 vaccine efficacy.

Conclusions
A critical appraisal of phase III clinical trial data for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine BNT162b2 and Moderna vaccine mRNA-1273 shows that absolute risk reduction measures are very much lower than the reported relative risk reduction measures. Yet, the manufacturers failed to report absolute risk reduction measures in publicly released documents. As well, the U.S FDA Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) did not follow FDA published guidelines for communicating risks and benefits to the public, and the committee failed to report absolute risk reduction measures in authorizing the BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 vaccines for emergency use. Such examples of outcome reporting bias mislead and distort the public’s interpretation of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine efficacy and violate the ethical and legal obligations of informed consent.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996517/

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Publications

Closing schools is not evidence based and harms children – BMJ

Some 8.8 million schoolchildren in the UK have experienced severe disruption to their education, with prolonged school closures and national exams cancelled for two consecutive years. School closures have been implemented internationally1 with insufficient evidence for their role in minimising covid-19 transmission and insufficient consideration of the harms to children.

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n521

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Videos

The number of people dying today is the same as it would be any other year’ – Prof. Anthony Brookes, talkRADIO

  • The vaccine reduces symptoms; may prevent infection but this has not been proven.
  • Mass testing is not the way out and could be very problematic.
  • Around 1% of the population are infected and probably have no symptoms.
  • If you are under 65, there is less risk than the regular flu.
  • The number of people dying is the same as any other year.
  • People of dying of respiratory diseases is about the same.
  • Covid deaths will continue to go up.
  • Hospitals are less full because they’ve increased their capacity; they’re not struggling to cope.
  • Prevalence for the virus has plateaued.
  • We should continue to be careful but COVID-19 is ‘not a major player’
Categories
Opinion Videos

Covid experts: there is another way – UnHerd

  • Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.
  • Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.
  • We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young.
  • COVID-19 is less dangerous for children than many other harms, including influenza.
  • All populations will eventually reach herd immunity.
  • Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.
  • Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19.
  • Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal.
  • Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold.
  • Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home.
  • Restaurants and other businesses should open.
  • Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume.

https://unherd.com/2020/10/covid-experts-there-is-another-way/

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Publications

Masks, false safety and real dangers, Part 1: Friable mask particulate and lung vulnerability – ResearchGate

There is no biological history of mass masking until the current era. It is important to consider possible outcomes of this society-wide experiment. The consequences to the health of individuals is as yet unknown. Masked individuals have measurably higher inspiratory flow than non-masked individuals. This study is of new masks removed from manufacturer packaging, as well as a laundered cloth mask, examined microscopically. Loose particulate was seen on each type of mask. Also, tight and loose fibers were seen on each type of mask. If every foreign particle and every fiber in every facemask is always secure and not detachable by airflow, then there should be no risk of inhalation of such particles and fibers. However, if even a small portion of mask fibers is detachable by inspiratory airflow, or if there is debris in mask manufacture or packaging or handling, then there is the possibility of not only entry of foreign material to the airways, but also entry to deep lung tissue, and potential pathological consequences of foreign bodies in the lungs.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344360277_Masks_false_safety_and_real_dangers_Part_1_Friable_mask_particulate_and_lung_vulnerability

Categories
Opinion

This second wave of coronavirus is simply not as deadly… if we panic, so many more lives will be lost, says PROFESSOR KAROL SIKORA – Daily Mail

Britain is now in grave danger of sleepwalking into a second national lockdown. The consequences of doing so would be disastrous.

We find ourselves in this wretched position partly because the Government’s main achievement since the pandemic first emerged in China has not been suppressing the virus or saving lives or the economy, but in spreading irrational fear.

  • A blanket lockdown is the last thing we should be contemplating if we are serious about the nation’s mental and physical well-being.
  • This second wave will not trigger the explosion in deaths we saw in the spring.
  • Not a single young child has died in the UK from Covid without some other serious pre-existing condition.
  • According to Cambridge statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter, anyone under 50 is more likely to die in a car crash than from the virus.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8748883/This-second-wave-coronavirus-simply-not-deadly-says-PROFESSOR-KAROL-SIKORA.html

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News Opinion

‘Australians must know the truth – this virus is not a pandemic’: Alan Jones, Sky News Australia

Sky News host Alan Jones says he has warned time and time again the political leaders who are the architects of this coronavirus response will not be able to escape the criticism that is now finding its way into the public place. It comes as an economist in the Victorian Department of Finance and Treasury, Sanjeev Sabhlok, on Wednesday penned an article in the Australian Financial Review announcing his resignation from his position.

  • Policies are a sledgehammer to kill a swarm of flies.
  • The Spanish Flu killed killed at least 50 million out of 1.8 billion people out of worldwide.
  • To compare with Spanish Flu, COVID-19 would need to kill 210 million people. It has only killed 0.9 million.
  • 60 million people worldwide normally die each year.
  • There are strong scientific arguments against lockdown.
  • The data was clear from February that the elderly should be protected but this wasn’t done.
  • Epidemiological models have badly exaggerated the risk.
  • There was never any reason to mandate measures such as face masks.
  • COVID-19 is no worse than the Asian Flu.
  • Lockdowns cannot eradicate the virus.

https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6191311935001

Categories
Publications

Use of “normal” risk to improve understanding of dangers of covid-19 – BMJ

Accumulating data on deaths from covid-19 show an association with age that closely matches the “normal” risk we all face. Explaining risk in this way could help people understand and manage their response, says David Spiegelhalter

As covid-19 turns from a societal threat into a matter of risk management, it is vital that the associated risks are understood and clearly communicated.1 But these risks vary hugely between people, and so finding appropriate analogues is a challenge. Although covid-19 is a complex multisystem disease that can cause prolonged illness, here I focus solely on the risks of dying from covid-19 and explore the use of “normal” risk—the risk of death from all causes each year—as an aid to transparent communication.

