12th April 2020
Several politicians, including Keir Starmer, the opposition Labour Party leader, have been demanding to know the exit strategy for the lockdown. “We should know what that exit strategy is, when the restrictions might be lifted and what the plan is for economic recovery to protect those who have been hardest hit,” he said last week.
This is an entirely valid question, but the Government cannot have an exit strategy, unless they have an overall strategy. One follows directly from the other.
And there are only four possible strategies:
To eradicate the virus from the entire population by enforcing lockdown. Or to enforce lockdown until there is an effective treatment. Or to enforce lockdown until there is a vaccine. Or to enforce lockdown to slow the spread of the virus, so as to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed.
Eradication is virtually impossible with such a highly infectious disease. Even if the UK was successful, if other countries were not, keeping Covid-19 out would require border closures for years, maybe decades. Endless checks on planes, boats, lorries, cars. Constant testing and restrictions. It is almost certain that the virus would still slip through. This does not seem a viable option.
What about finding an effective treatment? The chances are vanishingly small. Influenza, a very similar virus, has been around for decades, and no game changing medications have yet been found.
As for a vaccine? This solution is so distant that it does not really exist. It will be a minimum of eighteen months before an effective vaccine can be developed, then tested, then produced in sufficient quantities to be of any use. Waiting for eighteen months before releasing lockdown would be socially and economically impossible. We would be committing national suicide.
Ergo, there is only one overall strategy that can be followed. Control the spread to avoid overwhelming the NHS. This has never been made explicit, but the Government has, albeit indirectly, told us that this is exactly what they are doing.
In the last few days, a letter was sent to all households, signed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, before he too succumbed to the disease. It was entitled “Coronavirus – stay at home; protect the NHS, save lives.” It contained this key passage:
“If too many people become seriously unwell at one time, the NHS will be unable to cope. This will cost lives. We must slow the spread of the disease, and reduce the number of people needing hospital treatment in order to save as many lives as possible.”
The key sentence is the first. If too many people become seriously unwell at one time.
This fits with the initial UK strategy. Contain, delay, research, mitigate. The UK has passed through “contain” and is now in “delay and mitigate”. Research sits in the background and may, or may not, provide a solution.
However, delay and mitigate doesn’t mean that people will not become infected and die. It just means that the NHS will not be overwhelmed by a massive wave of people getting ill at the same time. We are simply, it should be made clear, trying to control the “peak”, which now may likely be a series of “peaks”.
At present, ministers are not admitting this. They are presenting lock-down as a way of “beating this virus.” In order to enforce lockdown, they are haranguing and scaring the population into compliance.
Covid-19 is being presented as a deadly killer that does not discriminate. Young, old, we are all at risk of contracting this dreadful disease. Every night, the television news has story after story of young people who have been infected, and who have died. In fact, very, very few people under 20 have died so far. I believe it was five, at the end of last week.
There is hardly anything said about the fact that the average age of death is around eighty, that the vast, vast, majority of those dying are old (92% are aged over sixty) The great majority of them have several other serious medical conditions.
The reality is that for anyone younger than about sixty, Covid-19 is only slightly more dangerous than suffering from influenza. The infection fatality rate (IFR) currently stands at around 0.2% in those countries doing the most testing. This figure will inevitably fall, once we can identify those who were infected but had no symptoms.
By avoiding this more reassuring message, by frightening everyone into compliance, the Government has painted itself into a corner. How can they say to people that, last week you couldn’t drive two miles to walk in the countryside, or go to the beach, or go to a restaurant, or lie in a park sunbathing, in order to prevent the spread of this deadly killer disease …but this week you can?
Worse than that, when cases begin to rise again, about a month after lockdown is relaxed, we will all have to lock down again, to prevent the next surge? How will the public respond to this? I don’t know, but I expect that it is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to force everyone back into lockdown again.
By this point, millions will have been financially crippled and will be desperate to work, if their jobs still exist. Thousands of businesses will have fallen over, bankrupt. Hundreds of thousands of operations, and cancer treatments, will have been postponed and cancelled. I have already warned that it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that many more people could as a result of the lockdown than will die from coronavirus.
That great harm is being done by it was made clear in an article last week in the Health Service Journal:
“NHS England analysts have been tasked with the challenging task of identifying patients who may not have the virus but may be at risk of significant harm or death because they are missing vital appointments or not attending emergency departments, with both the service and public so focused on covid-19.
“A senior NHS source familiar with the programme told HSJ: “There could be some very serious unintended consequences [to all the resources going into fighting coronavirus]. While there will be a lot of covid-19 fatalities, we could end up losing more ‘years of life’ because of fatalities relating to non-covid-19 health complications.”
It may well seem that all this suffering was…well, for what, exactly? To simply prevent a surge of cases. This government, all governments, must be honest about this and admit that in the longer term we cannot prevent almost everybody getting infected and acknowledge that a proportion of those infected will die.
When lockdown restrictions are lifted this does not mean that the virus has gone. It does not mean that people cannot infect each other. It does not mean we can simply carry on as before. It means that we have kept the first surge under control.
So, what is the exit strategy? The answer is that we don’t have one. We have a strategy of delay and mitigation which will continue until… when? Until everyone has been infected? Until we have an effective treatment? Until we have an effective vaccine? Until enough people have been infected that we have achieved herd immunity?
The Government must tell us the truth and be clear about what end point they are seeking to achieve. Only then can we have an exit strategy. One thing for sure is that this lockdown is not a way to defeat the virus.
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
Thank you
the end result is working towards a cashless society of total control.
Many good points. It is frustrating there is no exit strategy, but when the government is led by the nose by Ferguson’s predictions, the chance of the government telling the truth is as near zero as it’s possible to get.
Ferguson? Please tell me you don’t mean the the same ‘Ferguson’ who prophesied preposterous numbers during the Foot & Mouth outbreak ? – You know, the agricultural epidemic which saw a huge % of the national herd(s) destroyed… just in case.
From fading memory, Baseline farmer suicides were around one per week nation – wide, and went ballistic afterwards… to the extent the police in one county were temporarily taking shotguns from them.
Once again, FEAR did as much damage as the disease.
To Janet Love: Yes, precisely that Ferguson – he has found himself another wrecking ball and is happily playing with it. When the likes of HE are “experts” you get a feeling that it will not end well. Not that there is a good end to such events as this, but spare us the efforts of the lnow-all’s who only know how to make things worse.
Thank you Dr Kendrick. A reasonable voice amongst this madness.
Can I ask why announced covid deaths today were 657 in 24 hrs in England but according to NHS website Covid-19 deaths are 121 yet total deaths is as announced 9,594??
I worry this is another scare tactic and the figures are being manipulated. Also over half of total deaths are over 80.
Hi Sonya,
I can perhaps answer that – though I am no expert.
It is the difference between date of death and date of announcement. Understandably not all deaths can be reported as timely as they might. So yes another 657 deaths were announced but the date of death was spread over a number of days. That is why the number for a particular day will increase for a day or more afterwards. – see the effect and some info on this website –
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-12th-april/
There is no attempt to deceive in this – but most “journalists” never check what it is they are reporting – the radio station I listen always reports these as the highest daily total .. !!!
Dr K: Yay! I’m now going to go up on to my roof and scream: “Dr. Kendrick says no to the lockdown”!
Thank you!
Cogently argued Malcolm. I am under the distinct impression that the public are never going to be informed vis-a-vis COVID-19 in order that we can protect ourselves.
The reality is that sooner or later everyone could be exposed to the virus. Isolation and face masks will only delay the inevitable.
Which is a good reason to slow the process down, so as not to have everyone get it at once and overwhelm the NHS. The difficulty is telling the populace – explaining that it isn’t about preventing infection (or deaths) but to protect the NHS and the economy, with the knock-on effect of preventing more deaths. People have a much lower IQ en masse than individually so communicating this kind of thing is risky – and without the people largely behind the government’s instructions, they lose control completely and that won’t achieve any end (no matter which they’re aiming for).
Such a large vehicle to be steered, and such a disparate mass of people steering it *and* deciding which direction to steer it in! I’m glad I’m not the one in charge.
mand SeasonMand, if this is “protecting the economy” WTF happens when there is no protection?
I don’t say they’re doing it well, I’m just saying it’s a very delicate thing to do.
I’ve been hearing from NHS staff that many ICUs are actually devoid of any patients at all! Usually they’d have people post-surgery for routine stuff, there are no cancer patients and so on – so we’ve shut down the entire country in order to protect the NHS, but if it’s true that they have no patients, we are only delaying the inevitable at the expense of the economy.
I can’t say anything about the rest of the country’s hospitals, but my son works in one and tells me they’re rushed off their feet. At first they cleared the decks – no outpatients, an eerie emptiness with staff twiddling their thumbs in anticipation of the onslaught. That’s a while ago; now, they definitely have enough work to do. All patients that are in hospital are either covid positive, or so seriously ill it’s worth the risk of catching it. He’s used to chatting with patients on all wards (he’s a phlebotomist) presumably including the ICU, but now hardly any are well enough to be chatty, his department have been allocated to a ward each rather than being “peripatetic” all over the hospital, and of course the mood is very different. The spirit of team work sounds wonderful, and the tension sounds horrendous.
As I say, anecdotal but I’d imagine everywhere’s similar.
Not everywhere
OK, not everywhere. I said I didn’t know. 🙂
If studies listed in Doctoring Data, are to be believed, this lockdown is also saving lives.
mand SeasonMand: I think we should put Dr. Kendrick in charge. We’d have a lot more fun!
I don’t think I would be very good at being in charge. I like to break things apart so that others may then put them back together again in better and stronger ways. I am Hermes, the disruptor.
Dr. Kendrick: As a child I took apart every toy I got, to see what was inside, then attempted to put them back together. Not always successful, especially when a hammer was required for disassembly. That’s why I’m not an engineer, although I hold them in high esteem.
@ Gary – Great idea! We would indeed.
@ Malcolm – You’d have more fun too, a much bigger toy to take apart…! 😉
Hermes the disruptor, great persona for you. 🙂
PS. How about the Dominic Cummings role, then? Examining the known data and proposing strategy?
After reading Doctoring data I have to wholeheartedly agree with that!
You scared the pants of me and did not tell me how to put them back on!!
Really?
Isn’t Hermes the divine messenger with his winged sandals and the mediator between the worlds of gods, the dead and the living?
He was up to occasional mischief and an accomplished thief, but a disruptor?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes
I just learned that he was also a god of fertility in archaic times.
Hermes is a multitasker
Dear Dr Malcolm Kendrick
As a child, I’d take things apart and still do it as an adult. I’ve moved on from mechanical things to ripping apart thinking, underlying structures and systems.
Perhaps being a disrupter is mostly a good thing, it does have its dangers in as much as all humans have differing values. Some people crave security and hate all disruptions, others take a more nuanced view and yet others revel in it.
There is of course a danger in getting all disrupters together. Groupthink is real so would all disrupters just disrupt everything and get nothing done?
I happen to believe a Think Tank or something like that which is designed to ask hard questions and challenge the status quo is needed.
Health, Education, the Money System, Governance could all feature.
What do you think?
Everyone says that they need disruptive thinkers or creative thinkers. Trying to get any organisation to welcome and use disruptive thinkers is exceptionally difficult. The reality is that, whatever they may say, people really want to be surrounded by people who think the same things and support each other. This ‘group think’ creates rigidity and means that systems are liable to complete destruction when confronted by unexpected, rapid, change. Changing this, the need for conformity… not sure how
Yes, tis true that many organisations including government say they want disruptive thinkers but most times they don’t.
I have experienced this myself. As a self-confessed innovator I wondered why I got fired from some companies and promoted by others.
On reflection, the main difference was the degree to which the culture permitted or embraced openness. Some businesses are based on command and control and others see that people are part of a system.
I’d suggest no one would ever be able to convince everyone but there are always pockets or niches which are more accepting.
The reality is that some ideas take a long time to permeate down and some take generations or even never.
I think it was Buckminster Fuller who said he created new ideas and waited till people were ready before they started gaining traction.
I had in mind a citizens think tank in which people could explore ideas, and challenge conventional thinking. It might not get anywhere but it might also be fun in creating something…
Perhaps, I’ll have a bash at it!
Best wishes
Organization of disruptors = highest order oxymoron.
Look at the four or five factions regularly contributing here. Lots of rigidity going on. Trouble is, lots of folks like to have affirmation of their self-concept as a counter-establishment intellectual savior and to Hell with those other saps at whatever cost.
Missing concept – “box”.
You must understand it full-depth in order to think (I mean truly THINK!) outside it.
That’s much more difficult than standing on an Ikea soap-box.
(What faction am I in? 🙂 )
The trick, I believe, is to be able to change your mind at any moment. The problem is, often, emotional attachment to ideas. Something that I fight against every day, with variable degrees of success.
The trouble is that most people I have encountered do not have either the confidence, nor the intellectual honesty to enable them to question their beliefs, let alone admit them incorrect or out of date. You are a maverick, and this is why I have great respect for you.
I read somewhere that that’s what made the German war machine so effective in WWII. They actively worked to promote that culture in their military. I don’t if it’s true or not..
Re Hermes…
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
– George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
And fertility god? Weren’t they all, at some point? 😉
I also used to take things apart as a child. The lovely bed clip-on lamp to encourage reading….. Note to young self: turn off electricity first.
I’ve been saying essentially this for weeks. If there is only one case out there it will spread. Also, if the virus develops, then a second wave could be worse than the first if no natural immunity has developed. I just get shouted down by everybody else for “not caring” or being asked, ” what if it was your relative?”.
People can’t bear the fact that sometimes there is very little to be done. We sometimes don’t have cures.
I am male 58 with high blood pressure so could be considered a risk. I worry, but only about things I have control over.
Dont forget Prof Whitty would have liked us to only have one wave otherwise we will push this into flu season……lightbulb moment!
Thats why they are are still building extra capacity…….the way it is going thats were we are headed.
Well I live in Australia and we will be going into the flu season here shortly. There are at present only about 50 or so deaths here. The flu kills more than that in any one season. I may sound cold hearted to some but I think we should protect the elderly and vulnerable and just let the virus do it’s thing and in short order it would be gone and done with in a matter of weeks. I also believe that by having everything locked down we are only delaying the inevitable. I am 66 going on 67 and could be considered at risk. I do have other health conditions despite living healthfully thanks to our poisoned environment and heavy metals like mercury and gadolinium (contrast agent) and chemicals like glyphosate . But to tell you the truth, I would rather take my chances with a virus than have my freedoms taken away, which is what is going to and is happening right under our noses. I do not want to live in a dystopian world. I can see down the track there will be mandatory vaccines. This new vaccine sounds very dubious. Look up mRNA vaccines. Very scary.
Jan, I live in Queensland. The death rate here is one in a million. That is not my definition of a pandemic. I see mandatory vaccines in the future.
The most sensible thing I’ve read in a long time. It’s apparent the rule makers don’t have a clue and were the ones who suffer.
Thank you.
There has been some debate (squashed by many) over the possible influence of 5G. Let me say I am a sceptic on this but at the same time I believe that the way to halt this is through data and not banning people talking about it. I set about this morning to find out the deaths by million pop’ (as deaths are the most reliable data at the moment) coupled with 5G rollout. Although correlation cannot prove causation with this kind of data it can point to no causation but alas the data did not provide this. In fact it is mounting in the opposite direction. Can anyone come up with plausible explanations. Data below
City Million Pop Deaths Deaths Per Mill 5G 0=No
Tokyo 38 85 2.237 0
Delhi 25.7 19 0.739 0
Sao Paulo 21.06 275 13.058 0
Cairo 18.77 24 1.279 0
New York City 8.5 5150 605.882 1
Buenos Aires 15.1 89 5.894 0
Istanbul 14.1 387 27.447 0
London 10.3 2577 250.194 1
Madrid 6.19 6084 982.876 1
San Fransisco 3.3 13 3.939 0
Los Angeles 12.3 265 21.545 1
Mexico City 8.85 49 5.537 0
I can only hope that you, unlike Ancel Keyes, did not cherry pick these data.
🙂 no they were selected on the basis of population size mainly and fair split of 5g rollout and non rollout. I had no idea when selecting them what sort of picture they would paint. For what its worth the Pearson Correlation Coefficient is 0.62 with a p value of 0.018. I dont put them forward as evidence of 5G involvement but what they sure as hell tell us is that we need to look at this especially as plenty of Scientists are warning of the dangers of 5G long term. The meida will tell you that 5G complainers are nutters by painting them as proposing that 5G carries the virus. This is not the hypothesis, the theory is that 5G weakens the immune system making us more vulnerable to a virus
I think it’s a very interesting and provocative thought but it makes you very vulnerable to people calling you a nutter and what more. As you can see happening here.
To be honest I have to admit that at a first glance I’d also be tempted to throw the whole 5G-theory out of the window but do realise that I actually have no data to justify such thing.
I know I don’t have the right to ask you anything or direct you anywhere, but objectivity would be served if you could come up with a list of all, say, capitols, and 5G coverage as a percentage and then the population size and covid-19 death toll. Then you can never be accused of cherry picking, and then you can freely run your thoughts, including exclusions, over those data and come to sensible, maybe even indisputable, conclusions.
How about Seoul, with significant 5G coverage, pop 10 million, 2 deaths, or Berlin, pop 3.5 million, 50 deaths? Looks like Ancel Keyes data.
Seoul is a good example but I left Berlin out as its one of those cities with a slither of 5G which makes it hard to cat as either yes or no
OMG. All the 5G masts are in cities beginning with L, M and N. All consecutive letters! That can’t be a coincidence!
Seriously, drop the pathetic 5G nonsense, you’re spreading utter garbage.
Angus, Gateshead or Bristol or Cardiff don’t begin with L,M or N.
Are you spreading utter garbage?
I think he is being ironic
Oops, sorry, I don”t do irony. My wife does that, usually after the washy.
thanks; very useful to have Milan data: can you quote it?
smartersig – You might like to read what Martin Pall has to say about EMFs in general and then Dr. Arthur Firstenberg’s book “The Invisible Rainbow” and follow with reading anything by Brian Hoyer. And Dr. Thomas Cowan. They bring plenty of evidence as to the damage at a cellular level, and to our DNA, that EMFs of all sorts cause, and moreso 5G. From my own experience I have had to turn off the wi-fi and return to using a cable (no problem) and reduce my use of the mobile phone to a minimum (you get used to it and you are not bothered constantly by beeps from WhatsApp). When I am out and about I have to avoid places with wi-fi and wear protective clothing. This is due to being electromagnetically sensitive. Once you’ve read more about it you may become convinced. I can also recommend going to Lloyd Burrell’s website, or Nick Pineault’s website, and there are others worth looking at too. The telecoms companies and those spreading 5G antennas around the world have not done any tests for safety. But wherever they go up, bee populations are decimated, plants wither and people develop horrendous symptoms.
Please read Martin Pall, Dr. David Cowan, websites such as Paul Burrell’s, Josh del Sol, Nick Pineault, Dr. Mercola’s, Dr. Arthur Firstenberg’s book “The `invisible Rainbow” to find how electromagnetic frequencies affect out cells and DNA, and now 5G more than ever. It is very scary what governments are allowing telecom and other companies, such as those owned by Elon Musk, to do to us and our planet right under our nose with no safety testing.
Would I be right in assuming that 5G is rolled out in areas of high population density; and in areas of high population density more people with die of covid-19 just because – more people? Would that not explain any link nicely?
While I’m certainly not a fan of 5G, could it simply be that those people living in more crowded places are exposed to a higher viral load?
When I trained as a radiographer back in the 1970s, part of our training took place at a TB hospital every few weeks. We were not required to have any kind of vaccine or immunity test as it was pointed out that in order to ‘catch’ TB you had to be in close proximity for a length of time, in a poorly-ventilated place, to someone with the active disease.
For example, my husband’s father developed TB as a young man of 22 in the early 50s when he worked as a cinema projectionist – an ideal location, in a small, dark, windowless, stuffy room connected to a large unventilated room full of the general public, many of whom likely had active TB, possibly without knowing. His favourite diet seemed to consist solely of jam sandwiches, not known for their immune-enhancing properties. He was one of the few survivors in the TB ward where he ended up, possibly due to his age, and lived to be 82 in the end.
I’m sure 5G has some kind of adverse effect on the body, if not the immune system, but I too have looked at the towns where all 4 operators have 5G compared with the highest numbers of Covid 19 deaths and there is no convincing parallel, as far as I can see, unless you ‘cherry pick’.
Oh I’m not saying that 5G is linked to covid! I just meant that if people are seeing a link between the two, then urban density just seems to be a reasonable explanation for both – a correlation, not a causation.
There is plenty of scientific evidence for the damage that radio frequencies do to the DNA in our cells. 5G just ramps up the frequencies to a deadly level. Please read Dr. Martin Pall, or Dr. Firstenberg, or just go to Nick Pineault’s website for many links.
nnmlly: As I understand it the risk of harm from radiation rises with both the strength of it and the proximity to the source. 5G requires far more towers far more closely spaced than 4G, thus in a crowded city the risk would be heightened for many. There has recently been patented in the U.S. a technique for delivering the signals through electrical wires, thus nobody will have any choice about exposure.
Could you interpret the figures for me as I don’t really understand what you are saying. Is there a corelation or not between the numbers of deaths and roll out of 5G.?
I saw an article on RFK, Jr’s website Children Defense Fund. It’s an analysis of an article published in ICEE (I think?) which is apparently a reputable engineers’ magazine. (I have no idea, maybe engineers on here could comment). The article was about research on mobile and wifi, including 5G. Look it up, if you are interested.
Sasha, you are probably referring to this article from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
https://spectrum.ieee.org/news-from-around-ieee/the-institute/ieee-member-news/will-5g-be-bad-for-our-health
As you might expect from a bunch of engineers, they don’t think that 5G will be bad for your health.
“The first medical studies on possible health effects from EMR [electro-magnetic radiation] started almost 60 years ago, and literally thousands of studies since then reported either no health risk or inconclusive findings. A relatively small number of studies have claimed to find some evidence of risk, but those studies have never been reproduced—and reproducibility is a key factor in good science.
We should continue to look at the question of EMR health effects, but the vast majority of evidence says there’s no reason to pause deployments.”
But read the comments, which come from from some quite high-powered individuals. There is some doubt as to the safety of 5G. The problem is, there’s not enough evidence either way, i.e. you can’t conclusively prove or disprove that 5G is safe.
Martin, thanks. I will try to find the link to the article that his website mentions. I am fairly certain they have the link listed. I didn’t read the article itself, just a synopsis by RFK Jr’s website. If I find it and if it’s different from what you posted, I will link it here.
Martin, here is link
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/child-health-topics/known-culprit/electromagnetic/electromagnetic-radiation-due-to-cellular-wi-fi-and-bluetooth-technologies-how-safe-are-we/
It’s a post from April 7th and refers to an article published in IEEE. It’s a different article from the one you mentioned. And it apparently reaches different conclusions. But I didn’t read the article itself
Thanks for the link. We’re doomed, unless we find a nice comfy cave to live in ;o) Meanwhile, follow these sensible precautions:
TABLE 7: Recommendations for using Cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices:
Cell Phones/ Smartphones on cellular networks
1. Network: For internet connectivity, prefer Wi-Fi. If not available, prefer to use 4G networks for both calling and browsing/data streaming.
2. Calling: Use wired headphones and keep the phone at least 1m away while calling.
3. Browsing/ Video Streaming: Keep device on a table/platform at least 50 cm away
Wi-Fi Devices
1. Prefer smartphones over laptops for casual work such as e-mails/ browsing.
2. Keep smartphone/laptop on a table and operate from an arm’s distance (50cm).
3. Avoid keeping smartphone in the pocket while it is connected to a Wi-Fi router.
4. Avoid keeping laptop on the lap while it is connected to a Wi-Fi router.
5. Wireless (Adhoc transfer) : Stay at least 1m away from both sender and receiver.
6. 4G Wireless Hotspot: Stay at least 2m away from the device while it is active.
Bluetooth Devices
1. Speakers: Keep speakers at least 25 cm away and connected smartphones at least 50 cm away.
2. Smartwatch: Avoid unless absolutely necessary.
3. Earphones: Avoid unless absolutely necessary
Martin, thanks. I assume, you are an engineer? Have you read the article they refer to? And if you did, what do you think of their conclusions? I haven’t read it or thought about the issue much. I only know that I can’t carry the phone in my pocket or hold it next to my head for longer than a minute. My head or leg goes numb..
Sasha, yes, I am an engineer, but civil, not electrical or electronic. I skimmed the article. They measured the radiation emitted by devices and compared it with the government-recommended limits, and concluded the devices were unsafe.
Personally I am not too worried. People who are heavily exposed to this type of radiation, like kids who have grown up surrounded by electronics, don’t seem to be affected. Whether 5G is uniquely dangerous I don’t know. It’s early days yet but so far the areas with 5G don’t seem to have any unusual morbidities.
Remember the objections people put up to cell phone towers in their neighbourhoods? If they had caused any trouble there would be court cases galore, but so far nothing that I am aware of. Maybe it will be the same with 5G.
Not that I treat radiation lightly. I left my last dentist partly because I felt he was giving me too many X-rays. If I fall asleep with the bedside radio on I wake with a headache the next day, presumably from the radiation. I would prefer a world with no unnatural radiation, but that is impossible given current lifestyles.
Martin, thank you for your feedback. It’s all very interesting.
Can’t comment on 5G but:….
When they got my new pacemaker up and running, I was warned :
Do not put your mobile phone in your breast pocket.
Do not stand closer than 8inches to the microwave (but they don’t leak according to the blurb)
When I got a new car, which has keyless starting, the car mechanics said they had never heard of any such thing.
So what is it?
I’ve heard Doris Loh talking about foton-sensitive amplification molecules in the body, and she referred to chlorophyll as being one, which are able, once having captured a photon from electromagnetic radiation, to knock electrons out of all kinds of molecules, creating reactive oxygen species in the process which then can wreak havoc in parts of the body. She posited that there is a dose dependent relationship between the amount of radiation you receive, the wavelength (i.e. energy of the photons involved) and the damage they cause.
She also argues that it’s this kind of radiation, generating ROSs that have to be ‘neutralized’ by Vitamin C among other substances (vit E, glutathione, &etc.) which leads to a shortage (or deficiency) in them which makes it necessary to supplement (more).
So maybe you don’t notice anything clinically from electromagnetic radiation, but sub-clinically your system could allegedly be put under (more) pressure and for instance your life shortened, or developing (more) cancer as age advances.
I’m not saying I have the level of knowledge that I can reject, debate or accept this opinion, but I think it’s quite an interesting concept.
I recently talked to a friend who’s a nuclear physicist. He is one of the smartest people I know. I was asking for another friend who was concerned about buying an apartment on the last floor of the apartment building. On the roof of that building there are a bunch of antennas for mobile. My physicist friend said: “anything that receives and retransmits, will amplify”. Whether it’s bad he can’t say for sure but he can’t imagine it being good.
Down here in Rye we have been delighted this weekend that almost no-one has come down from London to their holiday home (shades of Eyam) and infected any of us countryfolk and that tourists have largely stayed away; I confess that at nearly 70 I am a little uneasy about getting it (though I may have had it in December) but you are quite right that the measures are designed to flatten the peak and not more. Actually until last week the weekly death toll was not much greater than usual, and less, it would appear, than in the swine flu epidemic in 2009. But to be fair, whatever any government did would have been wrong. I am interested to see whether there is going to be a substantial overprovision of ventilators and if so whether commentators will be critical of the frantic calls for more which they themselves made. I have been blogging a bit on this; see The Wry Observer on WordPress… I think it will all be much clearer when we have an antibody test that tells us who has had it, and is therefore relatively safe. Estimates differ wildly. But it does appear that the Cheltenham Festival may have distributed the thing substantially.
How reliable are the tests?
Reading this article brought home that I am at higher risk, being a healthy 65 – I don’t feel old, but I am, I guess. I too think I may have had it earlier this year after being told by my GP, following a chest Xray for something else, that I had a shadow (inflammation) on my right lung. A subsequent Xray showed the shadow had gone. I did have the most awful cough. With an effective anti-body test being the only way I can tell, for a while at least, that I have had the virus and have a level of immunity, the thought of going back out into the world after lockdown is frightening. Is my mask merely a security blanket? Some difficult decisions ahead for me. Thanks for a thought provoking article, Malcolm.
scazzer, I am 67. I do not feel old, because I am not. Paul McCartney is still going, as is Mick Jagger and others.
Forget them. How about Keith Richards? That’s one tough guy, isn’t he?
In order to return to normal life, we will all have to find ways to boost our natural immunity against infection.
COVID-19 is a more virulent, and a very much more infectious, version of the influenza that occurs world-wide every year towards the end of the winter
– examples of which are SARS and MERS.
A vaccine is never going to prevent the next strain of Influenza, since vaccines take many months to develop
– and we are always chasing ways to stop the last pandemic – not the next one
We are not going to learn much from the medical profession or government about these natural ways to boost our immunity, since most modern doctors do not understand anything which is not a licensed drug.
I have spent 10 years interacting with many NHS scientific advisory committees including NICE, and none of them can cope with “Diet and Lifestyle” – because they don’t understand it.
– An example of this is a GP who proudly told me that “I know nothing about Nutrition” – how sad and dangerous !
– Another is an eye surgeon who told me that she does not give advice about Omega-3 – because “Vitamins are dangerous”
Dr Cicero Coimbra, Dr William Grant and Henry Lahore show strong evidence that high levels of Vitamin D boost our natural immunity against the annual Influenza, and COVID-19
– and help to fight the cytokine storm
( https://vitamindwiki.com/Vitamin+D+WOW+facts )
Dr Andrew Saul and Patrick Holford maintain that we should take much larger amounts of Vitamin C – when we are stressed or ill
They both report how the Chinese and many USA hospitals are now using IV Vitamin C as first-line treatment for COVID-19.
( http://doctoryourself.com/ )
( https://patrickholford.com )
Dr Sarah Myhill suggests that we should inhale iodine vapour, since that coats our nasal passages and upper airways with an antiseptic that kills the virus when we breathe it in
( https://www.drmyhill.co.uk/ )
Dr Paul Marik has a protocol involving Vitamin C, Vitamin B1 and steroids that have a synergistic effect in treating Sepsis, that also helps to treat Influenza and Pneumonia.
https://www.evms.edu/about_evms/administrative_offices/marketing_communications/publications/issue_9_4/sepsis.php
Dr Joseph Mercola has published “10-Tips to Beat Coronavirus” that add several foods, traditional herbal remedies and supplements, such as Elderberry, Spirulina, Beta Glucans, Glucosamine, Selenium, Zinc, Alpha Lipoic Acid and Sulphoraphane, plus Zinc and the traditional herbal remedies Echinacia and Turmeric
( https://www.mercola.com/ )
We are not going to hear much about these ways to build immunity from the medical profession, because the doctors in NICE in the UK do not understand them and the FDA in USA has banned anyone making claims for treatment or prevention using anything but licensed drugs.
Also Google and Facebook altered their search algorithms in June 2019 to block any claims that do not use licensed drugs, mostly as part of their war against Fake News but possibly to keep the advertising revenue from the drug companies.
Many of the general public do understand some of these natural methods of boosting our immunity, including how sunlight is the best disinfectant
– except that the dermatologists have taken over the lunatic asylum and told us to stay out of the sun !
So if we aren’t going to hear these messages from our doctors or our search engines or social media or the mainstream media, where and how are we going to learn about ways to prevent infection from COVID-19 and the next version ?
Have you been following the fascinating research coming from grassrootshealth.net?
I also ponder on that question. My conclusion is that perhaps only those lucky people who have happened upon that sort of information as to how to protect oneself will be the ultimate survivors. Personally I am trying to share all that information with anyone that will listen! I also try and share the information regarding the perils of statins, most (if not all) vaccines, drug-cocktails, eating junk food and sugary stuff…some are interested, some aren’t. In the end, I suppose we’ll find out one way or another…
So, Malcolm, what would you do, if you were, say, a 70 year old man in generally good condition? Meaning average arterial and lung health for that age, and no diabetes or obesity? Wait for at least two years in semi-isolation, hoping to get vaccinated, or take your chances out in the world, hoping you’ll survive COVID-19 reasonably intact and get at least some immunity for a substantial period?
The latter
How about if you were pressing 80 and had a couple of “underlying conditions” constituting some kind of risk yet to be quantified and qualified with years of RCTs . . . now?
(How many of us here does that describe?)
Perhaps you have a different perspective from most, having devoted your life to being out there helping patients?
Oh, and for full disclosure, what might your age be? I’m 76.
Me, I’m locked down here in the U. S. A.
But . . . I have my own key!
What is the point of all these hypothetical “What ifs”? We are who/what we are, not what if we were someone/something else. 🙄
What if you’d been a 50+ year smoker (pipe mostly).
At 63, (and admittedly with very good labs now that I’ve taken diet very seriously as a carnivore)I would take my chances as well, but I’ll admit it’s not death that scares me as much as the manner of it. I’ve already had pneumonia and don’t relish drowning in my own fluids again. Too bad we can’t get really radical and promise to euthanize those who get to the intubation stage if they are of sound mind and have discussed it with family. Then I’d be willing to chance getting it. But until then, I just don’t know. That said, I couldn’t agree more that we must have a clear exit strategy and if it means going back to pre-COVID-19 work, school and leisure activities, so be it. We can individually decide how to proceed. Some may continue to mask up when they shop or just say to heck with it and hope for the best.
Thanks for the impassioned article, Dr, Kendrick
I don’t think there is any intention to let us go back to living how we were. In due course they will probably relax some of the restrictions but I suspect Social Distancing is here to stay in one form or another. After all it prevents all but marital sex.
Probably we will be encouraged to put government mandated tracking software on our phones before we are allowed out. And of course censorship of “social media” is another bonus
I don’t think it is preventing all but marital sex, esp since you are now allowed to stay in a mate’s house if you have an argument with your family. I know a lad and his girlfriend have been doing some interesting late night “gardening” in a tent on his mum’s allotment – good on them I say.
Is that like parachute jumping for the young? Under 60 or so you are more likely to die of parachute jumping than anything else so it is a big risk but over 60 you are exceedingly more likely to die of something else so it is safer!
Counterintuitive!
At 63, I would take my chances as well, but I’ll admit it’s not death that scares me as much as the manner. I’ve already had pneumonia and don’t relish drowning in my own fluids again. Too bad we can’t get really radical and promise to euthanize those who get to the intubation stage if they are of sound mind and have discussed it with family. Then I’d be willing to chance getting it. But until then, I just don’t know. That said, I couldn’t agree more that we must have a clear exit strategy and if it means going back to pre-COVID-19 work, school and leisure activities, so be it. We can individually decide how to proceed. Some may continue to mask up when they shop or just say to heck with it and hope for the best.
Thanks for the impassioned article, Dr, Kendrick
I am almost exactly the man described, except that because I can cycle pretty well on the hills round here, I’d rate my lungs as rather better than average.
I too shop for our food, and obviously continue to cycle. It is irritating that I am not supposed to drive to a decent cycle track, but on the other hand, a lot of roads are safe to cycle on at the moment.
I reckon that probability of a collision with a car goes up more than linearly with the number of cars on the road because on a nearly empty road, the cars give cyclists a wonderful margin – more even than social distancing would require! Normally I try to avoid rods completely.
I totally agree that the government, aided and abetted by the BBC, has totally painted itself into a corner. I reckon that when President Trump starts to slacken the restrictions, we will too.
Could you please, please, please leave Trump out of this? He has the idea that this is all up to the states…until it’s not. You can’t on the one hand tell the states to fend for themselves for PPEs, ventilators, tests, lock downs, etc., as he has done for the majority of the time; and then suddenly say that the President is God and gets to choose what happens to the states, as Trump just said yesterday.
You can’t have it both ways.
And whence this idea that everything is up to the states comes from, I have no idea. Imagine WW2: “Sorry, Hawaii, about that Japanese attack. We recommend you start building more ships and planes.”
Why do we even have a CDC and a NIH if we don’t use them?
If you want to discuss reopening the country or parts of it, then let’s discuss it. But let’s leave Trump out of it, as he seems to change his mind with the wind.
BobM: States actually had quite a bit of sovereignty until the Lincoln presidency. The original Articles of Confederation was a compact among sovereign states. The Constitution replaced this by agreement among the states, but the issue was unsettled until the secession of Virginia and the other southern states. Today, the federal government grabs power wherever it sees fit, and the states do what they are told. Basically bootlickers. It’s lucrative for them, though. Lots of greenback dollars flow their way, regardless of the fact that they are just pieces of paper, devoid of any intrinsic value. But you’re right, Trump should be left out of our discussion. A lot of people like him, and a lot hate him, but this has no bearing on how we recover from this madness.
I agree, along with the 16 others already giving you the thumbs up. Having nursed my way through MRSA in its early days, AIDS, from when it was an unknown quantity, bovine spongiform encephalitis ….and on and on… coming in contact with lots of manky wounds, and various adult contagious diseases, I managed to get through unscathed….but at 72 , and my hubby at 77, both now coping with underlying conditions….we are up against this scourge. The scourge? Yes offspring in their middle years GROUNDING us. We dare not disobey them, so to all around us, we appear to be complying with the Government….but believe me, we are complying for the love and concern of our wonderful adult children. Staying at home is no problem for us, and if it keeps their minds at ease, despite having no research to back it up long term, we will comply..All is never as simple as it seems.
Chances, chances!
What’s my potential risk? What’s yours? Not too bad, right?
Tell you what: It doesn’t mean a thing when you get it.
Years ago I got a different rare dangerous disease pretty much thought to be extinct.
A decade later, I came down with it again. Literally unheard of. Zero “chance”.
Mine is the only known case.
I got it, chances notwithstanding.
Rethink your numbers. There’s only one of you.
When you get it, it’s 100%, no more, no less.
So, presume you got it.
Now, what’s your chance of death within a week?
Numbers, anyone?
Quite high if you don’t stop and relax, I would think
JDPatten: You’ve had a birthday since the last blog post; you’re nearly five years ahead of me. But numbers, yes. We haven’t the numbers yet to make sense of the actual threat of this, and the numbers we are given are suspect anyway, as to the causal role Covid-19 plays in these deaths.. I read no mainstream media, and very little alternative media. It seems their entire purpose today is to whip up hysteria. The information I do get about this nasty bug comes mainly from here, and the sources posted by commenters. Tis a mystery. By the way, happy belated birthday.
Gary,
Do you see yourself as being optimistic or pessimistic concerning this world situation we’re in as you repeat that the reported numbers are incorrect and actual numbers cannot be known?
This blog is a wonderful source of a certain bent of information. It does seem to attract a great deal of conjecture as well.
I look at a wide range of information sources – as skeptically as I can manage. (But I certainly don’t spend the whole day at it as some seem to!) 🙂
Actually, since 2 doesn’t seem much in the face of 3,952, I decided to cheat. (Actual numbers!) My birthday isn’t for another 2 weeks. But thanks, advancedly. (My, you do keep close track!)
JDPatten: I’m an optimistic realist. I find great joy in being alive, but don’t trust media or government, or the fairy tales we’ve been taught all our lives. Understanding human nature, and my own imperfections, I’m neither surprised or overly perturbed when people do stupid things. As far as Covid-19, I really don’t know what to think or expect. The Iceland data are encouraging. I don’t have any great worries about myself or my family; we almost never get sick. I’ve never as an adult had the flu, and haven’t had a cold of any consequence in decades. I think the lockdown is a bad idea, especially closing the schools, but that’s my opinion; impossible to know what difference it will make, at least at this point. I suspect the economic consequences of the lockdown will be far-reaching and long lasting, and thus more lethal than the virus itself. I also worry greatly about the power our government is grabbing; they’ll never give it back. I worry about the UK. Sounds like they’re taking it in the shorts. By the way, I don’t actually pay much attention to people’s ages, but you’re one of my favorite commenters, so I always read carefully what you write. A few weeks ago you said you were 75, then a few days ago 76, so I figured you must have had a birthday in between. Also, have you read Colonel David Hackworth’s “Hazardous Duty?” I met him at a book signing in 1996, and shook his great bear of a hand. Remarkable life he had.
Gary,
“Optimistic realist” sounds only a bit oxymoronic. 🙂
I think you’re basically correct in outlook, possibly excepting:
The experiment in Sweden isn’t looking happy. Arizona nor Florida look happy. The colder North Central states with few cases so far will be interesting.
It remains to be seen (As with so much else) whether propensity-or-not for flu/colds has anything at all to do with this thing.
Schools? Dunno. Only History will tell.
Best case: After the cull of just a “few” of our most susceptible, it’ll wain to background annoyance. (Note, however: the susceptible ain’t only the frail and elderly.)
Worst?: It’s a bad movie script. Ultimately, the only survivors will be the few that gain immunity without having had symptoms or damage of any sort – selection for a new species, in effect. Of course the society with its Economy will have been destroyed . . .
But, of course, there’s no way to know how this will turn out.
The mindless little specks have no intent. We are the source of life for the things. We and how we behave are the vector that determines how it turns out.
Darwin would have been very interested. But you know that I’ve said that.
