4th September 2020
COVID – why terminology really, really matters
[And the consequences of getting it horribly wrong]
When is a case not a case?
Since the start of the COVID pandemic I have watched almost everyone get mission critical things wrong. In some ways this is not surprising. Medical terminology is horribly imprecise, and often poorly understood. In calmer times such things are only of interest to research geeks like me. Were they talking about CVD, or CHD?
However, right now, it really, really, matters. Specifically, with regards to the term COVID ‘cases.’
Every day we are informed of a worrying rise in COVID cases in country after country, region after region, city after city. Portugal, France, Leicester, Bolton. Panic, lockdown, quarantine. In France the number of reported cases is now as high as it was at the peak of the epidemic. Over 5,000, on the first of September.
But what does this actually mean? Just to keep the focus on France for a moment. On March 26th, just before their deaths peaked, there were 3,900 ‘cases’. Fourteen days later, there were 1,400 deaths. So, using a widely accepted figure, which is a delay of around two weeks between diagnoses and death, 36% of cases died.
In stark contrast, on August 16th, there were 3,000 cases. Fourteen days later there were 26 deaths. Which means that, in March, 36% of ‘cases’ died. In August 0.8% of ‘cases’ died. This, in turn, means that COVID was 45 times as deadly in March, as it was in August?
This seems extremely unlikely. In fact, it is so unlikely that it is, in fact, complete rubbish. What we have is a combination of nonsense figures which, added together, create nonsense squared. Or nonsense to the power ten.
To start with, we have the mangling of the concept of a ‘case’.
Previously, in the world of infectious diseases, it has been accepted that a ‘case’ represents someone with symptoms, usually severe symptoms, usually severe enough to be admitted to hospital. Here, from Wikipedia…. yes, I know, but on this sort of stuff they are a good resource.
‘In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) — sometimes called case fatality risk or disease lethality — is the proportion of deaths from a certain disease compared to the total number of symptomatic people diagnosed with the disease.’ 1
Note the word symptomatic i.e. someone with symptoms.
However, now we stick a swab up someone’s nose, who feels completely well, or very mildly ill. We find that they have some COVID particles lodged up there, and we call them a case of COVID. Sigh, thud!
A symptomless, or even mildly symptomatic positive swab is not a case. Never, in recorded history, has this been true. However, now we have an almost unquestioned acceptance that a positive swab represents a case of COVID. This is then parroted on all the news channels as if it were gospel.
I note that, at last, some people are beginning to question how it can be that, whilst cases are going up and up, deaths are going down, and down.
This is even the case in Sweden, which seems to be the final bastion of people with functioning brains. However, even they seem surprised by this dichotomy. In the first two weeks of August they had 4,152 positive swabs. Yet, in the last two weeks of August, they had a mere 14 deaths (one a day, on average).
That represents 1 death for every 300 positive swabs or, as the mainstream media insists on calling them, positive ‘cases’. Which, currently, represent a case fatality rate of 0.33%. Just to compare that with something similar, the case fatality rate of swine flu (HIN1), was 0.5%. 2
Thus, lo and behold, COVID is a less severe infection than swine flu – the pandemic that never was. That’s what these figures appear to tell us. They tell us almost exactly the same in France where they ‘appear’ to have a current case fatality rate of 0.4%.
On the other hand, if you look at the figures from around the world, they are very different. As I write this there have been, according to the WHO, 25 million cases and 850,000 deaths. That is a case fatality rate of more than 3%. Ten times as high.
Why are these figures so all over the place? It is because we are using horribly inaccurate terminology. We are comparing apples with pomegranates to tell us how many bananas we have. Our experts are, essentially, talking gibberish, and the mainstream media is lapping it up. They are defining asymptomatic swabs as cases, and no-one is calling them out on it. Why?
Because… because they are frightened of looking stupid? Primarily, I believe, because they also have no idea what a case might actually be So, it all sounds quite reasonable to them.
The good news
However, moving on from that nonsense, there is some extremely good news buried in here. Which I am going to try and explain. It goes as follows.
At the start of the epidemic, the only people being tested were those who were being admitted to hospital, who were seriously ill. Many of them died. Which is why, in France, there was this very sharp, initial case fatality rate of 35%. In the UK the initial case fatality rate was I think 14%. Last time I looked at the UK figures, the case fatality was 5%, and falling fast.
This fall has occurred, and will occur everywhere in the World, because as you increase your testing, you pick up more and more people with less severe symptoms. People who are far less likely to die. The more you test, the more the case fatality rate falls.
It falls even more dramatically when you start to test people who have no symptoms at all. In fact, as you broaden your testing net, something else very important happens. You gradually move from looking at the case fatality rate to the infection fatality rate.
The infection fatality rate is the measure of how many people who are infected [even those without symptoms, or very mild symptoms] who then die. This is the critical figure to know because it gives you an accurate assessment of the total number of deaths you are likely to see.
IFR x population of a country x % of population infected = total number of deaths (total mortality)
So, where have we got to. Well, although the case fatality rate in the UK still currently stands at 5%, because it is dragged up by the 14% rate we had at the start. If we look at the more recent figures things have changed very dramatically.
In the first two weeks of August there were 13,996 positive swabs in the UK. In the second two weeks of August there were 129 deaths. If you consider every positive swab to be a case, this represents a case fatality rate of 0.9%. Around one fifteenth of that seen at the start.
I think you can clearly see a direction of travel here.
- At the start on the pandemic we had a, brief, 35% fatality rate in France
- It was 14% in the UK at the start
- It now sits at 5% in the UK – over the whole pandemic
- In August, in the UK, it was down to 0.9%
- It is currently 0.47% in Germany
- It is currently 0.4% in France
- It is currently 0.33% in Sweden
It is falling, falling, everywhere. Where does it end up, this hybrid case/infection fatality rate? Remember, we are still only testing a fraction of the population, so we are missing the majority of people who have been infected, mainly those who do not have symptoms. Which means that these rates must fall further, as they always do in any pandemic.
To quote the Centre for Evidence Base Medicine on the matter:
‘In Swine flu, the IFR (infection fatality rate) ended up as 0.02%, fivefold less than the lowest estimate during the outbreak (the lowest estimate was 0.1% in the 1st ten weeks of the outbreak).’ 3
The best place to estimate where we may finally end up with COVID, is with the country that has tested the most people, per head of population. This is Iceland. To quote the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine once more:
‘In Iceland, where the most testing per capita has occurred, the IFR lies somewhere between 0.03% and 0.28%.’ 3
Sitting in the middle of 0.03% and 0.28% is 0.16%. As you can see, Iceland, having tested more people than anywhere else, has the lowest IFR of all. This is not a coincidence. This is an inevitable result of testing more people.
I am going to make a prediction that, in the end, we will end up with an IFR of somewhere around 0.1%. Which is about the same as severe flu pandemics we have had in the past. Remember that figure. It is one in a thousand.
It may surprise you to know that I am not the only person to have made this exact same prediction. On the 28th February, yes that far back, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (A.S.F., H.C.L.); and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta. 4
In this paper ‘Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted’ they stated the following:
‘On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%. In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate (my underline) may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’
A case fatality rate considerably less than 1%. Their words, not mine. As they also added, ‘the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’
At this point, you may well be asking. Why the hell did we lockdown if COVID was believed to be no more serious than influenza? Right from the start by the most influential infectious disease organisations in the World.
It is because of the mad mathematical modellers. The academic epidemiologists. Neil Ferguson, and others of his ilk. When they were guessing (sorry estimating, sorry modelling) the impact of COVID they used a figure of approximately one per cent as the infection fatality rate. Not the case fatality rate. In so doing, they overestimated the likely impact of COVID by, at the very least, ten-fold.
How could this possibly have happened?
When they put their carefully constructed model together on the 16th of March, if they had been reading the research, they must have been aware that they were looking at a maximum case fatality rate of just over 1% in China, right at the start, where the figures are always at their highest.
Which means that, unless COVID was going to turn out nearly 100% fatal, we could never get anywhere near 1%, for the infection fatality rate. Even Ebola only kills 50%.
But they went with it, they went with 1%. Actually, Imperial College reduced it slightly to 0.9%, for reasons that are opaque.
From this, all else flowed.
If the INFECTION fatality rate truly were 0.9%, and 80% of the population of the UK became infected, there would have been/could have been, around 500,000 deaths.
0.9% x 80% x 67million = 482,000
LOCKDOWN
However, if the case fatality rate is around 1%, then the infection fatality rate will be about one tenth of this, maybe less. So, we would see around 50,000 deaths, about the same as was seen in previous bad flu pandemics.
DO NOT LOCKDOWN
What Imperial College London did was to use a model that overestimated the infection fatality rate by a factor of ten.
We now know, as the IFR rates of various countries falls and falls, that the Imperial College estimated IFR was completely wrong. The UK, for example, has seen 42,000 deaths so far, which is 0.074% of population. The US has seen about 200,000 deaths 0.053%. Sweden, which did not lockdown down, has seen about 6,000 deaths, which is an infection fatality rate of 0.06%. All three countries are opening up and opening up. Whilst the ‘cases’ are rising and rising, the deaths continue to fall. They are, to all intents and purposes, flatlining.
In Iceland it is around 0.16% and falling. In other words…
Stop panicking – it’s over
Whilst everyone is panicking about the ever-increasing number of cases, we should be celebrating them. They are demonstrating, very clearly, that COVID is far, far, less deadly then was feared. The Infection Fatality Rate is most likely going to end up around 0.1%, not 1%.
So yes, it does seem that ‘the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’
Wise words, wise words indeed. Words that were written by one Anthony S Fauci on the 28th of February 2020. If you haven’t heard of him, look him up.
Critically though, eleven days after this, he rather blotted his copybook, because he went on to say this “The flu has a mortality rate of 0.1 percent. This (COVID) has a mortality rate of 10 times that. That’s the reason I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.” 5
The mortality rate Dr Fauci? Could it possibly be that he failed to understand that there is no such thing as a mortality rate? Did he mean the case fatality rate, or the infection fatality rate? If he meant the Infection mortality rate of influenza, he was pretty much bang on. If he meant the case fatality rate, he was wrong by a factor of ten.
The reality is that, no matter what Fauci went on to say, severe influenza has a case fatality rate of 1%, and so does COVID. They also have approximately the same infection fatality fate of 0.1%.
It seems that Dr Fauci just got mixed up with the terminology. Because in his Journal article eleven days earlier, he did state… ‘This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza… [and here is the kicker at the end] (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).’
You see, he did say the case fatality rate of influenza was approximately 0.1%. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong… wrong.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. With influenza, Dr Fauci, the CDC, his co-authors, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health and the New England Journal of Medicine got case fatality rate and infection fatality rate mixed up with influenza. Easy mistake to make. Could have done it myself. But didn’t.
You want to know where Imperial College London really got their 1% infection fatality rate figure from? It seems clear that they got it from Anthony S Fauci and the New England Journal of Medicine. The highest impact journal in the world – which should have the highest impact proof-readers in the world. But clearly does not.
Imperial College then used this wrong NEJM influenza case fatality rate 0.1%. It seems that they then compared this 0.1% figure to the reported COVID case fatality rate, estimated to be 1% and multiplied the impact of COVID by ten – as you would. As you probably should.
So, we got Lockdown. The US used the Fauci figure and got locked down. The world used that figure and got locked down.
That figure just happens to be ten times too high.
I know it is going to be virtually impossible to walk the world back from having made such a ridiculous, stupid, mistake. There are so many reputations at stake. The entire egg production of the world will be required to supply enough yolk to cover appropriate faces.
Of course, it will be denied, absolutely, vehemently, angrily, that anyone got anything wrong. It will be denied that a simple error, a mix up between case fatality and infection fatality led to this. It will even more forcefully stated that COVID remains a deadly killer disease and that all Governments around the world have done exactly the right thing. The actions were right, the models were correct. We all did the RIGHT thing. Only those who are stupid, or incompetent cannot see it.
When wrong, shout louder, get angry, double-down, attack your critics in any way possible. Accuse them of being anti-vaxx, or something of the sort. Dig for the dirt. ‘How to succeed in politics 101, page one, paragraph one.’
However, just have a look, at the figures. Tell me where they are wrong – if you can. The truth is that this particular Emperor has no clothes on and is, currently, standing bollock naked, right in front of you. Hard to believe, but true.
I would like to thank Ronald B Brown for pointing out this catastrophic error, in his article ‘Public health lessons learned from biases in coronavirus mortality overestimation.’ 6
I had not spotted it. He did. All credit is his. I am simply drawing your attention to what has simply been – probably the biggest single mistake that has ever been made in the history of the world.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate
3: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/
Thank you for the voice of reason.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been waiting for this forever, it seems!
The issue is the transmission rate!
None of this is news nor rocket science. Kendrick is speaking as if he has some great insights . It’s been long known and obvious to just about everyone that the virus has little to no impact on the young and massive impact on the old (I.e as soon as you start going beyond 65!) and otherwise compromised-Of which there are an awful lot of overweight, COPD, cancers, MS and other patients. Yes immediate panic and reaction and lots of mistakes made but who on earth would have sat back and just let the disease take its course.
Apart from being a PITA, it has not had a massive impact on me.
For all the actions that have been taken, none have improved the situation, so the disease has taken its course, while the interference by those who believe in models, and those who believe them, has wrecked economies and many more lives than just the “cases” attributed to the virus.
Me.
The ‘Me’ above was in response to David’s ‘but who on earth would have sat back and just let the disease take its course?’
It would have been a splendid and logical action.
Uhmmmm – we do it EVERY year and let the plain old flu ‘happen’ – here’s the kicker, the plain old flu is an equal opportunistic killer of all ages – SARS2 is not
So panic and overreaction and stupid destructive policies and elemental mistakes we pay the so-called “experts” not to make seem preferable to just letting the disease take its course?
Did you read and if so understand the article? Since they believed early on [correctly] that this was about like a severe flu season sitting back and letting the disease take its course was obviously the preferable policy to worldwide economic, civil rights and political destruction that ended up making little if any difference.
Even someone as ignorant and benighted as I am suggested in early March as our dear California government decided to confine us to our homes that truly protecting the vulnerable and letting the rest of us live our lives made a lot more sense.
So yes, panic and overreaction are almost always worse than doing nothing and lead to the great majority of the mistakes that are made.
So Trump was right back in March.
David said, “Yes immediate panic and reaction and lots of mistakes made but who on earth would have sat back and just let the disease take its course.”
The disease has taken its course anyway. Sitting back likely would have been as good if not better an approach.
A certain doctor, author, speaker, and skeptic likes to say, “Don’t just do something! Stand there! (And think).” Compelling advice.
David,
Are you saying the lockdowns, which are slowly strangling people’s lives, were the right thing?
Actually, even massive impact on old is false. Data makes it clear old & frail were killed by (i) increased susceptibility to ordinary respiratory ailments due to known effects of fear and isolation (ii) giving up on life because of the same, and (iii) botched medical care because of upheaval to medical system in response to a disease that doesn’t exist.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341832637_All-cause_mortality_during_COVID-19_No_plague_and_a_likely_signature_of_mass_homicide_by_government_response
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343775235_Evaluation_of_the_virulence_of_SARS-CoV-2_in_France_from_all-cause_mortality_1946-2020
Michel
I don’t want to appear to sceptical, but if you come from the Ontario Civil Liberties association, in research you may find Things that confirm your natural predispositions
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest
Interesting article, but I’m not sure I agree with it. If the infection fatality rate is 0.1% that means 68,000 people in the UK will die if everyone in the country gets the disease. 42,000 people have died so far, which would mean 61% of the country or 42,000,000 people have already had the disease, do you really believe that?
what do you believe 670,000? That figure is a long way off.
Possibly, but it’s difficult to extrapolate backwards from IFR and deaths to estimate the total number of infections in the untested and asymptomatic. The population may include people who have already had the virus for a second time. More importantly there is a huge variation in scruples about self isolation and masks within the UK and then within different cultures inside a country and around the world (everybody is supporting their arguments with data from different regions and countries as if human behaviour were homogeneous). Compare the community conscience that exists in Japan and Sweden to the UK’s mixed reaction. Then there is the variable duration of IgG response to different corona viruses but also the variable quantity of IgG production to SARS-Cov-2 depending on the individual. One Chinese study suggests on average 5 months of “immunity” post infection for SARS-Cov-2 .
On a personal level, my father-in-law tested with negligible IgM and a medium level of IgG in May, almost certainly caught it visiting his father in a nursing home in March where the more than half of the residents died in a two week period. He’s 66 he has Parkinson’s and diabetes and was asymptomatic. He never passed it to his wife or son who live with him.
Denis Rancourt, I agree with you. Isolation is an issue with the elderly. And my mum died in May, 2020 during this so call pandemic. Not of the coronavirus, she died from isolation, I feel. My mum was so scared by the media reports. That she wouldn’t even go out onto her veranda because she thought she’d catch this coronavirus. I feel the governments has a lot to be answerable to for isolating families and putting out fear warnings. They made out that everyone was a carrier. This scared my mum so much…to even let her own children in her house.
The media has a lot to be answerable to, as well with their fear tactics.
I feel that the numbers are been hiked by counting in the death tally, other underlying illnesses.
Agreed. The MSM has lapped it up, cranking up the fear every day. Even now, when deaths have fallen away, C4 announces, “There have been 4 deaths, bringing the total to 40 – 50 whatever thousand. Never any comparisons between then and now. And most other news has ceased to be if it’s not Corona related. Anyone heard of Idlib, Syria lately?
I’m disgusted with the lot of them. Strangely (for me) the one source of reasoned calm, apart from this blog, Ivor Cummings, Zoe Harcombe Lord Sumption and several notable others has been the Daily Telegraph. Who’d a thunk it, as our good doctor would say.
Christine
I don’t know in whose interest to create this climate of fear. I know other 80 year olds who have virtually not been out of their house for six months and now come out with crackpot remarks. When I ask people if they have been on holiday, they look at me as if I was a total nutter
The virus can probably spread from one balcony to another. Your mom did a wise thing.
So, if that is the case there is no point in “social” distancing, is there? Balconies are often further than 2m apart. And you still die if you are isolated – perhaps dieing of the virus might be a better faster way to go than sinking into depression, brain fog and despair.
Indeed, David, it has been known. The point is how do you respond to it? There is a litany of issues that are put to one side whilst we fight this disease.
It’s not about ‘who would have sat back’. It’s about weighing up the issues and not treating anything that is not covid as mere collateral damage. It’s about not being fixated.
And in being fixated many have lost all sense of proportion with this – 2 people have died in 28 days in the UK from Covid.
If you want an example of how all sense of proportion has been lost, here’s one.
In Sturgis in America there is a bike festival every year. This year the people were up in arms – bikers coming in failling to wear masks:
“I’ve not seen one single person wearing a mask,” said Jessica Christian, who is working at a bar at the sprawling event.
“It’s just pretty much the mentality that, ‘If I get it, I get it.’”
“In downtown Sturgis it’s just madness,” she said.
“People not socially distancing, everybody touching each other. It’ll be interesting to see how that turns out.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/07/south-dakota-bikers-rally-coronavirus-pandemic
I checked some history on this festival over the years. It’s worth pointing out that it has gone on each year with little to be said about it:
https://www.sonsofarthritis.com/blogs/news/history-sturgis-motorcycle-rally-wrecks-accidents-deaths
There has been one death linked to Sturgis this year – and my goodness, Google has a lot of links on it. It’s a 60 year old man with underlying conditions.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-death-sturgis-motorcycle-rally-smash-mouth-concert-a9705736.html
‘One death linked to Covid 19 in Sturgis’.
And this from the bottom of Google page 1 – everything before that was on the one ‘link’ to covid.
https://eu.argusleader.com/story/news/crime/2020/08/16/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-2020-rally-closes-nearly-20-000-seized-arrests-5-fatalities/5595223002/
Because of the number of people attending and lots of indoor gatherings in crowded hotels and establishments, it seemed unlikely to me that this wouldn’t result in noticable more cases. Thie following just came out. It is a work in progress but even if a fraction of suspected cases are real, this still has been a significant event in the spreading of covid. In how many deaths or long term health issues this has resulted will be hard to find out.
Click to access Contagion_Externality_Sturgis_Motorcycle_Rally_9-5-20_Dave_et_al.pdf
At least 260,000 cases from Sturges. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/08/study-260-000-coronavirus-cases-likely-tied-sturgis-rally/5750587002/
You’re at it again. Cases!!!!!!!!!!!! Ignore the deaths, concentrate on the cases!!!!!!!!
At least, 260,000 less vaccinations to give.
Kendrick’s article is a revelation! Not only have countless lives been lost (or taken!) because of this misreading of data, but the world’s economy is in dire straits. It’s not just “lots of mistakes” as you so blithely put it, it’s a monumental mistake which will go down in infamy
You seem to miss the point. The wicked cold ran its course anyway, despite mask mandates, lockdowns and all the other irrational behavior.
The pain and loss of life due to this irrational panic and lockdown is far more damaging and enduring than covid-19 ever had the potential to be.
Link to the CDC study on efficacy of masks released May 2020 (they’ve been studying them since the early 1900s)
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article?fbclid=IwAR3cRwXGdqr-JOdKccjaB7LjiX_dht17D_rnCay9LK-K_22WpzDt2HHlrMI
influenza kills children or old people?
As a physician in California, or now known as the State of the Living Dead, THANK YOU.
Hi, Dr. Kendrick and Dr. Kelly. I shared this post with friends and would appreciate your responses to some of the questions/concerns they raised. Among them:
– “How is the IFR for Covid-19 possibly just 0.1%, when it killed 0.4% of the total population of New York City — 32,000 dead of 8 million total population?”
– “For all the insistence on proper terminology, this is totally flubbed:
‘We now know, as the IFR rates of various countries falls and falls, that the Imperial College estimated IFR was completely wrong. The UK, for example, has seen 42,000 deaths so far, which is 0.074% of population. The U.S. has seen about 200,000 deaths 0.053%. Sweden, which did not lockdown down, has seen about 6,000 deaths, which is an infection fatality rate of 0.06%.’
“No. None of those are IFRs. Those are the percentages of the total population who have died from COVID-19. That’s not an IFR unless one assumes 100% of the population of each country has already contracted COVID-19 as of two weeks ago. Which isn’t right.”
– “Where does Dr. Kendrick get a 1% CFR for seasonal flu? CDC data published before COVID-19 show 0.13% of symptomatic cases led to deaths in 2017-18 flu outbreak (61,000 deaths; 45 million symptomatic cases): https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm. Even if you take lower-bound 95% CI for seeking medical treatment for flu, the rate is 0.33%, not 1%.”
Thanks so much.
Good questions.
Also – again, considering the focus on getting terminology right – this section seems wrong to me:
“”In this paper ‘Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted’ they stated the following:
‘On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%. In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate (my underline) may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’
A case fatality rate considerably less than 1%. Their words, not mine. As they also added, ‘the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’ “”
They’re stating that the “case” fatality rate may be “considerably less than 1%” based on a high number of “asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases”. So what they’re really saying is that the INFECTION FATALITY RATE (IFR) may be considerably less than 1% (since they’re including asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic positive test results). Their words, not yours, but they used them wrong. This is a big difference and goes right to the heart of the point of this article.
Additionally, this analysis seems to be missing two key points: 1. What is the R0 compared to flu? and 2. What is the true CFR (using the proper definition of “case”) compared to flu? In other words, what explains the number of Covid-19 deaths so far this year (200,000 in the US), compared to the usual flu deaths? (It’s not because people with pre-existing/underlying conditions were counted as Covid-19 deaths, because that’s how flu is reported too).
Yes indeed. Thank you Dr. And Mr Brown for highlighting what all people with an IQ of room temperature (degrees C) should have known from the start
Btw am I one of the only sane men alive who refuses to own or wear a dog muzzle?
But being a coward I carry one of those exemption cards printed from the internet. I have only been challenged once so far.
As far as it being ‘ probably the single biggest mistake in the history of the world’ yes, it is right up there with the great man made global warming scientific fraud
Where do you get the exemption cards from? I would like one.
Dorz,
Thank you. I downloaded several templates months ago from a bus company website.
I have only had reason to show it once – at a chemists.
Try the following. Bear in mind I am useless at doing links but this should work. Good luck and join the resistance against this Marxists Chinese Flu nonsense.
http://Www.gov.uk/government/publications/face-coverings-when-to-wear-one-and-how-to-make-your-own
You will find templates for exemption cards and badges to download and print.
Good luck and good health.
of course, masks kill. why don’t you take up scuba diving mask-less of course, and don’t go to the hospital needing breathing assistance because … you know
Have you anything constructive to say?
According to medical personnel in New York between 86 and 88% of those patients who ended up connected to a respirator have died because the equipment was not adapted to the situation (too high pressure, damage of the lungs, etc.). That may also explain part of the high fatality figures there where high use of respirators.
Whilst this seems to make a great deal of sense, and my business has been impacted heavily by lockdown (I work in live music) I wonder why some places, Bergamo in Italy, Madrid and several other places were so heavily imapcted in the first wave? Also, could the seemingly less virulent second wave be because due to restrictions imposed the infections are less deadly because the “viral load” is less than it would be if people were packed into venues etc? I have no idea as I have no medical knowledge at all. Just wondering how come there are less severe cases at present?
Italy has the highest proportion of old people in Europe and second highest in world.
The worst affected area has the worst air quality and highest proportion of respiratory disease in Europe.
