Discrimination against people on the grounds of their health status is not acceptable, while the ever increasing reach of the surveillance state is pernicious. The idea of people without Covid-19 antibodies being treated as second class citizens should be anathema to anybody with concern for human liberty.
It is improbable that Covid-19 will be eliminated from the world in the forseeable future. Like Spanish flu or Hong Kong flu, it will lurk around in the mix of seasonal infections for many years to come, hopefully, but not necessarily, like them becoming less severe through serial mutations. It appears likely that, as with flu, there may be a regular vaccination cycle.
Just now, England and Wales are in negative excess deaths. Less people are dying than normally do at this time of year, on a rolling average of the last five years. I presume Scotland will be similar, though I cannot immediately find current figures.
The number of people dying within 28 days of a covid diagnosis is down to approximately 300 a week in the entire UK, and has been steadily falling. How much of this fall is due to vaccination and how much due to lockdown is an open question. But it remains a stubborn and undeniable fact, much as some people do not like it said, that Covid-19 has never been a major threat to young and healthy people. Older people and those in vulnerable groups have in very large majority been at least partially vaccinated now. The odds of those in the unnvaccinated groups dying of covid are really very low indeed.
A medical member of the UK government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Innoculation stated on BBC News on Friday that the risk of mortality to a healthy person under 30 who caught coronavirus was 117,000. He was explaining that this is such a remote risk, that it was almost as remote as the chances of a serious side effect from the Astra Zeneca vaccine, and that was why the use of that vaccine in that age group was being suspended; not that the vaccine was dangerous to this age group, but that they didn’t need it enough to justify even a minuscule risk.
The point of vaccinating the healthy middle aged and under is not that Covid-19 is a serious risk of death to them; it is not. It is simply to break transmission. Now I have had my first shot of vaccine myself, and urge everyone to take their vaccine. I have expressed before my view that I believe that refusing to be vaccinated is an immoral position; it is to benefit from herd immunity while refusing to accept the very small personal risk from the vaccine itself. But I utterly reject the notion of compulsory vaccination or of penalising those who do not wish to vaccinated by limiting their lives. Health is a personal matter, and discrimination on the basis of health status cannot be correct, nor the revelation of details of health status to people other than medical professionals employed in care.
I have no problem with vaccine certificates for international travel, having carried them my entire adult life. But the idea of having to show intrusive personal identity and health status documents to prove who you are, and prove your antibody levels, before entering a pub or a theatre ought to be anathema to every right thinking person. It is like very poor dystopian science fiction.
If find the daily graphs of whole UK figures from from the Guardian is very helpful (the daily death figure is even lower than the average of about 40 this week because of weekend registration) .
Overall, it does not lie, although the left hand graph is massively distorted in its first months by the lack of testing availability. For most of the period, the relationship between all three graphs remains broadly constant. The glaring anomaly of daily cases in the first few months (the left hand graph) relates entirely to the fact testing was unavailable. It also accounts in very large part for the huge public hysteria over Covid-19. When it was only possible to get a test if you were approaching death’s door, a very high percentage of those with positive tests died. That this led large numbers of otherwise intelligent people to accept ludicrously exaggerated infection fatality rates for the disease, is something I struggled with a great deal.
We are probably many years away from there being a scientific consensus around the infection mortality rate of Covid-19, and indeed consensus may never emerge – there is still much debate over infection mortality rates from various types of flu. This letter published in the BMJ cites the Pastor-Barriuso study finding a median of 0.8% and Ioannidis finding 0.27%. What does appear true is that Covid-19 is particularly transmissible, so while it may not have an infection mortality rate very much greater than influenza, it does have the ability to kill a lot of people in a short space of time and overwhelm health services. There are also the effects of long covid, which appear still to be little understood.
I am genuinely unsure why it causes so much anger to state that those people who are non-geriatric and healthy are only at very slight risk of death from covid-19, when it is an undeniable fact. I feel confident that we have seen the end of mass deaths in the UK, because the at risk sectors of the population have been vaccinated, reducing their chances of getting seriously ill by 80%. So there may be something of a surge in cases following lockdowns, but it will not result in a matching increase in hospitalisations or deaths.
Covid-19 has been a genuine crisis which has killed a large number of people and played havoc with the lives of many others. But it too will pass and the worst of it has passed. It must not be allowed to become an excuse for permanent even higher levels of governmental intrusion and control. We are approaching normality again. Both power-drunk politicians and Stockholm syndrome populaces need to embrace the idea of normal. It is a great deal more pleasant.
