By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The Chinese-virus lockdown benchmarch test that was introduced here yesterday compares the mean daily compound growth rates in Chinese-virus infections for 12 countries and for the world excluding China, whose case and death statistics are demonstrably and deliberately understated. The growth rates are the mean rates for the successive seven-day periods ending on dates from March 14, when Mr Trump declared a national emergency, until yesterday.
In my first post, two days ago, tables showing benchmark mean rates averaged over the three weeks immediately preceding March 14 were published.
From today, the results of the benchmark test will be published daily in the form of a simple graph that allows visual comparison of the various territories’ performances over time. The benchmark graph shows that the various policies adopted by nearly all governments to inhibit transmission of the infection appear to be beginning to work. Spain, Italy and Norway (the last of these added to this analysis today at the request of a Norwegian commenter justifiably proud of the effectiveness of his nation’s response to the emergency) are doing particularly well in bringing the case growth rate down. South Korea remains far and away the most efficient country at controlling the pandemic.
Fig. 1. Mean compound daily growth rates in confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection for the world excluding China (red) and for 12 individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from March 14 to April 3, 2020.
Why does this graph matter? The reason is simple. Already, young and active people frustrated by being cooped up indoors when they would rather be in the open air are beginning to question whether there should be lockdowns at all. Would it not be better to allow everyone to acquire immunity, and to accept the large resulting loss of life among the old and infirm, rather than enduring not only the heavy economic cost but also the loss of freedom inherent in what, in some countries, amounts to near-universal house arrest?
If lockdowns are justifiable, they are only justifiable if they can be clearly demonstrated to be working. At the moment, in the world as a whole and in nearly all of the individual nations tracked here, the trend in daily growth rates is downward. Up to a point, the lockdowns are working. In some countries, at least, a disastrous tide of serious cases overwhelming the hospitals and exhausting and infecting the doctors and nurses may yet be averted, but only if the lockdowns are kept firmly in place.
The spring has sprung, just as always
There are only two exceptions to the general downtrend in mean daily compound case growth rates: France, where cases have jumped and it looks as though a rebasing of the statistics may have taken place in recent days, and Sweden, where there is no general lockdown, though a few comparatively mild restrictions on mass meetings are in place. At present Sweden is doing quite well even without a lockdown, but its population is considerably less dense than those of most countries surveyed here.
But how can we tell that the reason for the decline in the mean daily growth rate is truly attributable to governments’ efforts to inhibit transmission, rather than to the gradual acquisition of immunity throughout the population? In the absence of universal testing, we cannot definitively say that it is the lockdowns that are bringing the pandemic painfully and still too slowly under control. It is possible, given that the true number of infections is known to be 10-1000 times greater than those reported, that in some countries a general population immunity is being acquired. However, until universal testing is available, we cannot know that for sure, and it would not be safe for anyone to act on that assumption. We do, however, know that lockdowns – if adhered to – are bound to reduce the rate of transmission.
And that is the purpose of these daily updates: to reveal, day by day, whether and to what extent the lockdowns are working. If the data over the next crucial two or three weeks show that the lockdowns are not working, governments will have to rethink their positions. However, if the lockdowns are working, they will have to be maintained until the exit strategy that I shall now outline is ready.
Why must the lockdowns be maintained? Italy, the first nation to introduce a determined lockdown, and Norway have both reduced their daily case growth rates to about 5%. But if that rate were to persist, in just two weeks they would have twice as many cases as they do today. In the United States, Canada, England and France, the daily case growth rate is still around 15%. If that rate were to persist, case counts would double in only five days.
What, then, should governments’ exit strategy be? The woeful lack of preparedness on the part of most nations is exemplified not only by the useless World Death Organization, whose dismal director is a fawning, soon-to-be-sacked lickspittle lackey of the Chinese Communist regime, which actively and openly campaigned for his nomination to the post, but also by the pandemic preparedness team who were rightly dismissed by Mr Trump two years ago, for they had plainly failed to make the necessary preparations that South Korea, for instance, had had the prudence and foresight to make. What was needed above all, and what is still absent in most countries, is the capacity to test the entire population if necessary.