The Chinese have bought up lots of the local rag-trade businesses and imported legally and illegally many Chinese to work in them – many from Wuhan.
That part of Italy had the most flights in Europe to Wuhan.
The authorities hid the epidemic so as not to be racist (shades of “Grooming” Gangs).
When they couldn’t keep it under wraps any longer they started a “Hug a Chinese” campaign.
Apparently Chinese people never die in the area – the authorities suspect bodies are disposed of by the triads who recycle legal immigrants real and illegal immigrants fake documentation to new illegal immigrants so that further masked the epidemic outbreak.
Madrid also has high levels of Chinese immigrants so much travel home for eg Chinese New Year.
They own most of the corner shops – where everybody goes for supplies even in lockdown.
Oh and the Socialist government kept quiet about any possible epidemic until after their Women’ Day Marches were held.
You might think the above might explain why those areas were so heavily impacted in the first wave.
But I couldn’t possibly comment!
Thanks for this. I’ve been looking at the figures in UK / France / Spain a lot myself recently, and had noticed that while the infections are going up still (UK seems to be just taking off again now), the deaths are not so much – it is good news, but we’re not out of it yet. What this article does not mention – nor do the reported figures – is how full the hospitals are. What has not been explained is the very high death rate attributed to COVID in March. Is it because the virus has mutated to a less fatal strain? Or, working backwards from the 0.1% infection fatality rate in the article, with 41k UK deaths so far, have 41 million of us in the UK been infected already? If so, why are infection rates currently rising, when testing has been more-or-less constant for the last few months – the vast proportion of us must have already had it? Nor are they talking about the lack of medical understanding of how the virus affects people – an unprecedented variety in symptoms which makes treating the illness very difficult. We need to re-open to get/keep the economy up and running – but we need to understand why so many deaths happened so early on, so that we don’t return to those numbers. I wouldn’t go around hugging people just yet.
AJF
The deaths were high in March because that is the normal pattern for respiratory infections every year. As to cases going up now, I had assumed it was increased testing. The test isn’t very specific. You say your testing rates in the UK are steady. Hmm. I think here in the US the testing has gone up and also in certain populations. Like returning university students. They will say that some several hundred have tested positive and call them cases. This is largely nonsense. Never before have we run around swabbing healthy people’s noses or throats looking for nonspecific bits of RNA after amplification. Thus the false positives. I think it we continue to do that we will find over the years that a certain number of people will test positive due to various causes, including during ordinary cold and flu exposure. But if these people are not sick and do not come down with anything, that just is an indication that the immune system did its job. In other words, completely normal. As I understand it, these positive cases, many of which are counted more than once, have no hospitalizations.
The problem is that you need to detect as many people with the virus as possible due to its infectivity, especially before they become symptomatic and spreaders, so detecting low levels of infection are desirable. It’s impossible to distinguish between someone whose infection is declining just before recovery and someone whose infection is on the rise. The precautionary principle has to win out I’m afraid.
The application of the precautionary principle almost always has disastrous consequences.
What infectivity?!
If you run the “test” (which the Nobel Prizewinning inventor said shouldn’t be used as a test!) for enough cycles EVERYONE will test positive.
Many say if you need to run the “test” much more than 20 cycles (which duplicates any scrap of relevant virus a million times) then what was there to start with wouldn’t be enough to cause disease in anyone.
Many countries use 30 cycles which magnifies the sample a BILLION TIMES.
We apparently use 45 cycles which if I recall correctly multiplies the sample 35 TRILLION TIMES!
If you use 60 cycles the magnification is 1.1529215046068E+18 times and will find “infection” in ANYONE!
Even if the virus has died out!!!
As a 44-year old person who is high-risk, and who knows many other young people in the same boat, we are largely still shielding. In fact since mid-Feb I’ve only been at home or the hospital for my treatment. The elderly I know are doing the same, although they’ve formed ‘bubbles’ with friends to combat loneliness. We can’t die from something we don’t catch. But studies to date put my risk of death IF I catch COVID at 20-35% No studies I can find yet about the long-term impact on my quality of life if I got it and survived it.
Contrary to regular bile online about how worthless our lives are because we have “underlying conditions” (what adults don’t?) we are young, have families, dependents, mortgages, work full-time, contribute to society through charity work etc. We also largely have many good years left to live despite having stage 4 cancer. In fact it is very likely I have over a decade still, possibly even pushing towards 2 decades, such have been the advances in cancer care.
In comparing the early days to now I do feel people are comparing apples and oranges. People ARE still shielding (no matter what Boris says. Those most likely to die from it are ensuring, as best they can, that they don’t catch it in the first place. Sadly Belgium and France were curious as to their lack of deaths during their latest outbreaks. The outbreaks were among young people, some weeks later that filtered through to their elderly and/or ill friends and family dying.
Unlike some I’m not panicked. I just am not going to risk getting this virus. I am not having some stranger give me a virus that could kill me all because they think mask-wearing or washing their hands properly for once breaches their human rights. But looking online the evidence of intelligence among the general public is scarce sadly.
Comparisons with flu are to be expected but they are also a bit pointless given us at-risk people get the flu vaccine every year and it is chosen to target the strains most likely to pose a public health problem. There is no vaccine to protect us from this one yet.
Jenna, there’s no evidence the flu vaccine works either. Hoping for a vaccine for protection is similar to hoping for a skyhook if you fall out of a tree. After more than 40 years with vaccines, flu is still here, and despite huge quantities spent on the common cold, that is still here too.
As I have mentioned previously, the flu virus mutates frequently. So you can’t say that “there is no evidence that flu vaccine works”.
“Flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to the flu vaccine.” –– https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm
As for masks, a view from Tom Woods:
”Sweden truly is making the lockdowners crazy.
As I wrote last week:
Doomers are so wedded to their voodoo pseudoscience that they have to keep dancing around Sweden rather than admit that their rain dances aren’t actually what bring the rain.
When you used to bring up Sweden, the response was: they have a high death rate! What a disaster!
Now, when Sweden is being vindicated every day, the response is: oh, they voluntarily complied with various mitigation practices, and that’s why it worked out so well! (To some degree yes, but I recommend looking through pictures from Stockholm during these months and drawing your own conclusion. And remember: Sweden never closed primary schools or businesses, or imposed a mask mandate.)
Notice what they cannot say:
“Hmm, maybe there was another way to go about this after all.”
From the beginning of the COVID fiasco we’ve been subjected to predictions from something called the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.
These people are the wrongiest of the wrong, and yet we continue to be subjected to their forecasts.
Entrepreneur Yinon Weiss noticed that at the beginning of September the IHME predicted that Sweden, which was having close to zero COVID deaths per day, would inexplicably rise to over 180 deaths per day by December 1 if they didn’t institute a mask mandate. (Seeing that Sweden “flattened the curve” without such a mandate, it’s unlikely they’ll be instituting one.)
The IHME also said that by October 1 without a mask mandate Sweden would already have crept up to 20 deaths per day.
Well, let’s see how that’s going!
It’s now early October and Sweden is at…
…one death per day.
In the entire country.
One.
So what did IHME do?
Reexamine its assumptions?
Nope.
It just pushed its deaths prediction back by a month!”
An hour long, worth listening to every second. He took on VW and the Bundesbank and won. A German language version is also available. Prof Dolores Cahill is part of his expert witness team. If your business has lost money, prepare to join the UK class action.
Do try to contain your joy!
I would join it if I could work out how to. All small businesses who lost money and landlords (who now have to provide up to a year’s rent free accommodation for tenants who can’t be bothered to pay their rent, even when it’s being paid to them by the state) should too
“Hmm, maybe there was another way to go about this after all.” — I strongly disagree with this. Basically you’re letting people DIE, just because you don’t want the businesses to close.
It’s just so biased that so many people are using Sweden just because “they didn’t have lockdown”. Taiwan didn’t have a lockdown either, but they wore masks and social distanced. Therefore, they only have 7 deaths.
People didn’t want to wear mask and social distance and they keep spreading and increase the number of infections, thereby increasing the number of deaths. Therefore, the government had NO CHOICE but to apply lockdown.
I don’t want people to die because they lost their incomes and killed themselves or couldn’t get decent food or medical care for their conditions because a handful of people might die of bad flu. I don’t want a generations of children to suffer loss of education and job opportunities because a handful of people might die of bad flu. I don’t want people to die because our arrogant government would rather persecute their citizens than treat sick people effectively with protocols to invented by the NHS.
“couldn’t get decent food or medical care for their conditions” — lockdowns don’t prevent people from receiving medical health care
“our arrogant government would rather persecute their citizens than treat sick people effectively with protocols to invented by the NHS” — hospitals can’t treat people effectively if people keep moving around
Yes they do prevent proper medical treatment. Only cv19 can get treated in many areas. GPs surgeries are still not doing proper appointments and for many things will only see you in the car park or not at all if you don’t have a car. Hospitals are still not doing the treatments for cancer and so on that they were before. I can’t get the blood tests I need and have been waiting for since March. Lots of elderly people were dumped out of hospital into care homes and therefore killed, and it’s all set to happen again with the non-existent second wave. Perhaps it’s not the same where you live. Lockdown means you can’t meet anyone else indoors or even in your yard or garden, and only a few other people out of doors. Isolation means you (probably) get no money or just SSP for two weeks unless you work for a big company and can’t go out at all and no one can visit you. And why does visiting friends and relatives or attending an outdoor play (aka Moving around) stop hospitals treating people effectively? They don’t treat effectively anyway – just stick people on ventilators and let them die as far as I can see. If you needed hospital treatment you wouldn’t be in a fit state to go anywhere, would you? That just makes no sense.
“And why does visiting friends and relatives or attending an outdoor play (aka Moving around) stop hospitals treating people effectively?” –– Lockdown is an extreme form of social distancing.
The main purpose for lockdown is to make contact tracing easier.
Here’s a scenario:
There are 3 people: A, B and C
1. Person A was tested negative.
2. The health officials then test Person B.
3. Person A visit Person C
4. Person C was then tested positive after Person A’s visit.
5. Person A didn’t know Person C was tested positive and Person A visits Person B
6. Person A was tested positive after the visit with Person B.
7. Person B didn’t know person A was tested positive and visit, let’s say, Person D.
This is only a simplified transmission.
In the real world, Person A might visit both Person B and C. Person B and C might then visit Person D.
“They don’t treat effectively anyway – just stick people on ventilators and let them die as far as I can see.” –– I don’t think that’s the case. Some people are just unfortunate that they can’t make it.
You obviously know nothing about the UK and how lockdowns are implemented here. People are told they cannot mix with anyone else and should not even out of doors as it is too dangerous (it used to be that you shouldn’t even go out or go to work) and therefore are too scared to go to the doctor – not that they can get an appointment anyway, most surgeries are only offering online or phone appointments which is useless if you think you’ve broken your leg or have a lump or rash and need to be examined, or are deaf.. Medical care in hospitals has been restricted to cv19 in many areas, so lots of people have had cancer and heart disease treatment stopped, and preventative testing and screening is at an all time low – and you even need an appointment to go to A&E or so they say. It’s not an extreme form of social distancing, it’s a punishment and curfew system to stop people doing anything that makes life bearable or fun. It’s not so people can be traced, as they haven’t been tracked until very recently, and then only in pubs and cafes (and now hairdressers and massage parlours) in the last week or so. Anyway, few people can afford to lose two weeks pay, so everyone I know avoids the test & trace system or gives false details. How does stopping mother and adult daughter meeting in a private garden help with track and trace, when they can meet on the road outside the garden? You are still going to come into contact with more people while queuing for the shops or a takeaway than you ever would in your home.
What you have described is basically the same as in my place.
“It’s not an extreme form of social distancing, it’s a punishment and curfew system to stop people doing anything that makes life bearable or fun.” — we can do other things for fun as well. You want to watch a movie? You can watch it online. Karaoke? Go into YouTube and you can sing. These are a few of the examples people can find things to do.
For contact tracing in my place, customers have to record their details whenever they enter a shop or restaurant. Before that, I used to order food deliveries, so food deliverymen were considered essential at that time. Food deliveries were quite in high demand and non-essential workers could switch to food deliveries for the time being.
“Everyone I know avoids the test & trace system or gives false details.” — Yes, they avoid going to hospital to avoid being infected. But if they must really go to the hospital, they should and I believe that NOT EVERY doctor would be responsible for treating COVID patients. There are definitely some doctors who would still treat other diseases.
“How does stopping mother and adult daughter meeting in a private garden help with track and trace, when they can meet on the road outside the garden?” — I’m not sure the contact tracing in UK works, but as I have mentioned before, customers were required to record down their contact details whenever they enter a shop or restaurant in here.
“You are still going to come into contact with more people while queuing for the shops or a takeaway than you ever would in your home.” — Yes, true, that’s why I used to order food deliveries or cook at home during lockdowns.
No, I don’t want to do any of those things. In fact I’d pay to avoid them, esp karaoke. Can’t afford to watch films online (and there aren’t any new ones) and a small screen is too uncomfortable – don’t really miss cinema as I can’t hear it anyway. I’m deaf, so most online things are useless to me as the autocaptions suck. I miss decent access to the public library – not a tracked 15 min dash – country walks with friends, reading in cafes without invasion of my privacy by tracking, going to National Trust properties and museums on a whim, visiting neighbours and, most important, being able to earn a living without hindrance. I’m not afraid of the virus and don’t eat junk food as I have special dietary needs, so ordering takeaways is out for me and online shopping is too expensive as you have to pay for delivery and they substitute things you or leave them out of the order. I always cook or eat raw, but you still have to get the ingredients, so you have to queue for shops and waste a lot of time standing in the rain while people push past you to get to wherever they are going and a 10 min shopping trip takes half an hour or more. Doesn’t bother me from a catching the virus point of view, but it makes a nonsense of all the regulations as they increase contact – just like table service in a cafe. Instead of ordering, paying and collecting your drink (one contact behind a screen at a distance), you order and pay, go to table and get drinks delivered (an additional close contact). Where’s the sense in that? The elderly people in the sheltered housing near me are talking to their relatives over their back fences as they are not allowed into their gardens. How is that safer than standing the same distance apart in the garden? I’m sure viruses can jump 4 or 5 foot wooden fences. None of it makes any sense. If there any of it worked, the virus would have gone by now after more than 6 months of this rubbish
Yes, there is a higher chance of being infected when eating out, since there are more people. The government was just trying to limit the crowd. Therefore, it’s best to have takeaways.
Once the country has the virus under control, then the people are free to do whatever they like 🙂
So why introduce more contacts in a cafe than there were before? And why are there more chances of infection eating in a restaurant (not that I have for at least a year – way too expensive) than standing in the same queue as the queue for tables but getting a cup of tea to take away? Official stats show that pubs and restaurants have contributed very little to cv19 “cases”. Most takeaways are junk food, so really shouldn’t be encouraged as they make public health worse. And they are handled by more people than collecting your own food in a cafe, so arguably more dangerous. At least if you can afford to eat in good restaurant you are probably getting good food made with good ingredients. I think you are totally brainwashed and fail to see the lack of logic in all these measures. So can you see anything wrong with this scenario? Buying a metro (public transport) ticket. 1) Choose your ticket using a touch screen 2) you should pay with a contactless card – there are no staff at the station.
“Official stats show that pubs and restaurants have contributed very little to cv19 “cases” –– Do they?
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-nireland-foster/northern-ireland-pauses-pub-reopening-after-spike-in-covid-19-cases-idUKKCN2522G5
“Most takeaways are junk food, so really shouldn’t be encouraged as they make public health worse.” –– those are because of people’s decisions, not because of what the restaurant gave.
“And they are handled by more people than collecting your own food in a cafe, so arguably more dangerous” –– how are takeaways being handled more people? They put it in a container, then they put it in a plastic bag.
Please stop being delusional and start taking the virus seriously.
“Buying a metro (public transport) ticket.
1) Choose your ticket using a touch screen
2) you should pay with a contactless card – there are no staff at the station.”
–– I think both are fine. Just remember to have good hygiene if you use a touch screen.
I would choose contactless card because it’s efficient, not because it’s “contactless”.
I’m in England, not Northern Ireland: https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/28/pubs-and-restaurants-responsible-for-just-3-of-outbreaks-before-curfew-introduced-13339149/
And you really can’t see the ticket thing, can you? There are no staff on the station and therefore there is no one to clean the touch screen. If cloths and cleaner were left there, they would be stolen in a matter of minutes, so there is no way to practice good hygiene while using a touch screen in a station, so what is the point of using a contactless card when you have already contaminated the machine with your hands? Just illogical. Why is a contactless card efficient when you can have 999 euros stolen from your account by hackers? i don’t have one as I think it is a security risk and it can get picked up by card machines when you don’t want to pay that way. I have also never seen anyone clean the credit card machine in supermarket. But viruses can’t get round perspex screens so no worries there. They also can’t get you in pubs or restaurants unless you stand up and go to the toilet – sitting down is fine – but pubs should be pretty safe as alcohol kills viruses.
“Alcohol kill virus” –– yes, it’s AT LEAST 60%.
“Fruit liqueurs typically range from 28% to 32%, gin ranges from 35% to 40%; vodka ranges from 35% to 46%; whiskey, rum and tequila are 40-46%; and cask strength whiskey is 55-60%” ––unless you’re drinking a whiskey with very high alcohol content, then may be.
https://www.alcohol.org/statistics-information/abv/
I wouldn’t know, I’m strictly teetotal. But there must be a reason it’s safe to sit down without a mask, but not stand up, so if it’s not the alcohol, what is it?
”Please stop being delusional and start taking the virus seriously.”
Why take a virus classified as a low consequence pathogen any more seriously than, say, tuberculosis, or malaria, or cholera, or cancer or heart disease (which, incidentally, could be caused by a pathogen)? The virus is not serious for more than 99% of the population, unless you’re delusional.
Why? Because we don’t have a known cure!
We have a cure for almost every other infection.
Like I mentioned previously, we have vaccines for flu, medications for other diseases like heart disease. We have cure for malaria, although it’s getting ineffective, due to Plasmodium mutation.
Basically, we have a cure for almost every infection, EXCEPT COVID-19.
We don’t have one for scarlet fever, we don’t have one for flu, we don’t have one for pertussis, we don’t have one for herpes, the list goes on. You do have an immune system, neglect it at your peril.
No treatment for pertussis? https://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/about/diagnosis-treatment.html
No treatment for scarlett fever? https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/scarlet-fever/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20377411
I just mentioned that there is a vaccine for flu every year.
Can you please do a bit of research instead of giving general statements?
Yes, we have an immune system, but we can’t guarantee that our immune system wins ALL the time. That’s why we have antibiotics.
If we have that level of immune system, NO ONE would have died from any disease!
Pertussis is a bacterial infection, not a viral infection. Antibiotics can be used for bacterial infections but are useless for viruses.
Scarlet Fever has never had a vaccine but is pretty rare these days compared to the past; despite that – most childhood diseases were already well in decline when vaccines were introduced for some of those. They were in decline because people were better nourished than in the past and, as in many viral epidemics, these viruses become less virulent over time as background levels of immunity evolve.
It’s all very well to say that antibiotics are the answer but it seems to have escaped your notice that many antibiotics are no longer of any use as bacteria have the unfortunate ability to become antibiotic-resistant. So having a good immune system is really important, especially in our current drug-based medical practice!
As it is, we are all different and our susceptibilities are different – and, sadly, it often comes down to the survival of the fittest. We all die one day.
I was referring to lack of effective vaccines for those diseases.
You should do some research on antibiotics. They can have undesirable consequences for the gut flora.
I knew that. That’s why I keep emphasizing prevention.
Yes, there are antibiotics, but it DOESN’T MEAN that you could ignore the preventive measures.
As far as I’m aware, we don’t have a “cure” for everything – certainly not for viral infections! A vaccine for flu isn’t a “cure” – and isn’t terribly effective and may well have adverse consequences – it’s meant to prevent flu not cure it. The best that medicine can offer is “treatment” and not “cure”. What we do have is our own immune systems which, when in optimal condition, are pretty good at dealing with the onslaught of viral infections, if only people (and most doctors) were taught how to optimise it!
Everything has a limitation, including our immune system. That’s why we can’t solely depend on our immune system. That’s why prevention is THE best way.
6% of the people died from COVID-19 and those people did not have underlying conditions.
6%!!!? I don’t think so – unless you mean 6% of people sick enough to go to hospital, in which case I think the figure is much higher since a lot were killed by inappropriate ventilation. More like 0.1%, and anyway how many of those who died and were “apparently” healthy actually had fatty livers or undiagnosed pre-diabetes, or vitamin and mineral deficiencies (or at least less than optimal hba1c) or were overweight? I bet most of them. We’ll never know as in many countries no autopsies were done. And how many said to have died of it really did?
We have several cures for cv19 but it seems that no one is allowed to mention them. Probably more than cures for seasonal flu. D Trump is apparently cured, B Johnson was apparently cured, so how did that happen if there are no cures? Anyway the death rate is so low it hardly matters, heart disease and cancer are far more lethal and we don’t have any cures for those
Dexamethasone is not a “cure” –– it’s just a promising drug. It’s an “antibody cocktail made by the company Regeneron, in combination with remdesivir, an antiviral drug made by Gilead Sciences, which is authorized for emergency use but still unproven.”
https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/what-is-dexamethasone-covid-19
No, Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid (not an antibiotic) used for many years to suppress inflammation in conditions such as asthma. I used to take it but it was useless and gave me oral thrush. I now have budesonide instead. I’m talking about MATH+, and HCQ, antibiotic and zinc. To me, a cure is something that makes the patient better and makes the symptoms go away. So those are both cures. There are probably others including the somewhat dodgy drug combinations apparently taken by D Trump – but he got better so if he had it and took those drugs, they are a cure. If you don’t think a cure is something that makes the patient better, there are no cures for any diseases. There is no cure for cancer as most treatments make the patient worse/as sick and the disease/symptoms come back after a few years or just kill the patient in spite of the treatment.
I’ve watched takeaways being packed in local Indian. Chef cooks, assistant packs and gives to customer. If delivered, chef cooks, assistant packs and hands to delivery driver, delivery driver gives to customer (and the driver has to touch your door as well). One more contact (on bag and house door, but it’s still an extra contact). Plastic surfaces are surely just as dangerous as cardboard lids and foil trays
In that case, according to your rational, we will never be able to do what we like as the incompetence of governments will never allow them to control a virus. Apart from the impossibility of anyone on the planet being able to control it. It is a fallacious argument, viruses do what they do, controlling it is a fantasy.
“In that case, according to your rational, we will never be able to do what we like as the incompetence of governments will never allow them to control a virus.” –– I strongly disagree. The governments in other countries had the virus under control and they could safely open up their schools and businesses.
https://www.endcoronavirus.org/countries
“Apart from the impossibility of anyone on the planet being able to control it. It is a fallacious argument, viruses do what they do, controlling it is a fantasy.” –– You never thought of prevention? Are you telling me that you’re just going to “let it run its course”? Because “letting it run its course” is a foolish thing to do. It’s almost like letting a *bacteria kill you, because you would say that it’s “part of nature”, correct?
Being infected is just like engaging in a battle or war. If you avoided it, there would not be a single death. But if you were infected, there always a chance that you might lose, especially against an active virus like the one in the current pandemic. Even if you win, the damage was already done to your body and your body needs time to repair and recover.
*I’m using bacteria, because it is much easier to explain, since being infected by bacteria is more common.
You don’t have a choice when it comes to controlling a virus. You do have a choice as to how high a risk you are prepared to take. You can look after your immune system, and lower the risk. There comes a time of course when no amount of maintenance will help.
We don’t have a choice? We DO. Prevention is THE choice.
Prevention comes in many forms. Optimising the immune system through nutrition, good lifestyle, regular exercise, good quality sleep, avoiding stress etc are the ones we can all utilise if we know how.
Vaccines are probably what you’re inferring, but as they may not come without risk, it’s always a question of balancing the risk versus benefit as many vaccines are used to try and prevent illnesses that really aren’t worth trying to prevent, and may even make the whole problem worse. Take mumps, for example. In about 30% of children, it is totally asymptomatic. In another large proportion, the symptoms are like a cold or mild flu, without parotitis. The unlucky ones may get swollen salivary glands and more discomfort. However, the vaccine provides only short-term protection thus making the vaccinee vulnerable at an older age, when the illness can be more serious and affecting the gonads. This is what we’re seeing now as a consequence of the vaccine.
Chickenpox is vaccinated against in the US and we are now seeing children with shingles, as a result – something previously unheard of!
The acellular pertussis vaccine also doesn’t given long-term protection and has also been found to create colonisation of the pertussis bacteria in the vaccinee so that they are asymptomatic but are contagious to anyone else susceptible.
Yawwnnnnn………….. if you say so……….
If viruses can be “prevented” how come no virus that has ever been found (with the exception of smallpox) has ever been eradicated. Not one. It makes me wonder if smallpox was ever actually eradicated or whether it just mutated into such a mild form that no one noticed it any more. Viruses are always with us and always will be. They were here before humans and will be here long after we are gone. Why bother to spend so much money and effort on trying to control a mild disease with a very low fatality rate when It’s basically impossible to do. Treat people properly and then no one needs to worry about it. We’ve lived through Hong Kong flu, bird flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS etc – why is this any different? Just treat the sick and get on with life.
Here are the latest, terrifying figures of covid mortality from the CDC https://youtu.be/e4hrHAefWaY. There is also information from Mr Fauci. More lockdowns looks lke the order of the day.
