As the FT notes this morning:
Health authorities in England are bringing forward the latest Covid-19 booster vaccination programme to counter a potentially dangerous sub-variant of the virus.
The UK Health Security Agency suggested speeding up the autumn vaccination programme to provide the public with greater protection from serious illness.
They add:
The rollout — for people in care homes, the clinically vulnerable, those aged 65 and over, health and social care staff and carers — will now start on September 11, rather than in early October.
At last, they are taking Covid seriously again - because it is spreading like wildfire again.
But, the rollout programme remains far too limited in scope. This disease is still contributing to serious rates of excess deaths, likely resulting in tens of thousands of deaths a year. Mortality from hospital-acquired infection is reported to be running at rates of up to 10%. And it is not just the more elderly who are vulnerable - children are too.
Why it is that a disease as serious as Covid has been subject to the most massive public misinformation programme by a government that wants to pretend that it is over when that is anything but the case will, one day, need to be the subject of a public inquiry.
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Once again, politicians seem incapable of learning from mistakes, even ones they themselves made just a couple of years in the past.
What exactly is spreading like wildfire? There have been around 10 cases of newly identified variant worldwide. What is the new booster meant to protect against? I suggest everyone follow Dr John Campbell.
So, Covid denial still exsts…
Goodbye
Hi Richard,
I strongly supported your position and research on the absurd UK energy market and it’s regulation which vastly over-inflates the cost of Energy.
However I suggest you do more research if you want to comment on the healthcare potential risks of the new omicron variant.
UK Health Security Agency states that this variant is not currently a ‘variant of concern’ & there is no evidence either way on whether it is more transmissible or dangerous than the current omicron variants in circulation.
Bringing forward the vaccination campaign is surely the response you would be asking from the government? – In contrast to your catchy headline.
In the meantime the risk/benefit analysis of covid vaccination needs to be assessed per age group against current variants of Covid and not for example Delta.
At least we are not recommending vaccinations as young as 6 months+ in the US.
I have
I have read the people I trust who have always been proved to be right
And I note the panic now speeding about it
Why are you in denial?
Richard,
You say ‘I have read the people I trust who have always been proved right, and I note the panic now speeding about it. Why are you in denial ?’
Fine Richard, I gave you a reference (UKHSA), how about doing me the same courtesy?
Paul
Try Indy Sage and its members
The UKHSA is not in my opinion a reliable source
Two years ago today I was in hospital with an aortic dissection. While in there, I caught covid. I then spent three weeks on a covid ward with an oxygen tank for company being given every drug they could find to save my life. I watched two women die from it. They had not had vaccinations.
For some reason I really will not read anything by Campbell or Laurence Fox or any of the other deniers.
I’m glad you are still with us.
My 70yo mother is unvaccinated. She and my 2 bros are covid deniers. It nearly killed her in 2021. Nearly 3 weeks with very little food & drink, inflammation markers of over 400 (women’s should be <29), and a Pulmonary Embolism has not convinced her to get vaccinated. It so going to kill her eventually, and I will never forgive them.
Sending you love ♡
I and two of my Brothers in Law have tested positive in the last two days in Edinburgh and Glasgow. I don’t see how it’s existence is deniable. Those choosing to deny it because they haven’t caught it should perhaps not.
“Why it is that a disease as serious as Covid has been subject to the most massive public misinformation programme by a government”
As usual, follow the money. I’ve recently been reading around the subject as much as I have been around economics. MMT opened my eyes, and I am confident that people will be very surprised (angry even) once the full Covid story emerges.
In a recent bulleting I have been invovled in
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mwr1Oy3bHtnKN2OD0-xAwGkcmDTbUOXd/view?usp=drive_link
it is noted that some commentators
https://www.okdoomer.io/experts-arent-sure/
suggest that denying the scientific consensus on the short and long term danger of covid is in a long historic tradition of denying the science on the threats to population health – of tobacco, HIV, radioactivity, asbestos etc. at the cost of thousands of lives.