I shall go see about this Colonel of yours.
JDPatten: Cannot disagree with your sentiments. Colonel Hackworth is well worth reading. At the time, our most decorated living soldier. A fine leader of men, who left us too early, although in his seventies, of cancer. Joined up at fifteen, in the days before they knew every single thing about every citizen.
David, agreed about the roads. It seems to me that people are for the most part driving unusually sedately on even the fast, straight ones. I live in a rural area and don’t always regard empty roads as safe ones. The only time I have ever been hit by a car was when cycling on Dartmoor, miles from anywhere.
66 years . CABG x 5, T2D and chronically well- padded and not overly (aerobically) fit, but yes, I’m happy to mix and mingle, though at a greater distance than before and I’ll be more selective as to ‘where’ I go.
But being locked up, forcibly un-employed and fiscally fraught a is doing more harm to my QALYs – via mental health consequences – than what I fear from the Beer Virus.
Can’t change my age or a lifetime of imperfect health, but its my choice of what supplements to take / amounts, – Vitamin C, Vit D, Zinc and quercetain. and where I go.
AhNotepad,
“Quite high if you don’t stop and relax, I would think”
True, to a degree, if you look at “because of COVID”, since stress will effect cardiovascular status.
Once sneak-thief COVID is in you, relaxing is gonna help?
C’mon.
Actually, I find it quite relaxing to make conceptual points through storytelling. The true ones are always best. 🙂
Biggest news of the day is surely the jaw dropping report of the Oxford professor saying 80% chance of a vaccine in September. Dr Kendrick doesn’t mention it nor do any of the comments. Thats a little bit weird. If I’m a healthy 70 year old man I would think this is worth avoiding as best you can with the expectation that at that age your likely to be near the front of the queue when/if the vaccine becomes available. Thinking in terms of immunity sounds bit gung-ho! If the vaccine is 18-24 months away my comment might be different.
They don’t even have an antibody test yet. Despite this – fundamental requirement to test a vaccine for efficacy – they claim that they are going to develop, run clinical trials to check for safety and efficacy, then manufacture several billion doses in four to five months. Well, I think I would be willing to wager a rather large amount of money on that – not happening.
Thank you for that injection of sanity.
And did they already purify the virus?
I wonder how they are going to get round the safety issue of a vaccine.
It takes many years to build an adequate vaccine safety profile.
I believe that the fastest ever vaccine made in response to an outbreak was for Ebola. It took five years. Ebola kills at least 50% of infected. When a disease is so deadly, it will be worth taking the risk of using a relatively untested vaccine. I would have had that vaccine in a heartbeat if I was at risk.
When a disease has a CFR of less than 0.5% – will the risks of a rushed vaccine truly be outweighed by the risk of the disease? I certainly wouldn’t be game to have that jab.
If anyone has any references to more about safety and efficacy of the proposed vaccine I would love to learn more. Cheers.
nnmlly, it’s easy to get round the safety issue of vaccines, they have been doing it for years. Just give legal indemnity to the manufacturers and the medical industry. Simples.
What if they tell you you MUST have it? Otherwise you don’t get “immunity passport”. Can’t travel, can’t go out. Mandatory vaccinations. Is it a possibility?
The thought of mandatory vaccinations worries me more than any virus.
See: Why it’s too early to start giving out “immunity passports”
Coronavirus antibody testing needs to get a lot better, and so does our understanding of immunity, before people can start circulating freely
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/09/998974/immunity-passports-cornavirus-antibody-test-outside/
Re the possibility of mandatory vaccination, consider this:
Bill Gates and Intellectual Ventures Funds Microchip Implant Vaccine Technology:
https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/bill-gates-and-intellectual-ventures-funds-microchip-implant-vaccine-technology1
I hope it doesn’t come to mandatory vaccinations. Even though, you could argue, in some sense they are already mandatory. And more and more of them are being added to the schedule.
I think it’s a goal, or even one of the many.
I’ve earlier posted an angry rant (you can even say: attempted to hijack this forum, for which I probably would have to apologise to the good doctor) about how all this is a setup in order to get to the point of mandatory vaccination but was moderated away and probably rightly so. Anyway, I said it: all on purpose, and many purposes at the same time, for that matter.
Might this be the vaccine in question?
Looks like an entirely new and different approach.
Maybe old rules no longer apply?
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/09/coronavirus-scientists-play-legos-with-proteins-to-build-next-gen-vaccine/
JD,
Maybe. You first.
Thanks Anna, don’t mind if I do – once it’s FDA approved and with enough clinical history behind it that my own fairly conservative GP OKs it.
See, I have some standards too.
@JDPatten I’m afraid you won’t have much of a choice. Either you ‘just take the damn jab’, or confined to home quarantine forever.
Always get the jitters as soon as I read “Oxford Professor” . . . Vaccine? . . . Wait until Father Christmas brings one along at the end of the year.
Dr Kendrick,
“They don’t even have an antibody test yet.”
I’m a bit confused. A Google search of antibody test for covid 19 produces a number of links about both existing and pending antibody tests. For example,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/los-angeles-county-launches-large-scale-covid-19-antibody-study-n1182031
If there were an accurate test, it would be being used. No test is being used, so none of the tests, currently, are of any use.
We now have some clarity as to what here in lunatic California is called the “Covid-19 test.” Del Bigtree was tested for IgG, or Immunoglobulin G, and something called ICM, the former purporting to indicate he had an active infection, the latter to indicate a previous infection. Sounds pretty dicey to me, as IgG apparently can indicate that any number of infectious agents have aroused the immune system. As for ICM, I haven’t found any reference for it.
To me, the only way out is to ensure everyone can be tested. Make everyone aware and gently bring us all back in. The country can’t afford to go on for much longer.
James Bee, do you have any idea what the test was designed for, or what it does? Do you know the proportion of false results, for what reasons?
But there isn’t a reliable test, so testing is pretty pointless if the test can’t distinguish between different corona viruses, influenza B, and various other things
The current antigen test being used only tells you that someone has active disease and is said to be only 60% accurate. Until we have a very accurate antibody test to show who has been infected and recovered, we will remain in the dark as far as testing is concerned.
Thank you Malcolm. I agree with every word.
Amongst other things, I’m tired of politicians saying ‘we will be led by the science’. Leadership is about taking ALL factors into consideration, developing a strategy, communicating it and then executing it. Just simply saying ‘we will be led [only] by the science’ comes across as simplistic, binary and irrational.
It seems that the medical industry is in control. This scares me more than the virus.
Thank you Dr. Kendrick – that makes it pretty clear.
Does this mean that this virus is much more dangerous than any Flu that killed say 888 per million in Europe 5 years ago, when 28,000 died in the UK? Death per million in the UK currently is around 55.
I understand that Covid-19 has come late in the “season” and risen rapidly to cause the NHS problems with numbers needing ICU at the same time. Has the NHS not had any problem dealing with the average 17,000 deaths per winter season over the last 5 years? And will this virus recede during the summer as similar viruses do normally? Is it that much worse?
Mathematically (I know nothing of medicine) it looks like it reaching a peak – perhaps first of many you think?
Thanks again for your insight into these things.
The thing is when we try to compare flu cases to COVID-19, there’s a different level of care that goes into treating many cases. Often if one is hospitalized for flu, it’s because they’ve become severely dehydrated. Once they’re given some fluids intravenously, they’re sent home within hours in most cases. They may still feel terribly weak, but they’re out of the bed and on their way home, whereas once someone is hospitalized with C19, it may involve a longer stay as well as oxygen, medications and finally intubation/ventilators..
So how did 17,000 pa die of Flu/pneumonia on average in the last 5 years. Do we not try to save them in anyway?
It is the fact that a massive number of people die of Flu all over Europe like 217,000 in 2014/15 but it takes a scary name and hysteria to get any one to notice.
Agreed. This seems to be an overreaction, but as I said, it’s one thing to visit the hospital for a couple of hours to be rehydrated (as in most flu cases) or given antibiotics for pneumonia and then sent right back home. But, this really is more serious and even Dr. Kendrick said that this is something he’s never witnessed before and the speed with which it kills is something awful to behold. Though I agree that the breadth of this lockdown seems completely unnecessary and will likely do more harm than good, I have a problem with those who say that C19 is “essentially the flu, so what’s the big deal?” I believe the decision to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed was a good one, but they’ve failed to protect those in long term care. No surprise, there, though…
But, as Dr Kendrick has pointed out elsewhere (RT.com) it was done arse about face.
We knew from Italy, Germany, and Spain that the most vulnerable were the oldest, but instead of making a huge targeted effort to protect them from contracting the virus, we made an only partially successful effort to lock down the entire country and in the process protect millions of people who would suffer only flu-like symptoms, while severely damaging the economy and storing up long term health and mental health problems that will likely cripple the NHS without massive injections of cash over the next twenty or thirty years.
If we had, instead, kept the elderly from contracting the virus, then resources could have been targeted on those with known co-morbidities to keep them isolated, while the rest of the population got on with ‘herd’ immunity with hospitals only having to cope with those who contracted severe symptoms, like the idiot Boris who invited the virus by shaking hands with sick patients.
It’s a fuck-up. ‘They’ are now locked-in with denial. It’s kinda sad. Yes, they may be following Dr. K. (I’m sure they bloody well are! Been there, done…). We have an interesting 3-weeks ahead of us. Sic transit gloria mundi. Lads, mine’s a hand-pulled Sam Smiths when it all falls out of bed.
Yes, so true, and let’s hope they’ve learned something from this and will be better prepared to respond appropriately next time around. Things should never have played out this way. I hope they back us out of this ditch before the economic/societal damage is irreversible (if it isn’t already.)
Reading widely one gets the impression that going onto full intubated ventilation does not often end well… the treatment protocols still being nutted out on the fly. How significant are the similarities with hypoxic damage as compared with pure pneumonia ?
Knowing how hidebound medicine works, they’ll be ‘doing an Einstein’, ie, the same things over and over and hoping for a better result. Just last week I came across reports that suggested ventilator PEEP (between breath) pressure needs to be keps LOWer rather than (then?) current standards. – How may months has that been to filter through the Nurses observing their patients and finally being broadcast?
Would, a hyperbaric chamber be of therapeutic benefit ? I’d guess that from a manufacturing aspect, churning out dozens of pressure-vessels with windows will happen a lot sooner than setting up production lines for hi-tech machines like (invasive) ventilators.
Or put the ICU beds at the bottom of a coal mine.
Now here’s an interesting question:
In the 2014-15 flu season, 28,330 people died from flu in the UK.
Analysis of the deaths shows that, like Covid19, the vast majority were over 65.
My experience from talking to seniors (I run a private physio practice) is that almost every one of them has an annual flu vaccination.
So – most of these fatalities (and presumably, most of the fatalities during any other flu season) involve people who get their flu shot every year.
Why, therefore, do we see so many deaths? What does this tell us about the effectiveness of flu vaccinations?
As I understand it the development of the yearly flu vaccine is like shooting on a moving target. As the flu virus develops a new vaccine needs to be designed but if you wait until the new wave of flu arrives you’ll be too late with the vaccine. It’s my understanding (please correct me) that the choice as of what the next virus variety will be basically is a gamble and that therefore the vaccine fails so often. By the way, it’s a cocktail of virii so some virii will be hit by the vaccine, others–the newest ones–not.
As Britain is passing the 10,000 death mark and almost everyone is still on lockdown. Where are all these deaths coming from? Are they all hospital admissions? Were there anyone in hospital before the virus hit Britain and if so were all the patients suffering from the virus before or did they acquire the virus from their visitors or the medical staff? As for lockdown it’s been a waste of money and time for the majority of people. Instead the only people who should have been in isolation were the old and people with low immunity. Because when lockdown ends the virus will still be around.
Tim, you cannot have a “one size fits all” approach. There are plenty of old people who are healthy, capable of looking after themselves, and do not want to be “done good to”. They are not dangerous disease carriers, anymore than “foreigners”, who seem to be universally accused by what ever country they are in. Why do you think it right to deprive one group of their liberty just to fit some arbitrary prejudice?
I don’t think Tim meant that. His point seems to be, at least to me, if this virus has an incubation period of up to 14 days and we are now 3 weeks into lockdown, where did they get it from? I have a feeling that many cases were ‘caught’ in hospital as many people who had been in hospital for surgery etc then seemed to come down with Covid 19 and died. I also think that perhaps it may have been better to protect those who were more at risk and let the virus spread in the community to achieve some kind of herd immunity which would ultimately be more protective than what we’re doing.
Probably the old and vulnerable would be on a voluntary isolation, not lockdown.
AHN
the old are not an homogeneous population, some are fitter and have more immunity than the other non homogeneous population , the young.
As you say the current policy is a non policy, known as whistling in the dark and hoping for the best.
Here’s the problem
We literally don’t know how many people have died FROM coronavirus, just WITH coronavirus, nor are we likely to any time soon.
There doesn’t yet appear to be much or any of a spike in the overall death rate, just what the deaths are blamed on.
Yes! Unfortunately if you scour around the internet, it looks like we are headed that way. Good old Bill Gates has stated in many different interviews that he want to vaccinate the entire planet, that mass gatherings will not be possible until this happens. It seems that the UK government is really in bed with BG as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has awarded grants to Imperial College who produced the extremely dodgy numbers (how on earth can the government have any credibility if they are advised by this bunch?). Statements about lockdown until vaccine available, ‘immunity passports’ (very creepy sounding statement from Matt Hancock who has 75% shares in another private pharma company called Porton Biopharma). Then you find that Chris Whitty received a $40 million grant from Gates years ago…… BBC also has received a stack of money from guess who ….. the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I for one will be declining any vaccine and it is also my worry that I will be cut off from the world and lose all sorts of rights. I suspect there will be a stack of people just like me, so I think there will be a fight to inject some common sense into the debate and I would not be surprised if lawyers get involved.
I also will be declining the vaccine, although it could mean I become a prisoner in my own country or even under house-arrest.
Because even good ol’ Bill is very worried that those vaccinated might die from a ‘cytokine-storm’ like that which resulted when SARS1 vaccines were being tested and subjects were challenged by the SARS virus.
Will the Death Certificate say “Death by Vaccine induced runaway cytokine reaction” – not on your nelly.
But don’t worry, all the important people (vaccine manufacturers, health boards) will get immunity – from prosecution for reckless endangerment of the public.
I should have researched, but I didn’t, and I didn’t know Hancock had his snout deep in the trough, nor that the Fergoid was paid by someone who wants to vaccinate the world and reduce the population by 15% for starters. If this information was on the TV news, I wonder how many people would stop thinking a lockdown was anything to do with saving lives.
I have been wondering the same thing! I think they may be using the ONS data to announce deaths, as these also include deaths in the community (and of course the media will use the highest number possible). Someone science advisor on the daily TV briefing said
‘the ONS figures are of people who had covid on their death certificates, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were infected with it – many haven’t been tested’
Are you kidding me! And no journalist has picked up on this? I would expect most deaths in the community would be older people with existing conditions and many in care homes. With the very relaxed attitude about coding anything and everything as covid19, it is possible that this lockdown is being justified by counting a whole stack of deaths which are not even relevant to lockdown. Deaths in care homes should be separated out and not included in any totals used t justify lockdowns. I have also heard that care homes are cancelling patients’ medications and getting them to sign DNRs as well as many people who are disabled or with learning disabilities.
And patients seem to be getting treated as ‘suspected covid’ and therefore if you die and covid is anywhere on your death certificate, it gets counted as a covid death. And looking at the spike in deaths in the last week, the breakdown shows that a lot of these are non covid, which seems to indicate that many people are dying who should not be, and who are not covid.
The whole thing is a mess.
I just saw a comment on Facebook on a friend’s page – one of her friends works for a funeral director and said that since 12 March this year ALL deaths have been certified as Covid-19. No deaths from heart attacks, cancer or anything. They knew one person who’d died of a stroke and even their death was down as due to Covid-19. No post-mortems are being carried out. This person said that it is like Covid-19 is now appearing to be a cure for all other diseases!!
All well and good, yet there isn’t a single country not attempting to mitigate infection somehow – except maybe Belarus. The alternative seems to be that many elders will die horribly before their time and that the younger generations – give or take a few random unlucky people – and the oldsters simply accept that. It isn’t acceptable and we will lose many practised and wise people if we do this. The fact of the matter is that there ís no solution and our government, like most others, is doing the best it can in an impossible situation. They seem to me to be on a hiding to nothing, whatever they do. I’d like to see the alternative plan of Sir Keir’s predecessor, if only to point and laugh…
I think a statistical analysis will bring this to light once this is all over.
I hate nitpicking but i feel it really IS worse as two young nurses died the other day now a third, iv never ever known this occurrence before im sure it would have been highlighted
Well I sympathise with what you say Paula, but if anything C-19 appears to leave children relatively untouched. Flu definitely does not. In 2014/15 28,000 deaths in UK and 2 or 300 were children. Flu can kill 40 year olds as well – and of course not all Influenza Like Illnesses (ILI) are created equal. HIN1 a decade ago had a death rate of 10%. Thank heavens it didn’t really get a grip here. There is still no vaccine for it, I believe, even now.
For me the tragedy has been the lack of proper protection for front-line medical staff, who by definition are going to be exposed to larger doses of the virus than any of us would normally. I have seen it said that the dose is a factor in the outcome – I don’t know. The health minister has rightly taken flac over the issue of PPE, but it is NHS managers who are to blame for lack of PPE, and lack of shape in racking it up when needed. The level of reliance on China for stuff is a wake up call. The lack of protection is unforgivable.
It is undoubtedly worse for some people…I think that, without being racist, many of those who have died who were seemingly ‘healthy’ may have had an underlying vitamin D deficiency due to their ethnicity and the fact that for them it’s far more difficult to obtain adequate vitamin D levels in our latitude. Other factors may also come into play, as suggested by Dr Aseem Malhotra, namely ‘metabolic syndrome’, obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Anglosvizzera, I’ve been thinking the same about vitamin D and ethnicity. Older people are also more likely to be deficient, and those who are obese. All risk factors for caring badly with covid. Of course correlation isn’t causation, but if it were a factor then keeping everyone indoors would seem to be something of an own goal.
Anglosvizerra,
But were those young nurses black or Indian? Staying indoors will decrease everyone’s vitamin D, won’t it? I think more people ought to know about how much longer time dark skinned people need to remain in the sun. I saw a cancer map of the US for black people and the farther north they live the more cancer. I have told a couple of black people about this and they are very grateful for the information.
Yes, of course anyone who doesn’t get adequate sunlight will risk having a vitamin D deficiency and, as you say, the darker-skinned members of our society are most at risk. Dr Rangan Chatterjee found this out for himself when his own son nearly died due to this, which made him realise how little he’d been taught about nutrition at medical school and propelled him into finding out more (and spreading the news!!)
A magnesium deficiency can also be responsible for vitamin/hormone D not working properly in the body, which may explain why some people continue to have an apparent D deficiency despite taking very high doses. As I understand it, magnesium is a mineral that is in short supply these days in our diet and isn’t particularly bio-available even when it’s there. A deficiency often manifests as ‘anxiety’ and a lower ability to cope with stressful situations (like now!) But stressful situations also cause the body to ‘use’ more magnesium and therefore may contribute to a deficiency in the body. Testing for magnesium deficiency is also fraught with problems being as the usual NHS test is the blood serum test which only, as its name suggests, measures the amount in the blood serum. But the body cleverly steals magnesium from body stores to ensure the blood levels are optimal and therefore a true deficiency is not apparent until all the body stores are depleted.
I’m not an expert but have gleaned this information over the years – and clearly those advising us about how to minimise our risks (ie the NHS and government) are either not interested in sharing this information or remain ignorant.
I remember years ago when rickets started reappearing in Scotland it turned out to be mostly among Asians. I also wonder what is the effect of wearing a hijab or niqab. Would be interesting to see if more women suffer in the Middle Eastern countries.
I am continuing to get out in the sun as much as possible. Mark Hanwilly (a willy is like a cock only smaller) is dead against sunbathing so there must be something in it. They don’t seem interested in how NOT to catch it, or how to make it not dangerous, it goes against The Narrative.
That’s a very good point, imo. In the past, after listening to Dr Ames’ Triage Theory, I was thinking the same thing about African Americans in Chicago and how Vit D seems to be connected to serotonin production, if I remember correctly.
Typo:-
“I have already warned that it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that many more people could (DIE) as a result of the lockdown than will die from coronavirus.”
Spot on Dr K.
However the fear porn spouting MSM have a lot to answer for.
This has been my view, and I support the government in its lockdown efforts to not overwhelm the NHS. But, as you say, it is extremely unlikely to eradicate the virus.
There is a serious issue that you have not discussed, however; mutation. For me, one compelling argument for lockdown is that, by preventing the spread, we’re preventing the chance of mutation so that, when a virus is found (if it is), it will be effective.
Please note that I am not a doctor, just a very invested observer.
I think you mean vaccine? Yes, of course, this is a possibility. However, in most cases, viruses attenuate through mutation – though not always.
But also, if the virus mutates, then the ‘miracle vaccine’ when it appears will already be useless…
Dr. Kendrick,
I have another question about the possibility of a vaccine. People are wondering if getting covid really gives immunity for a long time, a life time, or 3 months. Am I right that if the virus doesn’t give a long term immunity, then a vaccine cannot be developed?
Well, that is certainly the case with many vaccines. The promise was “life long immunity” but the reality was quickly “you need a booster”, and now “every couple of years”.
This virus mutates, but not at the rate of flu. Most of the early cases in Seattle were of an odd mutation, not that it had an effect on letality or contagiousness, but that is how they knew that it had spread from a single unrecognized carrier. Similarly, most ter in NYC were imported via Europe and not directly from China.
That is something that makes travel restrictions appear potentially dangerous. You get isolated virus populations, meaning some might respond differently to an eventual vaccine. Or you get some immunity to one strain, and it starts all back up once a different strain comes in.
Yes – thank you. I did mean vaccine. For a non-doctor, do you then think that mutations would generally be weaker and easier to control?
The arguments I’ve read appear to postulate that a vaccine would not be effective against the mutation so, unless, as you (I think) postulate, they will be weaker and less dangerous, this would a major issue.
The case made is that the lockdown limits mutation. You do not think this to be the case?
According to a small stem cell company, they have experienced healing of lungs impacted by the Covid-19 virus.
https://vitrobiopharma.com/category/technical-content/covid-19-updates/
There’s a lot of instances of “potential” in their PR
Thankyou. I am already getting annoyed by the paternalistic guff being spouted, and I am sure that the great British Public will be too. This could be a trigger for . . . what?
Worrying.
If this carries on into the summer (in the UK) and it gets HOT, and people are still being told to stay in, I expect there to be riots in cities.
Agreed Malcolm , but Speaking from Tipperary Ireland, surely the best we can do is slow things down so ICU and the hospitals can cope ? The GPs here right now are underworked, and are moving into the hubs to help , for sure , but also to supplement incomes lost due to reduction in private practice . Listening to Anaestetists here , they are applying the usual humane criteria for who gets an ICU bed , and its not the residents of nursing homes ,where we have our clusters. So there is definitely an increased demand on the critical services due to whatever percentage fall really ill .  Lockdown doesnât beat this but it does perhaps slow things down while we figure out proper public health stuff and ramp up our hospitals to cope  (yes agreed should have happened yesterday but here we are )Regards  Shook your hand in London , at the Garry Taubes fest , not sure who was most stressed at the time Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Dr. Malcolm KendrickSent: Sunday 12 April 2020 17:49To: roisin.costello@gmail.comSubject: [New post] The lockdown is NOT a way of beating this virus Dr. Malcolm Kendrick posted: "12th April 2020 Several politicians, including Keir Starmer, the opposition Labour Party leader, have been demanding to know the exit strategy for the lockdown. âWe should know what that exit strategy is, when the restrictions might be lifted and what "
Roisin,
I think the crude but realistic answer to that is that if we insist of trying to ventilate people who are already close to death for other reasons, we need to continue the lockdown – but what on earth is the sense in that? When Prince Charles fell ill with the virus, we were assured that he would recover quickly – and indeed he did – at age 71 (I think).
David Bailey: Age correct. He is two months older than I.
Prince Charles will have a homeopathic Doctor. We’re quite confident in these situations. The homeopaths had a very low mortality rate in the 1918 flu, from memory under 1% vs c.30% in the allopathic hospitals. i’m only a lay user of homeopathy, albeit over 25 years. I’ve only known one distant friend with symptoms of C-19. She was approaching the breathless phase when my remedy reached her. Taken as directed, quite aggressive dosing, she turned the corner in around 2 hours.
Hope Melanie will post her homeopathic remedy
@Mr Chris. Although I feel I can detect a little sarcasm in your comment regarding the remedy Melanie used, anyone who is familiar with the selection of homeopathic remedies will be aware that there are usually several remedies that may be appropriate and that it’s the patient’s individual symptoms, character, medical, family history and more that lead to that remedy. In the case of an epidemic, there may well be what’s called a ‘genus epidemicus’ that fits most people’s symptoms which is useful to save time. There are homoeopaths around the world as I write who are comparing notes to find this genus epidemicus for our current pandemic and I’m sure any positive outcome will be broadcast, although probably not in the MSM!!
@Melanie, do we know whether there is a new official Royal Homeopath that replaced Dr Fisher?
Come on, anglosvizzera. Homeopathy is nonsense and doesn’t work. Haven’t you seen “Contagion” 10 years ago? With Jude Law as an evil homeopath? In the movie people are dropping left and right from 24 hour Ebola. There’s panic on the streets, the good scientists in CDC are developing a vaccine that should be ready in 3 months and Jude Law is pushing homeopathy on people. They even managed to make good looking Mr Law look ugly. Maybe the script has been laid out for us years in advance and now we just need to follow it. Or maybe I lost my mind somewhere along the way. Both things are possible…
Lol, you are entitled to your opinion of homeopathy of course!! Yes, I have seen the film although it was a while ago and I can’t remember the details. However, homeopathy has been ‘working’ for me and my family since they were tiny babies (and the cats)…obviously a very strong placebo effect going on there!
They call that ‘predictive programming’, the people are trained to act in a favourable way by theater, movies and songs. In Old Greece they already did it in the theaters.
Fascinating. I didn’t know that they already did it in ancient Greece. Nothing new under the sun, I suppose
Yes, here in the UK it’s called BBC One/Two and Now Sky, ITV, and Channel4. In the ‘olden days’ it was called John Craven’s News Round, but that was deemed too grown up, and so they had to dumb it down. Seems to work.
Melanie,
That is an interesting point, though I am sure many of the doctors predicting that the Prince would recover were Western medicine. In other words, you really have to be approaching 80, or have a lot wrong with you to be at serious risk.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/04/09/adjusting-covid-19-expectations-to-the-age-profile-of-deaths/
That said, I don’t want to dismiss homoeopathy, even though it seems impossible, because I think too many ideas that seem to work are dismissed because theoretically they can’t work!
Do you have any source for the data you quote from 1918?
@Mr Chris – in this instance it was Byronia 30C every 20 minutes timed to match the energy of the disease. Would normally expect to see a result within 4-6 doses if it’s the right remedy. My friend said it was on the 6th dose her cough suddenly stopped and the direction of travel changed. As anglosvizzera points out, it was very much dependent on the presenting symptoms….and in my friends case, any movement was making the cough much worse (which is a key note symptom for Byronia). Byronia seems to fit quite well but if, as some doctors are reporting anecdotally, the symptom picture was that of sudden breathing difficulties similar to altitude sickness, I’d have gone with Coca. And if the disease had progressed further, then probably Carbo Veg. At just £2.95 for each remedy I’d be minded to have all three on hand should anyone find themselves in a self-treating position and running out of conventional options.
@anglosvissera I’m not sure if the Royals have replaced Dr Fisher, but I imagine they would have done so.
@David Bailey. The figures I refer to were published in the 1921 Journal of American Homeopathy. I’ll try find the original shortly. I agree it’s difficult to explain how homeopathy may work… I feel the answer lies within the energetic realm (Einstein) rather than the material (Newton) and as science pursues its research in this area, we may one day know the answer. That said recent work with nanopharmacology is looking promising for providing, at least, some answers.
I would like to speak up for homeopathy. Yes, my “sciency” brain looks at the How (the mechanism, at least as it’s usually explained) and exclaims, Nonsense, a load of tosh, it can’t possibly work!” Whereas my empirically observing brain looks at the What (the actual effects in front of my eyes) and sees that it does work. My pride wants to believe it doesn’t, because it *cannot*. But that isn’t scientific thinking.
I saw a toddler with the thickest, stickiest, most disgusting persistent blob of snot I’ve ever seen – given one pillule of Pulsatilla 30c by her mother, who was scornful and believed it would do nothing at all. The snot cleared up within minutes and the child was breathing freely, after two days like that. I’ve also seen it work on people who didn’t know they’d been given it and on animals who weren’t warned what effect was expected – in measurable ways, no one making a judgment that the problem “seems to have improved…”
Most studies have been very badly structured, testing claims that qualified homeopaths would never make in the first place.
There’s bound to be the placebo effect going on too, in some cases – just as there is when people take aspirin or paracetamol for pain. We should harness the placebo effect and use it more; just think how much budget it would save, for one thing. There are bound to be beneficial effects from personal attention, longer consultations, perhaps physical touch, effects also repeatedly shown to affect patient outcomes in all situations regardless of what kind of medication they take (one of my biggest worries about isolating those with covid). But there is *also* the homeopathy working independent of these factors.
As I saw Stephen Fry remark on QI once, it is faith that says “We know.” It is science that says “We cannot be sure.”
Hear hear! I’ve seen, and heard of, so many amazing success stories from people using homeopathy (also for their pets) that there has to be more going on than ‘just placebo’ a lot of the time. Who cares if we don’t yet know how it works? There are plenty of off-label prescriptions for conventional drugs being used for various ailments where it isn’t known why they work for those, and lots of conventional drugs have started to be used after accidental findings before they found out the exact mechanism.
It’ll be interesting to see the outcome in Cuba of the rolling out of a homeopathic cocktail to the general public to help prevent and minimise the effects of Covid 19, being as they’ve had lots of success for things like leptospirosis.
Well said. And I concur about Qi…
The homeopathic remedy I was given – NHS prescribed – is the only thing I can take to prevent further strokes. Everything else they’d normally suggest is contraindicated in my case. I sometimes get warning signs, usually over a few weeks before I cotton on, and a dose stops them – again, it’s often a while before I remember to ask myself whether I’ve been getting the warnings. (They can be subtle, they never follow a pattern, and I can be forgetful.)
Malcolm, thank you very much for posting this, it raises very important questions.
Managing the number of infections at any one time does seem like the only realistic way we will get out of this situation, but in practice it’s likely that the lock-down will be released in a phased manner, targeting perhaps key areas of the economy, particularly those where the risk of passing on the virus is lower. I’d also imagine that the lock-down will be flexed in response to ongoing data/metrics.
Antibody testing also has to be a key part of the solution – identifying those who have had the illness and are (hopefully) immune, and for whom lock-down is no longer necessary. As more and more people get exposed to the virus and develop immunity, the degree of lock-down can be progressively relaxed.
An industrial scale vaccine may be a long way off, but there’s a reasonable chance we will have something in smaller quantities much sooner than this, in which case it could be given to those most at risk from the virus – the old and those with existing conditions – which would give us further freedom in managing the situation.
Yes exactly. Prof Whitty is praying for an accurate do it yourself antibody test . He has been hopeful since the start but it has failed to be accurate enough. Fingers crossed we get it rolled out soon, as it will be a game changer.
You could volunteer – https://covid19vaccinetrial.co.uk/files/cov001pisv3202apr2020pdf?fbclid=IwAR0C2u2kpDflLtRnB57BNrHMqAo6oucOTUBvj7VWvuG-VzcRSuQvyXcK-6I
Hi anglovizzera: re vaccine study
If the study is a success then all young and healthy people can be vaccinated, and when they get old and unhealthy they will be protected from dying FROM the virus. Looks like a blockbuster solution that can eradicate the virus if applied on a wide sale.
Hmmm – you seem to be under the illusion that any protection conferred by a vaccine for this will last for many years. If it were to mutate, as is speculated, then a vaccine will be needed at regular intervals. Even the flu vaccine isn’t very effective and it’s been pointed out that having it year on year makes one more susceptible to ILIs (Influenza-like Illnesses).
As with the H1N1 vaccine, some of the adverse reactions may not be picked up immediately (ie narcolepsy in that case) and this is more likely if it’s rushed out without long-term safety trials.
All those younger people being given a Covid 19 vaccine may well find that their long-awaited old age is marred by some autoimmune or other condition as a result.
Instead, why not follow the advice of Dr Kendrick and many other doctors and health advocates to optimise one’s immune system rather than leave it to chance? It would be helpful to find out why some ‘seemingly’ healthy people succumbed to the virus – possible a nutritional deficiency like vitamin D, for example? Or vitamin C? Or magnesium (given the stressful situation many are finding themselves in)? Or all of those and others?
My husband and I are 62 and very rarely get colds despite spending time with those who are snivelling and coughing all over the place. I have only ever knowingly had ‘flu’ once in my life and that was over 20 years ago when I was a stressed-out mother of 4. I don’t think it’s because we’re ‘lucky’, I think it’s because we make an effort to eat a nutritious, organic (where possible) diet and take any good-quality bio-available supplements we feel we may need.
I read a news article recently that children in the Philippines were to be given vitamin C supplements at the present time. Why does our government not think in the same way?
Anglosvizzera
That is exactly our strategy, I think getting infected is inevitable, so we exercise in the fresh air a lot, and we supplement with amongst other things, vitamine C vitamine D etc etc to boost our immune system. In my opinion this epidemic shows that having the so called co morbidities, many of which are avoidable through life style changes is lethal for over 80s
Hi anglovizzera: re vaccines as solution to pandemic
Agree with your assessment. My comment was hypothetical from point of view of vaccine study scientists. Our governments created the obesity epidemic with their dietary recommendations. Adding vitC would actually be beneficial to a diet that promotes insulin resistance. What is needed is an insulin resistance test that together with the antibody test could pinpoint why grannies succumb to the virus.
anglosvizerra,
“you seem to be under the illusion that any protection conferred by a vaccine for this will last for many years. If it were to mutate, as is speculated, then a vaccine will be needed at regular intervals.”
How perfect! What could be better? A real bonanza.
A data scientist perspective from Iceland data, worth a read
View at Medium.com
Spot on yet again Dr K.
smartersig, I think this article really says it all.
I’m a person who needs to see the numbers and the data being sold to the public simply doesn’t add up. I feel it has been cunningly presented to deceive and blow this all out of all proportion. For example in today’s Sydney Morning Herald they report “COVID-19 cases in Australia 6325 COVID-19 deaths in Australia 59”. Leave aside for a moment the fact that a lot of those deaths are likely overstated because many of the counted deaths are “with” rather than “from” C19, A layman would jump to the conclusion that the death rate is about 1% (59/6325) because there is no attempt to explain that the true (population) number of infections (combined infections from confirmed and untested) is very likely substantially higher than confirmed cases alone.
Razavian’s paper points out:
“After adjusting the age-group statistics, we can see that more than 96% of cases remain undetected and therefore, not part of any statistics. applying the 4% detection rate to 1.5% mortality rate among detected cases leaves the total mortality rate close to 0.06%.”
This is still a lot of deaths but even the Australian government concedes they’re only trying to slow rather than eliminate the total number of deaths over a longer period of time. But at what cost?
It worries me that there is no exit strategy, just a policy of delaying deaths.
No-one will answer this simple question: How many collateral deaths will have occurred because of the lockdowns and other interventions. The answer will certainly not be zero.
Unless we change course, we will feel the collateral damage of these disastrous interventions for many years to come.
Dr John Ioannides tested lots of people in the US, Santa Clara County, forgot the state, and arrived at a realistical ‘infection mortality rate’ of 0.1%.
Surprised this article didn’t inspire more comments. I read that article, and yes, it seems plausible at first sight. Do we know how complete testing in Iceland was?
How does he estimate real cases in Sweden for the 80-90 and 90+ groups, because that is crucial for calibrating his model. Neither do I get how he arrives at total mortality.
And most importantly, how does this square with the Austrian study of 1000+ randomly selected individuals which showed way below 1% active infections? The Austrian study did not detect immunity, but from his model, one would expect way more active infections than the Austrians found.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/less-than-1-of-austria-infected-with-coronavirus-new-study-shows
Since the tests haven’t been validated, the results must be near worthless.
Which tests are near worthless? Iceland’s or Austria’s, virus or antibodies?
There is a pretty good wikipedia article on the pandemic in Iceland. To date, they have tested about 10% of the population (30k out of 300+k) and found 1.7k infection, which is a little of half a percent of the population. If you assume about half have recovered, you get a number that is highly compatible with Austrias.
Razavian gets a 4% detection rate by overlaying the Swedish and Icelandic distributions. He estimates that the real cases in Sweden in the 80-90 group are about a factor of 1.7 higher than detected cases. For 90+, the factor seems to be closer to 2, but it is hard to read the bar graph. How does he get the factor???
He then extrapolates from this high-age tail to the integral of the distributions to estimate that 96% of the total cases are undetected.
For April 6, his estimated total number of cases for Sweden is 100000. This is less than 1% of the population. Again, some have recovered, so not really out of line with Iceland’s or Austria’s testing. How can he predict that be end of April, the pandemic in Sweden will be over? I don’t have the number of days for doubling in Sweden, but if it is anything like the 8-12 days we are seeing elsewhere now, it will take longer than that.
Also, why is it I have not been able to find any numbers based criticism of his article?
For tests validity, refer to several posts by Dr K
There do not appear to be any functioning antibody tests at this point, that much is clear.
However, the testing discussed here is for the virus. Issues with the virus tests are much smaller than with antibody posts.
My Liddle and Scott Greek dictionary gives Hubris as wanton violence or insolence
Mr Chris: My Webster’s is slightly different: “Wanton insolence or arrogance resulting from excess pride or from passion.” This certainly applies to Gates and the other prominent vaccine proponents, such as Dr. PrOffit and Peter Hotez, both of whom are imperiously dismissive of the all too truthful and devastating accounts parents tell of their children descending into hell post-vaccination. The only industry, with the exception of the nuclear power industry, whose products enjoy the complete absence of liability for causing injury or death. A few days ago, when Congress passed the Give-everybody-especially powerful-industries-a-great-big-pot-of-money Act, they included liability protection for any and all Covid-19 vaccines developed. This is a new and ominous development; heretofore only vaccines on the childhood schedule enjoy such a get-out-of-jail-free card. All other adult vaccines, such as shingles, do not enjoy such protection, and there are multiple lawsuits underway claiming injury from Shingrix.
Eric,
These are good questions. Have you tried to contact the author? Since you seem pretty good at this type of analysis, you should do so!
@ Mr Chris – I think the modern English meaning of hubris comes from outrage or insolence towards the gods – which the gods always punished, being pretty touchy about that kind of thing. Not sure about the rape meaning but I’ve certainly heard it before, and I have a feeling it was a specific crime within a broader definition(?).
Good ol’ Liddell n Scott. 🙂
Hubris:
In ancient Athens, hubris was defined as the use of violence to shame the victim (this sense of hubris could also characterize rape).[6] Aristotle defined hubris as shaming the victim, not because of anything that happened to the committer or might happen to the committer, but merely for that committer’s own gratification:
to cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: naive men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.[7][failed verification][8][9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris
More graphic interpretations can be found if one cares to look. As I mentioned, this was ancient-Greece. Words migrate in their meaning over time. A good example today is Epicurean, or the politician’s ‘favourite’… Quantum leap.
@Anna: Thanks. Anyone with a few minutes on hand can google the missing numbers and then do a bit of primary school math. I might have to register with that site which I don’t usually do when I have no idea who posts there. But then, I hang out with you guys, so what…
Mr Chris: ???
On the other hand, eyeballing the stats covid peaked in Sweden perhaps a week ago, and it could well be over by May. They have no lockdown and the daily death rate is substantially lower than the UK. I would agree that the guys a bit out there with his use of statistics.
Eric: Pertinent questions. I read the Iceland article with great interest, but must concede I failed to fully understand it, or its implications for other countries.
As China and S. Korea are ahead of the curve, won’t what happens there next be a good indication?
There are countries whose statistics I trust
I think that it was probably spreading in China as early as late September-early October.
China was underreporting at least into March, maybe even now. But I don’t think they are lying outrageously now. If they had a rampant epidemic now, we’d know about it.
South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, I’d trust to an even larger degree.
You wrote “The infection fatality rate (IFR) currently stands at around 0.2% in those countries doing the most testing. ”
Just had a look, that would be the numbers reported by South Korea and Singapore. My first question is: how do they define CV deaths? My guess is as “from” rather than “with”, but where do they draw the line?
Secondly, they were probably able to contain their clustes, which most Western European countries and the US can no longer do.
Thirdly, can they keep this up, going forward or are they going to be up against much more trouble than us medium term?
Jeff, only if you believe China’s figures, which are no less manipulated than the Italian or UK figures.
I was actually not talking about the reported figures, but by seeing what happens on the ground. They are at least 2-3 months ahead of everyone else in terms of dealing with this.
