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Opinion

Flawed modelling is condemning Britain to lockdown – The Telegraph

As Sarah Knapton has revealed in these pages, the brutal postponement of Freedom Day coincided with the release of a bunch of alarmist models predicting a huge new wave of deaths. The most pessimistic, inevitably from Imperial College, forecast 203,824 deaths over the next year. It did so by assuming just a 77-87 per cent reduction in hospitalisations following two vaccinations, despite the fact that real world data shows two vaccinations to be between 92 per cent (AstraZeneca) and 96 per cent (Pfizer) effective in preventing hospitalisation. That would cut the Imperial forecast of deaths by a gob-smacking 90 per cent to 26,854.

This keeps happening. In April the modellers assumed a 30 per cent effectiveness for the vaccine at preventing the spread of the virus. This was described as “a pessimistic view – but it is plausible, it’s not extreme”, by Professor Graham Medley, chairman of the SPI-M sub-group of Sage. It turns out it was far from plausible. At the end of March the BBC’s favourite modeller, Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson, was forecasting that by June 21, even with “optimistic” assumptions, less than half of Britain would be protected against severe disease by vaccination. The true figure is over 80 per cent.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/21/flawed-modelling-condemning-britain-lockdown/

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News

Covid outbreak at Kenwyn Care Home where every resident is fully vaccinated – Cornwall Live

A coronavirus outbreak has hit a Cornish nursing home where almost everyone has been given both doses of a Covid vaccine.

Kenwyn Care Home in Truro is closed to visitors after an unspecified number of positive tests for the virus among staff and residents.

At the care home, 100 per cent of residents and 94 per cent of staff have been given both doses of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the home.

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/covid-outbreak-kenwyn-care-home-5556416

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News

Flu could be ‘bigger problem’ than Covid this winter, warns JCVI deputy chairman – The Telegraph

Flu could be a “bigger problem” than Covid-19 this winter, the deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has warned.

Professor Anthony Harnden told BBC 4’s Today programme: “I will emphasise that actually flu could be potentially a bigger problem this winter than Covid.

“We’ve had a very, very low prevalence of flu for the last few years, particularly virtually nil during lockdown, and we do know that when flu has been circulating in very low numbers immunity drops in the population, and it comes back to bite us. So, flu can be really, really important this winter.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/21/flu-could-bigger-problem-covid-winter-says-jcvi-deputy-chairman/

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News

Food shortages now ‘inevitable’ due to labour crisis, industry warns – The Grocer

Worsening supermarket food shortages are now “inevitable” in the coming weeks as labour shortages across the food supply chain approach crunch point, the sector has warned.

Chronic driver shortages have been compounded by shortfalls across other low-paid sectors including harvesting, manufacturing and packaging, and the supply chain is creaking under the pressure.

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/supermarkets/food-shortages-now-inevitable-due-to-labour-crisis-industry-warns/657227.article

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News

Exclusive: Hundreds Of Police Officers Accused Of Abusing Powers For Sexual Gain – PoliticsHome

Hundreds of police officers are referred to the official police watchdog every year for abusing their powers for sexual gain, according to exclusive figures obtained by PoliticsHome.

Data from the Independent Office for Police Conduct shows that the highest level of corruption referrals this year were concerning police officers engaging in inappropriate sexual contact with often vulnerable members of the public. 

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/hundreds-of-police-officers-accused-of-abusing-powers-for-sexual-gain

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News

Five years before a vaccine can ‘hold the line’ against Covid variants, England’s medical chief says – CNBC

He said that Covid-19 “has not thrown its last surprise at us and there will be several more [variants] over the next period,” according to Sky News. He added that it would likely take five years before there are vaccines that could “hold the line” to a very large degree against a range of coronavirus variants.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/18/whitty-5-years-before-vaccine-can-hold-line-against-covid-variants.html

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Opinion

Scrap Covid tests in schools, says Oxford vaccine pioneer

Covid testing in schools is hugely disruptive and should be suspended, experts have said, as it emerged that up to 60 per cent of “positive” tests a week are coming back negative when checked.

