This Twitter thread speaks for itself. The UK got Covid wrong.
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Spot on – but the BBC has much to answer for – this letter to Evan Davis
Sorry to bother you ( I distribute Covid Science discussion notes ( e.g. SciNote12 Sept 22nd, SciNote18 April 6th links below)
This is to ask why has it taken the PM programme ( 27 April) 6 months to ask a direct question about the government’s decision to reject the advice (for a circuit breaker lockdown) of their own science advisers, on Sept 21.
The consensus authoritative view (epidemiologists etc) is that this led to many tens of thousands of deaths during the second wave over the winter.
This was deliberate govt policy — taken in the knowledge of the likely consequences.
But even now you seem reluctant to get to the truth — suggesting something about – ‘ easy with hindsight’ after your discussion with Prof Openshaw.
There were independent authoritative sources available at the time and since — including Independent Sage – which you conspicuously and consistently ignored, while often platforming self-proclaimed ignorant politicians (‘I am not a modeller’) rubbishing the forecasts.
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of your 27 April discussion was to invite Prof Openshaw to say whether September was the most disastrous decision the govt has made .
Openshaw is running millions of pounds worth of research programmes funded essentially by the government — so ‘act early, act forcefully ‘ was really the most he could say.
Isn’t it for you as the supposed independent investigative , curious journalist to explore whether that was the case, and certainly not to cap it with the quasi apologetic ‘hindsight’ qualification?
Even worse — Openshaw gave you another opening — saying we should have acted during the summer when infections were low.
It is just possible that if the disastrous Test and Trace system had been rebuilt, we could have suppressed the virus — and become more like S Korea, NZ, Australia, Taiwan etc, and not needed another lockdown — but you showed not the slightest curiosity in picking up on Openshaw’s point.
The BBC’s whole coverage – seems to have been at best simply platforming views, often within a daily agenda set by the government — and not to ‘educate’, or ‘inform’ .
This is frightening.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T67KAGmAguI5yCyA6HEtgEh76jxgBGV-/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EfBODZPQwyEQ77jaIjNL_yyncz-x50Cf/view?usp=sharing
The BBC do not impartially present views on their programmes. Their presenters come across as advocates of ideas.
There is still lot of good stuff on the BBC, but increasingly they are leading people – not giving them the chance to work things out for themselves.
As for Evan Davis – his position has ruthlessly exposed just how dumbed down he really is (he’s ex-IFS is he not?). But then again, he’s become successful and comfortable peddling Neo-liberal bullshit – look at his booklist.
And all that serious quality debate and open challenge that (say) helped gay men like him for example seems to be something he doesn’t seem to think the rest of us are worthy of. Strange isn’t it?
Read his books from the 90s
Not pretty
Agreed that eliminating Covid is the best way.
I think events in India have shown once again that this is a fiendishly clever virus, The longer it is amongst us, the stronger ot will get. I don’t think people have realised this yet.
The thread refers to an interesting, but rather short article that you can read here:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00978-8/fulltext
This quote from the article might take a little of the wind from the sails of the author of the thread:
“Although all indicators favour elimination, our analysis does not prove a causal connection between varying pandemic response strategies and the different outcome measures.”
Further to that, the elimination countries are listed as Iceland, NZ, Australia, South Korea and Japan. I can think of all sorts of reasons why these countries might appear to be performing well right now that don’t include their elimination strategy.
NZ & Australia are yet to encounter their typical heavy respiratory virus seasons so concluding that their responses are superior may yet prove to be premature — it certainly has proved to be in India who were congratulating themselves only a few weeks ago. There’s no indication that the authors of the piece considered any at all.
I really don’t think the Lancet piece warrants the certainty of the tweet author and I suggest you read it Richard – it won’t take you long.
I have
I disagree with your interpretation – including your tropical claims that smack of desperation and have no evidential support
Actually Richard, the seasonality of influenza type viruses in the tropics has been understood for quite some time since the seminal work on outbreaks of Robert Hope-Simpson in the 80s & 90s. He won all sorts of awards for his work – and what is happening in India fits nicely in the predictions of it.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7462597/
The terrible Indian CV19 situation must be seen in this light – along with the effects of the atrocious air quality in most of the major cities – and Delhi in particular – that has exacerbated the illness with all sorts of respiratory comorbidities.
