This is the latest data on the number of patients in the UK in hospital with Covid:
Thankfully fewer are needing ICU treatment:
But it is still the case that one in seven patients in a UK hospital today is being treated for Covid. And, as is obvious, that trend is upward, which makes this an exceptional period within the last two years of Covid history, because that trend has only happened twice before.
The number of deaths is also rising:
This data is always lagged, of course. And what we now know is that Covid kills in many ways. All those mysterious heart attacks amongst people previously thought to be fit are not without a reason.
I will ignore data for now in long Covid. That really worries me.
At the same time as all this is happening the Westminster government is declaring Covid no longer a risk. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not so unwise, but are being dragged towards a reduction in safeguards. The claim being made is that Covid is ‘over', having been ‘beaten' and that we can now ‘live with it' as it is now only endemic, and not a pandemic.
The evidence for all to see is that this is not true. I have known more people with Covid in the last few weeks than at any other time to date. Although I have not had it, my work has been disrupted by the illness of those who have had it. I hear the same story from many others,
And, tomorrow Covid testing ends. You will not be able to get free lateral flow tests. PCR testing facilities are being closed. Even medics are going to have difficulties ordering them, which is probably the first time that access to a necessary medical test that is potentially available and affordable will have been denied for political reasons.
And politics is at the heart of all of this. First there is the politics of the false narrative, that Covid has been beaten when that is not true. The political claim being made is glaringly obviously false, and yet is being actively pursued. The deliberate supply of misinformation is now government policy. It's as if we lived in a totalitarian state.
Second, there is the politics of indifference. This was best seen when hundreds of Tory MPs walked by those marking the anniversary of the wall that marked the loss of their loved ones in London this week whilst on their way to a party, and to a person (apparently) ignored those holding that vigil. There is an attitude that they just no longer care, and it stinks.
Then there is the politics of denial. Even if Covid is endemic (and one day it will be) that requires active management, as do other serious endemic diseases like TB and malaria. You do not just ignore them, as the government suggests we should Covid. There is instead an active management programme that is required. But that is not happening.
And in the face of all this the NHS is now facing real term cuts.
It”# as if we have a government that thinks it can govern by false edict and that the world will deliver to its command. It won't. It will, in fact, do nothing like that. The denial will just make things worse.
Thirty five per cent of the population do, however, still think they will vote Conservative. Why?, has to be the response.
The sad fact is that some people are still willingly fooled by these idiots. The rest of us will pay a very high price for that.
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It’s unfathomable that the Zoe C-19 app has lost its funding. For a paltry £5 million over the last couple of years it has demonstrated the power of crowd sourced disease tracking and should be front and centre in our future “endemic” strategy. I can only assume the government have no idea what endemic means.
They know
They want to deny the truth
‘The deliberate supply of misinformation is now government policy. It’s as if we lived in a totalitarian state.’
Did we ever envisage that a government, of whatever stripe, would abandon its fundamental duty to protect its citizens? The Opposition seem reluctant to spell this out clearly – being frightened of being accused of being ‘lockdown junkies’.
Withdrawing free Lateral Flow Tests is tantamount to an offical policy of ‘letting it rip’ knowing people will be going about spreading infection not knowing they are infectious.
So chilling.
Independent sources of information, including the public health system seem to have been cowed – making it very difficult to persuade people that we still need to support the vaccination programme, by reducing infections – wearing masks, ventilation , filtration of workplaces, schools, transport etc.
Prof Pagel of UCL and her colleagues on Independent Sage list everything needed to try to ‘live with’ the virus – keepingit as suppressed as possible
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/30/uk-near-record-covid-cases-three-myths-omicron-pandemic
Apart from a very brief period (a week or so in early March) the 7 day average of COVID deaths in the UK has been over 100 since 18 August, often much more, Apart from Christmas week, the death certificates have been over 770 since the week ending 27 August. That is another 30,000 deaths in the last seven months or so. Still very much, and notwithstanding boosters, concentrated in the older age groups.
In that same period, daily hospital admissions have not dropped below 700 and beds occupied by COVID patients have not dropped below 6000. That is a huge burden for the NHS to be carrying, on top of everything else.
The numbers are often much higher than these minimums – a sign of a disease that is having epidemic episodes (that is, repeated sudden increases) rather than being endemic (constantly maintained at a baseline level). If this is the new normal, it is pretty nasty and brutal.
Given current levels of infection, there is every chance that a new epidemic variant will emerge which will escape current levels of immunity, and a reasonably chance that its effects might be more severe. Are we just going to wait for that to happen?