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Oh Dear 🙁
The now well worn cliche ‘An abundance of caution’ is being wheeled out again today. This time for the J&J vaccine in the USA.
Of course, 6 cases in 6.8 million cases is enough to halt its use in the US ? Or more likely, and as with the UK and the A/Z vaccine, the number of cases will mount as GP’s regard patients complaining of persistent headaches with rather more than a pack of Paracetamol.
“utterly reject the notion of compulsory vaccination or of penalising those who do not wish to vaccinated by limiting their lives”
– then you’re completely wrong, Craig. I have no idea why you repeat far right, insane talking points of fascist right, when we only need vaccine passports and compulsory vaccinations thanks to these exact types. Just look at Asian countries (particularly poor ones, like Vietnam, with little healthcare resources) – instead of screeching about piece of cloth infringing some imaginary “rights”, they put the masks on without prompting or asking because it’s sane thing to do. Result? Tiny covid transmission rates, little deaths, few lockdowns, because they don’t have brainless idiots in their midst. We do, so we need force to correct their stupidity. Do you also advocate for deleting mandatory seatbelt laws? Free drunk driving for all? After all, police checking your alcohol level also infringes some imaginary “rights”, doesn’t it?
I can understand some young idiot with no perspective and overgrown egoism being stupid and screaming loudly ill conceived nonsense, but someone from your generation, Craig? The same generation that killed smallpox, polio, and measles with mandatory vaccinations (though last two are trying to rebound thanks to idiots much like Covid deniers)? In what universe you can make argument that a little bit of upfront pain is worse than constant outbreaks and loss of hundreds of millions of lives these disease were causing? Even the ” it will lurk around in the mix of seasonal infections for many years to come” argument is completely wrong, we could have eradicated Covid if not idiots who allowed it to spread before vaccines became available, now that it spread, the morally correct course of action is not to pile more stupid on top, but to correct course, by force if necessary, and do the right thing we should have done to begin with. If only for the sake of vulnerable who REALLY can’t be vaccinated, no, being egoist moron who thinks he knows better than doctors after five minutes of reading denialist pages doesn’t count as one. You vaccinate or don’t get to go to places where your stupidity can kill more innocent people, I have no idea how this is even an issue.
would that be the idiots who reduced the pandemic budget from 870million to 539 million, UWS? right after they failed a pandemic exercise abysmally, read the report. The same idiot who rather sunned himself in Mustique than to get himself back here when it was needed, then dithered and dithered some more?
Do you think your bluster is ‘morally correct’? or that these self serving criminals will ever give up their emergency legislation? I suppose you would want my grandchildren vaccinated without them having a say, so they ‘don’t kill granny’
Please understand that this is a C’mon to debate, not the French Legion.
A rather arrogant stance you have there.
The fact is that these vaccines are still experimental. We don’t know what side effects might happen in the future.
We don’t yet know if the incidents of blood clots after vaccinations will or will not occur increasingly over time.
Not trusting experts does not necessarily make me an “egocentric moron” when I know (and you obviously need to know) that there are many other experts out there who disagree with the mainstream narrative.
Why are these highly qualified and dissident experts not allowed to air their opinions in the mainstream media?
If the politicians and mainstream experts are so confident in the vaccines, why are they so afraid to allow alternative views? Why should anyone put too much trust in politicians and “mainstream” experts when it is a fact (noticeably absent in mainstream reporting) that Big Pharma has complete immunity from prosecution over any serious side effects that might result from their products.
There is far too much fake information out there – not only in social media but also mainstream media.
You drastically over-simplify the issue in trying to make the case for vaccination straightforward.
My last comment of course, is a reply to UWS
Every point you made above, about not knowing the consequences in the future, etc., apply far more to Covid itself, and the unknown long term effects thereof.
All these “highly qualified experts” you like to refer to have been – to a man or woman – self promoting cranks, usually of the far-right variety, who are too afraid to have their “evidence” peer reviewed and want to go direct to the public with their misleading pseudo-science. They cannot bamboozle real experts in the way they have your good self, that’s why.
To glenn_uk
“All these “highly qualified experts” you like to refer to have been – to a man or woman – self promoting cranks, usually of the far-right variety, who are too afraid to have their “evidence” peer reviewed and want to go direct to the public with their misleading pseudo-science. They cannot bamboozle real experts in the way they have your good self, that’s why.”
