Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2020 1:59 am Post subject:
Three facts No 10's experts got wrong: DR MIKE YEADON says claims that the majority of the population is susceptible to Covid, that only 7% are infected so far and virus death rate is 1% are all false
By DR MIKE YEADON FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 22:02, 30 October 2020 | UPDATED: 11:07, 31 October 2020
Earlier this week, my wife and I were congratulating ourselves on being in France, far from the draconian Covid restrictions now spreading throughout Britain.
Then, on Thursday, with less than 24 hours’ notice, President Emmanuel Macron announced his plan to plunge the French into a second national lockdown for at least a month.
And if everything I hear and read about the UK is to be believed, this country is heading in the same direction.
On Monday more than 30million Britons will be under Tier Two and Three restrictions.
We will then have days – a few weeks at best – until the inevitable total lockdown.
While Boris Johnson will be the person announcing that catastrophic decision, the measures are being dictated by a small group of scientists who, in my view, have repeatedly got things terribly wrong.
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has made three incorrect assumptions which have had, and continue to have, disastrous consequences for people’s lives and the economy.
Firstly, Sage assumes that the vast majority of the population is vulnerable to infection; second, that only 7 per cent of the population has been infected so far; and third, that the virus causing Covid-19 has a mortality rate of about 1 per cent.
Many individuals who’ve been infected by other coronaviruses have immunity to closely related ones such as the Covid-19 virus, argues Dr Mike Yeardon +5
Many individuals who’ve been infected by other coronaviruses have immunity to closely related ones such as the Covid-19 virus, argues Dr Mike Yeardon
According to Cambridge University the Covid-19 mortality rate is at 1.4% , followed by Imperial College London with 1.2% and an Australian study with 0.75% Dr Yeardon cites the Stanford study, saying: 'After extensive world wide surveys, pre-eminent scientists such as John Ioannidis, professor of epidemiology at Stanford University in California, have concluded that the mortality rate is closer to 0.2 per cent.' +5
According to Cambridge University the Covid-19 mortality rate is at 1.4% , followed by Imperial College London with 1.2% and an Australian study with 0.75% Dr Yeardon cites the Stanford study, saying: 'After extensive world wide surveys, pre-eminent scientists such as John Ioannidis, professor of epidemiology at Stanford University in California, have concluded that the mortality rate is closer to 0.2 per cent.'
In the absence of further action, Sage concludes that a very high number of deaths will occur.
If these assumptions were based on fact, then I might have some sympathy with their position.
After all, if 93 per cent of the country – as they claim – was still potentially vulnerable to a virus that kills one in 100 people who are infected, I too would want to use any means necessary to suppress infection until a vaccine comes along, no matter the cost.
The reality, though, is rather different.
Firstly, while the Covid-19 virus is new, other coronaviruses are not.
We have experience of SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012, while in the UK there are at least four known strains of coronavirus which cause the common cold.
Many individuals who’ve been infected by other coronaviruses have immunity to closely related ones such as the Covid-19 virus.
Multiple research groups in Europe and the US have shown that around 30 per cent of the population was likely already immune to Covid-19 before the virus arrived – something which Sage continues to ignore.
+5
+5
Sage has similarly failed to accurately revise down its estimated mortality rate for the virus.
Early in the epidemic Sage modelled a mortality rate of around 1 per cent and, from what I understand, they may now be working with a number closer to 0.7, which is still far too high.
After extensive world wide surveys, pre-eminent scientists such as John Ioannidis, professor of epidemiology at Stanford University in California, have concluded that the mortality rate is closer to 0.2 per cent.
That figure means one in 500 people infected die.
When applied to the total number of Covid deaths in the UK (around 45,000), this would imply that approximately 22.5million people have been infected.
That is 33.5 per cent of our population – not Sage’s 7 per cent calculation.
Sage reached its conclusion by assessing the prevalence of Covid-19 antibodies in national blood surveys.
Yet we know that not every infected individual produces antibodies.
Indeed, the immune systems of most healthy people bypass the complex and energy-intensive process of making antibodies because the virus can be overcome by other means.
The human immune system has several lines of defence.
These include innate immunity which is comprised of the body’s physical barriers to infection and protective secretions (the skin and its oils, the cough reflex, tears etc); its inflammatory response (to localise and minimise infection and injury), and the production of non-specific cells (phagocytes) that target an invading virus/bacterium.
In addition, the immune system produces antibodies that protect against a specific virus or bacterium (and confer immunity) and T-cells (a type of white blood cell) that are also specific.
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It is the T-cells that are crucial in our body’s response to respiratory viruses such as Covid-19.
Studies show that while not all individuals infected by the Covid-19 viruses have antibodies, they do have T-cells that can respond to the virus and therefore have immunity.
I am persuaded of this because, of the 750million people the World Health Organisation says have been infected by the virus to date, almost none have been reinfected.
Yes, there have been a handful of cases but they are anomalies, a tiny number among three quarters of a billion people.
The fact is that people don’t get reinfected. That is how the immune system works and if it didn’t, humanity would not have survived.
Percentage change in coronavirus cases across London in the week to October 25. Dr Yeardon writes:' Ministers and some parts of the media present the pandemic as the biggest public health emergency in decades, when in fact mortality in 2020 so far ranks eighth out of the last 27 years.' +5
Percentage change in coronavirus cases across London in the week to October 25. Dr Yeardon writes:' Ministers and some parts of the media present the pandemic as the biggest public health emergency in decades, when in fact mortality in 2020 so far ranks eighth out of the last 27 years.'
So, if some 33.5 per cent of our population have already been infected by the virus this year (and are now immune) – and a further 30 per cent were already immune before we even heard of Covid-19, then once you also factor in that a tenth of the UK population is aged ten or under and therefore largely invulnerable (children are rarely made ill by the virus), that leaves about 26.5 per cent of people who are actually susceptible to being infected.
That’s a far cry from Sage’s current prediction of 93 per cent.
It is also worth contextualising the UK death toll.
Ministers and some parts of the media present the pandemic as the biggest public health emergency in decades, when in fact mortality in 2020 so far ranks eighth out of the last 27 years.
The death rate at present is also normal for the time of year – the number of respiratory deaths is actually low for late October.
In other words, not only is the virus less dangerous than we are being led to believe, with almost three quarters of the population at no risk of infection, we’re actually very close to achieving herd immunity.
Which is why I am convinced this so-called second wave of rising infections and, sadly, deaths will fizzle out without overwhelming the NHS.
On that basis, the nation should immediately be allowed to resume normal life – at the very least we should be avoiding a second national lockdown at all costs.
I believe that Sage has been appallingly negligent and its incompetence has cost the lives of thousands of people from avoidable, non-coronavirus causes while simultaneously decimating our economy and today I implore ministers to start listening to a broader scientific view.
My argument against the need for lockdown isn’t too dissimilar to the Great Barrington Declaration, co-authored by three professors from Oxford, Harvard and Stanford universities – laughably dismissed as ‘emphatically false’ by Health Secretary Matt Hancock who has no scientific qualifications – and signed by more then 44,000 scientists, public health experts and clinicians so far, including Nobel Prize winner Dr Michael Levitt.
In my opinion, this government is ignoring a formidable collective of respected scientific opinion and relying instead on its body of deified, yet incompetent advisers.
I have no confidence in Sage – and neither should you – and I fear that, yet again, they’re about to force further decisions that we will look back on with deep regret.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2020 9:45 pm Post subject:
Coronavirus and the Biotech Complex. A Conversation with Whitney Webb
Part 6
By Michael Welch and Whitney Webb
Global Research, October 31, 2020
Region: USA
Coronavirus and the Biotech Complex. A Conversation with Whitney Webb
Part 6
By Michael Welch and Whitney Webb
Global Research, October 31, 2020
Region: USA
Theme: Biotechnology and GMO, GLOBAL RESEARCH NEWS HOUR, History, Intelligence, Media Disinformation, Science and Medicine, Terrorism
print 6 6 0 12
“Government insiders had foreknowledge of the Covid-19 crisis on a scale that, thus far, has gone unreported and that those same insiders are now manipulating the government’s response and public panic in order to reap record profits and gain unprecedented power for themselves and control over people’s lives.”
– Whitney Webb from Engineering Contagion. [1]
LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Click to download the audio (MP3 format)
The United States has continued to dominate the field as the lead researcher into biomedical research. [2]
The Johns Hopkins Centre and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are just a few of the institutions playing a leading role in developing cures for and precautions against new killer viruses, such as the supposed “covid virus” recently thrust to the surface of our collective consciousness.[3] [4]
Nevertheless, a close examination of the history and components of this biotech industrial complex, and some of the personalities behind it, give rise to some unsettling questions about the nature of what drives it.
Case in point. A simulation known as Dark Winter, staged in June of 2001, led by Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, planned for the eventuality of an attack involving anthrax. According to the scenario, Al Qaeda and Iraq led by Saddam Hussein were the theoretical culprits. This was months before a real anthrax attack was waged on America. And a letter in at least one of them led the credulous to believe they were of radical Islamic origin. [5]
Fast forward 19 years. Two simulations – Event 201 and Crimson Contagion – planned during 2019, contemplated the release of a novel Coronavirus from China onto the world population and infecting millions of people. What’s more, some of the same people involved in constructing Dark Winter were also involved in the later Covid drills![6]
Australia’s Naval Base in Papua New Guinea: Power Play in the South Pacific against China
Whitney Webb and Raul Diego are to credit for documenting these curious coincidences and more in a four part series for the site TheLastAmericanVagabond.com
The series is called “Engineering Contagion: Amerithrax, Coronavirus and the Rise of the Biotech- Industrial Complex” starts with this similarity of convenient pre-meditative simulations and begins to establish a pattern of corruption, scandals and biowarfare enthusiastic individuals that are raring to control a factor of US government and corporate activity.
Our guest for the hour is Whitney Webb. Over the course of the hour, Whitney mentions the simulations, individuals like Robert Kadlec, and the role of the lab at Fort Detrick. As well, she also talks about a third simulation known as Clade X predicting martial law. She will also expand on her major concern with the shady dimension of a major vaccine producer enabled by Operation Warp Speed.
Photo courtesy of thelastamericanvagabond.com
Whitney Webb writes for The Last American Vagabond and hosts the podcast called Unlimited Hangout. Formerly a senior investigative reporter for Mint Press News, She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She is the recipient of the 2019 Serena Shim award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism. She currently lives in Chile.
(Global Research News Hour Episode 293)
Theme: Biotechnology and GMO, GLOBAL RESEARCH NEWS HOUR, History, Intelligence, Media Disinformation, Science and Medicine, Terrorism
print 6 6 0 12
“Government insiders had foreknowledge of the Covid-19 crisis on a scale that, thus far, has gone unreported and that those same insiders are now manipulating the government’s response and public panic in order to reap record profits and gain unprecedented power for themselves and control over people’s lives.”
– Whitney Webb from Engineering Contagion. [1]
LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Click to download the audio (MP3 format)
The United States has continued to dominate the field as the lead researcher into biomedical research. [2]
The Johns Hopkins Centre and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are just a few of the institutions playing a leading role in developing cures for and precautions against new killer viruses, such as the supposed “covid virus” recently thrust to the surface of our collective consciousness.[3] [4]
Nevertheless, a close examination of the history and components of this biotech industrial complex, and some of the personalities behind it, give rise to some unsettling questions about the nature of what drives it.
Case in point. A simulation known as Dark Winter, staged in June of 2001, led by Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, planned for the eventuality of an attack involving anthrax. According to the scenario, Al Qaeda and Iraq led by Saddam Hussein were the theoretical culprits. This was months before a real anthrax attack was waged on America. And a letter in at least one of them led the credulous to believe they were of radical Islamic origin. [5]
Fast forward 19 years. Two simulations – Event 201 and Crimson Contagion – planned during 2019, contemplated the release of a novel Coronavirus from China onto the world population and infecting millions of people. What’s more, some of the same people involved in constructing Dark Winter were also involved in the later Covid drills![6]
Australia’s Naval Base in Papua New Guinea: Power Play in the South Pacific against China
Whitney Webb and Raul Diego are to credit for documenting these curious coincidences and more in a four part series for the site TheLastAmericanVagabond.com
The series is called “Engineering Contagion: Amerithrax, Coronavirus and the Rise of the Biotech- Industrial Complex” starts with this similarity of convenient pre-meditative simulations and begins to establish a pattern of corruption, scandals and biowarfare enthusiastic individuals that are raring to control a factor of US government and corporate activity.
Our guest for the hour is Whitney Webb. Over the course of the hour, Whitney mentions the simulations, individuals like Robert Kadlec, and the role of the lab at Fort Detrick. As well, she also talks about a third simulation known as Clade X predicting martial law. She will also expand on her major concern with the shady dimension of a major vaccine producer enabled by Operation Warp Speed.
Photo courtesy of thelastamericanvagabond.com
Whitney Webb writes for The Last American Vagabond and hosts the podcast called Unlimited Hangout. Formerly a senior investigative reporter for Mint Press News, She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She is the recipient of the 2019 Serena Shim award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism. She currently lives in Chile.
Death scenarios used by the Government to justify a second national lockdown are out of date and may be four times too high, research suggests.
At Saturday night's Downing Street press conference, scientists presented graphs suggesting England could see 4,000 daily deaths early next month.
The scenario, from Cambridge University, was used as part of efforts to justify the introduction of sweeping restrictions. But data experts have questioned why the scenario – drawn up three weeks ago – was chosen to illustrate the crisis when the university has produced far more recent forecasts which are significantly lower.
The modelling presented on Saturday is so out of date that it suggests daily deaths are now around 1,000 a day. In fact, the daily average for the last week is 260, with a figure of 162 on Saturday.
The statistics unit at Cambridge has produced more up to date projections with far lower figures, The Telegraph can reveal.
These forecasts, dated October 28 – three days before the Downing Street announcement – far more closely track the current situation, forecasting 240 daily deaths by next week and around 500 later this month.
While these predictions do not look as far ahead as December, they suggest a picture that is far more optimistic than the scenario which caused shock waves this weekend.
Professor Carl Heneghan, the director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, said he was "deeply concerned" by the selection of data which were not based on the current reality.
He said: "Our job as scientists is to reflect the evidence and the uncertainties and to provide the latest estimates. I cannot understand why they have used this data when there are far more up to date forecasts from Cambridge that they could have accessed, which show something very different."