Under plans to keep schools open, more than 50 million lateral flow tests have been carried out on youngsters, leading to thousands of pupils and their social bubbles being forced to self-isolate for 10 days.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/17/scrap-covid-tests-schools-says-oxford-vaccine-pioneer/

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Opinion

Fear over freedom: Here’s what the doom-laden government graphs didn’t show us – The Telegraph

The by now all-too-familiar vertiginous lines were intended to leave the public in no doubt about the consequences of not delaying freedom until July 19.

But take a closer look and the choice of graphs is arguably disingenuous: the slides are most revealing for what they failed to include.

Source: The Telegraph, 15th June 2021

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/15/fear-freedom-doom-laded-government-graphs-dont-show-us/

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Opinion

As a GP in the NHS I witnessed first-hand the catastrophic way Matt Hancock failed the old and vulnerable in care homes – Dr Malcolm Kendrick, RT

The Health Secretary claims he “tried” to throw a protective ring around care homes but, from my experience in the early days of the pandemic, he couldn’t have come up with a more disastrous and deadly policy.

As a GP working mainly with elderly patients in care homes and intermediate care I witnessed, at first hand, the absolute disaster that was the government policy at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak. Elderly patients who were Covid-19 positive, or not tested, or perhaps even negative, were simply shovelled out of hospitals and into care homes. ‘The hospitals must be cleared out… nothing else matters.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/526539-catastrophic-care-homes-matt-hancock/

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Opinion

Why I will not be giving my children the Covid vaccine – The Times

Manufacturers have been granted exemption from liability for any resulting harm. Ruud Dobber, a member of AstraZeneca’s senior executive team, said: “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.” (The government has taken on the liability and has an insurance scheme in place.)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-not-giving-children-covid-vaccine-lw5kpn5m5

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News

So what about Sweden, huh? – The Spectator

It’s amazing how often Sweden still crops up in conversations. It didn’t impose tough lockdown, kept primary schools and core economic activities functioning, issued clear guidelines and relied on voluntary social distancing and personal hygiene practices to manage the crisis. For harsh lockdowns to be justified elsewhere, Sweden had to be discredited. Hence the harsh criticisms of Sweden’s approach last year by the New York TimesNewsweekUSA Today, CBS News and others.

But with Sweden’s demonstrable success, goalposts have shifted. Every time it’s mentioned as a counter to Europe’s high Covid-toll lockdown countries, the response now is: ‘But their Nordic neighbours did much better. Look at Denmark’. Let’s ‘interrogate’ this argument.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/06/so-what-about-sweden-huh/
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Opinion Publications

Covid-Status Certification Second Report of Session 2021–22 – PACAC

The introduction a Covid-status certification system would have a serious impact on businesses and individuals and has the possibility of infringing rights and being discriminatory in nature. In light of that, we believe that it would be inappropriate for a system with such a potentially wide adverse impact to be introduced by secondary legislation.

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/6264/documents/69158/default/

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Publications

Register your Type 1 Opt-out preference – NHS

If you do not want your patient data shared with NHS Digital, you can register a Type 1 Opt-out with your GP practice. You can register a Type 1 Opt-out at any time. You can also change your mind at any time and withdraw a Type 1 Opt-out.

Data sharing with NHS Digital will start on 1 September 2021.

The button will download a 42kB .docx file from the NHS website. If it is not available, you can download an archived copy from here.

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research/transparency-notice#opting-out-of-nhs-digital-collecting-your-data-type-1-opt-out-

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News

Rapid Covid tests used in mass UK programme get scathing US report – The Guardian

Innova tests’ performance not proven and they should be returned to manufacturer or thrown in bin, says FDA

The US Food and Drug Agency (FDA) has raised significant concerns about the rapid Covid test on which the UK government has based its multibillion-pound mass testing programme.

In a scathing review, the US health agency suggested the performance of the test had not been established, presenting a risk to health, and that the tests should be thrown in the bin or returned to the California-based manufacturer Innova.

…In its report, the agency accused the company of “false or misleading” estimates of the clinical performance of certain configurations of the test, saying the estimates did not accurately reflect the performance of the diagnostic devices during clinical studies.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/11/us-health-agency-gives-innova-lateral-flow-covid-tests-scathing-review

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News

NHS told to identify patients actually sick from Covid-19 separately to those testing positive – Independent

Hospitals have been told to change the way they collect data on patients infected with coronavirus to differentiate between those actually sick with symptoms and those who test positive while seeking treatment for something else.

