Despite the success of the vaccine programme, which will see all vulnerable people protected against Covid-19 in a month, it seems lockdown will largely continue until July.
Restaurants and churches possibly still closed. Travel impossible. Families forbidden to mingle indoors. The Treasury still borrowing billions to keep people on furlough. This is draining the health of our population and our economy.
Anyone would be justified in demanding to know what the past year’s sacrifices have been for, if not to end lockdown as soon as possible.
How can the Government fail to set free the country — particularly after the stellar vaccination campaign?
Social Distancing
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Scientists are trying to work out why coronavirus cases in India are falling when at one point it looked like the country might overtake the US as the worst-hit nation.
In September the country was reporting some 100,00 new cases per day, but that went into decline in October and is now sitting at around 10,000 per day – leaving experts struggling to explain why.
While the Indian government has been keen to put the apparent success down to its mask-wearing and social distancing laws, few believe these measures alone are responsible for the dip.
Instead, experts believe it may be down to the fact that India’s largest cities have reached herd immunity, meaning the virus has moved to rural areas where it spreads slower and where cases and deaths are far less likely to be tested and logged.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/kensington/w8-7/minute-weather-forecast/323272
Trapped in lockdown between the two extremes of Coronavirus deniers and lockdown orthodoxy, Nye is intrigued by Sweden’s approach: no lockdown, no school closures, no masks. She manages to secure an exclusive interview with Chief Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, whose steely resolve not to buckle under world mainstream media pressure means – among other things, tango dancing is allowed in Stockholm!
Claudia Nye is a BAFTA nominated filmmaker. Brought back to documentaries for the sake of the future of her children, Nye travels from UK to Sweden to learn about their unique Covid-19 strategy.
She is also a qualified Relationship Counsellor, which she’s been practicing over the past ten years. She travelled to Stockholm with photo-journalist Sean Spencer and together they made this documentary
Video mirrors:
According to the most recently peer-reviewed paper on Covid-19, how many people who get the virus do you think survive? Go on, take a wild guess. Eighty percent? Ninety percent? Ninety-five percent? Nope. Precisely 99.8 percent live to see another day. Under-70s have an even higher survival rate – 99.96. Put another way, they have a 0.04 chance of dying; less than half of half a per cent.
And many of those are already seriously or even terminally ill from other conditions.
The Office for National Statistics said this week that far from a “second wave”, figures show all UK deaths are currently just 1.5 percent above average, and on a normal trajectory for early autumn.
[Hospital admissions] stubbornly bump along near the bottom of the chart.The co-relationship between diagnosis and death has radically changed in the last six months as treatments dramatically improve.
How important were the economic lockdowns in the spring of 2020 in curbing the COVID-19 pandemic and how important was lockdown as compared to voluntary changes in behavior? In the spring, the overall social response to the COVID-19 pandemic consisted of a mix of voluntary and government mandated behavioral changes. Voluntary behavioral changes occurred on the basis of information, such as the number of people infected and the number of COVID-19-deaths, and on the basis of the signal value associated with the official lockdown combined with appeals to the population to change its behavior. Mandated behavioral changes took place as a result of the banning of certain activities deemed non-essential. Studies which differentiate between the two types of behavioral change find that, on average, mandated behavioral changes accounts for only 9% (median: 0%) of the total effect on the growth of the pandemic stemming from behavioral changes. The remaining 91% (median: 100%) of the effect was due to voluntary behavioral changes. This is excluding the effect of curfew and facemasks, which were not employed in all countries.
A study evaluating COVID-19 responses around the world found that mandatory lockdown orders early in the pandemic may not provide significantly more benefits to slowing the spread of the disease than other voluntary measures, such as social distancing or travel reduction.
Background and Aims
The most restrictive non‐pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for controlling the spread of COVID‐19 are mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closures. Given the consequences of these policies, it is important to assess their effects. We evaluate the effects on epidemic case growth of more restrictive NPIs (mrNPIs), above and beyond those of less restrictive NPIs (lrNPIs).
Methods
We first estimate COVID‐19 case growth in relation to any NPI implementation in subnational regions of 10 countries: England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the US. Using first‐difference models with fixed effects, we isolate the effects of mrNPIs by subtracting the combined effects of lrNPIs and epidemic dynamics from all NPIs. We use case growth in Sweden and South Korea, two countries that did not implement mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closures, as comparison countries for the other 8 countries (16 total comparisons).
Results
Implementing any NPIs was associated with significant reductions in case growth in 9 out of 10 study countries, including South Korea and Sweden that implemented only lrNPIs (Spain had a non‐significant effect). After subtracting the epidemic and lrNPI effects, we find no clear, significant beneficial effect of mrNPIs on case growth in any country. In France, e.g., the effect of mrNPIs was +7% (95CI ‐5%‐19%) when compared with Sweden, and +13% (‐12%‐38%) when compared with South Korea (positive means pro‐contagion). The 95% confidence intervals excluded 30% declines in all 16 comparisons and 15% declines in 11/16 comparisons.