Prof Heneghan said his analysis suggests the forecasts could be four to five times too high, adding: "I'm deeply concerned about how the data is being presented so that politicians can make decisions. It is a fast-changing situation, which is very different in different regions, and it concerns me that MPs who are about to go to a vote are not getting the full picture."
The modelling was among several scenarios presented by Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, during the Downing Street press conference, and described as "early SPI-M (Sage's scientific pandemic influenza group on modelling) working analysis".
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said: "This is not the first time that we've had misleading forecasts. Back in March we had the Imperial College model, which was some 10 times greater than any potential outcome.
"The first responsibility of the scientific advisers to the Government is to give the truth to the public and not to cherry-pick the data. This is a fairly major error on their part if they've used old data which effectively misleads the public.
"Since members of Parliament absolutely need to have accurate information to make the undoubtedly difficult judgments on this, I hope that they correct the record before the Prime Minister briefs the House."
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, said: "This is yet another example of the experts on Sage marking their own homework and selecting carefully the data they needed to get the Government to make the decision to lock down.
"This appears to be deliberately misleading the British public. It should be retracted."
Former Brexit minister Steve Baker said: "This evidence does appear to indicate that the death models are already wrong and by quite a considerable margin.”
Mr Baker raised concerns about whether other modelling presented on Saturday was also open to question, saying: "If the modelling on NHS capacity is as flawed, we are suddenly in a different conversation today from the one I had in Number 10 on Saturday." _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 1:57 am Post subject:
'We've closed all of Cornwall down for three people in hospital': Healthcare assistant who publicly resigned claiming she had 'no work to do for three weeks' at peak of the pandemic says claim the NHS is overrun is 'all lies'
Shelley Tasker, 43, from Camborne, Cornwall, resigned from Treliske hospital
Healthcare assistant made speech outside Truro cathedral and revealed what's been going on behind closed doors of NHS hospitals
Claims she had no work for three weeks at height of pandemic due to no patients
By CHLOE MORGAN FOR MAILONLINE
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8916871/Whistleblower-NHS-w orker-reveals-whats-REALLY-going-NHS-hospitals.html
PUBLISHED: 11:53, 5 November 2020 | UPDATED: 17:01, 5 November 2020
A whistleblower NHS healthcare assistant who publicly resigned after claiming she had 'no work for three weeks' at the height of the pandemic has said the claim the NHS is overrun is 'all lies.'
A viral Facebook video shows Shelley Tasker, 43 - a healthcare assistant at Treliske hospital, which is part of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust - telling members of the public what is 'really going on' behind closed doors in NHS hospitals.
In the clip filmed outside Truro Cathedral with a crowd gathering, Shelley, who is a mother and part-time photographer from Camborne, Cornwall, takes to a microphone and says: 'As much as I've always loved our NHS, it's no longer our NHS. It's run by the corrupt government and the people running this company.
'We no longer have health care, we can't see dentists. I can tell you now when I was working at the height of the pandemic I had no work for three weeks because there were no patients. We have a particular Covid ward. None of the wards were overflowing with Covid patients and they're not now.'
She went on to claim that the flu and Covid cases are now recorded as 'the same thing' on death certificates.
In response to cheers from the crowd, she continues: 'I can tell you on Friday in Treliske there were three people in with Covid. No extra deaths, three - and that covers Treliske, West Cornwall and Hayle hospital.
'The total deaths from these three hospitals in seven months, is 76 people - that's about ten people a month over the last seven months, and we have locked down.
NHS figures show that 67 people died from Covid-19 at Treliske hospital between March and September, and official data seems to back up her point - there were just four people with the virus receiving care at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust on October 29.
Speaking exclusively to FEMAIL about the figures the government are presenting to the public, Shelley claimed: 'It's all lies. We've closed all of Cornwall down for three people in hospital.
Charlie Rainbow took to Facebook to share a video of Cornwall Freedom Rally speech from Shelley Tasker (pictured) as she publicly resigned +8
Charlie Rainbow took to Facebook to share a video of Cornwall Freedom Rally speech from Shelley Tasker (pictured) as she publicly resigned
NHs worker Shelley (pictured) claimed that when she was working at the height of the pandemic she had no work for three weeks because there were no patients +8
NHs worker Shelley (pictured) claimed that when she was working at the height of the pandemic she had no work for three weeks because there were no patients
The Facebook page was quickly flooded with comments, including one person who wrote: 'Fantastic. Well done for speaking the truth' (pictured)
The Facebook page was quickly flooded with comments, including one person who wrote: 'Fantastic. Well done for speaking the truth' (pictured)
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ARE CORNWALL'S HOSPITALS REALLY THAT EMPTY?
Ms Tasker claimed there were just three patients in the Royal Cornwall Hospital, formerly and still commonly known as the Treliske Hospital, last Friday.
And official data seems to back up her point - there were just four people with the virus receiving care at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust on October 29.
For comparison, the trust - which also includes West Cornwall Hospital and St Michael’s Hospital - was treating 32 Covid-19 patients at once at the height of the pandemic. But even then, it was nowhere close to being over-run by the infected.
However, Cornwall has yet to be hit by the second wave of the pandemic, with northern areas and the Midlands bearing the brunt this time around.
The fact hospitals have been filling up in hotspots has been used to justify the second national lockdown, with gloomy health bosses warning the NHS could run out of beds nationally in weeks.
But many parts of the NHS, particularly in the south, still lie empty because so many people are still hesitant to use its services for fear of catching Covid-19 or being a burden on the health service.
Some fear this could change in an instant, however, if infections continue to rise because southern hospitals have much less capacity.
SAGE - the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies - warned the Government the NHS was on track to be completely overwhelmed by the end of this month.
The dire forecast was made using mathematical models that were a month out of date and high low confidence intervals.
The prediction has since been challenged by top scientists and doctors who say the modelling did not anticipate how effective the three-tier lockdown system would be.
Boris Johnson admitted yesterday his localised approach was driving down cases and the R rate in hotspots.
'They haven't even died - they've supposedly got COVID. How many people are going to die because of this?
'There's a massive agenda going on here and people need to start realising.'
Speaking about her decision to address the topic publicly, Shelley, whose main aim was encourage 'other people would come forward,' explained: 'It's been a long time coming.
'I've kept quiet and people needed to see those figures.
'I think lots of people are now questioning things. That's got to be good because the world can't carry on as it is.'
She went on to say she will 'absolutely' not be adhering to the rules of second lockdown.
'I will be doing everything I want to do. If I want to see my friends...To be honest with you, we won't be going to pubs or anything like that, nothing will change for me,' she said.
'I don't have massive gatherings and stuff like that.
'There will be protests and we've got to carry on protesting. I will walk my dog and go to the beach and things like that.
'I don't think there'a restriction on exercise and stuff. I haven't looked too much into it to be honest with you.'
'No way it's going to happen for me, and it's not going to be happening for loads of people.
'People haven't got time to be reporting if there's seven people in the house - the police aren't going to come out for that.
'There's nothing that really needs to change for me. I'm just advising everybody to carry on as normal as they can't do anything.'
A spokesperson for Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust told MailOnline: 'We’re in the middle of a once in a lifetime pandemic and it is unacceptable for anybody to spread lies which could be harmful to people’s health, let alone from somebody in a respected position.
'The public’s incredible support for the NHS played a major role in helping us handle the first wave of coronavirus, and as we face a potential second wave, it is absolutely vital our staff and the public follow the latest public health guidance to help keep us all safe.'
In the viral clip, Shelley starts her speech by saying: 'Today I am publicly resigning OK? I am wearing this uniform sadly for the last time.
'I absolutely loved my job, those of you who have been following what's going on, we've done tasks, we've organised protests, I've had a lot of flack.
'We're at the point now it's all coming back to me. I've had an email from work last night asking me what's going on, people are reporting me and unfortunately I can't lie any more.
'I did something really bad. I took a screenshot on Friday which shows the figures of how many people are in Treliske hospital with Covid and I shared it, because this should be public information.'
'Lots of people have to start speaking out, there's lot of doctors and nurses who have come forward. They're all on restrictive duties, they're all seeing solicitors etc.'
Even during the peak of the first wave of coronavirus in the UK, Covid-19 patients never accounted for more than 30 per cent of all hospital patients and tens of thousands of vacated beds went unused during the spring +8
Even during the peak of the first wave of coronavirus in the UK, Covid-19 patients never accounted for more than 30 per cent of all hospital patients and tens of thousands of vacated beds went unused during the spring
A leaked NHS report suggests there are still fewer than average numbers of beds in use in NHS hospital, despite normal hospital care resuming and a surge in the number of people who are being treated for Covid-19 +8
A leaked NHS report suggests there are still fewer than average numbers of beds in use in NHS hospital, despite normal hospital care resuming and a surge in the number of people who are being treated for Covid-19
Shelley says that on Friday in Treliske there were three people in with Covid - which covers Treliske, West Cornwall and Hayle hospital +8
Shelley says that on Friday in Treliske there were three people in with Covid - which covers Treliske, West Cornwall and Hayle hospital
During the speech, Shelley (pictured) went on to claim that the flu and Covid cases are now combined as the same thing +8
During the speech, Shelley (pictured) went on to claim that the flu and Covid cases are now combined as the same thing
'I've decided there's no point, I have gone against the rules of the NHS and have shared confidential information that people need to see. '
Shelley goes on to allege that anyone who thinks lockdown is going to make a difference are 'completely wrong.'
'Our economy is going to crash, small businesses, people are going to starve,' she says.
'You think it's going to be a month? We were flattening the curve back in April - and this was when the disease was supposedly dying out. The lockdown came in then.'
'Why are our children allowed to go to school but we have to carry on? Because at the moment, they want us to work.
'But that's not going to happen because the schools will be closed soon.
'So the cases in the hospital, there's three people in Treliske hospital with Covid - that was on Friday.
She went on to claim that the flu and Covid cases are now recorded as the same thing.
'If you died with Covid within 28 days that goes on your death certificate,' she explains. 'You may not realise as well that the flu numbers have gone right down. Where have they gone?'
'The PCR tests were not designed for diagnosing this disease - 94 per cent of them are false positives. We say no, to no more lockdowns.'
Many people took to the comments section to praise Shelley for speaking out (pictured) +8
Many people took to the comments section to praise Shelley for speaking out (pictured)
She continues: 'Social distancing - there's nothing social about it. How many people have died because of the lockdown because they've not had their treatments.
'I've got a friend whose mum committed suicide. When is this going to end?
It is doing more damage closing the country and hospitals than keeping it open. Screw the social distancing, we need to fight back.'
And it wasn't long before the post was flooded with comments from people praising Shelley for speaking out.
'Brilliant brave lady. More NHS staff need to speak the truth, this is the most important issue you will ever face. Ask yourself why are they doing this?' wrote one, while a second penned: 'You go girl thank you for your honesty ....pity more don't speak out.'
Hospitals are NO busier than normal, critics are being silenced and there IS more space in empty Nightingales, top experts claim (and they slam ministers for 'caving in' to dodgy propaganda from Number 10's 'gloomsters')
The NHS was never on track to be overwhelmed with coronavirus patients this winter but No10 was forced to hit the lockdown panic button because of its 'gloomster' scientific advisers, top experts fumed today.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned the health service could collapse and seriously ill non-Covid patients could be turned away unless Covid-19's resurgence is nipped in the bud.
But eminent doctors and scientists told MailOnline ministers had got their priorities twisted by sacrificing people's physical and mental wellbeing to save the NHS — which was designed to protect the people.
They claimed wards are no busier than they normally are at this time of year and that a large chunk of the people being treated for Covid-19 were either already in hospital when they caught the virus or would've been admitted for other reasons.
Oxford University's Professor Carl Heneghan, an expert in evidence-based medicine and practicing GP, said his analysis suggested a fifth of infected patients in the NHS acquired the virus in hospital, meaning they were already taking up a bed before contracting the disease.
NHS England has about 140,000 beds at its disposal - including capacity at the seven Nightingale hospital built during the first wave and thousands of beds commandeered from the private sector - and currently there are just shy of 10,500 Covid-19 patients in its hospitals. It means people with the disease are occupying fewer than 10 per cent of the health service's overall capacity.
Leaked documents suggest the NHS on a national scale is actually treating fewer patients than it was last year. Just 84 per cent of all hospital beds were occupied across the country on Tuesday, according to the document, which is lower than the 92 per cent recorded over the autumn of 2019.
It is true that a small handful of hospitals in hotspots in the North West are under strain after bearing the brunt of a surge in infections in recent months. But Karol Sikora, a consultant oncologist and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, said: 'This is supposed to be a national health service, if Leeds' ICU is full, we can send patients to Newcastle, for example. We do it all the time, for other conditions.'
Critical care admissions have been a far cry from the levels seen during the first peak in spring (shown in this graph by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Unit), casting more doubt about the need for second lockdown +8
Critical care admissions have been a far cry from the levels seen during the first peak in spring (shown in this graph by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Unit), casting more doubt about the need for second lockdown
Both Professor Sikora and Professor Heneghan claimed the health service is put under pressure every winter from other seasonal illnesses - due to having the lowest bed capacity per population in Europe - yet it manages to come out the other side without the need for the UK to adopt crude interventions.
Another senior NHS intensive care doctor made similar comments to MailOnline but claimed they were silenced by health bosses, who threatened them with disciplinary action if they contradicted the hospital data used to justify the lockdown.
One told this website: 'It is my personal view a lockdown was not needed right now, the data they've used has been conveniently sampled. The official rationale from the Government will be to ensure people are safe and lives are saved but I think the real reason is they do not want to receive the same criticism they did the first time round.
The first lockdown, while successful in protecting the NHS from being overwhelmed with Covid-19, has had a catastrophic effect on healthcare across the board. There were 27million fewer GP appointments than normal during the shut down, raising fears it led to the worsening of other conditions such as asthma and diabetes.
ICU UNITS ARE NO BUSIER THAN USUAL, LEAKED DOCUMENTS SHOW
Leaked documents revealed intensive care units are no busier than normal for this time of year for most trusts, pouring extra cold water on claims the NHS is close to being overrun.
Eighteen per cent of critical care beds available across the health service nationally, which is normal for the autumn.
Data from the NHS Secondary Uses Services, seen by The Telegraph, claims to show that even in the worst hit region, the North West, seven per cent of critical care beds are still free.
The figures show there is still 15 per cent 'spare capacity' across the country – fairly normal for this time of year.
That's even without the thousands of Nightingale hospital beds which will provide extra capacity if needed.
Even in the North-West, the worst affected region in the 'second wave', only 92.9 per cent of critical care beds are currently occupied.
