Correction to the above. The more you look at the graphs, the more you begin to wonder whether there was a small second wave in September, which started to subside before being overwhelmed by a third wave in November. Anyway does it matter? The lockdown sceptics are still doing battle with the zealots, to no-one’s great credit I think. The truth about all of that is somewhere in the middle.
What else? The BMJ has popped up another opinion piece suggesting that ethnic predisposition, and its recognition, means that Covid-19 has “brought into sharp focus the burning ethnic injustices in our society”. Nothing about genetic predisposition; just socio-economic nonsense, although one cannot argue with the concept that some parts of healthcare may be compromised by racism. I have raised the genetic flag before, but nobody seems to have seen it.
And the vaccine spat… how pathetic is the EU’s petulant response to the fact that it failed miserably to organise contracts for vaccine delivery. It’s like a small child lying down in a supermarket aisle and screaming until its mother buys it the sweets it wanted. What ever happened to “business is business”? EU, you got caught on the hop. Don’t cry over spilt milk. Deal with your problem in an adult way. Otherwise… if we can’t have your vaccine, you can’t have ours. So there. It is not particularly edifying to see President Macron on France in the van of this charge, especially when he was hanging on to launch the French vaccine – which doesn’t, it seems, work. Bad luck, Mister.
Meanwhile I am sad to see that an anti-lockdown sceptics website has appeared, which is launching personal attacks of the scientists and clinicians who have been sceptical not only of lockdowns but of many other things official. So far I appear to have stayed beneath their radar, though I was moved to respond to some of their claims. I sent the following, which as it is a bit anti I am sure they will not publish (see www.covidfaq.co – not that there’s much there and it doesn’t appear to have been update for a week). But still, I suppose it encourages debate. I wrote:
I was interested to find your site. For some facts (and opinions) you might like to look at my blog, which you will find at https://bamjiinrye.wordpress.com.
Lockdowns do not work, at least not in the way that they are supposed to work, in other words by eliminating the virus. That is an impossibility unless you impose a complete lockdown, stop anyone going out, stop anyone coming in to the country and isolate all hospital and care home staff from the outside world until all the current cases have been discharged. So the only thing that a lockdown will achieve is a reduction in spread. But, here and there, it will pop up again, as apparently has just happened in China. That reduction will reduce hospital admissions, of course, but are there really more “cases”? In absolute numbers there are. However in relative numbers there are not, apart from a small blip at the turn of the year. You determine the relative number by the percentage of tests that are positive. 50,000 cases sounds dreadful. However, if you have done 500,000 tests then the picture is no different from finding 10,000 positives from 100,000 tests. In fact the latest gov.uk figures are 30,004 positives from 665,330 tests. The percentage is little different from other European nations. It just looks worse in terms of “cases” because we have done more tests. And in any event it is false to claim that a positive test represents a case, false positives notwithstanding, because of the way PCR tests are being done. You should be aware that the PCR test was not designed for use in the way it is currently being used.
Two other points. Firstly the ethnic differences in outcome are almost certainly genetic. See my blog for more details. Secondly, because “The Science” has been hidebound in defining SARS-CoV-2 as a new virus, and thus believing that Covid-19 is a new disease, it has ignored all the evidence that severe disease is identical to the cytokine storm provoked by a large number of triggers – including old coronaviruses. The insistence of doing trials on things like dexamethasone has in my view caused many unnecessary deaths because appropriate treatment, though available, was not given – and indeed I cannot find out whether people are being correctly tested for deterioration, or treated correctly once they get sick.
I have tried to engage with the government and DoH – from a position of substantial clinical knowledge – with total lack of success. My position is that Covid-19 is a serious condition regardless of nitpicking over IFR and CFR but it is being diagnosed late and undertreated. So far my recommendations have been partly adopted but only nine months after I made them and almost certainly in spite of them rather than because of them. Again, see my blog for April and May 2020. You do your pro-government stance no favours by attacking sceptics for errors in prediction while ignoring the errors of officialdom. Motes and beams. Yes, we all make mistakes. Yes, the science changes. There is a duty of all to admit mistakes and respond to changes in the science. Can you truly argue that Ferguson’s initial predictions of numbers was accurate? Can you argue in favour of clinical trials with drugs whose efficacy has already been long-established? Given the uncertainty over whether reported deaths are from Covid or with Covid can you justify the daily toll of deaths to five significant figures?
News just out; REGEN-COV, which is a monoclonal antibody (given experimentally to our old friend Trump) appears to be highly effective. Only an early analysis of 400 patients, but at least the UK is on the curve this time with a trial of 2000 or so patients. If it proves to be true we now have three lines of defence – vaccines (which provoke antibody formation and may prime T-cells for longer immunity), this cocktail of two antibodies which may stop the virus in its track before it provokes a cytokine storm, and then steroids and interleukin blockade (plus or minus ivermectin) for the storm itself (and for ivermectin possibly for both those last bits).
Are we getting there at last?
The Wry Observer 