KJE, I wonder if it is possible to get treatment for cognitive dissonance on the NHS or if some people might be forced to get it privately.
Its a good job they provoked a worldwide lockdown. Early studies into the effects of Covid on the heart are showing that 70% of ALL people that contract the disease (including asymptomatic, including children) have damage to their heart, and predict that between 1% and 10% will go into heart failure within 10 years.
Heart Failure already accounts for 1% of the NHS budget on its own. When hospitalized Patients spends average of 10 days in hospital and that happens on and off for 3-5 years before death typically being hospitalized 2-5 times a year each time for 10 days etc. Costs are astronomical. In Europe over 50% of patients will get re hospitalized every year at least once etc. Around 4% of all hospitalizations in the NHS is already because of HF
And we haven’t mentioned children yet. Imagine if our children are heading towards a future of heart failure?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/suspected-covid-related-syndrome-in-children-can-cause-severe-heart-damage-study-finds-1.5094604
Moral of the story is we are not out of the woods yet and people need to be vigilant. We need more time and more data to figure out potential post Covid issues. Which I desperately hope are not as bad as this
Until there is more data from further study and there is a vaccine people should continue to be vigilant.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2768916
https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/04/carnage-in-lab-dish-shows-how-coronavirus-may-damage-heart/
https://www.google.ch/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/5704234002
K Marsden, heart failure was doing nicely long before covid arrived on the scene. Dr. K. may have more to say given his decades of study into CVD. I doubt we were ever “in” the woods, and given how long te flu vaccine has been about, and how ineffective it is, it seems mere belief that a Gates funded Rona vaccine will be of any benefit either.
Not sure a vaccine is the answer
Flu shots and the risk of coronavirus infections
John Watkins is right; we need to think beyond containment, but he overlooks the possibility that seasonal flu shots are potential contributors to the current outbreak. (BMJ 2020;398:m810—February 28)….A randomized placebo-controlled trial in children showed that flu shots increased fivefold the risk of acute respiratory infections caused by a group of noninfluenza viruses, including coronaviruses. (Cowling et al, Clin Infect Dis 2012;54:1778)
https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m810/rr-0
Pentagon Study: Flu Shot Raises Risk of Coronavirus by 36% (and Other Supporting Studies)
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/vaccine-misinformation-flu-shots-equal-health/
I don’t believe it. Flu shots did provide some immunity to COVID-19, since COVID-19 causes flu-like symptoms.
Our adaptive immune system forms cells called MEMORY CELLS after the encounter with flu vaccine, which contains dead/weakened influenza virus.
One reason might be that people thought they are safe from influenza virus because they were vaccinated one time.
Influenza viruses are highly mutative, therefore it is encouraged that you should get a flu shot every year.
There’s also suggestions that flu jabs increase susceptibility to covid-19, so I’d be interested in your source for the “evidence” of effectiveness. Vaccines have a record of existing in an evidence free bubble.
The only evidence in journal articles that I’ve found suggests that flu vaccine makes you more susceptible to viruses not included in this year’s vaccine. It’s also not terribly (according to Cochrane report of several years ago) effective for this year’s strains. Great if you ate the one point somethinh person who doesn’t get flu because of it, but a waste if you are not – and apparently most years only about three people actually get flu as opposed to other flu-like illnesses. So not for me, thanks. And, of course, children will be shedding live virus for days after having their jabs – so avoid all children over the early winter.
Hi K Marsden. I think Dr Kendrick has already explained that in very rare cases children can develop a condition like Kawasaki’s Disease and has described how that could occur (via the inflammatory response).
The JAMA paper you linked has been doing the rounds. It’s already had to be re-published once by the study authors after some anomalies were picked up in one of the tables. The Troponin levels in the study were in the normal range. There was also no way of proving that any of the features in the scans weren’t already present in those individuals prior to getting Covid-19 as none of them had a scan just before developing Covid-19. Plenty of people go around with ‘undiagnosed’ heart problems. You hear all the time about people dropping dead from heart attacks without any prior signs of damage.
Also, Dr K has previously explained that those who have been severely impacted by Influenza and it’s complications associated with the inflammatory response can experience long term organ damage.
Although it’s hard to definitively say what will happen over the long term, from what I’ve read, I would be surprised if asymptomatic/non-serverely affected Covid patients suffer longer term problems.
Dr Kendrick asserts there is no such thing as a “mortality rate”. But this is quite plainly false.So what on earth is he talking about?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate
Wikipedia is not a recognised source f reliable facts. Treat with caution.
That’s just a general definition
https://www.healthline.com/health/top-10-deadliest-diseases
From what I understand the mortality rate for any living thing is 100%.
You have to have some parameters to define a ‘mortality’ rate.
This is another good example. There IS such thing as mortality rate, yet this comment received huge number of downvotes, just because this person disagreed with Dr. Malcolm.
For the sake of the excellent points you ar making, you might want to correct this.
I think you meant 3,900 cases, not 3,900 hundred case. Just saying….
But what does this actually mean? Just to keep the focus on France for a moment. On March 26th, just before their deaths peaked, there were 3,900 hundred ‘cases’. Fourteen days later, there were 1,400 deaths. So, using a widely accepted figure, which is a delay of around two weeks between diagnoses and death, 36% of cases died.
Thanks. I thought I had edited it. I will have another look.
Please please can someone convince Boris and his entourage of scaremongers !!!!
As usual dr k you give us hope ,for us and for our families future,well done for passing this info to us it’s great to make people question and make their own choices.x
You have to see the whole picture when making an informed decision! This article is not set in the context of the high transmission rate and resulting impact on healthcare facilities.
Funny how some political entities, like, say, Utah, never had a high case fatality rate (its highest rate was 1.21% as compared with New York’s 8.14%) because they treated covid effectively. Healthcare facilities were never taxed in Utah, nor in just about any red state in the US. Likely because of two things…enough general practitioners treated covid with hydroxychloroquine EARLY, resulting in decreased hospitalization, and ICU doctors didn’t ventilate patients prematurely, unlike New York, which made protecting health care workers its top priority at the cost of patients getting ventilator induced lung injury. There was an actual investigation about VILI in New York hospitals.
Exactly. Had the UK locked down a week later the NHS would have been completely overwhelmed, increasing the covid fatality rate and creating fatalities from people hospitalised for day to day illnesses.
Tosh. You’re just trolling.
I wish I believed that it was a mix up, error, oversight and not a deliberate attempt to bring in a ‘pandemic’ the likes of which Mr Fauci warned Trump would face in his first term…
Mmmmm…
1. How did Fauci know?
2. Why was this not investigated when he said it?
3. On what basis did he make this statement? (What did he know that we don’t?)
4. Where did he actually get this information?
5. Why hasn’t this since been investigated?
6. Am I the only one who’s intrigued as to the accuracy of his prediction?
I wonder if book makers had a line somewhere – I know you can bet on the underwear Prince Charles has on…
You have obviously not read the “DO NOT DISTRIBUTE” report of Oct 19, 2019. The document was released by the NY Times March 19, 2020 – about the time the US drove off the cliff for understanding the potential impact of the pandemic. See:
Click to access full.pdf
Russ Crowley
Are you hinting that Fauci and friends caused the pandemic? Jeez talk about conspiracy theory bs
Steve B, mark hampson made a good comment. Worth noting:
“DO NOT EVER throw around the ‘conspiracy theorist’ accusation as a juvenile fact absent way to win an argument. makes you look a prat. was snowdon a conspiracy theorist? those who blew the whistle on thalidomide, on radiation? dont cherry pick to justify your beliefs”
AhWotzit So you’re saying Fauci caused the pandemic Yes? No? I don’t think i’m the prat here
My standard retort to those accusing me of being a ‘conspiracy theorist’, is to ask them what they would have called me, if, in October 2019 (or indeed in January 2020), I had outlined to them the scenario in which we found ourselves in March 2020, or now find ourselves in November/December.
“You would have called me a ‘conspiracy theorist’. And yet here we all are…..! Not so fanciful after all, is it? So what else is to come?”.
I have been thinking exactly the same since I heard him speaking and saw him giving Trump a withering look from behind the podium!
Thankyou Dr K for that. And to Mr Brown. You are right though. How can anyone possibly admit to a simple mistake which changed our world? Cant be done. Cover it up as much as possible and deny everthing. Stand your ground and make sure the media are on board, which they are because they dont want to look stupid either. Until there perhaps comes a day when it provides them with an even better story ….Shock – Horror – Experts Were Wrong. Heads to Roll…. Maybe?
Good point Sue – It’s also possible that much of the public would hav difficulty following the detail – unless Enid Blyton could have a go at it.
Jerome. Years ago I was told that if you needed an understanding of a new topic that you had never come across, then buy a Ladybird book. Then you can progress to the heavy stuff. I am not ashamed to admit that it worked for me!
Sue – My first intro to the machinations of computers all those years ago was a lady bird book – it provided a solid foundation and held my attention for long enough to pursuade me to stay away from anything like computer programming etc
You are missing the key point which is the high transmission rate and resulting impact to healthcare resources!
What high transmission rate? Evidence of lots of people being ill? I don’t see it. I also don’t see any hospitals overwhelmed or even doing much at all. Nightingale hospitals empty. Not nearly as much of a problem as the usual seasonal flu which hospitals are on the news for being unable to cope every single year. Mind you, even if a lot of people were ill, they wouldn’t be able to get to see a doctor or even go to A&E without an appointment. Excuse me, can I have an appointment with A&E for next week as I am going to have an accident with a chain saw. Barking!
Ok, Sir Spamalot
Malak, I believe you may be missing the point. What has been done has been done (with those points you raise above in mind). But with the evidence, research and experience we have now (including the curve being well and truly flattened) – it would be perfectly plausible to cease all restriction measures that are still in place – with no obvious cause!
Holly
I agree with you. Even as an over 80, and realising that it’s deaths that count, I would think lifting the restrictions would be perfectly acceptable. To put that in context, last Friday I attempted a 13 km climb on my bike. ‘‘This was risky perhaps, but the odds were calculable, so with Covid, I have seen the statistics and the risk factors, and I can live with them. It is time to eradicate this psychosis of fear.
Thank you for this. I read it the day after I received the instruction from my regulatory body to enhance my PPE. To add to the joys I now have to wear a visor as well as a plastic fantastic single use disposable panoply of turtle murdering environment persistent materials for which there is no disposal route save putting it in landfill via general waste. Makes me want to hang up my (plastic, single use disposable) gloves.
Jane, you will find this link illuminating, though the light being cast will not fall upon anything encouraging…
https://www.vernoncoleman.com/endingtheconfusion.htm
Also google Swiss Policy Research – Masks – for good info from many research papers ☆☆
superquag, thanks for the link to Dr Vernon Coleman. I’ve downloaded so many of his books from Amazon today, my kindle may explode!
So did I! Collateral benefit!!
Very incisive investigations by John Cullen & Jason Goodman at https://www.subscribestar.com/crowdsourcethetruth/ John Cullen… Diseminating data with some disturbing potential explanations being unravelled. Connections to H1N1 infections being masked by data presentation, displayed via charts osing official CDC data. (access to subscribestar costs $2 /mth subscription no minimum)
Please don’t ! Such action piuts lives at risk, as the high transmission rate can easily result in local healthcare facilities being overwhelmed.
Dr K has elucidated the situation for everyone that has been brain damaged by the Kung Flu propaganda. What aspect of this do you find so confusing that you keep on repeating yourself, especially as nobody here is listening to you?
You’re not a wizard btw, and definitely not The Wizard … even if you do use big words.
codswallop
Plenty of studies, official government studies, suggesting the mask is ineffective –
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/
https://www.fhi.no/en/publ/2020/Should-individuals-in-the-community-without-respiratory-symptoms-wear-facemasks-to-reduce-the-spread-of-COVID-19/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/08/01/dutch-officials-adamant-about-lack-of-mask-efficacy-in-preventing-coronavirus-transmission/
Jane,
You poor thing. Look on the bright side – all that (useless) stuff you are forced to wear is keeping the Chinese economy ticking over – oh wait a minute did I mention China and Flu?
Don’t forget the magic pinny, especially if it’s red!
Thank you indeed Dr Kendrick for helping us see this catastrophe for what it is. But it is no longer about the virus, it has taken on a life of its own and we are all in deep trouble.The imposition of the wearing of masks is a complete farce, and I fear for the children. To force children to wear masks and/or visors is shear child abuse, and could lead to a whole generation of hypochondriacs. It is time people said enough is enough.
I too am heart broken about the kids. All my 11 year old really wants is a good game of tag. But no, it is not allowed.
christine, look at ukcolumn news for 4th Sept. This relates a discussion between a parent and a school head, in which the head was eventually persuaded to research. masks, and then expressed confusion and alarm as they had not realised the potential harm. It may help to see the video, and perhaps give you confidence to tackle the school. They may realise the mental damage exceeds the tiny arguable benefit of keeping away from others.
Enough is enough, indeed. Here in Albucreepy, we’re a bunch of old tennis players who would like to play tennis at last. But you know what? We are allowed to play only if we wear masks! Can you believe this? And the sheeple that most of us are have been brainwashed enough to agree to be muzzled like this. How pathetic is that!
Brilliant! Thank you for explaining this.
Excellent article (…although talking of proof-readers, shouldn’t it be “yolk” and not “yoke”?! 😉 )
Why did so many people die in Italy as a result of Covid which lead to so much alarm ? It was also followed by many deaths in Spain.
Regards,
Barbara Patton
Sent from my iPad
>
There have been fewer deaths in Italy and Spain, per head of population, than the UK.
According to the stats on Worldometers.info the deaths per million pop. in Europe are
1) Belgium 853
2) Spain 623
3) UK 611
4) Italy 588
5) Sweden 577
Adam, that can’t be right, “Everyone” knows that the Swedes have been dropping like flies…all because they did NOT lock themselves down, whereas the far more sensible British government imprisoned the healthy and sick… and saved SO many lives… Or am I dyslexic and mixing up those numbers ?
The swedes are an intelligent population and have looked after themselves. The Brits have partied hard, hugged, kissed and spread like wildfire.
Fact, or opinion?
Malcolm
Inevitably anecdotal or gleaned from media.
You have what you have
I think it’s not correct to refer to the total population of a country. You have to see it per region. In Italy. Some regions have a dense population like Lombardia (Milano-Bergamo) where the death rate was very high, other regions like Friuli (where I am) just a few cases compared to the population. It depends a lot on how close are people together.
For example, to what extent do environmental effects play a role in how sensitive people are to the virus, regardless of age. Where there is a lot of air pollution, the lungs are probably more sensitive.
What I miss in your article is the effect the virus has on other organs as some researchers have found on people that were tested positive but who hardly had any symptoms of disease, but had damage on organs they did not have before.
You are right that the numbers are not all equally clear, same as with the political decisions made.
Differences in responses of regional health authorities In Italy to the virus also contributed the the differences in numbers of cases and deaths. The Veneto for example contrasts strongly with Lombardia. Granted, the population and population density is much lower than that of that
of Lombardy, but that doesn’t explain everything. The Veneto rapidly put a track and trace system in place, imposed supervised quarantines and home isolation, reduced contact between health care workers and the public and took other measures. Its health care system is far more efficient, and works better for the community. Lombardy, like the U.K. sent many cases from the community into hospitals
You’re right to point out the long-term effects on some people who appeared to have few symptoms. Also Dr Kendrick, in his piece here, doesn’t take into account the age factor, that the recent rise in cases is mainly among younger people, and that older people may well be shielding or if they do go out, are very careful about the precautionary measures, social distancing, masks and hand hygiene. However it is early days, we may yet see a rise in the number of deaths in the U.K. Cases have risen massively in Spain and France since lockdown measures eased.
Another cause that has been suggested for the reduction is deaths is better treatments in hospital, the use of steroid drugs, less reliance on invasive ventilators.
I would have been inclined to pay more attention to Dr Kendrick’s claims if his argument had been less aggressive and one-sided.
https://www.ft.com/content/c011e214-fb95-4a64-b23c-2bd87ebb29d7
Spot on. The demographic of the currently infected is massively skewed towards the young who aren’t likely to die. The current CFR and IFR are the CFR and IFR of the young, not the whole population. The true CFR and IFR should be calculated by working them out for each age group and multiplying that up by the percentage of the population in that age group. Example – let’s say the IFR for pensioners is 50% and they make up 20% of the UK population, and the IFR for everyone else is 1% That would give an IFR of 10% for the pensioners + 0.8% for the rest, overall 10.8%. In india, if pensioners make up 5% of the population the IFR is 2.5% for the pensioners + 0.95% for the rest, a population IFR of 3.45%. With the current increase in infections sooner or later the virus will get at the vulnerable and the CFR and IFR will increase.
The tests for infection are unreliable, so how do you support the claim of a massively skewed infection rate in the young?
Early ‘Breaking News Story’ perhaps ? First journalist out of the starting blocks sets the pace, and those following need to make their follow-ups more…. “Interesting”.
Then the varied Vested Interests took their cue, jumped in and took over the narrative..
– Cynical? moi? – Perish the thought !
Italy admitted it had been very generous in attributing COVID-19 to their death certificates.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/
The average age in Italy was over 80. Not sure about Spain.
So that’s all right then. Eighty-year-olds? Who needs ’em?
The terminology, intended to reassure the general populace, that ‘only’ the elderly and the already-sick (of any age) are likely to die of Covid, has really concerned me all the way through.
What a stupid comment. 80yr olds are very close to their sell by date so likely to die very soon anyway.
So you’re just gonna let them die?
You mean you’re gonna let your grandparents die just like that? Never try to spend more time with them?
I am being ironic of course!
Hi ShirleyKate
I’m only 69 but in the high risk category, according to the stats, although no comorbidities, unless sampling local wines counts. I’ve been travelling round Europe by campervan since February in lots of hotspots with nary a sign of Covid. Lots of vitamins C and D plus zinc seems to be the way to make sure you either don’t get it or get it minimally. There’s very little mask wearing, virtually no social distancing and everybody seems very laissez-faire with the risks of Covid. Despite this, the warnings from government go on and the death rates continue to drop all over Europe.
I just wonder at what point will the population say enough.
I live in Australia and it’s basically a Nazi state there with armed police and military out enforcing curfews and mask wearing.
This in a country with low numbers of cases and deaths. My fear is that it will go on for many years, as cases will appear every time the lockdowns are eased. Already they’ve said no travel outside Australia for 2 years, except for reasons the government approves.
Might just stay in Europe, but not UK. Boris and his mates have really buggered things up
funny is always ironic. ironic is sometimes funny. that accusation of uncaring unmasked conspiracy theorist is flying hot and heavy in the states. And it usually comes first from a masked BLM supporter who is aggressively voicing their distrust of the courts and the police. Now that’s ironic.
At ShirleyKate and Robbiedot, we’re all just sensitive after being accused of being careless conspiracy theorists trying to get everyone killed. Imagine the attitude of people in places where they are locking down as they are in NZ or Australia. I read last week that Greece has enacted laws demanding life sentences for cv1984 law breakers. How many in the public are crazy enough to think that is a good idea? And how crazy are those individuals who think it’s a good idea? Even at eighty, it’s not a good idea to be seen in a store without a mask by any of these folk.
ShirleyKate, that was your interpretation of what was said, and not at all justified. They were your words, and not those of ellifeld. This is the sort of thing I expect from channel 4’s Kathy Newman.
I agree fairweather. I am 80 and am far from reassured by the message that only the old and sick are likely to die. My comment above was made ironically but I’ve had 4 down-ticks which disappoints me. Wish I’d kept my mouth shut!
Don’t let a few down ticks put you off. If you don’t get attacked, you aren’t doing it right. If everyone agree with everything I wrote, I would have to go off and have a think about what I was doing wrong.
OMG, I agree with that, Are you going off? 😁
ShirleyKate, I’ve had a fair few down ticks, I’ve also had a fair few ticking’s off from people who disagree with either what I wrote, or the way I wrote it. They weren’t to do with the subject in hand, they were just attacks. I found things like irony and sarcasm can often be misinterpreted on blogs and forums, as the intonation doesn’t come across.
robbydot When you reach 80 don’t come anywhere near me you SOB
Sorry Notepad, but I don’t have TV so I can’t follow your argument. But casual comments about ‘only old people will die’ is hurtful to those of us who fit that category.
The difficulty is that irony doesn’t come through easily in text. Writing in your age,and the fact that you still love life, would perhaps get you there.
There is probably a whole science to text-based irony…
I’m no spring chicken myself but one of the the facts of life is if this disease was killing primarily those under 20 it WOULD be a much more tragic event, because they will have lost many more years of healthy and productive lives than either you or me.
That is a fairly common calculation in these type of areas and a reasonable one. It does not mean 80 year olds are expendable, only that most 80 year olds, especially those who are already seriously ill, are simply not going to live very much longer. All the sympathy in the world won’t change that nor should that unpleasant fact be divorced from policy decisions. If it were the entire planet would come to a standstill as we build a plastic bubble around it, except there won’t be any plastic because we’ll be using spears and clubs again.
I know Brian it would be really tragic if the young were as badly affected as the old. Of course the old are more expendable, that’s as it should be. But it’s the casual, throwaway attitude that is hurtful. I’m not saying it’s not logical. I’ve been on my own too long maybe, just here to talk. Thanks for listening.
I’m ShirleyKate not Kathleen Ward, that’s my alter ego.
If you look at UK Covid19 website you can calculate that 90% of deaths were in 1st 3 months and 95% of deaths are over 60
If you look at ONS weekly stats you can calculate that 68% of deaths each week were over 75s – and have been each week since January 2014.
This bug does not target the elderly – it targets those susceptible to death.
Hi Frank and Barbara Patton … “Why did so many people die in Italy “; it was the Po Valley (Lombardy), around Milan where the deaths occurred: 68% of deaths in 16% of the Italian population; whereas in Sicily it was 0.1% of deaths in 8% of population: Po Valley is infamous for air pollution in winter, and a very old population. They had 25,000 excess deaths there from flu in the winter of 2016/17 but everyone just yawned; because it was flu. Does this answer your question? These people are very Vit D deficient: and in Spain too, they do not get sun; they hide away from the sun.
Because as I learned just today that in these countries ( France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, UK ) they used the four times higher dose of HCQ than normally prescribed for malaria in their treatment for about two weeks, which had the effect of actually killing the patients until they finally realized it. This effect can clearly be seen in the sudden spike in deaths ( if you extrapolate these 5 countries from the rest of European countries, the rest didn’t have higher peaks than in a usual flu season, see euromono stats).
I live in France where Dr Didier Raoult has had very good rsults with hydroxychloroquine. Do you have a link to the information about the high doses of HCQ that killed patients?
The Euro countries weren’t using HCQ across the board, it was in trials. The associated deaths are nowhere near enough to have an effect on the overall numbers.
Recently I had an exchange of views with a friend of mine, (an old school friend I’ve known since 1968 and Best Man at my wedding) a climate modeller, in which I was very critical of Antony Fauci and Neil Ferguson. He defended Fauci, informing me
“Fauci is an honorable man. He has a multi-decadal history of public service. He is trying to do a very difficult job. He’s a fellow member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. I respect him and I respect his expertise. There’s a reason why he’s advising the U.S. on the response to COVID-19.”
A few days later he wrote to instruct me never to write to him again. So there’s 52 years of friendship ended with the touch of a send button. It seems if you are a member of the US National Academy of Science, you are beyond criticism even if that criticism is evidence-based. The good news is, that since he also defended Neil Ferguson’s model, I am now happily re-assured that the predicted climate catastrophe is unlikely to come to pass. Scientific models seem to have less accuracy than a newspaper horoscope.
Sorry to hear about the loss of your friendship. I have also lost friends over this. Feelings run very high. I suspect for the sort of people who wind up on this blog – written by an iconoclast not frightened to challenge received wisdom – it is no big deal to entertain the idea that we might have been lied to or misled. But many people simply took on trust what the BBC and MSM told them and to suggest to it might not be true is a pretty shocking thing to contemplate. And they won’t forgive you for it.
This whole virus episode has been incredibly divisive. I’m currently having tense debates with my own family. And to think this is happening all over the world is quite staggering.
This list of Fauci’s activities should make even the most devoted of fans pause for thought:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/09/01/the-fauci-files.aspx
This whole sorry Saga reminds me of the way Ancel Keys influenced the prescribing of Statins. I just hope that the “Control by Fear” that appears to be going on now doesn’t last as long. Statins have failed to bring down heart disease but are still widely used, often with horrendous side effects. Now, if allowed to continue, the consequences of this so called “Pandemic” will cause untold damage to health and even worse the to the World economy. Of course the elderly, of which I am one, and those with underlying health problems will die, as they do every year from the Flu. Are we now going to act this way every time a new virus hits the world? I sincerely hope not. Thank you Dr Kendrick for your informative Posts and Please keep them coming.
Neil, one of my daughters works for PHE. I dare not mention COVID in her presence – I fear we would come to blows! She toes the party line and refuses to question a single statement issued by the establishment.
IF. I were a Believer in the UN sponsored “One World Govt.” I would be pleased to see personal, family, community, national and international Divisions, as a fragmented society cannot resist the OWG juggernaut, especially if your politicians secretly supports it !
Have a read of Piers Corbyn, he’s a professional weather man, excellent record of accuracy too.
Her outdoors
A professional weather man!!