And in the peak of the Covid outbreak in April, critical care beds were never more than 80 per cent full, according to the data.
There were around 5,900 critical care - or ICU - beds in the NHS in January 2020, according to the King's Fund.
It is not clear how many Covid-19 patients are on critical care wards as this data is not available. But the number of patients on a ventilator - 952 on November 3 - gives a rough idea. However, not all patients on ventilators are classed as being in ICU.
Tens of thousands less people than average went for cancer checks during that time and there were hundreds more deaths from heart attacks. Nearly a million people have lost their jobs since March and, when the furlough scheme ends next year, this is expected to rise again.
Professor Heneghan added: 'The perpetual opening up and closing down approach is incoherent and comes to a point where you create more harm than benefit, running long term damage to nation's health.
'We had since May to prepare for this winter, it was clear then this would be a seasonal pathogen. We've got capacity in private hospitals and the Nightingales [which were built during the first wave but went unused].'
Referring to doctors reportedly being censored by NHS bosses for speaking out against the lockdown, he said: 'What I'm concerned about is lack of transparency that allows people to come forward in the NHS to provide much needed comment on what is going on, it's unacceptable. I am an NHS employee myself.
'Functioning democracies require people to come forward and speak the truth, and we are being denied that. If we don't have that we don't have a functioning democracy.'
Every winter the health service is put under pressure because people tend to get sicker from a slew of other illnesses and need care as the country moves deeper into the colder months.
Professor Sikora predicts 'at least half' of the 10,300 Covid-19 patients in hospital right now would be there anyway, for other conditions - though there is no data to stack up his claims.
He told MailOnline: 'A lot of patients have Covid but they're in hospital because they were ill before [getting the virus]. People with comorbidites always come at winter, ever since I've been a medical student.
'Remember these people might have chest and heart and other underlying conditions, a positive PCR result doesn't mean they were hospitalised for Covid.
'I've been a doctor for decades, this is no different to a normal year. We sometimes have had to close surgeries down to make room for more patients during winter pressures, way before Covid.'
The Government has honed in on the small handful of hospitals in hotspot areas that are under strain after bearing the brunt of a surge in infections in September and October and pointed to them as evidence the NHS could be overrun.
But Professor Sikora said the Government should've held its nerve and given the three-tiered lockdown system - which was only introduced on October 14 in Liverpool - time to have an effect. Boris Johnson admitted yesterday his localised approach was driving down cases and the R rate in hotspots.
He suggested the Government's scientific advisers were nervous about coming under the same scrutiny heaped their way during the first wave.
Professor Sikora added: 'Yes there was a steep rise in infections from September to October but the numbers have plateaued.
Oxford University's Professor Carl Heneghan, an expert in evidence-based medicine and practicing GP
Professor Karol Sikora (pictured) is consultant oncologist and professor of medicine, University of Buckingham Medical School
Oxford University's Professor Carl Heneghan (left) and renowned oncologist Professor Karol Sikora claimed wards are no busier than they normally are at this time of year and that a large chunk of the people being treated for Covid-19 were either already in hospital when they caught the virus or would've been admitted for other reasons
'Clearly what happened was government lost the plot and caved because it thought it was going to be overrun due to the propaganda presented by SAGE.
'Gloomsters always win because they can't go wrong with a lockdown. If you're like me and predict an optimistic outcome which then doesn't come true, you get fired.
'It's puzzling, if the prediction is we're going to be overwhelmed, then a lockdown is justified. But it can't be true, we're already in November and it's not even close.'
Professor Heneghan added: 'If you look in areas like Liverpool, the tiered restrictions caused a reduction in cases across all age groups. The people of Liverpool understood what the issues were and modified their behaviour.
'So I would be rewarding people of Liverpool with approach that says here's some light at end of tunnel, rather than a lockdown.'
SAGE - the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies - warned the Government the NHS was on track to be completely overwhelmed by the end of this month. The dire forecast was made using mathematical models that were a month out of date and high low confidence intervals.
The prediction has since been challenged by top scientists and doctors who say the modelling did not anticipate how effective the three-tier lockdown system would be.
Professor Heneghan said: 'The modelling was completely inaccurate. But once the PM is presented such a gloomy scenario, it becomes impossible to go with any other situation than lockdown.
'It's impossible to make decisions if you've got models that are a month out of date. We get words of 'assumptions, scenarios, projections' – but scientists cant predict more than six weeks ahead with any accuracy.'
The NHS was last night thrust back into its highest alert level, in anticipation of a wave of coronavirus hospital admissions in the coming weeks.
Sir Simon Stevens, NHS England's chief executive, claimed the move to level four was in response to the 'serious situation ahead'.
A move to level four means health bosses believe there is a real threat that an expected influx of Covid-19 patients could start to force the closure of other vital services across the nation.
Yet leaked documents on Wednesday revealed intensive care units were no busier than normal for this time of year for most trusts, pouring extra cold water on claims the NHS is close to being overrun.
Eighteen per cent of critical care beds available across the health service nationally, which is normal for the autumn. Data from the NHS Secondary Uses Services, seen by The Telegraph, claims to show that even in the worst hit region, the North West, seven per cent of critical care beds are still free.
The figures show there is still 15 per cent 'spare capacity' across the country – fairly normal for this time of year. That's even without the thousands of Nightingale hospital beds which will provide extra capacity if needed.
Even in the North-West, the worst affected region in the 'second wave', only 92.9 per cent of critical care beds are currently occupied. And in the peak of the Covid outbreak in April, critical care beds were never more than 80 per cent full, according to the data.
There were around 5,900 critical care - or ICU - beds in the NHS in January 2020, according to the King's Fund. It is not clear how many Covid patients are on critical care wards because this data is not available. But the number of patients on a ventilator - 952 on November 3 - gives a rough idea. However, not all patients on ventilators are classed as being in ICU.
There are just under 10,300 patients with Covid-19 on general and acute wards in NHS hospitals in England at the moment, official data shows. This means Covid-19 patients account for around 10 per cent of all available beds.
However, there are still more than 13,000 beds available on general wards, considering there are almost 114,000 NHS beds in England overall. Professor Sikora estimates there are about 140,000 beds overall once the Nightingale hospitals and extra capacity in the private sector which the NHS has bought in case it does get pushed to the brink.
MailOnline revealed at the height of the first wave in April that Covid-19 patients never made up more than 30 per cent of the total beds occupied. Just under 19,000 patients out of 70,000 in hospitals at that time had Covid-19.
Commenting on the data, Professor Heneghan told MailOnline 'This is completely in line with what is normally available at this time of year. What I don't understand is that I seem to be looking at a different data-set to what the Government is presenting.
'Everything is looking at normal levels and free bed capacity is still significant, even in high dependency units and intensive care, even though we have a very small number across the board. We are starting to see a drop in people in hospitals.
'Tier Three restrictions are working phenomenally well and, rather than locking down, I would be using this moment to increase capacity.'
But Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, said there is 'no point' using national bed occupancy rates to argue that lockdown isn't needed.
He tweeted : 'Many hospital CEOs in the north tell us they are under extreme pressure. Many of them say their Covid-19 patient numbers are above what they saw in the peak of the first phase.
'The argument from NHS CEOs in rest of country is many are already seeing high worrying levels of general bed occupancy. And if the Covid pattern in the north is repeated elsewhere in the country a month later, it'll coincide with winter when NHS is at its most stretched.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 2:02 am Post subject:
End the testing epidemic
We must stop the testing of healthy people. Doctors must examine the lungs of suspected COVID-19 patients. The government and NHS must stop all statistical references to COVID-19 cases, where this is based solely on a PCR test.
www.publicsafety.org.uk
Flawed testing is to blame for the crisis
Examine patients not just lab test results
Conduct autopsies to determine the cause of death
The virus and the disease
SARS-COV-2 is a virus. When this virus enters the body via the nasal passage or the lungs it can provoke a severe respiratory illness. The disease it can cause is called COVID-19.
COVID-19 was first identified by Chinese doctors in Wuhan in December 2019 by examining the lungs of infected patients. They found broken-glass like features in CT-scans. Chinese experts shared data about the virus on a world health databank.
This information was picked up by Professor Christian Drosten in Berlin. He developed a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test that detects the presence of the genetic material of the virus by taking a mucus swab at the back of the throat or deep in the nasal passage.
How the PCR test works
A PCR test multiplies copies of genetic samples of a virus and amplifies them to produce enough material to study.
The sample is put in a machine that doubles the presence of the RNA genetic material from the virus with each cycle. The lower the cycle threshold the more likely the test will detect people who are sick and infectious. The higher the cycle threshold the less likely it is that someone is ill or infectious.
Example:
Mary and John both take a PCR test this is what happens to their swab samples.
One part of the virus is present in Mary’s sample. So, the machine produces:
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, and 1024 parts after 10 cycles.
If 100 parts are present in John’s sample, the machine produces: 200, 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200, 6,400, 12,800, 25,600, 51,200, and 102,400 parts after 10 cycles.
If 100,000 parts or above is the viral load that the PCR machine needs to identify illness and infectiousness, then Mary is defined as healthy and John as having the disease COVID-19.
However, if Mary’s sample is put through 17 cycles on the PCR machine it produces 131,072 parts of the RNA of the virus and she is treated as if she is infectious and diseased with COVID-19. There is no standard for the cycle threshold used by testing companies.
Government admits the test does not identify illness or infectiousness
On 28 Oct 2020 Public Health England confirmed that: “RT-PCR detects presence of viral genetic material in a sample but is not able to distinguish whether infectious virus is present.” This document confirms that the tests are not standardised and have different cycle thresholds.
If Mary is admitted to hospital for any reason within 14 days of her PCR test, she is defined as a COVID-19 case because the NHS definition stipulates: “For all relevant data items: a confirmed COVID-19 patient is any patient admitted to the trust who has recently (ie in the last 14 days) tested positive for COVID-19 following a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test” (https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/202 0/07/Publication-definitions-doc.pdf)
False data on COVID-19 deaths
If Mary dies of any cause within 28 days of her positive PCR test, the government counts her as a COVID-19 death, regardless of the actual cause of death. The government website states that their COVID-19 death figures are: “Number of deaths of people who had had a positive test result for COVID-19 and died within 28 days of the first positive test.” (https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths)
Lockdown is based on grotesquely exaggerated data
We have no idea what the positive tests actually indicate about someone’s health but we all know the consequences.
Mary is healthy but is ordered to self-isolate, she is forbidden to leave her house, and people who were in the café where she sat the day before are told to self-isolate. Some of them also take a PCR test with the same consequences. Mary is recorded as a “COVID-19 case” in the official data, and the Government, its scientists, and the media all claim that COVID-19 cases are rising fast. The government pays private test companies to conduct more and more of these tests, millions every week. The whole of Liverpool is being tested by the army. The country is placed in Lockdown: democracy, freedom, and individual liberty are suspended. Millions of people are driven into poverty and despair.
End the testing epidemic
All of this chaos is based on the PCR test. It is not standardised and it does not detect if someone is ill or infectious.
We must stop the testing of healthy people. Doctors must examine the lungs of suspected COVID-19 patients. The government and NHS must stop all statistical references to COVID-19 cases, where this is based solely on a PCR test.
Autopsies are needed to determine the cause of death and to find cures and treatments for COVID-19
The history of forensic medicine is based on the principle “Mortui vivis docent - the dead teach the living.” Applying this basic scientific principle requires that autopsies must be conducted on representative samples of the daily deaths attributed to COVID-19. Only by examining those classified as deaths “from or with COVID-19” can forensic medicine identify the true cause of death and the actual course of the disease, and this can help to evaluate the effectiveness of their treatment and improve future treatment.
Hear Professor Sukharit Bhakdi interviewed for the Speakers Corner show on Resonance Fm 104.4 as he speaks about the PCR test and its impact on our world.
This video has been banned on most platforms. It can take a long time to load, but stick with it and it comes on. _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
I'm almost starting to think this whole pandemic really is a conspiracy
https://archive.vn/cWWwt
Our continuing oppressive response to a virus that almost every human survives is making less and less sense
ANNABEL FENWICK ELLIOTT
SENIOR CONTENT EDITOR
20 October 2020 • 4:38pm
Annabel Fenwick Elliott
coronavirus
The death toll is low, why are we marching into yet another ruinous lockdown? CREDIT: getty
I’ve been suspicious from the start. Back in March, when this novel virus first swept in from the East and countries across Europe started bolting their doors even before cases mounted, I remember saying to people, ‘Blimey, what aren’t they telling us yet?’
It was clearly killing people, but not in numbers that warranted the complete shutdown of society, I mused, as I cleared my desk and left the office for what would be – little did I know it then – seven months and counting.
We’ve had pandemics before during my lifetime. I cast my mind back to the 2009 swine flu outbreak. There was an initial flurry of panic; of media scaremongering, and yes, some deaths. But scientists quickly classified the foreign-imported pathogen as a new strain of flu and got to work making a vaccine. Life went on as normal.
Covid-19 was obviously proving to be a lot more virulent than swine flu, but even early on it was clear that the virus was sparing the vast majority of the population. Those I knew who caught it either suffered symptoms similar to a mild cold, or none at all. Bemused, as the Government set about building Nightingale hospitals that would hardly be used and Britain’s vibrant cities turned into ghost towns, I kept thinking to myself, ‘when are they going to tell us what’s really going on?’
I was waiting for a revelation that never came. Months went by and millions of tests were performed, revealing with increasing certainty that here was a virus with a very low death rate indeed. Exact approximations vary but the survival rate for Covid-19 is thought to be somewhere above 99 per cent, and maybe as high as 99.8 per cent.
The average age of someone who dies from coronavirus is 82.4, which, by the way, is nearly identical to the average life expectancy in Britain (81.1). Surely it is people in this segment of society we should be focusing on protecting, I thought, as schools closed and businesses went bust up and down the country.
It looked vaguely promising in July when restaurants, hotels and shops reopened, and when most of Europe opened its borders to international travel, but this break from the tyranny of lockdown was short-lived.
Between mid-June and mid-September – even as we socialised, holidayed, and swapped germs to our heart’s content – influenza and pneumonia contributed to more weekly deaths than Covid-19. Sweden, one of the only countries on Earth that refused to lock down, had by this point proved beyond reasonable doubt that its tactic had broadly worked; even with such little intervention, the nation had not collapsed into the sort of apocalyptic health crisis predicted by the likes of Neil Ferguson.