Three forms of testing are necessary, the first two of them at whole-population scale. The first is an antigen test, which looks for the presence of the pathogen. That test shows whether the subject is currently infected. The second, no less important, is an antibody test, which shows whether the subject, having previously been infected, is now resistant to the pathogen.
The third test, which, like the antibody test, is serological, preferably using the polymerase chain reaction method, is capable of detecting not only whole virions in the blood but also, where a successful method of either boosting the immune system so that it destroys the offending particles or of destroying them chaotropically has been found, the fragments of the destroyed pathogens. This form of serological testing does not need to be done at population scale, though where it is available it yields more precise results than the quick and easy swab tests now being performed. But it is a vital research tool.
The greatest failure of public-health policy on the part of the various quangos expensively maintained to protect us from pandemics lies in the failure of Public Health England, the late U.S. pandemic response team, the World Death Organization et hoc genus omne to ensure that sufficient supplies of reagents, swabs, testing kits, analysis machines and personal protective equipment were available to test the entire population.
Social distancing? Nah!
Yes, maintaining such supplies comes at a cost. But it was not the cost of the U.S. pandemic unpreparedness team that led Mr Trump to sweep them away. It was that they were unprepared. True, it would have been better if he had replaced them with people who had some idea of what they were doing. But if they had done what they had been paid for decades to do, there would by now be warehouses brimful of the necessary stocks.
The first step in the Chinese-virus exit strategy, then, is purely logistical. Mr Johnson should sack the numpties at Public Death England and replace them with generals from the Royal Logistics Corps, who have more competence in finding what is needed and getting it to where it is needed when it is needed than anyone else on the planet. The United States Armed Forces also have wonderful logistics experts, and they are capable of handling problems such as the supply of materiel for testing programs and for personal protection on a wartime scale at a moment’s notice.
Mr Trump has, but has not yet fully used, the power to swing the Armed Forces, and particularly their excellent logistics arm, into full action. Frankly, he should delegate the logistical aspects to them at once. Mr Fauci, who is more than usually competent, can provide the necessary instructions on what is needed, and the Army will saddle up and go and get it.
In all countries currently under lockdown, honest assessments of the necessary manpower and material to test everyone both for antigens and for antibodies, and of the steps necessary to obtain and deploy them, should be drawn up forthwith and published. It has been painful watching the British Government’s spokesmen flannelling helplessly because even after all these weeks they simply have no idea when sufficient testing capacity will be available. By now they ought to know; and, if they want to command continuing support for lockdowns, they should be frank about what is needed and how long it will be before it is available. In a democracy it is better to keep the people informed than to hold out on them.
As soon as the logistics boys from the Armed Forces have sourced enough men and kit to test everyone, everyone should be tested, both for antigens and for antibodies.
Those infected should be isolated, and should not be allowed out even for shopping. Their necessary supplies should be delivered to them by people wearing adequate personal protective equipment. That will ensure that shops, which analysis of mobile-phone movements shows are the current chief meeting place and inferential source of transmission, cease to act more as centers of infection than of supply.
After two weeks, the infected should be tested again, and so on every week thereafter until they are free of infection and have passed the antibody test. All who have been unlucky enough to be infected but lucky enough to recover and show antibodies should be given certificates of immunity, valid for one year only (immunity cannot be relied upon after that), and released from lockdown provided they carry their certificates with them.
Those not yet infected should remain in isolation at home, and should go shopping only once a fortnight at an allocated time, so as to prevent overcrowding at the shops. If necessary, the shops will have to remain open 24 hours a day, with extra manpower provided. All shop workers should be provided with effective personal protective equipment.
Once the prevalence of infection has fallen back below 1% of population, the lockdown can be progressively eased, on the condition that wherever any new case emerges the most vigorous contact-tracing, testing and isolation of carriers is at once carried out in the fashion that South Korea, the paragon of best practice, has so ably demonstrated. Just look at the graph.
How long will all this take? Once the logistics boys get behind the wheel, it will take a lot less long than you might think. It is they, and not the failed public-death bureaucrats or the spectacularly innumerate politicians, who will be able to answer the timescale question.