Does that mean bouffant hair, rub on tan? What does he know about Covid 19
If he knows his stuff then i apologise
@her outdoors, I read last week that Corbyn is controlled opposition. Curiouser now.
Your friend’s behaviour is painfully familiar. He is an obedience-monkey asshole who likes other people to do his thinking for him so that he can simply obey, confirming to himself in his own mind that he is “a good person”.
How sad, Anthony J Oliver, that your friend should take this line and cut your connection. My best wishes.
So sorry to hear this. But not that surprised, this is just another symptom of post-normal science. Climate modellers cannot seem to cope with criticism or real word data.
GIGO. Also, computer modeling (aka simulations) are not empirical date nor experiments. Had similar experience with an friend (theoretical physicist). She insisted that their computer simulations were experiments. That sure explains black holes as well as exponential disease growth models eh? BTW, you might enjoy some of Jon Rappoport’s writings on Fauci and his role in HIV. Also Liam Scheff did a great job with “Official Stories.” Fauci is not who your friend thinks he is. I remember friends giving me similar character testimony about folk like GW Bush and friends. And Hillary. And um yeh Trump not so much.
Oh my flippin flippity doo!! Because of this error in terminology we have been in lockdown, are continuing to waste time not being abke to see friends /family overseas, not beimg able to celebrate family birthday party’s, children have missed so much, mental health issues have drastically risen, the list goes on. Someone in power (ahem Boris) needs to face up to it, be honest with everyone and say what has happened so that we can end this madness and get back to the ‘old’ normal. But that will never happen so we need to share this with everyone, shout it from the rooftops – in fact start a petition for it to be raised in parliament!! Thank you Dr Kendrick for sharing and for being our calm amongst the confusion. Xx
I think I understand the math, but I am still confused by the large number of deaths in the US. I have read that the flu takes about 40,000 to 60,000 lives per year in the US. But Covid has already taken over 180,000 lives here. Does it matter that the mortality rate is low, when the infection rate is very high? Doesn’t the high infection rate make it a serious contagion?
I agree. There seem to be many more deaths than we normally have from flue. And what about the survivors who ended up still being unwell 2-3 months after they had COVID? Some of these only had mild symptoms.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Yes. If we knew then what we know now the way Sweden reacted was probably the best way. But we did not know many people had hardly any or no symptoms. All we saw was suddenly a very large number of people needing hospital treatment of whom many early into the pandemic did not survive. Now that we are able to treat it better the survival rate has gone up.
Fortunately the number of deaths has gone right down. A. We test more so find more infected people
B. We are able to treat it better
C. Currently mainly the young ones seem to be infected. They don’t usually seem to need hospital care. The older ones are still being very careful or they have already died from it.
D. Perhaps the virus has become milder?
E. Do we now have some herd immunity?
We did know then, and many highly qualified scientists said so:
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic
I wonder if the long-term after affects are the results of incorrect treatment – too much ventilation, nasty anti-viral drugs etc. It woudl be interesting ot fnd out how many of those treated with MATH+ or HCQ+antibiotic+ zinc have long-term problems compared with those who received other treatments
@KJE You make an interesting point. However, the people I know of who have had Covid – mainly the offspring of friends and acquaintances – have all been formerly healthy, active adults in their 30s and 40s. Anecdotal evidence, I know, but a startling proportion of them have had their health ruined by this virus. Months later, nearly all have been unable to return to work, and many continue to suffer from weakness, breathing problems and significant difficulties with sleep, among other problems. Thankfully, not many of them have suffered apparent cardiovascular damage, but this consequence may be restricted to an older cohort.
I would also attribute a lot that type of symptom to chronic stress – fear of death, lack of social contact, fear of job loss and so on. Bad flu can cause some of those symptoms too. I don’t know anyone who has had it, but a couple of people I know had really bad flu-like illnesses last November – one (who has type 2 diabetes) ended up in hospital for a couple of days.
I’ve also heard anecdotal evidence about people like the children of fairweather’s friends. One point is that post-viral syndrome can be very debilitating in the case of flu too. The other point is, I find it hard to believe that a virus on its own can cause so much damage. Were these young people, low-fat, vegan burger, soy milk shake, cholesterol bad, pasta and cheese, stay out of the sun type of healthy? A lot of young people are. If vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc protect you from a virus surely these can help with post-viral syndrome too.
perhaps some zinc and quercetin to drive it in? We had a bout of something 1/2019 that we are convinced was cv1984. Horrific. Bedridden a week each. Then dragged, drained and wrecked for following 6 months. Took over a year to get back our regular mileage daily. We eat mostly keto and study and work on micro-nutrients. This was no joke. Scares me to think how I would have reacted to this 30 years ago when I ate constantly and nothing but junk.
Zendogbreath
Suggest a read of Stephen Harrod Buhner may help you unpick some of the lingering affects? Also Matthew Wood and the American Guild of Herbalists.
Many were not treated at all as they were not I’ll enough to go into hospital.
I’ve been wondering the same thing.
D no E no. Deaths aren’t rising because of A-C, but they will – don’t forget they lag infections by about 3 weeks. Once the virus prevalence builds up it’ll be impossible to keep it away from the vulnerable and the CFR and IFR will ramp up again.
From Ivor Cummings, the flu season of 2019 was mild, small number of deaths. Those who survived probably didn’t survive the 2020 virus. Sorry but his video is on Patreon, although I’m sure you could find one of is on youtube.
As far as the infection rate, well if you get infected with something that isn’t going to kill you or in the far greatest majority, not even harm you, well you should be celebrating. We only hear the terrible stories unfortunately.
The difference in the comparison between flu and covid deaths could all be due to improper (covid) coding from the very beginning. This is the long list (published in July 2020) of possible coding during Public Health Emergency: https://www.experityhealth.com/resources/em-coding-for-coronavirus-covid-19/ – Also, were cases confirmed with testing or assumed, based on symptoms, the death was due to covid? JMHO
Hi Doug; I need to find the link but the CDC has recently updated their data: they say only 9,210 deaths of the 170,000 they had listed; were from rona itself; the other 161,000 other deaths had an average of 2.8 co-morbidities; and of those 161,000, 90% were very old; that was the Italian demographics too: multiple co-morbidities; last year was a very mild winter for flu; folks who would have died then live till the next winter when a bad respiratory wave may take them: such is life. Yes, we could lock them up; keep them away from family; totally isolate them for months n end; but is that life?
It may be worth remembering that flu in the UK is now killing six times as many people as covid-19.
Also the lockdown, social distancing, and mask-wearing, which were supposed to reduce transmission of covid had no apparent effect on flu and pneumonia. They remained just below the five year average during the entire year to date.
It looks as if lockdown, social distancing, and mask-wearing were totally useless.
See Fig. 1 here:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/latest
The problem is that the relaxation of other restrictions outweighs the benefits of mask use. You also have to consider when mask use started, and who’s wearing them – it’s the general public when out and about, not the pensioners staying at home or in their care home. To know if social distancing was worth it you’d have to compare spreading rates with places not doing it. Given that lockdown was essentially extreme social distancing you’d have to say it does work, but what we possibly don’t know is just how much social distancing is required to make a difference.
Are there any benefits to mask use (apart from protecting against air pollution)? I mean, think about the country where they wear masks a lot of the time and is actually the same country where all this started. If masks worked at a ll, it wouldn’t have spread there. No study shows that masks stop transmission of viruses. We might have a bit less TB, but that’s about it. Countries with the most severe lockdowns appear to have the most deaths, and, in the UK, we can’t tell whether lockdown had any effect as it has basically been at the same time that increased air humidity would have reduced spread anyway. As for anti-social distancing, I spend more time squeezing past queues of people outside supermarkets or hanging around in queues than ever before, and so end up closer to more people for more of the time than in more “normal” times. The only difference is that no one passes the time of day any more so I probably haven’t spoken to anyway (apart from saying I don’t want bags in the supermarket) for the best part of six months.
You seem to liv in an evidence free world, unless of course you have some evidence you can cite.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/cdc-says-94-covid-deaths-had-underlying-condition/5722646
Doug, “covid’s” Fine Print says it will be especially dangerous to those who are metabolically challenged… (read “Diabetic” , regardless of the number of ‘Pre’ prefixes !)
It is reliably estimated that over 50% of Americans are, ‘Insulin Resistant’ or Diabetic, with their endotheliel / vascular damage a sitting duck for yet another assault. Add to that vitamin D deficiency plus the growing understanding that this is more of a VASCULAR disease than simply respiratory.
Which segues into the tragedy of “treatment” if/when the patient is seriously unwell – especially in New York – which may be as deadly as the disease.!
lies, damn lies and statistics. I think that’s what Doc K is so adept at. He’s brought out their own statements and stats to showcase how their own statements and stats contradict themselves.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/cdc-says-94-covid-deaths-had-underlying-condition/5722646
I can see that
So two questions
Firstly, how do you get that over to the authorities?
Secondly, if you want to protect over eighties, as I hope you do since I am one of them, may I suggest concentrating some resources on improving their over all health, better diet, vitamin D , and exercise, an unlikely approach since it flies in the face of most of the medical profession’s beliefs
Here is a referenced list of many cures and successful treatments for Covid-19. It is written by an American cardiologist.
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n37.shtml
Nobody wants to protect the over-eighties. Why would they? (I am one of them) To help them, make it easy, or even possible, to get a GP appointment. See a consultant if necessary. In short, run the NHS as it should be run, for over-eighties and under-eighties (there’s quite a few of these). Restore chemotherapy sessions to 36-year-old women with ovarian cancer for instance, which in one case I know of were stopped at the beginning of lockdown.
“Immune cells rely on cholesterol. Cholesterol in the cells helps the immune system fight off infections. LDL binds and deactivates bacterial toxins.” – How many people worldwide are being basically “forced” to lower their cholesterol? Food for thought…
I would like to see a study looking at cholesterol levels and Covid deaths.
Jillm. I think the figures speak for themselves. Nursing home deaths, for a start, attributed to C19..with residents almost certainly being on statins. It is certainly worth a look at.
I may be wrong but I seem to recall the MATH+ protocol has a statin in there at some stage? Not sure why unless it is as an immune supressor? Any views? And just a question, has anyone on here had the virus? I know an adult couple who did, along with their 4 almost adult children. Adults were ill for 3 weeks and 6 weeks to properly recover, did get pneumonia too. Kids bounced back as kids do.
Her still outdoors wonders if anyone on this thread has had the virus. Well, me. I wasn’t tested, but this was at the beginning of March before they were making quite so much fuss about it. I had dry cough, sore throat and temperature. I don’t remember losing my sense of smell, but I don’t have a very strong sense of smell anyway. Stayed at home (these days they would call it “self-isolating”) took vitamin C and vitamin D, felt better in a week. No after effects. I’ve had flus that were worse. I might have been far more worried if I still suffered from asthma. But I cured that by going low carb (not too low, since I weigh about 45 kilos!) and soaking my breakfast porridge overnight in warm water and whey. That ferments it and makes it less inflammatory. If anyone is interested.
janecnorman Maybe you just had flu
Add that to the comment above about Americans being a metabolic mess… Statins an un-intended COVID risk factor ! – Who would’ve thunk ?
People are told to lower their bad cholesterol, not their cholesterol overall. They’re only told to do it if it’s excessively high or they’ve had heart issues. I doubt it’s much of a contributary factor.
Interpretation of excessively high please
De
On a slight tangent, why does my body make something, bad cholesterol, on a regulated basis day after day, if it is bad for me? Why do people who live longer have higher levels of LDL?
Just asking
Why lower it at all?
Mr Chris – it appears to be the one factor that calls in to question the theory of evolution.
I so agree with you, most people in nursing homes rarely see sunlight, instead of giving them flu vaccinations every year give them Vit D3 And, as you suggest, a healthy diet…
Rita, I agree. I used to visit a friend in a nursing home for a couple of years before she passed away. I always wheeled her out into the sunny gardens. I was told not to do this by one of the care staff because of the “skin cancer risk”. My friend was 89 and as pale as a sheet. She had no need to worry about cancer but would have benefited from the sun.
Keep up the good work. Just an FYI I posted this on Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michaellines_dr-malcolm-kendrick-activity-6707611155831029760-YlFN
>
Thank you Dr K for another great article.
I would be interested in Dr K’s views and those of other readers of this blog on the current consultation to changes to the Human Medicine Regulations: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/distributing-vaccines-and-treatments-for-covid-19-and-flu
The introduction to the consultation begins “COVID-19 is the biggest threat this country has faced in peacetime history…. Effective COVID-19 vaccines will be the best way to deal with the pandemic.”
The consultation is asking for stakeholders’ views on 5 areas:
1. Temporary authorisation of the supply of unlicensed products
2. Civil liability and immunity
3. Proposed expansion to the workforce eligible to administer vaccinations. New Occupational Health Vaccinators would include midwives, nursing associates, operating department practitioners, paramedics, physiotherapists and pharmacists.
4. Vaccine promotion
5. Make provisions for wholesale dealing of vaccines
There are many things to be concerned about in this consultation, which closes on 18 September.
Dr Kendrick, is it possible that the virus is getting weaker over time when then more aggressive viruses kill their hosts and ultimately also themselves but the milder ones strive and spread?
It is possible. But the CFR in China, at the start, was about 1%. The CFR seems to be about the same now.
Humans behave in strange ways.
It doesn’t need complicated conspiracy theories it just needs humans to behave as humans unfortunately do.
We may give the appearance of thinking, logical animals, but we are just humans. Made up of hormones, carbon, some chemicals a few other heavy metals, some minerals and other stardust.
Cognitive Dissonance is so powerful and yet, it can and does cause the deaths of others.
I’ve mentioned this before and I think it’s worth reading…
“Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)”, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
Despite what Dr Kendrick stated “probably the biggest single mistake that has ever been made in the history of the world”.
I don’t think this is the biggest mistake by a long way.
I’d like to offer the error of our debt based money system, combined with Neo-liberalism and Monetarism as the world’s biggest mistake! Muddy idealogical thinking and seems as though there is no way back.
Cheers
Thing is, this was a mistake. The other errors you mention were intentional.
A mistake? Yes all the way from a Wuhan biological lab to the NWO/WHO.
It would be a real mistake to under rate President Trump despite the Marxists plotters.
If you want to see real scientific malfeasance look up global warming climategate.
Perhaps Doc figured the mistakes you cited were not mistakes, but crimes. And perhaps even more he’s giving Gates, Fauci, Ferguson et al a huge benefit of the doubt that they were only making a mistake. (Much like Fauci’s mistakes on HIV and Gates’ mistakes on polio vaccines).
A compelling and riveting read Dr Kendrick, thank you.
One thing that caught me was “New England Journal of Medicine got case fatality rate and infection fatality rate mixed up with influenza” – it wasn’t clear from the body of the text (this text anyway) that NEJM was equally confused. That came to me as a surprise.
At last! Thank you! Laugh or cry? Will Trump have the courage to fire Fauci? Will Boris have the courage to stop listening to anything that comes out of Imperial College London and particularly the new Government advisory group headed by a certain Prof Ferguson? Will he have the guts to stand up and say sorry, now everyone get back to our normal? Pronto! If he does he has a chance to keep us on side, where currently he is heading for civil unrest…..look at how Extinction Rebellion and BLM are handled by the Police compared to other groups? That causes serious divisions in society…..
Thanks for this. I was wondering how they defined cases.
BTW, I think you have a typo in “supply enough yoke.” In USA, at least, we use yolk for the orange stuff in eggs.
If this is correct, surely there needs to be a class action against Imperial College London and New England Journal of Medicine for loss of earnings etc. If so – please sign me up.
Putting the genie back in the bottle can only be done by admitting the errors. This is not something that politicians can do…
I have argued this before with people. But was told that the IFR of influenza was actually a CFR because nobody counts the est. 75% of cases of influenza that are asymptomatic within the IFR and only use people reporting sick with influenza symptoms in the calculation.
Is there a source for the IFR of influenza being 0.1%
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200306-sitrep-46-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=96b04adf_4
Do you mean this paragraph: “Mortality for COVID-19 appears higher than for influenza, especially seasonal influenza. While the true mortality of COVID-19 will take some time to fully understand, the data we have so far indicate that the crude mortality ratio (the number of reported deaths divided by the reported cases) is between 3-4%, the infection mortality rate (the number of reported deaths divided by the number of infections) will be lower. For seasonal influenza, mortality is usually well below 0.1%. However, mortality is to a large extent determined by access to and quality of health care. ” ?
They don’t specify mortality as CFR or IFR for influenza either. Is the WHO confused too? (not that surprised if they were…)
Sunken costs fallacy at work, no? A lot of people have now invested a lot of energy into believing that this virus was a true Andromeda Strain, and now they have to adjust their thinking in a way that invalidates their behaviors. I still see people driving around with masks on here in Seattle. I feel as if I’m living in my own alternate reality.
Hope on the horizon: I had the first parent request that not only their child not wear a mask during assessment, but that I not wear a mask. Sanity breaking out? I wouldn’t count on it happening too quickly though. Now we’ll have the same people who have invested energy (emotional, financial) into this thing needing the vaccine to have meaning and importance. Sigh.
Thank you Dr Kendrick. Great information that I would love to share on Facebook. Alas, like last time, I fear it will be removed by the Facebook Police.
Have a good weekend.
Linda Booth
>
I’ve been shouting this at TV news for months, never gets anywhere. Totally balmy. It’s going to make a lot of us insane, so big strain on the NHS.
If you, or we all, go insane Robert, the NHS will never know it. You won’t be able to see your GP to get a diagnosis. Shouting at the TV is normal – expecting to ‘get anywhere’ by doing so, maybe not so much. Better keep taking the tablets.
I haven’t watched the news for months now – I was wasting my time arguing with the presenters and my mood was upsetting the cat. So no more news.
Also see these two articles on The BMJ:
Covid-19: the problems with case counting | The BMJ
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3374
Are we underestimating seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2? | The BMJ
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3364
There is no way the government can admit to an error, and there is no way they can tell us everything can go back to normal. If the former it shows a grotesque mishandling of our lives, and the latter would leave them open to litigation should anyone become ill with Covid19 afterwards.
Holy smokes! Thank you Dr Kendrick
Just got back from dropping grand kids off at infant school. Loads of kids muzzled on way into school. The Pscho damage is unknown, the risk is so small its difficult to imagine
At the start of this nonsense, I see you call it “nonsense” too, I asked anyone who read my blog and people elsewhere to count the number they knew who had COVID-19, and how many they knew who had died of COVID-19. Up to now a member of my golf-club’s sister died with it (she was in her nineties and had multiple other conditions) and that is the total tally. I did not know his sister. One woman locally told me she had had it and another member of the golf club has had it. For me that’s it. I suggest outside the medical profession most people would tell a similar story. During the Great Plague people were falling down dead like flies. In the village of Eyam (Derbyshire) one in three died from the Plague. Everybody would have known somebody who died. This flu-like virus has caused unnecessary panic and harmed the economy, possibly irrevocably.
https://johnplatinumgoss.com/2020/08/28/a-tale-of-two-lockdowns/
DOCTORING DATA!
Thank you so much Dr Kendrick, the voice of sensible reasoning. When I think that either I have gone mad or the whole World has your name appears on my incoming email list and I know that, after a ten minute read of common sense, sanity will be restored.
Good stuff, doc, but I have bone to pick with you. You suggest that the cause of the Imperial College cock-up was taking Fauci at his word. There has to be more to it than that: McGregor at IC has a career record of wildly exaggerating the risks and scales of epidemics unconnected to Fauci. Essentially, as a mathematical modeller McGregor is a charlatan (and, you will remember, a charlatan with a dud computer program littered with poor coding).
I don’t suppose McGregor has much money so I suggest everyone sue Imperial College.
Oh bugger: delete McGregor and insert Ferguson.
(No rude jokes, please, about where to insert Ferguson.)
If there exists a McGregor at IC, I tender him my profound apologies.
You see, that’s how dangerous the media is. In the 5 minutes between your posts Reuters picked up the fact that McGregor is a charlatan, it was printed in the Chad Chronicle and the country is now in lockdown.
Well that made me smile 😀
Hi dearime, I hate those ‘Oh Bugger’ moments. I wish we had a button to recall these posts for correction. Maybe you could ask Doctor Kendrick to delete your error-containing post so you could re-phrase it? Otherwise it stays there for all posterity to read and get shirty over.
You, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, you and you alone are what has kept me sane and not wanting to jump off Gurnards Head for most of this horrible, horrible year for which I want to say an enormous THANK YOU. Your posts have been a source of succour and comfort through what has been a pretty grim time. I’m 78 now and can’t afford to waste precious time on all this silly nonsense. Yes, all those deaths early on were appalling but the knock on effect of all this is going to be much worse, I’m sure. Missed serious illnesses, depression, lost livelihoods, the list will go on and on. Still, I hear today that the b*#@@&= HS rail total waste of money is going to save us all from penury so that’s okay.
I’m almost incoherent with rage. I think I’d better go for a walk. Grrrrrr.
In the meantime, THANK YOU.
A fan. 🌹
No, not Gurnards Head. The cliffs of West Cornwall have claimed too many lives of people who didn’t mean to go like that. If you need to walk out the anger, go climb Chapel Carn Brea!
A good idea, Jean. I have no head for heights. I could try Trencrom. Where are you? I’m in Penzance where the majority seem quite laid back about it all.
Penzance! That’s where those pirates came from!
Oo-aar, me ‘ansome.
Harry and Jean – what a precious thing human contact is. One of the things so damaged by the whole lockdown nonsense.
Cheers, m’dears.
Trencrom is a wonderful hill to climb. But Chapel Carn Brea has a gentle gradient dirt track all the way to the top, and on a clear day you could see “the alps” – the spoil heaps at St Austell. Now gone.
I have settled in the flat fenland of south Lincolnshire. People said “Don’t you find it strange, coming from such a hilly place?” My response – so used to seeing the sea, and there’s nothing flatter than that.
I just heard the author of Imperial Mud : A fight for the Fens speak about living in the Fens and the Fennish folk.
It’s nice to see a doctor telling it as it is. For months now I’ve been saying that if we randomly chose a person then their chance of dying from covid-19 was about 1 in 1000. Similarly I’ve been saying that long term immunity, for those who recover is extremely likely: it’s just immunology 101. This now seems to have been proved.
Sadly most in the UK don’t want to hear this. Even sadder is that most governments are far too self-serving and dishonest to turn round and say that lockdowns were wrong, and economies were needlessly destroyed. Like a compulsive gambler, they don’t even have the decency to stop the lockdowns and quarantines now. GOVERNMENTS (not most people) desperately need a vaccine so that they can claim that locking down until then was correct, and not have their claims subject to too much scrutiny.
One other thing, doc: if what you say is true – and its gist sounds right to me – why did the Chinese government lock down so violently in Wuhan? Apartment doors welded shut, and so on.
Just a precaution, perhaps, because they knew so little about the disease back in December? Whatever the cause, I dare say it influenced the reaction of other governments around the world.
I am sure it did. However, I do not believe anything the Chinese Govt does can be related to the well being of their population. It is about power, and control, and crushing dissent. If one wishes a good conspiracy theory look no further than the thirty six stratagems of war. Here is number 5
Loot a burning house (趁火打劫／趁火打劫, Chèn huǒ dǎ jié)
When a country is beset by internal problems, such as disease, famine, corruption, and crime, it is poorly-equipped to deal with an outside threat. Keep gathering internal information about an enemy. If the enemy is in its weakest state, attack them without mercy and annihilate them to prevent future troubles.
China locked down, forcing the rest of the world to lock down. They have been waiting and watching the Western World tear itself apart since. Good strategy.
You think the Chinese leaders do not think like this? Think again. This is exactly how they think.
That passage you quote makes even more sense when one exchanges the word “enemy” with the word “victim”.
Communists are hungry tigers and ravenous bears. Better than “ideology” we ought to think in terms of “hunter instinct”. Far simpler.
Absolutely, China also released a series of videos intended to scare. We can’t seriously believe that tankers spraying god knows what (probably water) was actually a serious puplic health intervention. Even Nicola Sturgeon and Dan Andrews haven’t tried that.
Not very clever to destroy the market for your products.
Take the long(er) view, #34 of the “36 Strategems” of the Chinese psyche.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/warfare/36_strategems/36_stratagems.htm
Applying this to China and the ….’flu’ puts a sobering perspective on the rest of the world’s position.
Good one
Funny how people on this site like to criticise the Chinese but like to defend Putin and his thugs. “RT is impartial and readily criticises the Russian government” Ha ha Ho ho
True – but power & control” ?!
they are not worried about losing market share. why should they be. have you noticed what demand for their products has done in the last 3 months?
Thank you Dr Kendrick – always good to ‘hear’ a fellow sane human being. Sadly this has never really been about a virus, our health and wellbeing or about truth and facts. Far from it.
One more one more thing, doc: widespread testing for traces of viral RNA up people’s noses – isn’t there a risk that as the disease dwindles away the false positive rates for the test will wrongly give the impression of a continuing epidemic?
That would add injury to injury.
plus what is on the swab that is getting into the furthest reaches of the sinuses (kinda close to the brain eh?)?
Thanks for a thought provoking article.
Arrgghhhh, didn’t tick the boxes.
What would make life much easier is getting the terminology accurate.
Covid-19 is a serious consequence of infection with the virus SARS-CoV-2. They are not the same thing. The increase in “cases” is an increase in viral infections, ie SARS-CoV-2 infections, and not in cases of Covid-19 (which require hospitalisation etc). As you say, there is no increase in hospital admissions to match the increase in positive antigen tests. The reason? Probably simply that more testing is going on, so more infections are diagnosed, the overwhelming majority of which are not serious or even asymptomatic.