Confoundingly, the British government continues to paint a picture of a virus that scares its citizens into an ongoing state of paranoid submission. Its chief scientific advisors almost appear to take relish in spouting doomsday predictions that never materialize (50,000 daily cases by mid-October, warned Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty last month – the real number was less than half that).
This dogged fixation on case numbers would make sense, of course, if we knew that lots of cases led to lots of deaths. They don’t. In the first week of October, there were 91,013 cases of coronavirus reported in England and Wales, and 343 Covid-related deaths. That same week a total of 9,954 people died from various causes. Of those, just 4.4 per cent of the death certificates mentioned Covid-19.
Our policy on international travel is just as nonsensical, even to the layman. Let’s put aside the evidence that hardly any coronavirus cases are even being traced back to foreign travel, but are overwhelmingly being transmitted within households. And that given Covid-19 has already settled itself in every country on the planet, this manic opening and closing of drawbridges is surely futile.
Paul Charles
@PPaulCharles
Latest @PHE_uk data shows that hardly anyone is catching #coronavirus during overseas travel. #Covid_19 @ThePCAgency
Image
3:47 PM · Oct 6, 2020
465
See the latest COVID-19 information on Twitter
The UK, not entirely irrationally, decides which countries we can visit quarantine-free based on that country’s rate of cases per 100,000 citizens over seven days. You might assume then, that, if anything, we’d be placing quarantine restrictions on nations where their case rate is higher than ours.
Not so. Most of the countries now off-limits have rates that are lower – among them Spain, Iceland, Portugal and most recently Italy. Ironically, one of the only nations the FCDO still deems safe enough to visit restriction-free is none other than Sweden.
Paul Charles
@PPaulCharles
Tues update: #Italy sees a 100% increase in its 14-day infection rate just over the last 7 days. There were 26 mortalities this time last week but 73 yesterday. #Cyprus infections rising more swiftly but no deaths in the last 10 days. #Turkey goes amber even on its lower stats.
Image
11:47 AM · Oct 20, 2020
62
See the latest COVID-19 information on Twitter
Eight months on, my burning question remains unanswered. What is really going on? About 50 millon people die each year worldwide. Some deaths are preventable, others not. Over the course of 2020, this pandemic has claimed 1.1 million lives; most of whom were elderly or already ill. Heart disease kills 17 million annually; cancer 9.6 million. Respiratory diseases, including bronchitis, pneumonia and emphysema take 2.5 million lives a year.
Why then, are we still playing this ridiculously destructive game with healthy peoples’ lives – a risky experiment that, as is starting to emerge, will very likely kill more people than it saves in the long run?
My father, an ardent lockdown sceptic, reckons it has all turned into some sort of multi-national, anti-capitalist power grab. “Christianity,” he points out, based on “nonsensical” stories of a virgin birth, and a death-defying saviour, “successfully dominated the predominant part of the civilised world for the best part of two millennia. It was a power system, and its power trumped logic.”
I don’t believe there are darker forces at play here – surely Hanlon’s Razor explains it? – but I do continue to puzzle over the motives of our world leaders as we stare down the barrel of yet more financially-ruinous lockdowns. This week I was a guest on Escape from Lockdown, a podcast that features interviews with the hardiest of sceptics. Its host Alex, who has discussed this very question with many prominent scientists, sociologists and politicians, says their theories vary.
Good old fashioned peer pressure seems to play a big part (Boris Johnson initially stood firm on refusing to join the rest of Europe’s unprecedented, untested lockdown hypothesis, but ultimately fell), and it’s not the first time in history that vast numbers of otherwise sane people have succumbed to a case of mass hysteria.
Occam’s Razor would suggest that most politicians are merely too stubborn to concede they were wrong in their approach to this pandemic. Not just slightly, but catastrophically wrong. “Governments are continuing with these lockdowns because their scientific advisors are so emotionally invested in their initial projections,” Alex reckons.
But it’s not just our leaders. The prospect, for most citizens, that we’ve wasted nearly a year of our lives for no good reason is just too bitter a pill to swallow. Most of us are happier telling ourselves that it was all warranted, and for the greater good.
Either that, or the conspiracy loonies are right: Elon Musk (or is it Bill Gates?) is at the helm of a global plot to turn us all into an army of morose, segregated, muzzled, drone-patrolled test subjects in an alternate reality (purpose as yet unknown) under which free speech is curtailed, curfews dictate our every movement, and bonking is illegal with those outside our designated tribe.
Which, upon reflection, doesn’t sound too many lightyears away from our current warped reality _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Giovanni Apolone*, Emanuele Montomoli*, Alessandro Manenti, ...
First Published November 11, 2020 Research Article
https://doi.org/10.1177/0300891620974755
Article Information Open epub for Unexpected detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the prepandemic period in Italy
Free Access
Abstract
There are no robust data on the real onset of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and spread in the prepandemic period worldwide. We investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD)–specific antibodies in blood samples of 959 asymptomatic individuals enrolled in a prospective lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 to track the date of onset, frequency, and temporal and geographic variations across the Italian regions. SARS-CoV-2 RBD-specific antibodies were detected in 111 of 959 (11.6%) individuals, starting from September 2019 (14%), with a cluster of positive cases (>30%) in the second week of February 2020 and the highest number (53.2%) in Lombardy. This study shows an unexpected very early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 among asymptomatic individuals in Italy several months before the first patient was identified, and clarifies the onset and spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Finding SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in asymptomatic people before the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy may reshape the history of pandemic.
Keywords Screening, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 antibodies
At the end of December 2019, the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing serious pneumonia was identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.1 The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) viral disease rapidly spread worldwide, and the World Health Organization declared pandemic status in March 2020 (www.who.int).
Italy’s first two cases of COVID-19 disease were recorded on January 30, 2020, when two tourists from China tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in Rome. The first laboratory-confirmed Italian COVID-19 case was identified in Lombardy on February 20, 2020, in a 38-year-old man who had no history of possible contacts with positive cases in Italy or abroad. Within a few days, additional cases of COVID-19 and critically ill patients were recorded in the surrounding area. Soon several cases were identified in other Italian regions, mostly in the northern area. Lockdowns were first applied in 2 critical areas of Lombardy and Veneto and were rapidly enforced regionally and nationwide starting on March 8.
On the basis of the first case identification, it was hypothesized that the virus had been circulating in Italy since January 2020. However, the rapid spread, the large number of patients requiring hospital admission and treatment in intensive care units, as well as the duration of the pandemic suggest that the arrival of the virus and its circulation in Italy in a less symptomatic form could be anticipated by several months.
Serologic assays can be used to investigate antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 infection and assess its real prevalence.2 Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody response analyses in patients with COVID-19 showed that within 13 days after symptom onset, seroconversion of antiviral immunoglobulin G (IgG) or immunoglobulin M (IgM) was present in almost 100% of patients.3
To test the hypothesis of early circulation of the virus in Italy, we investigated the frequency, timing, and geographic distribution of SARS-CoV-2 exposure in a series of 959 asymptomatic individuals, using proprietary SARS-CoV-2 binding and neutralizing antibodies on the plasma samples repository. The population was enrolled from September 2019 to March 2020 through the SMILE trial (Screening and Multiple Intervention on Lung Epidemics; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03654105), a prospective lung cancer screening study using low-dose computed tomography and blood biomarkers, with the approval of our institutional review board and ethics committee. All eligible participants provided written informed consent.
A receptor-binding domain (RBD)–specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test was performed and qualified as reported by Mazzini and colleagues.4 A qualitative microneutralization assay was performed as previously reported.5 Details can be found in the Supplementary Material.
SMILE cohort characteristics are shown in the Supplementary Table S1. In summary, 397 patients (41.4%) were women, 63.2% were 55–65 years old, 76.8% were current smokers, and 92.9% had smoked ⩾30 pack-years. Overall, 111 of 959 (11.6%) plasma samples showed SARS-CoV-2 RBD-specific antibodies (IgM, IgG, or both). In particular, IgM antibodies were detected in 97 (10.1%) patients; IgG antibodies were found in 16 (1.7%). All the patients were asymptomatic at the time of blood sample collection.
Table 1 reports anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibody detection according to the time of sample collection in Italy. In the first 2 months, September–October 2019, 23/162 (14.2%) patients in September and 27/166 (16.3%) in October displayed IgG or IgM antibodies, or both. The first positive sample (IgM-positive) was recorded on September 3 in the Veneto region, followed by a case in Emilia Romagna (September 4), a case in Liguria (September 5), two cases in Lombardy (Milano Province; September 9), and one in Lazio (Roma; September 11). By the end of September, 13 of the 23 (56.5%) positive samples were recorded in Lombardy, three in Veneto, two in Piedmont, and one each in Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Lazio, Campania, and Friuli. A similar time distribution was observed when considering Lombardy alone (Supplementary Table S2).
Table
Table 1. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) receptor-binding domain antibodies detection according to time of sample collection in all regions.
Table 1. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) receptor-binding domain antibodies detection according to time of sample collection in all regions.
View larger version
The diagram in Figure 1 illustrates the temporal variation in positive samples from September 2019 to February 2020. Notably, two peaks of positivity for anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibodies were visible: the first one started at the end of September, reaching 18% and 17% of IgM-positive cases in the second and third weeks of October, respectively. A second one occurred in February 2020, with a peak of over 30% of IgM-positive cases in the second week. Out of this cluster of 16 positive samples, 11 (68.7%) originated in Lombardy.
figure
Figure 1. Frequency of immunoglobulin M (red columns) and immunoglobulin G (blue columns) receptor-binding domain (RBD)–positive cases in respect to the total number of screening participants (green columns) throughout the 24 weeks from September 2019 to February 2020.
The national distribution of the 959 recruited patients and of the 111 who tested positive for RBD-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in comparison with the allocation of the patients with COVID-19 identified in Italy up to March 10 (last SMILE study recruitment date) is shown in Figure 2(A) and Supplementary Table S3. The 959 recruited patients came from all Italian regions, and at least one SARS-CoV-2–positive patient was detected in 13 regions. According to data collected from the website of the Italian Ministry of Health (www.salute.gov.it), Lombardy was the region most affected by the pandemic, with 5791/10,141 (57.1%) patients with COVID-19, and showed the highest number of recruited patients at 491/959 (51.2%). Considering the 111 positive cases, 59 (53.2%) were in residents of Lombardy, followed by Piedmont and Lazio (10 cases each, 9%); Emilia Romagna (7 cases, 6.3%); Tuscany and Veneto (6 cases each, 5.4%); Liguria (4 cases, 3.6%); Campania, Friuli, and Puglia (2 cases each, 1.8%); and Sicily, Valle d’ Aosta, and Sardinia (1 case each, 0.9%).
figure
Figure 2. Comparison of the distribution of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) identified up to March 10, 2020, according to data of the Italian Ministry of Health (www.salute.gov.it), with the distribution of recruited screening subjects (blue dots) and SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD)–positive screening subjects (red dots) of the SMILE trial (Screening and Multiple Intervention on Lung Epidemics). The national distribution includes 10,149 patients with COVID-19, the 959 recruited screening subjects, and the 111 SARS-CoV-2 RBD-positive screening subjects across the 20 Italian regions (A). The regional distribution includes 5791 patients with COVID-19, the 491 recruited screening subjects, and the 59 SARS-CoV-2 RBD-positive screening subjects across the 12 provinces of Lombardy (B).
Figure 2B and Supplementary Table S4 show distribution across the 12 Lombardy provinces of the 491 recruited patients and of the 59 patients testing positive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibodies in comparison with the allocation of the 5791 patients with COVID-19 identified up to March 10 in the same region (www.salute.gov.it). Overall, 30 positive patients were detected in Milan Province and 29 in the other provinces analyzed (Monza: 6, Como: 5, Bergamo: 4, Brescia: 3, Varese: 3, Lecco: 2, Pavia: 2, Mantova: 1, Lodi: 1, Cremona: 1, and Sondrio: 1). Therefore the geographic distribution and timing of the SARS-CoV-2–positive individuals identified in our study closely mirrors the incidence of COVID-19 officially registered in Italy.
Evaluation of anti-SARS-CoV-2 functional neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) was performed for all 111 SARS-CoV-2 RBD-positive samples using a cytopathic effect (CPE)–based live virus microneutralization assay in a high-containment biosafety level 2 laboratory. Six of the 111 SARS-CoV-2 RBD-positive patients were positive in the qualitative CPE-based microneutralization test. Of these, four samples were collected in October (two on the 7th, one each on the 8th and the 21st), one in November, and one in February. Three of the positive NAb samples were from Lombardy, one from Lazio, one from Tuscany, and one from Valle d’Aosta. The presence of functional anti-SARS-CoV-2 NAbs at the beginning of October 2019 further supports the early unnoticed circulation of the virus in Italy, particularly in Lombardy.
At the end of December 2019, COVID-19 appeared in Wuhan City, China. As of September 12, 2020, 37,584,742 COVID-19 cases were confirmed worldwide, with more than 1 million deaths (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html). In Italy, the first case was identified in Lombardy on February 20, and the first death attributed to COVID-19 occurred in a 77-year-old retiree living in a small town in the Veneto region. In mid-September 2020, the number of official cases in Italy reached approximately 300,000, with over 35,000 deaths (www.salute.gov.it), but it is likely that these numbers do not reflect the actual onset and epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Italy.
Two phenomena need to be highlighted and discussed. The first concerns the underestimation of the prevalence of cases. Regional and national health authorities, after an attempt to identify cases and suspects early and trace all the potential contacts, soon abandoned this strategy as unsustainable and concentrated on the identification strategy, with swabs and serology, on symptomatic cases only. As a consequence, an underestimation of overall COVID-19 cases was created, and a selection bias was introduced, with an overestimation of the mortality rate. Well-designed serosurveys in selected subpopulations with specific risk groups have provided valuable epidemiologic information. The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection was tested in 8285 health care workers of the main hospitals of the Veneto Region between February 22 and May 29, 2020. By measuring specific antibodies, an overall prevalence of 4.6% was observed. Although detectable antibodies were found in all workers who developed severe COVID-19 infection (100%), lower seropositivity was found in those with mild disease (83%), and the lowest prevalence (58%) was observed in asymptomatic individuals.6 Between May 25 and July 15, the Italian Ministry of Health accomplished a large SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence study in a representative sample of 64,660 individuals. A global prevalence rate of 2.5% was reported, with a peak in the Lombardy region (7.5%) and in particular in Bergamo Province (24%) (www.salute.gov.it). As a consequence, the true number of Italians who had been in contact with the virus would be approximately 1.5 million, many of whom were asymptomatic, an estimate almost 5 times higher than the official figures reported.