With simulations run in 2016 (project 201) would it be fair to say that a GCSE student would have looked at the data and said ‘stockpile enough masks etc for your health and social care workers’. This would have cost little and kept us ahead of the game in one small area
I can’t disagree with the main points of this blog, however the elephant in the room is that we cannot cope with the peak because of lack of preparation. While it’s true that a percentage of people will die with Covid-19, with or without the lockdown, if the NHS is overwhelmed then it is probable that there will be increasing amounts of collateral deaths as well. So the process of ‘flattening the curve’ is to try and keep the saveable enough resources to enable that.
It’s probably optimistic that any country could provide ICU facilities, PPE, and standard ICU drugs in store in case there is a pandemic or other surge in ICU needs, however such preparations would have cost a fraction of what this lockdown process is costing now. With careful investment and management such facilities could have been rotated to prevent expensive equipment decaying on warehouse shelves for years, and in the rare occurrence we need to flex the ICU capability of the NHS could be brought to the frontline. Hardly a new concept, we’ve been using this process for decades with nuclear and other weapons, ready for the nuclear Armageddon that probably won’t come.
But even in the short term the current logistic problems have been seen coming for months. Like many other nations – the US being a prime example – denial that something, anything would need to be done, regardless on whether it is the right thing to be done. We’ve lost the opportunity to track the spread of the disease due to the paltry testing regime, so many of our key workers have almost certainly been propagating the virus until symptoms showed, which takes away the opportunity to manage the spread as the government seems to want to do.
The reality is that the NHS almost certainly couldn’t cope with the do nothing strategy – it has a moral and ethical duty to try and care for the ill and would have been completely overwhelmed judging by the numbers we’re seeing now – as most of the deaths are from infections pre-lockdown but with some social distancing providing minimal alleviation – it would only be another week or two before people who should have access to a ventilator including those without Covid-19 would be turned away due to lack of ventilators (or a myriad of other items). Whether the lockdown was the right choice will be for the historians to determine, but I suspect the failure to do anything initially apart from mouthing the soundbite – following the science – took most flexibility from the government. That and historical under investment in the NHS, I guess.
throngsman, if the NHS has a moral and ethical duty to look after the ill, then the government has a moral and ethical duty to look after the NHS, which it has failed deliberately to do since Maggie Thatcher’s intention to destroy the NHS by stealth.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/25/margaret-thatcher-pushed-for-breakup-of-welfare-state-despite-nhs-pledge
AhNotepad – good link. But more recently the NHS budget has been cut in real terms since the coalition onwards. Regardless of political orientation one good thing that came from the Labour administration from 1997 until the coalition is the above average investment (in GDP terms) of the NHS.
Does the fact that 22,000 have died this season of Flu/Pneumonia have a bearing?
Surely it must.
Sorry I meant to say that – “historical under investment in the NHS, I guess.”
Well its funding is similar as a percentage of GDP as the average of the 15 best funded in Europe. For that funding we get less of most things though.
David R – I was trying to find a link to discover the annual flu rate values for this season this evening. The numbers are out there, I guess, but I’m struggling to find a believable source that just give me the numbers without having to delve into reams of stats. If your figure is correct – not disputing, just unable to verify, a link would help please – then that would suggest 22K vulnerable people that should reduce the ‘at risk’ population. Judging by the daily figures, potentially not.
It is astonishing that the NHS has managed to free up enough beds which are the equivalent of 50 new hospitals!
But as Malcolm acknowledges, at what price?
At the expense of my (urgent) spine operation for one – my potential 2 nights in hospital, put off indefinitely, will probably turn into 20 years of disablement and not-being-able-to-work by the time we come through this. I already have a severe loss of function in my affected leg and foot. And also the possibility that I fall down the stairs because of this, and lie on the floor until the cat eats my face…
I find it fascinating (morbidly so) that there is a collective will to shut down the world, yet there is apparently no possible way to suggest that attaining healthier lifestyles via diet and exercise is somehow impossible. It is crystal clear that this virus targets those with underlying conditions with a fury (99% of Italian deaths involved underlying conditions, young New Yorkers prone to mortality linked to diabesity, etc.). Is it really beyond our capacity as a people to shift diet to improve insulin sensitivity, which clearly is protective from infections in general, and more specifically to covid mortality?
Not very profitable hough, compared to feeding people crap food and following up with crap drugs.
The problem here is threefold (at least):
– There is no data that putting everyone on LCHF, and saturated fats at that, lowers susceptibilty to either catch the virus or have a nasty illness.
– The medical profession in general has been invested in the opposite (eat plenty of seed oils and carbs).
– Even if it worked, it would take too long to turn around food production, to convince everyone and to flush out the depots of linoleic acid.
I’m going to disagree a little. While we don’t have data showing those on keto are NOT showing up in mortality statistics, we have a lot of data showing those who have died are diabetic and obese. This is not arguable. Two, we have data from prior viruses that show reduced susceptibility to flu, SARS and herpes when insulin is low.
As to changing susceptibility, I’m too lazy to provide links, but insulin levels drop almost immediately when shifting into low carb, and leptin levels follow about a week later. As to changing food supply, I think it’s more a matter of shifting processing than any other factor. In the US at least, dairy has been destroyed during the crisis due to a lack of institutional buyers (schools, etc.).
I think you’re right broadly. The system will support the addiction to carbohydrates, and this is very challenging to turn around. However, these are rather alarming times, and it is time to reconsider how we subsidize garbage food and promote health as a society.
It is so good to read your sense when we all have so much nonsense to put up with. Many thanks.
I have been saying this from the get-go and found myself roundly hated for it. I got banned twice for “soapboxing” and “dominating the conversation” (commenting no more than anyone else) and have been variously called an idiot, a spreader of disease, a killer of old ladies, a witch, nasty, a troll and worse. It’s NOT what people want to hear. Most people, in my experience, staunchly have magical thinking firmly in place and genuinely believe that if they just obey all the rules a) Covid-19 will pass them by and b) the virus will somehow disappear.
But far worse is the amount of curtain-twitching and snitching that’s been going on, with people fabricating ‘rules’ in their own heads, extrapolated from the govt’s ‘life-saving’ guidelines. I’ve seen people reporting a family for parking in front of their house to go for a walk (they shouldn’t drive anywhere, not even locally, to exercise), blaming cyclists for spreading it because they are out exercising for “2-3 hours”, someone criticising his 80 year-old neighbour for going to his allotment, and countless diatribes against “gangs of teenagers” flouting the rules. On my local neighbourhood forum, someone published a picture of someone’s car with the details of their registration (because 4 teenagers had got out it) and when I took them to task for this (in a jokey manner) I ended up getting banned from the site – again.
I can’t say that Covid-19 has encouraged me to believe in the thought processes and discrimination of the average human. It’s been roundly depressing, and I feel very frustrated (and angry) at getting dragged into the mass delusion with them.
Chancery Stone, I agree with your post entirely. I was told off by a heart specialist yesterday who told me as I came out of a shop, (that he was a heart specialist) and that I had better take this virus seriously. That put me at risk as my rage, sorry, blood pressure, shot up
Humans have always seemed so clever, I suspect the reality is somehow different.
We are a concoction of carbon, hormones and various chemicals, we are also creatures of habit. Our brain structures driven by these chemicals and hormones give the impression of thinking but in fact they create concepts and beliefs.
These concepts and beliefs are possibly helpful when faced with immediate danger, but they get hijacked.
Anything we perceive is filtered by our beliefs and values, and we automatically ignore anything which contradicts them.
I am though pondering exactly what my beliefs are in the light of this current situation?
Cheers
I think it is quite hard to see your own biases. It’s like sitting in your own car and being able to see the blind spots. They are called “blind spots” for a reason. From what I understand, there are methods developed to overcome your biases but sticking to them is a big discipline, I think.
Any “Red Dwarf” fans here?
Do you remember the episode “Back to Reality” where the crew hallucinate an alternative reality in a fascist dystopia?
As they’re getting their bearings they notice a wall covered in posters, amongst which are:
“Vote Fascist for the 30th glorious year!”
– and then the absolute kicker:
“BETRAY YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS! FABULOUS PRIZES TO BE WON!”
This got one of the biggest laughs of the episode.
Nobody’s bloody laughing now, are they?
Its a postponement at best. Maybe the summer sunlight will also bring the numbers down. But as soon as we go back to where we were, well the numbers will again climb. Those over 60 and those with health conditions are most in harm’s way.
ellifeld, I am over 60, and I am not in harms way.
Me too. I’m 73 and healthy. Don’t have fly jabs and won’t have the Covid-19 one whenever it appears.
Fly jabs?
Mike S,
”Fly jabs?” Present tense of “flu jab”
Flyboy jabs?
Mike S: Must be mutant flies with a proboscis capable of penetrating skin. Learn something new every day!
And we didn’t think this was transmitted by flies! Someone tell the governments!
That’s what is missing from the MSM panic – how to be one of the people who are not badly affected. Good food – without a barcode – and getting out in the sun is probably a good plan
chris c, well I have been getting plenty of exercise over the past few weeks. Not pedalling round in lycra as plenty seem to do, but getting sorted so I can produce veggies, as I should have done years ago, but the work in for food out seemed excessive. Then I stumbled across https://youtu.be/cHF-bIsbvpg and many of his other videos. Workload and tedium disappears, now gardening is a pleasure.
Postponement is good. I’m with postponement.
I have plenty of work to do, projects to finish – holed up right here.
Eighteen months or so should be good.
Goran,
Are you still with us, from freewheeling Sweden?
He is, but is unable to post. I have no idea why. He has e-mailed me.
Thanks for this…we have missed Goran
I think here in the US antibody testing is how some believe the government will be able to lower the fear levels seen. I’ve seen the CDC bring this up. This morning I read an article by the governor of the state I live in Florida, bring up antibody testing. I hope it works out for the best.
Florida’s DeSantis says confirmed coronavirus cases likely a ‘small fraction of those who have actually had it’
https://www.foxnews.com/media/florida-ron-desantis-confirmed-coronavirus-cases
A big problem with fear I believe comes from the press. They are scaring the heck out of people. I’m not sure what the answer is with that. In part many people now view news as entertainment. They watch news all day long. Social Media is another issue. I have disagreements with the WHO but liked their announcement a few weeks ago, stop watching news all the time.
Ah, ha! It sells newspapers.
Sad, but likely true. I know others have other ideas on why all the media promotion of the virus.
On Friday I went to the grocery store called Publix. No one was there. There was maybe one or two other shoppers with me. Kind of nice I thought, I had the isles all to myself for a change. I get home and find out a local news station had run a segment saying that some employees at Publix stores had tested positive for the Wuhan virus! No specifics said. No names mentioned.
There are 5 Publix stores in my area. No mention on how the employees are doing. We were joking among ourself that Publix must have forgotten to pay for TV commercials with the local news station.
I figure the shoppers will be back soon to Publix. They frequently have stocks of toilet paper.
Ron DeSantis, completely trustable!!!! hahahah
In Northern Italy, 60 volunteers who thought they’d never suffered COVID-19 gave blood. 40 of them tested positive for antibodies to the virus. ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/futefm/in_northern_italy_60_volunteers_who_thought_theyd/ )
If we project this on the rest of Europe and we relax the restrictions considerately after the peak has, say, halved, I don’t understand how the next peak could be worse than what we’ve gone through now.
Also, if we massively start testing for antibodies we immediately can lift all restrictions from the people who test positive, while requiring them to observe good hygiene to prevent particles from others landing on their belongings from being transferred to others, especially elderly.
Except that we don’t know which test was used. The most widespread will detect antibodies to the other, more harmless Corona “runny nose” virusses, too.
Isn’t it about capacity, handling the surge, the tsunami without the reserve in place to soak it up, (never mind the paraphernalia) unremarkable and all as its effects on the overall mortality rate appear to be ?
Government probably had no choice but to run with the national fervour/fever favoured by Ferguson.
Once again Malcolm, the voice of reason. I do hope it is listened to by people in “high’ places?
At some point early on in all this, on the BBC six o’clock news I recall there was mention of the intention being to create a number of ‘waves’ of cases and herd immunity to spread the problem over about a year, and a graph showing a whole series of so called manageable peaks, but it was quickly withdrawn from the public eye and presumably buried as just too scary a truth.
I wonder how history will judge our response compared with countries like Sweden who decided to ‘keep calm and carry on’.
Depending on ‘WHO’ writes the History… (yes, pun intended) you can only bet 50-50 that it’l be honest. Once again, people are going to have to dig deeper than official narratives…
Fully agree with this post. Here in South Africa our initial three-week lockdown has been extended for a further two weeks. I don’t see the point. It’s just delaying the inevitable. You have to face the fact that eventually everyone is going to be exposed to the coronavirus. It’s too infectious and widespread to avoid. The best you can hope for is controlled exposure so as not to overwhelm the medical system, while at the same time building up your medical supplies and establishing the most effective way of dealing with Covid patients.
One point not mentioned is that we are not the same people we were before COVID-19. Thanks to saturation reporting, everyone knows about social distancing and face masks and hand washing. If the lockdown is lifted with warnings that the virus is still out there, we’re not going to rush into each others’ arms, mafficking and jubilating, at least I hope not. Each person should maintain sensible precautions until they get the all clear that they’re immune or they’ve had the virus, or a vaccine if one ever gets developed.
Maybe mass gatherings could still be banned, although I’d love to see the football season start up again. One big worry is public transport. People going to work packed into crowded buses or trains or aircraft could be a recipe for disaster. I was thinking maybe compulsory flexitime could reduce peak crowding.
What a joy to read your post. I’ve been trying to tell people that when the restrictions are lifted it doesn’t mean that we won’t still have this in the population. Those who feel terror will continue to do so for quite a while and those who have found their metier in huffing and puffing in supermarket queues will also be able to do so. Unfortunately, those who are susceptible will also continue to be so. It’s about a lack of preparation on the part of the Government and NHS as well as warped and unreliable statistics. It’s very difficult to know what is really going on but a relief to know that there are intelligent, rational human beings out there who san see a bigger picture.
Without knowing who has had it (or not) surely the data is skewed? My husband and I believe we had it 1-14 February and there’s lots of anecdotal evidence that Covid was in the UK possibly since the back end of December. It also seems pretty clear that the Chinese data was far from accurate as was their timescale – meaning the virus was possibly worldwide long before the clusters of cases in Italy, for example. I am watching Iceland’s data with interest as they have managed to test a good percentage of their population and results so far seem to show a large proportion of asymptotic cases. The post apocalyptic wash up will be most interesting I think!
The problem we have with the RT -PCR test is… it is far from perfect, and was never deisgned to be ‘Diagnostic’. The inventor was quite specific about that.
Rather than waste $$$ on a future vaccine, – which hope fully will be MORE effective than the current ‘flu guesses – better to develop faster and more accurate antibody tests.
Even how a Test is used makes a difference. For a suspected naive or low-infection population, what about ‘contaminating’ a number, a dozen for instance, into ONE test. A Neg. result clears that group. A Pos reading means splitting the group into two..and doing each group, and repeat. This would work best with a quick test, one that produced the least number of false Negatives. I understand the South Koreans get results in 5 to 6 hours of gathering samples.
Living through a Pandemic sucks. (So emotional seeing so many people you know and see on the news die younger than they would have done, aslo knowing it could be one of your family next, who knows how your immune system will cope, the sword of Damascus hangs over us all the time but it appears bigger and more real than at anytime in the past few decades ) I think in your summary you missed out the early briefing where Prof Whitty said we are going to have up to 80% of the population eventually infected. He has never rowed back on that and he also said it is now a Pandemic so we have to deal with this in a different way than when we were testing and Isolating all contacts. He is an expert in this field…right man right place. The problem started when our CSO Vallance mentioned Herd Immunity and that was the signal for mass media outrage. Whitty also said the fatality rate would not be over 1% and probably much less. The main problem as you said is overwhelming the NHS as the hospital rate is 5% of all cases. But today we have spare capacity and growing. I feel they are going to use the spare capacity to get the NHS back up to full speed the trouble is we have not got enough trained staff. Unless they can convince the retired staff to stay on for longer. The problem the Gov also has is the way other countries have kept the death rate so low, how can you defend a stance which calls for nature taking a high toll in such a short time? If only we knew the future. Damned if we do damned if we do not.
Adam, It’s the sword of Damocles,. not Damascus, that was for a conversion on the road to, but we’re not allowed on the roads, unless to go necessity shopping, or exercise.
Regards
Pedant society
(I nearly corrected Adam as well, but your reply was far more entertaining – and I was too scared to!)
Thanks for the correction Ah, I had a feeling it was not quite right! so much for trying to sound intelligent! failed again.
We have never tested and traced. He’bya government appointed mouth piece.
The “full Monty” treatment protocol from EVMS suggests a STATIN.
Click to access Marik-Covid-Protocol-Summary.pdf
Could it be time to take the plunge in advance of infection ?
Cholesterol-lowering treatment may worsen the outcome of a Covid-19 infection.
According to Hu et al. serum cholesterol is significantly lower among Chinese patients with Covid-19 (1). The reason may be that low cholesterol predisposes to infectious diseases, because LDL partake in the immune system.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m1182/rr-10&ved=2ahUKEwj27K-a6d_oAhVASxUIHXTjBIYQFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw2oC9xpFOz_fW1KAEZPuhsP&cshid=1586589261131
It has Vit C, Vit D and Zinc as part of the treatment
I live in Quebec, Canada. From the beginning, the government’s message here has been to “flatten the curve.” At least we’ve had that transparency.
Still, looking at the enormous economic and human cost of this lockdown, I can’t help but wonder is the cure is not worse than the disease.
Elderly people ironically seem to be the ones suffering the most from the lockdown. Since their family is not allowed to visit them anymore, it seems the quality of their care has taken a nosedive. Apparently, nagging relatives are necessary to get reasonably good care.
Thank you for your clarity. The public would prefer the truth even if they say they may have made a mistake. Our initial strategy was right until the WHO shamed countries into lockdowns
Erm, I’m left pondering when my exit from this particular life will be? With 64 years and 4 months on planet earth, is my end to be decided by a tiny little virus with a few tricks up its sleeve?
By the time I get this virus, my hope is for a treatment which will reduce the chance of an ugly ignominious end. I’ve always fancied myself as a warrior as opposed to a worrier.
The logic of your premise seems quite sound to me and I can’t wait for the other 60% to gain herd immunity, so I can go on living until the next one comes along!
Further logic suggest that the various Nightingale hospitals will be kept on and people shunted over there to survive or perish. This will leave existing hospitals to get back to be being, understaffed with not enough capacity but at least we are almost used to that.
You are correct, people are suffering financially and perhaps this is where the next innovation will come from. There really was and is no need for neo-liberalism which has led to austerity, and I am by the way of no political persuasion. I don’t trust any of them to do my bidding.
My observations and experience tells me that innovation or challenging the status quo is not welcomed especially in Governments of any persuasion.
Why should Government tell us the truth, they never have, unless or until they are forced to. The so-called opposition doesn’t tell us the truth either. What all politicians do is tell us what is convenient to them.
My somewhat sceptical view is that people in power tend to be problem solvers and solving problems never moves us forward. We need vision creators and makers and I’ve never seen a vision maker reach political influence.
The system doesn’t allow it.
Cheers
Thank you once again
Excellent post.
A loosely relevant quote:
“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.”
William Burroughs
If you see what I mean.
Meanwhile I struggle to make sense of what we are told on the basis of what I experience. (I work in a busy regional UK hospital). Personal strategy: A media blackout in my own life and crack on with the job, though there are so few patients………………………
Funny, my experience when presenting at a local hospital (unrelated to virus) – Devoid of clients in ED, gaggles of doctors and nurses almost fighting over me… and I believe a German news crew found a similar situation when sent to an ‘inundated’ minor hospital. – Bored staff.
COVID it seems, is either a non-event, or deadly ICU fodder.
Western Australia.
Thank you Dr. Kendrick for a reasonable discussion
based on common sense as always.
Elmer Carlson D.C.
Seattle,Wa. USA
I have said this since day one and that yes the people with underlying health issues may well die but all I have heard every news cast has been save the nhs
We will save some luves as there are sufficient ventilators but this is a bullshit knee jerk reaction and many more people will die because of rather than with it
Narrow minded puppets the lot of them
Respirators are so last month.
Thank you for saying this. I am so worried – not for myself but for the people who will suffer the unintended consequences of this mistake.
Cumbria!
Can you turn your mighty intellect into what is going on in Cumbria?
It has the 2nd highest cases in the UK per population and one of the highest death tolls in the world per population.
It is sparsely populated with not many large towns and has very little pollution
The age of the population is slightly higher than normal but not as high as some.
A black swan….or maybe grey? If you follow some estimates 200,000 of the 500,000 (pop of Cumbria) may already have been infected , 1 death per thousand infected. So half way to herd immunity?
Do you know anything about the diet and health practices of the people who live there?
The diet is pretty much like the rest of the population and same with health practices, it seems to be the same in all the areas, the more affluent ones and the poorest but it is really difficult to find specific information. maybe because it is more Northerly and lack of Vit D.but then other more Northern places would be worse…..it might just be random chance.
Have you had outbreaks in nursing homes?
What about the Cumbrian popular Health ?
Mental health – financial position on the UK totem pole?- Poorer folk tend to be more depressed which = lowered immune system.
Mexico – a more obese nation than the USA – is on track for ‘proving’ the link with COVID mortality and … Diabesity / Heart Disease.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-mexico-diabetes-idUSKBN21D3I5
Is it a good time to introduce a…. processed carbohydrate tax ?
No. People must eat what they want. He we informed them properly, many would make better choices.
Cumbria interests me too, as I was born there. There are a lot of second homes and tourism is the dominant economy, did this lead to a lot of influx of the virus carried from London etc.
There are poor / depressed ex-industrial areas like Barrow in Furness or West Cumberland around Workington, but perhaps the most significant factor will turn out to be the age of the population – it’s a place people retire to.
There was a big influx about 4 weeks ago but the rates are still climbing and actually increasing
I wondered the same about Norfolk which has more cases than Suffolk – was it the Londoners travelling to “Chelsea-On-Sea” as some call the North Norfolk coast? Still not many cases though.
Would anyone else have laughed if the police turned round Boris and his chauffeur on his way to Chequers, and told them to go home?
”Would anyone else have laughed if the police turned round Boris and his chauffeur on his way to Chequers, and told them to go home?
They should have done, otherwise it’s one rule for us and another rule for them. Perhaps he should take the only option as did the Scottish health minister, and resign.
The Scottish health minister having to resign is just a case of sour grapes. If you are lucky enough to have two homes how does travelling between them in a sealed box and not interacting with anyone new at the other end put anyone or you at any additional risk? Children are allowed to travel between households if the parents are separated, so why can’t entire households travel between houses? No logic to it.
I can’t comment on the case of the Scottish minister travalling to her second home. I can say that the Cornish are rather upset at the second home owners coming to shelter there – Cornwall has the smallest number of ICU beds per capita BEFORE any influx, so they are feeling protective towards their own. Agree about the driving thing though – I would love to get in my car and just go out to see what spring looks like. As you say, in a sealed container.
KJE, I don’t whether it’s a case of sour grapes, or just another media feeding frenzy. As you say there’s no logic.
Dr Kendrick, Your hypothesis is terribly accurate. As a nurse of 35 years experience in critical care; I tend to be seeing the same future as you with the same crystal ball. The unintended consequences of pandemics are documented throughout history. Covid-19 is likely to prove no different. Thank you for sharing your brave and bold knowledge based comments.
New posting test!
Hello, hello . . .
You passed the test!
Still cutting firewood, or you have enough by now for The Cold?
Here in New England we have four seasons:
Early Winter, Mid Winter, Late Winter, and . . .
Next Winter.
We have missed you !
Thank you all for you concern – “missing me”. This is social media at its best as I see it! I don’t know what I did “right” but something has changed in the “system”. So this is a second effort to see if “it works”.
Firewood? I just had a load of trunks 🙂
Hello again Goran! Each time I serve my red sauerkraut your name springs to mind. In January we prepared 7 X 1kg KILNER jars for the coming year…..thank goodness it was before the panic buying started…..can you imagine what folks would have said seeing me pile my trolley with enormous red cabbages, only to be rejected at the checkout.
Trying to find out how the “filters” work.
Readers of the Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchen, got treated to a pretty accurate summary of the current situation:
The death numbers that just don’t add up
What do the daily death figures, supposedly from Covid-19, really mean?
People who don’t know that 1,600 people die normally every day, and who don’t study the sombre official figures, or listen carefully to what officials say, may get the wrong impression.
Here are some facts for you.
A week ago, at the daily official briefing, Dr Jenny Harries, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, confirmed my point that many deaths with Covid are not necessarily from Covid. She said: ‘These are Covid-associated deaths, they are all sad events, they would not all be a death as a result of Covid.’
What nobody says is how many are as a result of the virus.
Then, if you look at the Office for National Statistics weekly death charts, for week 13 of each year (the week which this year ended on March 27), you find some interesting things.
The total of deaths for that week in 2020 is higher than the five-year average for that time of year, which is 10,130. In fact, it is up to 11,141.
This is 1,011 more deaths than normal per week, 144 more deaths than normal per day, regrettable but not gigantic. Do these figures justify the scale of our reaction?
If you add up the total deaths for the first quarter of the year from respiratory diseases, the figure so far for 2020 (22,877) is less than those for 2013 (25,495), 2015 (28,969), 2017 (25,800), 2018 (29,898) and 2019 (23,336).
Again, is this event as exceptional as we are being told? If not, why the shutdown?
Let’s not confuse the Important Message with…facts.
Why are we not getting our daily dose of Fear & indignation from SEPSIS deaths ?
– One very FOUR hours in the UK, around 1,000 per week.
https://www.sepsisresearch.org.uk/statistics/
Yes, I picked that one deliberately, as COVID and SEPSIS both respond to including vitamin C in the treatment protocol.
Janet, if you keep using expletives like “vitamin C” you may have your internet connection removed. 🙂
Just stumbled across this https://youtu.be/adYqbucF8M4
Thanks for this David, you are spot on. If only I could get my ever more worried wife to listen to this rather than the BBC…
That sounds ominous.
Thank you, Dr. Kendrick.
I believe your government has done some modelling predicting 20,000 ‘covid-19’ deaths, and 150,000 deaths as a result of the lockdown. (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/covid-19-update-lives-vs-lives-the-dilemma-of-ending-the-lockdown)
The NZ government has aped this hysterical reaction. It is awful. Cancer services no longer exist. The country is in pieces and will be for a very long time.
Meanwhile four people with co-morbidities in their 70s-90s have died, who happened to be covid-19 positive.
The majority of NZers have been convinced that Covid-19 has a huge death rate, and that once we eliminate this deadly disease (permanently closed borders – yeah right), we will somehow emerge into this blissful utopia of reduced pollution and kumbaya. As opposed to entering a new era of debt and economic depression, the likes of which will make our utterly abysmal record of child safety and wellbeing (nobody beats, starves and kills their kids like we do) progressively worsen.
Our curve is so flat, that we can assume bugger all immunity has been achieved. Winter is about to hit.
The whole thing is a terrifying, dystopian joke.
Thanks for your columns though – a voice of reason amongst the panicdemic.
According to CDC, the 1968 flu pandemic killed 1 million people worldwide and caused 100,000 deaths in the US. So far Covid-19 has killed far less, 100,000 people worldwide and 20,000 in the US. We hear that the death rate is much higher from Covid-19 than from any previous flu and that it spreads more rapidly. However, the 1968 flu hit young and old alike. Perhaps the death rate was lower because so many young people got well. Covid attacks older people and in general older people are more apt to die from influenza or any upper respiratory disease.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.html
“According to CDC, the 1968 flu pandemic killed 1 million people worldwide and caused 100,000 deaths in the US”.
I think the figure was 38,000 deaths in the UK. I was at university in 1968 and do not remember any particular impact or concern. None of my correspondence of diaries from then even mention the epidemic.
I thought from the start that the aim was to “flatten the curve” and prevent the NHS from becoming overwhelmed, but somewhere along the way this seems to have been forgotten about, despite the “protect the NHS slogan”. I don’t understand how anyone can think that bringing everything to a standstill is protecting the NHS when, far from being overrun, many hospitals are now practically empty. What *is* likely to overwhelm the NHS is the problems involved in getting back on its feet. The waiting lists will be tremendous, and those people who are unwell for non-covid-like reasons are likely to have become more unwell in the meantime. And then if the whole thing starts up again in the autumn – well, it doesn’t bear thinking about!
All they are trying to do is to slow down the rate of infections so they can free up the ICU beds and equipment for those who get very sick. However, they are reporting that those with preexisting conditions are the one who are likely to die. So the key is to help more people get healthy so they don’t get sick. Reducing sugar intake can go a long way toward eliminating metabolic syndrome, obesity, diabetes, etc., but viruses have actually been shown to be dependent on glucose to survive and replicate. “In lab cultures of mammalian cells, researchers showed that influenza A infection could be controlled by targeting viruses’ dependence on cellular glucose. Boosting glucose concentrations concomitantly increased influenza infection rate, and treating viral cells with glucose metabolism inhibitor significantly decreased viral replication…” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131215160856.htm?fbclid=IwAR2w4PmkXVxO8a1GniW4yk8ZDEU
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that might be you AhNotepad, but in general it is. For every disease that is actually. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, flu, and this virus. But I’m glad you’re ok, me too actually as far as I know.
Your comment made me think if those who are seriously ill are getting IV fluids with glucose in them.
And how about Intralipid = based on soy oil, a double whammy
I don’t know why the percentages wouldn’t be more accurate. Good if true, I’m guessing.
REPORT: 30%-50% Of Patients In Chicago Tested For COVID-19 Already Have Antibodies In System
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/report-30-50-patients-chicago-tested-covid-19-already-antibodies-system/
Cont: My husband went to a swap meet with a friend (a long drive in a closed car) just when the pandemic was getting started. His friend got very sick with the corona-virus a few days later. He survived but is still in quarantine weeks later. My husband never had even a sniffle. I’m pretty sure he brought it home to me. I had a sore throat several times for a few days but it would go away after I took liposomal vitamin C. I hope we will have a chance to get an antibody test to see if we had the virus and are now immune. I also hope someone will track the number of people who died based on their diet. Do any of you have stories to share about those who did or didn’t provide glucose to feed the virus and what effect it had?
Hi, Glucose doesn’t feed the virus as such. Viruses have no metabolism of their own. They use host cells, which are affected by glucose, to replicate.
Ivor Cummins and Dr Ron Rosedale discuss this on this podcast. As Dr Ron notes towards the end, its likely any hospitalised patients are feed the standard glucose/water concoction. https://thefatemperor.com/ep67-ron-rosedale-md-crucial-explanation-on-how-to-avoid-serious-viral-impacts/
Features another panic merrchant saying we need more restrictions. https://youtu.be/pfIfQH_X4Wk
Thanks Malcolm a sober and sensible analysis as usual
Would be very interested in your take on this article. Ivor linked to it on Twitter:
http://web.archive.org/web/20200405061401/https://medium.com/@agaiziunas/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret-91182386efcb
On Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 12:51 PM Dr. Malcolm Kendrick wrote:
> Dr. Malcolm Kendrick posted: “12th April 2020 Several politicians, > including Keir Starmer, the opposition Labour Party leader, have been > demanding to know the exit strategy for the lockdown. “We should know what > that exit strategy is, when the restrictions might be lifted and what ” >
The tragic death of 21 year Chloe Middleton was widely reported in the meda as caused by Covid-19 and quickly held up as proof as to why young people – thought to be too blasé about Covid-19 – should take the outbreak more seriously.
I was interested in the case and found her facebook page.
Her photos and recent posts (since deleted) strongly indicated to me sadness and depression.
So I had doubts.
Now I read that the reports started because the coroner said the death was related to Covid-19 after being told Middleton had a cough,
But it turns out she didn’t test positive and so cannot be listed as a Covid death.
The pity is funding for mental heath may be reduced the economic toll taken by the Covid crisis.
It just seems like there is a strong desire to attribute as many deaths as possible to Covid, even if there are other causes of death with or without Covid.
We are in sunny Spain, where the lock down is fierce, strictly policed and being adhered to. The atmosphere in the local forums is absolutely toxic! Little Hitlers appearing everywhere. We are in our late 60s, with pre-existing health conditions. However, on the positive side, we have plenty of sunshine and take a good dose of it daily, we have a good, healthy, natural low carb diet, we use supplements including vitamin C, Iodine, Selenium, Magnesium. I am reading that we should add Vitamin A as soon as we can get hold of it (the Herbalists that sell such things here are closed.). We have good, healthy, higher than average Cholesterol, so I’m presuming we’re very efficient at producing Vit D.
If we become ill we are planning to up Vitamin C to the point of tolerance and hope for the best. I have already made mountains of soup.
Like others have said, it’s the manner of death that is so disturbing! To die alone, with no comfort from your loved ones is just unthinkable. I think if the worst comes, we will just avoid hospitalisation.
When are we going to have a sensible discussion about Euthanasia?
Note to self – must get my affairs in order!
“I am reading that we should add Vitamin A…”
As I have studied this, here is what I have gathered. Note that I am NOT A DOCTOR and have no medical or scientific qualifications; I am merely passing on what I have read. Recommendations vary and change over the years, but this is what I believe to be good practice today.
There is some scepticism about Vitamin A supplements, as it is one of the easiest vitamins to overdo. “The Perfect Health Diet” by Shou-ching and Paul Jaminet, which is well regarded, suggests 1/4 lb of beef or lamb liver once a week. That gives you the right amount of Vitamin A, as well as other important nutrients such as copper (another one not to overdo). Copper works with zinc in various beneficial ways.
Pig or chicken liver is not as good, as they don’t have so much Vitamin A. If you don’t like or can’t get liver, an acceptable substitute is dark chocolate – about 200 grams a week (two standard bars). Chocolate can be supplemented with pig or poultry liver to taste.
Vitamin A should be balanced with Vitamin D3; about 1,000 to 5,000 IU/day, plus all the sunshine you can get (on bare skin of course). Toxicity is unusual and 5,000 IU should be safe, but of course I am not qualified to give medical advice so you should seek it from a doctor or a doctor’s book.
Be wary about fish oil capsules, as some experts think fish oil can go rancid in capsule form.
Lastly, adequate magnesium and Vitamin K2 round off the package. K2 is quite cheap and is said to play a vital role. For lots of information, see (e.g.) https://blog.daveasprey.com/106-the-powers-of-vitamin-k2-with-dr-kate-rheaume-bleue-podcast/ and/or the book “Vitamin K2 And The Calcium Paradox”.
This is another thing which greatly concerns me. If you go into the hospital, you are alone, which is awful. And if your loved one is in the hospital,you cannot negotiate with the doctors about their treatment. It almost makes me agree that if the worst happens, stay home.
Anna M: It was shocking to me when I discovered that all hospital rooms are now private, when I had an overnight stay at the end of January. My only other hospital stay was nineteen years ago, and the rooms were all double, a good thing, too, because my roommate was a non-English speaker, elderly and blind. He ripped all the tubes and so forth out overnight. I became his interpreter, as his daughter could not stay overnight, having children of her own. This was in a Catholic hospital in a county with a 40% Latino population, yet they had not a single Spanish-speaker on staff. What would happen today? He was scared, and I was his lifeline to understand what was going on. There seem to be many more bi-lingual health professionals now than there used to be, at least I hope there are.
Heartening news from Australia collaborating with the Netherlands
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-09/professor-paul-young-discusses-the-search-for-a/12139690
Hi Dr Kendrick, you always make a lot of sense!!! Wondering if you might have any thoughts on why so many health professionals who aren’t aged over 60 are dying? Is it a repeated exposure to the virus thing?
Found this today:
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/wellbeing/2020/04/13/coronavirus-young-doctors-nurses-deaths/
Test
Never make promises you cannot keep.
Never start fights you cannot win.
Politics has nothing to do with saving lives.
Let’s wake up, ignore the idiocy and move on.
I’m worried about what is going to be in the vaccines. Remember swine flu fiasco. Sounds as if it will be mandatory. ‘ID2020’ will indicate who has or hasn’t received the vaccine. http://stateofthenation.co/?p=10705
This all seems to be more about control than our health. New world order anyone?
Anyone else see Bill Gates on TV and want to whack him in his smug face with something made of aluminium, and say “See how you like it!”
I want to hit Bill G with something harder than aluminium and get him to take all his vaccines at once right now, and force him not to work, remove his savings and put him on UC (including having to spend several hours on the phone registering). Vindictive, moi?
KJE: Not at all vindictive. He should be the first on the docket in a new Nuremburg trial for what he has done to children in Africa (the manufacture of all the mercury-laden vaccines once on the U.S. schedule, but discontinued after an Oops! moment at the CDC Simpsonwood Conference, has not been stopped-they’re still churning them out and sending them to Africa; this includes the DTP, discontinued in the U.S. in the mid-90’s). If the Left could actually think, they would call him the biggest, baddest racist in the country.
Yes, he is particularly animated in interviews these days. Can’t seem to contain his glee. People please look up Event 201 where they play acted this whole thing out in November 2019.
Re “Covid-19 is being presented as a deadly killer that does not discriminate.” Certainly there is much fear-mongering about this disease in the mainstream media – and who is feeding the MSM with this message?
In Australia we’re up to 61 deaths now, in a population of around 25.4 million. Apparently 18 of these deaths are of people who were on the Ruby Princess cruise ship. That certainly needs looking into… The rest are generally other elderly people, mostly 70 and upwards with comorbidities, and many in aged care homes.
But the entire population is being menaced about this virus, with each ‘case’ being breathlessly reported. But if most ‘cases’ are generally benign and not life-threatening why are these numbers being beaten up?
I guess we’re waiting to see the wash-up in Sweden, but others also promote the herd immunity strategy, with Graham Medley, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, arguing the UK may still have to reconsider allowing “people to catch the virus in the least deadly way possible”. According to the report in the Independent “This would involve accepting the heightened risk to the elderly rather than harming younger generations with rising unemployment, domestic violence and mental illness”.
Medley suggests the government has “painted itself into a corner” by imposing widespread restrictions on movement that he claims may cause more damage than the epidemic itself.
Check the internet for the article: Coronavirus: Boris Johnson urged to reconsider lockdown strategy by virus adviser. Independent, 4 April 2020.
We’ve heard that many of the stricken medical personel or younger people probably were exposed to a high viral load.
What about the opposite? Will repeated exposure to low doses result in immunity without the disease ever manifesting? If that could be proven, it might lay out the road out of the lockdown: ease social distancing gradually.
In addition, one might put everyone on a good dose of vitamin d and low carb. World dominion is waiting…
Eric, as I see it it could only ever be anecdotal as it would be impossible to carry out a random controlled trial. Which virus would any one person be exposed to, and how do you ensure they are not exposed to others? We live with vira (viruses if you speak US), they are not nasty predatory hunters.
I beg to differ. The -a plural in Latin is only used for neuter nouns ending in -um. Also, virus (poison) is a mass noun like information, water, juice in modern English, hence there is no plural form in Latin.
(five years of Latin in high school coming back to haunt me)
Eric, thank you, I stand corrected.
Absolutely. Virus can only be either second declension mass noun like oceanus with no plural or possibly 4th declension when the plural looks exactly the same as the singular (like domus). And anyway, we don’t speak Latin, we speak English and the English plural is viruses.
OMG! I thought I’d left my Latin O-level studies in the distant past…I didn’t pay much attention though, which is why I failed it dismally. However, when I started to learn Italian at the age of 48 I realised that it did come in handy, at least those bits that did resurface! Italian came far more easily than the other languages I studied at school.
anglosvizzera: The same for me with Spanish, particularly the verb forms, which are close to identical. The British gentleman in my classes in Mexico, who was accompanying his wife (nearly all of us teachers in this group) nearly pulled his hair out with frustration, though. He clearly failed to take Latin at all in school!
Eric: Thank you for that. Only three years for me, but it has served me well in life, making learning Spanish in my 40’s pretty effortless. My Latin teacher lived to 102! As far as I know, “virion” is singular for virus, but I may be wrong.
You’ve forgotten the 3rd Declension neuter nouns like corpus, nominative plural corpora.
(I scraped through O-level after four-years worth.)
I would be interested to know if there is an research out there that shows mortality rates between the employed and unemployed?
On Malcolm’s ‘COVID. ‘With’ ‘Of’ or ‘Because of’’ post, Christian, jillm, Jan, Tony and I discussed the possibility that annual flu vaccination could be impacting on vulnerability to COVID-19. This is serious to think about because the Southern hemisphere, including Australia where I live, is now entering ‘flu season’, or more particularly ‘flu vaccination season’, and flu vax is being pressed upon all and sundry, particularly people over 65 years, pregnant women, and everyone really. Flu vaccination is also now on the taxpayer-funded schedule for children from 0-5 years – it seems children are now being set up for flu vaccination for life.
The possibility that flu vaccination could be impacting on COVID-19 does need to be properly considered. I forwarded an email on this matter to Sweden’s top epidemiologist Anders Tegnell recently, but haven’t received a response…no doubt he’s busy… But this is an international issue that does need serious consideration. FYI, see my email to Anders Tegnell below: (My email to Dr Tegnell includes some hyperlinks to sources, but these don’t show up below.)
