Covid-19 response

[Docb]

Hi Docb,

Well docb; put an end to all these ramblings, show us all the evidence for locking us all in and destroying the country, the nhs and the economy.

Where were all the recorded excess deaths (for this deadly pandemic) in the UK prior to locking us all down (and emptying the elderly out of hospitals and telling us all to stay at home) on 21 March 2020? See graph attached. Do you have contrary uk data showing why they locked the country down?

The only point i would make in response is to say that I am not going to indulge in throwing in random graphs culled from the internet because they support whatever view I might have - the very thing that I have been suggesting is not helpful.

I would remind you that I have not expressed any opinion on the matters you have raised. I have my thoughts but have kept them to myself because I have no particular expertise in the subject and as I have said, neither the time or the inclination to do the work needed to examine the issue to in order to offer anything constructive.

I don't know if you have ever been involved in decision making on tricky subjects with implications for the nation's well-being. I have, and I can assure you that such decisions are not taken lightly.

 

[Amity Island]

The only point i would make in response is to say that I am not going to indulge in throwing in random graphs culled from the internet because they support whatever view I might have - the very thing that I have been suggesting is not helpful.

I would remind you that I have not expressed any opinion on the matters you have raised. I have my thoughts but have kept them to myself because I have no particular expertise in the subject and as I have said, neither the time or the inclination to do the work needed to examine the issue to in order to offer anything constructive.

I don't know if you have ever been involved in decision making on tricky subjects with implications for the nation's well-being. I have, and I can assure you that such decisions are not taken lightly.

Hi DocB,

Choose your source, all the graphs look the same and are based on government and ons data.
I'm not trying to sway or show bias in my opinion.

I'm just asking, where are the signals (prior to 21 Mar 2020) in the additional (above 5 year base line) all cause mortality throughout the UK that would warrant a lockdown etc etc? This requires no expertise, just a graph.

Do you think we would have seen that spike in all cause mortality had they not locked down etc etc on 21st March 2020.

 

[Docb]

@Amity Island. Read my posts. I am not going to get into any discussion on this subject for the reasons I have stated.

 

[Amity Island]

A secretive government unit worked with social media companies in an attempt to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown policies during the pandemic.


On Friday, MPs and freedom of speech campaigners condemned the disclosures as “truly chilling” and “a tool for censoring British citizens” akin to those of the Chinese Communist Party.

Exclusive: Ministers had ‘chilling’ secret unit to curb lockdown dissent

Critics of Covid restrictions targeted by counter-disinformation team at the heart of the Government

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Amity Island]

Researchers for the Johns Hopkins study said the findings showed that lockdowns had been “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions”.

Scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Lund University examined almost 20,000 studies on measures taken to protect populations against Covid across the world.

Their findings suggest that lockdowns in response to the first wave of the pandemic, when compared with less strict policies adopted by the likes of Sweden, prevented as few as 1,700 deaths in England and Wales. In an average week there are around 11,000 deaths in England and Wales.

Imperial College of London’s modelling exercises (March 2020), predicted lockdowns would save over 400,000 lives in the United Kingdom.

Professor Neil Ferguson, who led the COVID-19 modeling team at Imperial College in London, resigned May 5 from his government advisory role after breaking the very same British lockdown rules that he had a role in influencing.

Ferguson led the Imperial College team that designed the computer model that, among others, had been used to justify the recent stay-at-home orders in England as well as in the United States. We now know the model was so highly flawed it never should have been relied upon for policy decisions to begin with.

Lockdown benefits ‘a drop in the bucket compared to the costs’, landmark study finds

Researchers say draconian measures taken in spring 2020 had 'negligible impact' on Covid mortality compared with lighter-touch countries

www.telegraph.co.uk

Failures of an Influential COVID-19 Model Used to Justify Lockdowns

Professor Neil Ferguson, who led the COVID-19 modeling team at Imperial College in London, resigned May 5 from his government advisory role after breaking the very same British lockdown rules that he had a role in influencing.

www.heritage.org

Did lockdowns work? The verdict on Covid restrictions

Examine the impact of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality, suggesting that voluntary changes in behavior, not strict restrictions, mitigated the pandemic.

iea.org.uk

 

[Amity Island]

Government report concludes Boris Johnson lied to the House of Commons, and also lied to the committee with his denials that parties took place in Downing Street during coronavirus restrictions.