The second concern regards the onset of the epidemic, which is likely to have preceded the identification of the first case, probably in the last part of 2019. Since November–December 2019, many general practitioners began reporting the appearance of severe respiratory symptoms in elderly and frail people with atypical bilateral bronchitis, which was attributed, in the absence of news about the new virus, to aggressive forms of seasonal influenza. One investigation on SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in healthy blood donors has been performed in one of the two initial lockdown areas in northern Italy.7 In a group of 300 stored plasma samples, 5 samples collected between the 12th and 17th of February exhibited evidence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 NAbs. Moreover, a phylogenetic analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 genomes isolated from 3 Lombardy patients involved in the first COVID-19 outbreak suggests that the common origin of the strains dates back several weeks before the first cases of COVID-19 pneumonia reported in China.8 Based on these findings, a prior unnoticed circulation of the virus among the Italian population could be hypothesized.
Given the rapid increase in symptomatic cases worldwide, a better understanding of the initial history and epidemiology of COVID-19 could improve the screening strategy and contain the effects of a possible second wave. Evidence from environmental monitoring showed that SARS-CoV-2 was already circulating in northern Italy at the end of 2019.9 Molecular analysis with reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction assays of 40 composite influent wastewater samples collected between October 2019 and February 2020 in three cities and regions in northern Italy (Milan/Lombardy, Turin/Piedmont, and Bologna/Emilia Romagna) showed the presence of viral RNA first occurring in sewage samples collected on December 18 in Milan and Turin. This study also indicates that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in different geographic regions simultaneously, which agrees with our serologic findings.
At the international level, concordant evidence comes from two additional studies. A first article reported a case of a patient hospitalized for hemoptysis with no etiologic diagnosis in an intensive care unit in Paris, France, in December 2019.10 Retrospective molecular analysis on the stored nasopharyngeal swab confirmed the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. A second study by Harvard University showed a relevant increase of hospital traffic in the Wuhan region, evaluated by satellite imagery, and COVID-19 symptoms–related queries in search engines, since autumn 2019.11 These findings suggest that the virus may have already been circulating at the time of the outbreak in several countries.
To our knowledge, there are no published data on antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in the prepandemic period in any countries in the world. Our study was carried out in a sample of asymptomatic individuals originating from all Italian regions. At least one SARS-CoV-2–positive individual was detected in 13 regions, and Lombardy had the highest number, mirroring the data from the national survey.
The first surge of positive cases was identified in September–October 2019. Evaluation of anti–SARS-CoV-2 functional NAbs identified positive samples in CPE-based microneutralization tests already collected in October 2019. Given the temporal delay between infection and antibody synthesis, these results indicate that the virus circulated in Italy well before the detection of the declared index patient in February 2020. In addition, most of the first antibody-positive individuals lived in regions where the pandemic started.
The serologic assay used in this study is an in-house designed RBD-based ELISA, namely, VM-IgG-RBD and VM-IgM-RBD, and is a proprietary assay developed by using spike glycoprotein (S-protein), which mediates binding to target cells through the interaction between the RBD and the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor. The S-protein has been found to be highly immunogenic, and the RBD is considered the main SARS-CoV-2–specific target in the effort to elicit potent NAbs.12 In our preliminary study, an excellent correlation between the neutralization titer and the IgG, IgM, and immunoglobulin A ELISA response against the RBD of the S-protein was observed,4 confirming that the RBD-based ELISA can be used as a valid surrogate for neutralization. Therefore, the specificity of the assays used in the present study strongly supports our seroprevalence findings in a relevant number of asymptomatic individuals well before the overt pandemic period, with positive patients in September–October 2019.
Our results indicate that SARS-CoV-2 circulated in Italy earlier than the first official COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in Lombardy, even long before the first official reports from the Chinese authorities, casting new light on the onset and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Author contributions
Study design: G. Apolone, E. Montomoli, G. Sozzi, and U. Pastorino. Data acquisition: E. Montomoli, A. Manenti, I. Hyseni, L. Mazzini, D. Martinuzzi, L. Cantone, G. Milanese, S. Sestini, P. Suatoni, A. Marchianò, and V. Bollati. Data analysis: M. Boeri, F. Sabia, G. Sozzi, and U. Pastorino. Data interpretation: G. Apolone, E. Montomoli, A. Manenti, M. Boeri, F. Sabia, G. Sozzi, and U. Pastorino. Figures and Tables: M. Boeri and F. Sabia. G. Apolone, E. Montomoli, G. Sozzi, and U. Pastorino have verified the underlying data. All the authors participated in drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Scientific Direction Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC 5x1000 cod.12162, extension 2017-2020), Ricerca Corrente of the Italian Ministry of Health.
Data and materials availability
All data are available upon request to the corresponding author (gabriella.sozzi@istitutotumori.mi.it)
Supplemental material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
References
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View Abstract
Also from SAGE Publishing _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Could British residents be forced to have a Covid-19 vaccine? Yesterday Health Secretary Matt Hancock refused to rule out mandatory inoculation, telling TalkRadio that the government would ‘have to watch what happens and… make judgments accordingly’. His comments have sparked questions about how realistic the prospect of mandatory vaccination is in the UK, or what restrictions people could face – with MP Tom Tugendhat suggesting that the unvaccinated could be banned from workplaces – if they refuse to get inoculated.
If a policy of mandatory vaccination were to be carried out in the UK, what might it look like? That discussion is happening in Denmark now, as the country looks to replace its emergency laws brought in this spring with a new ‘epidemic law’. The proposed legislation – which would become a permanent, rather than a temporary measure – could mandate certain people to receive a vaccine, and would allow the police to use force if necessary to administer it.
According to The Local Denmark, the most controversial elements of the law include: forcing people who test positive for ‘dangerous diseases’ to be 'medically examined, hospitalised, treated and placed in isolation'; granting the Danish Health Authority the power ‘to define groups of people who must be vaccinated in order to contain and eliminate a dangerous disease’; and coercing people who refuse to have the vaccine in certain circumstances ‘through physical detainment, with police allowed to assist’.
These clauses pose serious questions about the trade-off between individual liberty, health, privacy and the role of the state. But they are also open to wide interpretation by officials – especially when it comes to defining what is a ‘dangerous disease’ and which groups will be forced to take a vaccine.
An open consultation for the ‘epidemic law’ closed several days ago. It has faced major pushback in its current form: business groups are arguing that the legislation goes too far and there have been public protests about the threat it poses to individual rights. The law may be updated to remove some of its more controversial clauses. But the debate being carried out in Denmark is a reminder for other countries that the vaccine may be rolled-out before we find the answer to these ethical and moral quandaries.
WRITTEN BY Kate Andrews, The Spectator’s economics correspondent. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Jennifer M. Dan, Jose Mateus, View ORCID ProfileYu Kato, Kathryn M. Hastie, Caterina E. Faliti, Sydney I. Ramirez, April Frazier, Esther Dawen Yu, Alba Grifoni, Stephen A. Rawlings, Bjoern Peters, Florian Krammer, Viviana Simon, Erica Ollmann Saphire, Davey M. Smith, Daniela Weiskopf, Alessandro Sette, View ORCID ProfileShane Crotty
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.15.383323
This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?].
AbstractFull TextInfo/HistoryMetrics Preview PDF
ABSTRACT
Understanding immune memory to SARS-CoV-2 is critical for improving diagnostics and vaccines, and for assessing the likely future course of the pandemic. We analyzed multiple compartments of circulating immune memory to SARS-CoV-2 in 185 COVID-19 cases, including 41 cases at ≥6 months post-infection. Spike IgG was relatively stable over 6+ months. Spike-specific memory B cells were more abundant at 6 months than at 1 month. SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells declined with a half-life of 3-5 months. By studying antibody, memory B cell, CD4+ T cell, and CD8+ T cell memory to SARS-CoV-2 in an integrated manner, we observed that each component of SARS-CoV-2 immune memory exhibited distinct kinetics.
Competing Interest Statement
A.S. is a consultant for Gritstone, Flow Pharma, Merck, Epitogenesis, Gilead and Avalia. S.C. is a consultant for Avalia. LJI has filed for patent protection for various aspects of T cell epitope and vaccine design work. Mount Sinai has licensed serological assays to commercial entities and has filed for patent protection for serological assays. D.S., F.A., V.S. and F.K. are listed as inventors on the pending patent application (F.K., V.S.), and Newcastle disease virus (NDV)-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that name F.K. as inventor. All other authors declare no conflict of interest.
Do face masks work? Earlier this year, the UK government decided that masks could play a significant role in stopping Covid-19 and made masks mandatory in a number of public places. But are these policies backed by the scientific evidence?
Yesterday marked the publication of a long-delayed trial in Denmark which hopes to answer that very question. The ‘Danmask-19 trial’ was conducted in the spring with over 6,000 participants, when the public were not being told to wear masks but other public health measures were in place. Unlike other studies looking at masks, the Danmask study was a randomised controlled trial – making it the highest quality scientific evidence.
Around half of those in the trial received 50 disposable surgical face masks, which they were told to change after eight hours of use. After one month, the trial participants were tested using both PCR, antibody and lateral flow tests and compared with the trial participants who did not wear a mask.
In the end, there was no statistically significant difference between those who wore masks and those who did not when it came to being infected by Covid-19. 1.8 per cent of those wearing masks caught Covid, compared to 2.1 per cent of the control group. As a result, it seems that any effect masks have on preventing the spread of the disease in the community is small.
Some people, of course, did not wear their masks properly. Only 46 per cent of those wearing masks in the trial said they had completely adhered to the rules. But even if you only look at people who wore masks ‘exactly as instructed’, this did not make any difference to the results: 2 per cent of this group were also infected.
When it comes to masks, it appears there is still little good evidence they prevent the spread of airborne diseases. The results of the Danmask-19 trial mirror other reviews into influenza-like illnesses. Nine other trials looking at the efficacy of masks (two looking at healthcare workers and seven at community transmission) have found that masks make little or no difference to whether you get influenza or not.
But overall, there is a troubling lack of robust evidence on face masks and Covid-19. There have only been three community trials during the current pandemic comparing the use of masks with various alternatives – one in Guinea-Bissau, one in India and this latest trial in Denmark. The low number of studies into the effect different interventions have on the spread of Covid-19 – a subject of global importance – suggests there is a total lack of interest from governments in pursuing evidence-based medicine. And this starkly contrasts with the huge sums they have spent on ‘boutique relations’ consultants advising the government.
The only studies which have shown masks to be effective at stopping airborne diseases have been ‘observational’ – which observe the people who ordinarily use masks, rather than attempting to create a randomised control group. These trials include six studies carried out in the Far East during the SARS CoV-1 outbreak of 2003, which showed that masks can work, especially when they are used by healthcare workers and patients alongside hand-washing.
But observational studies are prone to recall bias: in the heat of a pandemic, not very many people will recall if and when they used masks and at what distance they kept from others. The lack of random allocation of masks can also ‘confound’ the results and might not account for seasonal effects. A recent observational study paper had to be withdrawn because the reported fall in infection rates over the summer was reverted when the seasonal effect took hold and rates went back up.
This is why large, randomised trials like this most recent Danish study are so important if we want to understand the impact of measures like face masks. Many people have argued that it is too difficult to wait for randomised trials – but Danmask-19 has shown that these kind of studies are more than feasible.
And now that we have properly rigorous scientific research we can rely on, the evidence shows that wearing masks in the community does not significantly reduce the rates of infection.
As a former Police Officer, I am becoming increasingly concerned at seeing incidents where the public are being arrested at will UNLAWFULLY
These are guidelines ONLY as from Government dictats, or Statutory Instruments, under the Public Health Act (Control of Diseases) Act 1984. According to Lord Sumption, the Civil Contingencies Act of 2004 would be a much more appropriate piece of legislation.
So, why isn't this used instead? ...Because it would require an Act of Parliament and would provide stringent provisions for Parliamentary scrutiny.
What about the powers of arrest being seen to be abused so often?
Firstly, these are NOT for arrestable offences. These are strictly for crimes of assault, theft, which are summary or indictable offences. Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 (harassment, alarm or distress) seems to be used the most often used, but this requires a warning to be issued. The key points here are for 'a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety'. So, quite open to interpretation and debatable in a Court of Law!
What about the conduct of Police Officers themselves?
They must be appropriately dressed for a start. The wearing of headgear is 'compulsory under Police Regulations' whilst performing public duties. Seeing the propensity for TSG officers and the like to resort to unreasonable violence, brings up the prospect for citizens' arrest powers under Section 24(a) of PACE Act 1984.
>> Section 24(a) of PACE Act 1984 states'a person can legally arrest anyone who is in the act of committing an indictable offence or whom the person has reasonable grounds to suspect is committing an indictable offence'. For example GBH/wounding (causing blood to flow) where a Police Officer has wounded a member of the public which a person of reasonable firmness would find fearful. Furthermore, you have to believe that 'at the time of the arrest it is not reasonably practicable for a Police Officer to perform the arrest'. So, if a Police Officer were committing this offence, foreseeably you have the power to affect an arrest on a rogue Police Officer thereby compelling other Police Officers to act on this.
>> Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 provides everyone with the provision to use 'reasonable force'. Where a Police Officer is NOT in the 'lawful execution of his/her duty' there are legal protections for you to resist arrest (assault/resist/obstruct Police under the Police Act 1996).
>> Section 25 of PACE Act 1984 provides for the scenario where 'a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that any offence which is not an arrestable offence has been committed or attempted, or is being committed or attempted, he may arrest the relevant person if it appears to him that service of a summons is impracticable or inappropriate because any of the general arrest conditions is satisfied'. The key words here are OFFENCE. The government's statutory instruments under the Public Health Act are NOT offences. They have been very liberal with 'mandatory', 'must' etc. These are not enforceable under law.
>> Finally, the issues of fines are under Fixed Penalty Notice regulations; these were established for 'relatively minor regulatory offences'. Again, that word OFFENCE. It would be very difficult to persuade a Court of Law that £1,000s of fines under the Public Health Act are legitimate (funnily enough, CPS have dropped lots of such cases!).
So, a scenario here. A person goes shopping at Tesco not wearing a mask. This person has an invisible undisclosed disability. The store staff detain this person or this person is detained by police officers.
>> Person legitimately asks 'am I being detained?' If the answer is 'yes' then stand firm. If 'no' then politely continue on with the shopping. For a 'yes' detention, the police officer(s), none of whom are wearing hats, some having hands in pockets (discipline offences), then question said person as to why they're not wearing a mask.