I disagree. There may well be some cranks who are so-called experts who are anti-vaccination but I have read that even peer reviews have been sidelined sometimes in order to push the “official” narrative.
The highly qualified but dissident experts I refer to are not pseudo-scientists – they are renowned epidemiologists.
They may be wrong but the fact is that they ask many questions that neither you nor your official experts will answer.
Your reply to my comment clearly shows that you refuse to answer my questions.
You wrongly assume that I’m anti-vaccination. I’m on the fence. I may get vaccinated one day but not yet.
I simply refuse, like lots more reasonable people, to stick anything in my arm while it is still in an experimental stage and has never been tried before.
I hate right wing nonsense but not all anti-vaccination supporters are right wing by any means.
Is Sunetra Gupta a “self-promoting crank”? I thought she was a Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, having graduated from Princeton University and gaining a PhD from the University of London. She has carried out “research on the transmission dynamics of various infectious diseases, including malaria, influenza and COVID-19, and has received the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London and the Rosalind Franklin Award of the Royal Society” (Wiki). She also describes herself as left of centre politically.
Sunetra Gupta should have realised she was wrong after the second wave she said wouldn’t happen actually did.
She should also wonder why she and the handful of other contrarians contradicting the consensus of their field have been offered such disproportionate coverage by the corporate media. I bet you can name several times as many anti-lockdown scientists as pro-, even though the latter vastly outnumber the former.
> You wrongly assume that I’m anti-vaccination. I’m on the fence. I may get vaccinated one day but not yet.
On the fence seems a bit weak given the alternatives… ie. there aren’t any.
– “Why are these highly qualified and dissident experts not allowed to air their opinions in the mainstream media?”
Well I don’t know about vaccines (unless you’re referring to that noisy vet) but in epidemiology it’s quite the opposite, the dissidents have been given undue weight, just as they were for global warming until the melting Arctic made it a no-brainer.
Hmm. Isn’t there a possibility that the issue of what makes for a healthy society is slightly more complex than you seem to believe?
Does the end always justify the means? In other words, if there is a clear benefit to society, should we always use force to compel obedience – and does that really make us all happier? Who decides whether there is a clear benefit to society, and therefore when force is justified to compel obedience from others? How do we ensure that these deciders do not become corrupt?
These are old questions, and for what it’s worth your view is the one that is aligned with fascism, not your opponents’ – for it is you who appears to believe that the state should compel behavior it believes is in the public interest. Most great philosophers have concluded that the end should not justify the means, and that utopia cannot exist and attempts to create it through compulsion lead not to utopia, but dystopia. And the Nuremberg code, as developed following the horrors of the nazis’ medical practices, stated as it’s first point that voluntary consent of the patient was essential for any medical experimentation.
The problem with your view, and expedience as a justification for action in general, is not necessarily related to the immediate outcome – but instead to the world you create as a result – one where compulsion is acceptable as way of achieving a desired outcome – and the corruption that inevitably grows around the institutions which wield such power and the impossibility of putting the genie back in the bottle.
Very black and white. First to dismiss quickly as non-contentious: The Nuremberg code is noted for its selective application by strong nations. For example it does not seem to apply to those who selectively choose a war of aggression or choose to ethnically cleanse selective populations.
Moving on, and not taking side, just two scenarios:
China: Total deaths from Covid-19 just over 4000 in a population of 1.7 billion, economy and life back on track little effect on employment.
UK deaths from Covid-19 over 150,000 in a population of 66 million. Major effect on economy and increasing risk of unemployment.
Methods used to achieve these end are questionable in many ways in both.
Does the means justify the ends? I don’t know the answer, but one thing is for sure the long term future of both will change. Maybe with growing inequality in UK things will become more repressive and because of increasing prosperity in China, things may become more liberal? Who knows?
The queues at the burial grounds last week for the annual honouring of dead loved ones rather undermines the 4,000 figure the CCP have admitted to. On the UK’s own figures fewer than 6% of the 150,000 dead had no serious underlying conditions and none of the 6% who supposedly had no underlying conditions were autopsied to see if in fact that was truly the case.
From start to finish this whole thing has been an anti-science scam based on a knowing and criminal misuse of the PCR test.
Anyone with normal vitamin d levels has virtually nothing to fear from this virus and certainly less than they have to fear from a serious case of the flu.
This is simply about control and people who would normally see right through it have been scared witless by the numbers of deaths attributed to this virus that simply should never have been in any honest assessment.