8 April 2020
Dear Dr Tegnell
Re the current global COVID-19 crisis.
As deaths associated with COVID-19 appear to be focussed in the elderly, is consideration being given to the possibility that annual flu vaccination may be implicated, i.e. might make people vulnerable to COVID-19?
In this regard I’m thinking of the previous Canadian studies that “provided the first signal of an association between seasonal flu shots and pandemic flu illness” (H1N1). http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2010/04/new-canadian-studies-suggest-seasonal-flu-shot-increased-h1n1-risk
It’s curious to see your comment in this report: “State epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, reiterated the the spread of infection to elderly residents in Sweden is a major problem, adding that “when I talk to my Nordic colleagues, they do not have the same problem there”. (Sweden stands firm over its controversial COVID-19 approach)
In Australia we’re up to around 50 deaths ‘associated’ with COVID-19. Most of these people are elderly and with co-morbidities. (I’m not sure how they conclude COVID-19 as the cause of death…this seems to be an issue around the world that needs investigating/clarifying.)
Putting that aside for the moment, most of the people who have died have been in aged care facilities or have recently come off cruise ships.
These are people who are likely to have had annual flu vaccination… Isn’t it reasonable to ask if flu vaccination might be implicated in their respiratory illnesses?
As we know…flu vaccination doesn’t really work in the elderly does it…? See for example Osterholm et al.
In recent times we have special flu vaccines for the over-65’s that have been “specifically designed to boost the immune response…for this age group”. (This is from an email with advice for seniors mentioning Fluad®Quad quadrivalent adjuvanted vaccine.) Could this ‘boosted immune response’ be causing problems?
I understand flu vaccination is now commonplace around the world, including Italy and China. And there’s this promotion for flu vaccination in Sweden: Nurse Gladis leads the way on influenza vaccination in Jonkoping, Sweden.
Again, to consider this in regards to repeated annual flu vaccination? Is repeated annual flu vaccination causing problems for elderly people with respiratory illnesses?
It’s also notable that medical staff are under pressure to get flu vaccines, and it’s been reported in the the UK that some young nurses have died, associated with COVID-19.
What do you think about this Dr Tegnell?
Kind regards
Elizabeth Hart
Adelaide, Australia
Elizabeth, quite so. I believe there is also evidence suggesting that the flu vaccination is associated with more influenza-like illness (ILI)? Presumably some, at least, of ILI can be attributed to coronaviruses.
As Dr Kendrick’s post suggests (if I’m understanding it correctly) and i think the majority of posts are in support of the suggestion that we should just have got on with it (no lockdown but possibly with voluntary sheilding for those vulnerable and choosing to) am I correct in thinking therefore that 250k potential UK deaths and that an NHS and morgues etc totally overwhelmed and in meltdown etc, would be considered an acceptable outcome by you all? If not, what am i missing please from this narrative as I am genuinely baffled?
Jane, a complete or even partially complete answer to your question would be too long, and would involve quite a lot of details that one absorbs over time but that might seem puzzling at first.
I think the gist of it is that we feel there is no solid evidence that a virus called Covid-19 even exists; or, if it does exist, that its effects are any worse than those of other coronaviruses (like those that cause the common cold). Also the “test” does not really test anything; and that the overall death statistics do not support the idea that a lot more people are dying than usual at this time of year.
In other words, it is beginning to look rather as if much of the panic is really unjustified, and whipped up to serve specific interests. (The mass media of course love nothing better than a really good health panic or disaster story).
Jane,
I think another crucial point to appreciate is that the average age of death from COVID-19 is nearly 80. As people age, their health tends to go down, and many people of that age are extremely vulnerable, and can die from things like broken hips, flu, norovirus, etc. Normally this is almost ignored, but now if they die of COVID-19, they are added to the numbers you read every day.
The average rate of death in the UK is about 1600 per day. If some of these meet COVID-19 in their final days, and can’t shake it off before they die, they will get added to the list of deaths from COVID-19
Wind borne?
The wind is currently strong and so is my hay fever from tree pollen. We live on the coast where none of the culprit trees and catkins exist. The pollen is coming on the wind across the country,
in copious supply. I have googled to see whether this corona virus could be likewise carried long distances by the wind. The jury seems to be out – it is another thing we don’t really know. Nature will triumph whatever.
I read an article by some Italian researchers suggesting that the virus could be attaching itself to the particulates in air pollution, which would carry it over distances and also allow the virus to travel deep into the lungs. The article pointed out that the cities of Lombardy, with their very high pollution levels, have been hit much harder than cities such as Rome. It’s an interesting idea but I wasn’t sure if I was just being incredibly gullible in thinking so!
I know a retired biochemist, and we discussed this virus at some length. He pointed out that viruses have a protein coat, and when a protein dries out, it de-natures and this is more or less irreversible. Without that coat, the virus can’t invade a cell. On this basis, I’d say that a virus can’t spread in the wind – particularly in the dry conditions we are currently enjoying.
How do we get this information to a disinterested government that is being led by the neils?
Actually, the virus seems to prefer cool, dry conditions. It’s the absolute humidity that counts. Cool air cannot hold so much moisture so the virus survives longer. Also I think the mucus layer in your airways dries out in cold, dry conditions, making it easier for the virus to reach the ACE2 receptors.
This article describes the coat as “oily”.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200323-coronavirus-will-hot-weather-kill-covid-19
Air pollution, of course, is extremely prevalent in the UK. As far as I know (which is not very far thanks to the concerted efforts of government and the media) we consistently failed to come anywhere near European standards for decades. And now…
Hi Tish: re virus in the wind, very likely
https://www.livescience.com/covid19-coronavirus-transmission-through-speech.html
“However, mounting evidence suggests that aerosols may spur transmission more than once thought, and these smaller particles “can remain aloft for a considerable amount of time,” on the order of hours, said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist and head of the Climate and Health Program at Columbia University in New York City. “
“Shaman noted that the study authors sampled the air for just three hours, meaning the virus could potentially remain viable for longer. Until scientists learn more about the true viability of the virus in a variety of settings and conditions, they have to consider all potential routes of transmission in their attempts to slow transmission, he added. “
Hi Tish: re virus spread by wind, more info
https://www.wired.com/story/they-say-coronavirus-isnt-airborne-but-its-definitely-borne-by-air/
There are indications that a high viral dose infection results in more severe symptoms. Conversely a small hormetic dose would produce fewer symptoms. A small viral load would still activate the immune system and produce antibodies without producing symptoms. My hypothesis is that a small airborne virus load is the preferred way to get infected.
Thank you Andy and others. Interesting.
I can live with the objective of limiting deaths to (say) 1200 per day, or new cases to below (say) 6,000 per day. If we tweak the measures and go above these limits then we reverse the tweaks, repeat and retry different tweaks.
If we have 20,000 ventilators and people are on them 10 days on average and half come off and live then you get 1,000 deaths per day on average. As you say, it just requires honesty. I do have some sympathy with the need for simple and coherent messaging, at least everyone knows “stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives”.
Limiting new cases to 6000 or deaths to 1200 per day or similar metrics seems an entirely plausible strategy, in line with saving the NHS by keeping within its (expanded) capacity. If we tweak the lockdown and stay below these numbers we can add further relaxation steps as things progress, being wise about it and relaxing in groups or communities with inherently lower risk as a priority.
There is an aspect of this that I have only seen mentioned a couple times in the last couple of weeks. What do old people think of all this? Well I know some who are rightly frightened. After all the media and our government have stoked up fear deliberately to get compliance with their lockdown instructions. People dive into a bush if you get nearer than 5 metres while on a short walk.
But, I know many other thinking old people (many of us can still do it) can see that it is a bad virus epidemic and they know that it is mostly oldies (as Dr, Kendrick says) that end up dying from it. In all Flu-like epidemics it is the case. Younger people do die in all such outbreaks, and in fact it has been said that while Flu often takes children, C-19 does less so. I don’t know.
I have 2 points to make –
My wife and I are in our 70’s, but fairly fit and physically more capable than many in their 50’s. We don’t want to see our children and grandchildren’s future ruined (both medically and economically) to save old people who have had most of their life – and in some cases will die in the near future. I would like another 20 years, but not at my family’s expense. Comfortingly they see it different. The concept of QALYS used by the Clinical Excellence people NICE comes into it. If we have a new cancer drug developed, NICE will only spend £30,000 to obtain 1 good year of life for a cancer suffer. Now we are willing to spend £bn’s just to stop old people from dying with little QALYS expected. A number have pointed out this strange idea that suddenly you can’t put a price on a life – good luck with that.
Secondly leading on from the first. The current strategy (?) is to flatten the curve, so the NHS is not overwhelmed by too many folks needing ICU at once. It will likely save few lives and may end up costing more lives, just spread them out a bit. Given that an average of 17,000 pa have died from Flu/Pneumonia over the last 5 winter seasons , and I believe that more than 20,000 have died in the season just ending; I can summarise the strategy as –
Your old granny can die of the Flu etc. and we will do little, and the media will not stoke hysteria, just as long as us old folk have the good manners to die quietly and slowly enough not to cause inconvenience. Cynical? – perhaps, but it fits the facts.
I thought this item over at InProportion2 was interesting and made the point.
http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/inform_scare.html
David R,
I totally agree – this is the absurd misconception that the media (with rare exceptions) have consistently peddled – we absolutely have to ‘save’ everyone regardless of what else they are dying from – my feeling is that much of the media have changed in recent years from organisations that inform people and expose information that needs exposing, to organisations obsessed by partially hidden agendas that often have little to do with reality.
I too want to live another 20 years, but certainly not, as you say, by ruining the economy for all the younger people.
“The reality is that for anyone younger than about sixty, Covid-19 is only slightly more dangerous than suffering from influenza.”
What is the evidence for this claim? I think it is controversial.
An illustration: In 2016, 161 under 60s died from influenza in England & Wales (data from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/adhocs/007849numberofdeathswhereinfluenzawastheunderlyingcauseofdeathorwasmentionedonthedeathcertificatebyfiveyearagegroupenglandandwales2001to2016).
Based on your “92% are aged over 60” figure, there have already been 850 deaths amongst under 60s during the coronavirus outbreak.
How many of these under 60s were overweight or obese? There seems to be some silence surrounding this matter. Perhaps a bit of a taboo? This blog has solutions to most cases of obesity but they have to be heeded.
You are not alone on this. Reputedly (still trying to find the original) Mexico’s President blamed ‘junk food’ as being foundational to his population’s metabolic ill-health… setting them up for COVID-19 mortality.
And from the Home of the Brave / Land of the Free, comes this link. – https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85553 Got to love the description of obesity being a….’novel…. risk-factor.
– It’s not just Walmart that attracts …. strange shoppers !
Dr Aseem Malhotra has made the point in the daily papers and on his Facebook page about obesity being a risk factor. One paper he quoted was this:
Click to access an010207.pdf
I saw a study that said you were 4 times more likely to need intervention if you were technically “obese”.
“What is the evidence for this claim? I think it is controversial”.
“A meta-analysis of the three datasets, showed that by random effects, deaths that occurred in patients with no underlying conditions and who were <65 years old account for 0.9% (95% confidence interval, 0.1-1.7%) of all deaths where presence of underlying conditions has been assessed.
"The risk of death is 13-to 73-fold lower in non-elderly people <65 years old than in older individuals. The age-dependent risk gradient is modestly sharper in European countries versus the US locations. Regardless, the absolute risk of death in the non-elderly population is consistently very low even in these pandemic hotbeds. As of April 4, only 1.7 to 79 per million people in this age group have died with [sic – TW] a COVID-19 diagnosis".
Click to access 2020.04.05.20054361v1.full.pdf
John P.A. Ioannidis, MD, DSc, Cathrine Axfors, MD, PhD, Despina G. Contopoulos-Ioannidis, MDStanford Prevention Research Center, Department of Medicine, and Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University School of Medicine (Dr. Ioannidis), Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), Stanford, California, USA (Dr. Ioannidisand Dr. Axfors), Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden (Dr. Axfors),and Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA (Dr. Contopoulos-Ioannidis) Correspondence to: John P.A. Ioannidis, MD, DSc, Stanford Prevention Research Center, 1265 Welch Road, Medical School Office Building, Room X306, USA. E-mail: jioannid@stanford.edu.
“The risk of death is 13-to 73-fold lower in non-elderly people <65 years old than in older individuals."
This I assume, unlike the 0.9% healthy U65's refers to ALL U65's including those with underlying conditions which is less than 8%.
Thanks! Now we need comparable data for influenza to evaluate the claim…
No drugs involved here… just let REAL FOODs be your medicine… it’s no brainer.
The media wants you to think Covid-19 virus will kill healthy people. But my bet is that 100% OF PEOPLE with severe Covid-19 have an underlying metabolic issue like obesity and diabetes. The problem is that almost EVERYBODY in the world is metabolically unhealthy, so it looks like anyone can get it.
Who are the most susceptible to Covid-19? What is the root cause of “cytokine storms” or massive inflammation?
Cytokine Storm is an immune system gone awry and an inflammatory response flaring out of control – causing significant damage to body tissues and organs.
The most susceptible to Covid-19 are people with diabetes, hypertension (symptom of diabetes), obsesity – these “metabolically unhealthy” people also have high leptin levels. Most people with obesity or diabetes often develop leptin-resistance, which is highly inflammatory.
You cannot have a strong, robust immune response when you have high levels of leptin as a result of leptin resistance. You cannot fight Covid-19 well if you are “metabolically unhealthy”.
Obese people had 6x the risk of having a severe Covid-19 case in China. The evidence is crystal clear that coronavirus attacks the metabolically unhealthy much harder.
Crucial Explanation on how to Avoid Serious Viral Impacts
~ Ron Rosedale MD
Rosedale has an important part of the answer, I believe. But I am never keen on people who say everyone, or always, or 100%. Absolutist statements are never, ever, correct.
What about other health conditions?
This is a very good discussion around lockdown strategies by Tucker Goodrich and Ivor Cummins, both data engineers par excellence. My key takeaways were:-
– Lockdowns don’t work when the virus is in the population
– The economic cost project to be > total annual healthcare budget in the US.
– Vaccine development for SARS is c.18 years into development so don’t expect anything soon
https://thefatemperor.com/ep66-risk-management-expert-and-engineering-manager-discuss-coronavirus-strategies/
Very true
Making up policy at press conferences?
May I offer a thought on the unequal ratio of men to women in the high risk category? I am not a geneticist but even GCSE biology suggests a genetic explanation. Men have one X chromosome, women have two. If there is a gene variant on the X chromosome that worsens susceptibility to this virus, and suppose it is recessive, then a man with the variant will be in trouble while a woman will have a fair chance of the “bad” gene being overridden.
Like I said, just a thought.
Hi Ian: re gene hypothesis
Perhaps women have a smart gene that prevents indulging in harmful behaviour, the virus then becomes secondary.
Hi. The vast majority of genes on the 2nd X chromosome in women are silenced.
Am I right in thinking that more women have a TH1 focused immune response and more men TH2? Theoretically TH2 means more susceptibility to virus infection.
The Swiss doctor has given up diary-style reporting, but he last updated his website yesterday. The material below is probably new here, but please realise that you must go to the original source to use his links.
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
Swiss chief physician Pietro Vernazza
The Swiss chief physician of Infectiology, Professor Pietro Vernazza, has published four new articles on studies concerning Covid19.
The first article is about the fact that there has never been medical evidence for the efficacy of school closures, as children in general do not develop the Covid disease nor are they among the vectors of the virus (unlike with influenza).
The second article is about the fact that respiratory masks generally have no detectable effect, with one exception: sick people with symptoms (notably coughing) can reduce the spread of the virus. Otherwise the masks are rather symbolic or a „media hype“.
The third article deals with the question of mass testing. The conclusion of Professor Vernazza: „Anyone who has symptoms of a respiratory disease stays at home. The same applies to the flu. There is no added value in testing.“
The fourth article deals with the Covid19 risk groups. According to current knowledge, these include people with high blood pressure – it is suspected that the Covid19 virus uses cell receptors that are also responsible for regulating blood pressure. However, surprisingly, people with immunodeficiency and pregnant women (who naturally have a reduced immune system) are not at risk. On the contrary, the risk of Covid19 is often an overreaction of the immune system.
Intensive vs. palliative care
A German palliative physician explains in an interview that Covid19 is „not an intensive care disease“, as the severely affected people are typically people of old age who have multiple pre-existing conditions. When these people get pneumonia, they „have always been given palliative care (i.e. accompanying death)“. With a Covid19 diagnosis, however, this would now become an intensive care case, but „of course the patients still cannot be saved“.
The expert describes the current actions of many decision-makers as „panic mode“. At present, intensive care beds in Germany are still relatively empty. Respirators are free. For financial reasons, hospital managers may soon come up with the idea of admitting elderly people. „In 14 days, the wards will be full of unsalvageable, multimorbid old people. And once they are on the machines, the question arises as to who will switch them off again, as that would be a homicide.“ An „ethical catastrophe“ from greed may ensue, warns the physician.
Ventilation with Covid19
There has been and still is a worldwide rush for ventilators for Covid19 patients. This site was one of the first in the world to draw attention to the fact that invasive ventilation (intubation) may be counterproductive in many cases and may cause additional harm to patients.
Invasive ventilation was originally recommended because low oxygen levels led to the false conclusion of acute respiratory (lung) failure, and there was a fear that with more gentle, non-invasive techniques the virus could spread through aerosols.
In the meantime, several leading pulmonologists and intensive care physicians from the US and Europe have spoken out against invasive ventilation and recommend more gentle methods or indeed oxygen therapy, as already successfully used by South Korea.
Why Some Doctors Are Now Moving Away From Ventilator Treatments (TIME)
Ventilators aren’t a panacea for a pandemic like coronavirus (Dr. Matt Strauss)
With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19
Covid-19 Does Not Lead to a “Typical” Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ATSJ)
Do COVID-19 Ventilator Protocols Need a Second Look? (Medscape)
German: „Too often intubation and invasive ventilation is used“ (Dr. Thomas Voshaar)
German: COVID-19: Ventilation – and then what? (DocCheck)
Children can pass it to adults.
Yes, thank you children for helping us adults to get immunity.
Tish I agree. It has been known for decades that families with school age children (who actually go to school) have more diseases than those without. Children pass it around, then bring it home. Consequently looking after your immune system is the best approach. It is also known in a specific instance, that GPs who treat a lot of children with chicken pox are less likely to suffer themselves, they keep getting their immunity boosted.
The UK has been considering chickenpox vaccination for children. The reason they haven’t gone ahead with it (yet – at least to the best of my knowledge) is that it seems that older people who don’t spend time around children, thus potentially boosting their immunity to the chickenpox virus every now and again, are more likely to develop shingles.
The reason for putting the chickenpox vaccine on hold was to look at whether there was anything in this.
Aileen: Read Gary Goldman’s published work on the result of the rollout of the varicella vaccine in the U.S. He was in charge of surveillance in southern California. The CDC tried to intimidate him into burying his findings, but he hired an attorney and beat them back.
David thank you again.
David Bailey,
I think that this:
“…children in general do not develop the Covid disease nor are they among the vectors of the virus…”
is a crucial question that needs strong clarification. Because the meme is huge now that asymptomatic people/kids can spread it. If that is false, we need to know so that we can end this lockdown sooner.
What is going on with the concept of “herd immunity”? It seems to be a dirty phrase in the intellectual media, and also with many disease experts, yet it is logically the only long term solution, unless you believe that a disease with the infectiousness and prevalence of this one can be successfully suppressed to the point where it can be dealt with as a notifiable disease and tracked and traced locally wherever it arises. That seems a long shot, though it appears this is what anyone who denigrates “herd immunity” must be seeking.
The government’s advice to Passport Office workers recently seems to suggest they actually recognise that most of the population getting the disease is in reality inevitable, which also means herd immunity (assuming this disease is not very unusual in creating no immunity whatsoever). But the government apparently denies that. See this typically dismissive Guardian piece yesterday, seemingly trying to smear the government with “pursuing herd immunity”, under the assumption presumably that such a charge will be politically damaging to it:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/documents-contradict-uk-government-stance-on-covid-19-herd-immunity
Might recent history have been different if the concept had been termed “population immunity” instead of “herd immunity”?
If most people were already considered to be immune, it would be more difficult to justify the rolling out of a hastily put-together vaccine.
It is well known that some coronaviruses – such as those that cause the common cold – mutate so quickly and often that no effective vaccine has ever been developed.
Creating a vaccine for “Covid-19” would be easier if anyone had yet sequenced the virus and if it were possible to detect it, and distinguish it from other coronaviruses.
I read a study that looked at data from China (yeah, I know; who knows how good this is?), and calculated an R0 of 5.7, which means that each person with covid-19 typically infects 5.7 others. The flu is about 2 or so.
Anyway, the higher this number is, the larger the number of people who have to be infected for there to be herd immunity. I think it’s (1-(1/R0)) (in percent, times 100), so if R0=1, it’s zero percent; if R0 = 2, it’s 50%; if R0=5.7, it’s about 82%.
If this is true, 80+% of people having to get the disease before there’s herd immunity means that we’ll likely never get there. And this ignores any change in the virus.
It does mean that you get there faster though
A key trick in bargaining is to agree with your opponent, then say “but…
Let us, for the moment, agree with the spirit of the lockdown, which is to reduce the rate of spread through social distancing etc.
Therefore:
1/ Any activity is permitted that maintains social distancing, and does not harm others
2/ Any activity that boosts natural immunity, such as daily exercise, should be encouraged, not merely tolerated.
This means that many more people could go back to work, or at least to safe parts of it. Large parts of the construction industry for instance, and garden centres, if they can maintain social distancing.
This means many more sectors could restart, such as the housing sector. Many more shops could re-open. Sunbathing and family picnics could be acceptable, subject to local conditions so that the social distancing is maintained. Friends could see each other, outside, keeping social distance.
Why not??
Ivan said,
“Therefore:
1/ Any activity is permitted that maintains social distancing, and does not harm others
2/ Any activity that boosts natural immunity, such as daily exercise, should be encouraged, not merely tolerated.”
Unfortunately I can see why someone who really believed in lockdown might not agree with that.
They might say that social distancing isn’t an all or nothing thing – lots of 2-metre encounters would probably each have a small probability of passing on the virus, which would then add up.
They might also argue that with more places open, it would become progressively harder to enforce the lockdown generally.
They might argue that people operating with fewer restrictions might become more careless.
I agree with Malcolm that the lockdown is crazy, but all the facts are unpleasantly mushy – you can’t apply logic!
Yes David – but there would only be a risk of that if we assume that these people, in general, are actually thinking about the issues. There is not a lot of evidence that they do anything other than follow the crowd though. People generally seem to believe anything they are told by someone who appears to be in authority. And the same messages are repeated ad nauseam, with no permitted rebuttal.
Freedom of speech? No.
My prediction is, they will continue to build hospitals to accommodate for increasing numbers of patients. They will be hoping this prevents the nhs being overwhelmed. Then phase out lockdown bit by bit, with the focus on saving the economy. They might release a list of lower risk tier work/leisure activities/jobs.
Plasma therapy would seem like a possible interim treatment using the blood of people who have recovered. Government seem to be dragging their feet on this.
I have been following the (probably spurious) Covid-19 numbers at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Now I see that the UK number for “recovered”, which was stuck at 135 (from memory) for literally weeks, has now progressed to “N/A”. It is the only country in the listing – of about 190 nations – that does not display either a number or a blank (for zero) in this column.
I think that is because recovered people are mostly lost to follow-up.
Thank you again Dr Kendrick for voicing your usual thoughtful and honest content. The way things are going, there will likely be many more personae non gratae, assuming they don’t succumb to some mystery illness, ( which may, or may not be proven…). I’ve read every post on this over the last 2 days, and, there’s a lot of good sense combined with an understandable amount of confusion and trepidation, I fall into all these mindset catagories, depending on what I read, see, or hear. And that’s where a lot of the trouble is – the cumulative effects of this would-be pandemic may yet prove more damaging than the virus itself.
Anyway, I could go on ranting all day about politics, WHO, vaccines, Bill Gates, 5G, exosomes, DNA, RNA, zinc, nanobots, conspiracy, bat soup, ….endless buzz words and soundbite extracts.THAT in itself is harming me. The constant overwhelming sense of helplessness and despair that the media et al seem to perversely delight in. But most of all I’m very angry about how all this is evolving. I don’t know the truth of the origin, by what or whom, or even why. What I do know is that it has been inherently ‘wrong’ on many levels since day 1….and that’s only assuming anyone could explain when day 1 actually was. Given then that I don’t really understand what the hell is going on for real, I’d appreciate if someone could shed some light on a couple of puzzling, but more likely, naive issues I have .I’m no academic or analyst but facts reassure me. If I hear correctly, the RT-PCR test is not conclusive in detecting COVID19,specifically, but does pick up on viral condition(s) in general? If this is the case, and apologies for my sweeping logic, how can the test be deemed accurate.Surely the test will only detect viral activity, of any kind within the parameters of the test capabilities? Next question with apologies to anybody who has lost family recently…how do the medical profession test for cause of death if there isn’t a specific test for COVID19? Sorry to be morbid but then again I just don’t know how they determine cause for sure so perhaps someone could enlighten?
Moving on it seems that there’s no obvious way forward that will satisfy everbody but given the varying degrees of lockdown globally, economies will not survive or even recover. Peoples’ livelihoods have already been shattered and I don’t envy the decision makers on their future strategy trying to justify something that isn’t sustainable. My biggest concern, and again, notwithstanding the inevitable, tragic fatalities, is that it would be very easy to lift all restrictions if some miracolous vaccine was suddenly magicked out of the ether. That’s not going to happen. So, last point – does anyone think that IF a vaccine is developed, it will be compulsory? I’ve turned down my flu jab for the last 20 odd years on the basis of why should I knowingly put something in my body that could potentially harm me? Last hint of cynicism, I also hear that patents expire on drugs/medicines….but not on vaccines. Is this true?
The very idea of a vaccine being compulsory is truly frightening. On the one hand, euthanasia is forbidden… Our wills must retain some authority.
Tish: The magic bullet! Which cures all and sundry ailments! Step right up folks!
Hector Drummond has published some intriguing graphs by Laurence Hodge. The first graph shows excess UK winter deaths by year. Note that there were over 100,000 in 1950-1, and nearly 90,000 in (I think it was) 1960. Even the 38,000 claimed for the 1968 flu seems relatively small.
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/04/13/a-historical-perspective-on-winter-deaths/
I really wish the figures could be released as Covid19(A) – With serious underlying medical problems and Covid19(B) – Without any serious underlying medical problems when they are announcing the daily death rate.
The numbers and general level of hysteria will be kept high to reassure the public that the government is right in how its handling it all. I think the actual exit strategy is lets just see how its working out in Italy and Spain as they appear to be a couple of weeks ahead of us and should its naturally calm over there we’ll follow suit and should it go belly up then we’ll wait a little longer.
What is keeping me up at night is not the fear of the virus but the way our government has simply threw money at it in a blind panic. Interest rates cut to near nothing, Companies told not to pay dividends to its shareholders, landlords told not to (or be able to) evict non paying tenants. -Companies forcing their staff to be furloughed – okay the companies can claim back the payment but the company will still have overheads eating away at them in the mean time not to mention business interruption rendering contracts to die on the vine in all of the uncertainty. Mass unemployment is going to follow this if we’re not careful, which will then send crime, depression, domestic violence and divorce rates through the roof. Retirement age will no doubt need to have an extra 5-10 years tagged onto it to help pay for all of this which will only worsen the unemployment not to mention the increase in taxes that everyone will pay. Only the golden pensions of the MPs and likes will be protected whilst the rest of us suffer.
I could go on but I guess you get my point in all of this. At the end of the day we should have let the under 60’s with no underlying medical conditions stay at work and let us other folk decide to either carry on or stay at home.
Finally, viruses mutate, are we going to do all this again next year ?
I sincerely hope the fact that 116 people in South Korea have tested positive for Corona for the second indicates a flaw in the testing and not the fact that immunity – herd or otherwise – does not develop.
Has anyone tested the tests?
Jillm: Dr. Kendrick has clearly explained why there is no Covid-19 test. The antibody test in use is not specific to Covid-19; it simply indicates active infection with something. Kary Mullis himself would have excoriated them for using rt/PCR as a diagnostic tool, which it isn’t. Thus, we don’t really know how many “cases” there actually are. I would put my money on the novel clinical manifestations as being the only reliable “test.” The findings appear to be different in different people, as if there were two different diseases, as Jo Nova suggested.
A St. Louis doctor that is upset with how causes of death are being reported, and with journalists.
Follow the money…
Magnificent! The best possible use of 10 minutes of that doctor’s time. Listening to him makes me remember how truly admirable Americans can be at their best. He denounces the lies and exaggerations from politicians and the media, explains what is really happening, and gives excellent advice.
It seems that in most areas you get tested for the virus if you are admitted to hospital, and increasingly those admitted to hospital are those with symptoms that suggest that you have it and are ill enough to need hospital, usually because you need oxygen. The other main group that get tested are health care workers with suggestive symptoms – these are tested with the hope that they are negative and can go back to work, as happened to me 2 weeks ago. Also in some areas you get tested if you are frail elderly in a home. That leaves a huge amount of the population with none of these criteria that haven’t been tested, for justifiable reasons, but who may have had the virus. Is the antibody test on the near horizon?
Mark Heneghan: Dr. Kendrick says there is no antibody test, and he is usually reliable, yet Stanford researchers are currently using an antibody test to prove the hypothesis that Covid-19 reached California last fall, rather than in January, and Del Bigtree went to a drive-thru clinic to gat an antibody test. I have no idea what to make of all this. Perhaps the UK has its very own antibody test on the way, but it hasn’t been finished yet?
Tests are being developed and, as yet, have very poor sensitivity and specificity. Thus, not good enough to be used to validate any possible vaccine. In my world, that means that there is not yet an antibody test.
Dr. Kendrick: Yes. The IgG which is being used here is, as far as I know, not specific to any particular microbe, but merely indicates an active infection of some sort. Thank you for clarifying what antibody tests show.
To test the hypothesis that the virus was around last fall, wouldn’t it be easier to test blood samples taken at that time for virus DNA/RNA rather than antibodies?
Eric: Sounds reasonable to me, but then, again, would the DNA test be specific enough? And have they saved any, or enough of this blood to test?
To my understanding, the current PCR test is very sensitive. It can amplify a single RNA fraction. It is also important to understand that different labs / countries look for different genes of the virus, but all of these were chosen to look for things that are specific to our current gremlin and cannot be found in other Corona viruses.
So I don’t see why it wouldn’t pick up differences between blood samples (if the virus is present in blood at all).
I have read that the UK has purchased 3.5 million antibody tests which are currently going through a validation process. Which begs the question: shouldn’t this have been done before purchasing millions of them? or does the validation process itself require millions of tests to be carried out? – but wouldn’t all this be done at the expense of the company which developed the test in the first place?
I ve been in medicine a long time and the first time I had heard of a ” lockdown ” was in March of 2020. Up until then I had been puzzled by PHE and their desire to contact trace a respiratory virus as I had believed that this was clearly a waste of time especially with new cases being flown in daily to Heathrow.
Anyway the concept of a lockdown and social distancing strikes me as strange. What evidence base is there to support a lockdown of a healthy population to prevent the spread of a respiratory virus? Are there peer reviewed papers which evidence this strategy ? I have heard of some evidence from the east coast of the USA in 1919 but I believe that has been discredited.
I am wondering what exactly is the definition of ‘pandemic’?
Definition of “pandemic” – it is one of those manufactured words taking epidemic and panic and squishing them together.
Jean Humphries: Good one! Although “pan-” in the combining form means something on the order of “universal.’
For definition of “pandemic”, please refer to Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland, Chapter six. “Words mean what I choose them to mean, nothing more, nothing less.
Jillm: From my Webster’s, “of all the people; prevalent over a whole area, country, etc. . . . .”
Here’s an interesting definition of a pandemic in an article on the WHO website, which focuses on influenza pandemics, particularly the 2009 pandemic, but is also relevant to the current coronavirus situation. It also includes reference to Peter Doshi. It’s worth a close read…I’m still
digesting it…
‘The classical definition of a pandemic is not elusive’, authored by Heath Kelly (2011)
http://www9.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/7/11-088815/en/
thanks Peter; the “lockdown” seems to have come from the Fergoid, as some call him, from IC; as pointed out above; he was responsible for the appalling slaughter of millions of healthy animals in 2001; he shows no remorse or regret for any of this things; he seems extraordinary; no expression at all of sympathy, or regret. Just completely cold. Have a read at this article https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8951/e59ad3931dce8dbfd8cda6cb96f0663afefb.pdf?_ga=2.78330647.2035581988.1585464702-1751260321.1583268529
….. it just talks about the terrible mess that was FMD 2001; with the Fergoid in control, with an RM Anderson (sir to you!) who had left Oxford shortly before: google on why he left; and then with govt contacts, got the FMD contract; ….. a slick move …………..
Geoff, re RM Anderson (Professor/Sir), see this link for some background… https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/roy.anderson
Involvements with the UK Ministry of Defence, Wellcome, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the WHO. He’s also been a non-executive director of GlaxoSmithKline (not currently I think), and was also involved with an interesting company called Hakluyt (look them up), but not currently listed. And was on the Advisory Board of The Vaccine Confidence Project according to their 2015 report. The VCP is a sort of ‘big brother’ surveillance organisation monitoring ‘vaccine confidence’ which has been supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and which appears reluctant to disclose its conflicts of interest. Here’s my BMJ Rapid Response discussing the Vaccine Confidence Project and its platform provided by the BBC: ‘Pharma-led chorus dominates the public narrative on vaccination: https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l312/rr-6
Heard on BBC radio news this morning, a minister: “The first job of government is to protect the people and save lives and this is based on the best scientific and medical advice”. “The economic advice from the OBR is not based on science”.
Thick or what? The Fergoid is not a scientist as he cannot comprehend there may be another solution (to the non problem). The minister has no ability to comprehend the deaths directly resulting from isolating people, taking away their income, and destroying businesses.
Why aren’t we hearing more about this!
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/ace-inhibitors-arbs-and-covid-19-what-gps-need-to
Here’s the only way out that I can see in the near future: if it turns out that this disease has already run through a large enough part of the population that there is a reasonable degree of population immunity already. In other words, it is not the lockdown that has caused the decline in spread, but the natural end of the epidemic, for the moment at least. We will experience further epidemic events from this virus, as we do with other colds and flu’s, but hopefully by then the really damaging epidemic – of hysteria, fear and panic – will have receded.
There are reasons in the data for holding out hope for this. We do not know the prevalence, but we do know it is much higher than was previously thought, and we think the disease is substantially more infectious than was thought. It’s arguable that the lockdowns would have come too late to prevent a large proportion of the population being infected. See the detailed discussion of the numbers here:
https://thefatemperor.com/ep66-risk-management-expert-and-engineering-manager-discuss-coronavirus-strategies/
Basically, it appears the declines did mostly start before the formal lockdowns, and it does appear countries without lockdowns are not experiencing noticeably worse epidemics. But we will only know for sure as more data come in over the next few weeks.
Mark, I don’t the normal system will last another few weeks, it’s at breaking point.
The problem is that the government can force the lockdown to remain for quite a long time, even as catastrophic and probably irreparable damage is done. It can do so as long as people think the lockdown is saving them from the awful plague that propaganda has built this disease up to be, in their minds. And that propaganda continues apace – see today’s WHO statement that this disease is “ten times more deadly than swine flu”. That’s pure speculation on their part because they don;t know the disease’s prevalence in the population, and without knowing that they just don’t know how deadly it is, but it’s reported nevertheless as authoritative fact.
‘The real pandemic may be a deficiency of vitamin D’ say’s Renu Mahtani in this video presentation….. not just how vitamin D3 is important in helping the body fight Covid 19, but also the mechanism of ARDS in lung problems explained in a way both professionals and most of us can easily understand.
Absolutely agree. It is a seco-steroid hormone, not actually a vitamin at all. There are vast amounts of up-to-date and historical studies that confirm its importance to immunity.
If vitamin D isn’t actually a vitamin, why are told that we don’t need extra of this vitamin, when there are at least some studies, which suggest a few humans are deficient?
If it does provide some protection against cancer and it’s derived from a mechanism which needs exposure to sun, why are we told to cover up and put on sun blocks etc?
How on earth are we supposed to make decisions when all the decisions are made for us by experts who may be incorrect?
Who defines what news is fake or dodgy?
Below is only one article, don’t know what they are selling or how the writer profits, or what agenda they have, but at least it’s almost understandable!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/secosteroid
Cheers from confused of Swindon!
Steve: I’m sure you know it really, as we are all being gamed 24/7 by Big Pharma, Bad Food, and the Monster Agri-Ind machine. They spend millions of dosh playing you, and then they game you over-and-over (check-out Barry Marshall’s fight against the ulcer-Barons). The pattern is plain to see once you ‘get it’. And no, I’m not a Vegan, but I do try hard to eat well and be LCHF (it works!), and stay away from Statins and Mr Windows products (and no, most certainly not Apple!). Some doctors sadly do have a God-complex (…its hard sometimes to be humble), but now we have an IT entrepreneurs and politicians love-in ‘suffering’ from much the same hubris. Interestingly, the original ancient-Greek meaning of hubris was the pleasure gained by humiliating someone by forcefully subjecting them to anal rape. Mmmmm.
Governments are in the thrall of big pharma. They have a blinkered viewpoint. The RDA of many vitamins and minerals is way too low. Vitamin D is the most obvious example of this. It’s my opinion that if everybody over the age of 50 was prescribed around 5000iu of it a day (with occasional testing of blood levels, and magnesium and vitamin K prescribed where necessary) that the burden on the health services would be massively reduced.
Hi
Governments have to be in thrall to big pharma because the underlying structure dictates it. The holy grail of global neo liberalism makes us all consumers. The more we consume the more we have to work, like some giant merry-go-round.
The running joke with my wife (who lovingly lets me play around with ideas) is that we consume until we drop dead. In early life we eat and get fat, buy plastic toys with a built-in obsolescence. In later life we consume drugs to treat our over consumption of 5 or so decades earlier.
Yes, our consumption will ensure continued craziness and full employment.
The underlying structures are the key, change the underlying structure, and we get a different outcome. Until that time, (possibly never), rubbish thinking, rubbish ideas and rubbish outcomes will tend to prevail.
Such fun!
This was excellent!!!
The only concern with vitamin d is that it seems to increase ACE2 expression, and ACE2 is the binding protein for covid19. ACE2 might be therapeutic once infected, but will it increases susceptibility?
Yes, I’ve been wondering the same thing.
I still think taking vitamin D is probably still a net positive. There was a small study on people with hypertension in China that showed that people on ACE inhibitors – which increase ACE2 – had better outcomes than those that weren’t on them. Not definitive proof of anything, I know. I’m still taking 2000iu a day.
Watch the video above as this will clarify a very complex system
Tony, thank you for posting.
Simon C, having now watched this video, it makes the case for vitamin D increasing the expression of ACE2 being a good thing, and also explains other associated helpful mechanisms. Very interesting.
Last night I finished reading a new book on vitamin D and sunlight exposure. It mentioned that the group most deficient are retired folks. It just said once retired one is less likely to go outside. Also the older one is the less capable one is able to make vitamin D from sun exposure.
It had me thinking, in my parents neighborhood, where most are older and retired, I’ve seen and heard many elderly decide to no longer go outdoors due to the lock down.
Soul, there are a couple of videos I’ve watched which suggest vitamin D or lack of vitamin D is possibly having an effect.
This video is 20 minutes long, if people have the time, I think it’s worth watching.
Dr John Campbell a retired British doctor, suggests we are likely to be deficient in this country during the months when the sun is at it’s lowest.
He reads from a large BMJ study. 15th February 2017 and suggest we all take vitamin D supplements.
A nice clear explanation.
Yes! Even if older people do go outside at the right time of the day, with adequate skin uncovered and stay in the sun for long enough, the chance their skin will convert UVB to vitamin D is low.
Who was the author of the book on vitamin D you have just read?
Lower still if they are on statins
Seconding Annette’s request here: what is that book on Vit D? My life changed – no exaggeration – after discovering a severe Vitamin D deficiency, which the NHS weren’t going to think of testing for, which I only found out by a series of complete flukes. Anything that’s easy to point friends to (or lend to them) will be nice 🙂
Excellent address – Easy for anyone to understand and with good graphics. Should be mandatory viewing by every doctor and every medical student – part and parcel of a medical qualification : MBBS, / MD. Crucial. Thanks for putting this up Tony, am sharing onwards, help support my own admonitions !
The answer is HERD IMMUNITY!! It is exactly how humans have always responded to such outbreaks.
MUST-WATCH noted epidemiologist on herd immunity – https://youtu.be/lGC5sGdz4kg
Read about Sweden’s herd immunization success story – https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120805778/coronavirus-to-swedes-its-the-rest-of-the-world-engaging-in-a-reckless-experiment
From a business perspective- we have an overpopulated world -isn’t this a convenient and politically blame -free solution ?