Seems no longer unbelievable – that we live in a country just like authoirtarian regimes where the system comes before the lives of its citizens.
Very little hope that Richard’s hope that there will be an Inquiry which concludes this.
There won’t be any enquiry. There’d need to be a responsible govt in power for that to happen and there’s no chance of that in the foreseeable future. Instead in their place we have looters intent on carrying off whatever they can while it’s still there to be taken, as we’ve seen before in civilisations in the process of collapse. Along with our Parliament and school buildings, the fabric of what used to be Britain crumbles around us.
There is an enquiry going on at the moment, so what makes you say there won’t be one?
You do have a point there Jenw 🙂 I suggest though that the ongoing one sprang from an environment which is itself collapsing. If the present one ever gets to any sort of firm conclusion, I’ll be very surprised. I note, en passant, you don’t read Campbell or Fox. Perhaps if you did, you’d realise there’s simply no comparison between the two though I must qualify that by saying this is based on my very brief knowledge of Fox, a brevity for which I’m grateful 🙂 I dip in and out of Campbell but I must say he seems reasonable enough, retaining his Youtube channel as he does. I don’t know why people get so worked up against him.
Bill, have you read my post about having covid quite badly?
I went into hospital with something else and caught covid, like the other three women in the ward, from one of the staff. It says so on my discharge letter.
I actually discharged myself after a week on the covid ward as I was terrified of it getting worse, being the only one not coughing. I had had two vaccinations before I went in.
At the end of a week of my son and daughter in law coming in and leaving me soup which I didn’t eat, I was persuaded to test my oxygen levels. 77% when they should have been 97 or above. So I was taken back into hospital as the GP could not cope with me at home. Another two weeks on oxygen, and given drugs to thin my blood and get rid of blood clots in my lungs. That took three months. If I’d had another aortic dissection during that time I would probably have died from that.
As I said before, the two women on the ward I saw die were the ones who hadn’t had vaccinations.
Is Campbell going to take responsibility for those who take notice of him and do not have vaccinations? Don’t think so.
Campbell trains nurses, not doctors. There were a lot of nurses in that hospital who had had covid in the first round, were suffering from long covid and still working as they could not afford to take time off, and there was nobody else to do their jobs. They were falling asleep on the night shift as they were doing double shifts.
They are the ones you should feel sympathy for, not Campbell who causes some of these problems.
I am angry that anyone should believe what he says.
Me too
Covid has become another ‘fatalism’ in our somewhat agonistic times which our politicians feel that they cannot do anything about and which many of them agree upon.
They lie to us for example about taxes.
Then we listen and take that at face value and the lie becomes inculcated in our society.
Then they blame us for the consequences of their own dogma or complete misunderstanding about how things work.
The fact is that politicians have tied themselves – and us – in knots.
We or someone needs to get all Alexandrian and wield the sword of truth and sever those knots.
That’s why I come here, to sharpen that sword.
Ouch!
The sharpening is working!
I am hoping that the present covid enquiry covers this. It is supposed to show us what we can learn from the past covid response. Unfortunately it won’t report until well into 2025, if then.
The best people to follow are Independent Sage on this.
I can’t believe that somebody on this blog is still following John Campbell, who is not a medical doctor, although he has a doctorate which he did not work for.
Unfortunately it is not just the government who are becoming complacent about covid.
My sister says she will not have another vaccination as she never caught covid last time even though she had had three vaccinations. She felt ill for a couple of days after each one. I can’t persuade her that if she catches it this time round she will feel a lot more ill.
[…] England brings forward Covid booster vaccinations to counter new sub-variant Financial Times […]
Here’s a group to take notice of.
https://labourhub.org.uk/2023/08/31/a-small-concession-from-the-government-but-a-major-rethink-is-still-needed-on-covid/
Covid Action used to be called Zero Covid, until they realised that wasn’t possible. Lots of Indi-Sage talk to them.