Bottom line: It is not only possible but straightforward to bring this pandemic under control, at least at national level. The necessary steps are chiefly logistical. Of course the medico-scientific community has a role not only in caring for the sick and dying but also in researching a vaccine. But even in the absence of a vaccine (and we still can’t cure the common cold, so don’t hold your breath for one: it may come soon or it may not), this pandemic can and will be brought to an end. But it will not be brought to an end by the faff and flimflam we have had from our politicians and public-death bureaucrats to date. It will be brought to an end by people who know how to organize their way out of a paper bag. Have courage, then, get yourself some biker gear (it’s all half price at present), and keep safe.
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Something about COVID (from the UK government) that isn’t strictly relevant to this thread, but which does suggest that it’s different from other pneumonia-causing conditions:
https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/76a7364b-4b76-ea11-9124-00505601089b
It seems that this virus has a racist tendency (see page 4 of the report). The darker your skin, the more vulnerable you are. I won’t offer any political comment.
There have been anecdotal hints in the UK of more serious cases among the dark skinned, it may simply be vitamin D from sunlight, the dark skinned are at the wrong latitude.
If you are dark skinned, or know someone who is, get some sunlight, AND vitamin D supplements.
At this time of year, one would have to be pretty far south to get any significant amount of UVB.
In response to Mr Lock, the reason why the Chinese virus harms non-white to a greater degree than white people is that it is susceptible to Vitamin D3. The darker skins of those not indigenous to temperature regions where there is little sunshine is not as efficient at converting sunlight to Vitamin D3 as the white skins we have evolved to do just that.
Therefore, if you know of anyone who is not white and either wishes to avoid infection or to manage symptoms, advise them to take 1000 international units (25 mcg) Vitamin D3 in the form of a gel tablet once daily. As always, they should check with their doctors first (I am not qualified to give medical advice), but I have been taking this supplementation for many years and have not had so much as a cold. Martineau et al. (2017) have established that, particularly where there is Vitamin D3 deficiency, taking this daily tablet (rather than none at all or a weekly bolus) will greatly reduce the chance of acquiring respiratory or pulmonary infections, and will reduce the severity of the symptoms where they occur. The study was a meta-analysis of clinical trials involving more than 10,000 patients.
In reply to:
Vaccines will not work, as we would have to isolate and culture every single covi out there and they do change over time. We need to work on good and effective treatments for covi symptoms when they are severe and treat the flu season as we always have, but with better hygiene habits than we have practiced until now.
I do not want to live in a country were we must all wear masks and be frighten of public gatherings.
Also the solution is not that we need millions of respirators and more ICU beds.
So use artificial optimized antibodies that can be developed in four weeks to stop the dangerous viruses. As I noted this was done for Ebola, the most deadly virus on the planet which now has a 96% cure rate.
An alternative is to develop a universal vaccine.
I agree we are at war.
Yes, military people who been taught how to get things done quick and effective should be moved into key positions.
One of the key positions is a small lab in the US. There should be a young General there with lots of money who is bringing in key people to scale up the operation.
When one wants to have a certain outcome, then it’s working the way it should. Especially if we do a Keyes and toss Sweden out. After all, isnt’ that what people do with epidemiological data that’s trying to measure such superbly defined probability spaces as the world of humans?
I think we are being ignored in your statistics and commentary Down Under but our statistics are quite impressive.
Coronavirus Cases:
5,795
Deaths:
41
Recovered:
2,432
Our active cases are just 3398 and easily managed.
There is a middle way without a total shutdown.
We do have a shut down in Oz.
Oz is also very fortunate in that we have few cities, spread very far apart. It’s much easier to stop the spread if the nearest equivalent town is 500km away.
Seasonal? Low now and high, very high soon?
Really depends on your communities population density. The more dense the population the more cases you’ll see, and the quicker it’ll spread. So in a densely populated city, like NY for example, a total shutdown makes more sense than somewhere sparsely populated where you have to drive miles just to meet your neighbor. On the flip side, shutting down NYC will also bring with it a bigger economic hit than shutting down a one-horse town in the middle of nowhere would.
Boris Johnson now in intensive care unit.
I am starting to see a longer and longer list of well known people who are sick or have died.
… and he has a tube stuck down his throat.