The trouble with that theory is that the numbers that will die from this disease under any response are trivial in population terms. But the economic costs of the response to it are already catastrophic and growing every day the lockdown, and the disproportionate terror that sustains it, remains in place.
The Black Death of around 1350 is estimated to have killed up to half the population of Europe. But within a century population had recovered to its pre-Black Death level. The World Wars had even less impact on population growth – indeed war and disaster stimulates reproduction.
Tom Welsh: You can bet we’ll see a Covid Boom, like the post-WWII Baby Boom, if there are any fertile couples left, and it will be just in time for the next flu season, oh boy!
Susan Robinson: As opposed to mowing them down with Uzii’s? Agreed! Less bloody anyway.
Thank you
Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14–2016/17 seasons)https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285
“A mortality rate of 10.7 per 1,000 inhabitants was observed in the winter season 2014/2015 (more than 375,000 deaths in absolute terms), corresponding to an estimated 54,000 excess deaths (+9.1%) as compared to 2014 (Signorelli and Odone, 2016), representing the highest reported mortality rate since the Second World War in Italy (UN, 2019).”Fifty four thousand excess deaths. Fifty four.
Not a single school closed. Not even a real attempt to understadn what happened in that year. Fifty four thousand excess deaths.
“As for a vaccine? The solution is so distant…”
I suppose that if a vaccine does/does not appear in the next few weeks/months it will prove/disprove the Big Pharma theory behind all this i.e.
vaccine = planned
no vaccine = not planned
Charles Gale: We will see one or more vaccines before the year is out, and likely something will go horribly wrong. Even though the main vaccine-promoters (other than Gates), namely Dr. Paul PrOffit and Dr. Peter Hotez, are sounding alarms about this, Bill “Titanic” Gates is ramming full speed ahead. As awful as PrOffit and Hotez usually are on this issue, they are right this time. But the gubment is on board, and that is all that matters. Fauci goes whichever way the wind blows.
See: WHO Public statement for collaboration on COVID-19 vaccine development:
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/13-04-2020-public-statement-for-collaboration-on-covid-19-vaccine-development
13 April 2020
Here’s a reason to question the received opinion that the lockdown was effective. The peak in UK deaths seems to have come too soon. The generally accepted average incubation and time to death numbers (based on the Chinese figures) are 5.1 and 17.8 days respectively, giving an average time to death from infection of 23 days. If we had been at a peak of new infections when the lockdown was introduced on 23rd March, and the lockdown drastically cut the rate of new infections, then we should have seen a peak of deaths some time this week, but instead the current figures suggest the peak was last weekend. Granted, the numbers may change as reporting is clarified, but those are the numbers we have at the moment.
I’d be very interested to hear any thoughts on this.
NB: one issue open to question here is what is the time to death? The figure I’ve used is from the 13th March study referenced in the notorious Imperial College report of 16th March:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033357v1
Other figures around seem to suggest a rather shorter time, but that might be based upon a much earlier study of 24th January which said that “the median number of days from the occurence of the first symptom to death was 14.0 “:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jmv.25689
The peak at my local (English, rural) hospital is expected around 4th May, apparently! It keeps getting moved along.
Mark, The cynic in me says that maybe, just maybe Gov.UK could see that the infection rate had peaked before the 23rd March and thus in the future claim it was their foresight (in ordering a lockdown) that caused the death rate to be lower than 250K when the decline was just the norm for a viral epidemic.
Roger
Roger – This could be lines from Midsummer’s Dream – the ‘Mechanicals’ – just watching again – wonderful stuff – I think Shakespeare would have had a field day with this scenario as it unfolds in all its machinations and total nonsense before us – Shakespeare, where art thou ? The casting would be such fun … This is the Russel T Davies adaptation – good stuff.
Finally seen a reference to this in the mainstream media, but it’s for Germany, by a professor of economics at Hanover:
https://www.msn.com/de-de/nachrichten/coronavirus/warum-deutschlands-lockdown-falsch-ist-%E2%80%93-und-schweden-vieles-besser-macht/ar-BB12E6km
Interesting corroboration that the same effect is seen in Germany.
A major problem is the chaotic nature of deaths recording in this country, with who knows how many deaths at eg nursing homes possibly not included in the figure, and who knows what criteria applied to decide what is a covid death. Nevertheless, it remains the case that according to the figures at Worldometer, the peak in UK deaths was between the 8th and 11th April, when 23 days after the lockdown would have been 15th April. What we are certainly not seeing is a sharp decline in deaths after 23 days after lockdown, which is what presumably would have happened if the lockdown had stopped a previously rapidly spreading disease in its tracks. Though the maths is not straightforward, and it would be interesting to see modeling for this (though not carried out by Imperial College, who must surely be regarded as utterly discredited by now).
Maybe there is an effect from the recording only of hospital deaths, if that’s what the numbers reflect? Though it could be that hospitalisation only of the most serious cases would suggest quicker deaths, or that it would suggest longer drawn out deaths due to hospital treatment. I don;t know, though I suspect the 23 days is based mostly on hospital cases anyway. If the effect is reproduced in Germany that reduces the prospects for an argument that there was something special in the circumstances here in the UK that reduced the times to death.
My first hypothesis, if there is no simple explanation in the maths, would be simply the obvious one that the virus spread peaked before the shutdown for other reasons – either because of steps taken voluntarily or because other factors in the virus’s lifecycle caused it to do so – climate (as with colds) or speed of spread, or something we don’t know about (this would also explain why similar peaks and declines have been seen in countries without lockdowns). It also ties in with other indications that the progress of the virus generally pays little regard to lockdowns:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-israeli-prof-claims-simple-stats-show-virus-plays-itself-out-after-70-days/
https://www.thecollegefix.com/university-researchers-find-no-additional-decline-in-coronavirus-infection-rate-from-lockdowns/
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2020/Ausgaben/17_20_SARS-CoV2_vorab.pdf?__blob=publicationFile#page=5
typo: “that many more people could XXX as a result of the lockdown than will die from coronavirus.”
Thank you for your sober thought and a great piece.
Kelly
Originally the exit strategy was universal covid vaccination, but that does not look realistic. More profits can be made selling test kits. Politicians are now sold on the idea of massive testing to control spreading the virus. The next step is to initiate the China protocol to identify who can be released from isolation.
Option B: Wait for the curve to flatten, the original plan. In the meantime stockpile supplies of ventilators and other equipment to meet the anticipated surge in infections when isolation is removed. Preparedness will involve accurate modelling provided by the government.
Option C: Wait and see what Trump will do. In other words carry on and hope problem goes away.
Option D: Re-assess the data to determine actual severity of the virus and who is at risk.
Charles Gale, Your vaccine yes=planned, vaccine no=unplanned is more thought provoking than I first figured. If these ongoing ‘events’ have been engineered by big Pharma and /or whoever else, then your equation likely rings true. Likewise if a vaccine isn’t developed, then there’s a degree of absolution possibly. However, IF a vaccine miraculously appears, and IF this then satisfies the logic of your equation, ( in which I think you’re correct), then that vaccine doesn’t necessarily have to work does it? It’s already open knowledge that we still don’t have an effective vaccine for the ‘common cold’…which from what I gather, is just another corona virus. There’s an even more insidious angle. The announcement of a supposed vaccine could be flexibly timed to suit the status of an economy based on a sliding scale of failure-rate. You could,’t muddy the waters any better; it’s almost perfectly orchestrated if even a fraction of it is true.
Rant aside, great summary Chris regarding us played and gamed incessantly and we still have no answers sadly. In particular, I ilked your use of the word hubris. It’s wonderfully descriptive when apprpropriate. I must confess to quoting it often but I was unaware of the full anatomical explanation. So, in this case completely appropriate,and of course we’re being made to pay for it aswell. Business as usual then, or not, as the case may be.. .
I was about to give everybody the benefits of my opinion. However I read Charles Lamb’s splendid coinage, Ultracrepidarian: somebody who gives opinions on matters beyond his knowledge.
So instead I’ve provided a link.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-ult1.htm
Apologies Shaun vis-a-vis the hubris comment. I typo’d you as Chris for some befuddled reason. But thanks again for your graphic Greek translation!
Well, here’s a thought that occurs to me regarding risk. I am 62, generally in good health and have lots of supplements I believe would help me cope with covid. I am also high risk because I take a chemo pill and I do have high blood pressure. I have stopped my captopril, which is probably the main reason its a risk. But last year I went 10 months and 11 months respectively not seeing my grandchildren because after the usual winter of not visiting, I began to realize my cancer situation was out of control and I was not well enough to travel. So I was down for the next 6 months, 6 weeks at a clinic. I saw them all twice this fall/early winter. So here I am – feeling much better but who knows? What if this is my last good year? I know I should be optimistic and all that but…do I want to spend my possibly last good year unable to leave my house, or do I want to see my grandchildren? Seeing as how my main reluctance to die is to not see and help my grandchildren grow up, you can guess the answer.
Anna, this is terrible. I am so sorry that you have to go through a situation that was already very very difficult even without covid 19, but with? My dear, I feel for you, I really do.
Best wishes, Yolanda
It just seems ironic to me that end-stage cancer patients (which I currently am not) are told by their doctors to go home and enjoy their family and their remaining time.
Well – I now try this “serious” input from “freewheeling” Sweden.
It is rather relaxed here which confirms the view of Ivor Cummins et al in their podcast above – great talk to me.
We thus decided to have a nice lunch at our favorite restaurant today in our small town and was greeted by the staff as one of their favorite customer – nice feeling. The place was populated but not overcrowded so “social” distances were easily guarded which is also the official “voluntary” practice in Sweden now and this is fine with me.although I am one of the presumably vulnerable, at 70 + with CVD, and one of those who are prone to “suffer”. Though with 15 g o vitamin C daily I think I am in a better position than many of my peers.
thanks Goran: you are sort of a key guy to us: reporting how things are in Sweden; as we understand you are all doing ok; and despite the world’s MSM pressurising your govt to put you all under house arrest; like the rest of us are; your govt has resisted this; so to some extent, you are a sort of control experiment for the world; we hope your govt will hold their position; even the Danes seem to be slowly seeing the light: and maybe slowly release their serfs from house arrest. Keep telling us how things are!! best wishes
The Swedish input that I am testing is Mackmyra Ek single malt, aged in oak. It seems pretty good to me
Myself I though prefer the Scotch, Ardbeg 🙂
Cheers to Malcolm.
Thanks!
Yes, I am very impressed by our state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell who with pride is riding the present “storm” blowing from all sides, not least from the president of the US. He has though many admirers i Sweden, including me, and among the “man in the street”.
He knows what he is talking about!
To me the internal attacks on him reeks of Big Pharma advocates (“vitamin deniers”); there are surely some of these guys around.
Välkommen tillbaka Goran.
The Telegraph today not so impressed with Anders. Suggesting it’s a failed experiment or words to that effect. “Sweden has shown how not to tackle coronavirus, as it fights now to save face” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/16/sweden-has-shown-not-tackle-coronavirus-fights-now-save-face/
Would appreciate your opinion on the accuracy of the article.
I have a cunning plan for governments everywhere. First you create a panic byspreading horror stories via the media about this new killer virus. Then as governments do, you also panic and/or cave in due to emotional blackmail from all and sundry, then , under pressure, issue insane measures like lockdowns. And of course long after the horse has bolted.
In the mean time you keep padding the number of deaths from covid so the punters stay at home, cowering behind the sofa with a blanket over their heads. Then you realise covid19 is not the plague and people aren’t dying in the streets. Bad news is, you are not the only one noticing this.
Meanwhile the economy worldwide has crashed. How to justify your lockdown? Keep padding the nu mbers of deaths for awhile, then start reporting the real numbers. And hey presto, you have justified the insane lockdown cause lookee lookee here the numbers are dropping so it worked, pad erm pat yourself on the back.
And, also of the good, you can, as the numbers keep dropping, slowly remove the lockdown. Huzzah, what a wonderful government you are cause now the punters are allowed outside again. Never mind that everyone had that right all along. Brillant plan except for the ickle fact that worldwide the economy is in ruins and the fall out from the panpanic will claim more lifes and/or quality of life than covid19.
Was there an evil plan behind all this? Probably not, merely your basic human utter stupidity. Or something!
Cheerio from the Netherlands,
Yolanda, slightly bored with covid19 idiocy
Yolanda: Colossal, historically unprecedented human stupidity. Politicians doing what they do best.
spot on Yolanda
Yes I tend to agree. IMO the shutdown is the end and Covid 19 just the means to attain it.
Here as in many other places there was a strong local economy, which has been trashed and much of it will never recover. However the big corporations and multinationals are not so much affected. I see them moving in to buy the local businesses at pennies in the pound and employing the ex-business owners on minimum wage zero hours contracts. Thus a lot of the profit which currently circulates locally leaves the area.
The latest weekly dataset of mortality registered in England and Wales has been published by the ONS which provides data up to the end of week 14 of the year (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales).
In week 14 we see a massive increase in the count of deaths compared to the previous 5-year average for the same week.
2020:
All causes = 16,387
Respiratory diseases (ICD-10 J00-J99) = 2,106
Where Covid-19 was mentioned = 3,475
2013-2018 average:
All causes = 10,007
Respiratory diseases (ICD-10 J00-J99) = 1,537
Extra deaths (all causes) = 16,387 – 10,007 = 6,380
Extra deaths (J00-J99) = 2,106 – 1,537 = 569
If _all_ the deaths where Covid-19 is mentioned and all the _extra_ J00-J99 deaths are attributed solely to Covid-19 then there are still a very large death count unexplained.
6380 – 3475 – 569 = 2336
2,336 more than average and not attributable to Covid-19 deaths. Clearly something bad has happened in week 14 of 2020. The lockdown was implemented in week 13 and deaths are usually registered within 5 days of death. Correlation is not causation.
What does this mean? Very difficult to know. Almost any interpretation is possible. We are running into very difficult territory when we cannot be sure who is dying of what, or why. I am keeping my eye on this, to see where it is all heading.
Maybe the discrepancy is because those people dying outside hospital are not being tested for Covid 19 (eg those in care homes) so there is a large cohort of people possibly dying from Covid 19 that is not being recorded as such?
As I understand it, only 10% of deaths are outside hospital – in these figures.
In reply to anglosvizzera:
If the discrepancy is due to deaths outside hospital and therefore without a firm Covid-19 diagnosis I would expect them to appear in the ‘J00-J99 Respiratory diseases’ section and so reduce my ‘unexplained’ figure.
However, if your suggestion is correct and many of these deaths _are_ actually due to Covid-19 then we are about to enter even more difficult times.
Apologies for a minor (?) mistake:
– The numbers I quoted above are based on the average of weekly ONS stats from 2010-2018, not 2013-2018 as I stated. 9 years not 5 years.
– I had initially excluded 2019 from the average in case it was showing any indication of an increase towards the end of the year.
– If you extend the averaging to encompass 2010-2019 (a full ten years) then the unaccounted for deaths count reduces to 2,311.
– If you confine the averaging to encompass 2013-2018 (as I claimed it was) then the unaccounted for deaths count reduces to 2,069.
– If you average 2014-2019 (5 year average) the unaccounted for deaths count is 2,108.
Pretty much however you cut it there are about 2,000 deaths not apparently attributable to Covid-19 that are not adequately explained in the dataset.
do folks follow this site?
http://inproportion2.talkigy.com
Where I am in the U.S., they are running TV ads telling people to go to the hospital if they think they’ve had a stroke, heart attack or some other serious illness because so few people that should be having these events are showing up at the hospital.
Several years ago, I took my partner to A&E because she complained of a sharp pain in her chest. She was checked out and nothing was wrong – it was just one of those things, and had already stopped before we got to the hospital! I suppose in the current situation we would have waited a bit, because she wasn’t breathless, nauseous, or deteriorating. In the current circumstances, possibly people are feeling justified in using a bit more common sense before rushing to A&E.
Here is a list of possible heart attack symptoms culled from the web:
Pressure, tightness, pain, or a squeezing or aching sensation in your chest or arms that may spread to your neck, jaw or back
Nausea, indigestion, heartburn or abdominal pain
Shortness of breath
Cold sweat
Fatigue
Lightheadedness or sudden dizziness
I would argue that such advice is next to useless, because every one of those symptoms can arise in all sorts of other ways. I do wonder if part of the reason the NHS is overloaded (even pre-COVID-19) that it is flooded with false alarms.
(Malcolm please comment if you don’t agree – or even discard this post)
I think it is an interesting point for discussion
Here is an update to my earlier posts on the German lawyer Beate Bahner.
Frau Bahner, last week brought an emergency action to the German Federal Constitutional Court, asking them to set aside most of the restrictions in force concerning Covid 19. It was refused on procedural grounds. In disgust, she resigned her licence as a lawyer, for conscientious reasons. As lawyer specialising in medical law, she felt she could no longer ever get justice for her clients.
Then on Easter Sunday Evening, just after posting on her blog (which keeps getting taken down), she noticed two men in a car blocking the exit from her garage. She was scared; she is about 50 and lives, I believe, alone. She left her house surreptitiously and phoned her secretary asking her to please pick her up from a nearby street.
She waited but her secretary did not turn up or phone back. She eventually flagged down a passing car and asked for a lift. They refused that and suggested she phone the police, which she did. Then she thought better of this, but she was too late. The police arrived and when she told them what had happened they arrested her, handcuffed her with her hands behind her back and forced her down into the mud. She was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Heidelburg, which turned out to be only a few doors away from her office.
When she objected to entering the building, a police woman grabbed her head and rammed it against the pavement from some height. A doctor came out and she was escorted to an isolation room with no bed or toilet but with a hand-basin which at least had water. She was left there overnight.
The following morning a lot changed. She was moved to a very nice room with a bath, bed, toilet and other facilities. Apparently, someone called Jackie had seen her arrest, traced her and arranged for clean clothes and some books to be brought in, and her mobile has been returned. The above account is taken from a phone call to her sister which she asked to be uploaded, where it has been copied many times. She has ask to see the papers authorising her compulsory detention, which have to be certified by a judge, and has been told they are being prepared.
Enquiries by supporters asking after her, have confirmed that a woman with her name is a patient there, but she cannot have visitors or see a lawyer at present.
It is difficult to follow her account at times, as she is clearly traumatised by what has happened to her and is very overwrought. But she appears quite rational, if very naive for a middle-aged woman.
Her remark to her sister, that things are far, far, far worse than she ever imagined before she brought the case, seems justified by her situation. However, she is now comfortable, has eaten, and is being well-treated. She does feel safe and hopes to relax and, when recovered, think how to proceed
Enabling breaches of the constitution are criminal offences under German law. Most carry a penalty of up to 5 years in prison, so one can see why the authorities are so worried.
Perhaps you could provide more information on this. If it true, it is very worrying. If it is not…
I cannot vouch for the truth of Frau Bahner’s phone call, but today, the earlier editions of the mainstream German online press, were full of it. Their accounts then were mainly based on Frau Bahner’s telephone call as I reported it last night, though in some reports the police do claim she struggled and kicked them first. Since then the accounts seem, from my memory, to have been re-edited.
Commentators are now presuming, that because she is still in the hospital, her detention has been approved by a judge, but I have not heard confirmation of that.
Frau Bahner’s legal case was based on the fact the the Infektions-Schutzgesetz, the Federal Law which deals with infectious diseases, which was revised in 2016, was carefully drafted to ensure that it remained in harmony with the constitution or basic law, the Grundgesetz. This law sets out the principles which must apply when any detailed regulations are drawn up by the different Länder, which have considerable autonomy in this, however much the Federal government strives for uniformity.
One of the main principles of section 5, which deals with the restrictions on individuals to prevent or mitigate epidemics is that of specificity. Measures such as quarantine etc. can only be targeted at named people by means of a written legally binding order. 4 defined categories of such people exist:
1. Kranker a person suffering from an infectious disease.
2. Krankheitsverdächtiger a person whose symptoms suggest he will develop the disease.
3. Ausscheider a person who is excreting the pathogen, who could be a source of infection to the general public, without being either 1 or 2.
4. Ansteckungsverdächtiger a person who one can assume is carrying the pathogen, without being 1,2,or 3.
In all cases, there has to be evidence which would be acceptable to a court of law.
There is no provision for blanket prohibitions covering unnamed people. Therefore, Frau Bahner argues, such regulations cannot lead to the loss of the general rights granted under the constitution, e g freedom of movement and association, to demonstrate peacefully without advance permission, the right to freedom of opinion, the right to work, to run a business etc. Therefore passing or enforcing such regulations is both illegal and unconstitutional and subject to both criminal penalties and civil damages.
Changes to the constitution in Germany require a two thirds majority in both houses of the parliament. Presumably the government knew there was not chance of passing these and hoped the public would not challenge the regulations in court.
No more news about Frau Bahner tonight, but there have been small demonstrations in several towns in Germany, where protesters are carrying copies of Grundgesetz and showing the relevant clauses to the police when challenged. A good mixture of old and young. Will this movement grow?
Shirley
Very selective data from your source by all accounts. The lady has a problem. Who resigns from their profession on the basis of one case ?
Russian Baloney news if you ask me.
This sounds very similar to the damage to the lungs from pulmonary hypertension which can occur secondary to some heart conditions, e g mitral valve stenosis, where there is back pressure from the partly blocked left side of the heart. This in turn puts back pressure on the right side of the heart which may eventually fail. Some patients cannot benefit from surgery to free or replace the valve because of this previous damage to their lungs.
For myself, I suffer from a moderate degree of mitral valve regurgitation. It’s symptom-less at rest, but even very light exercise makes some of the blood flow the wrong way. This leads to back pressure in the lungs and breathlessness. This forces me to sit down and rest after walking about 50 yards, but then, (over 6 years after diagnosis), I still recover almost immediately.
No idea if she is a member of the AFD, but I think that is unlikely.
She sounds like an old-fashioned, conservative/liberal to me, possibly quite religious.
She has been shocked out of her naive belief in the integrity of the German legal system. She feels she can only keep her personal integrity by resigning. She swore an oath to defend the constitution when she received her licence to practice and she feels she is obeying the spirit of that oath.
(My own German teacher at school was a Czech citizen, a German-speaking, Lutheran jurist in Prague, who resigned when the German army invaded and fled to Paris rather than serve the Nazi regime. Her original motivation was that she did not wish to break the oath she had made to uphold the Czech constitution. I do not know how many other people make a similar decision. Jews, of course were simply sacked.)
She says she called the police for help and they arrested her without warning or legal cause. If her arrest was unlawful she might claim the right of self-defence. She also claims one police woman assaulted her. In my experience, it the police have unlawfully assaulted anyone, they always claim self-defence too. I was not there so I don’t know the truth and neither does the press.
My contact is Austrian, in tourism business, astute, early 20’s. I simply c.&p.d his response following his checks with German friends and media. His English practise might have lapsed of late so translates not entirely clear but he suggests a link to FDR. BTE he has absolutely no axe to grind. I repeat the following extract “On the day she was brought to the psychiatric clinic, she was stopping cars on the street and told them to call the police, as she feared that the was observed and followed by someone. When police arrived, she attacked them and made an confused (sic) impression to the officers and spoke about threat to her and to others, so the officers brought her to the clinic as it is usual in a case like that”
I likewise think the lockdown is the wrong approach but we need all the facts not a selection in this and all cases.
Nuff said.
Jerome. Please read my post below.
Except that regular police are usually quite benign, perhaps even more so in the state of Baden-Württemberg that has had a green governor for quite some time and in the fiercely liberal and green city of Heidelberg, when with dealing with a distraught middle aged lady lawyer.
Sorry – that should be “link to AFD” not to FDR ! My reply at 10:17pm on15th April.
Re Robert the Bruce. She resigned at first attempt. He kept trying & trying until he succeeded. My experience of German police is that they are very friendly & professional. The further East you go you might find a different experience
shirley3349, thank you for that post. How near could any of us be to the same treatment?
Shirley
This is headline stuff. Surely a newspaper has picked up on this & a link can be made available.
What a disgusting world we are looking into!
I got the following from a non biased contact;
“research about the case of the above mentioned woman, which is by the way, part of the far right wing party AFD. (Alternative für Deutschland)
First of all, several reliable newspapers in Germany have published something about the case. All of them state, that Beate Bahner has called for a demonstration all over Germany to express rejection about the taken measures of the Government of Germany in regard to Covid-19. Moreover, she published a “regulation” which states, that all of the measures are no more on her own website. After that, police have blocked her website due to “Threat to public welfare”. On the day she was brought to the psychiatric clinic, she was stopping cars on the street and told them to call the police, as she feared that the was observed and followed by someone. When police arrived, she attacked them and made an confused impression to the officers and spoke about threat to her and to others, so the officers brought her to the clinic as it is usual in a case like that. In the clinic, the doctor also stated that she appeared confused so he decided to keep her in the clinic. The audio file which was supposedly taken in a call with her sister in the clinic.
For me, it seems like she has a personal problem, rather than being victim of a conspiracy”
I have notice so many on twitter and other media are keen on Sweden failing. It seems that a lot of people have invested so much of themselves into the approach we are seeing in most places that they can’t bear the thought of Sweden suggesting something different. And it also seems to me that some/ a lot of people’s puritanical tendencies have taken hold. Always dangerous.
I’m glad Goran is back to tell us what is really occurring
Dr Kendrick this is so far the only article I found in english about frau Beate Bahner. Hope this helps https://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/fake-covid-19-pandemic-german-lawyer-beate-bahner-sewerly-beaten-by-police-and-take-to-psych-ward.817558/
Btw I have read her complaints (in german ) about the whole covid 19 situation and her pov is similar to that of yours. She is not gaga, on the contrary. As a lawyer she is specialized in medical law so she knows what she is talking about.
Like you I find this very worrying. BTW in Saxony you can now be put in a madhouse if you refuse to self isolate.
Personally I am beginning to wonder if there is much difference between life in a madhouse or outside in corona madness.
Yolanda, I am wondering what Stefan Lanka thinks about this situation.
This is the article from her local paper:
https://www.rnz.de/nachrichten/heidelberg_artikel,-festnahme-von-beate-b-aus-einem-meter-hoehe-den-kopf-auf-den-steinboden-geknallt-update-_arid,509450.html
Sounds like she had a psychotic episode, was rambling in the middle of the road, a passerby called the police and she started kicking the officers. She also recorded an audio statement in the psychiatric ward and sent it to the paper. I can see no attempt by the paper to hide the statement or that conspiracy theorists have pricked up their ears.
I also wonder if the board you have linked to is run by Russian trolls. How else would you end up with that weird spelling of severly?
typo: severely
Eric
I suggest you listen to the recording of her phone call to her sister made on Easter Monday morning?
My judgment is that she is clearly distressed and overwrought, but psychotic? During my nursing career I met many psychotic people and most were far worse than she seemed to be. I doubt whether she would have been admitted to hospital under normal circumstances. If she spoke the truth, she has been through a highly distressing experience and was reacting within normal limits.
One of my theories is that the hospital may be keeping her in for her own protection and for observation for any head injury she may have suffered. About this, her head certainly did not hit the ground in free fall from one metre, (not an exaggerated height if she was then standing); she says it was held by a policewoman. This happened, not near her home but outside the hospital before the doctor intervened. The following day, (Monday), once she had calmed down, the medical staff may have largely believed her account and concluded that she was in some way set up by the Verfassungsschutz, (a notorious secret service, targeting, in theory, those who act unconstitutionally, but this tends to mean, in practice, those who are against government policy), together with the police. The medical staff then persuaded her to stay in voluntarily for a few days until the fuss has died down, so she can then leave when she has found somewhere to go where she feels safe. We shall see.
She does now believe that the legal system in Germany is corrupt and can no longer protect the people, and so has refused to be a part of it any more. Her website article is a statement of what she regards as the legal constitutional position, which she implies should hold until the court makes detailed rulings on the Covid 19 regulations for each Land. Her call for peaceful demonstrations is her exercising one of her her constitutional rights, which cannot be legally set aside without a parliamentary vote, a two thirds majority in both houses. Remember, her legal education and experience has convinced her that both the Land governments and the police are acting illegally.
Proving the constitutional court is corrupt is well nigh impossible, so she thinks only a popular movement can now restore constitutional order, either by embarrassing the constitutional court into hearing the case in full, or by the authorities backing down and rescinding the regulations well before the 9th June, when they would have to be renewed. She believes, that the Verfassungsgericht is now in effect verfassungswidrig, (that the constitutional court is acting against the constitution). Time will show whether this is mistaken or not.
Remember, Frau Bahner has no objection to measures to counter the epidemic that are legal, that is restrictions on the four categories of infected or possibly infected people I listed in my previous post.
In any case, Frau Bahner needs time to recover from her ordeal and decide what she is going to do next. I, and I hope those who read my posts, wish her well.
Shirley Can you say if she is or is not a member of AFD ?
Did she attack police?
PS She obviously has never heard of Robert the Bruce, “if at first you don’t succeed try, try and try again.”
I have just read on the website of one of Beate Bahner’s supporters that she is now free.
She was released from the hospital after 24 hours, as the doctors did not apply to detain her any longer against her will.
She appeared in court this afternoon charged with posting on her website the call to demonstrate in violation of the Covid 19 regulations. She explained to the court her motivation and was then released. She was not charged with assaulting the police. There is possibly another charge to come, something about identifying a police woman and her phone number on her website, an offence against data protection laws.
According to Sean Henschel, a lawyer whom the website owner asked to attend the hearing, (though she conducted her own defence), she was fine and delighted that she might get her day in court. As this would give her another platform from which to attack the constitutional validity of the Covid 19 regulations, it will be interesting to see whether or not they go ahead with the prosecution.
Her website is still down, and she might apply to have it reinstated, because the site hosts claim they acted on the instructions of the State Prosecutor.
Jerome: Bruce won!
“Last month Reuters news service reported – falsely — that a popular Facebook post about Bill Gates planning to use microchip implants to fight the coronavirus pandemic was a “false claim.” The news service linked to the censored Facebook post.”
https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/bill-gates-and-intellectual-ventures-funds-microchip-implant-vaccine-technology1
AhNotepad: Celeste McGovern is a reliable source, and I have read this elsewhere as well.
‘ “Testing in patients would typically require at least a year and probably longer” senior co-author of the study, dermatology professor Louise Falo said, “… [but] recently announced revisions to the normal processes suggest we may be able to advance this faster”. ‘
Doesn’t bode well.
Greenmedinfo is a great source for genuine information. I trust Sayer Ji who owns the website but it has been deleted from Google searches. Why, you may ask? It’s Google’s agenda, to delete any source that does not conform to its promotion of Big Pharma. And I am not a conspiracy theorist, Google is.
Are the cracks beginning to show? Care homes start revolt (I hope) and on a UK Tv news channel too.
Hi Dr Kendrick
Have followed your writings since the ” Red Flag ” days. Came across this study and wondered if you were aware of it. It indicates there might be a benefit to ACE/ARB drugs.
The Use of Adjuvant Therapy in Preventing Progression to Severe Pneumonia in Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Multicenter Data Analysis | medRxiv [10]
Sincerely Ed Ecker
Re Sweden, here’s an article including recent comment from Anders Tegnell, think it’s worth providing translation here: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/forskare-kritiska-til-fhm-lat-politikerna-ta-over
Tegnell’s response to harsh criticism in the DN debate: Basic errors
UPDATED TODAY 3:48PUBLISHED YESTERDAY 22:37
State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell today responded to the massive criticism voiced by 22 researchers at DN Debate about how the authorities handled the corona pandemic.
“There is a fundamental inaccuracy in that article,” Tegnell says, referring to the death toll figures the researchers at DN assume.
22 researchers, professors and doctors on Dagens Nyheter’s debate page demand that politicians should intervene more rigorously against the corona pandemic. They write that the attitude of the Public Health Authority has failed and judges the authorities’ actions from several aspects.
“The elected people, those who have overall responsibility, must intervene, there is no other choice,” they write, referring to the latest statistics which indicate that Sweden has a mortality ten times that of Finland.
Furthermore, they write that the FHM advised all symptom-free homebuyers from the Italian Alps to live as usual and that they still refuse to accept that the spread of disease from symptom-free has significantly contributed to the mortality of the elderly. Now that Sweden’s curves differ from those of neighboring countries, they mean that the authority is still “reluctant to change its recommendations”.
“On at least four occasions, it has been claimed by the Public Health Authority that the spread of infection has leveled out or will decline. It has not done that, ”they write.
Tegnell: The death toll is not right
The Public Health Authority had to respond to the researchers’ criticism at today’s press conference and Anders Tegnell began by strongly denying the claim that the authority does not work according to any strategy.
– Firstly, I absolutely want to deny that we do not have a well thought out strategy. We know that, Tegnell said.
Tegnell is of the opinion that the figures in the debate article are not correct, that “there are a number of fundamental errors in that article.”
He also pointed out that some countries, such as Italy, only record the deaths that occur in hospitals – making it difficult to compare the number of deaths between different countries.
– The death figures they quote are incorrect, they do not match the Swedish death figures, said Anders Tegnell.
“Figures less important”
During the afternoon, the authors behind the debate article made a clarification.
“The quoted figures themselves are less important in our opinion than the principle development of the pandemic we are trying to point out.
The figures we use in our debate article are consistent with the three most commonly used international statistics pages, namely the WHO website, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine website and the Worldometer website. These pages, in turn, retrieve the material from the daily updated report on all known cases in the world available on the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) ‘s website . ”, They write.
Just from this little article, I get the impression that Dr. Tegnell is is posession of alternative facts.
Well there’s something odd going on Eric…I don’t trust any of the figures. 95 year olds dying of COVID-19 etc… And it’s interesting to look at the data, such as it is, and see the countries with the most reported deaths, i.e. USA, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, UK, China, Iran… Have to think about their population of course. But also we understand most severe disease and deaths is in old people. And something these countries have in common is annual flu vaccination, I think it’s relevant to question if flu vaccination could be implicated in making people vulnerable to COVID-19. Also interesting to consider that Boris Johnson had his flu vaccination last October… Here he is promoting flu vaccination on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=533761737190464
Elizabeth, I don’t know about the other countries on your list but the NHS in the UK provides an annual flu vaccination only for certain groups: the elderly and those considered medically vulnerable. NHS workers, on whom it is pushed quite forcefully although it is not yet mandatory (don’t know about other care workers?). Also, recently, primary school-aged children. Others have to pay.
Though looking at that list, it does cover those who seem most likely to experience ill effects from covid, children apart.
Other than the flu vaccine making people more susceptible, I was again wondering about vitamin D deficiency. I went out to the shops today and stood in a queue in the sunshine at about 1pm, the optimal time at the moment here in the south of the UK, for the sun to be able to produce vitamin D in the skin. As it was warm enough, I had on a short-sleeved top and ‘long’ shorts, making the most of it. However, the other people in the queue and those walking past almost all either had full-length clothes on or stood in the shade.
I discussed it with my OH as we walked home and thought that maybe the fact that children are sent outside at lunchtime at school helped them build up enough vitamin D stores to protect them in the winter, aside from the fact that we’re told that children make vitamin D more easily than adults, and especially the elderly.
Regarding the elderly might statins, that are designed to reduce cholesterol in the body, have any effect on the body’s ability to create vitamin D, being as cholesterol is part of the process? Being as the vast, unquestioning majority of people in the ‘elderly’ age bracket seem to demand the damned things, could this be adding to the Covid 19 mortality?
Listening to what Dr. Tegnell on a daily basis tells us he sounds to me very confident and sensible claiming epidemiological facts which he, with more than 20 years of experience, is well acquainted with.
All what he says makes sense to me and Í have strong confidence in how he,”moderately” handles the present crisis among all MSM fear mongering “experts”.
Hej Goran,
It seems to me that Dr Tegnell is oneof the very few people who is doing the right thing in this pandemic. He and his team monitor what is going on and they keep calm. Extra bonus points to him for not caving in to moral and emotional blackmail. Wish we had someone like him in my country, life would be so much more pleasant now.
Met a woman in the supermarkt today who was absolutely terrified by the corona virus, she was actually shaking like a leaf. What will all this unnecessary stress do to her health?. Too sad for words. But that is what you get when both the press and government in the Netherlands are terrorising us with their doomsday rubbish day in, day out.
Cheerio, Yolanda
Yolanda,
Yes, Dr. Tegnell is to me a real “hero” in the true sense of the word!
Hi Goran, Welcome back! How is Finland doing?
Hi Goran, I agree, seems to me Sweden has taken a measured/proportionate response. Will be interesting to see how this all ends up. Have to ensure that apples and apples are compared, I’m not confident that the various countries are recording deaths ‘of’ / ‘with’ COVID-19 in a uniform fashion, this needs to be investigated and clarified.
Re the possibility that influenza vaccination might be implicated in COVID-19 disease, any thoughts re this abstract?
Acute respiratory failure secondary to eosinophilic pneumonia following influenza vaccination in an elderly man with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24981428
Abstract
Acute respiratory failure with diffuse pulmonary opacities is an unusual manifestation following influenza vaccination. We report herein a patient with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who developed fever with worsening of respiratory symptoms and severe hypoxemia requiring ventilatory support shortly after influenza vaccination. Bronchoalveolar lavage was compatible with acute eosinophilic pneumonia. Rapid clinical improvement was observed 2 weeks after systemic corticosteroid treatment, followed by radiographic improvement at 4 weeks. No disease recurrence was observed at the 6-month follow-up.
As I understand it, Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, the retired German lung physician who is opposed to the lockdown measures, the 2019 flu vaccine may have influenced the current epidemic in the following way.
There are at least 100 different viruses which normally live in our lungs, all competing to replicate and survive. Most cause no disease; a minority do, if not kept in check by the competition. The vaccine last autumn was very successful in combating the targeted flu virus, but this success has left a niche which other viruses including SARS CoV 2 have since filled.
Dr Wodarg is in favour of safe and effective vaccines, as I am myself, having only once experienced a bad side effect, a very high but short-lived fever following a cholera jab in my 30s.
But I do worry now that the flu jabs, both I and my husband had last autumn, may have increased our risk of Covid 19.
So touch wood and try and live as normally as possible.
Hi Shirley, I didn’t give vaccines much thought until one of my dogs was put down in late 2008, after what I subsequently discovered was gross over-vaccination. Specialists in veterinary vaccination were warning to decrease vaccination of dogs and cats to minimise the risk of adverse reactions. I campaigned on this matter in Australia quite successfully, with coverage in the consumer magazine CHOICE, and in the mainstream media, see this article for example: Vets accused of over-vaccinating pets: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-08-18/vets-accused-of-over-vaccinating-pets/949038
This led to an interest in human vaccination, as vaccination of humans is going through the roof! In Australia children receive over 50 doses of vaccines now, in various combinations and revaccinations. And adults are increasingly in the frame with pressure for annual flu vaccination, repeat diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis shots; pneumococcal; and shingles vaccination. We have no idea of the long-term cumulative effects of all these medical interventions throughout life, this is ‘undone science’. And now coronavirus vaccines are looming… It’s time for a review of how we have arrived at the burgeoning number of lucrative vaccine products and revaccinations pushed now, and the over-powering influence of Bill Gates and the pharmaceutical industry on international vaccination policy, via Gavi and the WHO etc…
Here is a short Tucker Carlson interview with Stanford University professor of medicine. Jay Bhattacharya:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/stanford-professor-jay-bhattacharya-coronavirus-death-rate
This guy features in several of the links from the Swiss Dr’s notes. He paints a much brighter picture, in that it would seem from a number of small scale experiments, that this virus has been far more widespread than believed, and that most of these ‘cases’ are asymptomatic.
As some have asked, it does make one wonder what is going on.
“Doctors worry the coronavirus is keeping patients away from US hospitals as ER visits drop: ‘Heart attacks don’t stop’”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/14/doctors-worry-the-coronavirus-is-keeping-patients-away-from-us-hospitals-as-er-visits-drop-heart-attacks-dont-stop.html
excerpt:
…At Providence, the volume of heart attack patients fell by about 50% in March compared with the same month last year, Hochman said, adding that the notion that people have just stopped having heart attacks is “too good to be true….
Maybe it is true? I think Malcolm told us long ago that depression leads to heart attacks. We know that there is less depression in times of crisis in general. Surprisingly, poeple appear to be less depressed in lockdown, too.
Hi Eric: re less depression when locked up
I know one depressed hypochondriac that became more agitated about the government lockdown. For more normal people that were not depressed to start with there was a sense of doom and gloom and fear and frustration. If ones income is not affected such as government employees then there would be less depression unless they have school age children. Personally I am not depressed, just annoyed at curtailed freedoms. My wife is absolutely terrified about leaving house for any reason, but not depressed. So overall there might be less depression.
So since the lockdowns are not a solution that “works”, to which we agree one hundred percent ( https://loico.com/covid-19-herd-immunity-likely-much-sooner-than-expected/ ), then we need to connect the dots of (1.) the most recent available scientific evidence as to the specifics of COVID-19 (especially versus SARS 2003) and (2.) of what we otherwise know in all areas pertinent no combatting a viral disease. And if we do that, then we believe that this is a large part of a working solution: https://loico.com/the-logic-of-surviving-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
On the rest, the specifically immunological part which will aid also in mastering future pandemics of similar kind, we are currently working on.