In the vast majority of cases autopsies would have been pointless. When the deceased had shortness of breath, low blood oxygen saturation, grainy shadows on lung scans, and high D-dimer, it was obviously covid. Doing universal autopsies in a mortality wave is also, obviously, impractical.
The pre-existing conditions aren’t necessarily serious; they are very common. And the term “underlying” is a type of propaganda – you are good at spotting propaganda, I hope?
And do look at the deaths-from-all-causes curve; it has massive great peaks in it. Something must be responsible for those peaks; I wonder what? Clue – it isn’t PCR testing!
Hello Craig
“although the left hand graph is massively distorted in its first months “
The “Our World In Data” series, including “share of tests that are positive” is more professionally compiled and does not distort like the Guardian figures. It is well set out and easy to navigate for a statistics dunce like me.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing
There are many things that the Guardian minichart fails to explain to the extent that it is just another aid to the Government and MSM fear campaign.
What proportion of those that died in April to May were as a result of lockdown measures?
Why has “normal” flu disappeared at the same time as Covid allegedly increased?
Why are hospital admission stats not compared to previous years to give perspective?
What would have happened in previous years if we had tested so enthusiastically?
You say Covid is transmissable and the chain can be broken by the vaccine. I am not sure it has been proven that the vaccine can prevent transmission. And with the new variants, we don’t really know what is being transmitted.
I think the point is that the relative harmfulness of whatever we are testing for that is being transmitted, this harmfulness is not being quantified. It may not be so harmfull.
In reply to Ben McDonnell:
> I am not sure it has been proven that the vaccine can prevent transmission.
This what is being said in France on numerous discussion programs and newspaper articles. The people debating on the telly are well known specialists, often from famous hospitals and known by even people like me who are not too interested in illness generally. I personally would be in a pretty difficult position if I did catch covid so I’ve been following a bit. I can’t give a link (as one is usually demanded on internet forums) but it seems very likely that this is the case. In a few days it should be confirmed
– “What would have happened in previous years if we had tested so enthusiastically?”
It’s not tests that send people to hospital (I feel like adding “you dolt”, but that would be rude). People go to or are sent to hospital because they are unwell. They are kept in hospital if their condition requires treatment. They are tested, and many turn out positive which, of course, is no surprise when they are already showing some of the symptoms – shortness of breath, low blood oxygen, grainy shadows on both lungs, high D-dimer.
Afterwards, when numbers are counted up, the number needing hospital is typically equal to (ie. not a subset of) about 5% of the total new infections found in the population at that time. The number needing intensive care is typically equal to (ie. not a subset of) 1% of the new infection rate, and the number that die is typically equal to (ie. not a subset of) 0.4%. These are correlations, not necessarily the chain of events: “you get a test, if it’s positive you might get symptoms, and if you’re old you’ll then need hospital”. Hospital admissions and diagnoses frequently precede, predict, and are merely confirmed by positive tests.
The prevalence of this idea that PCR tests are somehow responsible for the number of covid deaths shows a lack of critical thinking, and is evidence of certain people’s gullibility – in reacting against the incompetence and corruption of the corporate media (“MSM”), they seem to abandon scepticism if sufficient “independent” websites repeat certain fallacies often enough.
– “What proportion of those that died in April to May were as a result of lockdown measures?”
Not many. Covid death curves have a characteristic shape which follows the infection curve, but delayed by about a fortnight. Compare that curve with the total deaths from all causes curve. The extent to which the total deaths curve deviates from the covid curve shape gives the incidental deaths. It is small, sometimes even negative (because lockdowns decrease accidents etc).
– “Why has “normal” flu disappeared at the same time as Covid allegedly increased?”
Because ‘flu is another respiratory transmission, so it too is decreased by social restrictions and social distancing.
– “Why are hospital admission stats not compared to previous years to give perspective?”
Probably political embarrassment, if it’s true at all. Why? Were you suggesting conspiracy, perchance? No matter, figures for previous years are on record and published, so you can easily make the comparison yourself if your suspicion is sufficient to warrant it.
– “It may not be so harmfull.”
The people of Manaus and Bhopal might disagree. And so might you in the next few months.
