Thursday, January 14, 2021

Where the UK is heading perhaps (or not)

From January 13th 2021, early in Lockdown 3, UK.

This is Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation for PHE (Public Health England, UK government). She is reiterating exactly the manifesto of the Great Barrington Declaration. I think it was April 2020 that I heard Prof Sunetra Gupta first advocate this concept. Now, in the early days of Lockdown 3, suddenly there is a voice of reason from a government department. It's echoing Vallance/Whitty from March 2020, before they both had all of their immunology knowledge, presumably with most of the rest of their brain function (sarcasm warning again) removed, sometime during Lockdown 1.




Here it is! (I can't see any way to embed and preserve Dr Ramsay's interview clip), it's in a Great Barrington Declaration tweet here

https://twitter.com/gbdeclaration/status/1349483284632375299

This is the text from the tweet because I always worry tweets may be ephemeral:

"Head of Immunisation for @PHE_uk -Dr Ramsey announced to the Science & Technology Committee that England may follow a focused protection strategy, where protection is given to the vulnerable and the disease is allowed to circulate among the young where its not causing much harm."

The text is true to the verbal narrative in the short clip.

While I'm on the subject of brain removals, people may be aware that daily COVID-19 deaths are currently exceeding those in the spring epidemic in the UK.















at a time when all-cause mortality is absolutely normal for the time of year, as mentioned in the last two posts. As in:
























April was something exceptional. If anyone thinks December is in any way comparable to April you can head to the Funny Farm now. That's you, Prof Whitty.

Current COVID-19 death "data" are being used as an excuse for our government, particularly Matt Hancock (the UK Health Minister), to personally incite supermarket store managers to bully and harass people with mask exemptions into wearing masks in-store, if they want to buy food to eat. Apparently further measures are under consideration, god only knows what they will be.

Disgust is too mild a word.

I wonder whether Dr Ramsay will last at PHE? Perhaps the Guardian could run a hatchet job on her.

Peter

25 comments:

Passthecream said...

Surprisingly the Grauniad said this instead, quoting more from PHE:


" Covid immunity – Covid-19 victims who recover from the disease have a similar level of protection against future infection as those who receive a vaccine, giving hope for wider immunity as the number of deaths in the UK topped 100,000. The study by Public Health England of more than 20,000 healthcare workers found that an earlier Covid infection provided 83% protection against reinfection for at least 20 weeks. A PHE expert said it was “good news”, but cautioned that it was not complete protection."


Is that a public penny-dropping moment?

It's amusing that people think 'only' 83% or 75% effectiveness is not.good.enough. Fluvax is down around 50%, less in the elderly, and that is never discussed.



Passthecream said...

The link

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/14/recovering-from-covid-gives-similar-level-of-protection-to-vaccine

Philippa said...

It would be amusing if not so sad that none of the GBD devotees seem to realise that there is a difference between vaccinating the vulnerable and then letting the young people get the virus, and attempting (probably unsuccessfully) to hide the vulnerable away for a year whilst the virus becomes endemic, and then let them catch it eventually just at a slower pace.

Jonathan said...

"Covid-19 victims who recover from the disease have a similar level of protection against future infection as those who receive a vaccine" is a truly odd comment, considering that it's way too soon to know whether a vaccine confers any protection against future infection by Covid-19.

Eric said...

Phillipa, that's what I was thinking.

Haven't watched the interview. The strategy is to vaccinate the vulnerable, relax lockdown, let everyelse either catch the virus or vaccinate or both?

That is pretty mainstream, isn't it?

cavenewt said...

"It's amusing that people think 'only' 83% or 75% effectiveness is not.good.enough."

Possibly because they're comparing to the reported 95% effectiveness rate for the first vaccine.

raphi said...

@cavenewt

"Possibly because they're comparing to the reported 95% effectiveness rate for the first vaccine."

Yes, and because the press release didn't give the absolute RR <1% nor the NNTs https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4471/rr-0?fbclid=IwAR1TtJcQ-jjVzsIf8VI4q0dFpMC5pCryf0MFvQMJ1oC_NxcnxgCI7vHg1Hg

1,370 people vaccinated (twice) to avoid 1 serious case of covid-19

~175 people vaccinated (twice) to avoid 1 non-serious case of covid-19

cavenewt said...

@raphi

Having been aware for years noiw of the misleading nature of relative risk, I usually pay attention to that when looking at studies. Haven't had a chance to do that yet in the case of the Covid-19 vaccine, but I have made the perhaps naïve assumption that they are comparing apples to apples in the case of vaccine versus natural infection, whether it's absolute or relative risk.

My point was that it's probably mostly a psychological reaction of 95% versus 83%, on the part of the unwashed public. Optics.

LA_Bob said...

Hi, cavenewt,

I think it more likely to be the "standard of perfection" that increasingly pervades public policy. Under President Bush there was "No Child Left Behind" and since then related sentiments to the effect no one must suffer ever at all from anything. The underlying assumption is we have the power to achieve universal painlessness, and it is only the lack of political will preventing that.

95% isn't perfection, but, you know, try a little harder and we'll surely get there.

You made a comment a few posts back noting the goalposts had moved (at least in the US) from "flattening the curve" to preventing any and all infections whatsoever. I suspect that's what is at work here.

Maybe the British government seeks to find a face-saving way of getting out of the fix they've locked themselves down to.

LA_Bob said...

Here's a short clip of Mary Ramsay saying what Peter reported.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI2IwJBddT0

Chris said...

I fund it all totally depressing. Witty and Vallance know the truth but must have been reprogrammed. But why?

altavista said...

