Part One (a): Are the facts, facts?
‘The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate and contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.’ John F. Kennedy.
I do not think that anyone can write about Covid without first recognising that the facts, may not actually be ‘the facts.’
My trust in medical research has been gradually draining away for the past forty years or so. I am uncertain how much remains. I do not have a handy ACME ‘trustometer’ to slap on my forehead, but I sense my levels are certainly below fifty per cent – and falling. I shall let you know when they reach zero.
There was certainly a rapid drop during Covid. Accelerated by the emergence of ‘fact checkers.’ If a group of people could be more ironically named, then I would love to hear of them. The idea that someone can be an officially verified ‘checker of the facts’ is so inimical to science that they should have been laughed out of existence the moment they appeared. Sadly not. Soviet Union anyone?
Richard Feynman believed that the very definition of science is the process of questioning, and that scientists must be sceptical. Or, as he once said. ‘Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.’ I have regularly been ‘accused’ of being a professional sceptic. My reply is usually ‘thanks, I consider that a great compliment. You, on the other hand …’
As I delved into medical research papers over the years, one painful reality emerged. Which is that you need to be wary of the findings contained therein. I came to learn that, at least in certain cases, I only needed to look at which institution the research came from and who the authors were, to know which ‘camp’ they were in. At which point I could tell you everything the paper was going to say – to paraphrase. ‘We have found that everything we previously said was absolutely correct.’ No need to read it.
Of course, this only works for areas I have been studying for many years, where the terrain is very familiar. Give me a paper on quantum physics and I would have to read the whole damned thing. Then accept that I have not the slightest idea what they are talking about.
In the world of Covid research, two camps emerged very rapidly. There was ‘establishment’ camp, or the ‘accepted narrative’ camp and the ‘alternative’ camp’. Or, as I initially thought of them, the roundheads and the cavaliers [English civil war analogy – for my overseas readers]. As far I could tell, fact checkers were fully paid-up supporters of the roundheads.
Which meant that you could write an article wildly overestimating the infection fatality rate, and nothing would be said. The fact checkers would rouse themselves momentarily, then airily wave it through. However, dare to suggest the Infection fatality rate was lower than the mainstream view, and all hell would break loose. Or, at the beginning of the Covid sage, dare to suggest that the Sars-Cov-2 emerged from a biolab in Wuhan. ‘Off with his head’.
It didn’t take too long before I decided to rename the two camps the ‘Faucistas’, and the ‘Partisans.’ Although I know there should not be two sides in a scientific discussion. We are not at war. Those who question, and probe, have a vital role to play in science.
They, we, are trying to ensure that the accepted ideas are as robust as possible. If the mainstream facts are correct, they will resist all assaults. If they cannot resist, they should wither and die, to be replaced by something far stronger. Or at least that is how I hope it works.
This is a slightly long-winded way of saying that, when it comes to Covid the first thing you have to do with any ‘fact’ is to ask where it came from. A Faucista, or a partisan. Then apply the ‘Kendrick bias constant’ to determine its validity. A figure that only exists in my head, and even I am not sure what size it is, which way round it goes, or how to use it.
You also need to accept that research is often far from clear cut, and the findings may simply be … wrong. Twenty years ago, John Ioannidis published his seminal paper called: ‘Why most published research findings are false.’ It is one of the most widely read medical research papers, ever.1
‘There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false … Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.’
The prevailing bias. I like that term. Perfectly polite yet still damning.
Was he correct, are most research findings false? Well, he has his own biases, as we all do. I still like to believe that the majority research can be relied on, at least to some extent. Boring, but reliable – yet still boring. However, there are areas where he is right about the influence of prevailing bias. Places where findings are more likely to be false than true.
I believe that Covid became one such area very quickly. Within a matter of weeks, you were a Faucista – the group which certainly had the support of the vast majority. Or you were a partisan. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
I believe the polarisation in this area was so rapid and intense in large part because of the huge amount of money that was getting burned, and the need to justify that cost. The UK spent around four hundred billion pounds (~$500Bn) on Covid measures. Maybe even more – I think it was more. Enough to fund the NHS, in its entirely, for three years. The figure from the US was ‘officially’ four point six trillion. Four …point …six …trillion … gasp, thud.2
In addition to the money, there was the unprecedented disruption of everyday life. Far greater than anything seen outside a full-scale war. There was also the damage to children’s education and everyone’s mental health. The other diseases left undiagnosed and untreated, the massive debt and residual damage to public services, the clampdown on human freedoms … The list is long. More harm than good? That is the question.
A huge amount was at stake. So many reputations, both scientific and political, became bound to the ‘accepted narrative’ camp. If the narrative went down, so did they, with all hands-on deck. Thus, all the measures taken had to be found worthwhile, or at the very at least, excusable. ‘It was all very difficult, no-one knew what was going on. We had to do something … A big boy made me do it.’
Very rapidly, the Faucistas built themselves a mighty citadel, bristling with armaments, and fact checkers. Everyone within that citadel became hair trigger sensitive to the slightest perceived ‘enemy’ touch. Ready to react with ruthless bombardment. Along with personal attacks on whoever stated them.
The Great Barrington Declaration for instance, which proposed focussing protection on the elderly, and allowing the virus to take its course in younger populations. Where the risk of death was exceedingly low. This was universally condemned. Along with its authors. Here is one press release, out of many, many…
20 public health organizations condemn herd immunity scheme for controlling spread of COVID-19.
‘If followed, the recommendations in the Great Barrington Declaration would haphazardly and unnecessarily sacrifice lives. The declaration is not a strategy, it is a political statement… What we do not need is wrong-headed proposals masquerading as science.’3
‘Unnecessarily sacrifice lives…Wrong-headed proposals masquerading as science …’ Who dares pop their head over the parapet after such attacks? Only the brave, or foolhardy. As for debate … you must be joking. I was invited to talk at an anti-lockdown rally in September 2020, in Edinburgh. I gave a talk. The organiser was threatened with five years in jail. Luckily that has all gone very quiet.
Sweden, alone amongst European countries, decided not to lockdown, or perhaps you could call what they did lockdown ‘lite’. Schools, restaurants and bars remained open. People travelled on public transport. This approach, too, was universally condemned. It was stated that Dr Tegnell (chief epidemiologist) and Stefan Löfven (the prime minister), were…
‘…playing Russian roulette with the Swedish population,” Carlsson said. “At least if we’re going to do this as a people … lay the facts on the table so that we understand the reasons. The way I am feeling now is that we are being herded like a flock of sheep towards disaster…
… Leading experts last week were fiercely critical of the Swedish public health authority in an email thread seen by state broadcaster SVT, accusing it of incompetence and lack of medical expertise.’4
But the Swedes held out. Which took some nerve, whilst their own medical experts were screaming blue bloody murder in the background. Things changed. Now the accepted wisdom is that the Swedish people effectively locked themselves down, without being told to. Being such a great public-spirited people. ‘Oh yes, I think that fully explains their figures … ahem, don’t you?’