Report finds Boris Johnson "deliberately misled" Parliament about lockdown parties

A report by a group of MPs has said that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson "deliberately misled" Parliament over lockdown parties at Downing Street which took place during the pandemic. Find out more here.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Amity Island]

Following the science. Newly released party video whilst London was in lockdown (for others).

 

[Amity Island]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1670986558898569217

 

[Amity Island]

A judge backed claims that the U.S. President’s administration, including the White House, had engaged in a “massive” attempt to stop Americans questioning the efficacy of vaccines online.

The injunction came after it was revealed last month that U.K. ministers set up a Counter-Disinformation Unit, which was used to target lockdown critics and those questioning the mass vaccination of children.

The U.K. Government used an artificial intelligence firm to monitor social media sites and flag opposition to vaccine passports.

Prosecutors in the Republican states of Louisiana and Missouri brought the case and accused the federal Government of being involved in a “censorship enterprise“.

They claimed that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by trying to block social media users exercising their right to free speech.

Joe Biden launched ‘Orwellian Ministry of Truth’ to shut down Covid dissent, judge says

Court backs claims Biden administration had engaged in a ‘massive’ attempt to stop Americans questioning the efficacy of vaccines online

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Amity Island]

The 28,000 convictions, which are understood to largely stem from people who initially received fixed-penalty notices. If a fine is contested – or left unpaid – it can result in magistrate judges ruling on the case without the defendant being present, under special fast-track measures.
Misunderstood or missed paperwork has led to people being found guilty and sentenced without their knowledge. Some say they had no idea they had been convicted in absentia until the bailiffs arrived.


Even those Covid convictions not recorded on the national database may be logged by individual police forces – meaning they could be disclosed when people are subject to enhanced criminal record

More than 28,000 convicted of Covid rule breaches in England and Wales

Exclusive: Data analysis shows people severely penalised for relatively minor infractions of coronavirus laws

www.theguardian.com

 

[Dragonheart]

The 28,000 convictions, which are understood to largely stem from people who initially received fixed-penalty notices. If a fine is contested – or left unpaid – it can result in magistrate judges ruling on the case without the defendant being present, under special fast-track measures.
Misunderstood or missed paperwork has led to people being found guilty and sentenced without their knowledge. Some say they had no idea they had been convicted in absentia until the bailiffs arrived.


Even those Covid convictions not recorded on the national database may be logged by individual police forces – meaning they could be disclosed when people are subject to enhanced criminal record

More than 28,000 convicted of Covid rule breaches in England and Wales

Exclusive: Data analysis shows people severely penalised for relatively minor infractions of coronavirus laws

www.theguardian.com

So the issue seems to potentially be the fast track process being flawed, not necessarily the validity of the offences themselves.

Nothing in that article suggests how many of those 28000 are because of the system convicting in absentia “accidentally” or after errors of process (which is horrific if true) and how many are down to the (alleged) law breakers not bothering to act appropriately on the fines themselves. Probably a mixture of both.

 

[Robin]

So the issue seems to potentially be the fast track process being flawed, not necessarily the validity of the offences themselves.

Nothing in that article suggests how many of those 28000 are because of the system convicting in absentia “accidentally” or after errors of process (which is horrific if true) and how many are down to the (alleged) law breakers not bothering to act appropriately on the fines themselves. Probably a mixture of both.

Add to that the number of people who contested their fine because they didn’t think their actions constituted a breach of the rules.
I’m reminded of the two ladies who went for a walk (within the rules) but because they’d driven five miles to a deserted reservoir, where they wouldn’t meet and get breathed on by other people, and because they were each clutching a takeaway hot drink, they were deemed to be 'having a picnic' which was outside the rules. Because of the publicity, the fines we’re cancelled, but there must be other people in similar situations who are contesting their fines through the courts.

 

[Dragonheart]

Add to that the number of people who contested their fine because they didn’t think their actions constituted a breach of the rules.
I’m reminded of the two ladies who went for a walk (within the rules) but because they’d driven five miles to a deserted reservoir, where they wouldn’t meet and get breathed on by other people, and because they were each clutching a takeaway hot drink, they were deemed to be 'having a picnic' which was outside the rules. Because of the publicity, the fines we’re cancelled, but there must be other people in similar situations who are contesting their fines through the courts.

I’m sure there will also be many of those that believed they could convince a court they were innocent and failed Either because they were in fact guilty and were trying it on or because the court viewed it differently. We simply don’t know the numbers which were convicted for which reason.

