Covid-19 response

[nonethewiser]

In stark contrast to the televised excess death statistics (see attached) used to take the country into lockdowns and destroy the economy the Irish government have made a new statement (see below) based on real population changes which were previously ignored.


"Adjusting mortality rates to take account of these changes has shown that Ireland did not record excess mortality during 2020-2022. In fact, Ireland had a lower than expected death rate.

Previous estimates of excess deaths during the pandemic did not take into account changes in population size and demographics.

Ireland’s total population increased by 8% between the 2016 and 2022 census while the number of people aged 65 and over increased by 22% during the same period. This is more than double the 10% increase in the EU 27 countries in the same time period".

OECD research shows Ireland avoided excess deaths during core pandemic years

www.gov.ie

Give it a rest lad, you seem consumed by subject which isn't good for anyone.

 

[Amity Island]

Give it a rest lad, you seem consumed by subject which isn't good for anyone.

That's the spirit! Just forget about it, brush it all under the carpet.

Forget about the devastation to our way of life, freedoms, jobs, education, businesses, economy.

Forget about all the elderly turfed out of hospitals, forget about all the elderly neglected and left to die in the care homes (a real cause behind the first so called wave of deaths).

Forget that age old treatments (saline rinse) that prevent deaths and hospitalisation were ignored.

Forget that the one thing we knew (had evidence of) that does help with Respiratory Infections were actively discouraged by our Chief Medical officer (speech in parliament) from taking vitamin D on the basis we hadn't any evidence. Yet they were more than happy to recommend and mandate masks without any evidence that they might help on the basis of "just in case" they help.

Forget how those (mp's and the like) behind all the restrictions were they themselves breaking same rules and at the time they were encouraging, coercing and mandating vaccines for everybody else were writing an exemption for themselves from vaccination.

Forget how our government ignored the science that healthy children wouldn't see any benefit to risk from the novel vaccines and instead went against the jcvi advice and pushed it onto healthy children.

I could go on....

 

[Bruce Stephens]

It would have made the biggest difference (not only because many lives could of been saved) because the vaccines couldn't legally be rolled out under an emergency use only authorisation had there been any other reliable covid treatments.

Saline nasal irrigation after COVID-19 diagnosis reduces hospitalization

Starting twice daily flushing of the mucus-lined nasal cavity with a mild saline solution soon after testing positive for COVID-19 can significantly reduce hospitalization and death, investigators report.

www.news-medical.net

I'm a bit sceptical. It's a tiny study (79 participants) with no controls (they compare against people who're "similar"). So would it actually be significant at a population level? Doesn't seem impossible, but it does require people to do something that (in this country) isn't common (so needs a small amount of equipment that most of us don't have), and needs us to do it shortly after becoming infected.

Would it really have prevented use of EUAs? Also seems doubtful to me. I think the vaccines were so well trialled and so effective that governments would have found a way to get them used quickly, and I think rightly. I've no idea why you're so against the vaccines.

 

[Amity Island]

I'm a bit sceptical. It's a tiny study (79 participants) with no controls (they compare against people who're "similar"). So would it actually be significant at a population level? Doesn't seem impossible, but it does require people to do something that (in this country) isn't common (so needs a small amount of equipment that most of us don't have), and needs us to do it shortly after becoming infected.

Would it really have prevented use of EUAs? Also seems doubtful to me. I think the vaccines were so well trialled and so effective that governments would have found a way to get them used quickly, and I think rightly. I've no idea why you're so against the vaccines.

The salt rinse is something that could of been done in hospital, given we were told there are no available treatments.

Are you not at all sceptical about the reasons behind the one thing we knew (had evidence of) that does help with Respiratory Infections were actively discouraged by our Chief Medical officer (speech in parliament) from taking vitamin D on the basis we hadn't any evidence. Yet they were more than happy to recommend and mandate masks without any evidence that they might help on the basis of "just in case" they help.

To actively discourage the use of something (vit D) with a record of helping and then on the contrary actively recommend and mandate something (masks) "just in case" that has no evidence, is odd to me.

"Vitamin D supplementation of 10-25 μg a day has a modest protective effect against acute respiratory infections".