Saying covid does not affect the younger age groups as badly does NOT cause genuine outrage. It’s outrage, but it’s not genuine. It’s the holier than thou virtue signalling of a generation which does not do good deeds itself but expects government to do them for it. And if you have a problem with discrimination on health grounds, you’ll love this story.
https://gript.ie/volcano-stricken-islanders-told-they-wont-be-rescued-unless-they-take-covid-vaccine/
In reply to Athanasius:
I’ve just watched a tv program about covid and apparently the situation in Brazil is especially worrying. There are several Brazilian variants vying for supremacy there and they are hitting younger people particularly hard, A large proportion (compared to the situation elsewhere) in intensive care are under 40 years old. I don’t take notes watching the telly but I expect you could find the precise figures somewhere.
As they insisted heavily Brazil has become a stewpot of viruses, largely unchecked, and that is why it is so important to wipe out covid worldwide quickly. There’s simply no time to test and retest and be 100% sure of each new vaccine, the stakes are so high in that if a completely uncontrollable and virulent variant does come along before we’d be in catastrophe movie land.
Get your facts checked and double check them. Remember the Ward Sister that lied to the BBC (Adrian Chiles) that her children’s ward was riddled with Covid. The BBC had to apologise. Fake Chinese photographs of bodies in the street.
Always look at all cause deaths.
I remain convinced, as I was at the first news of yet another viral massacre that failed to happen, (SARS 1) and the annual mediafest of the NHS in crisis, that what we are seeing is a seasonal virus, very unpleasant but in the long run social distancing, masks and vaccines will not defeat it as effectively as common sense and good general health of the population.
That doesn’t seem to be the case in France, this third round, caused mainly by the arrival of the Kent variant, is very bad, intensive care beds are 20% over full, I suppose that means ordinary beds are being used and the system is at breaking point The 7 day average is over 30 000 new cases and peaked at 85 000 cases on the 8th and 324 deaths over the last 24 hours. It doesn’t look like it’s going to go away on its own, I’m afraid.
” suppose that means ordinary beds are being used and the system is at breaking point “
Some sources would be interesting. Systems have been at alleged breaking point before but never actually break.
Remember a +ve test is not a case, and is not an illness.
To Ben McDonnel
Any French news source will give you confirmation, France Info, for example… or on google look at “Actualités”.
https://news.google.com/topstories?tab=rn&hl=fr&gl=FR&ceid=FR:fr
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/
Ben
“Remember a +ve test is not a case, and is not an illness.”
Everybody knows that, it is not a new discovery by you. However every hospital admission with a positive test and symptoms and clinical findings of Covid-19 are genuine cases of a nasty new virus, whether you like it or not. These facts were established very early on by the WHO who named the virus SARS cov2 and the disease Covid-19.
And Ben, for a comprehensive update, try this:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
Athanasius – “It’s the holier than thou virtue signalling of a generation which does not do good deeds itself but expects government to do them for it. “
Speak for yourself, please; imputation of others’ motives is very rude.
I put a lot of effort into providing reasoned argument on this site. I rarely cite the so-called “MSM” which I regard as crap; mostly I cite graphs and data, and I apply reasoning and critical thought. I do this as a good deed, as education to help avert the widespread extreme suffering and unnecessary premature death that would result from an uncontrolled infection wave.
The “it only kills the old and frail” soundbite outrages me because it is such a callous way of misleading the gullible. It is archetypal divide and conquer.
Sorry, I had to stop at the ‘immoral’ position statement. For a highly smart, compassionate man, you need to do more work on what these new vaccines actually are, and how many people are falling sick with them. Most people aren’t getting covid and never did; only those dying were mostly very old and very sick; it’s considered a ‘mild’ virus by even pernicious people like the Schwab brigade. Natural treatments and cures exist and are being used all over the world. Vaccines are a specialist topic, like everything, and can’t just be generalized, and then thrown into a morality statement.
– “Most people aren’t getting covid and never did; only those dying were mostly very old and very sick”
Consider the possibility that you have been misled. A friend’s work colleague who died of covid was 63. I have three vulnerable friends; in their teens, 30s and 40s. None are “very sick” but all have conditions managed by ongoing medication – but their conditions make them vulnerable to covid.
The pre-existing conditions that make people vulnerable to covid are very common among the population.
@ Craig,
Whilst what you say about the current state of COVID-19 is as far as we can tell broadly true, you fail to make clear a couple of points, though you do allude to one. Which is that what we know about COVID rapidly changes, but you do not point out sufficiently clearly that things said and actions caried out today are based on what are in effect historical observations, thus their rightness or wrongness should be judged not by what is known today but what was known at the time, which itsself was from a time rapidly passed.