As for lockdowns and quarantine, I recommend Thomas Inglesby’s paper of 2006 (“Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza” at http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/website/resources/publications/2006/2006-09-15-diseasemitigationcontrolpandemicflu.html
Utterly shocked. Thank you for making it an easier read for the average person to understand
I was linked here and found the article very interesting and enlightening.
As a researcher myself I can understand how these mistakes happen and actually don’t blame them if it is a mistake; but this is where I question your article (and the paper it is paraphrasing). If it is a mistake, it’s massive, so surely there would be a dozen publications out there proving the error? A researchers bread and butter is either proving something is right or proving something is wrong; and typically the consensus lies somewhere in between over time. If this was in my field, I know a dozen people in our department who would like nothing more than to prove something this ‘big’ was wrong.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this has been the result of a mistake, but I find it hard to believe simply because some other researcher would be desperate to make their name being the one that proved it was wrong. I can’t help feeling it is more nuanced than you are portraying but I don’t know the terminology enough to follow the trail.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still worth raising and those in government(s) should answer it, for their own sake if nothing else; I just remain sceptical as any good scientist should.
Intrigued to have a look at your other articles now, thanks!
Try reading this. it does not cover ‘the mistake’ but it makes clear we are now counting one thing, and calling it another https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3374
Interesting read, certainly ties in with my belief that far more people will die from lack of cancer screening, poverty, mental health issues etc. So why is no one listening to you. I got in contact with my MP just down the road from you in Crewe (also a doctor) and just got the reply 500k people will die if we do nothing. Can you engage with him on a Dr to Dr basis and start to make some traction on this.
Why is everyone so compliant and just willing to swallow up the whole narrative. I talk to my wife about it and she just says well the WHO and all the experts can’t be wrong so why are you right etc?
Thank you so much for that, Dr Kendrick. It is so sad that we have been trusting our fates to such a crew of Numpties.
Two things occur to me.
The people who are left with nasty after effects from the illness are just another version of ME – or as some call it- post viral fatigue syndrome.
Don’t any of you waste perfecty healthy food like eggs, by throwing them at the numpties. Send them to me – I will eat them for the cholesterol they provide.
Thanks for the article. A question:
The US have 200,000 deaths, around 0.05% of the population. However, most schools are still closed, and people protect themselves in various ways, so I assume the infection rate is still relatively low (is there any reliable estimate of that?).
If everything will open up and back to normal, many more people will be infected and many more will die, taking the IFR high above 0.1%.
What am I missing?
That ‘the infection rate is still relatively low’ is an assumption and one that is untested. We couldn’t begin to even assess that unless we are repeatedly testing a massivwely larger percentage of the population.
It is equally possible that this virus has a much greater ‘smouldering ember’ existence – circulating among the population without overtly causing attention to itself. It’s also possible that this would stimulate early phase immune response (T cell activation) which itself would reduce overt presence but increasingly ensure that future ‘graduation’ from ‘infected’ to hospitalisation reduces.
Even if ‘many more people will be infected’ it is unproven (and not necessarily obvious) that ‘many more will die’. The opposite may even be true!
The present official strategy seems to just ASSUME that the growth of ‘cases’ will be matched (after a short delay) with a rise in deaths or at least increasing stress on the healthcare system. So far this is not at all obvious in the graphs.
CEBM has a useful summary page – worth checking this regularly as we head into the autumn:
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-uk-hospital-admissions/
If this article is generally correct, then we would expect to see ‘case numbers’ rising (or even going all over the place!) but no correlation with the RATE of increase in hospital admissions, or deaths.
Interesting times.
“The US has 200,00 deaths”
Really? The figure from the CDC this week is 9400 deaths directly attributed to Wuhn flu.
Are those figures from the BBC or (even less reliable) CNN.
Look at Worldometer
The worldometer only dsplays the data it is given. I haven’t looked at it for months, when I found for weeks and weeks there was never a recovered case reported for the UK. So much for science.
AhNotepad
I suppose its the same old story. One man says 200,000 dead,another says 9000 dead.
Its all about what you believe in the first place
CDC is the officially appointed record keeper in the US wrt to deaths and causes thereof in the US. Much closer to the coalface than any other source.
Jerome i really don’t understand what you are saying. Please explain
Steve – your comment “Its all about what you believe in the first place” suggestion being that you find a source of information that suits your narrative. My point is, there is a hierarchy of data sources. CDC publicly owned, professional statisticians should be at the top. Thereafter are those sites that reproduce data from various sources some of which may be official but we are unaware of any potential commercial bias. Worldometer might be categorized as such. At the bottom are sites with a political or economic bias that might be harbingers of some truths but are ultimately not to be trusted. Over simplification but you get my drift.
jerome
I thought that was what i said. People don’t trust what they read on the on the internet. They only believe what they already believe to be true. That’s why they believe an arrogant narcissistic bully You know who i mean
If one catches a CASE of influenza, one is a very miserable puppy for several days – maybe the worst one has ever felt. Then, presuming one has survived, it’s over. Go easy on rich food for a few more days.
If one catches a CASE of COVID-19, the rumor is, from various factions, that, if one survives, one might have to live with organ damage for . . . how long? Permanently? For a period being called “Long Haul”?? This virus is “novel”. Who knows how long the “haul” might be?
If COVID-19 shuts down vessels causing severe ischemia, as is being described, is this scenario of lasting damage not plausible?
What are the numbers with respect to this?
What are the facts?
If true, that would make COVID-19 quite different from influenza.
Influenza also causes long term damage.
Comparable?
Do we (you) know enough yet to compare?
Folks are continually fanning the flames JD: to big this bigger; better, more dramatic; the media just makes stuff up; and whatever nonsense someone spouts; if it sounds scarey, it gets printed; churnalism describes the way nonsense is continually promulgated; as Dr K tersely comments, flu can cause issues; so can car crashes; so can glandular fever; so can life; folks just get “chronic fatigue”: eating sugars can give you heart disease and a fatty liver.
look at this link https://twitter.com/andrewbostom/status/1301857021000585217 and this
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1301715411617165312 It is now ok to just print absolute rubbish in the media; totally acceptable; they know folks will believe whatever rubbish they choose to spout on any one day;
folks are trying to scare you JD: make your cower under your bed and wimper; and become a covid-bedwetter; stand strong JD! You are made of sterner stuff!
I mentioned something similar to someone a few days ago, their response “You haven’t been reading the internet again have you? You are a dangerous person.” I walked off, you can’t discuss with some people.
I like the fact that there is now The Internet. Its a bit like The Science.
😂😂😂
Terry,
If you have facts you can share about the respective differences in long-term serious effects between annual influenza and COVID-19, I would be grateful.
The last thing I want or need is the sort of self-serving patronizing advice you provided.
Thanks anyway.
AhN,
Ironically, one cannot discuss with a person who walks off.
JDPatten it probably isn’t a surprise that those who have been severely impacted by Covid-19 can have long term damage. As Dr Kendrick says in can occur in severe flu too (and I think he provided a link to a study in a recent post).
But what got me reading about ‘long haul’ was when friends who I were arguing with provided links to studies that implied long term damage in mild/asymptomatic cases. My BS sensor was aroused and I looked into it. In short, I could not find any evidence that Covid-19 was the cause of any of the abnormal scans, markers etc in these people.
So personally I am not worried about Covid, but I’m super worried about damage that the lockdowns and fear-mongering has done to the human psyche. I am anxious when I go out lest someone yells at me for stepping foot in a shop that already has its maximam allowable people. The world has changed
The statement was “Influenza also causes long term damage.”
Your own research about comparisons with another virus, may make you happier with the result instead of having to rely on a possibly biased opinion.
Apropos of my question above, a brief perspective from the cutting-edge thick-of-it.
Just sayin’:
A careful examination of a seemingly sensationalist claim about COVID-19 organ damage:
https://sciencefeedback.co/claimreview/a-proportion-of-covid-19-survivors-are-likely-to-suffer-from-long-term-health-problems-but-the-actual-risks-are-still-unknown/
– And –
Heart muscle broken down by the virus in a petri dish.
Can influenza do this? Granted, it’s a pre-publication paper, but…
https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/04/carnage-in-lab-dish-shows-how-coronavirus-may-damage-heart/
It would be gratifying to have these papers evaluated by a capable medical scientist.
Unfortunately, that leaves out most of us here.
Have a read of Stephen Harrod Buhner, he’s done a huge amount of research on this aspect and has published his thoughts on his website. Also the American Herbalists Guild have written widely and in depth throughout giving stage by stage guidance on what to do for yourself at each stage, including ‘self-defence’ approaches. If ME is a concern then start on Kefir to sort out your gut biome, juicing of veg and fruit to feed your body and start Tapping (TFT or EFT or Meridian Tapping) to deal with all the emotional baggage that is involved in any illness. And find someone who can give you an energy body cleanse while you’re at it.
75pct of influenza cases are asymptomatic also – just like SARS2-Cov – if you search for cases using PCR testing. So you don’t necessarily feel awful with flu, if you measure it in the same way we have done for this coronavirus.
This was shown in a Lancet 2014 publication.
Right on the nose again. Well done for keeping at this. It needs to be said, it needs to be said loud! Thank you for your excellent writing on it.
On the nose, but fortunately not up the nose!
Thanks. Great blog.
One thing they do is to blame the people for being unable to follow impossible mandates: don’t touch your face, wear a mask, change a mask every four hours, wash your hands, if they are irritated then wash them harder. Etcetera.
I would like to blame the people too. They have gone along with tyranny too much. They are barking at people who barely left home because of mental illness, because they are not wearing a mask properly. They are ruthless and have worse morals than an American Policeman. They have dug their own grave for following the mad, mad orders of the most stupid generation of Politicians in History. It is their fault too.
Some people are obsessed with Trump. They have been for four long years. People who are not citizens of the US, people who do not live there and have no intention of moving there. These people pretend that he is guilty of killing millions, because of “herd immunity”. They pretend that the other candidate and the other party, know better. They would have lockdown harder and stablished concentration camps and shoot whomever tried to escape. These individuals are completely deranged, and in this case it is not a form of mental illness. It is complete moral bankruptcy.
All politicians are guilty. It is them, and their families, and their friends, and their donors, and their counselors who must pay. Not the idiotic people who followed them to the abyss. The reset must be about eradicating the public career of millions of dunces. None of these personages must be allowed to ever be seen in public again. No more conferences, no more speeches, no more press conferences. They must go. All of them.
Unfortunately, the people will then choose someone even worse. It is impossible not to do so. The truth is that truth is so horrendous that it has to ignored forever. Like we always did.
We have to immunize ourselves against politicians. Which means their powers must be devolved and all the budgets must be slashed. All we have been through has not been a failure of having limited governments. Rather, we have too big governments. They must be destroyed. Not the people. Not the children.
Suppose it becomes widely accepted that most governments simply panicked and that their lockdown strategies were ill-advised, ruinous failures that should never have been pursued.
Suppose further that, in five or ten years time, another but deadlier pandemic comes along. Presumably everyone will feel that governments have an established propensity to cry wolf.
Oh dear: the costs of an error on this scale can be paid for many decades.
dearieme, I think governments did not panic. I think they were following a carefully crafted script which would make everyone think a virus was the problem.
Then you have much more faith in their competence than I have.
Have you looked at ukcolumn.org?
It seems to me that 190+ countries were following the script developed by the WHO, the IMF, the World economic Forum, etc. Imagine all the meetings they must have had to develop this.
Hmm, that’s rather interesting. I’ll be looking at both numbers in future.
A note on style: if you kept the ranting out the piece could be a tenth of the size and probably get more respect. In it’s current form I almost, and I suspect many others will, give up long before getting to the factual part.
Excuse me? I (and many others) detect no ‘ranting.’ We hang on assiduously to every word.
Toby – for the likes of me, needing time to digest the gravity and nuances of the narrative, the intros and the soft speak are terrific buffers and set the tone. But that’s me.
Wonderful! But no one is government is ever going to admit it – they are having far too much fun making us jump through hoops
Malcolm,
I would be interested to know your assessment for the future of the ‘official narrative’ if the above analysis is true (which I think it is).
Do you expect the government to admit that imprecision plus panic led us into the economic wilderness?
Or do you expect them to try to hide behind more “The latest science now says that…” type statements?
If the hospitalisation/death rates continue to show NO link with ‘cases’, at what point do you think it will be impossible for them to ignore the obvious?
Thank you again for your materials…
They have been ignoring the obvious for the past 3 months, when it was obvious the virus was following the expected curve (unflattened).
It also directs people’s thoughts and concerns away from the UK leaving the EU at the end of January 2021!
Thanks Malcolm, that was a very clear piece with almost no medical jargon. It would be great if you could publish it in the Daily Telegraph – which does seem to report a fair bit of sceptical COVID news – or failing that RT. It is a message that everyone should hear.
I was already aware that the use of the word ‘case’ for PCR test detections was simply wrong.
I have also seen a couple of discussions that imply that somewhere along the line the number of cycles in the PCR test may be adjusted – or vary in some way from one test batch to another. Do these tests state the number of PCR cycles they use? It is crucial because every PCR cycle doubles the amount of DNA it the sample (THE RNA is copied to DNA as the first step).
Finally, I wonder if there is any risk that the virus might become significantly more deadly in the winter. I can’t quite see why, because the most vulnerable will be indoors anyway.
Vitamin D deficiency is the problem in winter. We need vitamin D for the immune system but the sun isn’t strong enough after the Autumn equinox until the Spring equinox. We should all be supplementing vitamin D3.
Also people tend to stay indoors in the winter months.
Very true
This just in: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764
Very interesting, thanks. How does calcifediol compare to vitamin D3?
I don’t think I worded the last part of my post clearly enough. I am, of course, perfectly aware of the vitamin D issue, but I suspect many vulnerable people don’t get out much even in the summer, and they tend to wear more clothes because they are a lot less active – so a certain proportion of them should be at risk from this virus right now, and they clearly aren’t.
Very many people, especially older people, and others with conditions that make them more vulnerable, are still seriously social distancing, sanitising, and only meeting outdoors. A lot of people are not back at their workplaces, and many social and entertainment activities haven’t restarted. So it’s a very different situation from February and much of March, when there were far fewer precautions.
A friend of a friend (aged 70-ish, active and leading a normal life) died on a ventilator, of Covid-19 after contracting it at an outpatient appointment in mid March. Had we locked down, or even just introduced better mitigation methods a week earlier, and had staff had proper PPE, his wife may well not have become a widow. The Telegraph reported in early June that 1 in 5 people caught the virus in hospital https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/12/exclusive-one-five-hospital-coronavirus-patients-caught-illness/ Many OP appts are now by phone if possible.
As schools and universities open, and people are urged back to their workplaces, it seems uncertain how things will change. Perhaps many of the most vulnerable will still keep out of harm’s way?
So interesting Dr Kendrick A lot to think about
Dr. Kendrick another excellent piece on the pandemic that never was. Thank you so much for bringing Ronald Brown’s article to our attention. It is terrifying how the world has sleep walked into accepting medical martial law. Vaccination passports next?
So do you think we should start calling him Dr Ouchy?
Thanks again Doctor Kendrick for putting this out there.
Still from this gigantic ‘cock-up’? there may be some lessons learned:
Don’t send sick people into care-homes where there are also very sick vulnerable people.
Nobody appeared to know this – but my 7 year old granddaughter told me it was a very bad idea!
How lucky Event 201 happened in October 2019 or we may have even been less prepared!
https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/
How fortuitous this virus came along when it did to help ‘The Great Reset’ really gain momentum for the forth coming summit in Davos 2021.
” COVID-19 has accelerated our transition into the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”
https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/06/the-great-reset-a-unique-twin-summit-to-begin-2021
Every cloud has a silver lining.
I feel really happy these people are preparing for our future!
See also the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Health: everybody force-vaccinated ‘to eradicat disease’.
Smart cities: You’re not allowed to live on the land, you should live in cities, close to your work so you ‘don’t need’ to travel (read: you will not be allowed to own a car).
Education: a few big corporations will set up call centers from which you can ‘enjoy’ online classes.
Food security: small farmers will be ‘regulated away’, their life will be made so miserable by ever new regulations and investment requirements that they get bankrupt, give up, and big AG can take over their land an production.
etc.
etc.
(Nonsense * Nonsense) ^ (American Election Reality Distortion Field) = Infinite Nonsense.
Dr. Sheuelt explains how deaths are calculated.. covid 19 found a niche. It attacks the endothelium which is weakened by eating a bunch of junk like sugar and non food items, and lack of vitamin D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TECf3xSFbU&t=31s
CALCULATED? Deaths should not be calculated, they should be measured or counted, not “calculated”. That’s why we’re n the mess we are, too many rubbish calculations.
BTW I would NOT hold up Sweden as a paragon. They euthanized their elderly by not giving them oxygen. You have a good reputation but Sweden does not. Plus it’s impossible to compare with Sweden, they have light skin and a diet that is high in vitamin D. There are too many variables. IT was a different time of the year when they hit their peak.
Perhaps have a look at the population of Stockholm and Gothenburg….not so many ‘pale skinned’ folk following mass immigration. Demographic more like the Netherlands. Religious beliefs include almost total skin covering…. and fasting that forbids taking even water for great lengths of time followed by overeating late at night..body clock effects..etc
Oh Lucy: “They euthanized their elderly by not giving them oxygen.” That is awful rubbish to post;
“You have a good reputation but Sweden does not. ” …… what?? …. you would seem to be a fact-free zone;
Lucy,
Let’s not drag the discussion here to the hysterical level of politics! If you have some evidence that oxygen was deliberately denied to those who needed it, then why not show it.
I believe the decision to destroy the economy and effectively imprison people in their homes and cause carnage to people’s lives rests solely with governments.
If what is happening is based on an error it doesn’t absolve the decision makers in my opinion. We can see governments will blame anyone but themselves. If what you say is correct I feel a bit sorry for this guy.
If you are the kind of person who wants to spend their days in government telling everyone else how to live their lives, especially this virus response, wouldn’t you check everything in your decision making with as many people as possible constantly day in and day out to make sure you haven’t got it wrong?
It’s a good gig, being in government. No matter what you do or who ends up suffering and to what extent nothing happens to you apart from being voted out. Then you will probably end up with a cushy number advising some business somewhere or reading speeches some ghost writes for you.
I wonder how long it will be before what passes as the news picks this up?
What is the way out of this mess?
There are multiple healthcare professionals as well as mathematicians, epidemiologists and others who can produce evidence that counter the current state of affairs.
If you try and say anything on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter then you get blocked. Comments on MSM call you a conspiracy theorist, irrespective of your expertise and knowledge.
Dr Kendrick,
Thanks for another solid article.
The whole coronavirus episode has always been political not medical. ‘A lot of mistakes were made’, as the proponents might say, but all the ‘mistakes’ headed one way – to a lockdown. Why was the lockdown a desired political outcome? Follow the money – it is always about the money.
The Jab: Featuring GlaxoSithKline:
Incidentally, a group of similar-minded medics and lawyers in Germany also consider the lockdowns political and are looking into a class action (for small business rather than individuals as they have quantifiable financial loss) – not for the monetary response, but rather as a political big bang to shake people’s heads.
Money Talks III – corona-schadensersatzklage.de
If a class action is possible, anyone in the world, not just Germany, could form part of the class.
Maybe there is scope for collaborating with the medics in this German group? After all, we are all in this together, according to Our Glorious Leaders.
Can I add my thanks to you for another excellent article.
The veracity of the RT-PCR test is also a subject of major concern as it seems, from the discussion papers that I have read, that a tiny fragment of DNA can be replicated to such an extent that we can get a positive ‘case’ of COVID, thus inflating the numbers and keeping Project Fear going. It would be nice to see an article on this topic from yourself that is written in your eminently readable style.
Brilliant. This surely ranks among the best (and I should add, most provocative AND mentally stimulating) among the large number of commentaries/articles I have read on this so called pandemic. All of us (I live in India) have suffered through lockdowns and controls imposed on us, based on the advice of the ‘authorities’. Thank you, Dr. Kendrick for providing a rare voice of reason.
In the mean time, in Holland (Aug 18), we are testing 1,000 people in a million per day.
With the swab test which seems to have a false positive rate of 3%.
That’s already 30 false positive ‘cases’ per 1,000 per day.
And how many are reported (Aug 18)?
Exactly: 30 ‘cases’ per 1,000 per day. It’s mainly false positives with some random noise on top!
It’s a pseudo-epidemic caused by false positives.
Thanks for another blast of good sense. I hope readers will join me in attending the next big protest meeting in Trafalgar Square on 26 September. Bound to be lots of conspiracists there but at this point the forces of reason need any allies they can find. There were 35,000 last Saturday: let’s make it 100,000 on 26 September.
Dr Kendrick, can I ask why no-one is looking towards Singapore and how they treat the virus? 56,000 cases and just 27 deaths. I am intrigued why this is being ignored and not investigated.
David: we keep on with this fallacy; that how we “treat”, influences outcomes; what colour of trousers we wear; do we have red hats, or big green ones? If we skip along the pavement, then jump in diagonals; .. crucially, do we blow our tiger horns every 20 mins to keep the tigers away .. sorry ….. blow our rona horns, to keep the rona away. We kid ourselves that what we do; influences the mortality of these respiratory waves; that are profoundly seasonal; that reflect all the respiratory viruses: eg rhinovirus; adenovirus; coronavirus; influenza; parainfluenza; that erupt in distinct waves in late winter; in the temperate zones; and in the rainy season in the tropical zones; in summer in the temperate zones, the assumption was they were quietly moving through the population without causing overt illness; this was never demonstrated before. The hysteria of “case-itis” that has infected the world; means that in .. northern Europe for example .. we now see the virus quietly moving around; and false-positives featuring largely too. Before we assumed this; now we see what it does in summer; it then embeds; and erupts all at once in late winter; as it did this late winter in northern Europe. Do find Dr Hope-Simpson’s book “The Transmission of Epidemic Influenza”: you can download it and read it from Ivor Cummins https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1265899518471659520 all best wishes
Thank you very much, Dr. Kendrick! Your posts are always so sensible. As a fellow physician, I am wondering if you have a sense of the infection chronic morbidity rate, if there is such a term. How many people who survive an infection will be left with serious and chronic pulmonary, cardiac, metabolic, neurologic, psychiatric, chronic fatigue, etc. conditions? I think this possibility makes people even more afraid of COVID and is not (I don’t think) normally associated with recovery from the flu.
Hi ptamd; this story of debilitation is being fed; fanned; promulgated; massaged; encouraged; egged on; fostered; made up, nurtured; exaggerated, inflammed by our wonderful media that know they must keep milking what is now a mono-maniacal obsession; poor like rona is just a coronavirus; like its cousins, they are simple creatures; they come; they go; folks can be debilitated after .. trauma; heart disease; antibiotic therapy; statin prescriptions; SGLT-2 prescriptions; beta-blockers; (talked to anyone taking long-term beta-blockers): life can be debilitating. Here is about flu https://twitter.com/andrewbostom/status/1301857021000585217
Terry, a good point. Someone here keeps questioning the amount of long term damage done to, what is probably a small minority of, people who get rona, while suggesting the problems don’t seem to occur with flu. They also don’t seem to mind the documented long term damage caused by va$$ines, as they must be safe and effective.
AhN,
Well said. Thanks.
Much talk about viral load, how about – vaccine load ?
ptamd,
Could it be that most of the people who could be followed up after having had CV19 were old, and already suffered from those conditions, or were close to developing them.
I have become utterly cynical about the way much medical research is conducted now – anything is possible.
“Could it be that most of the people who could be followed up after having had CV19 were old, and already suffered from those conditions, or were close to developing them.”
Indeed David; seek, and ye shall find; or if that doesn’t work, invent; massage; create; fabricate;
there is money for research grants; don’t waste a good opportunity: go for that funding: invent a new disease.
“But they went with it, they went with 1%. Actually, Imperial College reduced it slightly to 0.9%, for reasons that are opaque.
From this, all else flowed.”
I think I would blame both politics and the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is much-discussed in climate change matters. Just to be on the safe side, let’s reduce CO2 emissions to make sure we don’t ruin the climate. Never mind the enormous undertaking that entails.
Same with the lockdowns. They were precautionary and claimed to be temporary. The politics was simply that leaders have to “do something” if a condition risks killing a lot of people.
Never mind the enormous dislocations that entails. Plus the fact the lockdowns basically failed. The virus didn’t “go away” as promised, cases (poorly defined as you say) went back up, and the drama has dragged on for months. Some think we will never quite be the same again. Compare the aftermath of prior pandemics (for example, 1957 and 1968).
You could easily compile your COVID series into a short book, authoritative and easy to read and a message to future generations that panic and hubris did not disappear before the third decade of the 21st century.
There was a great essay written about the stupidity of the precautionary principle vis-à-vis Covid-19 weeks before the UK went into the lockdown: https://risk-monger.com/2020/03/08/docilian-dreams-and-the-covid-19-nightmare
To me, the moral of this awful tale is obvious.
Politicians who think they need scientific advice, should consult a wide range of experts, and maybe some with more practical experience (e.g. hospital doctors) too. If they receive a wide variety of advise, then they should conclude that scientific advise will not help. In that case they should just try to present the facts to the people and let them decide for themselves.