Vitamin D and covid-19

Benefits are possible but evidence is sparse, indirect, and inconclusive The covid-19 pandemic has led to many unfounded and exaggerated claims about possible treatments. One high profile controversy has been the role of vitamin D in the prevention and management of covid-19,12 so the National...

www.bmj.com

 

[Bruce Stephens]

The salt rinse is something that could of been done in hospital, given we were told there are no available treatments.

I think it would have been too late. By the time you're in hospital the virus is in your bloodstream.

To actively discourage the use of something (vit D) with a record of helping and then on the contrary actively recommend and mandate something (masks) "just in case" that has no evidence, is odd to me.

I agree it was odd to discourage vitamin D, though it's also rather silly to suggest supplementation would actually have made anything other than a very marginal difference. Having low vitamin D is bad, but there's a very long list of things that we know vitamin D supplementation doesn't help with.

Masks at least make sense (as does physical distancing, increasing air flow, filtering air, etc.).

 

[Amity Island]

.I agree it was odd to discourage vitamin D, though it's also rather silly to suggest supplementation would actually have made anything other than a very marginal difference.

I find it more than odd. I find it disingenuous to intentionally go to such great lengths (make a public statement) to make such a carefully crafted statement which would knowingly and likely change peoples minds about not doing something that had a proven track record of making a real difference to their health, bearing in mind this was coined the greatest threat to our country for a generation.

The statement about vitamin d having "no evidence" it would help with covid19 was left unqualified.

What I mean by unqualified is, he could of said there was "no evidence" it would help with covid19 but given vitamin d is proven to help with respiratory infections it would certainly be worth recommending to the public.

On the "no evidence" part of the statement this is akin to saying there is "no evidence" a crash helmet will work for electric scooter users - because scooters are a new form of transport - even though helmets are proven to work for motorcyclists. The chances are, a helmet will still protect people who use electric scooters even though we've not used them before for this type of vehicle.

"Vitamin D supplementation of 10-25 μg a day has a modest protective effect against acute respiratory infections".

 

[Bruce Stephens]

"Vitamin D supplementation of 10-25 μg a day has a modest protective effect against acute respiratory infections".

From the met analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33798465/

Interpretation: Despite evidence of significant heterogeneity across trials, vitamin D supplementation was safe and overall reduced the risk of ARI compared with placebo, although the risk reduction was small. Protection was associated with administration of daily doses of 400-1000 IU for up to 12 months, and age at enrolment of 1·00-15·99 years. The relevance of these findings to COVID-19 is not known and requires further investigation.​

So perhaps it would be worth reinforcing the general recommendation for the UK ("Government advice is that everyone should consider taking a daily vitamin D supplement during the autumn and winter.") but I'm not sure you'd want to do much more without much better evidence. It feels like there's a decent chance that this possible small effect would just disappear with a larger trial for COVID-19, and that would be rather embarrassing.

 

[Amity Island]

From the met analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33798465/

Interpretation: Despite evidence of significant heterogeneity across trials, vitamin D supplementation was safe and overall reduced the risk of ARI compared with placebo, although the risk reduction was small. Protection was associated with administration of daily doses of 400-1000 IU for up to 12 months, and age at enrolment of 1·00-15·99 years. The relevance of these findings to COVID-19 is not known and requires further investigation.​

So perhaps it would be worth reinforcing the general recommendation for the UK ("Government advice is that everyone should consider taking a daily vitamin D supplement during the autumn and winter.") but I'm not sure you'd want to do much more without much better evidence. It feels like there's a decent chance that this possible small effect would just disappear with a larger trial for COVID-19, and that would be rather embarrassing.

You are missing my point.

There was a stark difference between on the one hand, not encouraging vitamin D given there is evidence it does make a difference for respiratory infections and on the other hand, mandating something that had no evidence when used at public level (and still to this day doesn't have any evidence it works at widescale public level).

I mean, why would you do that? purposely discourage (telling the public there is no evidence) the public from doing something (vit d) that might help in many ways with no safety issues?

“No evidence - yet” is quite different to “proof it doesn’t work” @HSSS

 

[Bruce Stephens]

There was a stark difference between on the one hand, not encouraging vitamin D given there is evidence it does make a difference for respiratory infections and on the other hand, mandating something that had no evidence when used at public level (and still to this day doesn't have any evidence it works at widescale public level).

I agree there's little harm in encouraging people (as the government does generally) to take a vitamin D supplement in the winter.