Conclusions
While small benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs. Similar reductions in case growth may be achievable with less restrictive interventions.
Repeated isolation has chipped away at the progress pupils have made since returning to school in September
The effectiveness of remote education is varied and difficult to determine
Children arriving at secure children’s homes are, in effect, put into solitary confinement
Many children with special education needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are not attending school, are struggling with remote learning and are at risk of abuse or neglect.
Even more schools report at least one child now being home schooled. Many parents doing this say their children will not return to school ‘until pandemic is over’
Results While model 1 found that lockdown was the most effective measure in the original 11 countries, model 2 showed that lockdown had little or no benefit as it was typically introduced at a point when the time-varying reproductive number was already very low. Model 3 found that the simple banning of public events was beneficial, while lockdown had no consistent impact. Based on Bayesian metrics, model 2 was better supported by the data than either model 1 or model 3 for both time horizons.
Conclusions Inferences on effects of NPIs are non-robust and highly sensitive to model specification. Claimed benefits of lockdown appear grossly exaggerated.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.22.20160341v3
To guard against censorship, this is a mirror of the video posted by Leandra Ashton on 5 December.
New guidelines right? We can all see our loved ones if we have a negative test right?
On Dec 2nd my Mum asked for an in-person visit and was told ‘We have no tests’. Don’t worry, replied my Mum, I’ll get one done. The next day, having been tested she emailed a negative test result. This was met with another no: “We’re waiting for vaccinations before visiting can take place”.
The only option? Another inhumane window visit. Today, at the end of her 10 minute ‘visit’, kneeling on concrete by the window trying to connect with my Nan, my Mum raised concerns with the care assistant about how my Nan was looking. This is the response she was greeted with…
When children and teens are overwhelmed with anxiety, depression or thoughts of self-harm, they often wait days in emergency rooms because there aren’t enough psychiatric beds.
The problem has only grown worse during the pandemic, reports from parents and professionals suggest.
With schools closed, routines disrupted and parents anxious over lost income or uncertain futures, children are shouldering new burdens many are unequipped to bear.
There is a case to be made that we as a country have been led by a conversation about the virus which has been unbalanced and disproportionate, writes Daniel McConnell
https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-40081700.html
The harmful consequences of public health choices should be explicitly considered and transparently reported to limit their damage, say Itai Bavli and colleagues
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has posed an unprecedented challenge for governments. Questions regarding the most effective interventions to reduce the spread of the virus—for example, more testing, requirements to wear face masks, and stricter and longer lockdowns—become widely discussed in the popular and scientific press, informed largely by models that aimed to predict the health benefits of proposed interventions. Central to all these studies is recognition that inaction, or delayed action, will put millions of people unnecessarily at risk of serious illness or death.
However, interventions to limit the spread of the coronavirus also carry negative health effects, which have yet to be considered systematically. Despite increasing evidence on the unintended, adverse effects of public health interventions such as social distancing and lockdown measures, there are few signs that policy decisions are being informed by a serious assessment and weighing of their harms on health. Instead, much of the discussion has become politicised, especially in the US, where President Trump’s provocative statements sparked debates along party lines about the necessity for policies to control covid-19. This politicisation, often fuelled by misinformation, has distracted from a much needed dispassionate discussion on the harms and benefits of potential public health measures against covid-19.
Categories
The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
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Author
George Michael
- Credentials: Physics graduate, University College London (UCL); Senior Research Analyst
- Contact: LinkedIn
The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the world at a horrific scale, and people are trying to form their own opinions — rightly so — on topics ranging from disease severity to government policy. However, the general public are not exposed to a consistent flow of reliable information, so many are suffering from fear, confusion, and isolation, exacerbated by extreme differences in opinion on how seriously any aspect of the pandemic should be taken. These are the problems that this report aims to address.
Read the full article on Medium: The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
Interview highlights
- COVID-19 is not a dread disease that will kill everyone.
- The initially high case fatality rate of COVID-19 was because the medical community didn’t know how to treat it.
- The fatality rate of flu is 0.1% (1 in every 1,000 who are infected end up dying).
- Ventilators are the wrong option if you do not have an obstructed airway disease.
- Prod. Ioannidis: The infection fatality ratio of COVID-19 is 0.15%. This is pretty much the same as the flu.
- We should just ask people to be careful but otherwise go about your daily life.
- These things pass every year. This is the first ‘social media pandemic.’
- The normal practice for intensive care beds in the NHS is to run them almost full. This is because a lot of intensive care bed assignment is planned.
- ICU use at the height of the pandemic was has very low because the NHS was run as light as possible to cope with a second wave.
- Respiratory viruses don’t do waves.