>> Person states 'I am exempt'. This should be 'game over'. However, the Police officer asks for reasons for exemption - instant discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 (court case on this basis alone against the numbered officer and potentially the Chief Constable also!)
>> Person refuses to provide details. Police Officer(s) threaten arrest. Person asks for what offence? Police Officer(s) fails to clarify (this is a requirement under law to know the offence before or after the caution is stated) Police Officer then states a fine will be issued. Person declines to give details or says he is Mickey Mouse and he lives in Hollywood Police Officer arrests person under Section 24 of PACE Act 1984 (for an offence?!)
>> Person requests to order a taxi to travel to the police station for personal reasons. Request denied, person placed in police vehicle (Codes of Practice broken against person's taxi request) On arrival at the Custody Centre, person confirms their right to a copy of the Codes of Practice, free legal advice and a phone call.
>> Person immediately lodges complaint request with the Duty Inspector on the circumstances of the arrest, drawing attention to unlawful imprisonment and Police discipline regulations. Person with legal advice, drafts a Statement under Caution to this effect for the consequent taped interview. Person reads this out and refuses to answer any subsequent questions (lawful right)
>> Person refuses to accept any fine(s) pleading 'not guilty' (clogging up the Court system which is at breaking point now anyway!)
>> After release, person immediately submits an online tribunal/court application for discrimination under the Equality Act 2010, counter suing the Police for unlawful arrest, unlawful imprisonment and breaches against the Codes of Practice.
I hope this is useful
_________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Software deal reveals high level of reported side-effects expected in inoculation programme
The types of vaccine being developed by many of the pharmaceutical companies are relatively new, making it hard to predict how they will interact with millions of people’s immune systems when they leave clinical trials
The types of vaccine being developed by many of the pharmaceutical companies are relatively new, making it hard to predict how they will interact with millions of people’s immune systems when they leave clinical trials
Anna Gross in London NOVEMBER 1, 2020
The UK drugs regulator is planning to use artificial intelligence to sift through the “high volume” of reports of adverse reactions to Covid-19 vaccines in the coming months, as it prepares for an inoculation programme of groundbreaking scale.
A government contract shows the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority has paid a software company called Genpact UK £1.5m to develop an AI tool to “process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine adverse drug reaction (ADRs) and ensure that no details . . . are missed”.
The need for a powerful tool to sort through what are forecast to be a huge numbers of adverse reactions, speaks to the scale of the vaccination programme in the months ahead.
The types of vaccine being developed by many of the pharmaceutical companies are also relatively new, such as the MRNA and chimpanzee adenovirus vectors, making it hard to predict how they will interact with millions of people’s immune systems when they leave clinical trials.
“You’re talking about vaccines that have potential liabilities, it’s an unknown unknown,” said Gary Nabel, chief scientific officer at pharmaceutical company Sanofi, which is currently working on two Covid-19 vaccine candidates. “As big as a 30,000-person trial is, when these go out into the world of millions of people, things will happen.”
Mr Nabel recalled the famous vaccine developer Maurice Hilleman telling him, “every time I launch a new vaccine, I hold my breath for the first 30m doses”.
The MHRA told the Financial Times that, based on previous vaccination campaigns, there would be between 50,000 and 100,000 reports of suspected side effects for every 100m doses over a 6-12 month period.
However, it added that all vaccines, including for Covid-19, underwent rigorous testing and that most reactions would be mild and short term.
The AI tool will be employed as part of the MHRA’s yellow card scheme for coronavirus, through which patients and healthcare professionals report suspected side effects and negative reactions. These are then evaluated to identify where updated advice or regulatory interventions are needed to protect the public.
The contract terms stated, “it is not possible to retrofit the MHRA’s legacy systems to handle the volume of ADRs that will be generated by a Covid-19 vaccine”. It added that the absence of an AI tool would “hinder its ability to rapidly identify any potential safety issues . . . and represents a direct threat to patient life and public health”.
The MHRA said that the scale of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign would be much larger than any adult programme seen in the past.
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It added that the reporting of side effects and adverse reactions could be influenced by “media attention, public concern and anti-vaccine social media activity and lobbying.” This would be “highly prevalent in relation to a Covid-19 vaccination campaign”.
“It is important to note that a report of a suspected ADR is not proof of a side effect occurring due to the vaccine but a suspicion by the reporter that the vaccine may have caused the side effect,” it added.
Mr Nabel and other experts thought that the move by the MHRA was a positive sign of proactivity by the UK’s regulator.
“I’m happy to hear there’s such a programme and AI is a great way to do it,” he said. “Why not use our most advanced technologies to get at these important questions.”
Kate Bingham, chair of the UK’s vaccine task force, said the use of AI was “just what the MHRA should be doing”, adding that the UK is “incredibly well set up to do this given we all have NHS records which are electronic and connected”.
In the US, where the health system is more fragmented, experts are not aware of there being a similar initiative.
'..As noted by Haseltine, prevention of infection would typically be a critical endpoint of any vaccine trial. In other words, you want to ensure that when you take the vaccine, your risk of infection is significantly reduced.
However, when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, shockingly, preventing infection is not a criterion for success in any of these trials. The only criterion for a successful COVID-19 vaccine is a reduction of COVID-19 symptoms, and even then, the reduction required is minimal.
“We all expect an effective vaccine to prevent serious illness if infected. Three of the vaccine protocols — Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca — do not require that their vaccine prevent serious disease only that they prevent moderate symptoms which may be as mild as cough, or headache,” Haseltine writes,2 adding:
“The pharmaceutical companies intend to do trials ranging from 30,000 to 60,000 participants. This scale of study would be sufficient for testing vaccine efficacy.
The first surprise found upon a closer reading of the protocols reveals that each study intends to complete interim and primary analyses that at most include 164 participants. These companies likely intend to apply for an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with just their limited preliminary results.”
To get a “passing” grade in the limited interim analysis, a vaccine must show a 70% efficacy. However, again, this does not mean it will prevent infection in 7 of 10 people. As explained by Haseltine:3
“For Moderna, the initial interim analysis will be based on the results of infection of only 53 people. The judgment reached in interim analysis is dependent upon the difference in the number of people with symptoms … in the vaccinated group versus the unvaccinated group. Moderna’s success margin is for 13 or less of those 53 to develop symptoms compared to 40 or more in their control group.”
The other vaccine makers are basing results on a similar protocol, where only a limited number of vaccinated participants are exposed to the virus to evaluate the extent of their symptoms...'
To keep up to date on covid stuff, follow:
Lockdown Skeptics: https://lockdownsceptics.org/
UK Column News: https://www.ukcolumn.org/
The Corbett Report: https://www.corbettreport.com/ _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:07 am Post subject:
What they DON'T tell you about Covid: Fewer beds taken up than last year, deaths a fraction of the grim forecasts, 95% of fatalities had underlying causes... and how the facts can be twisted to strike fear in our hearts
Despite the fearmongering, the number of Covid-19 deaths is significantly lower than the peak back in April
Latest ONS estimate shows that in the week ending November 14, new infections were already levelling off
GCHQ staff have been embedded in a Cabinet Office team in Downing Street to provide Boris Johnson with real-time updates of Covid-19
Analysts will sift through vast amounts of data to ensure Boris Johnson has the most up-to-date information
By ROSS CLARK FOR THE DAILY MAIL
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8971669/What-DONT-tell-Covid- facts-twisted-strike-fear-hearts.html
PUBLISHED: 22:23, 20 November 2020 | UPDATED: 21:26, 23 November 2020
With the nation’s health at stake, it was revealed this week that GCHQ staff have been embedded in a cabinet office team in Downing Street to provide Boris Johnson with real-time updates to combat the ‘emerging and changing threat’ posed by Covid-19.
The intelligence analysts will sift through vast amounts of data to ensure the Prime Minister has the most up-to-date information on the spread of the virus.
But what exactly should Mr Johnson be looking for? Here, ROSS CLARK reveals what he should be asking…
It was revealed this week that GCHQ staff have been embedded in a Cabinet Office team in Downing Street to provide Boris Johnson with real-time updates to combat the ‘emerging and changing threat’ posed by Covid-19 +12
It was revealed this week that GCHQ staff have been embedded in a Cabinet Office team in Downing Street to provide Boris Johnson with real-time updates to combat the ‘emerging and changing threat’ posed by Covid-19
How accurate were the Government’s grim predictions?
The short answer is: not very. In a July report commissioned by Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, scientists estimated that there could be 119,000 deaths if a second spike coincided with a peak of winter flu. Yesterday, that figure stood at 54,286 – less than half that.
In fact, the second peak seems to have passed – over the past week there has been an average of 22,287 new infections a day, down from 24,430 the week before.
In mid-September, Sir Patrick made the terrifying claim that the UK could see 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by mid-October unless more draconian restrictions were introduced. Yet we have never got near that figure.
What about its prophecies on deaths?
Ditto. Its warnings simply don’t bear any relation to reality.
During the ‘Halloween horror show’ press conference used by Sir Patrick and Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty to scare the Government into implementing a second lockdown, one of their slides suggested that daily Covid-19 deaths could reach 4,000 a day by December.
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Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty, pictured on October 31, when the second national lockdown was announced, had shown a slide predicting up to 4,000 deaths a day by December. But with ten days to go, we're still at less than 15 per cent of that figure +12
Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty, pictured on October 31, when the second national lockdown was announced, had shown a slide predicting up to 4,000 deaths a day by December. But with ten days to go, we're still at less than 15 per cent of that figure
With ten days to go, we’re still at less than 15 per cent of that figure. In fact, as the graph above shows, the current death rate is significantly below almost every modelled winter scenario.
Are hospitals close to full capacity?
The answer is ‘no’ – contrary to what the Government experts would have you think after they last month published a chart that gave the impression that hospitals were close to overflowing, when at least half didn’t have a single Covid-19 patient.
Currently, only 13 per cent of NHS beds are occupied by patients with Covid-19.
On Monday this week, 16,271 hospitals beds across the UK were taken up with patients who had tested positive for Covid-19.
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On Monday this week, 16,271 hospitals beds across the UK were taken up with patients who had tested positive for Covid-19, a steady rise from last Monday, when there were 14,279 Covid patients. Remarkably, the number of NHS England beds currently occupied is lower than last year’s average +12
On Monday this week, 16,271 hospitals beds across the UK were taken up with patients who had tested positive for Covid-19, a steady rise from last Monday, when there were 14,279 Covid patients. Remarkably, the number of NHS England beds currently occupied is lower than last year’s average
This did show a steady rise from the previous Monday, when there were 14,279 patients with Covid.
But to put this figure into perspective, the NHS in England had 101,255 general and acute beds available in March of this year plus 15,392 in Scotland and 10,563 in Wales.
How does it compare with last year?
Remarkably, as the graph shows, the number of NHS England beds currently occupied is lower than last year’s average.
On November 5, the most recent date available, there were actually 1,293 fewer patients in hospital beds than last year’s November average.
Surely intensive care beds are full?
Some hospitals are under pressure but that is not the picture everywhere as the chart above shows. On Wednesday, 1,430 people with Covid-19 were occupying beds with mechanical ventilation.
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Despite the fanare surrounding the construction of the Nightingale hospitals (such as Sunderland's, pictured on its opening day in May) they were never more than 1.23 per cent full +12
Despite the fanare surrounding the construction of the Nightingale hospitals (such as Sunderland's, pictured on its opening day in May) they were never more than 1.23 per cent full
Given that before the crisis there were 4,119 intensive care beds in England plus 269 in Scotland and 153 in Wales, roughly only 31 per cent of ICU beds – not including those which have been recently converted from normal beds – are currently occupied by patients with Covid.
In fact, on November 8, the number of occupied critical beds was actually lower than five-year average for 2015-19.
Even at the height of the first wave in the spring, the percentage of mechanical ventilation beds in existing NHS hospitals that were used never exceeded 62 per cent, according to a study by University College London.
But wasn’t that because of the Nightingale hospitals?
Not at all. In fact, despite all the fanfare surrounding the Nightingale hospitals’ rapid construction, they were never more than 1.23 per cent full.
Moreover, doctors are now far better prepared to treat Covid-19, such as knowing when and when not to put patients on ventilators.
So who is Covid-19 killing?
To put it simply, the victims are overwhelmingly the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions.
Of the 37,470 Covid-19 deaths recorded by NHS England up to November 18, 53.7 percent were of people aged over 80.
In comparison, there have been just 275 deaths (only 0.7 per cent of the total) in people under 40.
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And crucially, those who have died from Covid-19 are overwhelmingly likely to have suffered from a pre-existing condition.
Of those who have died from coronavirus, 35,806 people (95.6 per cent of the total) had at least one pre-existing serious medical condition.
In fact, there have been just 42 deaths of people aged under 40 without a pre-existing condition.
What count as pre-existing conditions?
While there has been lots of discussion about how a person’s lifestyle – their weight or general respiratory condition, for example – makes them more vulnerable to Covid-19, the truth is that those who die with pre-existing conditions tend to be suffering from serious, debilitating diseases.
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Some 27 per cent of them had diabetes, while 18 per cent had dementia – both of which render a person extremely vulnerable to any viral infection.
Are more dying now than in the first wave?
No. The number of Covid-19 deaths is significantly lower than the peak in April as the graph above shows. On April 21, for example, there were 1,224 Covid-19 deaths, and a daily average for the week of 838. Yesterday, 511 new deaths were reported.
Are more dying now than last year?
Despite what the fear-mongers would have you think, deaths are not far above average for this time of year as the graph above shows.
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Yes, in the week to November 6, overall deaths in England and Wales stood at 11,812 – which was 14.3 per cent, or 1,481 deaths higher, than the five-year average.
But that hides the fact that in contrast to the spring, when deaths from non-Covid-19 causes were running above average, non-Covid-19 deaths in recent weeks have actually been running substantially below average.
Surely more elderly people are dying than normal?
It doesn’t look like it. According to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures – for October 2020 – in spite of all the Covid-19 deaths, the average death rate in the over-75s was significantly lower this year than it was last October – 6,901.7 per 100,000 people, compared with 7141.7 for last year.
But isn’t the infection rate now going up?
The latest ONS estimate shows that in the week ending November 14, new infections were already levelling off: one in 80 people in England had the disease that week, compared with 1 in 85 the week before.