Why this change in outlook? From outrage to a widely accepted explanation, and a collective shrug. I suspect it may be that, in comparison to other European countries, Sweden ended up with a death rate below that of:
- Bulgaria
- Hungary
- Bosnia Herzegovina
- North Macedonia
- Croatia
- Montenegro
- Georgia
- Czechia
- Slovakia
- San Marino
- Lithuania
- Greece
- Latvia
- Romania
- Slovenia
- UK
- Italy
- Poland
- Belgium
- Portugal
- Russia
They were within touching distance of Spain, Ukraine and France and – just to mention another Nordic country – Finland. Certainly, a long way below the US.
If lockdowns needed to be so harsh, or even instituted at all, why was Sweden not at the very top of this, and every other list? Answer, whisper it …. Because lockdowns were ineffective? ‘Off with his head.’
No, don’t be silly, it is because the Swedes locked themselves down. And here is the evidence … [insert non-existent evidence here]. Memo to self. Just saying a thing does not make it true.
‘Overall, there’s no evidence that Sweden had a “voluntary lockdown”. Mobility changed far less there than in most other Western countries.’ 5
But what was it that drove the lockdowns around the world?
The Covid Infection Fatality Rate?
The accepted narrative around Covid developed very rapidly. It is a highly contagious and deadly disease with an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of close to three per cent – you may have forgotten that figure. Perhaps you were unaware it ever existed.
The WHO provided an early estimate that eleven million Americans may die, discussed as part of a masterful essay by Jay Bhattacharya. One of the authors of the Great Barrington declaration, and now director of the National Institutes of Health. Oh, the irony. 6
The worldwide population is approximately eight billion. Using the initial WHO figures we would have seen two hundred and fifty million deaths. Equivalent to the Spanish flu – which is where I suspect the 3% figure was initially plucked from. Hospitals around the world would be overwhelmed. Millions would die if we did not act fast and hard. Something had to be done.
That ‘something’ was lockdowns. It included the widespread use of masks, restriction on travel, closed borders, closed schools, closed entertainment venues and restaurants, workplace closures, social distancing, test and trace, the rush to bring out vaccines, and so on. These actions became unquestionable and inseparable. All of them had to be equally defended.
Trying to get a handle on the Infection fatality rate
The three per cent IFR figure was downgraded rapidly and ended up hovering at around one per cent – or thereabouts. An IFR of one per cent means that, if one hundred people become infected with the SarsCov2 virus, then one will die. Is this … was this, does this remain a fact? At the start of Covid I became obsessed with trying to work out what the Infection Fatality Rate might be. Does it really matter?
I believe it drove everything. The 1% IFR is, to quote from Lord of the Rings: the one ring that finds them, and in the darkness binds them. If the IFR was 1%, then I think everyone can just about manage to assure themselves that all their actions were justifiable.
An IFR of 1% would have meant nearly three million deaths in the US, and well over half a million in the UK. Yes, it might not have been the Spanish flu, but ‘things’ obviously had to be done?
What about half a per cent? At this level the argument begins to look pretty damned shaky. An IFR of half a per cent, or below, would be the iceberg that sank the great lockdown ship Titanic. This, the IFR, is probably the most important fact that we need to establish.
Can we ever know the infection fatality rate of Sars-Cov2?
I know that most people would love a concrete fact here. Confirmation that the IFR of Covid was 0.213, or 0.934, or whatever. But I don’t think that is possible. Concrete facts here are very difficult to find. Or at least, facts that you can rely on. Read journal A you get one figure. Read journal B, and you get another. I can give you a thousand figures.
It also does very much depend on the age you are looking at. In the age group, nought to nineteen, the IFR was 0.00003% – in the first scientific paper that comes up on a Google search. That is three per million.
In the UK there are approximately twelve million in that age group. Which means that Covid may have resulted in thirty-six deaths. If, that is, everyone of that age ended up infected.7 Almost the same number who drown yearly – in that age group.
Moving back to the overall fatality figure rate, Imperial College London (ICL) in late 2022 concluded that it was 1.15%. But we already know which camp Neil Fergusion and the ICL was in. They were the original Faucistas. In this study they found that everything they said previously was absolutely correct. By the authority of … them.8
A well-known, and reasonably reliable worldwide resource is Worldometer, which kept a running count of Covid cases and deaths from every country. It stopped counting in April 2024. The grand totals on Worldometer, now frozen in time, were that there had been seven hundred million coronavirus cases worldwide, with almost exactly seven million deaths. Which represents an IFR of precisely one per cent. 9
My goodness, independent verification that Neil Ferguson and Imperial College were bang on with their modelling. Well, Ferguson did predict an IFR of 0.9% but what’s 0.1% between friends. And if we look at China on Worldometer, it tells us we had almost exactly five hundred thousand cases, with five thousand deaths. Again, an IFR of one per cent, bang on.
Case closed? Hang on, you might wish to probe a little deeper into, for instance, the Chinese figures. According to Worldometer, the population of China is around one point four billion and there were five hundred thousand reported cases of Covid. Which means that one in three hundred people caught Covid [precise figure 0.36%].
In comparison, sixty per cent of the population in Greece caught Covid. Which is two hundred times greater. This seems a remarkably large difference. The sort of difference you may struggle to believe.
What of the death rates? China ended up with four deaths per million of the population. A figure very similar to DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), which had three deaths per million. Strange that.
In Greece, on the other hand, they had four thousand deaths per million. One thousand times higher than China.
As for total deaths.
- Greece: with a population of ten million had 37,869 deaths.
- China: with a population of one point four billion had 5,272 deaths.
Personally, I find one of these figures to be more believable than the other.
Turning back to the overall figures from Worldometer. There were just over seven hundred million reported cases of Covid in total. Which means that around 9% of the world’s population became infected. Seven hundred million out of eight billion.
This is a very long way off the ninety per cent figure that Neil Ferguson predicted in his model. He predicted 90%, Worldometer says 9%. Once again, a bit of an echoing gap.
If Worldometer is right, and only 9% of the population did become infected, and the IFR was 0.9%, the UK would never have seen five hundred thousand deaths – as predicted by Neil Fergusion in his hugely influential model.
His model was, essentially.
IFR 0.9%, percentage infected 90%. Population of the UK 69m:
69,000,000 x 0.9% x .9 = 558,900
However, if only 9% become infected, this figure falls by a factor of ten:
69,000,000 x 0.9% x .09 = 55,890
This is not a great deal more than a bad flu year.
Returning to the age group nought to nineteen, if only 9% of them became infected we would have seen four deaths instead of a possible thirty-six. Which would have made school closures and the social isolation of children virtually indefensible. Sorry, leave out the word virtually.
As you can gather, the overall rate of infection, and the IFR, are intimately linked when it comes to the overall impact of an infective disease. An issue little discussed. But do you think it might be important? Answer…yes.
Which facts are facts?
At this point I suppose I need to ask. Do you believe that the coronavirus figures collated by Worldometer are ‘facts?’ Or do you believe some of them are, and others are not. In which case, which ones would you like to believe. To quote the late, great, singer songwriter John Martyn. ‘Half the lies you tell me are not true.’
