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The trouble with Iain Davis’ “absolute risk reduction” is small sample size, monitored for a short time period. For instance, if we observe a sample of 50,000 people for six months, probably none of them will be killed by traffic collisions, so we therefore conclude that all road and vehicle safety features, traffic law and enforcement are unnecessary, an impediment to freedom and a waste of effort.
Iain Davis’ article primarily serves to provide confirmation bias for those who already accept some covid-19 conspiracy theory, eg:
– “It should also be noted that these figures suggest the threat from COVID 19 is vanishingly small.”
But we know that covid-19 has killed tens of thousands of people in the UK alone and overwhelmed the health service, so the above statement can be interpreted two ways. It could be showing that Iain Davis is misinterpreting the figures. But for those who already accept the conspiracy theory, and worse, for those who are considering giving it credence, it can supply false confirmation for all the rest of it, ie. that there’s no crisis, the mortality figures are an artefact from stupid, supine doctors sheepishly following government instructions to misclassify cause of death, it’s really just a common cold being blown out of proportion by the “MSM” so that Bill Gates can sell vaccines, etc. etc. etc.
The human mind is highly susceptible to conspiracy theory because we are social animals and capable of deception and manipulation, so we have developed a “malicious agent spotter”, just like our “face and object spotter” sees patterns in clouds, or genitals on irregular carrots.
Node, you’re absolutely right; it would be very rude of me to laugh at you and call you a fool, even if you insist that this really is a penis on this carrot.
It’s your responsibility to check your own thinking for common thinking errors. It’s your responsibility to check articles and sites for their veracity. The alternative is the old, pre-Internet ways of gate-keeping and censorship, because lives are at stake, so we should all start taking responsibility.
Guardian – Michael Gove:
“We can’t predict with certainty that we’ll be able to lift restrictions the week commencing the 15 to 22 [February]. What we will be doing is everything we can to make sure that as many people as possible are vaccinated so that we can begin progressively to lift restrictions.” [Emphasis added.]
So it doesn’t matter if “cases” and “deaths” fall to zero, and he’s forgetting that there was just a holiday called “Christmas” too, and that China defeated SARSCov2 without a vaccine. None of that matters. Gove is explicitly linking the lifting of “restrictions” to prior mass vaccination. That’s the line now.
Next PM? Gove or Hunt. Johnson plays badly in Scotland and somebody in London will notice at some point. Gove, for those who don’t already know, is Scottish. Gove is also a raving Hun, having called Theresa May a “Catholic” because her father was a Church of England vicar. In fact Gove went further still and called her a “continuity Catholic”, which, for those who may not be familiar with Protestant sectarianism in Scotland, is a reference to the IRA. I wonder whether Gove has any evangelical money from the US behind him.
Dave, it seems to me that QAnon is eating away your mind; claim it back!
You do realise that Trump has B52s circling Iran, and he sacked and replaced the chief of nuclear weapons deployment for some reason, so those B52s quite likely have nuclear cruise missiles aboard? Those B52s have already provided backup for Israel’s latest murder of a top Iranian nuclear scientist.
Trump really isn’t what you think; he’s just a liar who knows how to exploit the human weakness for conspiracy theory. He promised you he’d reveal who dynamited the Twin Towers, didn’t he? Did he ever make good on that? He knows the damn things just collapsed, and he calls Larry Silverstein “my good friend”.
N_ – “China defeated SARSCov2 without a vaccine”
Not exactly. China is running an ongoing successful campaign of track, trace and suppression, and has collaborated with Russia on vaccine development. But due to effective social restrictions (and the lack of human rights concern in imposing them), China has time for better vaccine testing.
The next few months will be interesting; can China’s social measures suppress the new variants, or will China rush to deploy vaccines too?
To be clear, my post of January 5, 2021 at 12:21 was addressed to SA.
Three articles relevant to subjects currently under discussion here:
– The false promise of herd immunity for COVID-19: Nature.
– Natural herd immunity should not be used as a means of pandemic control: BMJ Blogs.