There is some harm in that people might believe it's offering better protection than it in fact is, and also the possible problem that if it turned out to offer basically no protection then the usual suspects would then claim that the government lied when they said that it did (even if they never actually said that it did). The messaging for "take this and it might help, but probably not that much and maybe not at all but it's harmless at the doses we're suggesting" isn't all that easy (it's not the kind of thing I can imagine Johnson saying effectively (let alone Trump)).

The difference with masks is that testing masks and vitamin D are completely different. If vitamin D had a strong protective effect we'd know: it's dead easy to test. With masks there's a bunch of good evidence that physically they can reduce spread of particles of the relevant sizes, but how effective they'd be given how people wear them in social settings is much more problematic to trial (given that the idea to begin with is that the effect on each individual would mostly be determined by whether other people were wearing masks, so your trial can't look at effects on masked individuals).

 

[Amity Island]

I agree there's little harm in encouraging people (as the government does generally) to take a vitamin D supplement in the winter.

There is some harm in that people might believe it's offering better protection than it in fact is.

Even placebo's have proven effectiveness, sometimes quite impressive effectiveness. Perhaps offering a "potential" treatment (a tablet of nothing basically) placebo would have also made a real difference?

Afterall, hopes are better than fears. Instead; what we got was a good daily serving of fear rather than hope. Constant fear of course has a negative impact on peoples health, certainly an odd choice of strategy during a pandemic.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Perhaps offering a "potential" treatment (a tablet of nothing basically) placebo would have also made a real difference?

That seems a rather courageous approach for a government, based on https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3/full

We studied the effect of placebo treatments by reviewing 202 trials comparing placebo treatment with no treatment covering 60 healthcare problems. In general, placebo treatments produced no major health benefits, although on average they had a modest effect on outcomes reported by patients, such as pain. However, the effect on pain varied from large to non‐existent, even in well‐conducted trials. Variations in the effect of placebo was partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted, the type of placebo used, and whether patients were informed that the trial involved placebo.​

Instead; what we got was a good daily serving of fear rather than hope.

I don't agree. I think it was always made clear that the risks from infection varied wildly between people, for example that younger people were at much lower risk than the elderly, and that there were things that we could do to reduce the chances of being infected (though that included (and still includes, even though we know better now) things like washing hands and surfaces which probably weren't that significant).

Constant fear of course has a negative impact on peoples health, certainly an odd choice of strategy during a pandemic.

Fear is kind of inevitable in a pandemic that's killing enough people that everyone will be reasonably closely connected with someone who's been killed, isn't it? I remember when New York passed the 1 in a 1000 mark and thinking that was pretty horrifying, meaning that (they thought) everyone knew someone who knew someone who'd died.

There's still hope, of course: that better treatments can be found, including (of course) amazing vaccines. I don't think pretending that vitamin D would be dramatically effective is likely to be helpful, and I'm not sure that (given that it would likely have been fairly minimally valuable) mentioning it at all would have done more than confuse.

 

[Amity Island]

That seems a rather courageous approach for a government, based on https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3/full

We studied the effect of placebo treatments by reviewing 202 trials comparing placebo treatment with no treatment covering 60 healthcare problems. In general, placebo treatments produced no major health benefits, although on average they had a modest effect on outcomes reported by patients, such as pain. However, the effect on pain varied from large to non‐existent, even in well‐conducted trials. Variations in the effect of placebo was partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted, the type of placebo used, and whether patients were informed that the trial involved placebo.​

Offering something is better than offering nothing (hope is better than fear) is my point and the one thing we know helps with respiratory infections (vit d) was deliberately not encouraged by the chief medical officer and; to add insult to injury, they locked us in too! reducing our exposure to vit d.

I think it was always made clear that the risks from infection varied wildly between people, for example that younger people were at much lower risk than the elderly, and that there were things that we could do to reduce the chances of being infected (though that included (and still includes, even though we know better now) things like washing hands and surfaces which probably weren't that significant).

Exactly, yet they still locked us ALL in regardless of age, risk, illness etc.

Fear is kind of inevitable in a pandemic that's killing enough people that everyone will be reasonably closely connected with someone who's been killed, isn't it? I remember when New York passed the 1 in a 1000 mark and thinking that was pretty horrifying, meaning that (they thought) everyone knew someone who knew someone who'd died.