And it could now be falling: according to research published this week by scientists at Cambridge University – whose data is used by the Government’s Sage advisory group – infection rates of Covid-19 have actually stopped growing across England.
The Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said the reproduction 'R' rate - the average number of people each Covid-19 patient passes the disease to - had fallen slightly to a maximum of 1.1, from a maximum of 1.2 last week, and could be as low as 1.0 or lower in every region of Britain +12
The Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said the reproduction 'R' rate - the average number of people each Covid-19 patient passes the disease to - had fallen slightly to a maximum of 1.1, from a maximum of 1.2 last week, and could be as low as 1.0 or lower in every region of Britain
Indeed, they claim, the R rate – the average number of people infected by somebody with the virus – has fallen to one.
If the figure is below one, the epidemic subsides; above one and it grows; and if it is one, infection rates stay the same.
Couldn’t that just be an anomaly?
Actually, that figure for the R rate tallies with a number of other studies.
The Government’s latest estimate – derived from Imperial College London’s REACT study, which has been swabbing tens of thousands of people every week – is that the R number for England as a whole is currently between 1 and 1.2.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 Symptom Study run by King’s College London, even puts the R number at 0.9 – the lowest it has been since August.
Whatever the truth, data released by the ONS yesterday confirmed that infection rates are levelling off in England and Scotland.
Does it matter when the elderly are more likely to be infected?
That’s the claim of critics of the Great Barrington Declaration – which in October called on governments to abandon one-size-fits-all lockdowns in favour of targeted shielding – who believe that the current wave of infection will tear through the elderly.
The latest ONS estimate shows that in the week ending November 14, new infections were already levelling off. Scientists at Cambridge University believe the national R number has fallen to one, meaning the country's infection rate stays the same +12
The latest ONS estimate shows that in the week ending November 14, new infections were already levelling off. Scientists at Cambridge University believe the national R number has fallen to one, meaning the country's infection rate stays the same
Yet the infection rate is actually highest in school-age children and students – the least vulnerable demographics – and lowest among the over 70s.
In the week to November 14, the infection rate among secondary school pupils was 2.03 per cent, while in those over 70 it was just 0.48 per cent and falling.
What about the areas seeing a spike?
There is certainly a regional variation when it comes to rates of infection – with the North generally seeing higher levels than the South.
One of the reasons the figures may seem particularly striking is because, embarrassingly for the Government, the same figures over the autumn were based on a data error, which reported student infections as happening at their parents’ address – predominantly in the South.
At the height of the problem, in September and October, one in eight cases was reported to the wrong local authority.
Isn’t mass testing going to fix all this?
Don’t bet on it. The Government has put a lot of faith in Operation Moonshot – its plan to test the entire population once a week using ‘lateral flow tests’, a type of Covid-19 test that give results in only an hour.
Yet their rapidity comes with a cost: they are not very reliable.
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According to a recent study by the University of Oxford and Public Health England’s Porton Down laboratory, the LFT being used in the pilot scheme across Liverpool succeeded in detecting Covid-19 in only 79.2 per cent of cases even when performed by laboratory staff.
Is that really so bad?
Just wait. When used by trained health professionals in the community, the detection rate fell to 73 per cent and when used by self-trained members of the public it fell to just 58 per cent.
Worse, in a way, were the false positives.
Overall, 0.32 per cent of people given the tests were falsely told they had the virus.
If the entire population were obliged to take the tests it could mean that 200,000 – a city the size of Portsmouth – would be ordered to self-isolate when they don’t actually have the disease.
The one you're all getting excited about carries some serious risks
Eugene Gu
New York
Wednesday 20 May 2020 08:24
When pharmaceutical company Moderna issued a press release about the promising results of its Phase I clinical trial for a coronavirus vaccine, the media and the markets went wild. The New York Times ran a story that went viral on Twitter, racking up millions of views as social media influencers and doctors alike shared it far and wide. Moderna’s stock price shot up 20 percent and several peer companies like Novavax rallied even higher at more than 30 percent.
But was it justified?
The news cycle in the era of the coronavirus pandemic feels like tidal waves of hope and fear on steroids. Perhaps that’s because with more than 36 million Americans losing their jobs and more than 90,000 losing their lives, everyone is desperately looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. Covid-19 is taking an unprecedented physical and psychological toll on the American people and so small bits of potentially good news that should be taken with a grain of salt can end up dominating the headlines. People turn molehills into mountains because we really need and want a game-changer right now. But the truth is the truth regardless of what we want or feel, especially in science and medicine.
Phase I clinical trials simply test the safety of a drug or vaccine in a small number of healthy volunteers — usually brave and naïve college students — while Phase II trials are responsible for testing its effectiveness in a larger number of subjects. Such a hyped-up and exuberant response to a Phase I trial is rare and nearly unheard of, even in the extraordinary setting of Covid-19. This is especially the case since so little information is gleaned from an investigational drug in Phase I that has many more hurdles to overcome before it successfully gets to market. In fact, 77 percent of vaccines for infectious diseases make it through Phase I, but only 33 percent make it through the entire process overall.
Moreover, upon examining Moderna’s non-peer reviewed press release, the actual data on the vaccine’s success is even more flimsy. According to the document, of the 45 patients who received the vaccine, the data on “neutralising antibody data are available only for the first four participants in each of the 25-microgram and 100-microgram dose level cohorts.” In other words, that means that when it comes to finding out whether the vaccine elicits an antibody response that could potentially fight the coronavirus, they only had data on eight patients. That’s not enough to do any type of statistical analysis and it also brings into question the status of the other 37 patients who also received the vaccine.
Moreover, when it comes to determining whether the “neutralising antibodies” were clinically effective against the coronavirus, the only data Moderna alluded to were from mice. Not only are there huge differences between mice and men, but history also proves that success in animal models is often not replicated in human studies. This is especially the case for Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccine, which would be the world’s first to ever reach the market if it passes clinical trials.
Many vaccines, like for influenza a.k.a flu, use an inactivated virus that is destroyed by heat or chemicals like formaldehyde so that it can elicit an immune response without infecting you. Others — like for measles, mumps, and rubella — use a live attenuated virus that is cultivated in such a way that it makes the virus weak and unable to hurt you but still able to train your immune system to fight it. Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccine, on the other hand, is completely new and revolutionary to say the least. It uses a sequence of genetic RNA material produced in a lab that, when injected into your body, must invade your cells and hijack your cells’ protein-making machinery called ribosomes to produce the viral components that subsequently train your immune system to fight the virus. In this case, Moderna’s mRNA-1273 is programmed to make your cells produce the coronavirus’ infamous spike protein that gives the virus its crown-like appearance (“corona” is crown in Latin) for which it is named.
In many ways, the vaccine almost behaves like an RNA virus itself except that it hijacks your cells to produce the parts of the virus, like the spike protein, rather than the whole virus. Some messenger RNA vaccines are even self-amplifying. That means they encode not only the protein antigen of interest to elicit an immune response but also produce their own RNA dependent RNA polymerase, so that they can force the cell to replicate more copies of it. At that point, it will be hard to convince conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers that a self-amplifying messenger RNA vaccine is not an artificially created self-replicating virus. In fact, public acceptance of this new paradigm is not something to be easily dismissed nor taken for granted. There are unique and unknown risks to messenger RNA vaccines, including the possibility that they generate strong type I interferon responses that could lead to inflammation and autoimmune conditions.
Trump 'looking at' making coronavirus vaccine free
That is not to say there aren’t also great advantages to having messenger RNA vaccines too. For example, they can be mass-produced cost-effectively on a large scale necessary for the worldwide vaccination efforts that we desperately need for the coronavirus pandemic. They also do not require uninterrupted cold storage that makes vaccines challenging to distribute in poor countries and rural areas with unreliable refrigeration at the point of care. However, the fact remains that messenger RNA vaccines have never before been brought to market for human patients. So the hype surrounding Moderna’s vaccine requires us to take not one but two leaps of faith — that it works for a never-before-seen virus and in a never-before-seen way.
But perhaps the most important question to ask about Moderna’s new messenger RNA vaccine is not scientific nor technical but one of ethics and morality. When it comes to the United States and its private healthcare system, pharmaceutical companies have a long and sordid history of putting profits over people and human lives. Pricing and access to drugs — like insulin, for example — have been limited to those who can afford it at the deadly expense of those who cannot. When Dr Frederick Banting and Dr Charles Best discovered insulin in 1921, they sold their patent for $1 because they could not bear the idea of profiting from a drug that was meant to save human lives. Yet pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly have skyrocketed the price of insulin using a process called “evergreening,” where they make incremental changes to the drug in order to renew their patents in perpetuity. Could the same thing happen with Moderna’s new and revolutionary messenger RNA vaccine for the coronavirus? If American pharmaceutical companies become the world’s gatekeepers for the vaccine, will they allow everyone to have it at low cost or will they prioritise only the rich and powerful?
Oxford Vaccine Group has a competing coronavirus vaccine called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. It works by genetically re-programming the adenovirus — a DNA virus that causes a mild cold in humans and elicits a strong immune response — to express the coronavirus’s spike protein on the surface of itself. Then the adenovirus, which can be modified not to replicate nor become infectious, is injected as a vaccine that allows our bodies to generate protective antibodies and immunological memory to fight the coronavirus.
UK to spend £84m on Covid-19 vaccine studies, business secretary announces
Unlike Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccine, the Oxford vaccine does not need to invade and hijack our cells’ own machinery to produce the coronavirus’s spike protein and instead hijacks the adenovirus’s machinery before it even comes into our body. From a medical and clinical perspective, there is less risk of generating a type I interferon response and autoimmunity because there is no messenger RNA floating around our blood, invading our cells.
But most importantly, the Oxford Vaccine Group is part of a universal healthcare system called the NHS within the UK. As such, there is much less potential for price-gouging and barriers to access for the eventual coronavirus vaccine compared to Moderna. If the undeserved investor and media hype for Moderna’s messenger RNA coronavirus vaccine allows it to overtake all competitors around the world, then we may be left with a potentially more dangerous and unknown vaccine that many of us may not even be able to afford. So let’s have an even playing field here. Let’s base our excitement and exuberance on the actual facts and evidence and data rather than our labile emotions and feelings. We are all in this together, and that includes poor people in America and poor people in poor countries around the world who deserve an eventual coronavirus vaccine that is safe, effective, and — last but not least — affordable. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2020 12:00 am Post subject:
This is an excellent video, good for trying to convince those brainwashed folk who still believe the governments and MSM:
'This is a Spiritual Battle': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gkUJk4dvaM
Dave Cullen ('Forever Computing') has a large number of videos up on the web: the three I have seen are all excellent. Here is another:
'Possible Leaked Roadmap for the Next Phase of the Agenda': (but a bit heavy for those new to the NWO agendas):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKCTkLJbtT4&feature=share
If the latter turns out to be true, it bodes ill for us all.
Queen Elizabeth II owns over 90% of Canada, so the plans could not have been OK'd without her assent. Back to serfdom! _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
The impetus for Boris Johnson’s move came from a little-known group called Nervtag – the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group – which advises Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, who in turn played such a critical role in persuading the Prime Minister to order the crippling festive lockdown.
Nervtag – whose members included Professor Neil Ferguson from Imperial College London before he was forced to quit after breaking lockdown rules to meet his married lover – met on Friday to discuss the new mutant strain. Its findings were then cited by Prof Whitty in a meeting with the Prime Minister later that day.
But one senior Whitehall source claimed to The Mail on Sunday that the majority of Nervtag members were opposed to taking immediate action and wanted to wait for more evidence. The source said: ‘Evidence is emerging day by day from Public Health England, but Ministers have been bullied into action by a vocal minority which believes that, in the style of Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army, we should be panicking much more frequently. This new variant seems more transmissible, but there is no evidence it is more deadly.
‘There is an argument that it could put the Health Service under more pressure but London is well-provided for with hospital beds. A quarter of all transmission happens in hospital, not the community.’
It felt like a meeting of horror movie scriptwriters: GLEN OWEN tells the inside story of how a libertarian PM ended up feeling he had no choice but to cancel Christmas
By GLEN OWEN FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED: 22:00, 19 December 2020 | UPDATED: 01:35, 20 December 2020
The grim countenances of Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance told the story before they even started talking – Christmas was off. As Boris Johnson sat in the Cabinet Room at 5pm on Friday, Whitty and Vallance appeared on the Zoom monitors and started reeling off increasingly alarming data about the new mutant strain of the coronavirus.
In what one participant described as ‘a script from a horror film’, they told the shaken-looking Prime Minister that the variant was 70 per cent more transmissible – and was already responsible for the majority of new infections in the ‘hotspot’ of London and the South East.
Despite tiny slivers of positive news – that it was not thought more likely to kill sufferers or render the vaccines ineffective – the message from the scientists was clear: without swift and draconian action, the critical ‘R’ number at which the virus spreads would rise by up to 0.9.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pictured during a conference to tell people in the south of England their Christmas plans would have to be cancelled +6
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pictured during a conference to tell people in the south of England their Christmas plans would have to be cancelled
Patrick Vallance +6
Chris Whitty +6
When the committee heard that infections had risen in London by 66 per cent over the past two weeks, and that 60 per cent of those in the capital were due to the new variant, Mr Johnson stopped arguing the point and turned to the action which needed to be taken. Pictured left, Patrick Vallance. Right, Chris Whitty
In what one participant described as ‘a script from a horror film’, they told the shaken-looking Prime Minister that the variant was 70 per cent more transmissible. Pictured, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance +6
In what one participant described as ‘a script from a horror film’, they told the shaken-looking Prime Minister that the variant was 70 per cent more transmissible. Pictured, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance
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With the rate currently between 1.1 and 1.3 in the South East, it would be a matter of weeks before each infected person was passing the infection to two other people, an exponential increase which could soon overwhelm the country’s spare intensive care capacity.
Mr Johnson immediately called a meeting of Covid-0, the Cabinet sub-committee he chairs containing senior colleagues such as Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove. Delivering the bleak news, the Prime Minister made a valiant bid to stick to his policy of lifting the restrictions on household mixing over Christmas.
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But when the committee heard that infections had risen in London by 66 per cent over the past two weeks, and that 60 per cent of those in the capital were due to the new variant, Mr Johnson stopped arguing the point and turned to the action which needed to be taken.
Covid-O met again yesterday morning to allow Ministers such as Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to crunch through the restrictions and exemptions which applied to their departments. After signing them off, Mr Johnson then rang Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to brief him on the measures being introduced, while Mr Gove did the same for Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland.