Malcolm, “Which, currently, represent a case fatality rate of 0.33%. Just to compare that with something similar, the case fatality rate of swine flu (HIN1), which was 0.5%” perhaps should read “… (H1N1) …” (digit 1 instead of capital I) .
I suspect you are overstating the virulence of EBOV, a properly stocked hospital with IV electrolytes and sufficient blood to avoid hypovolemia (any major hospital, really) increase survival drastically, so do prompt administration of rNAPc2/siRNA, or monoclonal antibodies, or interferon, or ER modulators have been shown to be effective, the problem is where the actual outbreaks occur… but we’re not talking about EBOV.
What I cannot fathom, is why on Earth anyone would trust Ferguson given his past history of “predictions,” seriously, what could possibly have been in people’s minds when they took him at his word?! But then it could a problem with the academia as a whole and the whole peer-review process of “I scratch your back if you promise to do same later on for me.” Conversely, If you look at places where epidemiologists have proper field experience, like dealing with Zika, Dengue, Yellow Fever, once they realised there won’t be any “excess” pressure on the hospitals, things moved back to normal life (I’m talking about Brazil) despite the bed-wetting “experts” [1].
What we are left with is this: psychological disorders are notoriously difficult to treat, let alone cure, and we now how armies of nosophobes (and to make the matters worse, they are actively encouraged by the media and the State); as Mark Twain put it: it’s easy to fool someone, it’s way more difficult to convince them that they were fooled in the first place.
1. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/02/americas/brazil-coronavirus-restaurants-rio-intl/index.html
What do you reckon is the real explanation for the EBOLA outbreak – I mean was it a new virus, or something already known?
EBOV outbreaks are far simpler to explain (and science loves simple explanations):- remove locations + burial rituals = outbreaks. Doubtless such spill-overs happened numerous times in the past (and probably way more often than we’d like to think), but there was no media to fan the fear (pretty much the only thing the media is really capable of nowadays), so when a spill-over happened in remote villages, the villages just died out, a handful of people survived, they called that life… No surprise when Piot and van der Groen “discovered” EBOV back in 1976 the locals were fairly used to the drastic containment measures the two encountered.
*remote locations
IMoz,
Sorry, you seem to be writing obliquely – what exactly are you saying EBOLA was?
I am more than willing to believe it was not a virus, but what exactly was it – if you know.
It looks to me like he is saying that it took certain bad practices sometimes done in funeral rituals to cause an outbreak.
I thought I was being very clear:- it is patently a virus (and unlike SARS-CoV-2, it has actually been purified, I don’t thinks SARS-CoV-2 has been purified yet, has it?), and it’s been spilling over for God knows how long, but given Ebola (the disease) pathology, it never made far until recently with the air travel, etc (or monkey trade, in case of Marburg that was “stumbled upon” before “the West” discovered EVD, and those reporting it in the Lancet thought that was being caused by rickettsia or something like that)…
Thanks for the additional perspective, and I think that you are fundamentally correct that once the IFR becomes evident, we may look rather foolish. However, I still wonder if the Covid-19 might not have been a wee bit worse than a bad flu, at least in parts of the US. Perhaps it still did not justify full lockdown, but when you look at excess deaths, it’s clear something kind of bad was happening. And it appears to be more than just collateral Covid deaths. Does anyone have an explanation for this?
My source is the CDC excess weekly deaths. I can’t figure out how to post pictures here, but at their peak deaths were 150% (5000 weekly vs 2000) more than usual in New York, but only up by 20% in California (6000 vs 5000) About 33% higher overall in the US (80,000 vs 60,000). A bad flu bump in some cases, but much worse in others.
Alicia,
Here is the US CDC Excess Death chart: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
From 2/1/2020 they are reporting 190K excess deaths, and counting most of those as from COVID. The chart shows quite a bit more deaths than the 2017/18 flu season. If these numbers are accurate, then a lot of people did die presumably from COVID. However, almost every death was preventable.
Gareth Hawker posted this fantastic link above from Dr. Thomas Levy, MD: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n37.shtml
“With the treatment options available, there is no good reason for most people to even contract COVID-19, and there is certainly no good reason for anyone to die from this virus, much less have a prolonged clinical course of infection with a great deal of needless suffering.”
Hi Dr John H;
I need to find the link but the CDC has quietly announced that only 9,210 of the rona deaths were directly to due to rona; of the 170,000 they had previously recorded; and of those 9,210 deaths, 90% were in the very old; they have buried this somewhere on this website; so again, you are fed sensational rubbish by the media;
https://yournews.com/2020/08/31/1803857/report-this-week-cdc-quietly-updated-covid-19-numbers-only/
JP made a very good mocking video of the CDC here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZNWzAlqFpA
Enjoy; it is truer than anything you will read in the mainstream media
Hi Terry,
Dying with a comorbidity is different than dying of a comorbidity. I think it is very difficult to know exactly what these people actually died from. Obviously, the CDC wants to confuse us with their numbers, or they would present them clearly. The tragedy in all of this is that virtually no one needs to die of COVID, now that we know there are highly effective treatments with nearly 100% success.
I watched JP’s video you linked to a few days ago – His COVID video’s have been brilliant! I really admire him for risking getting banned on Youtube for telling the truth.
Thank you for another breath of common sense. I find it so sad that so few of your colleagues in the medical profession are prepared to stand up and be counted.
I look forward to seeing you in Edinburgh tomorrow.
It is not the “biggest mistake in human history”, it is the biggest CRIME in human history the full consequences and continuing evil of which have, as yet, only begun to unfold.
America is about to be deliberately collapsed. The dollar will collapse and this will cause global financial collapse, an end to trading and food shortages/famine across the world.[as Kissinger said, “Control the food and you control the people.”]
It should not come as a surprise that when food gets in very short supply, one’s ability to receive State hand-outs will depend on one’s willingness to accept the Gates’ vaccine.
This is a CULL and a calculated takeover of EVERYTHING by the Satanists (for this is what they are) driving this agenda.
Satan is showing his hand. Lucifer gives us the truth as He must do (a condition imposed by God of this spirit’s dominance over mankind). This truth is delivered in the small print. [e.g. Gov.uk declared on March 23rd that “COVID is not a high consequence infectious disease”) while at the same time in the public domain the noisy liar that is the spirit of Satan was, via the owned media, attributing end-of-the-world type horrors to this same illness).
Great suffering is coming. For those who embrace God/Christ this will be a spiritual cleansing. We must LOVE. We must not take sides in a physical war. All great evils that humanity has endured have been carried out by ordinary humans believing (for the most part) that they were doing the right thing. People are driven mad with rage by buying into the lies they are told.
We must drive attendant demons from our own souls by calling in the power of the Divine. You do not rid the world of demons by embracing your own demons in order to destroy someone else’s.
When WE are free of our own demons (we must love everybody) the earth will be liberated from these demons too. The planet will become a different kind of school for souls.
We, the humans that survive, will collectively ASCEND.
I make this man right!
Sent from my iPad
>
It’s no wonder Neil Ferguson got it so wrong, semantics aside. His Imperial College of London has received funding from Bill Gates. In December 2018 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave the college a grant of $14.5 million. Gates will profit from a Covid vaccine. Follow the money.
What a daft idea. Ferguson has an established record of being wildly wrong in situations that are nothing to do with Bill Gates.
The problem isn’t devilishly competent conspiracists – the problem is incompetents, charlatans, and hysterics.
What a daft idea 🤭
Lynn
what you say about Gate’s funding, attributes amoral attitudes to Ferguson, Imperial college and Bill Gates.
I believe in the basic decency of most people until it has been proved otherwise.
I don’t think it has, but correct me if wrong.
Lynn – somewhat off the mark.
” In March 2020, during the Coronavirus outbreak, the Gates Foundation awarded a more than $79 million grant to Imperial College London”
https://nationalfile.com/gates-foundation-funded-both-imperial-college-and-ihme-failed-model-makers/
The $14ish million weo Walter Miwent to Chris Whitty for some research or other.
I remember reading a lot of tweets/facebook posts/interviews with infectious disease specialists and epidemiologists in Feb/March in which experts said in all likelihood the death rate would fall as more mild cases were diagnosed – that this was the normal pattern. (I could never understand why Trump was so anti-testing since more positives = lower rate of death.)
But the number of fatalities has also declined since Feb/Mar for many reasons. As I have noted before, originally hospitals in the NYC area were overwhelmed, and some patients fared worse than they should have because the staff/equipment were not able to deal with the sudden onslaught – also because doctors were telling people to stay home till they couldn’t breathe which resulted in people coming to hospital later in the course of their illness, past the point when antivirals, steroids, etc. could possibly help. Also early on, doctors put patients (who went to hospital earlier in the course of infection) on ventilators based on their oxygen numbers even though patients presented clinically much better than normally associated with those numbers; later docs realized patients fared better if instead of rushing them to ventilators, they first tried things like moving patients to prone positions to clear their lungs. And there have been some helpful therapies identified by doctors and researchers (eg I just read yesterday about a cheap steroid that has been shown to help keep the infection from getting more severe in a number of patients). Oh, and nursing homes and other communities jammed with vulnerable people, which were hit hard by early outbreaks, are seeing fewer deaths because they now have the tests/knowledge to do better at of preventing the spread of covid 19 in their populations.
Another favor that has to be significantly affecting the number of fatalities is that vulnerable people are now (still) going to great pains to avoid exposure. In February everyone was walking around leading normal lives. Now, vulnerable people of all ages (who can afford to) are staying home. Even as “case” numbers have climbed as covid 19 spread to new areas in the US, the average age of positives has declined, and hospitals report that average age of covid patients is younger now. I assume this is because older/vulnerable people who made it through the spring (like my 90 yr old mom and her friends) are being very careful – only socializing outdoors or in well-ventilated spaces, social distancing, wearing masks, ordering grocery deliveries rather than going inside stores, etc. The ones I know plan to continue this behavior till there is a vaccine.
Covid 19 is still the same infection that killed lots of people in NYC in Feb/March/April. If doctors and the public had not changed their behavior, I assume we’d be seeing more fatalities than we are now. (Maybe fewer than we were seeing last spring since some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers have presumably already died, but more fatalities than we are seeing now.)
Anyway, my point is just that the increase in testing is not the *only* factor affecting the death rate. There are also fewer symptomatic people dying.
Btw, are you saying that asymptomatic people cannot infect others? (Not talking about pre-symptomatic – we know they can.) Because if they can, don’t we still need to test and track them?
Dr Kendrick, in case you have not already seen this article by Dr James Hamblin and another from the NYTimes about testing, sensitivity, labels, etc., I think both would interest you – they are about things relevant to your blog post today.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/herd-immunity-coronavirus/614035/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html?referringSource=articleShare”
Finally, this is a kind of a non sequitur cause it’s not about covid fatalities, but today’s Johns Hopkins’ newsletter said: “A study (not yet peer reviewed) by researchers at Gladstone Institutes (California, US) identified severe damage to heart tissue due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The study (preprint) exposed cardiac cells to SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and found that muscle fibers were severed, similar to observations of heart tissue from deceased COVID-19 patients. The researchers exposed 3 types of cardiac cells—cardiomyocytes (muscle cells), cardiac fibroblasts, and endothelial cells—and only the cardiomyocytes exhibited the severe damage. The researchers believe that this type of damage, described by one researcher as “carnage,” could potentially explain longer-term health effects in COVID-19 survivors, including shortness of breath. It is possible that the damage could be permanent, which could increase the risk of heart failure as affected patients grow older; however, further study is needed to study this effect in vivo and to characterize the body’s ability to repair this kind of damage over the longer term.” (LINK to preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.25.265561v1) Any thoughts? Leaving aside the matter of whether this is a solid study, does the damage described sound like something that would self-repair eventually?
I ask because I know a number of young and middle-aged people who are dealing with lingering symptoms (maybe because they got sick back when everyone not feeling short of breath was told to stay home) and are wondering.
Dear Dr Kendrick
I have really enjoyed your posts on other matters like cholesterol and salt etc but i feel that the posts on Covid are not helpful.
Kind regards Adrian (PhD in molecular biology)
Get Outlook for Android
________________________________
Why?
So you cast aspersions on Malcolm Kendrick’s illuminating posts about COVID-19, but provide no detailed criticism for consideration.
Merely by dint of your PhD in molecular biology you think you have the upper hand?
That is one helluva an arrogant ‘argument from authority’
Adrian is not ‘casting aspersions’, he is politely stating his opinion. That is allowed.
Adrian Molenaar
Your statement is not very convincing. Please give us some justification
If we take an IFR of 0.1% as you propose then deaths per million would average 1000 if everyone was infected and 800 is a more reasonable upper bound because realistically not more than 80% of the population will get infected. But there are many regions with much higher death counts than this (e.g., NYC). San Marino has 1,237 deaths/million and Peru 890 deaths/million and growing every day. Your number cannot be correct. Further, your article completely ignores the long term affects of COVID for the 99% (or 99.99% that you claim) do not die. The recent studies of heart damage in athletes are extremely worrying.
*effects
dear frustrated kiwi, from an even more frustrated kiwi. i suspect you to be a jacinda acolyte. if you wish to believe govt stats then 500 kiwis were expected to be bumped off this flu season, more given that advanced countries have a backlog of aged & infirm teetering after a few ‘soft’ flu years. the 22 odd that jacinda claimed for covid are totally fraudulent. nz had todays equivalent of 45,000 dead in one month in the spanish flu 2nd wave. luckily, this synthesised bat flu is a pussycat in comparison. and it is not a flu. and it is not this virus killing folk- it is the agenda behind it, & the monumental collaboration that is the over-reaction.
of the virus itself? all the while some were getting rich selling icu & life support equip & building hospitals that were never used there were existing proven prophylactics/treatments so that barely a life should have been lost. i’m 65 & smart enough to not have any vaccination, & am not hiding under the bed wearing a mask like you. a wrecked economy, our grandchildren debtors in a new surveillance socialist state. give your jacinda a hug.
What recent study?
This one for a start:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2768916?referringSource=articleShare
Note it is not uncommon for viruses to cause damage to the heart (e.g., strep throat leading to rheumatic fever when left untreated).
Streptococcus is a bacteria, not a virus.
Yes, sorry, realised this a few hours after I posted and wondered who would notice. Not a doctor (obviously). But I believe it is correct that there is significant precedent for hearts to be damaged by viruses? Certainly, the JAMA study, while small, does look worrying. Not to mention the anecdotes floating around – which are of course just anecdotes. And that’s the problem with this virus – it has only been circulating for less than a year, there is a heck of a lot we don’t know. Maybe everything is fine as you say. But maybe it is not too. I will continue to hope for the former but I don’t think it is irrational to prepare for the latter.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/06/lungs-damaged-coronavirus-can-repair-three-months/
Behind a paywall after this weekend.
The CDC lists serious complications which may attend flu:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm
QUOTE:
Flu Complications
Most people who get flu will recover in a few days to less than two weeks, but some people will develop complications (such as pneumonia) as a result of flu, some of which can be life-threatening and result in death.
Sinus and ear infections are examples of moderate complications from flu, while pneumonia is a serious flu complication that can result from either influenza virus infection alone or from co-infection of flu virus and bacteria. Other possible serious complications triggered by flu can include
inflammation of the heart (myocarditis),
brain (encephalitis) or
muscle (myositis,
rhabdomyolysis) tissues, and
multi-organ failure (for example, respiratory and kidney failure).
Flu virus infection of the respiratory tract can trigger an extreme inflammatory response in the body and can lead to sepsis, the body’s life-threatening response to infection. Flu also can make chronic medical problems worse. For example, people with asthma may experience asthma attacks while they have flu, and people with chronic heart disease may experience a worsening of this condition triggered by flu.
COVID-19
Additional complications associated with COVID-19 can include:
Blood clots in the veins and arteries of the lungs, heart, legs or brain
Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C)
:END OF QUOTE
The CDC does not say that these complications of covid may be avoided by taking high doses of ascorbic acid or many other successful treatments.
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n37.shtml
Some TV experts have said that this pandemic will end only when we have a cure or a vaccine, ignoring the fact that these cures have been available from the start, as announced by Andrew Saul in January. Some were announced in the Shanghai protocol early March. All have been ignored by the government.
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n16.shtml
AFAIK, the team coach of the allegedly infected players with myocarditis reported that it was fake news and none of the players had heart problems (but many athletes, esp those who take performance enhancing substances, do)
Hi Frustrated kiwi: we share your frustration at being fed lies and endless rubbish by the media; their job is to sensationalise everything; keep you perpetually afraid; and terrified of your shadow; these seems particularly sad for kiwis; who we used to regard as being independent, confident and very capable souls;
“The recent studies of heart damage in athletes are extremely worrying.” that was Penn State and it is all rubbish; one really cannot believe anything the media promulgate
have a read at this, Frustrated Kiwi: you are being lied to each day; fed a false narrative endlessly; https://twitter.com/hector_drummond/status/1302243532632195073
this debunks this stuff you read;
try this instead; https://www.covidplanb.co.nz friends in nz suggest it is a good antidote:
Thanks, I’m good with Plan A, which is better for the economy as well as people’s health. Under elimination we can go to our so-called level 1 – we were one of the few countries in the world with sports stadiums filled with fans. I’m sure you’ve seen the pool party photos from Wuhan. Now tell me the limit on gathering sizes in Sweden? Even if not regulated, people don’t go out and about when there is a virus circulating that still has a lot of unknowns – they do when all seems safe. NZ will quickly mop up this latest outbreak and we can go back to regular life but with closed borders. The closed borders are of course a pain, and I wish the government would allow students in with quarantine, but given the election soon I don’t fault them for being risk adverse – I would be too in their shoes.
I was not citing the Penn State news story but actual research articles on covid causing myocarditis in some cases (see above). Yes, there is way too much sensationalising of this virus. I also very much hope Dr Kendrick’s numbers are correct, but I don’t see how they can be given the evidence I mention above. If we could all just stick to the science (and recognise that it is evolving every day) that would be great!
Well, NZ had better hope a vaccine arrives soon. Otherwise, locked-down forever.
I have a reliable contact who is very optimistic of widespread role out in Q2 2021 (although it depends how long efficacy will last and that is still unknown – 3 months would be useless, six months OK, and a year very good). And of course our science of treating the disease will improve all the time (already it has improved significantly – e.g., giving blood thinners up front). Not to mention the virus mutating – not uncommon for viruses to get less deadly as they do so (since killing the host is inefficient for reproduction). NZ’s risk adverse strategy of keeping it out until we know more is just fine with me.
Viruses move around without needing people as a vector. You can’t “keep it out”. As for the vaccine, please have it if you want, let us know in a few years how you are getting on with it.
dr, kendrick, absolutely applaud your efforts. not all kiwis are sheep- we are marching against the lockdowns & measures that deny us healthy immune systems & basic prophylactics that work. again i approached my gp & was told they had never heard of HCQ zinc or ivermectin- but eventually admitted the health department directive was to refuse it. high potency vit c same. approached our chemist- same response but happy to sell a days disposable masks for $30.
probably 1500 nz liberty folk marched down queen st on sat, same other centres- but no one will know as the media are banned from attending or reporting it
cheers, mark hampson
oh, & guess what they can do with their vaccine…
Awesome stuff, I am a bio-chem student, this is gold’
Hmmm… and then there are all the +ve tests that include dead virus. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-54000629
Another informative and very helpful piece, Dr Kendrick. Interesting to note that the steady rise in ‘cases’ in the UK since early July has been accompanied by a huge ramping up of testing (more than doubling)
I write from behind closed borders in NZ . . .
indeed theelvesareheadingwest; no-one divides “positives” by number of tests done; if you do that to your nz data; the “cases” they reported in March show no peak: they got more positives as they did more tests; like finding eggs buried in the garden; the more you dig, the more buried eggs you find; friends in nz sent this https://www.covidplanb.co.nz
I hope someone informs Premier Andrews of Victoria, Australia, about cases, etc. State borders here are shut down. We cannot leave Australia, permission denied, unless one is a politician like Tony Abbott. We are in an island prison.
And don’t do anything crazy like posting online that you think banning protest against the lock down is wrong because the Aussie police will come and kick your door down and drag you to the police station for inciting people to break the anti protest laws. Of course if you are in BLM or extinction rebellion you can actually go on a protest during lock down because covid19 is woke so these groups get a pass.
Wasn’t that the original intention of England when Australia was overrun by Captain Cook?
But why ? Why exactly are we committing economic suicide over an infection that caused the death of one person yesterday?
The Queensland Premier has our borders closed. Population a bit over 5 million. Six deaths. A Queenslander went to Sydney for brain surgery. When she was well enough to travel, she couldn’t get an exemption to quarantine at her home. However, a few days ago 400 footballers and friends from Melbourne were given exemptions to visit. They are now in ‘quarantine’ at a resort on the Gold Coast. Two have been sent home for fighting outside a strip club.
Refer to the Rockefeller foundation website, where there is a 2010 document which details exactly what is happening now.
Look Doc’. You said it all in the first three paragraphs. Keep it simple is also the art of the blog. The rest is a thesis.
And that is a problem because?………….
Theses are how progress is made; you’ve highlighted the problem with most brags^H^H^H^Hlogs today: too much noise, hardly any signal.
So the current narrative explaining why there are so many “cases” but so few deaths is because it’s mainly young people being tested and the vulnerable are still shielding or being extremely cautious. And if we all just opened up again it would wipe out more ie a 2nd wave
What’s your reaction to that?
I fully expect a 2nd wave not to happen but the government and the media will say it’s all because everyone wore masks.
Hi Stokesy; we might expect a second wave of hysteria;
“the vulnerable are still shielding”; that is wishful thinking; this viral wave passed through Feb/March this year; in the UK and elsewhere; so those that were going to be affected, were; either by illness or death; or asymptomatic exposure;
those now testing “positive” are most likely to false positive; where the labs keep running more and more cycles to get a positive; it is like data torture: this is test torture: run more and more cycles; (torture the test); till eventually the test gives you what you want: a positive result: you can run out shrieking and screeching; and most importantly, you can claim some money; and so rewarded; rush off to do more and more tests; run more and more cycles; till you get your craved positive …….and on the cycle of madness goes ……
Can you review this presentation that looks into the pharma giants roll in getting the WHO to declare the 2009 H1N1 fake pandemic and then making out like bandits from the $18bn in vaccine contracts that was triggered by this?
The presentation also includes reference to all the children that were seriously damaged by the vaccine and how the pharma giants had zero liability.
The Jab – featuring GlaxoSmithKline
More great work sir ! I believe you should take some credit for trying to get the facts out to as many of us that will listen. The fear still is untenable, at a time with hardly any death. I tell people often not to confuse intelligence with common sense, they are not the same thing! Working out the BS about corona is similar to the type 2 BS. We have a patient with high blood glucose, the answer in modern medicine is to give insulin to drive it down. It’s only the common sense Drs etc with good morals that have thought to put less glucose in to achieve same result without medication. We need yourself, Ivor, Aseem and David Unwin on the mainstream to get some common sense into people’s ( mostly bloody sheep ) Heads. Obviously the huge hurdle is overcoming the hi jacking of the health system ( flexner ) for The huge financial gains. Common sense hey, just no money in it.
This truly puts things in perspective but leaves me with some more questions though.
1) The outcomes described are binary as in death versus surviving. The picture however isn’t as clear cut from the horror stories I have read regarding the long term effects of COVID-19. A ‘case’ might survive but suffer from long-term complications which have an impact on a personal level but also on the economy and NHS.
2) Does COVID-19 have a profile similar to a severe seasonal influenza in the way it affects certain demographics more than others?
Hi Gregory: “long term effects of COVID-19” … these will be from “experts who warn” … a very dangerous species ………
.. it seems like a lifetime that the coronapsychosis has raged unchecked through us; however it is maybe 5 months; this bogeyman of “long-term” is being played by the media; to describe 3 months of something ….. endlessly fed; you are being given endless sensational rubbish to keep this stuff going on and on;
this tweet comments from a 2010 paper that flu can leave some less than chipper for a while; but if it is flu, everyone yawns ….. https://twitter.com/andrewbostom/status/1301857021000585217
rather like cases, where the people are asymptomatic; with tests, some doctors keen to investigate more and more people; are very keen to talk up findings that are not affecting how a person functions; please beware “experts who warn” …..
I think many of us now accept that mainstream media is hopelessly partisan; they function as churn-alism; and are only interesting in sensationalising everything; for their own gain.
Much good stuff in this post (though as a fellow blogger, if you will excuse Dr No, perhaps on the long side). One key thing you haven’t mentioned (though a few commenters have) is false positives. When prevalence is low (allegedly 1 in 2000? if we can trust that number) the number of false positives in a random screening programme hugely over-inflates the estimated prevalence, by orders of magnitude. Basically, even a small percentage of false positives on a large number produces a lot of ‘cases’ that aren’t cases. Dr No’s post Darzi Tests (https://dr-no.co.uk/2020/09/01/darzi-tests/), named after the so called ‘sponsor’ of the tests, gives a plain English with a small amount of O level maths explanation of how this all works out.
Other recent posts have suggested covid-19 is ‘just another seasonal flu like illness’, and have covered some of the emerging evidence that lockdowns don’t work to reduce spread (though they do ‘work’ to smash lines and economies), among other things, such as there is no direct evidence that masks work.
Dr No does think it is important we carry on plugging our stuff, as a counter to the wildly misguided MSM account of covid-19 and the ensuing madness.
Dr. No. – Is it possible false negatives might counteract false positives ?