Whilst there will always be some like the two ladies walking and the ridiculous assumption a coffee was a picnic the majority are likely to be much less ambiguous. The media always like to point out the exceptions and try and make it sound the norm.

I assume many of those 28000 knew perfectly well they were breaking the law and assumed or hoped they’d get away with it. Do we really think royal mail is so bad none of those got any of the paperwork before it was too late? Or that they all truly believed they were innocent and failed to win their case?

So many did break the laws around covid measures this is a drop in the ocean compared to the offences that were actually committed each and every day but weren’t fined or prosecuted.

 

[Amity Island]

I’m sure there will also be many of those that believed they could convince a court they were innocent and failed Either because they were in fact guilty and were trying it on or because the court viewed it differently. We simply don’t know the numbers which were convicted for which reason.

Whilst there will always be some like the two ladies walking and the ridiculous assumption a coffee was a picnic the majority are likely to be much less ambiguous. The media always like to point out the exceptions and try and make it sound the norm.

I assume many of those 28000 knew perfectly well they were breaking the law and assumed or hoped they’d get away with it. Do we really think royal mail is so bad none of those got any of the paperwork before it was too late? Or that they all truly believed they were innocent and failed to win their case?

So many did break the laws around covid measures this is a drop in the ocean compared to the offences that were actually committed each and every day but weren’t fined or prosecuted.

The problem was the rules.

When you devise and dream up silly, ludicrous rules you get a similar response. One example was the scotch egg fiasco, did a scotch egg constitute a substantial meal in a pub?

The rules were dreamt up to try and reduce transmission. As I said before, the whole thing could of been simply managed by replacing all the rules with one simple rule. If you are sick, stay at home. That simple common sense strategy would be more than sufficient to help reduce transmission. Besides this, during the pandemic a test had become available that showed if one is infectious or not. This test, if they had chosen to use it, would of made a huge impact on the outcome of the pandemic, saving many lives, reducing case numbers etc.

The only downside with stopping transmission is that the need for vaccines would of become much less necessary.

 

[Dragonheart]

The problem was the rules.

When you devise and dream up silly, ludicrous rules you get a similar response. One example was the scotch egg fiasco, did a scotch egg constitute a substantial meal in a pub?

The rules were dreamt up to try and reduce transmission. As I said before, the whole thing could of been simply managed by replacing all the rules with one simple rule. If you are sick, stay at home. That simple common sense strategy would be more than sufficient to help reduce transmission. Besides this, during the pandemic a test had become available that showed if one is infectious or not. This test, if they had chosen to use it, would of made a huge impact on the outcome of the pandemic, saving many lives, reducing case numbers etc.

The only downside with stopping transmission is that the need for vaccines would have become much less necessary.

Yes there were some silly and ambiguous rules. There were also some fundamental and clear ones that people still broke left right and centre. They could count how many people were present in most cases for example. They knew if they were in someones home or not. They knew if they’d been pinged, had a positive test, lived with someone etc etc etc.

Staying at home whilst sick would be a wonderful thing at anytime. Think how fast a cold/flu bug spreads round a workplace or classroom. But people insist on “soldiering on” and parents are prosecuted for keeping sick kids home all making everyone else sick and causing more disruption and losses than the first sick person staying home.

What evidence is there that that alone would have been enough or that people would have complied with that either? The problem in the height of pandemic was people who were infected but did not yet have symptoms were highly infectious. Early on they couldn’t even test. Many of the rules were aimed at preventing these people pass it on, by identifying those most likely to be infected and isolating/testing them. Other rules were to keep the known sick people out of circulation. Two different scenarios, two sets of risk. Your suggestion only deals with one of them.

Specifically what unused test are you referring to?

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Specifically what unused test are you referring to?

Probably this one: https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/board...lockdowns-covid-cases-etc-etc-etc-etc.106471/

Which sounds like an interesting test but doesn't feel like it would have been likely to be that significant. Would depend on how easy it would have been to scale up (and how cheap it could be made), of course.

(I thought the modelling on a (hypothetical) very cheap test was more interesting: if you could produce enough for everyone to take a test once a day you could pretty much avoid other measures. At least, earlier in the pandemic, though later variants would have changed the parameters. And anyway that was before vaccines. Once we had the vaccines and realised how good they are the challenge was just to get them to as much of the world as possible (which we failed at).)

 

[Amity Island]

Staying at home whilst sick would be a wonderful thing at anytime.