Both the above reference the resurgence of illness in Manaus, Brazil, despite indications that herd immunity from infection had been reached.
– COVID-vaccine results are on the way — and scientists’ concerns are growing: Nature.
Lots of good citations. Do we really need OffGuardian?
Node – “To be clear, my post of January 5, 2021 at 12:21 was addressed to SA.”
Tough.
Update on the situation where I live. Six positive test results have emerged late yesterday and overnight. The positive results are from a mixture of circumstances although, at the moment, there is no indication of any link to the two cases announced on New Year’s Eve. (The two I posted about earlier who had completed their 14 day self isolation and found to be positive on day 21) I know no more detail than that for now. One of the six most recent positive cases is again from an individual who had completed their 14 day period of self-isolation.
We have now had 3 people test positive beyond 14 day isolation. Prior to this we have had no community cases since May 20 2020 and the only positive tests were from people who had travelled off island and returned or came from elsewhere for (exempted) work purposes.
Given the very small numbers of cases here I think that 3 people testing positive after a 14 day isolation period is significant and points to a new and worrying development. I suspect this is also happening elsewhere and contributing to the ever increasing cases. I think it’s time to re-evaluate the self isolation duration. The government here is currently in a meeting to address this new situation.Thanks ET.
– “I think it’s time to re-evaluate the self isolation duration.”
Obviously, it needs to be increased to at least four weeks. Ongoing PCR monitoring should be implemented. And there should be proper quarantine rather than self isolation.
– “We have now had 3 people test positive beyond 14 day isolation.”
…and also three cases that so far are an absolute mystery. Both developments are extremely worrying.
Thanks for this; information from communities that we would expect to be protected by isolation is particularly valuable.
Up until Dec 23 anyone self isolating here had to have a test on day 7, since Dec 23 that has changed to day 1 and day 13. Self isolation meant you could not leave your house for any reason (excepting you got sick enough to require hospital admission) and anyone else in your household had to also self isolate for the same period. It was diligently followed and enforced. The numbers would have been small.
It seems Clark that our government has been reading your posts 🙂
From Wed midnight more or less full lockdown measures wll be implemented as they were in March. Social distancing, masks, closure of pubs restaurants etc, non essential business closed, no weddings or collective worship etc etc I think you get the picture.“We are moving to Level 5 of our borders framework. We strongly discourage any travel off island. If people do decide to travel after tonight, we cannot guarantee when they will be able to return.”
“Those who do return from one minute past midnight Wednesday night to Thursday morning – again just to be clear in just over 30 hours time – will be required to undergo a new testing regime. This will be three tests. One on day 1. Another on day 6 or 7. A third test on day 13. If people are not prepared to do this, they will have to self-isolate for 21 days.”
“Returnees will no longer be able to self-isolate with anyone other than those they have travelled with.”
There is a whole list of measures but pretty much full lockdown. What a bummer, we were doing so well. I think they will have to amend the self isolation period even with testing and I expect they will.
ET, the relative safety of your island is worth protecting. It was a Green Zone, now back to Red. I’m glad the action is fairly decisive, but isolation of 21 days leaves no margin, for 21 days was the period after which a positive test occurred; I’d prefer 28 days. I hope that with the other, general population measures, 21 day isolation will be enough. It is well worth enduring a short period of strong restrictions to get back to normal; I wish everyone there the very best.
I agree Clark, I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I think they will have to look at the isolation period again though I don’t expect many want to travel anyway. We are still awaiting the variant analysis
– “What a bummer, we were doing so well”
You’re still doing well. I’m near Chelmsford where over 1% of the population are infected; in some nearby places it’s over 1.3%.
Some practical advice I just received…
The increased infectiousness of the new UK variant actually translates to a much smaller dose of viral particles being required to cause infection – droplets around a quarter of the mass compared with the earlier type. This means that they float in the air much more easily, for a longer time and can drift further – so the “2 metre social distancing” recommendation is no longer adequate.
Wear a mask anywhere there are people, even outdoors.
