But as I have said repeatedly, I see no evidence for the necessity of lockdown, for two reasons. Firstly because the case fatality rate of Covid-19 does not warrant it (the evidence points to between 0.1%-0.5%, and a recent study from Stanford University suggests it may be between 0.12% and 0.2%). And secondly, because I have seen no evidence to suggest that a lockdown strategy makes any real difference in reducing cases and deaths.
UK
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BBC: Coronavirus: Deaths at 20-year high but peak may be over
Summary:
- “A third [of deaths in the week up to 10 April] were linked to coronavirus, but deaths from other causes also increased, suggesting the lockdown may be having an indirect impact on health.”
- “On Tuesday [21 April] 823 new deaths were announced, but most of these happened in the previous days and weeks. Some even date back to March.”
- “But the ONS also said deaths from other causes rose too.”
- “The number of deaths from flu and pneumonia…is three times higher than the total number of coronavirus deaths this year.”
Carl Heneghan, director of the centre for evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, said that the impact of the lockdown was “going to outweigh the damaging effect of coronavirus”.
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Don’t gag NHS workers – Spiked
NHS staff have been warned against speaking out on ‘political’ issues in relation to coronavirus, including the widespread shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE).
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/22/dont-gag-nhs-workers/
Coronavirus tests given to thousands of NHS staff so they could return to work have been found to be flawed and should no longer be relied on, a leaked document reveals.
A memo sent by PHE’s senior lab team flags up several concerns about the tests, despite the fact hundreds of thousands have been carried out
The lockdown measures imposed by the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations are some of the most extreme restrictions on fundamental freedoms imposed in the modern era. They are a disproportionate interference with the rights and freedoms protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and therefore unlawful.
This is an executive summary of a more in-depth article which is available from the link below. Inevitably, the summary simplifies the detailed arguments and considerations.
Read the article in full: A disproportionate interference with rights and freedoms: Coronavirus Regulations and the ECHR
Oxford University Professor Carl Heneghan: UK’s outbreak peaked in March before lockdown but ministers had ‘lost sight’ of the scientific evidence and panicked.
See coverage from 21st Century Wire: REVEALED: UK Ministers Knew Crisis Had Peaked Before Lockdown, But Panicked Anyway
See videos from Andrew Mather of who has been showing this by analysing WHO reports.
Specialist lawyers say legal challenges against CCGs and providers inevitable
Risks around deprivation of liberty, neglect, safeguarding, and potential gross negligence manslaughter
More than 20 hospitals in England have had to declare a black alert this week after becoming so overcrowded that they could no longer guarantee patient safety and provide their full range of normal services.
Posting anti-vaccine propaganda on social media could become a criminal offence.
[D]oes any of what is out there add up to a watertight case for compelling people to wear masks in public or at work (outside a healthcare setting)? The threshold for compulsion must surely be higher than ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps’. But if it really is the case that the threshold for regulatory compulsion is being approached, it should be a simple matter for our scientific advisors to present it to us and allow time for it to be critically discussed in relation to a real-world setting, before government imposes measures upon us all.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/face-masks-should-there-be-a-cover-up-
It was the worst winter on record for more than 40 years, with the 1975-76 season being the last time deaths climbed so high above the expected levels.
The NHS was rocked by a record winter crisis in early 2018, with a massive rise in flu cases and sub-zero temperatures triggered by the Beast from the East storm, which added further to death rates.
“The number of excess winter deaths in England and Wales in 2017 to 2018 was the highest recorded since the winter of 1975 to 1976,” said Nick Stripe, from the ONS Health Analysis and Life Events team.”
- UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based
- The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only
- This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”
- The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better
- The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact
- The paper was very much too pessimistic
- Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway
- The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown
- The results will eventually be similar for all countries
- Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
- The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
- At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available
Summary from 21st Century Wire.
London’s Nightingale hospital has remained largely empty, with just 19 patients being treated at the facility over the Easter weekend, HSJ understands.
The UK government has extended its lockdown for another three weeks. But could the shutdown of society be doing more harm than good? In fact, is there any evidence it is doing any good at all? Dr John A Lee, a recently retired professor of pathology and NHS consultant pathologist, has repeatedly called for a critical and dispassionate examination of the evidence in relation to Covid-19, raising questions about the government and its advisers’ interpretation of the data.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/17/theres-no-direct-evidence-that-the-lockdowns-are-working/
The open letter raises questions about the behavioural science evidence that may have been used to justify this decision—though a lack of transparency from the government has made it hard to discern what the official policy is.