Yes, but in practice no, especially when prevalence (number of current ‘cases’ is low). It’s to do with the numbers. The reason why you get so many false positives is because the ‘pool’ you are sampling (all the people who don’t have the disease/condition) to get false positives is huge, so even a small percentage error very quickly adds up to a big number that not just overwhelms the false negatives, it also overwhelms the true positives (so most people who test +ve don’t have the condition). This website http://araw.mede.uic.edu/cgi-bin/testcalc.pl has a useful calculator that allows you to vary the numbers and see how the false +/-ves shape up. Use the the second table down, noting the percentages but not sample size are scaled to 1, so for example 50% is entered as 0.5: try starting with prevalence 0.001 (that’s 1 in 1000) , sensitivity 0.9, specificity 0.98, sample size 100000 (no comma), and then click the compute button. You will see a chart with the false +/-ves in the top right part of the page.
Hi Jerome: the tests are deliberately tweaked to “overcall” rather than undercall; your “is it possible” has that old British sense of … fairness; hesitancy; reflection; that has gone out the window in this brave new world; so sensitivity is very high; given the incidence Dr No talks of: (and that Dr K talked of weeks ago: 1:2500): the false positive is by far the more significant:
It is also called base rate fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy
Agreed and thanks to Dr No for the link. Maybe the US test is different but given the number of cycles identified as required to find the CV19 “signal” (for want of a better word) we might assume that if the signal is identified at any one of those 37 to 40 stages then it’s a positive. Actually difficult to see how a false negative might feature, unless by way of an admin error. Worth re-visiting the recent NYT article – on testing process “cycle threshold used now to decide that a patient is infected. Most tests set the limit at 40, a few at 37. This means that you are positive for the coronavirus if the test process required up to 40 cycles, or 37, to detect the virus.
Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left.
Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the Uni. of California, Riverside. “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive,” she said.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.amp.html
This all comes back to what Dr Kendrick was getting at in the original post: when is a case not a case? For example, there were almost 3000 new cases reported yesterday, up from under 2000 the day before. How many of the 3000 ‘cases’ are really cases?
The first of many (don’t worry, Dr No isn’t going to cover them all!) consideration is a really basic almost philosophical question of what is an illness, or disease, because that is what defines cases: if you have the illness/disease, then you are a case. The traditional definition of illness includes the idea of having recognisable symptoms and/or signs of the illness, and there is generally and additional element that the illness in some way discomforts you, putting you in a state of dis-ease, or disease.
So, using traditional thinking, (and for the moment, ignoring the false positives problem) of the 3000 ‘cases’ that tested positive, only those with symptoms are cases (no quotes). The trouble is, we have no idea how many of the 3000 were symptomatic (twitter has a running spat about this right now). UK covid testing is such a terrible shambles we will probably never know. It will get worse as things like the DnaFudge tests get rolled out.
The second consideration is the invention of new diseases that have no symptoms/signs, and are diagnosed solely by a test, things like hypertension (high blood pressure) and hypercholesterolaemia (high cholesterol). By a strict traditional reasoning, these are not diseases, they are risk factors, that mean you are more at risk of getting a real disease, eg heart attack/stroke etc, but they are not the illness.
This blurring of the boundary of what is a case and not a case, based on a lab test, directly feeds into the confusion over positive covid PCR tests, because we are nowadays somewhat pre-conditioned to think a lab result alone is enough to make a case.
Add to this the fact that PCR is a molecular test – you are looking for traces of a molecule, not live virus – and the possibility that fragments of virus might remain for a while post infection, and the scope for over-diagnosis becomes even more apparent. The ‘hair in a room long after the person left’ analogy, which Dr No also liked so much he even mentioned it in one of his posts!
Whoops, ‘smash lives and economies’, not ‘smash lines and economies’…
Why The WHO Faked A Pandemic
https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-swine-flu-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html#3f674ebb48e8
What a relief, and what a shambles. I read your articles always with interest. You diligently sift through documents I would not be able to decipher and produce reports that are straightforward to understand. I for one am extremely grateful for your contribution to the knowledge base available. Those of us who have been lucky enough to access your work are fortunate indeed.
But please explain all the massive build up in hospital ER’s all over the US with so many patients sick and dying they had to construct offsite “hospitals” to house them, sometime order refrigerated trucks for the dead bodies, and our ER doctors saying it was worse than they had ever seen, just like the original doctors in Wuhan were saying the cases were super serious.
Alan, this has been explained on this blog. They keep people at home, and too frightened to go to hospital when hydroxychloroquine would be effective. When they do go to hospital they are too far gone. There is also a financial incentive to use inappropriate treatments. If ypou have flu, Medicare pays $5000, if you have covid, $13,000, if you get ventilated $39,000. A ventilator is a death sentence.
Here in Seattle there were field hospitals built in April that were never used at all and dismantled shortly thereafter.
Thanks, I just texted this to everyone I know….One point: even with the death rate this low, most deaths were still in the 86-99 year old range.
Thanks Dr K. A very clear expose of the panic – absolutely terrifying that the error was not picked up rapidly, corrected and reevaluated. What’s the point of a chief scientific officer if he can’t spot that and what a cost to the people and the nation
The media is reporting violent clashes between police and anti-lockdown protesters in Melbourne…
Meanwhile, in Adelaide where I live, a peaceful and good-natured ‘Freedom’ demonstration was held. Many people and families assembled in the Eastern parklands for speeches, and then strolled down North Terrace to Parliament House.
The police were in attendance, and calmly and politely escorted the march down North Terrace, which had been partially closed off to facilitate the large numbers in attendance. More speeches were given on the steps of Parliament House. Everything was very well organised.
The media was there, but there was scant reporting of this peaceful and well-attended demonstration in Adelaide. Instead the focus was on the police attacks on the protesters in Melbourne, and the media was prejudiced against the protesters. It’s an absolute disgrace what is happening in Victoria.
It’s the first time in my 60 years I’ve attended a public demonstration, and I was proud to be there. It was great to exercise this political freedom, as to be expected in our liberal democracy.
Time to take it back Australia.
Is the MSM run by that Murdock bloke by any chance?
Well done.
Those who see a vaccine as a cure for some suspect virus might like to see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hWx-z9bHbP2ycHOpiIaQg2mgCYtgLYjq/view and then consider their actions. They might like to avoid the flu jab for example.
AHN
OK but why should I believe him?
Is it the case of « still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest » ?
One trouble I have with the comments on this blog, is that one person posting comes up with compelling stuff, then ten minutes later someone comes up with the contrary?
My lipidist used to produce papers that were equally compelling.
See this coverage of the Melbourne protests, including Victorian police violence:
Coronavirus: Violence erupts at Melbourne anti-lockdown protest
https://www.9news.com.au/videos/health/coronavirus-violence-erupts-at-melbourne-anti-lockdown-protest/ckep4yor500060hnyis6r4oyf
Watching the biased media coverage of the protests in Melbourne is a sickening experience.
How appalling is this? Victorian police in their black shirts and over the top riot gear attacking people trying to reclaim their freedom of movement and association, while they previously gave the BLM protesters free rein.
Unbelievable that this is happening in Australia, and that this tyranny is unchecked – the political system here is broken, it is not representing the people.
Scott Morrison is a disgrace for not providing national leadership to challenge Daniel Andrews’ dictatorship.
As far as the purported reason for this abuse of power, ‘the virus’, it’s way past time for analysis of the statistics, i.e. the deaths and associated age and comorbidities; the definition of ‘cases’; the hospitalisations; the treatments, or lack thereof; the evidence supporting the tests, and mask mandates; the fear-mongering about the risk; and the disproportionate and ill-targeted response; all needs to be scrutinised.
I’m ashamed of Australia.
I’m sure your central thesis is right here. I definitely agree that Prof Ferguson seems to have used the case fatality rate as an infection fatality rate in his modelling, leading to an over-estimate by a factor of ten. Without that error, his estimate would come down to 50,000 – not a million miles from the current fatalities of 42,000.
However there are some errors that I would like to point out, along with a bit of a defence for Dr Fauci.
First, the fatality rate for flu. You say, “[Dr Fauci] did say the case fatality rate of influenza was approximately 0.1%. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong… wrong.”
Actually, he was right. See the CDC estimates here:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
Figure 1 shows the estimated number of SYMPTOMATIC illnesses (cases) and deaths, for flu, by year. In 2016/17, for example, there were estimated cases of 29,000,000 and deaths 38,000 – a case fatality rate (not infection fatality rate) of 0.13%.
If the IFR for flu, like that for Covid, is a tenth of the CFR, then the CFR for flu would be 0.01%.
You say, “The Infection Fatality Rate [for Covid] is most likely going to end up around 0.1%, not 1%”. I agree, which would make Covid around ten times as deadly as flu.
Caveat here is of course that this is based on nonsense figures for Covid deaths. The official figure for UK is 42,000 but we know the real figure is less, as this is deaths “with Covid” as opposed to deaths “from Covid”. If you test positive, then get run over and killed on the way home from hospital, you are counted as a coronavirus death. It is entirely possible that only a tenth of these people actually died of Covid. That would bring the Covid fatality rate back in line with flu.
Either way, you’re right, “Stop panicking – it’s over”.
Thanks for your comment. My response would be ‘estimated cases of 29,000,000’. I can calculate any rate I want if I estimate – I was using a WHO figure (estimate). In fact, this wasn’t me, or my figures, I was merely quoting from the Cambridge University Press paper. I suppose the key question is why did Fauci estimate that COVID was going to be about as bad as a bad flu year on 28th Feb, then estimate it was going to be ten times as bad on the 11th March? Something happened in those eleven days.
This gives some interesting stats form a UCLA/Stanford study. Worth a watch.
This information is presented out of context. The issue is the transmission rate and resulting need to flatten the curve. And flattening the curve does not imply reducing the area under the curve.
Are you being funny, or s it a case of “to a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail”?
As ever, a coherent argument that clearly shows what those that bother to look beyond the official line suspected. In a world where people treat you like you’re crazy just because you want actual evidence, it’s so reassuring to receive your emails. Thank you
Malcolm,
I don’t think honest mistakes were made. I believe they lied.
Dr. Anthony Fauci says: Symptomatics transfer. Not Asymptomatic. (50 sec.)
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, says contact tracing shows transmission of the coronavirus by people who aren’t showing symptoms is “very rare.” (3 min.)
Fauci says face masks useless in 60 Minutes interviews from March (45 seconds):
They later lied to fit the narrative. These are just 3 examples. There are a whole lot more.
Here is part of a newsletter from Tom Woods about Fauci and his thoughts:
“Meanwhile, as I wrote to folks on my e-business mailing list, Dr. Fauci has gone full-on berserk.
He’s now saying that the COVID crisis will require us to reexamine and rebuild our relationship with nature. This 79-year-old bureaucrat thinks he should be able to implement the total transformation of society:
“Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behavior as well as other radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces…to recreational and gatherings venues.”
Um, how about not?
But there are people who think a loon like Fauci, by virtue of his medical degree, is somehow qualified to reorder all of society — and would want him to do it.
If that scares the you-know-what out of you — and it should — then you should join tens of thousands of intelligent Americans who listen to the Tom Woods Show as part of their daily routine.
http://www.tomwoods.com/episodes
And if you think it might be a bad idea to let a nutjob like Fauci have a say over how — or whether — you can work, you might think about starting something the loons can’t shut down:
http://www.tomwoods.com/unshutdownable
Tom Woods”
“intelligent Americans” lol
Thank you 🙏🏼 your talk at Holyrood was spot on, you can’t argue the facts and figures when explained so precisely. Keep up the good work ☮️💟
Malcolm, have you read/seen Carl Heneghans/Tom Jeffersons latest research on PCR tests and how they are being apllied here?
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.04.20167932v3
Yes, I have thanks. The tests are nonsense. Both the PCR-antigen, and the antibody tests (they are searching for antibodies to the ‘wrong’ antigen). there was a recent Lancet paper on this.
“More than 620 NHS staff and social care worker deaths have been linked to coronavirus” Just wondering, would it be normal for this number of health staff to die of flu? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-nhs-deaths-healthcare-workers-covid-care-doctors-nurses-a9665386.html
“UK among highest COVID-19 health worker deaths in the world”
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-among-highest-covid-19-health-worker-deaths-world
Sorry, gonna go against the trend here and call nonsense on this post. Suggestions of an IFR around 1% (or at least much closer to 1% than 0.1%) were rife in January / February / March and did not all stem from Dr Fauci, as much as speculating that a single miscommunication from him lead to all this makes for a nice narrative to explain why most of the world have taken a course of action you disagree with. After all, plenty of countries went into lockdown prior to the Imperial College paper!
Current seroprevalence surveys in the UK put the number infected up until now at around 6%, and with a death toll of over 40,000 that leaves us with an IFR of over 1%. Yes that’s not an exact science for calculating IFR but you’re going to need to do quite a bit of gymnastics to reduce that to 0.1%!
Hi Josh; “After all, plenty of countries went into lockdown prior to the Imperial College paper!”
That is absolute rubbish; the Imperial paper was circulating widely and prompted house-arrest; its hysteria caused collective bed-wetting around the world; to a few, it still seems amazing how folks will just believe anything they are told; collective hysteria over ventilators being needed; many times the number that existing ICUs had in their stocks; or could use; where would the skilled staff come from: what absolute rubbish was promulagated; and swallowed: what a con.
the fantasy that elderly folks; in terminal care in rest homes; with multiple co-morbidities; would be dragged off to a hospital; intubated; ventilated; restored to perfect health; sort of like a special “oil and lube” service; everyone bought into the madness; it was driven by IC: the paper was cited as though it was true, rather the crazed modelling it was; “here are some numbers I have just made up ………..”
the Fergoid’s predictions were so badly off; but he is always consistent: he caused mayhem back in F&M days; he seems completely callous; he shows no regard for the pain that others suffer; some suggest it almost seems autistic;
Can you provide a source on the Imperial paper prompting lockdowns in countries other than the UK and the US?
…. well Josh; this seems a major step forward;
from “plenty of countries went into lockdown prior to the Imperial College paper!”
we now seem to have “Can you provide a source on the Imperial paper prompting lockdowns in countries other than the UK and the US?”
so I call that progress;
if you go to the far ends of the earth, and search documents from Australia and NZ; they were clearing reading the dreadful nonsense that Ferguson promulgated; and screeching; the same hysterical screeching about ridiculous numbers of ventilators being needed: friends in NZ pointed us to them purchasing 300+ ventilators there; none were used at all; still sitting unused in their bubble-wrap; they just didn’t have the staff to look after them! No worries.
Josh: everybody went hysterical; the single source was the Fergoid and his mad work;
How is it progress when I’ve pushed you to give evidence for a point you’ve made and you’ve failed to do that?
Okay, let’s make a bet. I say 0.1%, you say 1%. You now have six hundred and thirty seven thousand deaths to go, in the UK.
How about Sweden, the un-locked down ones, you now have ninety five thousand deaths to go. At the current rate of 1 death a day, you have two hundred and sixty years to go.
I would say that your assumption, assumes two pretty major things. 1: There is no innate immunity to COVID. 2: both the antigen, and antibody testing, are accurate.
Thanks for replying. I don’t understand your first points. Who is saying that every single person in the UK will get the virus at some point? Herd immunity prevents that, as would a vaccine. That’s a strange ‘bet’ to set up!
Regarding my ‘assumptions’ – 1) why _would_ we assume innate immunity to COVID when making policy decisions? 2) do you think there’s reason not to assume the testing is accurate?
I would say that, for your argument of an IFR of 0.1% to hold, seroprevalence needs to be 10x higher than thought, or COVID deaths need to be 10x lower than thought, or some combination. Those seem to me to be pretty major assumptions!
Josh M, the test for immunity after vaccination is to look for antibodies. The presence of antibodies does not equal immunity, nor does the lack of antibodies mean no immunity. The only thing that is certain about a vaccine is that the manufacturers and those who administer them receive an income.
Except it back then you couldn’t possibly calculate an IFR so effectively without mass testing you’re basically calculating a CFR.
Thankyou, very interesting. One reason for improving death rates will be the improvement in management of the seriously ill that will have inevitably happened.
David Swinson, I don’t think there is much evidence of that, with the prohibition or withdrawak of known effective remedies. They just happen to be not profitable for the cabal.
“the improvement in management of the seriously ill that will have inevitably happened.”
David Swinson: that is wonderful wishful thinking; I can only admire the confidence; and certainty with which you state something for which there is no evidence whatsoever.
You will be surprised to know; folks in ICU have been doing this stuff for many years; dense between the ears, they may be; but there are well-worn tracks for what is done; nothing new has been invented; the storm in March came like a storm from the Atlantic; and it swept through as quickly; they responded in ways they have long done; and the storm was quickly gone, and peace returned;
in the UK, for ICU, there was a vast predominance of males 60 and over; hypertensive; obese; diabetic; often with BAME backgrounds; the topics Dr K covered: Vit D levels; diabetes; profound basal levels of inflammation; hyperinsulinaemia; carb-loading from the appalling PHE Eat Badly advice; Vit D seems crucial for the innate immune system; to fend off the daily horde of billions of viruses; bacteria; fungi that circulate, they we inhale daily; keep the invader out;
could I suggest it ain’t the virus: it is the host that is so unwell;
Terry
I agree with you, but look at the problems getting that past the medical profession, vitamin D, eat badly plate, cutting out carbs for diabetes remission.
None of that will happen
Dear Malcolm
What a beautifully written article that describes the #faucigate mi$-take/scandal perfectly.
I doubt very much it was an oversight when fauci has patents that generate $’s with testing and vaccine development.
In partnership with dr $ gates they formulated the perfect heist.
Steered by WHO and dumbed down govt representatives and chief medical officers And govt/gates controlled media merely posing as independent media.
Give me citizen-media any old day.
The truth will literally set us free!!
Death vs ‘survival’ is only one dimension of COVID statistics. Google “long haulers” and see the increasing number of previously healthy individuals, who have had multiple organ systems impacted and damaged. Being debilitated for months, not weeks. COVID attacks via the ACE2 receptors, which are widely distributed throughout many organ systems. Reinfections are also being repeatedly documented.
So the point I’m trying to make is that statistics based on survival vs death are only seeing part of the larger picture, which is showing that COVID is much much more serious than typical seasonal flus.
Do you know this for a fact? If so. Where are the statistics. I do know that sticking people on ventilators for a prolonged period causes significant damage.
I am finding this discussion fascinating. Is there any research into ventilator damage? I think we all realise that Covid 19 is a very nasty virus. What we are looking at now is whether or not the prolonged use of restrictions is relevant.
Maggie
We would all love to know if the various restrictions serve any point.
From what I read, no.
Yes, Maggie, there is a massive body of pre-COVID, and ongoing medical literature, on the subject of ventilator-induced lung injury which goes by the acronym VILI.
A Google Scholar search for “ventilator-induced lung injury” will return tens of thousands of research papers on this all-too common problem: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&num=20&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=ventilator+induced+lung+injury&oq=Ventilator-induced
William, use the same criteria for other diseases, flu for example, there are long term effects for that too.
Influenza also causes cardiovascular complications in a large number of people, included MIs, and strokes etc. Just because people have been unaware of this, does not mean it does not happen. Here, from the paper ‘Cardiac complications associated with the influenza viruses A subtype H7N9 or pandemic H1N1 in critically ill patients under intensive care.’
‘Acute infection with other strains of influenza has been associated with numerous cardiac complications, including myocardial infarction, myopericarditis, arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, and sudden death. Rates of cardiac changes have ranged from 15% to 43% in influenza A ambulatory patients, and from 14% to 75% in hospitalized patients. The few relevant case reports indicate that myocarditis and pericarditis may be important cardiac abnormalities in pandemic H1N1 influenza virus (pH1N1) infection. In these case reports, heart dysfunctions were demonstrated by abnormalities in creatine kinase (CK), CK-isoenzyme MB (CK-MB), troponin I, electrocardiogram (ECG), and echocardiogram (ECHO).’ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1413867016305505#:~:text=Acute%20infection%20with%20other%20strains,heart%20failure%2C%20and%20sudden%20death.
Just because people are becoming aware of something they have never heard of before does not mean it is new. It simply means ‘new to them.’
There is nothing I have so far seen about COVID, that has not been seen with various strains of influenza over the years.
Yes! My only qualification to comment here is as a human being who suffered a really nasty bout of flu some years ago. Within an hour of getting a headache I was bedridden for 6 weeks; temperature, night sweats, incredible fatigue – then developed pneumonia. Even now, 20+ years later, I still get wheezy when I’m run down. Oh, and my husband, who was definitely not doing any social distancing, didn’t catch it at all. And this was not deemed by my GP to be anything remarkable at the time.
Thank you for your voice of sanity!!!!
Hi christinepike; ….. that was probably covid-97 or covid-98; a good vintage that year. Still drinking well, a number of years later.
Hello to William J Croft: Dear William; you are just reciting what the media wants you to believe; the media specialises in churn-alism: and sensationalising everything; you are being a voice-piece for them I fear; sadly; just reciting what they wish you to promulgate for them; folks are becoming bot-nests for the propaganda media: keep the fear going; if you aren’t afraid, you are NOT trying hard enough ….. keep scared; it is all part of the plan
“Being debilitated for months,” ….. Bill; if I can so address you: this stuff only started happening 3-4 months ago ……. so ….. being debilitated for months ……. em ……. did they start getting debilitated 12 or 14 months ago … …… debilitated or de-libitated ….. or de-liberated ..
….. I know it seems like this stuff has been going on for ever; but it is actually a short time; so how come we get all these “debilitated for months … stuff ……..”: lordie; many folks can’t get to see their GPs in the UK: no visits; no consults; no lookie; so how is anyone seeing this huge plague; this horde of media-generated “delibitated” souls ……… artificially created by the media that has long given up any pretence at truth ………
I’m sceptical William, especially about reinfections. Like so many who post like you, I doubt you’ll be back. You just say stuff and don’t respond to inquiry.
I’ve been thinking about it & there are some numbers that don’t make sense. Say in the UK we’ve had 45,000 deaths, which is arguably a low count as the “excess deaths” is over 60,000, his estimate of infection fatality rate of 0.1% implies that somewhere between 45mm and 60mm people, in other words almost the entire population, were infected by the virus at some point, which has not been verified by any sampling (in most countries the estimates have been lower than 20% and the UK estimate is 16%). You could argue that the deaths in April-May were way above where they should’ve been because they basically (almost deliberately) killed the people in care homes, about 30-40% of the total, by sending the infected back from the hospitals & taking no other sensible precautions to protect them so therefore the infection fatality rate was exaggerated, but he doesn’t make that point. The other thing he misses with the lockdown is that the main incentive was to manage the flow to the hospitals so as not to be overwhelmed the way they were in Italy & France and they were successful with it. The lockdown probably took too long but that was because they were never able to implement their “world beating” track & trace system, which was/is a prerequisite for getting the economy going again. Finally the health system everywhere knows a lot more about the disease now & how to treat it, which may be why the IFR, for this or any other deadly virus, declines over time. For example, it was only a couple of months ago that they figured out that dexamethasone reduces the fatality rate for those most severely impacted by a third.
R, we have no idea what the infection rate is when the test methods are unreliable, and arguably do not even test for what is unique about rona virus in order to identify it, and not confuse it with something else.
The one third reduction with dexamethasone is a relative reduction, not an absolute reduction, in one very pre-specified group of patients, which would account for a very small percentage absolute reduction in fatalities. There has also been a reduction because they were, unfortunately, killing (a number of) people by putting them on ventilators. However, this is not going to account for a drop from 14% case fatality in the UK, to 0.9%, and still falling. It might account for 14% to 13%. The rest of the fall is entirely and absolutely due to testing more people.
Dr. Kendrick,
What methods are they now using to treat covid in hospitals? Are they implementing ANY of the treatments I read about here?
Oh come on, it’s the NHS. If it wasn’t invented here they won’t do it. I bet they are doing exactly the same treatments as they were back in March with perhaps a little less use of ventilators
R,
You speak of the lockdown as if it were past tense. Here in the US some things opened literally months later than they said they would. Libraries, courts. I’m told insurance adjusters are still working from home. At my local hospital, you still can’t go to edical records. In NY, they are simply now allowing restaurants to open. And all sorts of fun entertainments are on semipermanent hold. A music festival I liked to go to was cancelled in May and then again cancelled in October. On and on. Many places have reduced hours, although the logic of that escapes me.
Oops, I meant simply not allowing restaurants to open. Also salons and hair places and so on. Oh, and churches. All still in various states of closure and restriction, depending on the state and its whimsical governor or mayor.
Thank god someone is explaining the huge rat 🐀 I began to smell a few months ago!! 🙏 thank you
At last a proper and sensible approach and analysis to this “pandemic “… it seems that the word loves a drama ( especially the press) and the governments run with the herd and are too frightened to make decisions that do anything other than keep people isolated. Thank you dr Kendrick we need you to lead the WHO!
A simple muddle? Well, as I read I was reminded of that very expensive space probe that failed because imperial measurements were mistaken for metric measurements (or ‘tother way around) and there must have been some great minds behind that!
Researcher? Scottish? By birth and education, ok. Actually a GP in Macc. Self publishing. 🤔 I have concerns regarding the lack of balance.
Well, thank you providing balance with your well thought through argument. Or, would it simply be an ad-hominem attack? If you cannot be bothered to discuss the issues, or provide any counter-arguments, but merely attack the person, then pray, remain silent.