The disposable paper masks marked as “surgical grade” and available for instance at Tesco for around £5 for ten have been found in testing to be very nearly as effective as N95 masks. However, because the folds come into contact with each other if these masks are reused, they should only be used only once.
Sorry, I don’t yet have references for either of these claims, however my source has got almost everything right so far so I intend to follow this advice.
ET, another possibility that should be considered is that infection had been circulating unnoticed at a low level among the population on the island for some time, possibly introduced on an object, and the travellers actually picked it up after their period of self isolation – this would also be consistent with the three otherwise unexplained cases, especially if contact tracing shows no contact with the travellers.
If there is a more widespread outbreak, waste water testing could help to narrow down the search area, to help target testing of individuals.
FYI, ‘Dave’ posted a reply that had nothing to do with SARS-CoV-2 or any other infectious disease; instead it focused on Trump and the US election. Accordingly. it was off topic.
Unfortunately, unlike the main comments under Craig’s articles, the discussion forum software does not allow suspended messages – with mod annotations – to be viewable by their authors, so this needs to be a separate entry.
Dave, if you want to talk about something else, start another forum topic.
Thank you.
Anything is possible Clark though we had 7 months virus free until New Year’s Eve. If there were a low level of cases you’d have expected someone to show up symptomatic before now especially as we had no socal distancing and everything was open. Introduced via an imported surface is a possiblity I guess we shall have to wait and see what unfolds.
As to the new variant I can understand less viral load needed to infect causing more transmissability but wouldn’t the droplet production be subject to physics of the respiratory tract rather than a change in viral genome. As in a function of the mucous properties and hydrodynamics etc rather than the virus? Is the droplet mass going to change during a cough?Torygraph: National deficit in Britain to reach £450bn this year, or 21% of GDP? What, no “V”-shaped recovery after all, then? The pandemic is heaven not just for Big Pharma but for finance capital too. According to the Torygraph, financial markets are expecting a Bank of England rate cut later in 2021 to below 0% and “(b)anks have said such a move could force them to start charging for bank accounts.”
“Or else what?” is the question to ask.
This is debt begetting more debt. Yum yum say the banks. That’s the reason the government did a “Duke of York” with the universities, marching the students in and then marching them out again. What did that achieve? Well it achieved squillions of pounds’ worth of debt for 18-year-olds.
Moreover, when you come to think of it, “negative interest rates” may mean terribly fascinating think pieces for those few leftwingers who read the business pages, but the most salient aspect for most people may be precisely “you gotta pay now to have a current account”, plus indeed a fullblown “depositor levy” for those who still have a bit of money left. “It’s the pandemic, see.”
How long until the idea of a “recovery” bites the dust?
Clark and ET
I am not so sure about fomite transmission. The main source would be contaminated chilled food that is then not cooked before eating or contaminated handlers, according to the Cases reported in China which I posted above.
As to longer periods of isolation, I guess you would need more data before the policy is changed. The first two cases described are less worrying than the presumably unconnected 6 cases with no clear travel history or contacts from travellers.
I also thought that the new variant is more sticky and therefore causes infections at a lower level of exposure.To Mods. My deleted post about Trump was a one-off in response to a Post by Clark @ January 5, 2021 at 12:44#64355
He never mentioned the virus on that post, and I am contending the response to the virus is political rather than medical and used as a smokescreen to use election irregularities to topple Trump. So please restore my post as it answered Clark’s post.
“You can only leave your home to exercise, and not for the purpose of recreation or leisure (e.g. a picnic or a social meeting). This should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area.”
“You can exercise in a public outdoor place:
* by yourself
* with the people you live with
* in a childcare bubble where providing childcare
* or, when on your own, with 1 person from another household”This document uses “You should”, “You must”, and “You can only” without clarity. (Was the document cobbled together by a kid in the office, maybe someone in Whitehall’s poshie university pal or second cousin? Don’t ask them to write software documentation.) What is clear is that if you have a picnic, or meet two friends outside, or walk too far along urban streets, or are seen outside too often, or sit down for a breather when you’re out walking, the police have been told to clamp down on you and try to steal your money. Exactly when you would and when you wouldn’t be breaking the law, who knows? But who cares any more?