Sorry, it has to be “to combatting” instead of “no combatting”, of course 😉
More from (real) economists:
http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/policy-for-the-covid-19-crisis/
https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/class-d/309813-wrong-tpa3255-31.html
Eric, if you have an LM2575S and a PSU of less than 40V you should be ok.
Eric, I see the IGM does consensus, not science. As Tim Noakes said, “Consensus is not science. If you’ve got consensus, you’ve got trouble”. I wonder how many of those IGM nodding heads have had their income taken away, and have the prospect of unemployment in the next few months.
Sorry, this was the link that was supposed to get pasted:
The video is worth watching ahead of the article.
– doctors disagree on whether to use standard ARDS treatment protocol
– Italian specialist says there are 20-30% of patients with stiff lungs, like classic ARDS, and 50% who have pliant lungs and probably do not benefit from standard protocol
– other doctors says he has patients with 40 – 50% oxygen saturation who have no distress and talk to him, which he would have thought impossible four weeks ago
Instinct and flexibility is more likely to save the day – and lives, than religiously defending a “Protocol” In these circumstances, it would be better to pay attention to ‘Anecdote’ – which is merely unpublished data, than waiting for the usual Gold Standard of a Randomised, placebo-controlled (biased and manipulated !!!) double-blinded trial.
It’s a novel virus, so should be attacked in a …similar … fashion.
That some patients are TALKING zombies with impossibly low O2/sat. levels is what I’d call a CLUE that conventional wisdom is being turned upside down.
Any of them including high dose Vit C in their meds therapy ? One can only hope.
And from the article itself:
““Never in my life have I had to ask a patient to get off the telephone because it was time to put in a breathing tube,” said Dr. Richard Levitan, who recently spent 10 days at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan.
Why is this so odd? People who need breathing tubes, which connect to mechanical ventilators that assist or take over respiration, are rarely in any shape to be on the phone because the level of oxygen in their blood has declined precipitously.
If conscious, they are often incoherent and are about to be sedated so they do not gag on the tubes. It is a drastic step.
Yet many Covid-19 patients remain alert, even when their oxygen has sharply fallen, for reasons health care workers can only guess.”
Does something change in the red blood cells that allows them to keep delivering oxygen but not be picket up by the usual IR infrared monitors?
Mmec7 – wow! Isn’t that talk good. I have just sent off for a Vit,d test, something I’ve been meaning to do for ages and this has spurred me on.
Another important question is why a doctor would insert a breathing tube into a patient who is conscious and apparently not having any difficulty in breathing.
“Befehl is befehl”?
Tom, one answer seems to be that patients on ventilators are considered less likely to infect those caring for them.
Another could just be that the virus in the UK was preceded by so many stories of ventilators being in desperately short supply, the implication being that ventilators were a necessary part of treatment for many patients.
Though Boris wasn’t put on one.
Found something in a three-week-old interview with Christian Drosten, head of virologyat Charité in Berlin and inventor of both the test for the original SARS virus as well as for the first test for the current SARS2 virus.
https://www.stern.de/gesundheit/virologe-christian-drosten—wir-haben-in-deutschland-einige-vorteile-gegenueber-anderen-laendern–9190450.html
The whole interview is pretty interesting but you’ll have to use deepl or google translate to get an idea. This is the part about said mystery, even if does not explain why patients with 40-50% saturation remain conscious.
His colleagues from the ICU wards have explained to him that CoVID patients have to be ventilated differently from e.g. those after heart surgery. This viral pneumonia damages lung tissue at the periphery. The capillaries become congested by infected cells. The body hence does not get enough oxygen into the blood. The blood pressure in teh capillaries goes up. This increases the resistance the heart sees from the lung, which it cannot keep working against for an extended time. This is why patients with preexisting heart problems often die in ICU. What is needed is a fine balance between overpressure ventilation and regulation of the blood circulation. This is the high art of internistic ICU care.
Die Kollegen an der Charité, die die Intensivstationen leiten, haben mir erklärt, was das Schwierige ist, wenn man Menschen mit dieser Erkrankung beatmen muss.
Das ist nicht dasselbe, wie etwa bei einem Patienten nach einer Herz-OP. Bei dieser Art einer schweren viralen Lungenentzündung ist es anders. Die schädigt das Lungengewebe direkt, und zwar in der Peripherie. Dort sind die allerfeinsten Gefäße der Lunge, die Kapillaren, durch die Infektionszellen verdickt. Beim Gasaustausch bekommt der Körper deshalb nicht mehr genug Sauerstoff ins Blut. Der Blutdruck in den kleinen Gefäßen erhöht sich. Darum steigt der Druckwiderstand für das Herz gegen die Lunge sehr an. Das Herz hält das häufig nicht lange aus. Deshalb sterben auf der Intensivstation oftmals Herzvorgeschädigte. Es braucht eine ganz feine Balance zwischen Überdruckbeatmung und Kreislaufregulation. Das ist die hohe Handwerkskunst der internistischen Intensivmedizin.
Based purely on the part you translated, I don’t understand how that explains that (some of?) these patients are lucid but with very low oxygen saturations.
Exactly what I wrote: “even if does not explain why patients with 40-50% saturation remain conscious.”
Has the calibration of the monitors been checked properly?
It’s probably not so much a question of calibration as the chemistry of the red blood cells changing. The calibration is only valid if the chemistry of oxygen exchange does not change.
People with fevers are often peripherally shut down. Their skin goes cold and slightly blue, because the blood has been redirected to their major organs to keep them working properly under the strain. If you take their peripheral temperature, it may be well below normal while the central temperature remains very high. Violent shivering often ensues, known as a rigor.
This causes the central temperature to rise still higher, often to dangerous levels. But if one physically cools the patient using fans or warm water, one has to be very careful not to make the situation worse by increasing the peripheral shut down. We only did this occasionally thirty years ago and I think it is done even less now. Drugs are used instead to bring the temperature down by manipulating the control centre in the brain. If this is successful, the patient sweats heavily to bring the temperature down and the peripheral circulation and the patient’s colour is restored to near normal. But when the effect of the drugs wears off, whole cycle may repeat itself many times until the infection is overcome.
This may explain the paradox. The oxygen saturation of the blood supplying the major organs in this situation is far nearer to normal than that measured by the monitor, which is usually clipped to a finger. The peripheral circulation has a poor blood flow which gets depleted of oxygen quickly hence the very low reading. An accurate central reading can only be obtained by sampling blood from a central arterial line.
The brain must be getting enough oxygen if the patient is fully conscious.
The advice when working with seriously ill patients was always: ‘watch the patient, not the monitor.’
I can only explain the response of the medical staff by the fact that they are not used to caring with patients with very high fevers with peripheral shutdown in the Intensive care ward.
shirley, this is a persuasive explanation of how patients can apparently have dangerously low oxygen levels yet seem unaffected.
Shirley, thank you, I also find this pretty convincing.
This appeared in the NYT today. This doc is actually calling for everybody with as much as a cough to get a pulse oxymeter. His explanation is that the virus destroys the cells that make surfactant, so the bubbles in the lung collapse while the whole lung remains pliant for a while. In this situation, the body still manages to get rid of carbon monoxide while not getting enough oxygen, which explains why patients are alert at low monitor readings.
This seems to be incompatible with Shirley’s explanation. I am not sure if it is compatible with the explanation given by the Charité ICU physicians about capillaries in the lung shutting down first.
Does being locked down and having food delivered make you feel safer? Consuming virus contaminated food is another way to get infected. This might be a problem in nursing homes.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jgh.15047
“The novel coronavirus disease (Covid‐19) is currently causing a major pandemic. It is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), a member of the Betacoronavirus genus that also includes the SARS‐CoV and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS‐CoV). While patients typically present with fever and a respiratory illness, some patients also report gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Studies have identified the SARS‐CoV‐2 RNA in stool specimens of infected patients, and its viral receptor angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) was found to be highly expressed in gastrointestinal epithelial cells. These suggest that SARS‐CoV‐2 can actively infect and replicate in the gastrointestinal tract. “
The coronavirus jumped to humans when someone ate a bat, allegedly, not when they breathed bat breath. ACE2 receptors are found on several organs, not just the lungs and gut, so there are several places it is possible to get infected.
Hi, andy,
Are you seeing much evidence of food-borne transmission of SARS-Cov-2? I’m not.
https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03/food-safety-and-coronavirus-a-comprehensive-guide.html
Of course, I’m prepared to believe anything, because so little is known for sure.
But, I’ll go out on a speculative limb here and suggest gastrointestinal infections probably come from patients’ blood. The patients got infected the usual way (aerosols, fomites), the virus multiplied in the usual sites (lungs), and traveled to and infected other ACE2-expressing tissues, like gastrointestinal epithelial cells.
Just my guess.
Oh, and I’ll also speculate that the gut cells are infected in patients who are sicker, because their innate immune systems couldn’t slow the virus enough for adaptive immunity to kick in timely. Also just a guess.
Hi La Bob, the only evidence that I have seen for food causing covid19 is in the reference presented. The question is whether swallowing virus contaminated food can be infective. The wrong assumption can have consequences. Face masks and washing hands might not be sufficient in some circumstances such as nursing homes.
For those of you who are perhaps not in the best of health: you can find two excellent podcasts here about covid19 and, more importantly, what to do to boost your health in fighting the little whatsits off. It turns out to be not that difficult and a quick fix too.
https://thefatemperor.com/ The podcasts I am referring to are those with dr ron rosedale and dr paul mason.
Cheers, Yolanda
Are we going to be spending our way out of this?
https://www.thebanker.com/Editor-s-Blog/Will-the-Covid-19-response-bring-inflation-or-higher-taxes
Tish, those figures really don’t matter. In an earlier post I wrote:
“Heard on BBC radio news this morning, a minister: “The first job of government is to protect the people and save lives and this is based on the best scientific and medical advice”. “The economic advice from the OBR is not based on science”.”
So those economist chappies don’t have any science to back up their postulations, whereas the Minister is getting the absolute best scientific advice since the end of the last ice age (from Fergie), and that telling people to stay indoors actually saves lives. I have a confession to make here, I went shopping this morning, so how many people did I kill as a result?
It is the last two paragraphs that may have the intended solution. Boris Johnson shows an enthusiasm for spending, doesn’t he?
Here are the last two paragraphs:
“There could be one final and better option. Now might be the time to do what left-of-centre politicians and economists have been advocating for some time, and that is carry on spending. The UK government would keep the economy on a ‘war footing’ even as the coronavirus epidemic retreats and redirect the spending on wage and business support to productive investment. The goal would be to restructure the economy, which in the UK’s case is long overdue, and not to worry if the debt-to-GDP ratio goes north of 150%.
Done right it could set the course of the economy for a generation and bring in the revenues to pay back the debt. The other choices are more austerity or high inflation.”
Of course, they could keep on spending but would their ideological concepts stop them seeing the obvious?
So-called, direct financing, (Ways and Means account) has always been available but the EU wanted to take away that option because it undermines the whole neo-liberal concept which all UK parties have bought into.
Would or do commentators even understand how money as a system works? Every commentator asks where’s the money going to come from? Almost as if they are stuck on the gold standard without realising it!
It’s in the interests of the power base to keep things as they are and 99.9999999% of people won’t or don’t understand it and are not interested because it’s too big of a leap.
I tried before the global credit crunch even started to get the council and my local MP interested in ways to improve things, but they were not interested as it would upset the status quo.
That’s what I keep saying when I hear “where’s the money going to come from?” The answer is: from the same place it came from before, from thin air. They will just print more money.
I believe that answer is correct but people keep arguing with it…
Tish,
I think Sasha is saying that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) will save us all (maybe, I don’t know. But it’s music to a politician’s ears).
I didn’t realize that what I’m saying aligns with Modern Monetary Theory because I didn’t know that such a theory exists. But to me the question “Where is the money going to come from?” doesn’t make sense. The money always comes from central banks printing it. Besides, if the question is going to be asked, it should’ve been asked a long time ago. If I am not mistaken, the largest drivers of US budget deficit and, therefore, national debt are outlays for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid payments. Majority of the people receiving the payments haven’t paid nearly enough into the system compared to what they are getting out of the system. And yet, most of the people never ask “Where is that money coming from?”. They just happily accept the payments.
As far as I can tell, the government doesn’t even have to print money to generate economic activity, it can simply give its word. Look at US government guarantees of pension plans, bank accounts, municipal bonds, school loans, mortgages, etc etc etc… It’s trillions and trillions of dollars. Where are they going to come from?
But if anyone can poke holes in my arguments, I would be very happy to hear it.
Money is a philosophical construct, it only exists in the mind. If people change their minds, then we are in trouble. After the financial crash of 2008 where did the money go? It didn’t go anywhere, because it never existed. An alien looking down on earth as the banks collapsed would have seen nothing happen at all. All the houses, and cars, and ships and buildings remained untouched. Figures on computer screens got smaller – and we panicked.
I think so too. It’s very hard for people to wrap their heads around it, it seems. We spend a huge chunk of our lives exchanging something real (time and health) for something unreal (money) so that we can turn it into something real again – houses and other nice things. People keep asking “where’s the money going to come from?” because for many of us, I believe, it’s a pressing question for most of our lives. Not so for central banks.
Your point, “Money is a philosophical construct” is true when viewed through a long lens. One has to rise above the noise to see it and understand it.
It wasn’t always this way though, money or currency has changed through time. It wasn’t that long ago, we were on the gold standard. This meant money was somewhat finite or pegged to gold.
Our dear media and most commentators seem to ask or frame questions as if we are still on the gold standard, hence… Where’s the money going to come from?
It’s frustrating to hear, but I’ve kind of given up trying to change this particular crazy thinking!
It’s still true that local governments are stuck and central governments with a central bank are not really stuck as they can directly monetise government debt. It would seem they don’t like doing this because of inflation.
Cheers
Presumably, they haven’t been watching the oil prices massively deflate!
By the way, local governments could do something about their dilemma, just need to understand what happened in Worgl, around 1930’s. Worgl is like a black swan, something which sticks out and challenges our thinking.
Cheers
In 1803, John Baptiste Say proposed that the money to buy products comes from producing other products, i.e. production creates consumption.
Then came credit. “Give me money now, and I will pay you back later, plus interest, with some of what I produce in the future.” In other words, present consumption will be paid with future production.
Governments typically get credit by issuing 30-year bonds. “Give me money now and I will pay you back in 30 years with interest.” Modern Monetary Theory says that in 30 years a government will simply sell another bond to pay back the first bond, so it never has to pay back the money it borrowed.
Effectively, it is counting on your grandchildren to produce enough to pay back the bond, hence the phrase “borrowing from your grandchildren”.
This only works if people have faith that the government will be able to pay off the bonds in the future, and the money will still have value. If they see the money is used wisely to develop the country, and the government is stable and honest and doesn’t cook the books, they will be willing to buy the bonds at a reasonable rate of interest.
But if lenders start getting suspicious that money is disappearing into Swiss bank accounts or buying unproductive goods like armaments or whisky, or the currency is inflating because more money has been borrowed than the economy will be able to produce to pay back in the future, they will want a better rate of interest, and paying back the interest becomes a burden on the country’s finances. Eventually they will stop buying the bonds and the country has to default (Argentina), or the government responds by simply printing more banknotes and you get hyperinflation and the currency collapses (Zimbabwe).
America is in the fortunate position that everyone wants dollars because they are accepted everywhere, so MMT works for America (for the moment), but it won’t work for most countries, and won’t work for America if people lose faith in it.
IMO, the thing about faith – once you have it, you have to apply it to something. You can’t just leave it hanging. If you have faith in money, you’re going to have to believe in some currency. If you lose faith in USD, to me that probably means that you no longer believe in GBP, EUR, JPY or even Swiss frank because those areas are so closely aligned economically, politically, and militarily with the US.
So what currency are you going to believe in instead? Chinese yuan? Russian ruble or Indian rupee? How likely is that to happen?
Or, to paraphrase an American official in a rare moment of candor: “US dollar is a stable currency because the United States, the most powerful country in the world, says it is.”
Hi Martin
My understanding is that, MMT has never said what you have suggested in your statement “Modern Monetary Theory says that in 30 years a government will simply sell another bond to pay back the first bond, so it never has to pay back the money it borrowed”.
If it has, could you please share the source.
MMT does not just work in America, it works where ever a sovereign government has their own currency. UK, USA and Japan for example. It does not apply to the Eurozone where each country is supposedly bound to go to the bond markets.
The UK government via The Bank of England, could if it wished, directly monetise Government debt. I believe it may have already done so through the Ways and Means account. Thus, effectively bypassing the Bond markets.
If you do have a source which corroborates your statement, please share it so that I may learn and improve my understanding
My source for MMT comes from, Bill Mitchel who writes at length about MMT http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/
Cheers
Steve, that’s my understanding of MMT. Warren Mosler, the originator of MMT, published a White paper on his theory. Good luck understanding it. It’s gobbledygook to me.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gvDcMU_ko1h5TeVjQL8UMJW9gmKY1x0zcqKIRTZQDAQ/edit
I respect the economic insights of Wolf Richter. He says, “MMT is an economic religion. If you believe in it, fine. But I don’t allow proselytizing on this site. Hence I review every comment about religion before it is released. MMT trolls are everywhere. And I block them. All they do is promote MMT. Copy and paste. If they want to proselytize, they need to do it elsewhere.”
Hi Martin
Isn’t there a danger in blocking all posts about anything one doesn’t agree with a kind of fundamental censorship? So, one person has a particular belief and disagrees with a person who holds an alternative belief.
Where would that leave us? Who exactly proclaims an article as fact of fake? The Government, Public Health England, the BBC, Facebook etc Everyone has an agenda other than the one stated, which is normally hidden from view or slightly below the radar.
Wolf Richter, will have an agenda and a particular point of view which may equally be as fundamental as some people from MMT.
I just don’t think censorship is a healthy way to experience the world if we seek a better way to live with each other, learn and improve.
Yes, I’m aware of Warren Mosler, and have read some of his work. One of his key points is that a government can’t tax unless or until it has spent or borrowed money into the economy.
Cheers
Sasha: Also “Defense” spending, somewhere around half the budget. As far as social security, many receive benefits who never contributed a dime (SSI). One relative, who immigrated after retirement, continued to work cash jobs, and neither made contributions before or after, yet got a check each month.
Gary: yes, all those things are, in my opinion, various ways to keep economy going. Social security payments, SSI for immigrants, health care expenditures, “defense” spending, government backing of mortgages and student debt, etc… The government does not have to worry about running out of money, it can always print more. The government’s only worry, IMO, is to ensure maximum employment and social stability, which kind of go hand in hand.
At what point do we wake up and realize that this ‘pandemic’ was planned and that the lock down measures have nothing to do with trying to protect us?
OK. Having been along to the Supermarket tonight, I then settled down, after my supper, to chill, and watch the Netflix Doc (?) Pandemic. Well, why not eh? Anyway, I had to stop it. What a load of fucking bollocks! I am shocked. I wasn’t going to swear. Sorry, but feel I just have to. It is absolutely outrageous and stupid propaganda! I am stunned!! Is this where we are going? Is this what the USA has offer up today? I know the US can’t make decent films any more, but this dollop of poo is a visit too far. Is this what we are going to have to suffer… as real? Are folk that really that stupid to believe such drivel? Or is it just me? Of course, I have to ask that question. Sorry, scream it… Are you kidding me!!!!!!!!! When I do calm down I know I can make (…even) a very, very simple guess. Well, I’d better stop now before I really, really do blow. Byeeee.
With that hilarious review I don’t think I’ll be watching it myself!!
Shaun – try Magnificent Seven for pure unadulterated, unapologetic, cowboy, goodies V baddies joy.
Echoes of the good doctors taking out big pharma- metaphorically speaking of course !
Shaun, that’s how I feel when I hear the day’s selected three idiots in front of the two union flags on the BBC news giving their daily dose of tripe for supper (no onions though). Yes, the majority are gullible enough to believe it, and you may have found for yourself that people will shun you unless you believe it too. If you stay home you save lives, so if you go out you must be killing people. Logical? If you are old you are a danger to everybody younger than you, and if you are young you are just as dangerous, and you may be causing the death of your grandparents. All this from a disease that most people (and this is words from government) will only suffer mild symptoms like that of a common cold, but it is also a deadly disease, so deadly that 85% of people over 65 will survive. It goes on…………………
Sometimes facts escape into the BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52308783
Who is supposed to have done the planning? Evidence please.
Brand new statistical analysis from RKI and summarizing article in computing publishing house Heise:
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2020/Ausgaben/17_20_SARS-CoV2_vorab.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Neue-RKI-Corona-Fall-Studie-Einfluss-der-Kontaktsperre-eher-maessig-4702096.html
The last picture in the second link is the most telling. R dropped below 1 around March 23, i.e. one week after schools closed (March 11 – 16 depending on state) and many businesses closed or introduced social distancing on voluntary basis or by local ordinance. Nationwide lockdown of March 21 (no more than two people not living in same household may meet) made no difference.
Not surprisingly, this reconstructed R over time figured prominently in the deliberations of the German government for relaxing rules. What this does not account for is the (yet unknown) number of silent infections and growing immunity. Are there estimates for R in Sweden? Time will tell which approach is too cautious or too bold.
The chancellor went into detailed explanations of the science behind her own plan.
A key variable the government was looking at, she said, is the so-called reproduction factor of the virus — the number of people an infected person passes the virus on to.
That factor currently stands at about 1, she said, meaning that one person gets infected by every newly infected person. If that factor rose even to 1.1, the German health care system would reach capacity by October, she said.
If it were allowed to rise to 1.2 — so out of five infected people one infects not one but two additional people — that limit is reached by July.
“With 1.3,” Ms. Merkel continued, “we have reached the limit of our health care system by June.”
“So you can see how small our leeway is,” she said, “the entire development rests on having a number of infections that we can keep track of and trace.”
Surely that “reproduction factor” factor is a bit vague? I mean, it would depend on all sorts of things like the care people took to socially distance, whether people were seriously shedding virus before they showed symptoms, whether those most vulnerable took special precautions to avoid infection,the extent of ‘herd immunity’ etc.
I think she was referring exactly to the R factor as reconstructed from epidemiological data by RKI in the report and Heise article I posted above.
As she must be aware as a physicist who is usually familiar with rate equations, at some point the assumption of an infinite reservoir of the to be infected is no longer true. Unfortunately, from the first studies now emerging, about 97-99.5% of the general population are still in that reservoir.
Some quotes below from this article: Israeli Professor Shows Virus Follows Fixed Pattern:
https://townhall.com/columnists/marinamedvin/2020/04/15/israeli-professor-shows-virus-follows-fixed-pattern-n2566915
Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel concludes in his analysis summary paper that the data from the past 50 days indicates that the closure policies of the quarantine countries can be replaced by more moderate social distancing policies. The numbers simply do not support quarantine or economic closure.
On the reasonableness of Israel’s unprecedented quarantine and closure, he commented to the news agency, “I think it’s mass hysteria. I have no other way to describe it. 4,500 people die each year from the flu in Israel because of complications, so close the country because of that? No. I don’t see a reason to do it because of a lower-risk epidemic.”
While the American policies remain less restrictive than those of Israel, it is important to understand the origins of our own “mass hysteria” response. President Trump urged a strong coronavirus response after consulting with Dr. Fauci and his team, who relied on a British model predicting 2.2 million deaths in the United States and 500,000 deaths in the U.K. But that model was developed by Professor Neil Ferguson, who had a history of wildly overestimating death rates through his prediction models. Professor Ferguson was not known for his reliability, and his 2001 disease model was criticized as “not fit for purpose” after it predicted that up to 150,000 people could die in the U.K. from mad cow disease (177 deaths to date). Ferguson’s U.K. coronavirus deaths prediction is now down to 20,000 people, 4% of the original prediction.
Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel has mathematically shown us that coronavirus closures were a mistake. It’s a tough reality. Americans lost their jobs and businesses went under because the United States, along with most first world nations, acted on the chilling predictions of a severely flawed model, a reading of Professor Ferguson’s tarot cards. Hindsight is 20/20, so we have to be realistic with our criticism. President Trump did not want 2.2 million Americans to die and did what he thought was necessary to save our lives, relying on a model his advisors told him was trustworthy. It’s done. It happened. But it doesn’t mean that he should continue the course.
elizabethhart: I don’t think he will for long. Trump, like all presidents, relies on advisors concerning things he knows little about. And Trump’s advisors, like those of all presidents, run the gamut from brilliant to moronic. But Trump has good instincts about many things in domestic affairs (foreign policy is a whole other can of worms), and I suspect the nonsense will end soon. What I find perfectly ridiculous are all those dots and lines in stores, keeping people in their places, and, horrifyingly, I suspect this will continue. What a dangerous notion, social distancing.
“What a dangerous notion, social distancing.”
That’s why it’s so important to me to try to establish that these measures have made as little difference as possible. The whole idea of living long term with a virus that’s as infectious and as ubiquitous as flu, but treating it as though it’s a highly dangerous disease, horrifies me. The experience so far of mass house arrest, people cringing away from each other, ludicrous spacing, endlessly intrusive police powers and actions, and the likely compulsory injections once drugs or vaccines that might be safe and might be effective come around, all that horrifies me.
I despise these infantile notions that people cringing away from other people in fear are “heroes”, and that people showing a proper lack of fear of this bug must be vilified as selfish or stupid, when in fact they are the ones behaving sensibly and in the manner that would have minimised the costs of this epidemic if we had all adopted their view.
I can only imagine what horrors might be perpetrated when, as seems likely, it is clearly established that animals form a reservoir for this virus, if the current hysterical fear still holds sway.
Neil Ferguson seems to have as much freedom to destroy anything he sees fit, by providing non-solutions to non-problems. It is surprisingly like the freedom afforded to The Witch-finder General in the middle ages.
In fairness, this was spotted nearly two weeks ago by a mathematician called Andrew Mather and reported on 3rd April on a fringe news web channel called UK Column:
Presumably, though, a university professor reported in the Times of Israel is a lot harder to ignore and less easily dismissed as a “conspiracy nut”. Presumably, also, the figures are a lot clearer now than they were back then.
Credit where it is due, though.
Note that in the Worldometer figures https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ the UK is the ONLY nation with “N/A” in the “Recovered” column. For literally weeks before that, the entry was a static 135.
Is that supposed to mean “no one here gets out alive” – or “we are not going to admit that anyone ever recovers”.
How come Julian Assange is apparently locked up until he dies of the virus, when his only offence has been to publish the crimes of governments?
While Professor Ferguson, responsible already for unnecessarily killing millions of cattle and grossly exaggerating the impact of a previous human virus, is given carte blanche to destroy the UK?
At the very least, if a professor and his model can be shown to have caused the unnecessary death of even one person, they should stand trial side by side. The model should be studied and analyzed by the best team of software experts that can be found (NOT chosen by government). When its faults are pinpointed, it should either be scrapped or fixed so that it works properly.
The case of the person who created the model and made false claims for its reliability is harder. But surely elementary natural justice requires that he should answer for the harm he has done.
One of the very worst things about our society is the way in which powerful and influential people can make out like bandits by irresponsible, antisocial behaviour – with absolutely no downside for them when the wheels come off.
We have seen it over and over again in the worlds of business, finance and politics: we should not tolerate it in the world of medicine.
Julian Assange is a partisan hack: (https://www.google.com/search?q=Julian+Assange+tried+to+smear+Hillary+Clinton&rlz=1C1NDCM_enCA813CA813&oq=Julian+Assange+tried+to+smear+Hillary+Clinton&aqs=chrome..69i57.16707j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
That said, absolutely agree that Ferguson needs to be thoroughly investigated and stand trial, as well.
Julian Assange is a partisan hack: (https://www.google.com/search?q=Julian+Assange+tried+to+smear+Hillary+Clinton&rlz=1C1NDCM_enCA813CA813&oq=Julian+Assange+tried+to+smear+Hillary+Clinton&aqs=chrome..69i57.16707j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
That said, I absolutely agree that Ferguson needs to be thoroughly investigated and stand trial, as well.
Update on Beate Bahner
First, a correction to my piece on her court hearing.
The appointment she attended yesterday was at the main Heidelburg police station, where she had the first formal interview with the prosecuting lawyer, (Staatsanwalt). This was not technically a court appearance but I had forgotten how different the German procedures are from the English. He now has to decide whether to proceed with the case against her: the call on her website to demonstrate against the Covid 19 regulations, which broke the Covid 19 regulations themselves, which she claims are unconstitutional.
After the hearing finished she was released. There was a crowd of about 200 people outside which the police had tried to disburse but had given up. Most were her supporters, some were journalists, and some opponents. She decided to address the crowd.
What followed was a piece of theatre. She stared by playing the somewhat dotty woman the police claimed to have arrested on Sunday evening. I was thrown by the situation at first as were some of the crowd, though I could tell by her tone she was being ironic in some way.
There is a long tradition in Germany going back to the middle-ages, of Reden unter der Blume, speech under the flower. It is not quite the same as sub rosa, confidential, but is similar. In this rhetorical mode one says the opposite of what one means, with sufficient exaggeration to make it appear obviously absurd. It was last commonly used in East Germany when one did not know if one was speaking to a Stasi informant or not; so one would praise the regime elaborately when what one was really saying was, what a load of shits.
To begin with she related a long apology she claimed she had made during the interview with the Staatsanwalt, though she did not yet have a copy. She had been travelling for the past two weeks, seeing the sights of Berlin, London and Paris. (This drew laughs from the crowd, they were beginning to understand what game she was playing.) That is why she was unaware the law had been changed in her absence and she had also not been sent a copy of the new text. On a trip back to Heidelburg she had met a group of friends and they had gone for a picnic in the meadow by the Neckar river. She had drunk rather a lot and had fallen off her bike on the way home. She then showed her audience the bruises, (extensive, fairly light, possibly partly hidden with make-up) which she had received, on the right side of her head and on her knees, which she had told her sister by phone on Monday had been caused by a policewoman. Then, when asked, she said the contents of the phone call were Quatsch, rubbish, which in this context affirmed them as true, (from her point of view). The police had, of course, acted properly at all times. She avoided explicitly saying whether she had made or had not made the phone call, but it does sound like her.
Then she changed the subject abruptly and dropped the dramatic persona. She was now speaking as herself, but as a private citizen, not a lawyer. She produced a document and read out a poem she had written and posted on her website just before she was arrested on Easter Sunday evening. It is a poem of hope, of resurrection appropriately enough, into a paradise where life is normal again and we can enjoy, both alone and together with friends and family, the simple pleasures of the day to day world. She asked her audience to be careful of the Killerviren, those things which are the real danger to freedom and democracy in Germany. She was now taking time to recuperate from her ordeal, which she describes as Schockstarr, being petrified with shock, and to decide her next move.
It is clear she does not wish to speak openly at present. How much she really fears to do so must be doubted, for she seemed relaxed enough once she got into her stride. But I suppose she must be worried that anything she says might be added to any indictment against her.
Hi Shirley Dare we suggest, storm in a tea cup? Much carry on altogether!
She might not be a member of AFD but is certainly a favourite with at least one AFD politician in attendance.
She was however quoted as saying-
“One should not believe what the “right-wing lying press” said about alleged abuse by the police.”
andy: Indeed. Quite the troublemaker at times; otherwise most helpful. Within hours of birth he had stolen Apollo’s cattle. “He invented the lyre and gave it to Apollo, who, in turn gave him the caduceus.” So Dr. Kendrick is not pulling our leg here.
Blimey you folks write lots and post so many links I can’t keep up!
Here’s a tale I heard today – it was a least fourth hand and may be FAKE NEWS but there’s no way of finding out.
Allegedly a British guy was working in Wuhan shortly before the “epidemic”. Allegedly he reported that the Secret Police invaded one of the many research establishments in the area and shot everyone who worked there.
Could this be because something escaped from the lab? Or could it be because their bioweapon was so crap that it only killed old and ill people? Or did it never happen?
chris c, that’s a very silly post, as silly as telling someone last September that we would have to queue outside shops to be allowed in to buy food, and that all international air travel would be stopped. Oh, dear,………….what have I said?
Anyone on this forum who takes the flu shot and thinks it is protecting their health please read RFK, Jr.’s (Children’s Health Defense) letter to Sanjay Gupta (the CNN medical talking head; CNN functions as a marketing arm of the pharmaceutical industry) in today’s post. He demolishes the flu shot as thoroughly as “The Great Cholesterol Con” demolishes the cholesterol theory of CVD. Voluminous references to papers published in high-quality journals, including that from our most esteemed scientific body-The National Academy of Science. One finding: the Pentagon determined that soldiers receiving the flu shot were 36% more likely to get a subsequent coronaviirus infection. JD, I’m talking to you here. Just the facts, sir.
Gary – NYT article from 4 days ago suggests much of the anti vax narrative is a Putin conspiracy.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/science/putin-russia-disinformation-health-coronavirus.amp.html
Jerome Savage: I avoid reading the New York Times like the plague. Little do they know that the “anti-vax” movement began in Leicester, England in 1885, long before Putin’s great great grandpa was shittin’ his britches. Some of the greatest scientists of the day, such as Alfred Russel Wallace, were on their side, and they got Parliament to fully overturn the mandate in 1907. I’m afraid we’ve become sheep since then, and science has been entirely captured by the oligarchs such as Gates.
Thank you Gary. It’s surprising how often this has to be told, yet it does not seem to penetrate much. It should be a sticky on every internet web page until people understand. perhaps it should also be part of a health warning on every vaccine phial too.
Gary & AHN . In a critical analysis of vaccines on 9th and 29th July Dr Kendrick did not hold back on what he saw were the shortfalls of vaccination but in the former blog he did say this ” Just in case you are wondering. Yes, I do believe that vaccination works. Or, to be more accurate I believe that some vaccination works. Most vaccination, all vaccinations?”
As ever, worth a review !
Jerome, if the manufacturers had to be responsible for their products’ liability, that might cause some reflection on their part.
AHN Not disagreeing with you there. But it appears that we cannot have a negative blanket approach to the concept. If there are and can be benefits we shouldn’t lose sight of that. I feel if we do, that plays in to the hands of the, let’s call them, the at all cost pushers. Isn’t it the abuse of the concept by the pharma conglomerates on behalf of their shareholder clients and stakeholders combined with media need for quick fix solutions, that has driven a liability free market? And what politician wants to say no to a driver for a disease free shangri la ? Too tantalising and intoxicating to act as spoilsport.
Especially when the politicians were getting their funding from the manufacturers who wanted those politicians to pass a bill that give the manufacturers immunity from liability.
Jerome Savage: The key to regaining sanity in vaccine policy is to restore manufacturer’s product liability for vaccines, to eliminate all mandates, and to mandate parents be given the full package insert for each vaccine prior to their appointment. Were parents given a true picture of the risks, they could make an informed decision about whether to vaccinate and which vaccines to forego. There are known contra-indications to vaccination among a relatively small percentage of children, yet the CDC recognizes only a few of these, and in states like California, doctors are being drug before the Medical Board for delivering good medical care to their young charges who have these known conditions. HHS commissioned researchers at Harvard Medical School to determine both the rate of vaccine injury and the rate of reporting of such, among Massachusetts children (enrolled in Pilgrim Heath). The results: 2.9% (1 in 34) of vaccinations result in a reportable injury. Fewer than 1% of those injuries are reported to VAERS (our passive post-marketing surveillance system). This was never formally published, and HHS stopped returning their calls.
Jerome Savage: Dr. Kendrick is correct, in my view. Critical to this, though, is to define what “works” means. If “works” means interrupting the circulation of a microbe, thus reducing the burden of disease, this is correct, at least in the case of measles and chicken pox, and likely others, as well. If “works” means an improvement in public health, this is an entirely different question. Improved living standards during the 20th Century reduced the mortality rate of virtually all of the 19th Century infectious disease killers, largely of children, in the industrialized world by more than 90%, before vaccines for most of them had been developed. Today, at least in the U.S., the mandatory vaccine schedule has become so bloated that the economic burden of vaccine injury far exceeds the economic burden of disease in the pre-vaccine era. It will bankrupt us. The schedule (number of childhood vaccines) tripled in the years after manufacturers and providers were fully indemnified against product liability.
Gary – good point about “works”. Beating a child makes them stop being noisy and defiant. Patently, it works.
Like your style Gary, but if we cant reference CNN or NYT who can we trust in the US ? WP ?
Jerome Savage: Certainly not. I read, and trust, Sharyl Attkisson (Full Measure). John Rappaport (No More Fake News) is often good. There are others who I can’t think of at the moment. Nobody in the mainstream is allowed to tell the truth about anything involving infectious diseases or vaccination injury or policy, so I don’t bother with them. RFK, Jr. is always good. He is a man of great integrity, and, like Dr. Wakefield, possesses moral courage. Of course, Dr. Kendrick. Aseem Malhotra. Zoe Harcombe. Nina Teicholz. There are many more, but my brain has frozen up, sorry! To get a flavor of what went wrong (years ago) in U.S. journalism, go to carlbernstein.com and read his 1978 Rolling Stone article.
Thanks Gary. A notable high profile newspaper with us shouts headlines with cheap journalism, eye catching nonsense, masquerades as “quality” but its anything but. Having said that, it does feature one or 2 journalists who are maverickish and can get to the point. Be it only lip service to free thinkers and to broaden its customer base, its still welcome especially in context of so much crowd following bull. Surely there are one or 2 independent & critical thinkers “indulged” by the big rags? No ?
Will gladly check your references.
Jerome Savage: Yes, there are honorable people working in mainstream news organizations, but I don’t read any of the mainstream publications, so I don’t know much about them. Sharyl Attkisson was an investigative reporter for CBS News (one of the four major ones here) for years, until they began to spike her stories, at which point she left to do independent journalism. During the Obama administration the federal government remotely accessed both her CBS and personal computers. They have stonewalled her lawsuit, as governments do, in an Orwellian fashion (dismissing it because she cannot name the perpetrators; she can’t name the perpetrators because the government refuses to divulge their names; now a whistleblower has revealed them; we shall see what happens). Her two books (a third is on the way) are worth reading.
Jerome,
EVERY source is, in effect, a coin – including this one, no doubt.
What source you trust depends on where your vested intellectual and emotional interests lie.
The problem is “trusting”. Don’t.
The problem is “vesting”. Don’t.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/01/21/witness-view-vaccines-autism/
And who double checks the snopes website? Or are they the ultimate authority on what’s true and what isn’t?
Gary. Sharyl seems to toe the Trump line on everything. Notice she is supporting his stance on Iran. Must say the US antipathy toward Iran has always mystified me. Its surrounded by US bases, US aircraft carrier hangs out in the gulf & it has never invaded another country, unlike uncle Sam ! Have my suspicions, but here is not the forum.
You can read kennedy’s article here:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/flu-misinformation-and-coronavirus-fears-my-letter-to-dr-sanjay-gupta/
Strongly recommended.
Thanks so much for posting the link to RFK Jr.’s letter to Gupta/CNN re; Flu Vaccine (Mis)Information. I’ve been somewhat neutral about the subject, but as I get older, I’m being ‘encouraged’ to get a yearly flu shot. I’ve resisted every year without articulating the reasons, even to myself. Now, I see what anti-vaxxers have been saying–and I’ve been mostly ignoring. I now have plenty of research to do if I want to dive more deeply into the subject, but based on just this letter, I’m definitely NOT getting the yearly flu shot, nor the COVID-19 vaccine (if they ever come up with one) at this point, at least.
Thanks again, to you, and anyone else who has discussed vaccinations on this thread. It’s much appreciated.
teedee126: Interestingly, a recent CHD post discussed the hundreds of specific adverse events reported for each vaccine, a list of which manufacturers are required by federal regulation to provide on the package insert for each and every dose of vaccine, but which is virtually never given to parents, or adults, for that matter, prior to vaccination. We really do have post-marketing surveillance for vaccines, but utterly no consequences ensue.
I’ve been “encouraged” to have the flu vaccine every year because I’m diabetic. They used to pressurise badly, but that’s eased off. I’ve never had it on the basis that I hardly ever catch things when they’re going around, and when I do catch things I’m hit less hard than anyone I know (including flu twice). (My immune system’s fine even if my autoimmune system is screwed!) – So I’m unlikely to get flu and unlikely to find it much problem if I do. I haven’t needed to do thorough research, simply stuck with my instinct not to mess with nature any more than we have to.
But now, for a new piece of diabetes tech, the criteria for funding include that my flu jab is up to date. It wasn’t mentioned during any of the discussions or training; I just noticed it on the forms (*after* all the manhours put into me for this) – and I’m hoping they fail to notice that I didn’t tick that box…
Feels horribly coercive. And I’m likely to succumb, because I am not up to a legal battle against NHS guidelines(!) and I do want this new device.
As you say, that’s coercion, not as the authorities would have you believe, informed consent. I wonder if your physician would have the flu shot. It seems many wouldn’t, do they know something?