Boris Johnson (pictured) immediately called a meeting of Covid-0, the Cabinet sub-committee he chairs containing senior colleagues such as Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove +6
Boris Johnson (pictured) immediately called a meeting of Covid-0, the Cabinet sub-committee he chairs containing senior colleagues such as Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove
When he held the Cabinet meeting at 1pm yesterday, Mr Johnson – who declared only on Wednesday that it would be ‘inhuman’ to ‘cancel Christmas’ – struck a sombre note as he said: ‘You can probably tell from my voice that I don’t rejoice in any of this. But I do not see that we have any choice.’
As Mr Johnson set out the chilling data, and said that the World Health Organisation had been informed, the usual lockdown sceptics remained largely silent – apart from one Minister, who expressed concern that scientists could be manipulating the figures to steamroller the country into another devastating lockdown.
The Minister might have been largely alone within yesterday’s Cabinet, but not on the Tory backbenches where the sceptics have been muttering about a ‘new Project Fear’ since Mr Hancock first made reference to the mutant strain last Monday.
Their reservations have been shared by isolated voices within the scientific establishment, who have argued that it is impossible to form an accurate impression of the situation based on just a few days’ statistics.
But Mr Johnson was adamant: it would be irresponsible to ignore the data, despite the impact on Christmas, because he had insisted from the onset of the crisis that he would be ‘guided by the science’.
It was agreed that the existing tier 3 areas in London and the South East should be moved to a new tier 4, an effective return to lockdown, and that plans to allow households to mix in those areas over Christmas should be abandoned – a move affecting one third of the population in England. In the remaining areas, a semblance of Christmas would be retained by allowing three households to mix on Christmas Day only.
It was another screeching U-turn in the Government’s often chaotic handling of the pandemic, but one which No 10 argues had become inevitable.
The measures affected every Cabinet Minister around the virtual table: for Mr Shapps, he is facing the collapse of travel plans for millions forced to stay at home unexpectedly over Christmas.
Foreign travel has also been thrown into chaos – anyone in tier 4 who has booked a holiday abroad as the measures currently stand will be breaking the law if they decide to go on it.
And given that the mutant strain is currently limited to the UK, it is widely expected in No 10 that foreign governments will soon put British travellers on a banned list to prevent the new strain from ‘seeding’ in their communities. Mr Sunak, who last week extended his furlough scheme to April, realises that he faces yet more pressure to bail out businesses which have been forced to close down in the vital run-up to Christmas.
The Cabinet gloom was deepened by the grim ‘optics’ of deploying the legal might of the state to stop families from seeing each other at the most emotionally charged time of the year.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2020 7:35 pm Post subject:
Health, Or Politics?
'Show us the evidence': Scientists call for clarity on claim that new Covid-19 variant strain is 70% more contagious
Boris Johnson was urged to publish clear evidence of coronavirus data last night
Said new variant may be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than other strains
Professor Carl Heneghan expressed his scepticism over the 70 per cent figure
By COLIN FERNANDEZ SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9073765/Scientists-call-clari ty-claim-new-Covid-19-variant-strain-70-contagious.html
PUBLISHED: 23:00, 20 December 2020 | UPDATED: 13:10, 21 December 2020
Boris Johnson was last night urged to publish clear evidence of the Covid data he used to cancel Christmas for millions.
The Prime Minister has warned the new variant of coronavirus may be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than previous strains and could overwhelm the NHS.
But last night one scientist demanded greater transparency over the number that shut down swathes of the UK.
Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University's Nuffield Department of Primary Care, expressed scepticism over the 70 per cent figure.
Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University's Nuffield Department of Primary Care, said it was 'too early to draw such an inference'
He said: 'I've been doing this job for 25 years and I can tell you can't establish a quantifiable number in such a short time frame.'
He added 'every expert is saying it's too early to draw such an inference'.
Professor Heneghan said there was no doubt this time of the year, the 'height of the viral season', was a difficult time for the NHS. But he said failure to put out the basis of the figures was undermining public trust.
He added: 'I would want to have very clear evidence rather than 'we think it's more transmissible' so we can see if it is or not.
'It has massive implications, it's causing fear and panic, but we should not be in this situation when the Government is putting out data that is unquantifiable.'
He added: 'They are fitting the data to the evidence. They see cases rising and they are looking for evidence to explain it.'
The new variant was found on September 20 in Kent.
By mid-November, 28 per cent of cases in London were attributable to it. And in the week starting December 9, it was responsible for 62 per cent.
Boris Johnson warned the new variant of coronavirus may be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than previous strains
Professor Heneghan said that if it was true the new variant was more transmissible 'we should be locking down the whole country' as people leaving the capital to avoid restrictions would spread it.
Announcing the new Tier Four restrictions, Boris Johnson blamed the new Covid strain and said 'it may be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than the old variant'.
He also said the new virus could boost the reproduction rate – known as R – by 0.4. When R is above 1 the virus is increasing. If it is below 1, it is decreasing.
Mr Johnson said the figure, which came from analysis by government advisory body The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), was 'early data' and 'subject to review'.
But he added: 'It's the best we have at the moment.
'We have to act on information as we have it because this is spreading very fast.'
Peter Horby, chairman of Nervtag and Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oxford, said the figure of 70 per cent was based on 'converging data'.
He said: 'This is including, but not limited to, the rate of change in the frequency of detection of the variant (the growth rate) and the correlation between R values and the frequency of detection of the new variant.'
Minutes from the Nervtag meeting from December 18 said they had 'moderate confidence' that the new variant, known as VUI-202012/01, 'demonstrates a substantial increase in transmissibility compared to other variants'.
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 10:14 pm Post subject:
This really is an excellent 45 minute video; it explains everything so very well:
'The Great Reset (The Coming Economic Crisis) - Part 4 by Keith Malcomson':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbgK97TCSpk _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=892802894824370&id=66325 1520811711 _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
“I’m not an ‘anti-vaxxer’, and, as well as well as being up to date on all my own immunisations I’ve been in the business of vaccinating people for years. I do however have serious misgivings about this covid vaccine.
The corona virus causing Covid causes either no symptoms at all or a mild self limiting illness in the vast majority of those who contract it. The pharmaceutical companies are in a race against each other to come up with a vaccine in the current frenzied covid pandemic.
The potential financial prize to the winning company and its major share holders is truly enormous. For the first time in the history of pharmaceutical development these companies have been relieved of any financial liability should they get it wrong. The covid vaccine that they have come up with in record time (it normally takes many years to develop and trial a vaccine), uses a novel and entirely untried approach.
The technique involves injecting genetic material (messenger RNA) into the recipient. This travels into the cells and permanently alters the genetic machinery of the recipient and causes the recipient to make a protein which is a component of the coronavirus. This protein induces an immune response so that the vaccinated person will recognise the real virus when challenged and be able to elicit a rapid immune response.
My misgivings are as follows:
1. The vaccinated persons genetic record is permanently altered. The potential adverse effects of this (cancers, leukaemias non malignant disease and birth defects in future generations) may take years to manifest.
2. The protein generated by the injected mRNA may itself be harmful in the longer term. What for instance if it had prion type adverse effects and like other prion proteins caused a degenerative neurological condition such as Alzheimers disease, BSE or CJD?
Prion proteins which cause these terrible untreatable conditions typically take years to bring about the disease state.
None of my concerns described in points 1 or 2 can possibly have been addressed in the incredibly short time its taken to develop these vaccines. The public are being rail roaded into having this vaccine without these real risks being discussed with them. Sadly many health care professionals, possibly through ignorance, are helping to encourage this blind stampede.
If Professor Chris Whitty or Sir Patrick Vallance would like to publicly debate these important issues I am sure it can be arranged.
Finally, I would ask, that given immunisation against Covid is claimed to work, why has Boris Johnson, who we are led to believe had severe Covid illness some weeks ago, and who is thus now immune to the virus, now back in quarantine?"
Dr R G Allen
GMC registration number 3172375. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
The phrase “fog of war” is attributed to Carl von Clausewitz. It has come to refer to the confusion and uncertainty felt by everyone in the midst of conflict. It is often unclear who is making decisions and why, and what the relationships are between the strategies and the goals. Even the rationale can become elusive as frustration and disorientation displace clarity and rationality.
In 2020, we’ve experienced the fog of disease mitigation.
The initial round of lockdowns was not about suppressing the virus but slowing it for one reason: to preserve hospital capacity. Whether and to what extent the “curve” was actually flattened will probably be debated for years but back then there was no question of extinguishing the virus. The volume of the curves, tall and quick or short and long, was the same either way. People were going to get the bug until the bug burns out (herd immunity).
Gradually, and sometimes almost imperceptibly, the rationale for the lockdowns changed. Curve flattening became an end in itself, apart from hospital capacity. Perhaps this was because the hospital crowding issue was extremely localized in two New York boroughs while hospitals around the country emptied out for patients who didn’t show up: 350 hospitals furloughed workers.
That failure was embarrassing enough, given the overwhelming costs. Schools closed, commercial rights were vanquished, shelter-in-place orders from wartime were imposed, travel nearly stopped, all large events were cancelled, and so on. Clearly there needed to be a good, solid, science-based reason for why the politicians and their advisers had, on their own, decided to take away much of what we once regarded as human rights.
Talk about this began in March but faded. Sometime in summer, the idea of asymptomatic spread started to trend, bit by bit. It finally went to an explosion of interest in the first week of June. It trailed off again until very recently.
Asymptomatic spread was the answer given to the great question: I’m not sick so why should I have to be locked down? Why are we quarantining the healthy? And what possibly could it mean, in any case, to be sick without symptoms? Why are half the PCR-positive tests assigned to people who otherwise seem to be perfectly fine?
All these valid questions came to be answered by this one phrase: asymptomatic spread. You might not feel sick. You might not ever have symptoms from SARS-CoV-2. Still, you could be an even worse super spreader without knowing it, infecting people all around you who will carry it to people who will die from the disease. This was also the moment when, subtly and imperceptibly, we were being asked to think of our fellow citizens not as human beings with dignity and rights but pathogen-carrying disease vectors. We had to be masked, all of us, because we are secretly filthy and unclean: we cannot be allowed to breath near others, so even with a mask we must stay 6 feet away.
(As I type these words, I feel sure that if anyone reads them in ten years, the reader will assume I’m writing fiction or engaged in wild hyperbole. To the future reader: this is all true.)
On June 7, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, told a press conference that from the known research, asymptomatic spread was “very rare.” “From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.” She added for emphasis: “It’s very rare.”
There was an understandable explosion of fury on all sides. People against lockdowns were screaming all over Twitter that if this is true, the rationale for the lockdowns mostly disappears. We can go back to our normal lives. We can open up everything again!
I wrote at the time:
What this suggests, of course, is that there is nothing mysteriously magical or insidious about this new virus. It behaves like the viruses that scientists have been studying for one hundred years. What we do with a normal virus is be careful around others when we have symptoms. We don’t cough and sneeze on people and generally stay home if we are sick. That’s how it’s always been. You don’t need lockdown to achieve that; you just proceed with life as normal, treating the sick and otherwise not disrupting life.
If that is the case with this one, everything we’ve done over the months – the mask wearing, the grasshopper dance not to be next to people, the canceling of everything, the wild paranoia and premodern confusions – has been a calamitous and destructive waste of time, energy, and money.
On the other side, there was the predictably pro-lockdown mainstream media which decried her heresy. The cry was so loud that the WHO immediately started walking back the claim, mostly with hints and suggestions that didn’t say untrue things but did not repudiate the initial claim either: “There is much to be answered on this. There is much that is unknown. It’s clear that both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals are part of the transmission cycle. The question is what is the relative contribution of each group to the overall number of cases.”
Following that, the question seemed to fade. We went back to assuming that potentially everyone had a disease, enabling fellow citizens to become virtuous enforcers of mask wearing, staying home, and separating, screaming and yelling at others for failing to comply. The science on the question was unsettled, we were told, so let us go back to wrecking life as we once knew it.
The fog of disease mitigation, indeed. But as with most of the “science” throughout this ordeal, it eventually came to be revealed that good sense and rationality would prevail over implausible claims and predictions that led to experiments in social control without any precedent.
In this case, the carrier of rationality is a gigantic study conducted in Wuhan, China, of 10 million people. The article appears in Nature Communications, published November 20, 2020.
The conclusion is not that asymptomatic spread is rare or that the science is uncertain. The study revealed something that hardly ever happens in these kinds of studies. There was not one documented case. Forget rare. Forget even Fauci’s previous suggestion that asymptomatic transmission exists but not does drive the spread. Replace all that with: never. At least not in this study for 10,000,000.
Stringent COVID-19 control measures were imposed in Wuhan between January 23 and April 8, 2020. Estimates of the prevalence of infection following the release of restrictions could inform post-lockdown pandemic management. Here, we describe a city-wide SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening programme between May 14 and June 1, 2020 in Wuhan. All city residents aged six years or older were eligible and 9,899,828 (92.9%) participated. No new symptomatic cases and 300 asymptomatic cases (detection rate 0.303/10,000, 95% CI 0.270–0.339/10,000) were identified. There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases. 107 of 34,424 previously recovered COVID-19 patients tested positive again (re-positive rate 0.31%, 95% CI 0.423–0.574%). The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Wuhan was therefore very low five to eight weeks after the end of lockdown.
One might suppose that this would be huge news. It would allow us to open up everything immediately. With the whole basis for post-curve-flattening lockdowns crumbled, we could go back to living a normal life. The fear could evaporate. We could take comfort in our normal intuition that healthy people can get out and about with no risk to others. We could take off our masks. We could go to movies and sports events.
From what I can tell, there was only one news story that was posted about this. It was on Russia Today. I’ve not been able to find another one. People not following the right accounts on Twitter wouldn’t even know about it at all.
We keep hearing about how we should follow the science. The claim is tired by now. We know what’s really happening. The lockdown lobby ignores whatever contradicts their narrative, preferring unverified anecdotes over an actual scientific study of 10 million residents in what was the world’s first major hotspot for the disease we are trying to manage. You would expect this study to be massive international news. So far as I can tell, it is being ignored.
With solid evidence that asymptomatic spread is nonsense, we have to ask: who is making decisions and why? Again, this brings me back to the metaphor of fog. We are all experiencing confusion and uncertainty over the precise relationship between the strategies and the goals of panoply of regulations and stringencies all around us. Even the rationale has become elusive – even refuted – as frustration and disorientation have displaced what we vaguely recall as clarity and rationality of daily life.
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Jeffrey A. Tucker
Jeffrey A. Tucker is Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research.
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