Lots more on just how complicated the causality is in the various seasonal patterns can be found in this article:
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/pdf/10.1289/ehp.1002383
I wouldn’t dismiss it so easily.
This virus has not followed influenza patterns as far as I am aware, based on some resting
I trust members of independent sage a lot more than you
I’d be fascinated to know who you’re quoting on IndySAGE for that assertion Richard and I’d probably bow to their experience, but I’d take some convincing given findings such as these:
https://www.scienceboard.net/index.aspx?sec=ser&sub=def&pag=dis&ItemID=2055
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7892320/
Look at the author of the tweets…..
It’s really not hard, is it?
Failing to spot the bleeding obvious somewhat undermines your position….
“the elimination countries are listed as Iceland, NZ, Australia, South Korea and Japan.”
With the exception of Japan your ‘elimination’ list is also a list of especially notable successes: they share two essential elements in common that also mutually promote success: they are elimination states that are also islands.
The UK is notably an island, not an elimination state that has almost 130,000 deaths and only save from utter catastrophe by extended lockdown and a vaccine strategy.
Let us look at the vaccine strategy. Virtually every authoritative scientific, public health spokesperson has said ‘nobody is safe until we are all safe’. This applies ‘a fortiori’ if you do not close your borders. The UK has failed to close its borders throughout (which takes us back to an elimination strategy). The desperate condition of India demonstrates this is a world problem. Here vaccine production is now critical (because India has now been overwhelmed), but the world’s rich states have concentrated their efforts on cornering the market through contractual priority, on vaccines and while also serving the interests first of the ‘intellectual property’ rights of the private sector. The leader of this has been Britain. It even stuck a national flag on the so-called Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and turned a health crisis into another Brexit, anti-EU political issue. Please note, neither Pfizer or the EU stuck a German or EU flag on the Pfizer vaccine, although it was a German scientific institution that played the same role as Oxford in the Pfizer vaccine. The Conservative Government has been happy to sit on its hands and turn the issue into a legal-contractual spat.
At the same time the UK has done nothing to take a world public stance in accelerating the establishment of large vaccine production facilities for the world; because we cannot upset private sector property values, can we? It is only a catastrophic world disaster with tens, if not hunderds of millions of lives and health at stake. Nobody serves private profit over absolutely everything and absolutely everybody, better than the UK. Nobody …. …. anywhere.
I wrote’ Japan’, but intended to identify South Korea, which is of course not an island. The folly of writing in too much haste. The substantive issues, however remain the same; my carelessness in execution does not alter the case being made. Essentially being an island confers an enormous, and I hasten to add completely undeserved, advantage to island states. Britain, virtually alone in the world (it endlessly tells us it is alone and wants to be alone, save for leadership in world economic piracy), could fail to use it, without falling flat on its face, or pretending to executive competence it simply does not possess.
While not directly related to this thread I listened to a brilliant interview from Cambridge Literary Festival with Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott about their book “Failures of State: The Inside Story of Britain’s Battle with Coronavirus”. Utterly damning of the government’s actions in every way – some details I was aware of, but others I wasn’t. Personally I’d like to see it put out on every broadcast media…………in fact a copy of the book should go to every family who’ve lost loved ones to Covid.
It’s available on the festival website until the 2nd May for a small fee. I recommend if you have time.
The book is reviewed here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/11/failures-of-state-review-never-forget-the-johnson-governments-covid-disasters
Thanjks
I fear I may not get beyond the review – but that looks good
I’ve read your link AdrianD and I think it chimes in line with Richard’s blog.
The last line of the piece you quote says this:
“Early economic and political gains made by countries aiming to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 will probably pay off in the long run.”
I think that what you quoted was the discussion part of the piece – where they were weighing up the pros and cons. This concluding line above is the end of the matter as far as I am concerned. It finds favour with exactly the point Richard is making therefore, but falls short of saying that it is the ‘ultimate truth’ – as a good and self aware scientific paper should.
‘Nuff said I think?
An elimination strategy would require the borders to be virtually sealed. Throughout the last year there have been a continuous flow of foreign lorries arriving into the country with foreign drivers. That would have to stop and the contents transferred to UK lorries and UK drivers.
Then there’s the question of the Irish border. Would the Irish fall into line with UK requests or would they wish to continue to pursue their present mitigation strategy? If so we’d have to close it.
Unless circumstances change markedly, I can’t see how such a policy would be politically possible.