I do not find that acceptable for the new norm. I do not want any of my friends and family with tubes stuck down their throats.
I saw my mother die with a tube stuck down her throat. I would not recommend that death for anyone. Your chance of survival increases if you stay awake. You cannot talk, just hold hands.
… and with this new novel disease Covid-19. It should be renamed Monster-1. It so very special.
It feels like my country is under attack. Our economy has been hit by a sledge hammer. We are forced to isolate. People are trying not to wear masks.
I not want to live in a country where everyone is frighten of a deadly monstrous virus and must wear a mask.
This virus outbreak feels exactly like an act of war. It feels like my country has been attacked with a war weapon.
Where the heck did this monstrous virus come from?
This is not the cold. The flu.
How come the Chinese government has paid ads on Facebook saying the US made this virus. We know that is impossible. We live in a real democracy.
This feels like a monstrous attack on way of life
The US did not make Covid-19.
Everyone knows that the Chinese government lies. I know it, you know it, the Chinese people know it and certainly the Chinese government knows it. So your question why is a good one.
“… and he has a tube stuck down his throat.”
Are you sure? I read only that he was on oxygen.
Intensive Care, or just in hospital?
Fearmongering much?
Fact checking much?
ICU.
Fearmongering?
Is that what you call it when people pass along breaking news?
I know this whole thing is very stressful for many.
People reveal who they really are when under stress.
It is quite instructive.
I am not sure why such news should be taken as fearful, for one thing.
He is prominent and a leader, but just one more person, ultimately.
We already know viruses do not avoid people who are famous or rich or powerful or important.
I should stop wondering why so many people do not even bother to make sure they know what they are talking about before commenting.
Wow, I was saying earlier it must be serious for him to have accepted hospitalisation. It’s going to cause a shockwave if he dies.
“I am starting to see a longer and longer list of well known people who are sick or have died.”
DUH.
OK, I take that back. I just read that he is now in ICU.
The conspiracy of ignorance, experts agreeing that they don’t know. The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.
The conspiracy of ignorance, experts agreeing that they don’t know. The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.
It seems to me that if you want to look at it that way, the scientific method itself is a “conspiracy of ignorance.”
As is the criminal justice system.
A couple of useful stats (to stir the soup):
The percentage of people imposing/supporting strict lockdown who stand to lose their jobs/businesses or will have a cut in income?
The percentage of people who will/have lost their jobs/businesses who support lockdown?
Business failure is one of the driving forces behind suicide
M
I personally feel the whole Corona-virus panic is overblown almost as much as the whole Global Warming panic. The economic costs are likely parallel to date. But the interesting thing is the herd mentality of “panic”. Even the movie “Jaws” had people I knew afraid to enter the waters at the beach! Now as far as most politicians go ….. they are in a class to themselves.
Yes, but in this war politicians and their army of bureaucrats are in the front line too. Hence they run for cover
The difference between this and global warming is that in this case politicians and celebrities have acted – not just signalled their virtue.
Remember the little boy could only cry “Wolf!” when a real wolf appeared.
Sweden is less dense than Norway or Ireland for example. I think we have to better to explain Swedens results away.
“Ηοw Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Makes Sense: And why it may not be applicable in other countries — a Swedish doctor’s perspective.”
https://medium.com/@yannis_freddy13/how-swedens-coronavirus-strategy-makes-sense-2f07f69df2f2
If Boris Johnson had been given hydrochloquine with azythromycin and zinc weeks ago he would not be in Hospital now. Tells you much about Great Britain stupid NH laws regulating drug use especially in emergencies I bet you they did not even think of it. Fortunately The USA and nearly all USA (Louisiana in Particular) states are rapidly dosing HCQ to many covid patients and incidence is declining. Finally Cuomo in NY is allowing urgent treatments with HCQ watch this space cheer up fellow humans. My 2 cents worth this will be over in two weeks and then history will record it as a severe case flu where billions were flouted for nothing
In terms of deaths is NOT EVEN severe case flu .
When was the last time political leaders, actors, doctors, etc, died by the dozens in one month from the flu?
Duh!
The “dozens of refrigerator trucks full of corpses in New York City” flu.