AhNotepad – I won’t be asking my GP whether she has the jab herself – she told me conversationally that she has SAD, and manages it by having an extra desk lamp switched on all day during winter months. Not a UV lamp, because they’re so expensive and it’s complicated to compare all the various ones available with their various claims. So she knows exactly as much as I do about SAD… except that the desk lamp isn’t helping. Or if I generously allow that she doesn’t know that, then that superstitious finger-crossing isn’t helping…
It does explain why she is vastly easier to talk to and more patient – transl. easier to persuade 😉 – when the days are longer! And dismissive during the other months (and, I sense, anxious about the prospect of yet another expensive patient on her books if I get the testing I want).
She’s on various committees with access to the latest research, as she has reassured me more than once. The only reason I’d ask whether she accepts the flu jab would be if I hoped for her support fighting this coercion. Since I’m not going to take that on, I’ll just keep hoping they don’t notice my empty tickbox on the form – I doubt they’ll repeat the check every year, once I’ve “passed”. (Silly that they gave me the training and the equipment itself before getting me to do the forms! Such un-cost-effective assumptions!) I’m not going to take it on, as i’m reserving my oomph for the Vitamin D and Vit B12 battles , because they have the potential to be life-changing.
The mainstream press in Germany was right wing 50 years ago when I lived there and that has not changed. I mainly read the Frankfurter Rundschau, which was more to the centre, and supported the SPD as did much of Hessen then.
Beate Bahner seems to be of the centre too. I cannot tell how she might vote but she does not seems to be any kind of socialist. She is anxious to build a coalition to support the rule of law under the constitution and will seek wide support on that issue. As the mainstream media will not cover her views in any depth and her website keeps getting taken down, (though it was working again this evening), she relies on fringe websites of many persuasions to copy her articles and provide alternative links to her writings. The AFD claims to support the constitution, and is probably looking to pick up votes as discontent with the lockdown grows. The Greens, like other any party in government locally, may lose support if it is seen to be playing an oppressive role and if people’s livelihoods are threatened for a longer period.
As for alleged abuse by the police, she claims they were acting illegally. in the event, she is not being investigated for assaulting them, and she may let the matter rest for now. She does not want things to be about her, that’s a distraction. The issue is the enforcement of blatantly unconstitutional regulations to restrict the civil rights of the majority healthy population, which may be self-defeating in the long term, if they delay the acquisition of immunity by the inhabitants of Germany.
In the United Kingdom, many of us loathe the regulations, but they were approved by parliament in the proper manner and there is no doubt as to their legality – even though they are mostly stupid.
shirley3349, Yes, the UK measures were approved by “parliament”, but I don’t think it was in the “proper” way. There was no proper debate, it seemed more of a railroad job.
Shirley She admitted getting drunk & falling off her bike and actually apologised to the police
Quoting left leaning Taz “But as it looks so far, this was not about delegitimizing and eliminating a political opponent.”
“There are no signs of a conspiracy of state power” “At first, the two police officers did not even know who they were dealing with.”
“the law explicitly allows general restrictions when it is necessary to inhibit the spread of a virus, such as the ban on events and gatherings, the closure of swimming pools, kindergartens and schools”
From Telepolis site “adored by AfD sympathizers, appeared yesterday at 1 p.m. in front of the Heidelberg Police Department. Followers, including AfD politicians,”
“surprisingly announced that she had apologized to the police for the uproar and “that you are all now violating the law”. They were “really friendly”.
“Her injuries were not received by the police, but she fell off her bike while drunk.”
Stories emerge, evolve and change. I must admit the first reporting of this seemed… unlikely. I am not, never have been, a great conspiracy theory kind of a guy. I am more of believer in a cock-up, followed by a conspiracy to cover up the cock-up, kind of a guy.
I think Malcolm may have something here. Likewise, I think that conspiracy theories can’t be healthy, but equally bad is a lot of conflicting data, lack of pertinent facts, and a lot of unexplained coincidences. You might think these equate to conspiracy, but I’m trying to stress the facts angle. So, referring to the evolution of stories, I’d recommend avoiding the daily broadcast updates if you wish to retain a level of sanity because they just don’t seem to convey any confidence or credence.Then last night I made the mistake of watching Question Time on the BBC. I recognised the host, but non of the other talking heads. I did however observe a lot of self-serving rhetoric and general disagreement. Certainly there seemed to be no positive consensus between them, which was quite disturbing given that groupthink normally rears its ugly when times get challenging. Anyway, to Malcolms other point…IF a cock-up or series of such triggered this current disaster, I don’t think for one minute that the perpetrator(s) had any idea of how bad things would collapse. And now as we seemingly try to seek more of the facts and the truth, we must realise that even in today’s blame culture, the truth will never be fully revealed because the call for accountability and its moral cost will be too high. Anyway, on a positive note, we could probably recoup a substantial amount of lost revenue by imposing an arse-covering tax.
Let me just say that if taz and Telepolis are reporting that, I would go out on a limb and say it is true.
taz is a coop founded in the late 70s by a alternative, hard left, green and peace movement people. Even today, they are to the left of the Green party and would be the first to point out any kind of government abuse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Tageszeitung
Telepolis is part of Heise publishing group which is focussed on computing and data science, straggling professionalism and a nice alternative twist. They were the ones with the summarizing article on the R-factor analysis by RKI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepolis
If you watch her speech (Youtube: Eulenspigel oder Marionette? Komplette Rede Beate Bahner vor der Polizei Heidelburg) and listen to her tone of voice you might realise, as the spectators mostly did, that she was being highly ironic and meant the opposite of what she said. She was also acting the fool; some commentators said she was behaving like Till Eulenspiegel, and speaking “unter der Blume”, because she thought she could not speak openly without getting into further trouble. (see my earlier post on her speech).
She also said she had visited other countries when this is now largely impossible for Germans and went for a picnic with a group of friends in the meadows by the river Neckar, (which are just across the bridge from Heidelburg city centre), during the lockdown! In fact, it is known she was mostly working alone at home, as best she could, and preparing her case against the regulations, communicating with her secretary, her clients and the courts by phone and e-mail.
The fact the first part of her speech was an act, is clearly shown by her total change of demeanor when she reads her (prose) poem. This reads more like Whitman than Brecht though I can see both influences. Since her website came back online I have read it through in detail – a evocation of better times ahead, when ordinary life can resume.
The video of her complete speech was posted by ‘Wirtschaft, Information, Meinung’ a website run by Jurgen Felger, whom I have never heard of before. He calls himself a freelance journalist specialising in economic and financial matters and has an impressive list of credentials, which people can check if they want to. I would label him politically as a right-wing liberal. He claims to believe in 3 things: 1. For the market economy as opposed to the command economy! 2. For transparency in government. Against the huckstering of secrets! 3. For the competition of ideas and opinions. Against censorship! As free-lancers and small business are often very badly hit by the lockdown, supporting Beate Bahner is an obvious thing for him to do.
A footnote to this story.
On Thursday 16th April, the Federal Constitution Court overturned a couple of rulings by the authorities in Hessen allowing two demonstrations against the lockdown to go ahead. It said that the constitutional rights of the citizen do override the Covid 19 regulations when they conflict, but the parties should attempt to find a compromise which helps prevent the spread of the disease. This probably makes compliance voluntary in some instances.
Interesting. Asthma not a major risk factor but high cholesterol is. How would that happen, when even cholesterol crusades acknowledge that high cholesterol had the evolutionary advantage of fending off invection?
I haven’t read that report but would it be fair to say that obese people are more likely to have higher cholesterol? If so, would this be factored in?
Well, it was listed as a separate risk factor in the article. I would also assume that obese people are probably lower in cholesterol because it was probably all that lineleoic acid (corn oil etc.) that made them fat, and lineoleic acid does lower cholesterol by 10-20%. Also, they are more likely to have been prescribed statins because they have several risk factors ticked.
Rambling article on antibody testing in Germany:
https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/medizin/coronavirus-antikoerpertests-sind-noch-nicht-aussagekraeftig-a-2258edcd-a304-4ee0-83cc-76a24f340c45
Private lab Dr. Fenner in Hamburg ran tests on1300 random blood samples (persumably from blood donations) for IgG antibodies. 3.9% were positive. Accounting for specificity of the test this means 1.9% of the population have antibodies (not sure what the math is here, see below). The test (from Euroimmun in Lübeck) is only meaningful at three weeks or more after infection. He is currently qualifying a second test from Diasorin in Italy by doing a round-robin on 100 blood samples. Euroimmune says the test is 99% specific and 100% sensitive 20 days after infection (but only 87.5% before day 20). That’s why I don’t understand Dr. Fenners math.
Anyway, take-home message is that we are a long way from herd immunity and are definitely not underreporting infections by orders of magnitude.
It also mentions the Heinsberg antibody study that claimed 99% sensitivity but we don’t know the specificity. Euroimmune also offers a test for IgA that is 90.4% specfic and 100% sensitive from day 11, so that is presumably not what was used in Heinsberg.
Article mentions three antibody studies planned by RKI but gives few details.
Americans may be revolting, https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-says-america-will-open-scientists-predict-well-back-lockdown-again-heres-why-1498426. However, there is mention should there be a change to the present lockdown denial of liberties, another will take the place of one or more, and that is the having to wear a mask if you go outside. Most people appear to think masks do something to protect the wearer, or others. Unless it is the correct type of mask, and it is fitted for the user (not any old thing hooked onto ears is effective) they are pretty well useless in most circumstances. If you have a beard, then almost every mask is useless. Never mind, the restrictions imposed now cannot be shown to work as we are not able to get hold of raw data, and have an analysis by several groups to determine exactly what is going on, so anything that can be dreamed up can’t be assessed either.
First large scale trial to launch in the UK:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/world-biggest-drug-trial-covid-19-uk
Pity they didn’t include IV Vit C, which, to my surprise, is being used by some mainstream hospitals in the US now.
“Both hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are being tested separately as part of the Recovery trial, and if there is any effect in patients given those drugs alone, compared with those given no drugs, they can be combined later.”
While I have seen handwaiving explanations of how hydroxychloroquine might help, how is azitromycin supposed to work on its own or together with the former?
A thinker, from somewhat outside-the-box:
https://www.tillett.info/2020/04/05/a-solution-to-covid-19/
What do YOU think?
Or are you a Negativist by rote? Perhaps a Joinerist? (The compulsions are not necessarily mutually exclusive.)
More on modern monetary theory:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-deficit-american-economy
Yet in Germany, which has so far pledged money and guarantees to the tune of €1.2 trillion (from what one magazine wrote, the highest amount per capita of any large country), this will result in an aditional € 160 billion in debt this year which has to be paid off over the next 10 years according to the constitutional excemption that was triggered. Apparently, when that famous “black zero” amendment was draftes 10 years ago, they hadn’t heard about MMT.
A video from the UnHerd website…
Swedish expert: why lockdowns are the wrong policy:
https://unherd.com/thepost/coming-up-epidemiologist-prof-johan-giesecke-shares-lessons-from-sweden/
That was one of the more extraordinary interviews we have done here at UnHerd.
Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:
– UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based
– The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only
– This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”
– The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better
– The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact
– The paper was very much too pessimistic
– Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway
– The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown
– The results will eventually be similar for all countries
– Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
– The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
– At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available
A semi-renegade establishment doc seems to have been reading OUR doc:
http://drwes.blogspot.com/2020/04/rethinking-covid-19-pandemic.html
Does anyone know whether diabetes, as a risk factor for death from covid, means type 1 or type 2 diabetes? They’re very different. I haven’t heard anything more precise than the single word “diabetes”.
A story:
The death rate has been calculated at between 10% and 40% to between 16% and 60% of those infected, depending on strain and vulnerability.
No, not COVID-19.
I’m talking about the disease that killed more American Civil War soldiers, more WWI and WWII soldiers, prisoners of war, concentration camp victims, and nurses than did bullets or gas.
You don’t hear of epidemic typhus today (bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii) because modern sanitation has cleared out the major vector – body lice – making the disease rare now. In The West, at least.
Did you know that? Collective memory is so short. No wonder we’re so unprepared for this virus at this time.
Scary, right?
Well, there’s an animal vector for typhus now.
Scary, right?
Not to worry. It’s still rare. When’s the last time you saw a flying squirrel?
I received the Cox vaccine for typhus in the U. S. Navy in 1966. That vaccine would prevent typhus for up to a year. Not very long. It’s been abandoned.
What I’ve been wondering is, did that vaccine have some small effect in reminding my immune system about typhus when I encountered those flying squirrels thirty-one years later?
Do you think it made you more or less likely to get it?
Sasha,
The Cox vaccine was clearly of benefit to those U. S. WWII troops able to get it – for the first 6 month to a year after. After the war the challenge was to keep getting those boosters annually or more often for a disease of diminishing threat. I got the vaccine because I might have been stationed in Viet Nam in the late ’60s – an area where nobody wanted annoyances like sickness/death by typhus in the paddies. (I wasn’t! 🙂 )
My thoughts about it all are a futile self-entertainment of what-ifs to no conclusion whatsoever.
You’ll tell me your conclusions though, yeah?
I have no idea… It seemed to me that you were proposing that having had the vaccine years ago might have predisposed you to getting typhoid from a squirrel. If there’s any truth to the idea that getting a flu shot makes one more likely to get covid, it would be interesting to work out a mechanism. That may also then explain what happened to you. But I don’t know where to even begin with the mechanism.
Sasha, re your comment “If there’s any truth to the idea that getting a flu shot makes one more likely to get covid, it would be interesting to work out a mechanism.”
Given that vested interests are probably trying to drive us towards annual coronavirus vaccination, it’s worth considering retired US paediatrician Allan Cunningham’s thoughts on annual flu revaccination, see below: (From his BMJ Rapid Response: Tamiflu & Influenza vaccines: more harm than good? https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m626/rr )
We hear so much about the vital importance of flu shots that it will come as a nasty surprise to learn that they increase the risk of illness from noninfluenza virus infections such as rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, RS viruses, parainfluenza viruses, adenoviruses, HMP viruses and enteroviruses. This has been shown in at least two studies that have received little attention from public health authorities: A prospective case-control study in healthy young Australian children found that seasonal flu shots doubled their risk of illness from noninfluenza virus infections (unadjusted OR 2.13, CI 1.20—3.79). Overall, the vaccine increased the risk of virus-associated acute respiratory illness, including influenza, by 73% (OR 1.73, CI 0.99—3.03). (Table 2 in Kelly et al, Pediatr Infect Dis J 2011;30:107)….A randomized placebo-controlled trial in Hong Kong children found that flu shots increased the risk of noninfluenza viral ARIs fivefold (OR 4.91,CI 1.04—8.14) and, including influenza, tripled the overall viral ARI risk (OR 3.17, CI 1.04—9.83). (Table 3 in Cowling et al, Clin Infect Dis 2012;54:1778)…..To my knowledge, the foregoing risk figures have not been explicitly published anywhere. They will not be found in the abstracts of the articles, so you have to go to the tables and look at the numbers themselves.
What is going on? We are told year after year that influenza vaccines are 60% effective…30% effective…45% effective…etc. Does this mean that they prevent a significant proportion of all viral respiratory infections? No, these reports are based on non-randomized surveys known as “test-negative case-control studies”; they look only at influenza infections and make no attempt to look at the other 200-plus respiratory viruses. Furthermore, they make no attempt to look at any vaccine adverse effects such as seizures, narcolepsy, Guillain-Barre’ syndrome, or oculorespiratory syndrome.
How can influenza vaccines increase the risk of other infections? There are at least two possible mechanisms: first, influenza vaccines probably alter our immune systems non-specifically to increase susceptibility to other infections; this has been observed with DTP and other vaccines. (Benn et al, Trends in Immunology, May 2013) Secondly, there is the phenomenon of “viral interference” in which a virus infection stimulates the innate immune system to provide temporary and non-specific protection against other viruses. By preventing influenza infection a vaccine could prevent this unexpected but positive side effect. The Cowling study discusses this possibility in some detail. A recent study of virus population dynamics found, at least, that influenza A prevented subsequent rhinovirus infections, and influenza B prevented adenovirus infections. (Nickbakhsh et al, PNAS, 12 Nov 2019)
In the US seasonal influenza vaccines are now recommend every year for the entire population (excepting infants before 6 months of age). It is important to realize that this policy was instituted without acquiring safety and effectiveness data from randomized controlled trials. When routine vaccination for healthy young children was being contemplated some experts in pediatrics and infectious disease issued warnings. Kenneth McIntosh called for the performance of multi-center randomized trials over several seasons before such a policy was instituted. In explicit language he worried about adverse effects, and the possibility that the risks of annual vaccination would outweigh the benefits. (Editorial, NEJM 2000;342:275) Twenty years later we must ask, “What harm is done by annual influenza vaccines? Where is the balance between risks and benefits?”
One of the imponderables is the effect of seasonal influenza vaccines on population immunity. Individuals who recover from influenza can have broad and long-lasting protection against an array of influenza viruses. First infections in young children can provide this, a phenomenon known as “imprinting”; this is subverted by childhood vaccination. Furthermore, the protection in adults who still carry the imprint from childhood may be subverted by the seasonal flu vaccine. This was seen in middle-aged adults during the 2018/19 influenza A(H3N2) epidemic in Canada; vaccine recipients suffered a nearly fivefold risk of illness from a drifted strain of A(H3N2), compared with unvaccinated individuals (OR 4.67, CI 1.85–11.82). (Skowronski et al, EuroSurveillance, 14 Nov 2019)…… What are we doing to population immunity with wide annual distribution of seasonal flu vaccines? Are our annual epidemics getting milder or more severe? What effect will years of seasonal influenza vaccines have on the next pandemic? Remember the 2009 swine flu pandemic? The risk of severe pH1N1 illness in Quebec increased progressively according to the number of seasonal flu shots received in previous years and was more than threefold in individuals who had received five vaccinations in five years, compared with unvaccinated individuals (adjusted OR 3.24, CI 1.97—5.34). (Table 5 in Skowronski et al, PLoS Medicine, April 2010)
In the US a regular feature of publicity urging annual flu shots are mathematical estimates of deaths caused by influenza, provided by the CDC. Since the 2010-11 season these estimates have ranged between 12,000 and 79,000 US deaths each season. The numbers are far in excess of actual cases documented in death certificates or by surveillance networks reporting on laboratory test-positive cases. While we wait for better numbers, it is not merely academic to ask what we would find if we focused as intensively on other respiratory viruses as we do on influenza. If influenza vaccines increase the overall risk of viral ARIs, as they do in the studies discussed above, would they also increase the overall number of ARI deaths?
Elizabeth, thank you. I will reread it once again. It’s fascinating to ponder the mechanisms of how they possibly increase susceptibility to other illnesses. What’s amazing is that they are becoming mandatory for almost everyone, it seems. And I, for one, have no idea how to escape this. Apart from becoming a modern hunter gatherer, which might not be such a bad idea…
Sasha: “Just say no.” -Nancy Reagan. The flu shot is the most worthless of them all, counterproductive, as Elizabeth Hart has pointed out. The HPV the most dangerous.
Gary: I do and I have. What is interesting is that they are beginning to tie them to all sorts of things. For example, for many healthcare workers flu shots are almost mandatory.
Flu shots *are* mandatory for NHS employees – at least my son says so and he is one. He may have it wrong, in which case it must be very strongly implied. He’s canny about seeing through misleading phrasing.
It is not. Not yet anyway
mand Season: Flu vaccine mandates have become increasingly common here in the U.S. among hospital employees, even those in administrative roles, but, then, we have no NHS, so I expect the uptake among doctors is likely lower than the general public. An Israeli biologist I met on the trail told me that, in Israel, doctors have the lowest flu vaccine uptake of any demographic group. They know something.
@mand Season – my daughters both worked very recently for the NHS in contact with patients and the flu shot certainly isn’t mandatory (“yet”…as Dr Kendrick points out.) They were, however, both told that they had to have the MMR and the Hep B vaccines as they’d not been vaccinated before.
One of them challenged this and therefore had a measles antibody test which was negative, so she had to have the MMR anyway. But she found out that she was able to sign a form to waive the Hep B vaccine saying that she would take full responsibility if she happened to be punctured by a needle etc or otherwise had any adverse event involving a Hep B positive patient.
These options are not made clear to NHS employees at all – it was only when one of my daughters told me she ‘had’ to have these vaccines that I told her to enquire whether they were merely ‘recommended’ or ‘mandatory’. Of course, the MMR is now mandatory if you haven’t already had measles or a previous MMR or two – although even if it’s the latter, they’ll try and foist yet another one on you! Her younger sister didn’t realise her options and so had both vaccines without question.
angloswizzera: what is wrong with the Hep B vaccination? I had it a year ago because I have to travel to Japan occasionally and feel uneasy about all the raw seafood. I did a little bit of research and found nothing wrong with it. Neither did I have any issues after those shots.
As with any vaccine, most people don’t knowingly develop any problems – or they may further down the line (months, years even) but not realise it may have been to do with the vaccine.
However, I personally know several people who have developed arthritis, usually in their hips, following the Hep B vaccine (they were all women, so maybe that’s a factor?) And another person I knew who was about 52 when he decided to become an HCA was off sick with a kind of chronic fatigue problem soon after it and took a couple of years to recover.
There are quite a lot of adverse events reported after it. Here’s one example from the US adverse reporting data:
“In VAERS, MS cases were up to five times more likely to be reported after an HB vaccination than after any other vaccination. Since DPA is mainly suited for hypothesis generation, further studies evaluating the nature of the link between MS and HB vaccination would be of considerable importance.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29560597
This is the problem with vaccines – in most cases any adverse reaction may be mild or non-existent but for some people it can be life-changing. We can’t predict who will suffer and who won’t, but apparently it doesn’t matter because it ‘saves lives’ – even if the vaccine is for something that isn’t particularly deadly in the first place, like mumps. Most children who had mumps didn’t suffer from it, even had no symptoms at all in about 30% of cases – but the vaccine program has pushed the incidence into older children/young adults when it may be far more dangerous.
Eric: what does Hep B have to do with seafood?
Eric: In an adult the Hep B vaccine may not be particularly problematic (I don’t know, and likely nobody knows). The problem is that it is routinely given in the U.S. to infants on the day of birth. This is madness. It contains a significant amount of Merck’s proprietary AAHS (amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate) adjuvant. The sole purpose of the adjuvant is to stimulate a stronger immune response. So macrophages race to the injection site and envelop the particles of antigen-adsorbed AAHS. They can, and do carry this cargo to organs, including the brain, and other tissues. Remember what Professor Chris Exley found in ASD brains. Some think that the Hep B at birth is the main cause of the steeply-rising rate of Autism here, now 1 in 32 in New Jersey (which has the best tracking system of all the states), and possibly in many other states.
As I understand it, someone less than six months old cannot mount an immune response. So the vaccine idea is even more ridiculous than in older people.
Thank you! Sounds like that’s what happened – he was told he had to have them. I’ll take this back to him and next year he can choose to question what they say.
Seems so wrong to say “You have to” when all they mean is “You should” or “Most of us do”.
JDPatten: Don’t forget Napoleon’s army. Utterly destroyed by that little critter, along with the Russian winter. The vector was the body louse. As to your question, it’s difficult to say. There is no typhus vaccine licensed today. Granted, it is a rare condition, but maybe it didn’t work? The military must have had a good reason for discontinuing it.
Gary,
Of course my little question was rhetorical. There’s not the smallest chance that anyone in a position to know would have the least interest in knowing. 100s of 1,000s are not dying of typhus. (In The West!) No reason to look at the question.
I’ve got others:
Rickettsia provazekii attacks endothelial cells, eventually closing down circulation to vital organs – if not stopped by a vibrant immune system. Or doxycycline.
Does that explain my 1,640 CAC?
Does it explain my cardiac arrhythmias?
Not enough “subjects” to make answers worthwhile.
Not even enough subjects to organize a decent RCT.
So, I (try to) take Dr Mandrola’s and Dr Rivers’ sentiments to heart:
John Mandrola, MD
@drjohnm
Another positive of #COVID19 is that it helps society come to grips with uncertainties. That is good. IMHO:
Medicine in general is overconfident.
Quote Tweet:
Caitlin Rivers, PhD
@cmyeaton
· Apr 17
If experts tell you something is unknowable, don’t keep asking new people until you get a straight answer. Because in doing so you haven’t found the truth, you have found someone who wants your ear.
JDPatten: Thanks. Wise words, those.
1940: Advice to the British public from the Govt. and the BBC:
KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON
2020: Advice to the British public from the Govt. and the MSM:
PANIC AND CLOSE EVERYTHING DOWN
I hate this!
Malcolm, is this something for a new blog post?
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/woran-sterben-corona-patienten-wirklich-ein-schweizer-forscher-macht-hoffnung-im-kampf-gegen-covid-19/25750666.html
Apparently Switzerland and NY are finding that way too many people are dying at home while nursing “mild” CV, and reports from Italy and Hamburg are finding pulmonary embolisms based on CT or autopsy as one of leading causes of death. Swiss study is under way that prescribes heparin based anticoagulant to 50% of patients sent home with mild cases.
It was long and hard to read…so, I read it twice to get the full impact.
This Doctor Malcolm is a self proclaimed “disrupter” who examines,exposes, poses questions-possible solutions and predicts failure or success, but in the end we have to realize there is no vaccine no guaranteed treatment and understand that controlling the masses reduces the risk of widespread panic followed by Anarchy. Not an option I would choose. “Let them who have ears listen”
~Red Hook Recluse
Excess mortality statistics:
I am not sure if I trust the NYT! They always push the ‘globalist’ view and are very ‘pro lockdown’, ‘pro vaccine’, so will be doing their best to keep up the alarm.
There are 64 references to “vaccination” in the comments as of this writing.
there are more than 100 references to “vaccine”. (My browser doesn’t count beyond that.)
Dr Kendrick,
You have suggested that certain vaccines, in certain circumstances, can be beneficial. That seems to have been a hint.
Dr Kendrick,
When You Have The Time, could you please, please elaborate? After all, why did we all come here in the first place but to get your incisive decisive perspective(s)?
I know, you prefer us to have a lively debate, thereby arriving at some “truth”. That approach seems futile in the face of your tantalizing brief remarks on the subject, especially when all of us (you in particular) are confronting this COVID challenge.
The vaccine factions jealously guarding their investments in the deep dismal valleys – On Either Side! – cannot even see the cusp of the Great Divide, on the high slopes of which, surely, are to be found the actual realities.
JDPatten, you’ve referred to the references to ‘vaccination’ and ‘vaccine’ in the comments on this post, many of these references have been in my responses.
Are you unsettled by people discussing vaccines and vaccination on a public forum? Certainly it’s not a very common occurrence as discussion relevant to vaccination policy is often curtailed on public forums, many times by trolls who descend to inhibit discussion, or by outright censorship, as I have personally experienced.
Discussion of vaccines/vaccination is relevant to the current coronavirus crisis. For example, in their Imperial College London modelling report, Neil Ferguson et al appear to take for granted that a vaccine is the long-term solution to the COVID-19 problem.
Click to access Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
(It’s notable there is no clear disclosure of authors’ potential conflicts of interest in Ferguson et al’s modelling report.)
Ferguson et al don’t favour mitigation strategies, which focus on “slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread”, but instead recommend ‘suppression’ interventions that “will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more)”. Ferguson et al suggest that social distancing interventions may be “relaxed temporarily in relative short time windows, but measures will need to be reintroduced if or when case numbers rebound”.
Ferguson et al admit: “We do not consider the ethical or economic implications of either strategy here, except to note that there is no easy policy decision to be made.”
And yet they know suppression “carries with it enormous social and economic costs which may themselves have significant impact on health and well-being in the short and longer-term”.
Did governments such as those of the UK, US and Australia etc give any thought to the “enormous social and economic costs” before running with Ferguson et al’s recommendations?
Ferguson et al seriously argue that social distancing be maintained for “potentially 18 months or more”, with the odd respite.
Incredible really…
There are so many unknowns about the current coronavirus crisis, it’s astonishing there are expectations for a safe and effective vaccine product in the short term.
And how many people will already be immune? Presuming that immunity is long-lived? And what if it isn’t? Will repeated revaccination similar to annual flu revaccination be recommended? Mandated?
Any idea of the potential long-term cumulative consequences, also considering the existing and ever-increasing vaccine load being borne by children, and increasingly adults?
And who exactly is the target for this novel coronavirus vaccine product? Given that reportedly most of the population is not too troubled by SARS-CoV-2, who should have it?
Will younger people be expected to have coronavirus vaccination to protect the elderly and immuno-compromised?
What do you think about that idea JDPatten?
There is huge conflicts of interest going on – Imperial College received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We all know that Bill Gates is saying ‘no mass gatherings until everyone is vaccinated’. Neil Ferguson is not particularly well respected as he has got it terribly wrong so many times in the past. As soon as the lockdown was announced, he reduced the number of deaths from 500,000 to 20,000. And at the same time, Public Health England downgraded covid-19 to a not highly infectious disease. As far as I am aware, Imperial College are involved in production of vaccines as well as producing alarming figures about deaths. Meanwhile, the government (who all will benefit privately from any vaccination programme), are saying ‘Stay home, protect the NHS’. This does not make sense, as they are sending vans round the country, shouting the message out on megaphones, while local hospitals are empty. Why are we protecting the NHS when there is more capacity than ever in many areas?
https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3886452-The-hospital-I-work-in-is-so-quiet?pg=1&order=
Studies of some countries show the the overall lethality of Covid19 is between 0.1% and 0.4% and thus up to twenty times lower than initially assumed by the WHO.
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on–covid-19/
How has this been allowed to happen Jill?
Bill and Melinda Gates are basically running international vaccination policy, with no end of parasites on their gravy train driven by the vaccine industry. We are all prey to their invasive vaccination agenda, it’s way past time to demand accountability for their intrusion into all of our lives, and now again with their promotion and funding of highly questionable coronavirus vaccine products.
But how do we achieve accountability with so many ‘authorities’ complicit in this out of control juggernaut? Academics, the medical establishment, public health bureaucracies, governments, NGOs, the media, even the supposedly independent Cochrane – who hasn’t been roped in by the over-powering Gates Foundation?
As well as the onslaught of lucrative vaccine products being pushed in the developed world, the developing world has been captured by the Gavi Alliance, which was initiated with a US$750 million pledge from Bill and Melinda Gates. See how poorer countries get hooked into building the global vaccine market: Transitioning out of Gavi support: https://www.gavi.org/types-support/sustainability/transition
Also see Philanthropic Power and Development: Who shapes the agenda? – Section 2 Philanthropic influence and the global health agenda: https://www.brot-fuer-die-welt.de/fileadmin/mediapool/2_Downloads/Fachinformationen/Sonstiges/study_philanthropic_power_and_development.pdf
Hi elizabethhart
I’ve read your post and all your points concern me too. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an easy answer.
In the end, money talks, and vested interests ensure their agenda takes top precedence.
On the point about vaccines in general, I’m left pondering what is real and who to believe.
On specific vaccines, it would seem that some work very well and over a long time whereas others don’t. Of those which don’t work over a long time are influenza vaccines (it would seem).
This article https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/how-long-do-vaccines-last-surprising-answers-may-help-protect-people-longer#
suggest that Influenza vaccine effectiveness is pretty useless after 150 days. And not even very good when given.
I’ve not had time to check the website link to determine whether it’s well researched or not.
The powers that be, are human like the rest of us. Humans who make errors in thinking, who only look at the surface layer of information and believe it, humans who crave power and have power, humans who suffer with groupthink etc.
How to cure this, even more deadly disease, of poor thinking, is beyond me, I’m only human!
Cheers
Do you ever watch UK Column news? They broadcast on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. There show today shows how wherever you look for the British Government, you find the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. News is out now that a company called Onvido is working on ‘Immunity passports’ – where you have to carry ID at all times stating that you are ‘Immune’, presumably this means vaccinated.
This is a horror show. Someone has to get involved and push back against this as we are heading for a dystopian future.
Dr Malcolm – do you have any advice on whether there are professional bodies of people who can help?
I just had a look at your website Elizabeth and I’m very impressed! It may sound sad and also a bit ‘conspiratorial’, but it really looks like the crooks are in charge! They control the mainstream media (can be tracked right up to the Rockefellers etc), they demonise anyone trying to tell the truth, and now the latest target is people like me doing data analysis! Remember what Winston said in 1984:
“Freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=4”
A lot of people struggle to understand what Orwell was saying here but it has always been clear to me. It certainly looks like we are headed that way now.
The only way forward I feel is to learn the law, find like-minded people in your local area, and do not comply, peacefully of course. Make our views known to the people who are supposed to be our ‘elected representatives’. When we know that no-one in the political class is acting in our best interests, I feel that non-compliance is the only way forward.
Are vaccinations the answer to covid19? Let us have a look. Is there a vaccine for SARS yet? No. SARS hit in 2003/4 is the big ugly bro of covid19 aka SARS cov 2 and it is actually far more deadly than covid19 but no vaccine as yet.
How long does it take to develop a vaccine on average? About 20 years, if we are very lucky maybe 4 or 5. Can a lockdown be sustained that long? I am thinking NO.
Do vaccines work? That depends. If you immune system is in good working order and the vaccine actually does what it is supposed to do with little or no detrimental effects, the answer is yes. If your immune system is not working properly it will not be able to make antibodies against the virus and you are frelled ( medical term).
Recent studies have found that vaccines do not work in the over 65. Covid19 unfortunately hits the old and frail the hardest. This is a fact and has absolutely nothing to do with ageisme.
Any virus that can potentially kill you will do so if your immune system cannot provide the right antibodies.
Why vaccines in the over 65 do not work has probably something to do with the fact that the effectiveness of your immune system becomes less when you age. It probably also has a lot to do with the toxic environment riddled with misinformation in which we all live: statins are good, cholesterol is your enemy, eat rubbish not real food, the sun is your enemy, eat less move more, a calorie is a calorie, covid19 is worse than the plague( no it isn’t) and on and on.
It is not for nothing that most covid19 patients are old, overweight with 1 and often more than 1 underlying chronic illness which undermines their immune system.
Is there a way out of this mess? Certainly. If you don’t already do this then start by eating real food, stop drinking sugar water and that includes fruit juices, stop using seed oils use butter or lard instead, sunbathe if possible every day but not between 12 and 2 because you don’t want a sunburn, walk every day briskly, potter in your garden if you have one, just m o v e. Lift weights 3 times a week to built up your muscles, take supplements like vit A, C and D.
You know, sensible stuff. There is so much you can do so why not? It beats feeling helpless and depressed.
Cheerio, Yolanda
Yolanda Has anyone ever addressed the affect on the pancreas of excess fats – butter, cheese, olive oil etc ? Are there consumption limits recommended or advised ?
The beta cells in the pancreas as pretty much unaffected by dietary fat, as fat does not stimulate insulin release. On the other hand carbohydrates put much greater pressure on the beta-cells.
Thank you Dr Kendrick.
Sasha made reference to a contraindication. Fat normally being healthy but in the context of gallstones, being an exceptional circumstance or sort there of, maybe not ! ?
Jerome, on the contrary. Eating lots of healthy fats is doing your pancreas a kindness. As the doc said low bloodsugar and thus low insulin levels. It is the beta cells in the pancreas that produce the insulin to lower your bloodglucose. With healthy fats your pancreas doesn’t have to work so hard. It is also good for the liver. Many people nowadays have non alcoholic fatty liver disease. This is caused by too much sugar and carbs in the diet.
I have been living the low carb high healthy fats lifestyle for close to ten years and it has improved my health considerably. Like many people I had a fat fobia so I eased myself into the high fat part slowly.
Nowadays my fat is 70% fat, 20% protein and 10% carbs. The carbs I eat are mainly green vegs that grow above ground and all the berries (yummy with whipped cream or greek yoghurt). Fats from butter, lard, full fat dairy, fatty fish and olive oil. Protein from eggs, meat (mostly fatty cuts) and fish.
I also make bone broth regularly , great for providing you with lots of minerals and gelatine which is good for your joints. When I make the broth my dog sits in front of the cooker howling with frustration because she wants it now! My cats love it too.
To give you some idea: my husband and I eat one metric pound of butter per week and 1 1/2 to 2 liters of whipped cream. We are, culinary speaking in hog heaven, both of us slim, strong and fit. No sugar though but strangely enough after a few weeks of going without you dont miss it.
Good tools to use: my fitness pal where you put in all the food and drink you consume per day and it calculates how much carbs/sugar, fat and protein is in your food.
For tons of utterly yummy recipes visit Dietdoctor. They have a lot of advice on the low carb high fat diet as well. And they have many experts to answer all of you questions.
Cheerio, Yolanda
Dr Kendrick & Yolanda . Hope that cheerio isn’t a “now be off with yah” but thanks for the response. My question is related more to a condition associated with the pancreas, namely Pancreatitis. Main causes are seen to be Alcohol and gallstones in most sites. Mayo clinic lists 11 causes the 7th of these being “high triglycerides in the blood”
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pancreatitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20360227
In almost every medical site I check there is some reference to an association with fat.
Extract from one site (that I gave up trying to relocate)
“Central to all of this is fat restriction. The less you consume, the less burden you put on your pancreas which, due to pancreatitis, is already challenged when it comes to metabolizing fat.
A 2013 study published in the journal Clinical Nutrition found that male patients with pancreatitis who ate a high-fat diet were more likely to have ongoing abdominal pain. They were also more likely to be diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis at a younger age.”
Thanks, all.
Just waiting for Dr. Kendrick’s feedback.
Hi Jeroma and all,
The short answer:
Healthy fats don’t drive your trigs thru the roof. On the contrary they help lower triglycerides. Healthy fats do raise LDL in some people ( lucky whatsits).
Bad fats and tons of sugar/ carbs on the other hand ….
Long answer: youtube is your oyster. You can check out vids by Paul Mason MD or prof Ken Sikaris who both explain extremely well what drives high trigs.
Cheerio explained: you were not to know, of course, but I suffer from this awful condition called sunny disposition. It is a thing, a me thing. And even though most of the world is now suffering from a heavy dose of tyranny by government allegedly I am still upholding the democratic thingy and am of the opinion that every person can decide by themselves when and if they want to be off or not.
Have a nice day, cheerio, toodle pip, groetjes, kram, hilsen, Yolanda
Yolanda
Glad to hear someone else suffers from sunny disposition. People complain that I am always cheerful and laughing. I am convinced I am not going to get the virus, and that if I do my immune system is strong enough to fight it.
Crazy I know
Nah not crazy, mr Chris, but actually very sane. Worrying about something that may never come is overrated. Live, enjoy life, your life is happening now. My pets taught me that because they live in the now.
Cheers, Yolanda
Yolanda: I, too, suffer from a sunny disposition. I suspect there’s no cure for it. I eat like you do, too, fifteen years, and I simply don’t get sick.
Yolanda, it sounds like we follow many of the same ppl on youtube, and I always need to mention both Dave Feldman and Ivor Cummins when it comes to cholesterol discussions (though I think you’ve mentioned them in other posts, so I put that in for anyone reading your post). Also, thank goodness for those among us with ‘sunny dispositions’ 🙂
Yolanda, it sounds like we follow many of the same ppl on youtube, and I always need to mention both Dave Feldman and Ivor Cummins when it comes to cholesterol discussions (though I think you’ve mentioned them in other posts, so I put that in for anyone reading your post). Also, thank goodness for those among us with ‘sunny dispositions’ 🙂
Hi Yolanda, I will resist making any jokes about sunny disposition being contagious, if exposure allows S.D.anti-bodies to develop or if Bill Gates is working on Vac…….oh forget it !
Ok back to where it’s at.
The following is an extract from https://health.clevelandclinic.org/best-and-worst-foods-for-pancreatitis-pain/
Worst foods for pancreatitis
Red meat.
Organ meat.
French fries, potato chips.
Mayonnaise.
Margarine, butter.
Full-fat dairy.
And that list is very typical of the advice doled out on many sites with exception of the BMJ and and the Mayo clinic who, from first inspection, do not knock fats.
Can we assume that these sites are just as retarded as those advocating statins for heart health?
Cheerio
OMG its catching !!
Jerome Savage: This list of foods is known to exacerbate symptoms of pancreatitis, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and we have no good reason to doubt that they are correct, but what is causal in pancreatitis? How common is it? In general I think my organs are in pretty good shape, and I routinely eat many of these foods. No pain down there. What do you think is causal in pancreatitis? Do you have pain down there?
Hi Jerome and all,
We live in a toxic society on most counts. We are surrounded by wrong information about many many things and we get it from almost anywhere. That is why the chap wot owns this blog Is such a great help to us. He speaks the truth based on the available science. Is he always right? Probably not but he is most of the time because he is researching relentlessly to get at the truth.
Since the 70s and 80s fat has been demonized. We were told to eat less fat. But if you eat less fat you need to eat more from one of the other macro nutrients. There are 3 macro nutrients: fat, protein and carbohydrates. Fat and protein are essential for human life, we cannot live without them.
Carbs / sugars are not essential, the liver can more than adequately provide the modest amount of glucose our bodies ( mostly the brain) needs , so no carbs need to be eaten. But…. what is the cheapest “food” made off? Yep, carbs. White flour, sugar etc. is very cheap to produce. Also the wrong fats such as seed oils are very very cheap.