Wherever you look, there is uncertainly, and disagreement. Completely different facts and figures can be found everywhere. When it comes to IFR, John Ioannidis came up with an IFR figure of 0.23% for higher income countries.10
Nature published a figure ranging between 0.79 – 1.82% (for higher income countries). The average between 0.79 and 1.82 is 1.3%.11 As you have worked out for yourself, 1.3% is nearly six times more than 0.23%.
Which IFR is correct? Which is a fact? And why did the Nature study only look at higher income countries? Surely lower income countries should have fared worse – in that they could not afford to lockdown, and did not, and the standard of medical care would have been significantly lower, so more should have died?
I suspect lower income countries were ignored because, on paper, they all had very low death rates. Or very low reported death rates anyway. Just to choose a lower income African country at random … Chad. They reported one hundred and ninety-four covid deaths out of a population of seventeen million. Which is eleven deaths per million. In fact, according to Worldometer, Covid passed Africa by.
How could this be? In most higher income countries people of African origin were significantly more likely to die than the surrounding population. In the UK, Black British had a mortality rate of 273 per 100,000. Whereas those identifying as White, had a rate of 126. Less than half.12 [Figures from the office of national statistics, and as you may have noticed these figures demonstrate and IFR of 0.273% for Black British, and 0.126% for White British].
Given this, it is difficult to argue that Black Africans, in Africa, were genetically protected, in some way. Although, it has to be added that the average age in African countries is significantly lower than in, say, the UK – and that would have had an impact on Covid related deaths – although nothing that could remotely explain the reported figures.
I also lean towards Ioannidis because I believe him to be a well-established objective seeker of the truth. He has long been a thorn in the side of what I shall call, politely, ‘official narratives.’ Other researchers, and journals, have a strong tendency towards those twin curses of human thought. Confirmation bias and groupthink. As for the fact checkers, which figures do you think they prefer? The higher, the better.
Which leads us inevitably to the question who, or what facts, do you choose to believe … or not believe. In later articles I will tell you what I believe to be the most probable IFR for Covid. And I will tell you why this figure is reasonably accurate.
Before we reach that point, I want to highlight some more of the many issues that make it difficult to be certain about anything. There are so many of them. Just to list a few important ones:
- PCR testing – how accurate is it/was it?
- False positive, false negatives. Did they raise, or lower, the IFR?
- How do you determine if someone died of Covid – or simply died with Covid?
- How many times were people infected – and how much would this affect the IFR?
- Could you be exposed to Covid, and brush it aside, without becoming ‘infected’ or raising detectable antibodies?
- The impact of continuing to count Covid deaths for more than three years – over the lifespan of many different variants – did this create an artificially high IFR?
- What protection did vaccination provide?
- Financial benefits of diagnosing Covid, did this lead to overdiagnosis?
- Could aggressive treatment have been damaging, and possibly fatal?
- How many people reported they had Covid, when they did not?
- Which countries may have been economical with the truth about their Covid statistics?
- Does the Sarv-Cov2 virus exist?
Each of these issues represents a minefield, with conflicting ‘facts’ stretching to the far horizon. Each of them capable of shifting the IFR significantly – downwards.
Does this mean we can never really know what happened with Covid? Even to answer such a superficially straightforward a question as how many died is tricky. Indeed, most facts about Covid tend to crumble when you apply a little pressure. But I think we can navigate a course, or sorts.
Next. Starting with an easy one. Does the Sars-Cov-2 virus exist? Easy …?
1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1182327/
2: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106647
3: https://www.bigcitieshealth.org/newsroom-great-barrington-declaration/
5: https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-myth-of-swedens-voluntary-lockdown/
8: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/207273/covid-19-deaths-infection-fatality-ratio-about/
9: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
10: https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/340124/PMC7947934.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
I absolutely accept your position on Covid, Malcolm. It is the biggest scam of modern times, perpetrated by those desperate to maintain positions of unquestioned authority amid a fever of ignorance.
Here’s another one, according to Hansard
As of 15 July, Public Health England’s modelling group, with the MRC Biostats Unit, estimated that overall infection mortality rate is approximately 0.096%.
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2021-07-12/31381
Well if Hansard says it, it must be a fact
A thought, isn’t Hansard a transcript of the lies spoken in the House?
Pretty much. The problem is that the govt has cooked all the books, especially statistics, so nothing can be trusted. A couple of centuries of scientific understanding, wiped out in a couple of months of newsspeak. Will the powers that be, ever be forgiven for the crimes they’ve committed in order to preserve their rule?
So you suspect that the modelling group underestimated the fatality rate?
No! I suspect that they over-estimated the IFR!
Test
We can debate these questions till the cows come home. IMHO there was a deliberately manufactured ‘pandemic’ by means of a flawed test, equating positive results to cases (in absence of clinical symptoms), damaging treatment protocols, ramping up the implementation of an end of life care protocol, use of behavioural psychology to inspire fear and dread.
Yes, Covid-19 was a psychic shock for me. For many years I thought the bad cholesterol and statins was as stupid as it could get. Vioxx was often in mind too but that got exposed after not too many deaths. The disconnect between what seemed like some ordinary influenza like illness and the policies I found frightening. I now trust no ‘authority’, indeed our governments seem out of touch with the reality of most people on nearly all issues.
How many people died of covid? The answer is zero because viruses don’t exist, there is no such thing as covid and the tests are meaningless. An imaginary virus cannot be a cause of death
https://drsambailey.com/resources/videos/viruses-unplugged/
Soooo many people make the confident claim that viruses don’t exist. I look forward to where Dr Kendrick has to say about this.
Cave, You are no fool. Give us your take. Me? After 4/5 years I have to say I sit over the line with the Bailey’s, and as otherwise I see the whole saga as a snake-oiled mirage viewed through a house of mirrors. The only evidenced offered up are bank accounts.
”What protection did the vaccine (so called) provide.?’
Absolutely none
https://bailiwicknews.substack.com/p/on-vaccination-as-intentional-induction
Ferguson wuld have had everyone except the self anointed, slaughtered on suspicion if he could have got away with it. The currently running Hallet enquiry is making a few people very rich while they cover up the wrong doing by the likes of sage, Hancock et al.
a brilliant analysis, who will publish it?
Wow! You have set yourself a mammoth task! However, I look forward to reading it all. You are one source I am inclined to believe – Thank you x
A very readable introduction to your covid enquiry with a human touch/ personality. It must have been anticipated by ‘them’ that there would be competing interpretations of the data, so the ‘Fact Checkers’ were inserted to police opinions and make sure the correct conclusions about, eg, the IFR or CFR were arrived at. These days a ‘fact’ is only a fact when it has been managed by the fact checkers on behalf of the government. It is a process being replicated in the education sector. Young people are given packaged and managed ‘facts’ and become unable to sort fact from fiction- questioning of ‘facts’ by upcoming generations will become less forensic. Down with fact checkers and up with the fact challengers.