Wasn't AZN vaccine proved at only 62%? That miracle of English science that took 1 year to concoct.

And Pfizer should be given only to the young and healthy who don't need it, after 30 dead in Norway and 50 in US?

The hive can't admit your immune system is all you've got, because you got that for free, and it might reveal their trillions $ racket.

Passthecream said...

Here's a BBC article about Chinese vaccine trials in Brazil which has this paragraph:

"A figure for efficacy is reached by looking at how many people developed Covid after being given the vaccine, compared with how many were affected when given a dummy injection. Normally, that is based on people developing obvious symptoms but in this Brazilian trial, people with no symptoms also appear to have been included."


It's anecdotal like most newspaper reporting but still raises more questions about the so-called 'efficacy' figures of the other vaccines.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55642648

karl said...

This is not surprising:

https://legemiddelverket.no/nyheter/covid-19-vaccination-associated-with-deaths-in-elderly-people-who-are-frail

Which brings me to NNT.

There are numbers for the influenza vaccine :
https://www.thennt.com/nnt/vaccines-preventing-influenza-healthy-individuals/

That being said - I suspect there are some hidden vaccine risks - not huge - but ferinsance there is the possibilities of triggering auto immune disorders, cancers.

But this is NOT just a different sort of influenza vaccine, I have no way of evaluating the actual honest risk - much too political - much too much CCP style of controlling information. What I'm hearing sounds like worse side effects - high fevers

--> that would put those at highest risk -- at highest risk from the vaccine. <--
Much too soon to make any guesses. I think there will be comparative figures between the different vaccines in play - much later - after the fact. Anyone that 'knows' the risk today is either ignorant or lying.

The masking nonsense reminded me of China's 'crazy-time' - masking in my head rhymes with Mao hats and suits - individuals are not welcome - faces banned - those that stand out will be pounded down - government doing a lot of harm.

Below - Ivor - I think he probably overstates his case at times - but the China connection once again resonates but plays like propaganda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=978zLJJLo-I


The context of anti-individual is something I ran into in hosting foreign students for over 30 years - being successful can be seen as a risk. I also saw it in doing product research - most Chinese products don't have a name on them - not a company name - not an address - one must not stand out. The concept of pride in quality - brand recognition - isn't really there.


If I didn't know better, I would say the reason for the irrational CoVid policies is because the CCP is calling the shots now. The original USA policies were shot down. People of the USA are now part of the Borg.

Passthecream said...

So much information swirling around atm that I may have picked this link up here, I forget, so apologies for repeating it but it's worth another look. The results seem very clear and they are up-front with the numbers. A significant proportion of the 33 studies considered were RCT.

https://ivmmeta.com/

Passthecream said...

And the NIH appear to have updated their stance wrt ivermectin.

https://youtu.be/9R7IBAnFLV4

Peter said...

karl,

Picking up gross stupidity is easy. But the mask introduction in the UK at the absolute, exact, mid summer COVID-19 nadir took the biscuit. I didn't connect it quite as Ivor does, I trust in stupidity more than malice, but you have to admit it was very odd, to say the least.

I notice in the UK that our health minister, who has had COVID-19 and survived perfectly well, is currently self isolating because he was in close contact with someone who has since tested positive.

This is utter immunity denialism. As Whitty didn't resign over the mask introduction anti-science fiasco he certainly should have done so in the face of immunity denialism!

Where are the immunologists?

Peter

Peter said...

Chris, they both came over at the start of the pandemic as quite sensible. One can only wonder at the pressures applied to produce the caricatures they are today. Incomprehensible.

Peter

LA_Bob said...

"Incomprehensible."

Maybe, maybe not. In another post you acknowledged Whitty was a Politico now. Whitty and Valance may be medically trained, but they are now politicians. They chose "public service" (some might say, "feeding at the public trough") over other career directions. Same with Fauci and Birx in the United States and others in the rest of the world.

Their jobs now are to provide "scientific" support for the preferred policies of the elected politicians to help them keep their jobs.

cavenewt said...

'Same with Fauci and Birx in the United States and others in the rest of the world. Their jobs now are to provide "scientific" support for the preferred policies of the elected politicians to help them keep their jobs.'

I'm not a fan of the CDC or particularly of Fauci, based on my Lyme disease experience. However, I don't think we can really accuse Fauci of what you say in terms of Donald Trump. Video clips of his dismayed reactions to various Trumpian outbursts are common. Birx, on the other hand, seemed a complete toady.

LA_Bob said...

cavenewt,

I'm inclined to agree with you vis a vis Fauci and Trump. But, Fauci has been in his NIAID position for almost 35 years. I think he is more politician than medicine man. Trump was an outlier as presidents go.

Passthecream said...

This obituary in the Guardian today, the first dissonant sentence, says all you need to know:

"The Australian opera director Elijah Moshinsky, who has died aged 75 from Covid-19 after suffering a fracture"

A contagious fracture I presume. Caught it from one of the audience??? With all due respect to the great man himself.

altavista said...

People wake up at 3am to search for vaccines

https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/02/04/covid-2-4-safe-and-effective-vaccines-aplenty/#more-22373

Peter said...

Hmmmmmmm.........

Peter

Eric said...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00249-018-1306-2

Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall, but we can see the abstract. The theory proposed by nobel laureate Manfred Eigen seems to be that pandemics always peter out rather surprisingly and quickly because you get all kinds of mutations, some of which are contagious but harmless which means they have a competitive advantage in spreading. In the end, they will serve as a natural vaccine, conveying immunity against those variants that do cause serious illness.

So where are we now? You can bet this will be a regional game at first.