The move would reduce the overall number of patients in hospital for coronavirus as until now data from hospitals has included all patients who tested positive for Covid-19, regardless of whether they had symptoms or not.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-hospitals-nhs-england-data-b1862804.html

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News

Britain DID simulate a coronavirus pandemic before Covid struck and didn’t just mock-up a flu outbreak… but health chiefs WON’T say how secret war-game went because it would damage national security – Daily Mail

British health chiefs did war-game a coronavirus pandemic before the nation was eventually hit by Covid but tried to keep it secret, it was revealed today.

Matt Hancock — who faced a grilling from MPs today about No10’s failures throughout the virus crisis — has only ever confessed to carrying out a mock-up of a flu crisis called Exercise Cygnus.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9671813/Covid-19-UK-Britain-DID-simulate-coronavirus-pandemic-health-chiefs-WONT-say-went.html

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Publications

Temporary Body Storage Service tender for Westminster City Council – GOV.UK

The Authority seeks to procure a framework agreement for temporary body storage in the event of an excess deaths situation for the 32 London boroughs and the City of London, led by Westminster City Council. The framework agreement will appoint a single provider and will be for a period of 4 years. This will be a contingency contract, only called upon in the event that an excess deaths situation arises in the future and existing local body storage capacity needs to be augmented.

The over-arching aim of this tender is to provide a single framework supplier that will be able to provide temporary body storage facilities to house deceased in the event of an excess deaths situation. The deceased will be stored with dignity and respect, at locations to be determined based on local London needs at the time and will require some design elements to accommodate local site conditions and constraints, while being capable of rapid deployment, construction and commissioning to an agreed standard. This framework will be procured by the Authority as the pan-London lead, but all London local authorities may call-off against the framework.

This will be a contingency cover framework and as such there is no minimum guarantee of any level of spend or call-off under the framework agreement.

https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/013120-2021

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Opinion

Social distancing and face masks should stay FOREVER says Communist SAGE committee member Professor Susan Michie – Daily Mail

Social distancing and wearing face masks should stay forever, a Communist-supporting SAGE scientist has claimed.

Professor Susan Michie, of University College London, said she thinks the draconian restrictions should become part of people’s every day routine.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9672347/Social-distancing-stay-FOREVER-says-Communist-supporting-SAGE-Covid-scientist-Susan-Michie.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK

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Opinion

Why masks must be binned on June 21 – and never come back – Dr Gary Sidley, The Conservative Woman

  1. No evidence that masks reduce viral transmission in real-world settings
  2. Wearing masks is likely to do harm
  3. Masks increase compliance with the ongoing public health tyranny
  4. Masks are dehumanising
  5. Masks perpetuate the elevated levels of fear

The recently-launched Smile Free campaign – of which I’m a part – is campaigning for the removal of mask mandates in the UK, and believes that, in a democratic society, the evidential bar to justify mandating a behaviour should be set very high. The research in support of masks offering protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection falls a long way short of this threshold, and the negative consequences of wearing them are considerable. The decision whether to wear a face covering should be a personal one, not one imposed by Government diktat. All mask mandates must be lifted on June 21 and this most insidious of all the Covid-19 restrictions must never return. 

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News

Pfizer begins testing its Covid vaccine in children aged 5-11 as Moderna CEO says his company’s shot for kids will be available by the early fall – Daily Mail

Pfizer-BioNTech announced on Tuesday they have begun late-stage clinical trials of their coronavirus vaccine in children ages five to 11

Lower doses will be used for kids, 10 micrograms, compared to the 30 micrograms that those ages 12 and above receive

The company says it is hoping for data in the latter half of 2021, and is still in the early stages for trials in children between six months to four years old

On Monday, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said he believes his company’s vaccine will be available for kids as young as five years old by early fall

Parents and doctors have been debating about whether or not to inoculate children because they make up just 0.1% of all COVID deaths

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9664191/Pfizer-begins-testing-Covid-vaccine-children-ages-5-11.html