I think the BBC’s ‘Trusted News Initiative’ and New Zealand’s PM both said to their target audience:
‘We will be your single source of truth’.
The last thing I heard, the TNI was being sued in the USA for forming a news cartel and thereby breaching that country’s anti-trust legislation – excellent. It seemed like another name for the Ministry of Truth.
As I received this email on Outlook running on an imac, there are no right margins and it is very difficult to read. David Lidov (lidov@yorku.ca). Far as I can tell, within this error of margin, a most valuable piece.
As an engineer,when someone indicates “science is settled”,I immediately recognize a poser without knowledge or someone with an “agenda”. New York treating the elderly like cattle as an example of ignorance masquerading as informed. IMO
spot on….I worked in a care home through the “covid period”…..questioned its authenticity from the first week of uk initial lockdown….Sweden got it right!
Admirable that you’re questioning the reality of this incredibly profitable scam, more power to your arm! It’s particularly important since it may discourage the next scam. Thank you for doing this!
So, I didn’t get sick, I was 70 something yrs old, living in S Africa, had all the jabs – by law, showed positive, TWICE, felt bugger all!!!
Have bugger all idea what all that proved, other than Pfizer made a killing. Seems it’s now going to bite them. Good!
Thank you Dr Kendrick
Mark Twain once said
Its not what we don’t know that gets us into trouble, its what we know for sure that just ain’t so.
I have always believed that the higher IFR in people of African origin was because of their lower (in this country) Vitamin D levels.
I agree with much, if not all, of what you say.
I understand ivermectin is a powerful and very safe anti-viral agent and it used to be fairly inexpensive. i tried to buy some during the covid ‘epidemic’, but pharmacies were no longer allowed to sell it. I did find some online, but very expensive. I have read since that, in the USA at least, if a company wants to fast track a new vaccination, but an effective one already exists, they are not allowed to. I know a few hospitals in Texas used ivermectin with great effect against covid.
As Sweden had a lower death rate than so many other countries it is no wonder the true believers now say the Swedes voluntarily isolated. Utter BS. As Will Rogers said ‘it ain’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so’.
Hi Malcolm,
Great article, many thanks for your efforts.
My friend Barry Holmes sent me a copy of the “Great Barrington Declaration” very early on in matters, as he knew I was firmly on board with the concept of not throwing away the old Pandemic rule book, along with the plethora of additional common sense ideas in pencil in the margins, which had stood the test of time .
He also introduced me to the “Abilene Paradox”, which in explaining how “Groupspeak” comes about, solved the conundrum as to why the collective self destruct option was being pressed by governments globally, aside from Sweden.
Most of my friends bought into the “Faucistas”, so it was hard for me at the time, and none of those relationships ever made it back fully… these were all too often people who I thought should know better, old f*****s like me, often with a bit of medical knowledge, and experience.
I see Fauci has been given a blank pardon by Biden, even though he has yet to be charged with anything…. which says everything.
I look forward to your next missive.
Kind regards,
Brian Green
Sent from my iPhone
As someone who uses estimation theory professionally, what’s the use of an estimate without a confidence interval on that estimate?
Part of my use of estimation theory requires a mathematical model of the process being estimated. I don’t believe you can model IFR as simply a constant and fit that to the data. What are the models for IFR? None I assume. I would guess demographics is a big effect, i.e. overall health and nutrition and population density.
You can fit any model to any set of data, but you have to determine afterwards if the fit is valid.
A propos mathematical models:
“All models are wrong but some are useful”.
– George E. P. Box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong
“[All] models, good and bad, only say what they are told to say”.
– William M. Briggs https://wmbriggs.com/post/37890/
“With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk”.
– John von Neumann, attributed by Enrico Fermi, as quoted by Freeman Dyson in “A meeting with Enrico Fermi” in Nature 427 (22 January 2004) p. 297.
“The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work”.
– John von Neumann, “Method in the Physical Sciences”, in The Unity of Knowledge (1955), ed. L. G. Leary (Doubleday & Co., New York), p. 157.
I would disagree with von Neumann. You make a model, fit the observed data, then test to see if the fit is valid, i.e. the errors in the fit are consistent with the uncertainty of that fit. Then you have a model you can use to make predictions under the conditions that the observed was collected.. The statement that “The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work” is a ludicrous statement, particularly the “solely and precisely” bit.
WordPress was acting up and managed to invent the phenomenalaa568d25ac id last night.
A complete and totally evil scam. The Flu was rebranded Covid. The perpetrators should be exposed and hunted down. It must never be allowed to happen again. There was no pandemic. But sadly people still believe there was.
9:55
••’| 5GE 59›
× THE KENDRICK COVID ENQUI….
There is a very simple way to calculate
IFR. Global seroprevalence for covid is around 98%.
The global population is around 7 billion.
Global death from covid is estimated around 7 million.
7m/7b is 0.1%.
The true number is smaller because a significant percentage of the
population has had covid multiple times making the denominator larger.
And 7 million is likely a high number because hospitals were clearly heavily incentivized to code covid as a cause of death.
0.05% is likely closer to reality.
Using a similar calculation assuming near 100% seroprevalence puts
Spanish flu in the range of 5%. That’s 50x higher.
A “fact checker” on facebook gave me a warning for not recognizing that covid was more dangerous than the Spanish flu.
“The global population is around 7 billion”.
Actually, over 8.2 billion, and growing by about 215,000 every day. When I was born, it was about 2.5 billion. It has more than tripled in 76 years!
Five years ago, Kevin Casey hit the nail on the head.
We trashed the joint (“Human beings, past and present, have trashed the joint”) ~ Kurt Vonnegut. Nuff said.
Taking (and modifying) a single sentence is not the telling of truth. What Vonnegal is reputed to have written, and the complete short paragraph was
Anyone who has studied science and talks to scientists notices that we are in terrible danger now. Human beings, past and present, have trashed the joint.
From https://countercurrents.org/vonnegut070206.htm
I think what Malcolm has been trying to get across in many articles is that listening to the self proclaimed experts has lead to deception
For example (in the linked article” “an Aids epidemic” An epidemic, like the convid epidemic, that never was, but was just politically contrived.
There is an article on substack featuring Sasha Latypova talking with Ruby Wade about Charles Richet. Also available on Rumble.
I haven’t linked it here for fear of WordPress trashing what I have already written, but it should be relatively easy to find..
Here is the link
https://bailiwicknews.substack.com/p/on-vaccination-as-intentional-induction
There are internal links to a pdf and to videos.
Brilliant (as always.) Thank you.
Hi Malcolm,
I can’t seem to read the full document as a third of the page is off my screen…
Best wishes,
Kelly
Open in Substack Kelly.
“Or, at the beginning of the Covid sage, dare to suggest that the Sars-Cov-2 emerged from a biolab in Wuhan”.
Typo: “sage” for “saga”.
By the way, many thanks for the utterly brilliant idea of a “Kendrick inquiry”! So far, so definitive.
Thank you so much for this Dr Kendrick, I am able to follow it, but it’s missing the last letters/words on the right hand side. Is it possible to resend please? So I don’t make assumptions over the missing text!