Yes, I think having one simple common sense, obvious rule like "stay at home if you are sick" which everyone can understand, would be effective "enough" to reduce case numbers (to reduce the burden on the nhs -- the main aim) than drawing up regulations, ever changing rules, lockdowns, school closures, fines, chasing after people, business closures, social distancing, deciding if a scotch egg is a meal, furlough schemes, eat out to help, testing the country etc for years on end.

Besides, nature doesn't need rules, if you are sick, it's a natural consequence to rest and recover or go to hospital if necessary. We were being reminded every day how serious covid is, how deadly it is. The aim was never to try and end the pandemic (that early opportunity was missed), all the devastation to the economy and the country (which will last for generations) wasn't caused by the virus but by the way it was dealt with.

That's my view on it.

 

[Dragonheart]

Besides, nature doesn't need rules, if you are sick, it's a natural consequence to rest and recover or go to hospital if necessary. We were being reminded every day how serious covid is, how deadly it is. The aim was never to try and end the pandemic (that early opportunity was missed), all the devastation to the economy and the country (which will last for generations) wasn't caused by the virus but by the way it was dealt with.

That's my view on it.

but you’re still missing the point that you are infectious before you are sick yourself. And not everyone gets that sick, some don’t even notice yet are infectious still. Much of the devastation would still have been caused by even more being sick and unable to work with looser rules. How much we’ll never know. Sick and likely infected people still broke the rules a lot so being reminded how bad it could be for some didn’t stop them did it?

Many things were handled badly. School testing regimes, class separations and later forcing exposed and sick pupils in and even telling them not to test was abysmal. Terrible symptom information to the wider public, and unscientific rules based on politics not medicine just being a few of them. But I really don’t believe your suggestions would have worked better overall. Thousands more would have died. hundreds of thousands of us are still limited in what we can do post covid. Adding more to that, especially from the earlier variants wouldn’t help the economy much either would it

 

[Amity Island]

but you’re still missing the point that you are infectious before you are sick yourself. And not everyone gets that sick, some don’t even notice yet are infectious still. Much of the devastation would still have been caused by even more being sick and unable to work with looser rules. How much we’ll never know. Sick and likely infected people still broke the rules a lot so being reminded how bad it could be for some didn’t stop them did it?

Many things were handled badly. School testing regimes, class separations and later forcing exposed and sick pupils in and even telling them not to test was abysmal. Terrible symptom information to the wider public, and unscientific rules based on politics not medicine just being a few of them. But I really don’t believe your suggestions would have worked better overall. Thousands more would have died. hundreds of thousands of us are still limited in what we can do post covid. Adding more to that, especially from the earlier variants wouldn’t help the economy much either would it

Hi,

I understand there is a chance that transmission can happen before symptoms present (presymptomatic). For this reason, "their" solution was the masks. Regarding asymptomatic (never having symptoms) transmission their solution was the same, masks.

How does a mask prevent transmission for people with no symptoms?

This is why I suggest if you are sick (sore throat, coughing, sneezing etc) stay at home. It's been long established for cold and coronavirus that coughs and sneezes spread diseases. This for me still applies to sarscov2, all be it with some potential pre and asymptomatic spread. The aim was never to stop the pandemic.

The information on pre and asymptomatic spread varies widely depending on the source. In the first large scale study from wuhan.

"A city-wide prevalence study of almost 10 million people in Wuhan found no evidence of asymptomatic transmission."

"Coughing, which is a prominent symptom of covid-19, may result in far more viral particles being shed than talking and breathing, so people with symptomatic infections are more contagious, irrespective of close contact."

Asymptomatic transmission of covid-19

What we know, and what we don’t The UK’s £100bn “Operation Moonshot” to roll out mass testing for covid-19 to cities and universities around the country raises two key questions. How infectious are people who test positive but have no symptoms? And, what is their contribution to transmission of...

www.bmj.com

 

[Dragonheart]

How does a mask prevent transmission for people with no symptoms?

Presumably you are still breathing and talking? Aerosols don’t just come from coughs and sneezes you know. Yes it makes them travel further and faster so increases infectivity but just breathing does it too.

Early studies are a bit worthless. A lot of “didn’t know” and even more “don’t want it to be airborne” mentality. They simply didn’t look for it in many cases. At first they thought it was solely fomites (touch) hence the washing hands emphasis. Never a bad thing but will do next to nothing for aerosols.