I am aware that many people are taking comfort from the words of scientists like Sir John Bell and Prof Paul Hunter of UEA with regard to Covid.
I do not, and Prof Christina Pagel, who has consistently been right on Covid, summarises why:
Given same scientist predicted year ago that life would return to normal by spring 2021, i will not put too much faith in the predictions today either.
I don't know what spring 2022 looks like. Or Dec 2022.https://t.co/zAbq9VXYoOhttps://t.co/0YbyDIpydl
— Prof. Christina Pagel (@chrischirp) December 28, 2021
Of course we might be close to the end with Covid. But then I remember Prof Danny Dorling telling me that in September 2020, when he confidently said it was all over bar the shouting, and I completely disagreed with him.
In the face of the risk that we face what those saying Covid is no longer a major threat are suggesting is that we should take unacceptable risks, the scale of which they simply do not know. At the very least that's reckless. When people's lives are at stake I think that is grossly irresponsible.
Please feel free to differ. But not here. I am not a fan of those who would like to gamble with other people's lives for the sake of a party.
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Ahhh – The University of Oxford – home of the PPE course and other shite that blights society.
Well, enough said. The risk surely remains since Covid mutates. The least that needs to happen is for it to be monitored. Bizarre!
Mind you – Danny Dorling should keep to looking at things like poverty – a bit disappointed to hear that to be honest.
The Health Secretary is well aware that Covid is spread by people now just as much as it was spread by people in March 2020.
The range of risk of hospitalisation for Omicron is well established. Data on duration of hospital stay is incomplete as is mortality rate but there are reasons for optimism. Also incomplete is the duration to turnover in case rates – based on South Africa that would take us to 2nd Jan. Best be cautious I would say. You’d also like Delta to be completely displaced too which is not yet the case.
The Health Secretary is advising things like watching out for the most vulnerable, testing before we go out and meet someone new, keeping our immune systems well, and taking advantage of the vaccines which are of of some effectiveness.
He’s praised the public for their voluntary restraint going on.
Masking is required in many settings.
Claiming that lot equates to saying Covid is no longer a major threat and suggesting that we should take unacceptable risks is a straw human thing.
Covid spreaders of March 2020 should not be setting them up.
I have just listened to a BBC Scotland populist phone-in platforming, centre stage, a Hospitality businessman advocating a reduction in isolation to 5-days, from 10-days with immediate effect in Scotland, and giving coverage to the proposition that the rules should be set by Westminster not Holyrood, because it alone has the money (whether it uses to any effect or not); which was presnted as the proper “four nation approach”. The only Public Health specialist they turned to was one with whom I was not familiar, who advocated 7-days now (the Westminster approach), but a little caution before implementing 5-days. Among the few opponents to all this aired (the balance of callers was markedly and strongly pro-reduction); one caller was found, who criticised the Scottish Government for not closing the border at Gretna, and testing everyone on the M6 before entering Scotland.
This form of sculpted ‘public service broadcasting’ is the propagandised world, presented with braggadocio as open debate, that we now live in.
Quite scary how bad this is getting
The abuse for those arguing caution on Twitter is growing – me included
Sir John Bell a discredited figure – a judge criticised him for conflict of interest negotiating on both sides of one of the dodgy covid contracts. He is a supporter of the ‘let it rip’ Great Barrington Declaration. He has been wrong before – about back to normal last Spring. But that doesnt stop the BBC giving him a platform every week on r4.
Paul Hunter has always been careful never to overtly contradict government policy. Many of these academics seem to feel they need government goodwill. They are in receipt of grants and funds – and seem far from independent.
Profs Pagel, McKee, Pillay, Reicher, Scally, Costello etc much more independent.
Spot on
I would like to add Professors Linda Bauld and Devi Srdhar to your list; as well as the members of ‘Alternative’ SAGE.
The Guardian have given him a platform too. Shifty lot, keeping a foot in each camp. Not to be trusted, especially after their treatment of Julian Assange and Jeremy Corbyn.
What I see too much of is placation.