With warm wishes and many thanks
Margaret Clarke
Margaret. I have no ability to change the formatting, as seen on your device. This is a technical things over which I have no control. I can try to find out, but I pretty sure that I will have no influence on how wordpress codes posts.
For the people who are complaining about the formatting, if that’s in an email, open it in a web browser instead. There should be a link in the email. Click on the title of the article.
A conspiracy, so vast and all-embracing that it hardly seems possible does it? But then consider what’s at stake here, the future of Western capitalism. Corporations so vast they dwarf entire countries. Billions at stake, entire political classes, whose financial and professional futures are implicated and threatened. The managers, the technocrats, the scientists, the hangers-on, the parasites, the yes-men (and women), academia, all implicated, whether consciously or unconsciously. The peer-pressure, the mortgages that have to be paid, the credit cards, your peers, the loss of face.
Is it any wonder that so many people are complicit in the scam? As for the rest of us, fear drove us. I can remember, in those first couple of weeks, the (induced) fear I felt getting on a bus, touching surfaces, being close to people, until I realised what was being done to me, to all of us. That a campaign conducted by behavioral psychologists was being waged against us (the ‘Nudge Unit’), a campaign that exploited our fear of death, our fera of each other. When I ‘woke up’ to what was happening, even my close friends turned against me, accusing me of being insane. Imagine the pressure exerted on us all, millions spent on propaganda campaigns, the use of fake statistics (that continues to this day), let alone the use of the law, including arrest and imprisonment, a veritable witchhunt. Like I said, everything was, is, at stake.
Dr Kendrick, there’s something weird going on with the WordPress Comment system. Whenever I comment it asks me to log in (I am) and when I post, it asks me to subscribe (I am, I checked). Am I alone in this?
No, you’re not alone. WordPress is the pits. Logging in, especially, is challenging even for a computer consultant like me.
While I would like to see the good doctor migrate to somewhere like substack, he might not want to go to the effort. I figure it’s worth me expending the effort to read his writing wherever he wants to put it.
Yes, it’s a shame about WP, I’ve been using it for around 15 years, first as a self-hosted site (the best) but then about 10 years ago, I switched to wordpress.com and watched the ‘Happiness Engineers’ (yes, that’s what they’re called) slowly destroy the interface with endless ‘improvements’. It’s now so complex, I have no idea how to use it. Luckily they’ve kept the ‘Classic’ interface, else I would have had to stop using WordPress. It’s what happens when programmers take over the design/interface, or, the inmates takeover the asylum.
Damn, it makes me login every time I post a comment!!!
brilliant article. I hope, for posterity/future researchers you intend to put these articles in a new book. I’d buy it !
Dr Kendrick says:
“How could this be? In most higher income countries people of African origin were significantly more likely to die than the surrounding population. In the UK, Black British had a mortality rate of 273 per 100,000. Whereas those identifying as White, had a rate of 126. Less than half.12 [Figures from the office of national statistics, and as you may have noticed these figures demonstrate and IFR of 0.273% for Black British, and 0.126% for White British].”
Vitamin D?
test post
Anyone who claims to know the Infection Mortality Rate is lying. That’s because it is the ratio of two numbers, neither of which is known to any useful accuracy.
(i) How many were infected? Nobody knows.
(ii) How many died of (not with) Covid? Nobody knows.
The ratio of “Search me” to “Buggered if I know” is not a useful or truthful number.
Happily, what to do next is clear. Award the ruling classes a bit of assisted dying at the end of a rope.
Naturally I do not recommend vigilante justice. They have to be arrested, charged, tried, convicted and sentenced. And then hanged.
How many? In the UK – a few hundred might be enough. Added to all those who would be stripped of their wealth and their pensions that might be quite enough to ensure that next time the incentives for our rulers would be more sensibly balanced.
if you believe a word that is uttered in parliament then the IFR was 0.096%. Which puts it firmly in the same ballpark as the “flu” https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2021-07-12/31381
Hello Dr kendrick,
This article appeared in the BMJ in 2003 written by two eminent pioneers in Evidence Based Medicine.
I couldn’t attach a PDF to the blog comments and had to email to you instead. Enjoy reading it – nothing has changed.
Thank you for your always thought provoking blogs, Best wishes Jan Asena

>
No accident that the “facts” on Ukraine and Russia” are being challenged by the same Trump team including Kennedy and Jay Bhatteriya which has challenged Faucism. Or that the apologists for unending pointless war are the same peopke who kept the covid pantomime going, like the BBC. The camps go beyond just covid, they include climatism too. It’s liberalo-authoritarianism we are up against.
Y ou assume a constant IFR. In fact, the thing very exponentially overtime starting with a 100% kill rate, and falling to essentially negligible a year later if you understand the bureaucratic overreaction at the beginning and consequent cover-up in terms of the things mutations, then a lot of your questions will be Answered fairly easily.
Sorry to nitpick but 0.00003% is 0.3ppm not three.
Otherwise I enjoyed reading and look forward to the next installment. Thank you for your efforts.
Dear Dr Kendrick
Not sure if you have seen this !!
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-was-convinced-by-the-cholesterol-sceptics/?status=Active&utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=BLND 20240220 HOUSE ADS IH+CID_7376d47c7dc85a946c222ff4465f83d7
Regards
Martin
But what happened to the flu? I took no notice of the regulations, as far as possible and went to shops, library, work etc with my sunflower lanyard and no mask. Didn’t catch anything. Scam or what…?
As for false positives, I had an odd experience:
When my husband (a teacher) caught COVID, my tests stayed negative. Ok, he kept to his bedroom as much as possible until negative and we avoided contact.
However a few months later, I had a throat that ached a bit, just for a couple of hours after waking up…I tested, and I was positive. Nothing abnormal you might say. But I had stayed at home all the time, didn’t see a doctor, didn’t go out on the street, even didn’t see the postman. I had absolutely no contact whatsoever with anybody and was in the house all the time. And my husband tested negative at the time. My test was very lightly positive, and it stayed like that, I cannot exactly remember, maybe for 5-7 days and I didn’t develop symptoms. It was a very odd experience.
As I see it, it’s really simple, the virus is air-borne, thus virtually impossible to avoid as it’s down to probabilities and one’s susceptabilities; will it reach you; will you harbour it long enough to penetrate your throat, eyes or whatever entrance to your body and will your immune system respond to its presence and produce resistance and finally, are you fit enough to deal with it if it does infect you? Doesn’t flu behave in exactly the same way?
there are no valid tests, that is part of the scam. If you want to avoid covid then the first step is avoid covid tests. The second step is to ask yourself: ‘what did I do prior to 2019 ?’, the answer should guide what you do now.
FYI. The common cold unit in Salisbury (Porton Down!) worked for over 40 years to find a cure for the common cold – they failed.
experience shows clearly that in open plan offices when the flu/cold strikes, some people are affected, some people aren’t. That’s the nature of the beast. Being fit and healthy is your best protection, there is no other protection.