The rule on only being allowed to exercise outside once each day – and without any “recreation” or “leisure”, so make sure you don’t have a twinkle in your eyes above your mask – has absolutely nothing to do with public health. Nor does coronafascism as a whole. Next steps are being prepared and they will shock the sh*t out of most people. That includes many who post critical stuff to blogs.
If they want to stop me going for my daily walk, they’re going have to shoot or imprison me.
It’s as if they want everyone inside their houses, picking their mobile phones, eating crisps and necking booze until they risk bursting their guts or passing out, not daring to go for a walk because that would make them a public enemy, occasionally clapping on their doorstep for the Holy “NHS”, and not wanting to talk so much about “disappearances” or daring to criticise (or even name) fascism even in whatever illiterate muck they have been conditioned into monkey-typing on their stupid phones.
Big Pharma’sThe “vaccine minister” Nadhim Zahawi, currently the chief strategy officer of the oil company Gulf Keystone Petroleum International (as well as having many other business activities, and also being the co-founder and a former CEO of YouGov), says that children’s nurseries are “safe”. Must be a magic virus then, not to infect babies or be capable of being passed on by them. What garbage this guy talks.There is such a strong element now of saying “any old sh*t” because the success of the internet in degrading the culture has meant there’s no problem with the vast majority of the population believing it, or at least acting as if they do – and if you do that enough, you end up believing it.
Then there is the question of why parents who are locked down would want to send their babies to a nursery in the first place. Do their babies get in the way of their phone-picking?
N: “It’s as if they want everyone inside their houses[…]”
No, they just want to avoid overloading the health system – it really is that simple. Same behaviour is seen in pretty much every country, it’s not that much of a mystery.
Wonder what Mystic N_eg’s latest timeline is for mass starvation in the UK?
ET, 01:16, #64399 – “…wouldn’t the droplet production be subject to physics of the respiratory tract rather than a change in viral genome”
Yes, droplets will be produced in all sizes, just as they always were. But with the new variant smaller droplets are now dangerous, and these smaller droplets can float further and for longer.
MODS you’re welcome to delete my non-covid “Nukes over Iran” replay to Dave as well. Let’s keep this focussed; ultimately, nature is more powerful than politics.
N_, 12:04, #64405 – There is such a strong element now of saying “any old sh*t” because the success of the internet in degrading the culture has meant there’s no problem with the vast majority of the population believing it, or at least acting as if they do – and if you do that enough, you end up believing it.
Huh! You haven’t looked into any mirrors recently then, N_?
There’s no “them”, there’s only us, a load of confused and often angry apes desperately trying to decide how to cope, many of us misapplying our entrenched ideologies.
glenn_uk, 12:49 – “Same behaviour is seen in pretty much every country…”
See? That proves it’s a conspiracy! Just like fire engines all over the world squirt water at burning buildings; what the hell do they make’m do that for, eh?
Simon Dolan of Keep Britain Free crowdfunded an attempted Judicial Review of the illegal lockdowns. Illegal because the Government/Politburo are using the 1984 Public Health Act to impose their communist tyranny, but the Act doesn’t allow for a vastly disproportionate response to a seasonal respiratory virus. The courts for process reasons (as in the US) refused to hear the merits of the case.
This appears to mean the government can’t be formally challenged in court, but they can be challenged in court, but you need a courageous hero, Piers Corbyn, to do so, by getting arrested and insisting on a court case, and then challenging the legality of the ‘law’.
To avoid this the Police advise, then issue PCNs then threaten £10,000 fines and make a point of making a rough-handling arrest, but then release people after hours in jail, without charge but perhaps on bail. But as its illegal nothing goes to court and if it does the Judge dismisses it, as the penalty sought is far too excessive to be considered justice.