Catchy name at least.
ChiCom-19 season isn’t over yet, Greg. we won’t know the final toll till it is. It certainly has spread at a faster rate than any typical flu season. You don’t typically get hospitals crying out because they’re being overwhelmed with Flu cases like they are, in the hardest hit areas, for ChiCom-19. You don’t typically have to call up hospital ships to handle the overflow of cases, like NY needed for ChiCom-19.
John
You said, “It certainly has spread at a faster rate than any typical flu season.” Do you have any evidence for that claim? The graphs I have seen for seasonal flu appear very similar, with a sharp peak around February. I think that you opinion is colored by what the MSM is reporting (and NOT reporting in previous years).
The ships weren’t actually “needed” when they left for their current dockings. They were anticipated to be needed. They currently don’t have many beds filled and it remains to be seen whether the action was truly needed.
Clyde go visit the Hospitals in the hardest hit areas (or talk to the medical staff there) like NYC. They are *not* experiencing “regular flu season” level of patients. Very far from it. Don’t let what contrarians are reporting color your opinion.
We are at war and we are losing.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/04/06/coronavirus-prime-minister-boris-johnson-under-intensive-care-in-london-hospital/
This Jacob Glanville I mention, is the only person on the planet that is actively contributing to two new fields of science and one is AI Virus Manufacturing and Altering.
He is in two American Documentaries, An HBO documentary on The Threat of AI and a second NetFlix documentary on Pandemics.
In the HBO documentary on AIs, Glanville noted that it is now possible to ‘evolve’ a virus using a representation of the virus and a representation of human microbiological interactions.
This new field of science is called: AI Virus Manufacturing
Jacob Glanville has a virus computer record of all known viruses.
The monstrous covid-19 has virus segments from three different species,
..one of the three virus segments shows evidence that it has been created using the virus AI computer to evolve it to more efficiently attack humans.
I had previously thought this virus could have been created by some rouge billionaire. That is impossible, as it is not possible to ‘evolve’ a piece of virus without an AI or it happening in humans.
A Chinese new story just released today:
They have other fake stories for fall back.
US made it. Not possible because in the US it is not possible to make and us a war crime weapon. That actually is one of the worst crimes possible.
Accident release from a lab. That is not possible because the story must explain the human evolution of bat virus segment.
Chinese Story just released today.
There must have been a small group of people who have been living with bats. They picked up the bat virus. The bat virus then evolved in the bat people.
The virus from the bat people must then travel to the Wuhan live food market where it must jump out of the bat people and latched onto two other viruses, one of which is from a different species.
That is absolutely physically impossible to have happened.
The virus community which Glanville is part of are now starting to talk about the implications of that fact.
We need to get into the game.
Are you the last person who believes that no one in the darker corners of the state machine ever breaks the law? Geez..
Not your most convincing argument.
It was almost certainly an accidental leaks, the question is what did they leak. Quite possibly a bioweapon, it does seem conveniently efficient and is close to having shut down the economies of the west and taken out the PM of H.M. Government.
If China had not screwed up at the lab and waited until they had a vaccine ( maybe already rolled out under the guise of a flu jab ) it would have been a formidable weapon.
William
The virus from the bat people must then travel to the Wuhan live food market where it must jump out of the bat people and latched onto two other viruses, one of which is from a different species.
That is absolutely physically impossible to have happened.
If biology teaches you anything it is “never say never”.
OK some things won’t happen, like teleportation or lasers zapping from eyes.
But among viruses and bacteria your incredulity has no basis – billions of recombinations are happening every second and anything that can happen eventually will, given the connectivity.
Covid is a bat-pangolin chimaera, all in a days work for microbial evolution.
Take it from the cunning conspirators themselves:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200317175442.htm
Exaggerated incredulity at nature’s mechanisms can lead to irrational conclusions.
Because living processes are amazingly complex and unpredictable it doesn’t mean we need to retreat from the complexity into tidy religious dogmas.
For instance it is the main tactic of divine creationists to take advantage of the difficulty in finding out what exactly happened to fossil creatures hundreds of millions of years ago, and also the difficulty in unravelling molecular genetics of evolution, to say “it’s all conspiratorial nonsense” and retreat to a belief in a young earth and creation of complexity from nothing by magic.