The “common cold” research was a confidence trick at Porton Down. (Common cold research was done at Odstock – or maybe that was a lie as well).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1506968.stm
The BBC is no longer recognised as a source for truth, but there are other links available relating a similar story.
The “common cold” research was a ruse to get unsuspecting volunteers, then they got chemical and bio weapons tested on them.
The CCU (Harvard hospital) was actually located NW of the current salisbury hospital just off the main road, A354. Not odstock.
I know several people who partipated in the programme (2 weeks free holiday) which seemed to consist of ‘snot exchanges’ ! There was admitted ‘exchanges’ with Porton Down but don’t know what these were.
Your BBC link relates to a different programme actually carried out by Porton Down on military ‘volunteers ‘, a number of which died. This was all hushed up.
Being fit and healthy is your best protection, there is no other protection.
Getting and staying in that state can be a problem.
https://youtu.be/NdQEP9cisGg
Nitric oxide is a positive, fluoride toothpaste and mouth washes are negatves.
As I recall, we were told that the “virus” could remain on certain surfaces for some length of time – so some friends of ours actually stopped sending Christmas cards in 2020 because they believed that they might be inadvertantly putting us in danger!! We are no longer in contact with them. There was also all that spraying and wiping down of shopping trolleys in supermarkets, even the ones where the trollies were outside in the sunshine – despite us “being told” that UV light “killed the virus”.
If the “virus” did remain on surfaces, I suppose you might’ve touched some envelopes that the postie delivered, or packaging of food that had been purchased before your self-enforced isolation? Some people disinfected all their groceries after shopping or left their mail for 3 days before opening! It’s all mad.
Another thing I remember is outbreaks of “Covid” at cold food processing plants. I wonder if this “virus” got from there to, say, the odd ships that got Covid outbreaks despite everyone being “negative” when they set off, or the Navy ships where they had been at sea for some time and then “got Covid”. Was the “virus” able to survive the frozen foods and then “escape” when it was defrosted to eat on those ships?
I think I saw a video where Dr Clare Craig was explaining that it travels across the world in the air, so lockdowns, shutting the borders etc isn’t that helpful.
Down here in SW England we had very low cases and it didn’t reach us for ages (according to the interactive map that we were provided with by the MSM and government).
Eventually I and my unjabbed husband succumbed to “something” in November 2021 after visiting family in Hampshire where one person was “getting over” a cough or cold. Whatever we developed (despite our hight vitamin D supplementation etc) was unlike any respiratory infection either of us had ever had. Neither of us had really had flu in the past, maybe once or twice for each of us (before we’d met) which, for both of us, put us to bed for a week or two – but this recent illness wasn’t like that at all. We were still able to function, although I took IVM from the start but my husband didn’t (he was suspicious as I’d bought it from an online Indian pharmacy in the Ziverdo kits that were being handed out in Uttar Pradesh). After about 5 days he was really suffering with his breathing and was beginning to get very concerned, so I persuaded him to start on IVM and within 24 hours he’d started to rapidly improve.
Whilst we still had some lingering cough symptoms, we both (nearly at the same time) suddenly lost ALL sense of taste and smell. That was very odd – and nothing like you might get with a cold. We had no sinus issues or nasal issues at all but we found food and drink so tasteless that we had to force ourselves to eat! We lost weight too as a result and also got mildly depressed (may or may not have been linked?) After about 10 days the senses returned almost overnight. We had been using a “smell-training kit” that I’d made as I’d read that this could help with the problem, so maybe that did the trick?
Anyway, my point is that for us, we had “something” unusual as did a lot of our new (antivaxx) friends around the same time, some of whom were actually very ill for a couple of weeks, and everyone said it was nothing like flu that they had previously had. So I’m not in the “there is no such thing as a virus” brigade myself (I have a few anecdotes from my life where contagion seems to be a fact, and not some kind of “detox” that is usually the explanation given).
“If the “virus” did remain on surfaces, I suppose you might’ve touched some envelopes that the postie delivered, or packaging of food that had been purchased before your self-enforced isolation? Some people disinfected all their groceries after shopping or left their mail for 3 days before opening! It’s all mad.”
Why is that mad? You lost all sense of taste and smell you said. They now suspect that’s not the virus’ effect in the nose but in the brain. So very possibly your brains were infected. What are the long term consequences of that? Nobody knows. The jury is still out whether the long term risk of cardiovascular disease is increased in people who were infected.
During the most agressive variants of Covid I self isolated, didn’t touch all the groceries for a week, ate only cooked vegetables and didn’t touch the mail for 3 days and even then I carefully disinfected my hands.
Did I avoid Covid? No, one day I woke up with a painful throat that persisted for several hours and I tested positive, very weakly.
It’s all about the dose. Despite me being extremely carefull, I must have touched some surface with virus particles in it. But because the dose was so low, I did not develop a serious infection with possible consequences in the future. You can laugh at me, but I am happy I did it. I must admit that before Covid I already was pretty much homebound and that self-isolation was not that hard as it might have been for others. And of course, because I already suffer from ilness, I did not want it to worsen, that too was a motivation. I guess everyone has his/her reasons for doing what he or she does. And everyone has a different opinion on acceptable risks.
I have a theory that if what we call COVID-19 had “started” anywhere other than China it would have gone almost unnoticed.
The healthcare system here has a very different approach, doctors are expected to publish a certain number of papers and even the smallest hospital is extremely well equipped. (My town is about the size of Doncaster and has two hospitals with 6 MRIs, 8 CTs untold X-Ray machines and 2 labs between them).
I went in with a pulled muscle in my thigh and with 10min I had my bags down and was laid in an MRI. Another time My son (5) was showing cold symptoms and he had a load blood work done.
So I think the combination of the capacity and capability on one side plus the culture of testing and the pressure to know exactly what is going on in the patient combined to give us a new, but in the end, unremarkable disease.
if it had first appeared in the UK the GP (not a thing in china) would probably have told the patient to go home, come back in two weeks if it hasn’t cleared up
Super start to your analysis Malcolm . . . . Looking forward to future episodes.
Damien
Brilliant Dr Kendrick, Mark
Good summary. Thanks. I’m looking forward to the series of articles.
Old people, that have had the flu multiple times, will tell you that getting CoVid was different. So I think it exists.
What was key was the flow of money. With so much money at stake, there is no way to get even close to the truth. “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
As someone that grew up in a family with 6 MDs and having hosted lots of students doing bio-research, it was clear that the approved treatments could not be considered safety tested – when they sued to keep the research sealed for 75 years, I considered it case closed.
They are still harming people – it needs to stop.
However most people who have had ‘flu’ report it differently. Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson whose substack ‘Trusting the Evidence’ has discussed this extensively and use the term ILI – influenza-like illness- since so many viruses produce a range of respiratory and other symptoms. Pre Covid, when did anyone ever bother to test for which virus was currently causing grief?
Re testing for ‘flu’: No, GPs won’t do it but maybe hospitals might, tho I doubt it.
Something that puzzles me to this day: the long white clots — I called them “spaghetti clots” — that embalmers were pulling out of vaccinated corpses: was there anything scary about them?