Oh dear! I am suffering from an excruciating corneal abrasion at the moment…I can’t decide whether to blame NHS incompetence following treatment last week, or the dreadful trolling this blog is being subjected to. I must rest my poorly eye, and today seems to be as good a day as any to avoid irritation.
As you say, the more right you are, the stronger the attack.
Troll Peter coming in on the side of the ruck !
I’m originally from Macclesfield and I’m constantly told I’m talking crap when I try and explain why I don’t take statins or worry about cholesterol levels or salt. So he could have a point! 😉
Rude. Mind your manners, Sir, or I’ll tell your Mum.
Profs Witty and Ferguson, and Mat Halfcock and Alexander Boris Johnson, of course deal only in balanced data and reactions. Or maybe not.
Where is the lack of balance ?
Go on explain
No credence in making a negative comment without backing it up
On balance?
Well for a start everything is being plausibly explained away as a terrible mistake – that even Malcolm could have made. (NOT!). I don’t wholeheartedly believe him on that statement but I can understand why he might say that.
Not that I am entirely in the ‘conspiracy camp, because I see deeper patterns in consciousness being acted out under split level narratives – or a need to know basis.
Nothing that has happened is any basis for the measures initiated on its pretext – and still being in many ways increased and set as ‘normal. Unless the measures were the intended result as part of a larger set of socio-political and economic change. WEF calls Covid a unique opportunity – but clearly one that Blue Peter had made earlier.
As open war is usually used for such purpose, this soft war to ‘make people safe’ may be relatively benign – so far. And Russia and China are both seen as ‘enemies’ in geopolitical terms – or is that rivals in corporate turf term?
Relatively bloodless, but not when the helicopter money and support is removed. Whither health support?
Being a medical blog, it is looking largely at the medical premises which have endless bones of contention to no real outcome, because the ‘science’ being followed is that of social engineering. What could possibly go right?
Peter
I am half Scottish, west coast, and I have lived in Macclesfield, does that make me suspect also?
Let’s set aside the arguments about transmission rates and the obvious understated early case numbers due to lack of widespread testing.
Hiwever, if the infection fatality rate (IFR) is really 0.1%, as you claim, then the >40k deaths in the UK so far, extrapolates to a total number of infections in the UK of 40+ million, out of a population of around 60m. Do you therefore think that 2/3 of the UK population has already been infected, regardless or whether symptomatic or asymptomatic? This is a key point as the whole of the rest of your opinion on this seems to rely on this premise.
This really is a key point to which the author has so far offered no answer, other than to suggest the tests for those with the virus are innaccurate to an enormous degree
You may be interested in this article from the Lancet.https://drmalcolmkendrick.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php
Two commercial antibody tests (Abbott SARS-CoV-2 IgG, Abbott Diagnostics, Abbott Park, IL, USA; and Roche Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2, Roche Diagnostics, Basel, Switzerland), both targeting antibodies to nucleoprotein (anti-NP), constitute the cornerstone of the UK Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The test manufactured by Abbott, which is widely used in Europe and the USA, claims a specificity and sensitivity of greater than 99% at 14 days or more after symptoms started and has been validated by Public Health England.
We received 2204 serum samples from staff and patients previously screened for anti-NP on the Abbott platform as part of the routine diagnostic service by the UK National Health Service. These samples, principally selected in the Abbott binding ratio range of 0·25–2·5, were further tested using an in-house double binding antigen ELISA (Imperial Hybrid DABA; Imperial College London, London, UK), which detects total antibodies to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) receptor binding domain (RBD). This assay has a specificity of 100% (95% CI 99·6–100), defined by testing 825 serum samples that predated the COVID-19 pandemic, and a sensitivity of 98·9% (96·8–99·8) when evaluating 276 serum samples from individuals with RT-PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Among 511 samples with Abbott binding ratios of 0·25 to less than 1·4, 294 (58%) had detectable anti-RBD antibodies (ranging from 34% for binding ratios 0·25–0·5 to 94% for binding ratios 1·25–1·4; appendix). Discordant samples were classified into five groups based on their Imperial Hybrid DABA binding ratio. Eight serum samples from each group were randomly selected and assayed by a second in-house assay, an S1 G and M capture ELISA, to verify the anti-RBD findings. Anti-S1 antibodies were detected in 28 (88%) of 32 samples that were reactive for anti-RBD but unreactive for anti-NP. The four serum samples not confirmed by the S1 capture ELISA had low binding ratios in the Imperial Hybrid DABA, the S1 non-reactivity being consistent with the lower sensitivity of the capture assay compared with the Imperial Hybrid DABA. Eight serum samples selected at random from 76 reactive only in the Abbott assay were unreactive for antibody to S1.
There are two possible explanations for these findings: either the Abbott assay results constitute false-positive reactions; or these patients did not mount a detectable humoral response to S1, as can happen with asymptomatic or mild infection.
The UK Government’s decision to facilitate use of Abbott’ assay was intemperate. Anti-NP is insensitive in the field: why was this insensitivity not recognised by those who validated its use in the UK? Moreover, Abbott’s assay does not indicate accurately the presence of neutralising and potentially protective antibodies in the convalescent individual. Those who might still deign to use this assay as the sole marker of past infection would be wise to consider confirmatory algorithms to better inform individuals investigated for anti-NP.
Take your time Josh, it is a bit complicated. Please do me a favour. Do not, ever, believe that I am just making this stuff up.
Just remember this bit. ‘The UK Government’s decision to facilitate use of Abbott’ assay was intemperate.’
The Lancet reference to the accuracy of the tests used is very interesting, but it would be helpful if you could answer my question about total infections directly and in your own words.
If I’ve overlooked something, used the wrong numbers or oversimplified the calculation then it would be really helpful to understand so that we can all learn from it.
For example if the CV19 deaths number is way off or inconsistent with the excess deaths number this year.
Interesting stuff. There seems to be one rather serious flaw in the argument, however, which is that you are comparing “Deaths today” with “positive tests today.” Since it takes up to 4 weeks to die of Covid-19, it makes more sense to compare “deaths today” with “cases three weeks ago.”
If I do that for Western Europe, on a month basis, then the CFR in Germany is still 0.72%, in France it is 1.11%, in Greece it is currently 2.51%, and in the UK it is a meaningless MINUS 18.52%, because we changed our definition of a Covid death in mid-August.
I deliberately compared deaths, ‘today’, with positive test 14 days previously. Your figure of 4 weeks comes from?
The early evidence from China and S Korea. But I used 3 weeks, in fact in the above calculation.
Having just adjusted the UK rate for the change in counting methodology, I now get 1.42% over the past 30 days.
Also, on a separate note, I believe the overall UK CFR to be 12.26% currently over the whole pandemic, and not the 5% you cite. That is: 42,003 deaths (as of Sep 3) and 342,708 recorded cases.
Unfortunately the test for cases is not reliable.
To survive, an MP generally has to toe the line. This virus has shown us that even the public will generally want an MP that toes the line. Quite a problem with governments.
If the IFR is 0.1%, and given the virus has killed, 40,000 plus people, doesn’t that imply something like 60% of the population has been infected already?
Clarence, only if the figure of 40,000 is genuinely the number of deaths caused by the virus. PHE has been blamed because the government has been caught out giving false information.
For accurate figures you would have to test all those who died, AND you would have to use an accurate and appropriate test. This does not exist.
I have just looked up the definition of CFR in the wikipedia and they simply dropped the word “symptomatic”. I’m wondering why … [rolling my eyes]
/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate
I was just coming on to say the same thing. Digging deeper, case fatality rate is also known as “case fatality risk” which is defined as “the risk of death among people infected by the new virus” so it stands to make sense that an asymptomatic carrier should not be included in the count simply because they are at 0 risk of dying from the disease
Dr Kendrick,
I posted my comments 3 times in the last 24h and still they do not appear, is there any rule who can and who cannot post on this blog
No. But some comments do not get through. I do not know why
Rossini,
I’ve found that WordPress immediately deletes my comments here if I post a link to certain censored websites that go against the mainstream narrative.
Recently, only about 50% of my posts have been getting through. WordPress claim that someone else is posting here using my e-mail address. I have seen no evidence for this ever. Everything that has been posted under Shirley3349 over the last few years has been written by me, without exception. I always try to be polite, and many other contributors’ comments have been, in my judgement, more extreme than my own. Also, occasionally my contributions are taken down a few days after posting. What is going on?
Thank you for the clarification
Speaking of censorship and brain washing
I just waisted my time for nothing because obviously here the discussions are political agendas and nothing to do with discussing the scientific evidences and when I tried to post the evidence 3 times, it was removed.
The worst is when doctors without properly checking the facts, try to justify their owns agenda – this is even bigger crime then what the politicians do!!!!
Dr Kendrick – how do you sleep at night when your webpage applies the same censorship from which you and so many others here complained from?
If the evidence is on a website, then post a link to the website with some corruptions so we can decode it and look it up. That way the bot censors have a harder time.
Rossini,
He is not censoring your posts. It does seem like more people are having trouble getting through, including a couple of mine.
John,
I think there is an easy answer – just write the link a bit creatively:
https colon slash slash off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/
If necessary spell out the other ‘\’ characters as well.
Alternatively, you can use a website called TinyURL to provide an opaque synonym to the link you want to supply! I haven’t tried this but I imagine there is a fair chance it will work. Eventually they will probably get wise to these tricks, but I am sure fresh ones can be devised!
Why not post your whole set of censored links, right here. If they are being censored, that might indicate that they are hitting the mark.
I think the odd comment here does go missing for no obvious reason, so if in doubt, post again.
Excellent. Thank you
Sanity at last.
Brilliant video with Dr. Lee Merritt, posted on Mercola’s site. Just watched last night. I highly recommend:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/09/05/medical-technocracy.aspx
Thanks John, that is an excellent talk – but of course it is very scary.
A letter from a nurse read at the rally in Sheffield: https://youtu.be/QksEK52d3VU. No doubt the trolls will arrive to criticise.
A work colleague forwarded this to me (we’re both doctors). Here is the reply I sent to him:
Hmmm…. All this conspiracy theory stuff is not good for me, it makes for very frustrating reading …. the differentiation of case fatality and infection fatality rates is an interesting point, BUT there are 5 big problems with his arguments:
1. our case fatality rate is so massively variable (alongside everyone elses) because we DIDNT test all symptomatic patients at first – only the ones who came to hospital – we deliberately told many symptomatic patients to stay at home (care homes, and GP patients… they called 111 or their gps and were told: “do not come to hospital, do not get a test”). Our new case fatality rate is likely more accurate because we are (trying to) test all symptomatic patients… we are NOT testing asymptomatic patients as he suggests in any great quantity – you have to have symptoms to get a test, so we are NOT reporting an infection fatality rate. He is just plain wrong to assert this.
2. His own numbers are provably incorrect – and for someone who thinks terminology really, really, really matters – this is unforgivable. Mid way through he states that the uk has had 40,000 deaths, US 200,000 and Sweden 6,0000 which he then immediately equates to an INFECTION FATALITY RATE of 0.06%. This totally fails to factor in the percentage of the population who were infected and thus is plainly incorrect by his own definition of IFR. (Unforgivable if you are banging on about accurate terminology). I don’t understand why he doesn’t seem to look at our antibody rates at all – which sit at 5-11% around the country. This would help him to derive an infection fatality rate (e.g assuming 10% rate this roughly 6,000,0000 infected and 40,000 deaths this gives an IFR of 0.67% – tenfold higher than his suggestion). Thus this is NOT the same as an IFR for ‘flu. This would only needed him to have followed his own maths to immediately ruin his argument. No one commenting on his message board seems to have bothered to do this basic maths either.
3. He fails to account for the rate of infection – even if the case fatality rate is the same for flu and covid, the end death-toll will depend on the contagiousness/transmissibility which seems to be significantly higher in COVID-19. Even without knowing this one can simply look at the total mortality in the US and see that it is already 3.5x higher than annual flu rates and presumably.
4. Why does every libertarian, conspiracy theorist keep banging on about Sweden? They did not have a full lockdown but have recommended social distancing and their own data showed a high percentage of their population voluntarily followed this. They also banned gatherings of more than 50 and asked cafes and restaurants to take actions to reduce crowding. They are also experiencing significant economic impact and are bracing themselves for significant job loss and recession. They have also performed poorly (like the UK) in their total fatality rate – in particular when compared to similar neighbouring countries who took a more stringent approach. Sweden also banned all entry from those coming from outside the EU to their own country – this started in March and has now been extended to October… so: they weren’t as libertarian as we think, and their number of deaths has been higher than their neighbouring countries who were stricter.
5. The basic fact remains – countries that went into early lock-down have had fewer deaths. Add to that – as lockdown ease, rates have gone up (accepting that we missed many many symptomatic cases early on). Yes there is a balance and the economic hardships and knock on consequences for health and schooling will be difficult and in the long run: time will tell how the risk of covid vs the risks of lockdown will play out. But I cannot accept false maths and dodgy arguments to suggest that lockdown/social distancing haven’t worked to reduce the spread of the virus.
Yes, I agree. The basic maths doesn’t work. I noted that above as did Vaughan and Clarence. If one goes down the conspiracy theory route that the excess deaths were caused by something other than Covid then fine, but Dr Kendrick doesn’t seem to be arguing that. So I am left not understanding his argument other than Iceland had a lower death rate so the rest of the world will too (except for places where there have already been higher death rates (e.g., NYC), which we’re just not going to mention).
Thank you. Indeed, on more careful reading I noted a few contributors did point out the basic mathematical errors. Apologies for suggesting otherwise.
Chris – Very important to challenge. But where you say ” I cannot accept false maths and dodgy arguments to suggest that lockdown/social distancing haven’t worked to reduce the spread of the virus.”…if that were true then wouldn’t we also be seeing a commensurate decrease in flu cases? According to the ONS (sorry, I lost the link) that has not happened.
Here’s a news report on how flu has been absolutely crushed by NZ’s lock down:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/121838089/coronavirus-lockdown-puts-the-brake-on-flu-season. Since flu is quite seasonal probably not too surprising not seeing many effects in the Northern hemisphere (but just guessing).
News reports in the mainstream media are so tainted by money pumped in by those who want their agenda broadcast, that truth is hard to find.
Indeed I think this will be very interesting (particularly come UK winter) to see if and how distancing affects our “normal” ‘flu presentations.
thanks Chris; when you confidentially passed as an aside at the beginning that you were a doctor, I knew to take a respectful and diffident approach in reading, as we would likely be treated to an eminence-based approach. It was reassuring to see that consistency maintained;
“The basic fact remains – countries that went into early lock-down have had fewer deaths. ”
My dear chap; that is an evidence-free zone; that is absolute rubbish. The charts attempting to map it show a total scatter of data. You are completely wrong with this vacuous assertion.
“Why does every libertarian, conspiracy theorist keep banging on about Sweden?”
Because, my dear fellow; they are the control in the experiment; and are remarkably sane now; unlike english-speaking countries; that seem to have a unique propensity for perpetuating madness. Those on comfortable government salaries; or those whose private practice will take off with the NHS’s continuing closure, have herd immunity from concern about what is called “collateral damage”.
Hi terry
I don’t wish to argue – as it solves little and I am doubtful we will convince each other of our respective viewpoints.
I would however disagree that it is an evidence free zone (and it would appear you disagree with this also, since you then site the presence of a “scatter of data”) but would accept that data here is large and needs careful mapping to understand, I would ask however if you think there is a link between the reduction in cases in countries after lockdown, with subsequent rise afterwards as lockdowns ease.
(Feel free not to reply – I am going to try to resist the urge to come back to this site, as I’m not sure it is Helpful or healthy for any of us to shout opposing views at each other)
I, personally, believe that diseases that spread via close contact do (and have) diminished as contact has been (forcibly) reduced.
I do however believe that further full “lockdown” is likely unhelpful unless you are pursuing a course of eradication of virus (which it seems we are not) and so careful distancing is likely more appropriate. I also believe that our first lockdown did indeed cause significant hardship and we will absolutely suffer significantly both economically and in our population health. My own bias (and it is a bias – I spend my days around sick people, and work in a hospital where staff members have died) is that I believe minimising the spread of COVID-19 is a high priority – but accept that we should do all we can to maintain schooling/small businesses and to safely provide healthcare to those who have non-covid illness. This is quite a challenge that we are trying to achieve in my own hospital.
I would entirely agree that understanding the impacts of our choices should include economic and non-covid-health assessments. I do however fear (personally) that reducing our actions to mitigate against covid spreading will actually lead to a longer “tail” of this disease, and a longer period of economic impact. Clearly I do not know this, none of us can see the future, but I am not convinced freeing ourselves of social distancing immediately ore-winter is sensible.
I guess my point on Sweden is that if you wish them to be the control, then you have to understand what their approach is. I fear many people (perhaps not yourself) believe they have eschewed all constrictions on liberty and are behaving exactly as they were pre-covid, which is incorrect. If we wish to use Sweden as a control (I guess actually another treatment arm if we wish to follow this terminology) then we should understand we are assessing the impact of voluntary social distancing, reduced cafe/restaurant attendance, reduced social gatherings and travel bans. It may be that that is what you mean by a “control” in which case I agree.
I guess overall we have some agreement that the impact of the measures imposed to reduce covid spread should not be worse than the disease itself. It seems we disagree on the impact of that disease however (I’m afraid I don’t agree that it only impacts elderly, nor with your assertions in other posts about the rate of dementia sufferers in care homes, or the implication that their lives are somehow unimportant). I think this is one of the points of my original post – I am very happy for someone to carefully produce evidence of the impact of covid vs the impact of lockdowns/distancing, but I do dispute when poor maths is used to come up with arguments against social distancing. I am very happy for you to look at my point re the maths.
I also note a lot of comments on here about “I could show you any number of articles/arguments/data” etc… which never seem to actually show them… instead a lot of tweets and opinions being stated. That’s fine; but let’s all agree we are all only just stating our opinions, to the best of our knowledge based on the evidence we see before us (which we are still acquiring and understanding).
Thanks for the comments about government salaried workers. I am proud to be a public servant – paid for by the public, working exclusively for the public (now and forever). I am delighted to work in a fascinating job, where my role is to learn as much as I can, to develop as much as I can. and then use That knowledge in the best way I can for the public who fund me.
Incidentally – I actually disagree with a good many government policies on the handling of this pandemic (although my own bias is towards stronger imposition of distancing measures and I would have wanted much earlier lockdown, which I hope, if done early and strictly enough might have been more short lived)). I feel the testing is flawed (in its targeting and in its accuracy). I feel we are very much still learning the correct approach re ICU and non-ICU care. I also feel our treatment of care home residents through this crisis has been very poor. I mention all this to counter the notion that I am simply happy with everything and continue to “follow orders” in a blind belief that the government knows what it is doing.
As I say I am going to try not to come to this site again – I feel it isn’t going to help any of us to progress/change/understand each other by better – and frankly it ends up taking up a lot of time. So please don’t feel offended if I don’t reply again. I wish you all the best.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
wow. hope you arent a doctor. ‘5. the basic fact…’ no. it is not a fact. there are too many variables, & only a fraction of listed deaths have the virus as the major factor. i can quote you any number of conflicting scenarios based on the same ‘factual’ data.
if you are a doctor you should have been focused on the best care for your patients not ticking boxes & obeying the govt. failing to give them invermectin, hcq-zinc lypospheric vit c etc & just plonking them in a ventilator to die is a total abdication of your hippocratic oath. you may not have been personally hurt by this hysterical over-reaction but many have. a massive number will die- the fallout will be horrendous. ‘collateral damage’ is killing people at the start of their productive lives- not just those in dementia care with only months to go. [as a 65 up i can say that.] one wee aspect of the boy who cried wolf- folk may not ‘comply’ next time some looney shouts pandemic, let alone line up willingly for vaccinations.
you may still trust your masters- we do not.
DO NOT EVER throw around the ‘conspiracy theorist’ accusation as a juvenile fact absent way to win an argument. makes you look a prat. was snowdon a conspiracy theorist? those who blew the whistle on thalidomide, on radiation? dont cherry pick to justify your beliefs
Hi mark – please see my above reply to terry which I hope adequately addresses your concerns also.
You may not believe me, but I’d like to set your mind at ease that none of us within the NHS are simply “plonking” anyone on ventilators. We are all trying to look at the available evidence (of which there is a wide, but highly variable selection) to do the best we can for our patients.
I slightly struggle to understand if you are concerned that there is over-concern about the virus (ie it is not as bad as we think and this is all an overreaction) or under-concern (we should be utilising different treatment options for critically ill patients).
Very best wishes
Chris, one small observation regarding your first point: “we are NOT testing asymptomatic patients … in any great quantity – you have to have symptoms to get a test”. But that isn’t quite true unless you are quite literally talking about “we”.
I believe that anyone having elective surgery, or an invasive medical procedure of any kind, now has to submit to a Covid swab immediately beforehand.
Which also means (this has only just occurred to me ☹️) that if a person declines the Covid swab they will not be able to go ahead with surgery, at least in England.
Thank you Aileen
This is a good point, and I take it on board. I still however don’t believe it amounts to testing the whole asymptomatic population, and thus still don’t agree with the assertions made in Dr Kendrick’s original post.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read John Rappoport. Probably cry. True, there aren’t enough chickens in the world to supply all the yolks to lob at world leaders who buckled under Fauci and friends Doomsday predictions.
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/09/02/mayors-governors-presidents-prime-ministers-dictators-kings-queens-popes-potentates/
one of the many mindless pieces of virtue-signalling; that folks seem to feel impelled to participate in; is to talk of ‘protecting the elderly”: if I could suggest it is an empty phrase; that no-one explores its implications; for residents of care-home, most of whom having varying depths of dementia.
From this tweet from Zoe Harcombe; https://twitter.com/zoeharcombe/status/1302532604575580160
one can see the reality of this “protect the elderly”, as described in letters to the Sunday Times. The person says “the reports on prison-like conditions in rest homes is accurate ..” to carry out the realities of this madness: ie “protect the elderly” means locking them up; no human contact; locked in their rooms 24hrs a day; food passed through hatches: is that not a very high and rigorous standard of “protection”? If you suggest exemptions; or weakening of this, surely then you are callous and exposing them to “risk”?
In refreshing contrast, could I suggest here are some folks with common sense, compassion and insight? https://twitter.com/Smartiesx5/status/1302325495644782595
Terry, this reflects some of Zoe Harcombe’s tweet https://youtu.be/QksEK52d3VU.
For the second tweet in your post, perhaps a logical progression if for every thinking adult to get a T-shirt printed to read “Don’t use me as an excuse to mask children.” Especially useful for some snowflake teachers who have been brainwashed, but that of course means they are no longer thinking.
We seem to approaching peak hysteria, says Francois Ballous: will herd immunity to this be reached, we can but ask.
Hysterical claims now that greater 50% of folks will be afflicted with long-term consequences; as he says, at least it can’t get twice as bad; but we would underestimate the power of the media to spin data: doubtless we can get to 105% of the entire population afflicted with deadly and long-lasting consequences …….. just keep believing; and importantly … mindless reciting, all the churnalists spit out at you.
I fear that instead of admitting their lies and defeat, they will release a far deadlier version of Covid, maybe Covid 2.0. This one will be far more lethal and will kill 30-40% of the population, to which all governments will say “We told you so” and then proceed to control us even harder. Lockdowns, forced vaccinations, no jab no job, no travel without vaccine passport, no cash – all digital, chipping people so they can track everyone etc etc
Rusty – your comment might appear to be alarmist but I repeat (maybe I repeat too much) the following post I made weeks ago here – with absolutely no reaction from anyone. Maybe folk think it’s so dramatic that it can’t stand up or assume that there were some mitigating circumstances but it’s there, no concern from readers here or explanation –
“The GPMB global preparedness monitoring board, a “subsidiary” of W.H.O. produced its annual report for 2019. Can be down loaded as a PDF. Link here https://apps.who.int/gpmb/annual_report.html
On page 39 the 2nd of four short paragraphs in the bottom half of the page states as follows –
“The United Nations (including WHO ) conducts at least 3 systemwide training and simulation exercises including one covering the deliberate release of a lethal respiratory pathogen”
This is without any footnote to explain how this “deliberate release” is contained or controlled so as to put people’s minds at ease, and is a reckless statement to release to an already worried population to say the very least.
The next 2 paragraphs go on to refer to mobilising national and international actions and convening through the UN general secretary high level meetings with international health, security and foreign affairs officials to determine next steps basically.
Very careless misuse of words indeed”
I thought this was a remarkable statement to make but also remarkable that no one could comment here.
What am I missing ?
It’s called denial. No-one wants to think about billions of people dying intentionally caused by their own governments. It’s people still trying to believe in the world being a good place. There is so much evidence supporting the motives and planned world order which will only work by depopulation and control. Remember the people are stronger than the leaders, create fear and false information and you control the people. WHO have come out today saying that the world need to prepare for more pandemics which fits nicely into the “planned” militarised second Covid strain to wipe out masses of people and introduce further technocratic order and control. I think we’re on the same page Jerome, shame that more people aren’t listening and looking at the details.
Rusty – let’s repeat that ‘ “deliberate release of a lethal respiratory pathogen” in an official WHO doc. Maybe the word “simulation” serves to temper the effect of the subsequent words. Either way we should write to our public reps and respective health ministers, health executives and ask for clarity or that they exercise their responsibilities and seek clarity from W.H.O. on behalf of very confused & worried constituents.