- This is not opinion but is basic understanding among experts in the field. It is supposrted by the highest quality science. Sir Patrick Vallance knows this.
- COVID-19 follows the Gompertz Curve.
- You have immunity after your body has fought off a respiratory virus. If that was not the case, you’d be dead. Immunity probably lasts decades based on evidence from other viruses.
- Gompertz Curve is identical in all heavily infection regions.
- Something awefull happened in the middle of the year: PCR swab test.
- It is not true that if you test more people you’ll save more lives. A certain percentage of the test will come up positive even if there’s no virus in you.
- False positive rate wasn’t released.
- Kate Barker wrote in a government document on June 3rd, 2020, to SAGE: test has an unknown false positive rate; based on similar tests it may be between 1%-2%. This is a big deal.
- Based on 1%: for every 1,000 people you test, 10 will come back positive, even if they don’t have the virus. If prevalence is only 0.1% as reported by ONS, only 1 in 1,000 will be genuine. This means 9 in 10–in other words 90%–are false.
- Pillar 2 testing would have caused of the most of the positives to be false.
- 1,700 people die normally every day in the UK. During the summer, only about 10 were dying per day of covid.
- More testing, more false positives. We’ll never escape covid if we keep testing because most of the positives will be false. This is immunology 101. Sir Patrick Vallance would have known this.
- Influenza is a high mutation-rate virus. Coronaviruses are relatively stable so once you’ve recovered, you are probably immune for decades.
- COVID-19 kills 0.15%-0.2%, slightly more lethal than the average flu. Once it’s gone through the population, it won’t come back.
- 99.94% survive COVID-19 and will be resistant for a long time.
- COVID-19 is 80% similar to SARS-COV-1.
- People who were exposed to SARS have T-cell immunity 17 years later. Evidence for COVID-19 all point in direction.
- Our bodies have many lines of defense, including innate immunity and T-cells. Antibodies are in the last line of defense.
- Study shows around 30% prior immunity to SARS-COV-2. It was due to exposure to common-cold coronaviruses.
- The claim made by Sir Patrick Vallance that more than 90% are susceptible is a lie.
- Mass testing of the well populating is the worst problem as it generates false positives, fear and control.
- If you’re immune, you can’t be infected or infectious. Herd immunity is already in play in London.
- If SAGE is correct, London should be ‘ablaze’ with deaths.
- Current testing methods are not forensically sound.
- Tests detect common cold and dead virus.
- SARS-COV-2 has never really been a public health emergency.
- We do not need the vaccine to return to normal. Most people are not in danger from COVID-19. More people are in danger from car crashes and we accept that risk.
- Best case scenario is that the vaccine is 50% effective. Natural immunity might be better.
- The most vulnerable often don’t respond well to vaccines and die anyway.
- SAGE is giving lethally wrong advice.
- The reason the pandemic is not over is because SAGE says it’s not.
Up to mid-March 2020, the Government’s Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) Committee advised against attempting heavy suppression of the spread of what in those days it called the “Wuhan coronavirus”. The minutes of its meeting of March 13 2020 state: “Sage was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak. Sage advises that it is a near certainty that countries such as China, where heavy suppression is underway, will experience a second peak once measures are relaxed.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/14/second-wave-proves-lockdowns-wont-stop-covid/
- Instead of indiscriminate rules, we should be concentrating on protecting the vulnerable.
- The rest should be allowed to get on with normal life and acquire some natural immunity.
- The Government’s policy is founded upon a great lie — that we are all vulnerable to Covid so it is necessary to take over the lives of everyone.
- For healthy people under 60 the symptoms are usually mild or non-existent.
- About 90 per cent of deaths have been of people aged over 70. Most are in their 80s or 90s.
- Infections don’t matter a row of beans unless they lead to hospitalisations or deaths.
- Out of nearly 43,000 dead with Covid-19, just 41 have been under 25.
- What we are seeing now…is the first spike…which has come back to hit us. Just as their advisers told them it would, back in February and March.
- So why are Johnson and his crew doubling down on failure? This is about covering politicians’ backs.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12886627/lord-sumption-government-death-toll-coronavirus-crisis/
- As of October 2020, there are >1 million documented deaths with COVID‐19.
- Many early deaths may have been due to suboptimal management, malfunctional health systems, hydroxychloroquine, sending COVID‐19 patients to nursing homes, and nosocomial infections; such deaths are partially avoidable moving forward.
- About 10% of the global population may be infected by October 2020.
- Global infection fatality rate is 0.15‐0.20%
- Global infection fatality rate in those younger than 70 years old is 0.03‐0.04%.
- Targeted, precise management of the pandemic and avoiding past mistakes would help minimize mortality.
Researchers from Edinburgh University reassessed Imperial modelling that showed half a million people would die.
Blanket social distancing and the closure of schools may have cost more lives than if herd immunity had been allowed to build slowly in the community, a study suggests.