Real food such as meat, fish, fresh vegs , dairy, and fruit is more expensive to produce, transport and an added problem is that they don’t keep forever. Real food goes off, milk goes sour, fruit starts to rot etc. That is how you can tell that it is real food, the stuff your grandparents ate.
Nowadays there is tons of frankenfood and it is cheap, keeps pretty much forever, but unfortunately although it is cheap to buy but you will have to pay big bucks to big pharma and doctors because frankenfoods make you ill. Not in a day, our bodies are strong and can handle quite a lot of abuse, but there comes a time, usually around your 40th, if you are lucky around your 50th, birthday that your body tells you it has had enough. The rot has set in: high bloodpressure, prediabetes, obesity, arthitis and all that jazz. No fun, but there is a way back: start eating real food coz your body has a wonderful capacity to heal itself if only you give it half a chance.
Thanks for making me laugh Jerome, I need it, my immune system needs it.
Cheerio, Yolanda
Hi Gary
The subject in question has been diagnosed with a 4mm gallstone in the bile duct. That is seen as worth removing to minimise further risk of pancreatitis. Advice given by doctors prior to removal is abstain from alcohol but also any fats. With the CV19 panic that could take a while. There is a lot of sites advocating minimal fat diet for a healthy pancreas.
PS I was surprised to discover that outside Alaska, California has the US’s highest mountain. Ever since I was a 12 year old my ambition was to see Grand Canyon, the sequoia tree with the drive thro in the middle and Yosemite & El Kapitan. My 27 year old son ran up & down the canyon last year while on a business trip. Rambling thro the Sierra will do me (assuming some of it remains after last year’s fires.)
An old cure has been suggested to rid the body of gallstones involving,
50 gr Epsom salt *
150 ml extra virgin olive oil
250 ml freshly squeezed grapefruit juice – all over a 6 hour period with fat free for previous day. Sounds horrible!
Gallstones can be made from different substances, eg calcium-based or bile salt-based. Some of the ‘gallbladder flush’ recipes include drinking cloudy apple juice for a few days before, which is meant to soften the stones (depending on what they’re made from, I suppose) and then doing the oil/citrus thing (sometimes told to lie on the right side with knees bent up) – different variations around. I know people who’ve had success with this protocol.
I think people will find this advice to be of little, to no use.
I’m pretty sure those people who have found it successful would beg to differ…
anglosvizzera: Maybe that’s why I’ve never had gallstones. I usually nap on my right side in a z-shape, in cold weather a cat in each hollow.
I would be careful. A gallstone may start to move after this and if it does, the patient may end up in the hospital. I would consult a TCM herbalist instead. There are herbs within TCM pharmacopeia that break down gallstones.
Anglosvizzero I am sure your comments are valid. However Dr Kendrick needs to ensure that this blog is not compromised by inclusion of many other weird & wonderful potions & voodoo solutions that are far from peer reviewed. Some may work but others may raise false hope & while others might even be downright dangerous. But thank you for this and your other inputs.
Jerome, this isn’t vodoo. You ingest large amounts of fat which causes release of bile. A possible contraindication to this is history of gallstones large enough to get stuck in bile ducts.
Hi Sasha
I was concerned that a connection might be made between the word voodoo and some of the treatments referred. But my main concern was that every and any unorthodox treatment might find its way on to these pages following my own post. But your clarification is welcome.
Thanks again Yolanda
Unfortunately the odds are stacked against us. The proper diet is not forever marketed and promoted. On the other hand, the supermarket is literally an ill health trap with our senses hit with a relentless visual pushing of the “joys” of junk food. The marketing gurus know us, know our weaknesses and anyone young or entering without being conscious of the fundamentals of nutrition are most exposed. All media sources can be and of course are bought for the sake of corporate profit margins, market share, shareholder dividends and of course directors’ emoluments. I don’t hesitate to describe it as brain washing. Meanwhile, accounting people maximize out output & minimise input. These “efficiencies”, just in time production methods mean ever increasing mass production of consumables (cant really call it food) etc and of course plastics now infesting every corner of our planet. (Reformed accountant here.) What I used to like about the old East bloc, no billboards shouting at me to buy something I didnt need. Keep up the good work Yolanda, I hope they never develop a vaccine for cheery disposition !
Are you JUST looking at the death figures? Young and fit people get very ill, but may not die. Is that all that matters to you, or do you welcome a scenario when the NHS becomes completely overwhelmed? Cytokine storm anyone? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejlbCmRJMW4
Kudos Yolanda in every respect, especially regarding butter, A, C, D3/K2 etc…it’s the classic no-brainer. Cholesterol?, give me some. However, as with every would-be puzzle, why are we straying away from the facts…again? It’s totally proven that ANY testing for COVID19 is based on a PCR test that is INCONCLUSIVE for a specific virus. It is a scientifically ascertained fact that this test is non-specific and can ‘produce’ at best, viral insult…or whatever you choose to call it. THIS is the criteria that we are kowtowing to without even acknowledging our innate commonsense. How can we progress on this basis without questioning the motive, even if there is one? Facts, the current test for COVID19 is flawed. Why are we placing so much faith in it? We can’t move forward wth such a shakey premise can we? But we are…why?
In fact insulin attracts fat, doesn’t it? I’m no biochemist. Anyone know if this is relevant?
I do know diabetics who swear by low carb or zero carb methods and have got their A1c down to extremely acceptable levels that way.
Hi, insuline gets the glucose out of the blood, some is stuffed in yr muscles, most into your liver that turns the glucose into fat. That fat is then stored in your fat cells. To symplify: insuline then locks yr fat cells so the fat cant be used by your body. That is why after a meal full of carbs/sugars you very quickly get hungry again coz a lot of what you ate got stored not burned.
Fat doesnt drive insulin thus your body can use the fat for fuel because insulin levels stay low. So getting fat has very little to do with calories but a lot to do with insulin.
Keep your blood glucose low so your insulin levels stay low ( within normal range), that way you burn fat and lose weight. Another bonus: with low glucose levels, no risk of getting diabetes type 2.
Many people have reversed their diabetes type 2 by eating Low Carb High Fat. Dr David Unwin and his wife Jen are working with this in the UK. In the US there is Virta Health that helps people with diabetes type 2. In Kiwiland prof Grant Schofield and in the land of Oz you find dr Gary Fettke, Dr Paul Mason and many more. From them you can get all the info you need. Google them and you will find a ton of info on this subject.
Fat is your friend! Healthy fats, not seed oils aka vegetable oils. Butter, lard, olive oil, goose fat, duck fat, full fat dairy, fatty fish etc. But do not combine fat and sugar/carbs as the latter will block your body from burning fat and you will only get fatter.
Cheerio from fatburning Yolanda
Yolanda – thanks for explaining, now let’s see if I’ve got it… Intake of glucose “becomes” fat, by the working of insulin. This is how it’s insulin that makes us fat, rather than the food itsefl. OK, got that.
On the other hand… intake of fat is ignored by insulin – have I got this right?
My consultant once told me “Insulin attracts that – obvious, that’s why you get the hypertrophy (fatty buildup) at injection sites.” (I’m type 1 diabetic.) That’s where I got the “insulin attracts fat” thing. Does it sound like he was talking about the mechanism you describe?
I’ve heard how many have done wonders for their type 2 diabetes, this way. The people I know who preach low/zero carb eating are type 1 – I suppose it still helps, reducing insulin requirement.
Hi mand season,
The Dietdoctor website will be right up your street. They have a lot of information about a healthy low carb diet for type 1 diabetics etc. But, and that is a very big but, don’t go on a low carb diet by yourself as that could be very dangerous. Always consult your doctor first. Sorry, I don’t mean to be preachy but I most certainly don’t want to put you in harms way.
It is more difficult for type 1 people to control their blood glucose but not impossible. A low carb diet is a great help in controling glucose levels. Many have had great succes and experience better quality of life ( less hypo s) using much less insulin.
Cheerio, Yolanda
Thank you again. I’ll have a look at Dietdoctor. And yes, I’ll be very cautious. Always am! 🙂
Excellent questions David! When covid19 arrived most worldleaders were caught with their collective pants down. Healthcare systems had been pared down to the bone for yonks, expert advisors with doomsday scenarios spouting utter drivel….What was a poor widdle ignoramus of a worldleader to do? I know, lets panic! And they did. Lockdowns were implemented ( the neighbours were doing it) so many a worldleader copied what others were doing. And now we are stuck, as the chap wots blog this is, has been saying for weeks now.
Fortunately there is hope as not every scientist is an idiot, some of them actually have a brain.
Have a listen to dr John Ioannidis aka the voice of reason.
Sasha asks : “what does Hep B have to do with seafood?”
Sasha, seafood : shellfish are dirty eaters ! Are known to carry Hepatitis. Sea food, mercury and possible to carry Hep-B. As for fish farms. Fish fed with GMO foods, antibiotics, farmed fish may carry infections, carry : diarrhoea; gut infections. Farmed fish from some Asian countries, are often fed sludge.
Humans have ruined our beautiful seas and lakes, toxicity wherever they live.
I used to enjoy salmon. Now, I will not touch it. And certainly will not touch shellfish. As for sushi, raw fish…want a good dose of parasites ?
Also, in many places, water can carry Hepatitis. In India, not uncommon to have the drains overflow in to the drinking water – horrific outbreak in New Delhi in the 60s. Many deaths, Hepatitis.
Also, in many areas in Europe and in the UK, farmers can dress their fields with human sludge, cleared from the water treatment works. Has been forbidden at the moment as the sludge has been found to be infected with the C-Virus !
mmec7: Good point. In the U.S. they are called by innocuous-sounding “biosolids.” It was just this issue (of the danger of using this as fertilizer, since it is a combination of human and industrial waste) that caused Dr. David L. Lewis (“Science for Sale”) to leave the EPA (our Environmental Protection Agency; the only environment they protect is the environment for profit making). Many years ago, in the ’70’s, we used this stuff on the garden; little did we know. Dr. Lewis’ book is worth reading.
– On the garden… Hmmmmm Where I lived in Lincolnshire, surrounded by my neighbour’s 16,000 acre farmland, they decided to use just such, which was *free, to fertilise their land. Result ? Weeks as we were all gasping to run from the resulting odour ! It was a hot few weeks, no rain !
As for my own garden, I have a compost heap, but a darn freelance ‘moggy’ who has decided that my raised bed potagere is just the thing for his loo – am very tired of removing his blasted turds ! So, now I don’t use the potagere, just stick to my fruit bushes. Sigh. I’ll check out for the book – Thanks.
mmec7, we had that round here years ago. I wet to speak to the driver of the tanker doing the injecting. It was a failure to get it far enough down into the ground that resulted in the stink. Appalling, and so widespread that it stunk despite variations in wind direction.
For cat poo deterrent https://www.gardening-naturally.com/netting-frost-protection something here should fit the bill
Thank you AhN – I checked through the site, the electronic one looks likely. Claims not to upset the birds. Will phone the company tomorrow, see what I can arrange with them. One appliance should just do the trick. Great. The electronic device and a few prickly branches… Get my potagere back.
Keep your cat shit for this emergency. Rabbits. A very appealing but rapidly growing rabbit (or rabbits) has been working its way through our vegetable garden. My husband was distraught until he noticed that a large cat turd deposited next to the runner beans has preserved what remained of the lower leaves. The plants are now recovering.
We then thought the rabbit had gone away but a later sighting finally convinced us to get a pest control man in. So we now have 4 large traps baited with pieces of carrot, but no further sign of the rabbit.
Perhaps a fox got it.
Mec
To keep cats out of my potager, I cut twigs from any prickly bush available. I invented a special raised bed with a trellis of inverted nails.
Very effective
Mec, nails on the edge sound drastic for the poor cats. Why not cover it with a tarpaulin instead? That helps as it keeps the heat in, making decomposition faster.
Thanks Mr Chris – Yes. I tried all manner of prickly branches. Didn’t work. But nails upside down-not that I want to injure the cat, but…
Don’t want to use the scare off appliances, as that might scare the birds. Am quite happy for the birds, and they are welcome to the fruit, but cat turds…no way.
See what we can do to deter em – heck, and the garden next door is paradise for a cat, no one could care less !!
mmec7 – a few weeks ago we splashed out on a cat deterrent recommended by the RSPB. T’was dear – around £55 but worth it’s weight in gold. Cats hate it and birds are competely unaffected – blackbirds, robins, jackdaws. I watched our neighbour’s cat come over the fence and then slink along behind the plants trying to avoid it. She doesn’t come in anymore. I googled “RSPB recommended cat deterrent.” Very efficient company and the device was installed a few days later.
Sorry, Dr. K – this is a bit off topic. Must be Lockdown Brain.
Have followed up on that Janet. Checked Amazon etc etc. The RSPB deterrent seems to be the only one that is OK for birds. But, they are not sending out at the moment and no one covering phones either. Ho-Hum. Oh, think I hear the song of the thrush, hasn’t been here since a year. Lovely. Huge showers of rain must have brought the worms up.
Apologies Dr K. Way way off track here. Mea culpa.
mmec7 – thank you for such a nice reply. Pleased about your thrush. ❤️
Straying from the theme again. Maybe time for a nature splinter group. Sorry (again) Dr.K.
mmec7- I just checked and see that we got ours direct from a company called Concept Research. http://www.conceptresearch.co.uk or email,
main@conceptresearch.co.uk
They were very efficient.
Many cats hate citrus, so you can usually deter them by putting out (squeezed) half oranges and lemons until the smell wears off. Then stick them on the compost heap and put out new ones. Grapefruit would probably work, too. Free if you use oranges and lemons anyway, and not damaging to birds or the environment
A trellis of nails – sounds a bit errr-uummm Am going to try and get the electronic deterrent. Details says not dangerous, so my lovely birds won’t get frighted by the sonar. Just have to find someone who sells it here. Friends won’t be over until the ferries are running again – long time off yet !! But thanks Mr Chris.
Mec
Look on Amazon. Fr that’s where I am going to get mine.
Btw cats always put a paw down with no weight so if they feel something sharp they don’t go there. They are not stupid you know
Not entirely true, if something has previously been safe and stable, a cat will often jump onto it.
– Yes, know that cats are not stupid, in fact v. cunning – have always had, cats, dogs, horses, small animals, no problems. But, such are not possible now. Did put up wire around my potagere a couple of years ago.. Tough fencing wire. Ha. Cat jumped into it, brought the whole thing crashing down, then continued to use the potagere as his dirt tray ! Cunning cat.
I tried Amazon but not Amazon Fr. Nxt step –
Thanks Mr Chris –
To Janet Grovesart – Quote : “I just checked and see that we got ours direct from a company called Concept Research. http://www.conceptresearch.co.uk or email,
main@conceptresearch.co.uk
They were very efficient.”
Janet – I just phoned them. Terrif. Order will be with them tomorrow, and, I can phone through my financial details…!! Great, as I do not buy on line.
BTW : For interest – OK for hedgehogs. Toads and frogs. Battery driven, or, can recharge from laptop, whatever. Personnel working from home. Will catch tomorrow afternoon post, 7/05.
Thank you Janet.
Thanks for ALL other helpful suggestions. Now, have just thrown oranges and lemons on to the soil. Will follow up with prickly branches, and, next week, the elec deterrent should arrive. All set for a potagere !!
Totally off topic, and apologies to the group, but look at it this way – one is helping one’s immune system, Thank you again Dr K. The thrush is back this evening, singing its wee heart out.
mmec7 – 👍
Yes, mmec, but you are talking about HepA. HepB is transmitted through blood, no?
Yes Sasha – HepA. I ignored that important fact. Still overwhelmed by that monsoon in Delhi, all those years ago. Sooo many ill, so many died. Then, so many years later, a young lass of 6 yrs, insisted on swimming in the open sea, not knowing that the water in which she was swimming – Scarborough – was not too far from a sewage outlet. She contracted Hepatitis. Hospitalised. And died. ‘And now I am six for ever and ever.’ This was in my husband’s family. Still find it too upsetting.
Also Sacha – shell fish ‘can’ harbour a range of nasties. December 2019 here in France, oysters were being recalled due to their being found to carry toxins – diarrhoea, illness. Then, recently, a Japanese person (USA) was found to be infested with worms, I mean *infested – love of sushi – The infestation was found on radiographs, and was articled in a ‘case for the month’ in 2019, in the international radiology online journal, AuntMinnie. Eye popping !
I refuse shellfish, and am most careful about eating fish and certainly, ‘never’ farmed fish.
Yes, as bottom dwellers they can pick up lots of stuff…
Here is more proof that the lockdown isn’t the answer to covid19. On the contrary the lockdown causes more health problems and deaths.
It is a 2 parter, when you near the end of first part click on the banner in the upper lefthand corner. Watch part 2 untill the fat lady sings, dont stop when they go mute for a minute or so.
If you are worried about your risk for covid19, please watch, you feel so much better after. Peace of mind is a precious thing.
Cheerio, Yolanda
Bravo for posting Yolanda. I confess to being so media-numbed that I’ve almost lost the will to keep on ‘researching’ for the elusive facts and truths that all rational people seek. Anyway, having watched both these videos, I’m probably at my highest euphoria level since this all started. These two doctors are incredibly patient, lucid, and credible. They weren’t hiding behind anything and when the journalist(s) alluded to possible evasion or smokescreening, the doctors just came back with the same data they originally pitched. They shouldn’t have had to continue re-justifying the science and the obvious. I have family who are literally terrified and are convinced that their lockdown is rescuing them. The fact that there may be a spike in illness when they come out of illogical quarantine, will be almost as bad….plus it could give further ammo to the current movers who still advocate lockdown measures. Almost a further false justification. I just wish that the gathered journalist had been on camera for this interview – I would pay hugely to see their collective body language as they voiced their continual disbelief and disjointed logic, only to be diplomatically and correctly shot down by the good doctors. There wasn’t one question they couldn’t answer or give an explanation to. The best hour or so I’ve ever spent in these current times. A last bonus for me was that hint at the end of the first video where Dr Erickson smilingly teased that there was something else going on when the word ‘safe’ arose.Then, perfect timing, He had the courage to follow up on it in the second video. Priceless. I will not be able to understand how anyone who has watched this can fail to see that a massive epiphany has been gifted to us by these Doctors.
Hi David,
I am so glad this video helped you to get things into perspective. This is, IMO, what has been missing in the discussion about covid19. The press has been mainly, but not exclusively, fearmongering and governments as well. BTW I also put another video on this blogpost where dr John Ioannidis from Stanford uni has similar things to say from his research. If you need more reassurance check it out. The truth will set you free, you recognize it when you hear it.
When a certain government publishes the death toll by ( with?) covid of that day and nothing else, what are people to think? I have a background in genetics and population genetics so the first thing I ask when confronted with a X number of deaths is: how big is the population and what is the average death toll per day? And that is followed by a lot of other questions as well as dr Malcolm Kendrick explained in his post. : With covid, by covid or because of covid.
Like you, I found the reaction of the journalists in the vid amusing, cognitive dissonance is certainly a thing. Apparently many of them believed the rubbish they have been spouting for the last month or two.
It is high time we all wake up and have a hard look at what really is going on with covid19. So far the data shows:
1) it has a similar death toll as the common flu,
2) it is more contagious than the flu
3) the overwhelming majority of people that are infected by covid19 have no, or very light symptoms
4) fortunately only a very, very small number of people have severe symptoms.
5) and, again good news, many of them survive as well but of course not all
6) most people that die of covid19 are already very ill with at least one serious illness and many with more than one.
7) many of the people who die from covid19 are old, very old. Average age is about 80
8) if you are old that isn’t a death sentence, many old people survive covid19. If I am not mistaken the eldest persom who survived it was 106.
This sort of thing happens with the flu as well, a relative small number of people die, most survive. Covid19 is not the flu, the severe symptoms are different ( as the doc described in one of his recent posts), the light symptoms like the sniffles, dry cough, sore throat, muscle pain and such are similar to the flu. And it looks very much that about the same number of people will die from it as is per usual from the flu.
To put things in perspective again: the average flu takes about 400.000 lives worldwide on a yearly basis. Do we panic about that many deaths per year from the flu or is it business as usual?
Frightened people are easy to manipulate, don’t give in to fear coz fear is the worst advisor, the absolute worst.
Cheerio from a sunny Dutchland, Yolanda
Yolanda. I love you! 😂❤️
Thank you, Adele. 😁😇🤗😉🥰
Well, so much for freedom of speech. I was just checking out Dr Kendrick’s latest vitamin D blog with keen approval when I just thought I’d forward the previous extract containing Dr Erickson and colleague’s video to a friend. I was enthusing over the phone about how the doctors had cogently destroyed anything masquerading as credence within the media and/or whomsoever was driving the disinformation juggernaut. The shutdown of the video material screams QED violation to me. I don’t really know how this will all pan out, but this latest censorship verges on obscenity. Whoever flipped the switch, I hope you’re proud of yourself….apologies, I ‘m assuming you possess a modicum of decency but I would be sadly mistaken.
David, what has been censored, and where? I have checked and the Erickson videos are still available in the UK on youtube
AhNotepad, I clicked on the video within the blog and it stated that it had contravened Youtube regulations etc..so I just searched around outside of the blog content and found the interview intact as you say. So, I stand corrected and relieved….and thanks for helping me. I don’t know the difference bewteen trying to view the video externally to the blog or within the posting(s), The latter is a dead-end for whatever reason. Glad you pointed it out and apologies to whomsoever I may have offended with my spleen-venting.
David, apologies are not required, nor expected. It’s not a matter of correcting you, youtube bots found the posting in the blog, so censored it (presumably for telling the truth, we can’t have that sort of thing), there are good people around who spend the time downloading the video, and when they find the original link is broken, they repost it. It might be youtube just lost it, as lost in the post.
This might have something to do with it!
A brief update:- it appears that there have in fact been some YouTube ‘takedowns’ of Dr Erickson’s interview material, and again, some ‘edited’ re-instatements of same. I don’t have the nous to figure out how to download and thus preserve these videos but I think that they will be invaluable moving forward. No doubt some voice of reason will take care of this preservation and thank you so much for that. Also, it seems that his and Dr Massihi’s commentary is not the only kind of stream being conveniently quelled. I’m astounded that in 2020, the level of cheap propaganda being promulgated is shameful. If I knew what the real agenda was, I’d gladly try to negotiate a deal whereby we could achieve some semblance of normality, because the way we are being steered now is insane. Who is driving this initiative and how do they think that the majority of people don’t know that they’re being played? A new word needs vocabularising that incorporates arrogance, sociopathetic, hubris, megalomania, cowardice, etc. I won’t go with Messiah complex because despite my agnostic nature, it would be disrespectful, and human values are still worth clinging to. Meantime, try not to subscribe to the fear paradigm because that is the most invasive and cheapest weapon. It’s working quite effectively right now for all the wrong reasons. Live against it.
Hi David, I have been researching this for a long time and the agenda is being driven by all those unelected groups of people who control governments, fund both sides of wars for profit….. The Bilderberg Group, the Rockefellers, even the United Nations. They are mainly eugenicist driven and one of their aims is to reduce the world’s population down to 5,000,000. They see people as ‘cannon fodder’ .Bill Gates is also a eugenicist and he is the second biggest funder of the WHO. Our government is being driven by the pharmaceutical industry so that’s why they are trying to suppress natural immunity and claim that it’s a ‘deadly killer’ for everyone. Youtube have been censoring anything which contradicts the offiicial narrative for a long time now (I know as i have friends who have had their channels taken down with no explanation and no way of protesting it). So I am not surprised with these actions. And now the Control of Disease 1984 has been changed as of 27 April and if I understand it correctly, you can now be forcibly vaccinated against your wishes.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/22/section/45G
I think to download videos you have to have the paid option on YT. Not for me!
I wonder if Vimeo are better in this respect… I’ve often wondered why some artists choose to publish on Vimeo and not YouTube.
@David McAlonan – I use Firefox as a browser if I want to download videos as there’s an “add on” that enables this. Not all videos are downloadable but many are, so I do that to keep any I find interesting as they often disappear!
Wittkowski discusses the thinking behind the lockdown approach of governments.
Thanks Malcolm. Thought provoking as ever. I passed this blog to friends who don’t tend to believe anything I tell them about the issues you discuss (in particular Statins – more fool them perhaps). One question came back about Vit D. How to explain the high number of cases in Italy and Spain where there is no shortage of sunshine. I know air quality in Northern Italy is poor but is there more to it?
Re Italy’s vitamin D deficit – this response in the BMJ is from a Professor of Endocrinology in Milan:
“Interestingly, epidemiological data report that Italy is one of the Countries with the highest prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in Europe. ”
https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m810/rr-36
Hi Pete Robins, I’ve been pondering the same thing, my conclusion is;
Even in a sunshine country there may be questions about how much of that sunshine is hitting skin? The skin police are very busy in the UK with reports of instant skin cancer if we don’t use sunscreen.
I doubt whether any organisation really understands how much vitamin D we need. Is our daily requirement, 500 IU, 1000 IU, 4000 IU or something else.
All people/animals/insects/politicians die, young, middle-aged, older etc. I’ve no idea how old the average age of death is in Italy but this must surely be a factor.
I suspect your point about air quality is also a factor.
There are bound to be additional questions to ask but time is limited?..
No amount of vitamin D will stop death but it might stack the odds in our favour.
In reports, I’ve studied, where vitamin D was insufficient (what ever that number is)! Taking a supplement of vitamin D reduced the incidence of lung infections and colds by 70%.
Even in people who had so-called adequate level of vitamin D, had a 19% reduced infection rate when they had taken supplements.
I’m not a Doctor… My wife and I both take vitamin D supplements, around 2000 IU to 4000 IU per day. This by the way is considered as the safe upper limit.
Life and death, is I believe, about understanding risk and percentages. My hope is to have a reasonably healthy later life and not be a burden. I just hope the idiots who make up our ruling classes don’t cock it up for yours truly!
Your safe upper limit should really determined by a test. But if you stand in the midday sun, where your shadow is smaller than your body, (which in many places is in the summer only), with little clothes on (more skin = better) for 20 minutes or so, you’ll get about 20K units. Our body has an automatic shutoff mechanism unlike when we take supplements. There’s no reason to think that 2K-4K is the upper safe limit, anything under 20K should be safe. In fact you may be shorting yourself because you want to reach a level of at least 50ng/ml because that’s the most protective beginning level for many diseases and aim for higher, closer to 80. Conventional medicine only aims for 30ng/ml. A much better dose would be 7-8K daily. If you’re interested there’s a FB group that does an excellent job of explaining this, https://www.facebook.com/groups/202601219910338/. Edward Hutchinson, who actually comments here, along with Fay Louise, are the people to pay attention to. If you go to that group, look for announcements, that’s where the basic information is found.
Ellifield
Thank you for that, I know Edward Hutchison used to post on this blog and I learnt a lot from him. Following your link I joined the group and have started my education.
A lot of people in Italy are more modest than here, cover up – also that happens in hotter countries, as opposed to us Brits always desperate for a bit of sun! In Italy, too, there’s more touch and kissing as greeting than in northern Europe. I’d imagine that’s enough to cancel out the sunshine’s effect with something so contagious.
I don’t know if Vimeo censors videos in the same way that YouTube seems to be doing, but here’s Dr Erickson’s news brief on there instead, for what it’s worth:
https://vimeo.com/412934679
Thank you anglosvizzera!
Anglosv
Have you seen Stuart’s remarks suggesting that private hospitals are losing out, losing money. Dr Erickson et al are allegedly attempting to capitalize on CV19 patients.
As he says – follow the money !
Points to ponder and evaluate. Blog traffic on this issue has diminished significantly. Why? Personally, I’ve just about had it with the cliche production factory. We have a very powerful lobby of political gainsayers and ‘experts’ who are proposing various solutions…I made the same mistake as last week and watched question time… It boils down to the the same question, regardless of NHS rules, why are we using a PCR test that is non-specific for COVID 19 to determine peril? I don’t care about the politics or the financial connotations of all this. All most people want is normality…and that includes the people who are scared without justification. The government are possiby not complicit in all this…and every credit, because they’re not exactly shining stars in the firmament of knowledge. So, still, nobody admits that we don’t actually have a relevant test for this particular virus, ( and I’m being very generous in how testing is deemed as credible). BUT, immaterial….there may or not be some virus out there that is emulating a flu-like condition. Why are we shutting down our normality? Can somebody please admit that there IS a test for COVID 19 that irrefutably proves it to be so? We don’t mind….if it’s there and it’s in our system, then yes, take measures to instigate damage control. IF you can’t prove it, let us live normally. Meantime, you have to forego any Bond movies because there can’t be any bad guys out there who could out-evil the perpetrators of this agenda. Anyway, please, can a real doctor confirm that the current PCR test is not conclusive for COVID 19? Any other info on the credence of Fauci would be a bonus.
David McAlonan: This will shed some light on the issue. This letter is being ignored.
Click to access 04-30-20-Letter-to-WHO-and-Dr.-Fauci.pdf
Thank you for taking the time to post this Gary. I am the first to confess to having scant medical knowledge and therefore would hesitate to make any important decisions based on my lack of understanding. I’ve been commenting on this blog purely because things just didn’t add up for me somehow. I’ve never claimed to be any kind of expert but I do recognise a lot of technical jargon and complex terminology in the letter that is way above my ability to interpret – this is another reason why I have utmost respect for science professionals who know what they’re talking about and are courageous enough to voice their beliefs.
So, in plain-speak, and apologies up-front if I sound too sweeping, does this letter confirm that if the current PCR test was enhanced and/or re-developed to utilise this nested protocol, then its inherent sensitivity would make the test more accurate? And, is the last paragraph confirming that more specificfic analysis could be achieved based on data that is already available? I’m kind of hoping I’m wrong, and I’ll promise to cease any further nagging….I always did badly at school for asking too many questions.
David McAlonan: I neither know nor would hazard a guess as to the answers to your questions. This is largely beyond my understanding. We need Kary Mullis to speak to us from up above. I trust Dr. Lee’s integrity, though.
I expect someone has already posted this link about Bill Gates and his tentacles…how did this every happen and how is it that nobody can see the obviousness of it all???
Anglosvizzera…indeed, how has the obviousness been overlooked? No straight anwer from me, but having viewed your post, I can’t see any justifiable reason why anyone with an ounce of sense can ignore what is really happening. I can only guess that those within the workings of this admittedly ingenious, (fiendish), agenda are hopelessly committed to its fruition because they have no viable choice…unlike the many thousands who have been destroyed on a whim almost. Meantime, a huge percentage of humankind believe that they are being cared for and protected by their respective governments and legislative processes. I think that the likes of Mr Gates et al are perversely tuned into the human frailty frequency without even realising the power that it gives them,( being generous there…). Blithely, the humankind in question, whilst suffering and hoping for some relief, don’t have a channel for protest or opinion, and are trapped in a perverse pseudo-prison that they accept unconditionally. So, top marks Bill. Would really be awesome if even 10% of your motives were to be proved wrong. Even dubious would be good given that doubt seems to have been adopted as the gold standard. Again Anglo, thanks for the feed. Sickening but inevitable. Meantime, realise that truth is no longer a valid currency it would seem.
Janetgrovesart – Cats fouling refers – “a few weeks ago we splashed out on a cat deterrent recommended by the RSPB. T’was dear – around £55 but worth it’s weight in gold. Cats hate it and birds are completely unaffected.”
Now that’s a good idea. Will check that lead out as well. At this rate will have my potagere back. Thanks guys – Thanks Dr K.
I wonder if works on rats, that would stop them hanging around bird feeders.
That got me thinking, does it scare hedgehogs too? That would not be good. Who knows about the collateral damage these things might do?
AhNotepad – we have ‘evidence’ of hedgehogs in our garden (incontinent little beasts) so I’m assuming that they are not upset by our cat deterrent device. A good thing. We love hedgehogs and would never want to do them harm. (Hedgehog doo-doo is infinitely preferable to that of cats.
Hedghog poo evident in our garden too, and it must be non-stink, since the dog can’t be bothered to roll in it. If it was fox – – – another story. They do a dog shampoo specially for that.
Hi Jean: re “dogs rolling in it”
Could this be a survival strategy to strengthen immune system? There is some interest on this blog that being less hygienic could be beneficial. This approach would also assist in social distancing.
I tend more to to idea that it is a form of nasal camouflage.. What I do know is that the finesst perfume to a dog is badger – that lingers despite a thorough scrubbing with detergent, and retuns whenever the dog gets damp and then sits near the fire.
Our dog certainy pays great attention to our scent – I get a considered sniff each morning. She never licks (thank goodness) but she does “take our temperature” in her own way. I’m sure if I was “down” with something nasty, she would let me know.
andy, now just look here, I am not going to be rolling in fox poo. I agree, and I’m confident it would help with social distancing, but there are limits.
The nasal camouflage theory makes sense to me, but I know that wolves, if they’ve killed or found something while on a reconnaissance tour, roll in the carcass. When they return to rejoin the pack this tells the rest what’s out there and why it’s worth the trouble of going with the scout to where s/he found the food, when it’s too big for the individual to carry home. I’d imagine poo is just as informative as entrails – and it’s pretty nutritious too at midwinter in an Arctic forest.
I have no hedgehogs, though would love a couple. Don’t know if would scare hedgehogs. Would certainly defeat the object, as they do so much good in the garden ! Could ask the RSPB, or the Garden Naturally garden centre. They might be open tomorrow…!??
Try a local hedgehog rescue hospital – they are around all over the place. We found our local one when we found a hog out in daylight in late summer – always a sign of distress. It had lungworm and didn’t survive but the folowing spring they gave us a couple to release,. By the way they never come in pairs – solitary animals apart from mating but they don’t need to be very far apart to lead thei solitary lives. And they do love to eat slugs.
*checks header of this blog* Phewww, for a moment there I thought this was Gardeners World, pest control. But no, it is still dr Malcolms blog.
Great vid last saturday, doc, with lots of useful info about health and stuff. Sorry to hear about the loss of so many of your patients. Covid craze is probably going to cost more lives than the virus ever did.
Ok, here is anozzer great vid about covid19 by a New Zealand epimediologist. He confirms what dr Ioannides, prof Bhakti and so many experts worldwide have found based on science not doctoring data. https://youtu.be/-cB_DEbXrhE Enjoy, feel relieved and watch with amazement covid crazyness go round and round, I do.
Cheerio, Yolanda with golden tan
Good to hear that you’re back Yolanda. I shall compare notes with you in a near future on who gets their doors knocked on in the early hours of the day by WHO stasi. There have been some developments as information and disinformation has been more forthcoming. I was particularly disappointed by the quashing of the two Bakersfield doctors’ viewpoint…even to the extent that they were discredited on the basis that they ran a healthcare clinic. Plus, I wouldn’t want to receive a right cross off of the lady from the state who categorically stated their non-conconcurrance of Dr Erickson’s and Massihi’s opinions. Probably a few spelling mistakes in there…but I know hostile and defensive body language when I see it in a marketingt talkng head figure. Scary intransigent groupthink. So, the Kiwi doctor is voicing complete common sense, and I think we all agree…but how to convince the people who are party to governmental policy based on misfounded care? It’s sad that an ovine mindset is an attractive option when you don’t want to stand up. What is the positive way forward?
Hear is “another view”. One you likely wont hear on TV. Meet Dr. Sherri Tenpenny. Hear this interview, and decide for yourself what you think. https://beforeitsnews.com/health/2020/05/dr-tenpenny-this-is-the-biggest-scam-ever-perpetrated-on-the-human-race-3022120.html
I am watching Andrew Kaufman in a Discussion with Dr. Sherri Tenpenny and Marcy Cravat that I highly recommend.
Good video! Thanks for posting this. Dr. Tendency graduated Cum Laude! Even now, she is articulate and has a sharp mind.
Liver findings from Italian autopsies:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.06.20092718v1
I wroted something for the readers, if you love it then drop a like and comment
Taking care of yourself is key – but make sure it is the right self!
You could research other causes or cofactors of 1918 ‘flu’.
The assigning of threat and power to invisible enemies is the acceptance of identifying in self-lack. Self-lack takes care of itself by reinforcing itself under the defences and controls that lock down into narrative dictates. Because these are out of sync with the real world they have to be reset every so often… which means a contraction of participation in life as Consciousness to a ‘lead role in a cage’.
As for exit strategy. The strategy is a pretext for the the cage of herd controls by which no way out is permitted, but mitigated ‘privileges’ can be conferred from ‘not being given pain’ to being the one who gives it or delivers other to it or supports those who do. Those who invest in such policies take care of themselves by directing pain of consequence away from them ‘self’ to others.
So while calm and clear is the basis for good decisions, the attempt to suppress a genuine disturbance operates the same patterning as that of suppressing dissent. But the form or presentation of the disturbance is usually framed in our already active interpretations as our perception-response in which no present evaluation of default judgements occurs.
Perhaps it is a disturbance that obliges us to walk out in wild places and feel all that we feel to the point of a shifted awareness that is itself the quality of peace or clarity of resolve that simply cannot be ‘added’ to or rebranded from the thinking that is trapped in its own dilemma.
Just a quick question- has anyone talked about the after effects of what this virus will do to your previous healthy body? I keep hearing herd immunity, but will happen when, for example, 50% of the recovered get serious longterm health issues?
If this has already been discussed, please point me to it.
I’d be surprised if 50% of those who recovered have long term serious effects. I would think those who have long term effects weren’t too healthy in the first place, but healthy enough to survive the virus. By the way, in this blog Dr. Kendricks mentioned there are long term effects from the flu for some also. I look at it this way, over 99% survive it, there will be those who survive but fit into a category that puts them at risk already and they will continue to have issues and more now. Most of us have probably been exposed to this virus and had no effects at all, short or long term.
I don’t quite get the herd immunity issue, it seems for other diseases it’s good but in this case it’s only good if it comes from a vaccine. Maybe I’m misunderstanding something.
What is it with a novel ‘virus’ that has the capacity to empower a predetermined fearful negative expectation and run in the minds of the susceptible, deficient or compromised as if BOUND TO HAPPEN and therefore inducing all kinds of insane reactions that are actual, and worse then whatever may never happen?
Now take something actual – such as vaccinations and consider that actually toxic matter is injected directly into the body – bypassing the normal protections. That this might have cumulative and long term effects is not for the most part considered – because this is the ‘good guys’ – yes?
This CAN be actually investigated and determined to be true or not and to what degree and in what ways.
But the long term effects of ‘what exactly’? – for the covid parameters are completely movable goalposts from no symptoms of clinical disease through to complications leading to death.
Colds and flu also have complications leading to death in the immunosuppressed, and the very old at the end of their life.
The serious long term issues of the lockdown in its economic AND social consequences are wider than anything I have experienced over the last 65 years and yet the fixation is on a variation of the cold or flu with complications from which 98% or more of us have no real basis for over concern. Yet clearly a large swathe of the population have become captured by a fixation as a result of persistent fearmongering across a lockstepped media and political leverage set from the highest levels. But then that fact – as I hold it to be – is also deeply disturbing regardless the narrative being pushed. Perhaps that is answering my opening question.
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Lockdowns don’t work. The numbers prove this fact. Intelligent people stop doing what doesn’t work and think through reasonable options. The wearing of mandatory masks everywhere and strict numbers of individuals in stores or restaurants at one time.
Oshawa should not go lockdown!
In the UK masks are mandatory, unless you are exempt. If you find masks stressful, you are exempt. If everyone stopped wearing masks, this would all be over. The study on masks from Denmark https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4586, found they don’t have any measurable benefit, despite popular perception.
Hancock talked rubbish again (nothing much changes) saying the mutant ninja virus was spreading faster than a fast spreading virus, so Christmas is cancelled in case the little bugger gets down the chimney. The mutant was known about in September 2020, or the SARS Cov2 was known about in 2015, when a PHE document said it was a notifiable disease in prisons, or it was known in a 2007 paper published in 2008, when SARS Cov3 was also know about. From Hancock it’s ignorance, incompetence or evil. Answers on a postcard for your choice. Prize is an experimental vaccine with no liability protection. But it does set you up for potential nasties if you should encounter a similar virus later.
If anyone wants links for references, it’s easy to find and will give fingers much needed exercise, especially important for the 18 million in London and surroundings who are told to stay in (except when you have to go out).
Yes AH, you have covered many of the bases as a willingness of research and communication.
The refusal and evasion of those who have gained control of core services and supply is not listening and will not listen, but will input what we say or do into its modelling system so as to use it against us so as not to allow any undermining of a process of ratcheting a ‘control system’ that offers more of a sense of lobotomy than ‘happiness’, and dispossession than ‘safety’.
I felt an article in Lockdown Sceptics today hit a direction I recognise as regaining alignment in a freedom of recognition and resolve that can grow as an obviousness rather than seek recruits, converts or appeals to external powers.
I wrote a comment that links to it.
If my comment doesn’t resonate – at least consider the article itself – which is short and to the point:
The article:
https://lockdownsceptics.org/liars-fakers-and-the-seductive-texture-of-authoritarianism/
My comment:
https://willingness-to-listen.blogspot.com/2020/12/end-this-addiction-affliction.html
Whatever our various backgrounds – I hold that we are feeling for a ‘way’ that holds for the conditions to support Life, rather than holding Life hostage to the conditions that support our control-habit.