  • General population: the risk of catching and then dying from covid-19 during 16 weeks of the pandemic was equivalent to experiencing around 5 weeks extra “normal” risk for those over 55, decreasing steadily with age, to just 2 extra days for schoolchildren
  • Over 55 who are infected with covid-19: additional risk of dying is slightly more than the “normal” risk of death from all other causes over one year, and less for under 55s.

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3259

Categories
News Opinion

Children are at more risk from flu or car accidents – Dr. Jenny Harries, BBC, Sky News

According to Dr. Jenny Harries, England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, the evidence shows:

  • The vast majority of children, even those deemed to be in the vulnerable category, do not have severe outcomes from COVID-19.
  • The risk child dying in a road traffic accident or from flu “is probably higher than their risk from COVID-19”.
Categories
News

The Case for a Coronavirus-Vaccine Bond – The New Yorker

Drugs are a risky business and, for equity investors hoping to eventually share in the profits, each stage of development presents an escalated risk. Lo reasoned that substantially lowering the risks, even if it meant correspondingly lowering the rewards, could attract investment instead from ordinary bond markets—that is, from managers of pension funds, university endowments, and sovereign-wealth funds, who control a great deal of money and generally invest in low-risk, low-return assets. 

Given how uncertain vaccine markets are, the paper notes, governments (“public-sector interventions,” and so forth), would need to guarantee a vaccine bond by committing in advance to purchase and stockpile vaccines. The paper’s most creative suggestion is for a subscription model, a kind of vaccine Netflix, where governments would pay an annual fee to a new international-development fund, one that could perhaps be managed by the G7. The fund could float a bond to both advance vaccine biotechs and to make market commitments to Big Pharma. The virus, the markets, and the science are global.

…it would be much better for the government to say that the money is not from taxpayers. “We’re borrowing it from the rest of the world. And if and when you succeed, or any of the other hundred and fifty projects—that could have been funded, but aren’t being funded right now—succeeds, all the bond holders will get paid. That would be great. Everybody earns a return.”

http://archive.today/2020.08.15-143205/https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-case-for-a-coronavirus-vaccine-bond

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News

Under 40s ‘more likely to die from a road accident than coronavirus’ – Metro

People under 50 are more likely to die suddenly because of an accident or injury than from coronavirus, a leading risk expert has said. Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter said people under 25 are more likely to die from flu or pneumonia, while under 40s have a greater risk of being killed in a road accident. The Cambridge University professor looked at the average risk for different age groups dying after contracting Covid-19 and compared it with the most recent yearly data from 2018.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/23/40s-likely-die-road-accident-coronavirus-12893218/

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Opinion

Have the protests proved that Covid-19 risks are being vastly exaggerated? – The Spectator

By now, we ought to be seeing some evidence of increasing Covid-19 cases from the mass protests. The fact we are not raises very serious doubts about the coronavirus lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, many of which are still ongoing.

…The third explanatory hypothesis is that we have vastly overestimated certain risks from Covid-19, limiting fundamental civil liberties of law-abiding citizens and getting it wrong. It finally took unsanctioned mass protests to prove this point.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-haven-t-we-seen-a-post-protest-covid-spike-

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News

School age children more likely to be hit by lightning than die of coronavirus, analysis finds – The Telegraph

School children under the age of 15 are more likely to be hit by lightning than die from coronavirus, new figures suggest, amid mounting pressure for the government to get more to get pupils back into classrooms as quickly as possible.

Scientists from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford have called for “rational debate” based on the “tiny” risk to children and have suggested that if no vaccine is found in the future then it may be better for younger people to continue with their lives, while shielding the more vulnerable.

It comes as the government was accused of “losing the plot” after Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, scrapped the Government’s target of getting all primary school pupils back in the classroom before the summer holidays

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Publications

Increased Risk of Noninfluenza Respiratory Virus Infections Associated With Receipt of Inactivated Influenza Vaccine – NCBI

We randomized 115 children to trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) or placebo. Over the following 9 months, TIV recipients had an increased risk of virologically-confirmed non-influenza infections (relative risk: 4.40; 95% confidence interval: 1.31-14.8). Being protected against influenza, TIV recipients may lack temporary non-specific immunity that protected against other respiratory viruses.

In the prepandemic period of our study, we did not observe a statistically significant reduction in confirmed seasonal influenza virus infections in the TIV recipients (Table 3), although serological evidence (Supplementary Appendix) and point estimates of vaccine efficacy based on confirmed infections were consistent with protection of TIV recipients against the seasonal influenza viruses that circulated from January through March 2009 [16]. We identified a statistically significant increased risk of noninfluenza respiratory virus infection among TIV recipients (Table 3), including significant increases in the risk of rhinovirus and coxsackie/echovirus infection, which were most frequently detected in March 2009, immediately after the peak in seasonal influenza activity in February 2009 (Figure 1).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404712/

Categories
News

2 babies die, dozens hospitalized after vaccination in southern Mexico – CNN

Mexican health officials are investigating after two babies died and 29 children were hospitalized from suspected adverse reactions to shots from the country’s national vaccination program.

Six of the children hospitalized in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas remain in serious condition, the Mexican Social Security Institute said on Sunday.

The illnesses were reported after 52 children from the rural mining community of La Pimienta were given vaccines Friday for tuberculosis, rotavirus and Hepatitis B, the institute said. Later that night, 31 of the children “presented adverse reactions presumably associated with the application of these vaccines,” officials said. Two of the children later died.

https://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/10/health/mexico-vaccine-deaths/index.html