Some of us placate by convincing ourselves that it the best way to get into power – that some how we can co-habit and influence the decisions of extremists who think Ayn Rand is the second coming and markets are the be-all and end-all of life.
We placate to extreme views too much in this country these days – we accommodate them (as Labour has accommodated Neo-liberalism and is prepared to accommodate populism) and then what happens? Labour accommodated big finance only to be stabbed in the back by them in 2007.
Well, its never enough is it – the extremists have to win outright and dominate and use being accommodated as a leverage to that end.
When will we learn?
Remember Covid becomes infectious before showing any symptoms. It infects the airways and the lungs where the immune system has problems attacking it. This is why vaccinated people can catch Covid and infect others. The consequences are that the current vaccines will not stop the spread of Covid and will promote new versions.
I hope that the signs of a reduction in complications are true and that the incident of long Covid is low.
We need a vaccination that can be breathed in before “back to normal” is a sensible.
I think it interesting that you can’t get Lateral Flow Test kits anywhere around my area at the moment
I don’t know if that is true for the whole of the UK?
PCR tests are also difficult to book.
Maybe this is the strategy. If no-one can test then no-one will test positive, so no-one needs to self isolate.
Gets over the problem of staff shortages in the NHS.
There is evidence that there is no shortage of LFTs available to the government, but there are on the frontline where people want them
You can speculate on that
I think it Great Barrington in action
It is worrying that so many of the young and the very young are now requiring hospitalisation.
“A total of 512 children were admitted to English hospitals with Covid-19 in the week leading up to Boxing Day, new figures show.
The Government’s coronavirus dashboard revealed 59 children aged under 5 were admitted to hospital between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
A further 50 children in this age group were admitted to hospital in the previous 24 hours
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/more-500-children-admitted-hospital-25803998
Agreed
Sometimes Richard, it would be great if you were wrong about the situation we are now in, both in the UK and globally. It would be great if your predictions about the fact we are very much not finished with Covid were wrong; but, again, the breathtaking stupidity and arrogance of the right is producing disaster. The NHS looking to open additional emergency hospitals because Johnson’s useless administration is more interested in pandering to know-nothing right wing yahoos rather than protecting public health through preventative measures such as social distancing, proper ventilation measures and closing indoor entertainment, whilst supporting those businesses affected through adequate financial support.
It would be great if you were wrong about the stupidity of those voters who will still vote for the Tories despite all the evidence of the Tories’ moral and intellectual bankruptcy. It’s depressing that a third of the electorate that are going to vote are so ignorant, brainwashed and uncaring that they could still support this appalling government. I sometimes wonder what was the point in fighting to for universal suffrage when so many of the electorate are so ignorant and uncaring about the issues of the day.
It would be great if you were wrong about the Labour’s failure down the years to co-operate with other parties to oppose the right and oppose reforming the rotten FPTP system. I think we’ll both agree that Labour’s tribalism is the best ally the Tories have got in maintaining their totally undeserved grip on power in the UK.
I wish you were wrong about the failure of COP26 to get the rich world whose carbon emissions have caused the climate crisis to properly compensate the primary victims of it in the global south; but no, whilst we’re prepared to spend draw dropping sums on new weapons like hypersonic missiles, we can’t even manage the paltry $100 billion a year to help the less well off prepare for th consequences of the actions of the well off.
What an awful species we are.
Sorry
! Hardly your fault that there’s so much nonsense around. Its those responsible for it that should be sorry. You are pointing it out, even if others don’t like it.
And proposing solutions.
“5 failings of the Great Barrington Declaration’s dangerous plan…”
A neat summary, FYI.
https://theconversation.com/5-failings-of-the-great-barrington-declarations-dangerous-plan-for-covid-19-natural-herd-immunity-148975
Oh, & I forgot, whist on the Barrington topic. I am fairly sure that some readers here will enjoy this one.
‘Cognogens’:
https://deptmed.queensu.ca/dept-blog/cognogens-disease-causing-beliefs-can-be-addressed-using-cognitive-behavioural-therapy