Apparently, yes
We are living through a dystopian nightmare, but everyone is carrying on as if it is normal. Our governments are declaring the pandemic is over, even as it worsens again. Just about everyone we know has had it at least once since Xmas. My wife and I have had it twice and we are both triple vaxed. In Parliament today the Health Minister Maggie Throup, in answer to a question said, ‘we have broken the chain of transmission…..with vaccines and treatments!’ None of this is true. In their desperation to wish it over they have simply capitulated to the virus, and declared they have no honesty, morality, integrity nor credibility. I ordered a new set of masks yesterday. If you think Covid is over, or just like flu, you are an idiot. It is not a flu virus. It is highly promiscuous and there is no evidence that this virus will mutate to become less dangerous. If it combines with a Sars or Mers it will be a catastrophe. On Sunday I went to pick up my paper in our local supermarket. The inner magazines were missing but the lady at the kiosk said she was sorry, but they had not enough staff to do everything, they were all off sick, and that (just before bursting into tears) she had been called in at short notice on Mother’s Day to cover. She was also distraught that more and more customers couldn’t afford the food they wanted, as the cost-of-living crisis grows worse. ‘The people who give to foodbanks won’t be able to afford to do so, and many will be using foodbanks if they use their heating!’ All of this was in train long before Ukraine btw! Our government’s conscious cruelty gets more and more malign. As Billionaires rake in more and more, the poor and middle classes are abused and left to vegetate. Same in America. This crisis has been forty-six years in the making. The race to the bottom beginning with Thatcher here in the UK has been growing like a cancer, which to be honest is a pretty good way of describing Capitalism, an entity which searches for eternal growth on a finite body, until it finally, if not treated, kills the host
Thank you
We mock Russia’s versions of “Comical Ali” as they tell blatant lies re the war in Ukraine, yet our media, whilst admitting that Johnson is an inveterate liar, are trying to convince us that “he got the big calls right on Covid”, and should not be replaced, at least for now.
Putin and other authoritarian leaders are then able to justify their propaganda, and ridicule the sham of western democracy. Sure, we even have Trump openly praising Putin..
Sunak is plunging millions into absolute poverty and being lauded for his prudence. Hundreds of billions have been squandered on sweetheart contracts to the fast lane cronies, yet the opposition stumble when asked “How are we going to pay” for measures so obviously needed to alleviate the crisis facing the most vulnerable.
We can analyse what’s happening and put forward our progressive solutions on blogs like yours, but we’ll get nowhere whilst Labour, and the SNP, stick to the neoliberal orthodoxy of “taxpayers’ money.”
It is so important for the left to get the MMT message out there, failing which there will always be that 35% rock solid support for the Tories.
I am working on that alternative narrative
From the BBC “…even if you do test positive again, that “is not the same as being sick with Covid-19,” according to immunologist Professor Eleanor Riley. “It means there is virus in your nose and throat.”…the current wave is putting even fewer people in hospital than we saw in January – precisely because so many of us now have a combination of protection from vaccination and previous infections..”
But what does a professor of immunology know compared to a scaremongering person with no medical knowledge at all and a desperate hope for a crisis?
“it is still the case” – providing a link to something last updated in November 2021.
So far in 2022, there are zero excess deaths in England and Wales compared to the 5 year average being used (2016-19 and 2021).
“some people are still willingly fooled…” – You only have to read most of the comments on this website for that to be confirmed.
Actually, she may know not a lot
I will trust those who do in independent Sage
Try reading then, I suggest and not the proponents of the Great Barrington Declaration
Oh, and that excess death data is rigged too, by including Covid’s excess deaths in the base
You really are very stupid, aren’t you? Try forming your own opinion
Richard, could you point to a site that explains how the excess deaths figs have been rigged to include covid deaths? I’ve seen too many fools online who use manipulated stats to bolster their opinions.
Try this https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1495860099755163654?s=21&t=rzn2MSQqjtRjkEc_NzlKCw
And this https://twitter.com/actuarybyday/status/1480864398180818945?s=21&t=q-3epE6DnCcHypRYuk2Huw
Both are experts
It is true, testing positive is not the same as being ill. But it does mean you have caught the virus, which is highly infectious, so you could easily give it to someone else who may be more vulnerable. Being infected or reinfected is not risk free – it does expose you to the risk of severe symptoms and longer term effects.
Look at it the other way around: despite all the previous infections, and the vaccinations and boosters, and all the improved treatments, there are still a hundred or more people dying of this disease in the UK every day. Without those we would be in thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.
The excess mortality data is fascinating. See https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/excess-mortality-in-england-weekly-reports
If you break it down by age group, you still see excess deaths in the lower groups, but the biggest difference is in the 75-84 and 85+ groups, with many thousands of excess deaths last year and the year before and then a few hundred fewer than the model predicts this year. I wonder what happened to them?