This I believe is what happens to Piers. The problem is, there are outraged people, as opposed activists, who don’t know the rules of the game, who fight back and end up charged on non-corona offences such as resisting arrest/assault.
@ N, this is why they use “You should”, “You must”, and “You can only” without clarity, because the restrictions are not a legal requirement, they are government guidance, dressed up as rules, with the intimidation of ludicrous fines, as if they were law. Many people are duly intimidated to go along with it, but if you read the small print of the ‘rules’ on the gov.uk website you’ll find we are all exempt, if we have the gumption to claim our exemptions.
That said the restrictions are primarily to ban all anti-Globalist/freedom protests under guise of fighting a virus.
Indeed, we can’t be sure whether such buildings were destroyed by, or merely with fire. After all, many were old and had structural weaknesses, their construction included old-fashioned materials etc. But you can be sure that the authorities will have them all classified as destroyed by fire, no matter what!
Wake up!
D: “[…] the Act doesn’t allow for a vastly disproportionate response to a seasonal respiratory virus.”
Fine. But C-19 isn’t a “seasonal respiratory virus”. Everything following that fallacy above is therefore null and void, sorry Dave.
Oh, and Piers Corbyn is an unhinged lunatic, not a freedom warrior. No wonder you like him so much!
*
Just as an aside, I watched an old Law & Order programme from the 1990s a couple of days ago, and it concerned some unfortunate individual suffering from schizophrenia. This poor confused person was convinced that mind control was being imposed through vaccines and medical treatments for non-existent illnesses – and guess who was behind it all? Step forward Bill Gates!
Today when I received an item I had bought online it came with a note from the seller begging for positive feedback – i.e. unpaid help with his advertising. That is not unusual but this was the first time I have had a communication which ended with the valediction “Stay Safe” followed by its author’s name.
Will this become the “new normal”? Mustn’t say “Regards” or “Take care” or “Best wishes” in writing, or “Bye” or “See you later” or “Cheers” in speech, but to be a good obedient citizen always make sure you say “Stay Safe”?
I could see it happening – a SARSCoV2-era update on “Heil Hitler”. Cops and all sorts of tinpots would love it. “Stay Safe” continues the alliteration too. Get an artist on the case to design a symbol for the initial letters?
Scottish nationalists could do a “Mc” version. After all, they organised a mass doorstep clapping event for their leader Nicola Sturgeon’s 50th birthday, subsequent to the Boris Johnson-led “clap-ins” for the Holy NHS. Perhaps “Stay Safe and Freedom Soon!” would fit the bill? “Tomorrow Belongs To Us” is too wordy.
@N_
I have been offered discounts to leave reviews which usually involves registering with a third party review site which I refuse to do. presumably the third party sites pay for each sign up hence discount and make their money on your data.Stay Safe. Have you not parted company from someone with “Drive safely” or “safe journey?” Reflection of the times and a PR exercise all in one. Not sure I’d read too much into it.
The ONS has uploaded week 52 figures.
- 2020 All Deaths 604,045
- 5yr avg Yearly All Deaths 531,129
- 2019 All Deaths 527,234
76,811 increase over 2019 or 13.8% that figure being 12.7% of total 2020 deaths. 72,916 increase over the 5 year avg or 13.7%.
The 2020 figures break down age groups in 5 year increments whereas the previous years don’t. So that said I looked at the age group 15-44 and 45-64 as that was what was available in the previous years.- 2019 age 15-44 = 14714
- 2020 age 15-44 = 15443
- 2020-2019 15-44 age = 729 or 4.95% increase over 2019 or 4.72% of 2020 deaths for that age group.
- 2019 age 45-64 = 63195
- 2020 age 45-54 = 71979
- 2020-2019 45-64 age = 8784 or 13.9% increase over 2019 or 12.2% of 2020 deaths for that age group.
