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Opinion Videos

Professor Karol Sikora: fear is more deadly than the virus – UnHerd

  • Professor Karol Sikora says that COVID-19 behaves like pandemics in the past.
  • Society is scarred all over the world.
  • The virus will go but the fear will do the damage.

Note: YouTube has taken down the video. Please go directly to UnHerd’s site:

https://unherd.com/thepost/professor-karol-sikora-fear-is-more-dangerous-than-the-virus/

Professor Karol Sikora has become something of a celebrity in the UK over the past months for his expert commentary on the pandemic, and his unusual tendency for optimism rather than pessimism.

Virus ‘getting tired’
– In the past two weeks, the virus is showing signs of petering out
– It’s as though the virus is ‘getting tired’, almost ‘getting bored’
– It’s happening across the world at the same time

Existing herd immunity
– The serology results around the world (and forthcoming in Britain) don’t necessarily reveal the percentage of people who have had the disease
– He estimates 25-30% of the UK population has had Covid-19, and higher in the group that is most susceptible
– Pockets of herd immunity help *already* explain the downturn
– Sweden’s end result will not be different to ours – lockdown versus no lockdown

Fear more deadly than the virus
– When the history books are written, the fear will have killed many more people than the virus, including large numbers of cancer and cardiological patients not being treated
– We should have got the machinery of the NHS for non-corona patients back open earlier

Masks and schools
– Evidence on masks is just not there either way so it should be an ‘individual decision’
– We should move to 1m social distancing which means restaurants and bars could reopen
– More schools should reopen in June as ‘children are not the transmitters of this virus’
– We should be getting back to the ‘old normal’ not a ‘new normal’

Categories
Opinion

We should be very wary of the R value – UnHerd

A rise in the Covid-19 infection rate actually means that lockdown is working

https://unherd.com/2020/05/what-the-headline-covid-figures-dont-tell-you/
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Opinion

How apocalyptic is now? – UnHerd

When you read diaries of people who lived through the revolution in Russia, you find them looking on in disbelief as the vast, centuries-old empire of the Romanovs melted into nothing in a matter of months. Few then accepted that the world they knew had gone forever. 

https://unherd.com/2020/05/are-we-living-through-an-apocalypse-now/
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Videos

German virologist: Covid-19 is less deadly than we thought – Professor Hendrik Streeck, UnHerd

Freddie Sayers talks to Professor Hendrik Streeck about why he thinks lockdown measures were initiated too quickly, and how his findings show a Covid-19 fatality rate of 0.24-0.36%. The deadliness of Covid-19, measured by the “Infected Fatality Rate” or what percentage of infected people end up dying, has become an issue of global significance.

  • COVID-19 is less deadly than initially thought
  • Fatality rate between 0.24-0.36%
  • Transmission between families seems low
  • Enclosed spaces with large gatherings seems to spread the virus
  • Waiting for a vaccine seems unrealistic
  • We will not be able to eradicate COVID-19 without a vaccine but there has not been any successful vaccine against any coronovirus
  • COVID-19 will be like any coronavirus
  • We may be able to manage the virus with basic hygiene
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News

Why the English sacrificed liberty for lockdown – UnHerd

When our American cousins cry “Live Free or Die” and take to the streets to protest overweening state authority during lockdown, whether they know it or not, they are honouring the tradition of English liberty.

https://unherd.com/2020/04/why-have-the-english-sacrificed-liberty-for-lockdown/
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News

Why lockdowns are the wrong policy – Swedish expert Prof. Johan Giesecke, UnHerd

  • 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.

21st Century Wire
Categories
News

Why we must resist the corona-tyrants – UnHerd

As Parliament keeps the whole population under house arrest, there are very few voices of dissent

https://unherd.com/2020/04/why-we-must-resist-the-corona-tyrants/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3