Put more simply, when things change quickly everything you do or say is out of date before you do it, and we should not judge harshly, unless we can see other evidence to do so (for which unfortunately there is more than enough to go around at the political and personal levels).
Which brings me onto the second point, the course of a SARS-CoV-2 infection is quite different from other corona virus infections in humans. In that you become infected, then infectious, and shed virus to majorly infect others before you really become symptomatic or if unlucky eventually go on to die. This oddity has as we are finding a fairly serious consequence. Normally evolutionary pressure causes infections to become less lethal as killing a host before they have shed the virus to infect others is not a good survival of the species option for the virus. So the trend is more often towards less lethality as a virus mutates, but because with SARS-CoV-2 and it’s strains having caused virus shedding long before it kills the host this downwards evolutionary process is not present in an effective manner.
Thus the B117 variant found in Kent but which could have come by truck driver etc from just about anywhere – remember UK at the time was doing about 45% of the genomic testing in the world – is certainly more transmissible, slightly more lethal but also appears to have shifted that down the age range by five to ten years, so effects a younger population.
If we look at the P1 variant of concern (VoC) from Brazil we see people not only getting re-infected but also the deaths in the 30–50 year olds is significantly increased, again it has evolved down to where it can find viable hosts.
Both B117 and P1 are apparently becoming dominant wherever they are found and B117 is the main VoC in Continental Europe and the US. P1 is known to be in Sweden and suspected in other parts of Europe. It’s also suspected to be in the US but their genomic test rate is so low it is very unlikely it would be detected until its community spread is almost certainly assured and it is spreading like wildfire.
Then there is the problem of the South African variant it appears slightly less infectious than B117, but some lab tests suggest the vaccines are less effective against it, thus the herd immunity by vaccination less assured.
Oh, one other thing to consider… This past flu season was expected to be quite nasty thus fairly lethal. But due to COVID restrictions it has not happened. Likewise many accidents etc have not happened due to lockdown. Therefore we need to be careful when observing less deaths compared to the five year average. Without a lot more data that is not yet available it could be easy to make a false correlation and actually miss the direct cause, which might just be the increased health benefits of “Hands, Face, Space, and Ventilate” against other pathogens along with lockdowns causing fewer accidents etc.
Whilst I know the above sounds critical and it is in a technical sense, it is not in any way meant to be personal. I happen to think you do a very good job, and I wish that both you and I outlive SARS-CoV-2 and all its variants.
“Discrimination against people on the grounds of their health status is not acceptable”
It is acceptable, and it happens all the time. For example, pubs and restaurants may refuse to serve people who are clearly intoxicated with drugs and/or alcohol (surely that describes their current health status). Fairground attractions may refuse rides to heavily pregnant women or people with certain injuries or disabilities because it may not be suitable for them. I could go on, but you get the picture. Health and safety has been valid grounds for discrimination based on health status for a very long time.
The best way to resist vaccine passports is to refuse to be vaccinated. The more people are not vaccinated, the harder it will be to institute a vaccine passport system.
I am 74 years old with several comorbidities, so I am vulnerable to covid (although I take lots of vitamins C and D and have stocked up on ivermectin, zinc, and quercitin as a precaution). But what I think morality dictates is to refuse to be vaccinated.
Anyone that believes the government should force people to be vaccinated is an idiot.
Look at the covid deaths in most parts of Africa- Non existent.
This pandemic is just a scam, people dying from car accidents and gunshot wounds are been recorded as covid deaths.
For those of you taking the vaccine, get ready to take 20 more doses. It’ll never stop now.
There is a logical flaw in the argument: “How much of this fall is due to vaccination and how much due to lockdown is an open question.” The Covid death rate was always expected to reach a peak around new year and then fall steeply, reaching close to zero in early April. This was clearly shown on 3 of the 4 graphs on the notorious slide shown in the Halloween press briefing just before MPs voted on the second lockdown. The slide got a lot of attention because of the shroud-waving scenario of 4000 going on 6000 deaths per day in the PHE/Cambridge model, which was already out of line with reality when first shown. However these “no-lockdown” scenarios all agreed that the death rate would fall steeply in the new year, quite naturally, and without any special measures. There is therefore no need to attribute this to either the January lockdown or the vaccinations. To do so is to buy into the delusion of control which is responsible for so much harm over the last year. We are now at the tail end of the entirely natural downslope of the epidemic curve, as predicted by the government’s own preferred modellers. To claim this as a triumph of public policy is profoundly dishonest.