George, you appear to have been selective in quoting the BBC report!
You certainly missed this bit,
“Prof Riley thinks if you test positive again but feel well, “your main concern should be whether you might pass it on to someone who is particularly vulnerable”.”
Given that free testing ends tomorrow for the general population, how do you propose to protect the vulnerable?
Hannah Arendt had the answers about your 35% in her reflections about propaganda:
“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed.”
So, once enough lies have been told, and people either turn off or get sick of it, you have created:
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule (is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”)
And then its just a matter of survival for your 35%:
“There always comes a point beyond which lying becomes counterproductive. This point is reached when the audience to which the lies are addressed is forced to disregard altogether the distinguishing line between truth and falsehood in order to be able to survive.”
The point between truth and falsehood is ‘thinking’ for yourself. Weighing them up between good and bad. Barraged by conflicting information, some people simply stop thinking. Fodder for fascism – blue or red fascism.
The above is the result of this sort of thing straight out of the totalitarian rule book:
“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”
Having heard the latest lies that Boris has just told Parliament only yesterday, all I can say is that he is the epitome of the above.
And then of course, you have your ‘wannabes’ – people in society who have aspirations to be like their oppressors – royal family worshippers, people who think watching ‘Through the Keyhole’ or the Kardashians shows a desire to get on and make it – the sort of people who end up being like Priti Patel – that sort. Innit?
On top of that, there will also be some who have done really well and want things to stay that way.
This sums up your 35% in my view.
“Oh, and that excess death data is rigged too, by including Covid’s excess deaths in the base”
Ho Ho.
“Compared with the 2015 to 2019 five-year average, deaths in England and Wales were 3.4% below average (398 fewer deaths) in Week 8 of 2022”
Week 7: 3.1% lower
Week 6: 3.1% lower
Week 5: 2.8% lower
Week 4: 2.8% lower
Week 3: 3.3% lower
Week 2 3.7% lower
Source ONS
That’s 2022 compared to pre-pandemic 2015-2019
You should do some research.
And have you noticed that may be because 180,000 excess deaths have already arisen?
No, of course not….
George
Hannah Arendt said this and it sounds quite sensible to me:
“Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes”.
‘Taking what comes’ is dependent on the first clauses of course.
If only this approach had existed in how we dealt with Covid from the start?
That’s what your blind, unquestioning, fascism friendly optimism does not seem to take into account.
One of the most important elements of a business plan is the element titled: Successes, Failures, Lessons learnt. It is instructive to analyse HMG for the various Covid elements:
Early warning systems (Zoe/PCR) discontinued/ No lessons learnt,
MIS shambolic, limited improvements
Track and trace shambolic no improvements
Support for isolation shambolic no improvements
Health manpower planning shambolic no improvements
Ventilation use in design poor, some limited improvements
People flow in buildings poor, some limited improvements
Social distancing poor, some improvements
Personal behaviour (mask wearing, interaction) poor, considerable improvement, but now to be wasted)
Messaging confused, no improvements
Hospital design poor, some improvements,
PPE design poor, some improvements
PPE procurement disgraceful, some limited improvements
Vaccine development and management good
There will be additional elements, but what this lengthy list demonstrates is a situation similar to World War I, an unnecessary continuing slaughter of the innocent.
Very good
“Vaccine development and management good”
That’s why they want to sell off the vaccine research centre. Fortunately all the Oxford councillors voted against it.
https://weownit.org.uk/act-now/stop-vaccine-research-centre-sell-off
They still don’t appear to have decided which NHS workers can have free tests. I think that comes into the shambolic category. Hope none of us have to go into hospital for a long time.
https://lowdownnhs.info/coronavirus/10176/
One fact that is not discussed is that Covid initially infects the nose, air way and the lungs these have their own type of defence. You can become infectious from this before it enters the rest of the body. A nasal spray for Covid vaccination would help reduce infections see:-
https://scitechdaily.com/new-nasal-spray-proven-to-be-effective-against-all-covid-19-variants-of-concern/
The Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre was built in April 2020. The VMIC was conceived in 2017 to bring the processes of vaccine development under one roof and provide a national response to threats and emergencies like Covid-19. It has to date received £200 million in government funding. In 2020 the construction of the VMIC was brought forward because of the pandemic. The centre was established by three universities, including the University of Oxford, and with funding from the government it is currently run as a not for profit company.
Why are the Tories now intending to sell off this national asset to the highest bidder?
https://act.38degrees.org.uk/act/dont-sell-off-vaccine-research-centre-openletter
Dogma
And the state cannot be associated with success