There's still hope, of course: that better treatments can be found, including (of course) amazing vaccines. I don't think pretending that vitamin D would be dramatically effective is likely to be helpful, and I'm not sure that (given that it would likely have been fairly minimally valuable) mentioning it at all would have done more than confuse.

And how did we find out about the pandemic? Not from the virus, but from the tv, so in many ways the pandemic was driven by the response not the virus itself.

In terms of killing people, there were less respiratory deaths in 2020 than in 2019 and covid is a respiratory illness after all (clue is in the virus name -- severe acute respiratory syndrome). In terms of deaths overall see link. Irish Government have just confirmed that

"Ireland did not record excess mortality during 2020-2022. In fact, Ireland had a lower than expected death rate".

OECD research shows Ireland avoided excess deaths during core pandemic years

www.gov.ie

Fear is kind of inevitable in a pandemic that's killing enough people

Well that wasn't the strategy during the war, it was keep calm and carry on. Similar to what they normally do in hospitals every day of the year, keep calm and carry on.

Fear and panic is the last strategy you need during times of war and pandemic.

 

[Amity Island]

Government have wasted £550 million of tax payers money on covid drugs so far (not inc vaccines), likely to rise to £1.1 billion.

At least £550 million of Covid drugs wasted in the UK

Britain’s unused stock is the highest in Europe, with more than one million expired antiviral courses – a figure that could double by June

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[nonethewiser]

Sad to hear on news that Kate Garraway husband Derek has died after a long & brave battle with covid.

 

[Amity Island]

COVID ‘6-feet’ social distancing ‘sort of just appeared,’ likely lacked scientific basis, Fauci admits

Dr. Anthony Fauci confessed to lawmakers Tuesday that guidelines to keep six (approx 2m) feet of separation — ostensibly to limit the spread of COVID-19 — “sort of just appeared” without scientific input.

This now confirms both masks and social isolation (aka distancing) were not based on any science (distancing) or evidence (using masks for general public).

In 2021, Fauci had also said it was “proven that when you make it difficult for people in their lives, they lose their ideological bulls–t, and they get vaccinated.”

COVID ‘6-feet’ social distancing ‘sort of just appeared,’ likely lacked scientific basis, Fauci admits

Dr. Anthony Fauci confessed to lawmakers Tuesday that guidelines to keep six feet of separation — ostensibly to limit the spread of COVID-19 — “sort of just appeared” withou…

nypost.com

 

[Amity Island]

Really interesting (old fashioned, e.g no fancy music, graphics etc) discussion on the importance of vitamin D in protection against respiratory viruses. Given Chris Whitty told the nation that there was no evidence vitamin D helped with covid 19, makes one wonder why he said that. Why he would discourage people from taking something so cheap, effective and readily available.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Given Chris Whitty told the nation that there was no evidence vitamin D helped with covid 19, makes one wonder why he said that. Why he would discourage people from taking something so cheap, effective and readily available.

Having low vitamin D is bad. If you don't have low vitamin D, is it better to have higher vitamin D? Is it better enough that there's any actual evidence that it's better (it would be an easy trial to show that if it were meaningfully better)?

People who have low vitamin D tend to have other things wrong with them, too (like age).

 

[Amity Island]

Having low vitamin D is bad. If you don't have low vitamin D, is it better to have higher vitamin D? Is it better enough that there's any actual evidence that it's better (it would be an easy trial to show that if it were meaningfully better)?

People who have low vitamin D tend to have other things wrong with them, too (like age).

Watch the video, it answers all those questions.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Watch the video, it answers all those questions.

I don't wish to give him the ad revenue. He (Campbell, that is) seems pretty clearly dishonest by this point. He doesn't deserve my attention. I'm not sure whether he's gone full anti vaccine yet (still just anti mRNA as far as I know) but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

 

[Amity Island]

Having low vitamin D is bad. If you don't have low vitamin D, is it better to have higher vitamin D? Is it better enough that there's any actual evidence that it's better (it would be an easy trial to show that if it were meaningfully better)?

People who have low vitamin D tend to have other things wrong with them, too (like age).

From what I understand the only treatment recommended by NICE for people in the UK was midazolam. I think vit D in the 25(OH)D activated form (calcifdiol) which becomes efficacious within hours of administration would be a better treatment than midazolam for covid respiratory problems. Calcifidiol is currently unlicensed for use in UK in humans, but could of easily been given the approval. It's available in Spain and Italy over the counter.