Ummm, USA almost for sure.
Probably accidental, maybe in the Fort Detrick flood back in Aug ’19 that destroyed their steam effluent treatment plant, replaced by an inferior chemical effluent treatment. Really worth some google exploration.
Just google CDC and Fort Detrick and leaks and CDC shutdown and also (yet another mysterious microbiologist death) Dr Mark Buller. He was making mousepox vaccines that killed previously vaccinated mice.
Almost certainly from Biodefence (Bioweapon) research in a leaky USA facility, or Twelve Monkeys lunatic terrorism.
TYPO sorry…
‘He was making mousepox virii..
Fort Detrick flood in August 2019 destroys the steam effluent treatment system, never rebuilt but kept operating.
A month or so later, unexplained ‘vaping lung deaths’ in the USA.
This was accidental leak from illegal but tolerated US bioweapon research.
Here is another idea to break the log jam. Nitric Oxide was discovered to open blood vessels, and it was instrumental in developing a medication to save “Blue Babies” by opening up their lungs and blood vessels and also led to the development of VIAGRA because of its ability to open up the blood vessels that cause ….oh, c’mon, I don’t need to explain what causes an erection…..anyway, it is being used in a control group for the Chi-Com Kung Flu Manchu, and so far, the group using it have shown much improvement.
SO, we need to get a movement going to make the government give all the older men in the danger demographic FREE VIAGRA! It may not cure them of the virus, but it will keep them from rolling out of bed.
Genetic Viagra is now dirt cheap.
Go to GoodRX.
Less than a dollar.
We are not fighting a war against this virus governments cannot stop people dying from illness anymore than they can stop the climate from changing what we have is lying politicians who are trying to control what the public think governments can do. The public have willingly been convinced that if they get this virus they will die so that rather than “herd immunity” we now have herd madness created by the media reporting on every single death and infection, this is not the Falklands war even though the public are stockpiling supplies like we are facing a nuclear war. the NHS would rather put resources into illness which raise their prospect of getting more money from the government or the public. I would like to get on with my life and I don’t care about the small chance of dying from this virus. This hysteria happened before in winter 1999-2000 when the media convinced the public they were going to die from a new strain of flu and my elderly mother died because I could not get treatment for her over the Christmas holiday other than some tablets.
The small percentage who d!e has been clearly stated all along.
No one has told the public everyone d!es. That is just fake news from someone accusing others off fake news.
If anyone thought what you assert, it is out of ignorance or not paying attention.
If course, on this blog are many who pooh pooh the whole thing as a case of sniffles and vivid imagination, while others are certain it is a bioweapon created by some nefarious evil genius, while still others are certain doctors all around the world are intentionally letting the patients they are caring for perish slowly and agonizingly, rather than give them anything that will not benefit their pals in big pharma.
It is also true that the de@th rate is only part of the story.
No one wants to get viral pneumonia and need to be hospitalized, not even if they ultimately live.
And no one wants to be responsible for de@ths, hence cancellation of the NBA, MLB, Disney, etc.
Add to all of that the well known tendency for people to be unable to internalize the actual relative risks of various things.
We exaggerate some risks, and minimize others that are sometimes actually a far more likely thing, than ones we pay little mind to.
Some people are afraid to fly, but smoke cigarettes and drive way too fast.
Go figure.
Am I the only one who thinks coronavirus will burn itself out when it can’t infect anyone else?
Am I the only one who thinks lockdowns and social distancing are just ways of pretending this virus can be defeated, and once the lockdowns end the virus will carry on infecting people until it burns out?
Am I the only one who thinks the cure is worse than the disease, and anyone putting their faith in lockdowns and social distancing as a way of avoiding exposure to the virus are just fooling themselves?
Am I the only one who thinks this virus has been around for long enough to have already been exposed to most of the population?
Am I the only one to think that by the time the British get their act together and start testing properly for the virus it will be too late and the virus will already be fading away?
In 2016 in Britain, nearly 162,000 people died of flu, yet not a word was said about it anywhere in Britain, least of all the NHS, the Tory government and the mass media. As of today, April 6th, 5,373 people have died of the virus and everybody talks of little else.