And here’s the wiki entry on Campbell, of whom I was unaware. Certainly one to avoid if this is to be believed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Campbell_(YouTuber)
This is also useful re: Campbell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGmRwQ4TZc4
Nicola, yes, thanks, also very useful 🙂
Meanwhile: “All tech support for flu and covid vaccinations will be switched off on Thursday after NHS England decided against extending its contract with its supplier in favour of developing an in-house system, HSJ has learned.”
https://www.hsj.co.uk/technology-and-innovation/flu-jab-it-system-to-be-switched-off-weeks-before-vaccine-programme-starts/7035446.article
No doubt the NHS will be blamed for the ensuing mess / disaster
Bizarre….
I seem to recall the government selling off the centre where they research into vaccines to a private company, about a year ago.
https://lowdownnhs.info/news/campaigners-oppose-vaccine-manufacturing-centre-sell-off/
Had only just been built and hadn’t opened properly. I hope this is mentioned in the covid enquiry.
I disagree with poster who think rising cases of omicron are not a concern because there are only a few cases of the new variant.
1. Case surveillance and more so genomic surveillance, has been greatly weakened by the government since ‘Freedom Day’, so there is no clear picture of how many cases there are and how many involve the new variant.
2. The new variant has popped up in numerous countries as non travel based cases, suggesting that the number are higher than currently measured.
3. With many mutations the probability of immune evasion increases.
4. As we know, rises in cases, hospitalizations and deaths is exponential.
5. We always act too late in the UK and more people get ill and more die than needed too.
David Byrne says:
Lack of information and misinformation on COVID 19 is to be expected from the Tory death squad and their friends in our appalling news media.
I agree on the value of Independent Sage, and suggest the USA, Centers for Disease Control (CDC.gov) for news up-dates on virus variants eg BA.2.86 which is of some concern at the moment.
For those who prefer not to agonise over impending doom, may I suggest: Billy Connolly: Tall Tales & Wee Stories. Not the antidote, but good fun at the deflated price of £3.50. It will exercise your wrinkles, guaranteed.
For those who are interested – and think the new variant is not of concern, may I suggest they read this?
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/nhs-vaccination-response-to-urgent-ba2-86-risk-and-changes-to-autumn-winter-2023-24-vaccination-delivery-programme/
It includes the following:
‘While it is difficult to predict the combined effect of the large number of mutations on severity, vaccine escape and transmissibility, expert advice is clear that this represents the most concerning new variant since Omicron first emerged.’
May I take this opportunity to thank you most sincerely Richard for your Blogs. I have learnt so much – and need to learn so very much more!
Thanks
Bill Kruse –
May I suggest that you check out Dr Susan Oliver’s “Back to the Science” YouTube videos
This one would be a good start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzP7JLDio8I
“Antivaxxers seem never to run out of studies that they can use to misrepresent the effects of Covid vaccination. The latest is a study out of Switzerland looking at myocardial injury after vaccination. And, as usual, Dr John Campbell has jumped on the bandwagon and ensured that the misinformation reaches as many people as possible. In this video, Dr Susan Oliver and Cindy the dog will go back to the science and correct the misinformation.”
That was very interesting, thank you. I would comment I doubt he’s wilfully misinterpreting the data/results for profit as Dr Oliver rather uncharitably suggests, I think perhaps he’s just in over his head and doesn’t realise. I follow the apparently well-informed Chris Turnbull on Twitter (as much as I can in the confusing new version) and I gather he hates Dr Campbell. I may have some idea of why now.
Today’s covid conundrum.
Last weekend someone in her mid 40s thought she had flu. She has heart problems. As she was getting no better she got in touch with her medical team on Thursday and they told her to go to A&E to rule out anything else.
She had lots of tests and was told to go home and return on Saturday for more tests.
In the meantime her GP, on Friday, gave her anti-biotics, which A&E told her yesterday was stupid as she will now have to finish the course.
All covid tests were negative until the one taken in A&E on Thursday which proved positive. She did another one today at home which was negative.
Does this mean that all the tests we have at home, just in case we need to test again, are useless against the new variants?
Good question
Except I know lots of people who seem to be testing positive right now