Certainly there were plenty of photos, videos, and articles from concerned members of the funeral industry warning us that this was a new and worrying phenomenon that needed urgent investigation by the medical authorities.
I just did a search on the internet. The usual suspects proclaiming “nothing to see here, common post-mortem phenomenon, well known, nothing to get alarmed about.”
Such is my distrust of anything smacking of “safe and effective” from the medical mandarins that ‘A hae ma doots’, as our esteemed host might have said.
Does anyone have concrete evidence one way or another?
I bet funeral director John O’Looney could tell us a few eye openers
It’s good to see you post more blog articles again, dr. Kendrick! I hope that is a good sign!
“the roundheads and the cavaliers” made me immediately think about these words being used for circumcised and uncircumcised men 🙂
Another research domain that is extremely polarised and were a lot of rubbish science is produced by both camps. There too, a look at the names of the “researchers” and you know the outcome.
A most amusing thing happened when a host of European doctors attacked the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) after this latter one had concluded, after weighing the evidence, that the benefits outweigh the risks. Those European doctors, rabidly anti-circumcision, adressed a letter to the AAP, accusing them of “cultural bias“. Well, I did not look at British documents, but I saw the policy statement on circumcision by the Royal Dutch Medical Association and their policy was tainted by MUCH more cultural bias than the American one. Just the arrogance of those European doctors!
Same like this, Covid and Cholesterol/Statins, one always has to ask where studies/results come from.
Of course there was an unprecedented disruption of everyday life. The situation at hand was unprecented, too. Whatever the conclusion one may come to today, it’s just hindsight. Whatever the infection fatality rate, it was obvious something extraordinary was going on. Dramatic developments starting in China, spreading to Italy, Germany, an extremely high death rate in the Italian Bergamo, in many other places morgues not being able to deal with all the dead bodies anymore, hospitals running out of beds in many countries… those are all facts that cannot be denied. Facts showing that something bizar and very unusual was going on. In that light, without enough knowledge of the nature of the virus and without any medication or vaccines, I think it is only common sense all those protection measures were taken. And one can only regret that lockdowns were not installed much earlier in the course of the epidemy, while the virus was still in China only. But of course the Gobal Village and economy are much more important than millions of dead people.
“focussing protection on the elderly, and allowing the virus to take its course in younger populations” doesn’t make sense: Then the elderly should all have been sent to concentration camps, a big wall constructed around them, and barbed wire and land mines added, and a few soldiers to shoot everyone who whould dare to cross…like in the GDR and with the Berlin wall.
As for Sweden, shoot me if I missed something but I saw this graphic from John Hopkins University: https://www.statista.com/chart/21891/covid-19-deaths-in-scandinavia/
If true or even close, those numbers are devastating.
As for African countries hit significantly less, you forget that without doubt in most of those countries obesity, diabetes and other “Western lifestyle” diseases that increase complications and death by covid are much less present.
“The other diseases left undiagnosed and untreated, the massive debt and residual damage to public services, the clampdown on human freedoms“
Sure, all that happened, but maybe it was partly also a good thing that the other diseases got left undiagnosed and untreated? I recently read again that MUCH less people presented to the ER with symptoms of a heart attack. That must be hundreds of thousands, maybe millions worldwide. Did they all die? I don’t believe so. Maybe doctors have always overtreated many “patients”?
You might say it is hindsight, but I wrote about lockdowns very early on. In April 2020 I wrote this, in a blog.
‘Covid-19 is being presented as a deadly killer that does not discriminate. Young, old, we are all at risk of contracting this dreadful disease. Every night, the television news has story after story of young people who have been infected, and who have died. In fact, very, very few people under 20 have died so far. I believe it was five, at the end of last week.
There is hardly anything said about the fact that the average age of death is around eighty, that the vast, vast, majority of those dying are old (92% are aged over sixty) The great majority of them have several other serious medical conditions.
The reality is that for anyone younger than about sixty, Covid-19 is only slightly more dangerous than suffering from influenza. The infection fatality rate (IFR) currently stands at around 0.2% in those countries doing the most testing. This figure will inevitably fall, once we can identify those who were infected but had no symptoms.’
Maybe I was wrong then, and remain wrong now. But one thing you cannot accuse me of, is reassessing my analysis using hindsight.
I think I’m beginning to begin to understand something but I’m not sure I’m going to articulate it clearly enough.
Your statement “Does the Sars-Cov-2 virus exist? Easy …?” means you are still playing in the established sandbox: Virus exists vs. Virus doesn’t exist; Vaxer vs. anti-vaxer; conspiracy vs established doctrine.
As long as we continue to abide by the established rules and argue our respective sides then the argument is controlled and therefor not a danger or risk to those who established the sandbox.
I ran the all cause mortality data for Canada for 10 years including 2021 in 2022 and 2021’s actual mortality matched 2021’s expected trendline exactly. That means there was no increase in deaths. My understanding is that a pandemic is defined as an increase in deaths. No increase = no pandemic. Yes, people die. Many times from things we don’t understand. In years past if there was a nasty cold variant killing those who are susceptible in an increased measure, we didn’t spend the next ten years debating the origin of the cold virus.
There was no pandemic therefor everything and everyone who imposed those things against us based on the false assertion that we were in a pandemic need to be held accountable. Arguing if IFF was valid based on the numbers supplied to us by them, or if the ‘test’ or ‘vaccine’ was valid based on the data provided by them keeps us in the established sandbox.
It’s the same cholesterol argument, the same statin argument, the same sugar argument, the same alcohol argument, the same saturated fat argument, the same tobacco argument etc.
You get my point, they will keep us in this sandbox arguing the same points we have been arguing for decades and there will be no resolution.
I know you’re a ‘weeds’ guy but we need to break free of this sandbox.
“My understanding is that a pandemic is defined as an increase in deaths. No increase = no pandemic.”
No sir, it is not.
Here is a definition from the Cambridge dictionary:
“a disease that exists in almost all of an area or in almost all of a group of people, animals or plants”
A pandemic disease does not necessarily cause many deaths. It might be annoying, make people very sick, but death is not part of the defintion.
Moreover, if one disease causes more deaths (Covid), other diseases (influenza) could cause less deaths that same year. 5 more deaths from Covid, 5 less from Influenza and the result is null. And of course there are many more possible factors. Fewer people went to doctors and hospitals for other diseases than Covid. We know that ilness and death (unwillingly) caused by doctors and medication is also a big reason why people die.
So no, we are not living in a sandbox, there is just a lot going on, certainly with some people intentionally creating a false narrative but many things simply cannot be know for sure because of the complexity and entanglement from many, many factors.
Sugar, alcohol and tobacco certainly are not innocuous substances. We know that sugar contributes to obesity, we know that alcohol can cause liver problems (and much more) and we know that tobacco increases lung cancer risk.
A ‘sandbox’ is a computer term to define a safe location to run code to prevent corruption of the device hosting the sandbox.