- covid related deaths (mentioned on death cert) 2020 = 77,686
- resp deaths 2020 = 62,420
- resp deaths 2019 = 71,674
At 8pm tomorrow (Thursday), it’s “Clap for Heroes“. The BBC article includes a photo credited to the AFP press agency showing a pair of d***heads wearing “Thank you” tee-shirts with rainbows. One is making a “heart” shape with her hands, while the other has his hands thrown in the air as if he’s either a “born again” Christian or an “Occupy” loony showing his appreciation of the guy behind the microphone by giving it some “jazz hands”. They had lots of your type at the Nuremburg rallies, mate.
Here is Annemarie Plas – front person for both “Clap for Our Carers” and “Clap for Heroes”, whose original “initiative” was praised by the British monarch, joining in with Tory leader Boris Johnson clapping outside Number 10. Don’t tell me you were ever worried about it “becoming political”, Annemarie – you’re full of it. You wouldn’t be doing it again if you had any real problem with it.
Plas is connected with “Together“, a group that requires investigation.
“Talk/together is the UK’s biggest-ever conversation about what divides and unites us, and what could bring our society together in these difficult times.“
“A Steering Group will oversee its direction and evolution, which is chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury and includes a broad range of organisations and individuals from the NHS and ITV to the Scouts, Guides, the British Paralympic Association, trade unions and the CBI.“
Members of the “steering group” are listed here. Google, the Economist, Aviva, the Sun newspaper, Reach (formerly Trinity Mirror), ITV, and Richard Dannatt – the former chief of the General Staff – are all involved. Chair of the committee is the Archbishop of Canterbury. They don’t seem to have managed to recruit anybody yet from the trade unions, despite their statement of intent. Maybe it was a case of “my tongue is brown, but it’s not THAT brown, so get away from me!”
One thousand deaths a day and there are still people arguing that the virus is no worse than seasonal ‘flu. Blinkered stubbornness and denial.
ET, thank you for summarising the mortality statistics.
In 2020, COVID-19 killed nearly ten thousand people before their old age.
Since the end of 2020 the death graph has continued to rise more steeply than at any time since the rise of the first wave, and the curve is continuing to steepen, just as we would expect from the steep infection curve, from which we can also infer that the death rate must continue to rise for at least another two weeks.
Current case numbers are at least 2.2 times higher than reached before the November restrictions caused them to fall, so I predict that the death rate must rise to at least 2.2 times its November peak, ie. over 1070 deaths per day average. At least.
Infections are much higher in England, so the English average mortality per population per day will be even worse than for the UK as a whole. Interesting that patriotic attitudes seem to correlate generally with covid trivialisation and denialism. I didn’t suspect that dying of preventable illness was what “dying for one’s country” was supposed to mean.
Interesting piece about criticism of the new “Clap for Heroes”. Annemarie Plas’s voice doesn’t come across well in the article, so it’s hard to be clear about her position. But at least we can say that she has misgivings about “Clap for Heroes” because of the response from people working in the NHS. Perhaps she has been getting a bad taste in her mouth realising what is really behind “Together” and the official support for clapping, and she has decided she doesn’t want to be their poster girl. I hope so. Maybe she should do a website or something, if her visa status makes it feasible. She may possibly have quite an interesting story to tell.
One point which should be mentioned is that whereas the clapping was always both nationalistic and pro the authorities (as was happily recognised by the SNP who adapted it to a campaign of adoration for their Leader, who is also the leader of the Scottish government), it is now becoming militaristic too. It’s no accident that the slogan “Clap for Heroes” recalls “Help for Heroes”, the military charity that many on the far right (and in the “base” of the far right) have stickers for on their cars, and which has quite a presence both in “white van man” and traditional Tory bourgeois areas.
I agree, the clap for heroes thing is a nonsense. A trinket.
I heard today from a friend who is a nurse that they have been asked to turn off the tracing app whilst at work in an effort to reduce those going off work. This person is community based so not in a hospital.
Hi Clark..I You Have a Better 2021..I hope we all do.. I hope Squonk is Ok too..I know he is lingering around…
I wanted to show you this Documentary.. The Inuit Elders – Know before being Told – Climate
Stay Safe
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