Thank you for making my point. See how the discussion needs to be brought back into the ‘acceptable’ binary position to be argued, so you change the argument so that we don’t need to have deaths for there to be a ‘pandemic’. Did you forget the ticker at the bottom of every newscast counting the ‘deaths’ which was designed to define the sandbox?
If we didn’t have a pandemic then the people guilty of murdering by refusal of early treatment or suppressing discourse are as guilty of death as the drunk driver who chose to get behind the wheel.
The sandboxes where sugar, alcohol, tobacco, fat, and statins are argued keep the argument contained for 30, 40, or more years allowing the entities whom defined the sandbox to continue status quo. We have not won any of those arguments while they are contained in the sandbox.
I do think that Covid killed a large number people around the world. Whether or not it constituted a pandemic depends a great deal on how you decide to define the word Pandemic. The Hong Kong flu pandemic/epidemic of 1967 – 68 may have killed two and a half million – maybe more. Asian flu pandemic of 1957 around the same maybe. [When the world’s population was less than half what it is now]. The key question with Covid is the following. Did the actions taken end up killing more people than the virus. Or, to rephrase it, did they do more harm than good?
How will we ever know with too many variables involved? Every side can create their own narrative, both those in favour as well as those against actions taken. And each side won’t be able to disprove the other side.
Maybe it would be interesting if your enquiry could also include a chapter discussing which measures should or should not be taken in a given scenario, depending on several parameters indicating the severity of a pandemic. And of course depending on who you want to protect.
Meanwhile, I think we know that both in The Netherlands and in the UK people are dying because of actions NOT taken.
Though I don’t have the data and knowledge, I know that Germany has MUCH more hospital beds than the UK and The Netherlands. In 2018:
NL: 1/432
UK: 1/400
DE: 1/166
I know these numbers are probably not very exact for several reasons, but they give a general impression. Less hospital beds does not necessarily mean more deaths, but putting together everything I hear, from GP’s discouraging older patients to seek Covid-treatment in hospitals (“if you are old and frail, it’s better to die”) to patients getting discharged too early, I am quite convinced quite some people people die unnecessarily in the UK and The Netherlands.
Also: I don’t know about the UK, but here in The Netherlands we have a fixed quota for medical studies. Meanwhile we have a – thus self created – shortage of doctors. Creating a bunch of other problems that could contribute to higher mortality rates.
I know, right now, Covid is (I guess) your greater interest, but I hope one day you will also start the THE KENDRICK UK HEALTH SYSTEM ENQUIRY (I avoid “NHS” for legal reasons… 🙂
Have a good day/evening!
Dr Kendrick,
Yes, I now remember that text. I read it back then.
I did not have the slightest intention to accuse you when I mentioned hindsight.
It was a reaction to your full paragraph:
“In addition to the money, there was the unprecedented disruption of everyday life (…) the clampdown on human freedoms … The list is long. More harm than good? That is the question”
And it is that question that you ask yourself, that only can be answered with hindsight. By you, by me, by anybody.
Let’s assume your judgement of the situation in April 2020 was right (even though I think it should not matter to what part of the population they belong and how old they are if a virus is killing millions of people ), the virus was/is capable of producing new variants very quickly, even multiple ones in one patient. The whole disaster could also have taken another turn at any moment with an even more agressive variant than those we have seen, possibly also causing many more deaths in the younger generations. If that had happened and there would have been deaths in every household like during the Spanish flue, we would very probably ask today why no lockdowns and masks had been applied, if governments never had made them mandatory.
That’s just one scenario. It’s not your assesment of the situation at any moment in time that is hindsight, but the very fact of knowing today how the whole situation developed, is hindsight. Back then nobody could reliably predict the course of the virus ahead. And we still can’t. That is what I meant to say with hindsight.
Moreover I am like always a big fan of you even if I did strongly disagree with you about some things in the past. For me you are truly a genius Mr Kendrick and making cheap accusations would be the last I would like to do. My admiration for you is enormous, and that comes from the heart. I have seldom or never known such a big thinker like you and I am sure most if not all here will agree with me.
I salute you.
“The whole disaster could also have taken another turn at any moment with an even more agressive variant than those we have seen,”
Is that how viruses work, even if you do or don’t believe they exist? All the information is that “variants” become less agressive, until in the end they are of little consequence.
No, that’s a myth. It’s unpredictable. Compare with Influenza. Some years it is more severe than other years.
I offered a comment on first reading this last week but dictating a response via an iphone while riding a ski lift does not produce clarity, good word choice (thanks, auto-assume), or good punctuation. Ooops!
That said, my basic response is that you assume that the IFR rate was/is more or less constant over both time and space – and that’s the same mistake officialdom made. It wasn’t (and isn’t) constant but, instead, declined exponentially through most of its generations. I believe that it killed all of those exposed to it in July but only about one third of those exposed in October – with early generations affecting visitors from Bejing and Iran, some of whom then went on to Italy well before a more devolved version of the contagion spread to America and the rest of western Europe.
In November and December officialdom, both in the US and in the UK was seeing reports predicting 15% kill rates in populations with modern health care. This caused them to panic because of their own prior involvement in funding the research in places like China and the Ukraine – and covering that up, coupled with the technical incompetence that usually goes with political appointment, is what led to the official over-reaction. And the normal bureaucratic inability to change direction is what led, of course, to the consequences we see today.
What is an overreaction? In The Netherlands we had an excess mortality of 14000 for 2020. The flu on average causes 4700 deaths yearly. Add to that the fact that both the UK and The Netherlands have few hospital beds (compared to Belgium and Germany for example) I don’t think there was an overreaction.
The Netherlands did have too little hospital beds during the pandemic, I suppose the UK likewise. So measures had to be taken.
Hence also my question to Dr. Kendrick: What if no measures had been taken and hospitals would have been flooded even more, don’t you think we would haved faced even more deaths? I mean, you spoke about actions taken that could have killed more people than the virus itself. But how then? I guess in the UK it is not very different: In The Netherlands even now there are waiting lists due to Covid. During Covid operations were not cancelled primarily because of the virus itself, but simply because there was a shortage of intensive care beds. People with cancer needed operations, but there were no intensive care beds available. So a certain percentage of these people undoubted died or will die in the future. What if no measures had been taken and even more people would have needed intensive care beds because of Covid? Beds that were simply not available. Without doubt that would have caused more deaths, too.
But maybe you are going to cover that in your enquiry.
https://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r208
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Primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes: seeking consensus on the polypill approachhttps://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r208
bmj.comhttps://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r208
Good morning,
Iâm not sure if this is a good way to reach you but Iâm interested in your thoughts on this polypill research and the proposal to offer everyone over 50 the pill.
I notice one of the authors is a director of a company that currently sells the polypill privately, no surprises there.
Huge thanks for all you do
Best regards
Carole Clothier
Sent from my iPad
In this morning’s paper I saw that the Polypill Pushers are back. I did wonder whether someone reckons that statins + bp-lowering meds should be just the ticket for bumping off people suffering from Covid vaccination.
Or is it just an ordinary “Give me da money” stunt?