Strangely enough, people do die in Britain every day.
Causes Of Death in Britain (2016)
Coronary Heart Disease 380,367
Alzheimer’s/Dementia 364,981
Stroke 190,236
Lung Cancers 183,161
Lung Disease 162,859
Influenza and Pneumonia 161,978 (This information has never appeared anywhere in the entire British mainstream media.)
Colon-Rectum Cancers 94,811
Breast Cancer 66,860
Prostate Cancer 63,429 (But that’s Okay. It’s only MEN dying.)
Lymphomas 46,246
Britain, 2018 (ONS)
Road deaths: 1,770
Seriously injured: 26,610
(These were mostly young people in the best of health.)
In 2017, 6,507 people committed suicide in Britain.
Compare those trivial numbers with the current obsession: COVID-19
Total infected (23 Mar. 20): 6,650 (0.0098114257254196% of the British population)
Deaths: 335 (0.00049425979218279% of the British population)
These were mostly old people with a lot of underlying medical problems.
Equally, the entire mainstream British media can take a bow for resolutely turning a blind eye to every instance of Tory policies that have proved so lethal to hundreds of thousands of British citizens.
Avoidable deaths, Britain, 2017/18: There were 33,464 avoidable deaths (December 1 to mid-February).
By the end of March 2018 the number of avoidable deaths rose to 49,410 – the highest for 18 years.
17,000 people died due to cold housing. Britain has one of the worst records on cold homes-related deaths in Europe.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2018to2019provisionaland2017to2018final
In the winters 2011/12 – 2017/18 there were 190,960 excess winter deaths, of which 57,288 were caused by cold homes.
In 2018 alone, 22% of all deaths in Britain were avoidable (138,293 deaths out of 616,014).
https://www.e3g.org/news/media-room/17000-people-in-the-uk-died-last-winter-due-to-cold-housing
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/923627/UK-health-death-cold-flu-pneumonia-stroke-heart-attack-avoidable-deaths-met-office-weather
Excess winter mortality in England and Wales 2018-2019
There were an estimated 23,200 excess deaths in England and Wales for the winter 2018/19.
There were 120,000-200,000 deaths caused directly by the Tories’ cutting off of unemployment benefits between 2010 and 2020.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/tory-austerity-deaths-study-report-people-die-social-care-government-policy-a8057306.html
That’s a minimum of 120,000 deaths of benefit claimants that this same Tory government and the Department for Work and Pensions actually admit to. God knows what the real figure is.
Where was outraged and hysterical British mainstream media when all this was happening? I Can’t remember so much as one headline or programme about any of this.
Sasha makes the elementary mistake of comparing total deaths from other causes with deaths to date, during the early stages of a pandemic, before exponential growth brings the rate up to dangerous levels. Fortunately, those dangerous levels may now be averted, because – little though one or two commenters here like it – lockdowns work in pandemics for the obvious reason: they reduce the number of social interactions, and hence the opportunities for transmission of the infection.
it is fascinating to see all manner of ingenious attempts to say this virus doesn’t really matter, won’t make any difference etc., etc., which ignore this simple and ineluctable epidemiological fact: until a significant fraction of the population is infected, the infection will spread exponentially unless that growth is interfered with. Lockdowns interfere with it. If the fatalities from the Chinese virus remain few, that will be largely thanks to the control measures that governments have introduced.
And she makes the additional mistake of not realizing that quarantines will cut down on deaths from other causes, like accidents and even ordinary flu.
Alternate theory that fits the data better:
The high early death rates seen in developed countries were people who were already hospitalized for other conditions and CAUGHT THE CORONAVIRUS IN THE HOSPITAL.
The central air systems in our hospitals are not up to the challenge of sanitizing coronavirus.
“The high early death rates seen in developed countries were people who were already hospitalized for other conditions and CAUGHT THE CORONAVIRUS IN THE HOSPITAL.”
No sorry. Not in Korea,
In Korea the spread was largely from a single intense christian church denomination / sect.
That made tracking very easy – not much detective wok needed to track them.
detective work (Freudian slip?)
It is surprising to watch Mr. Monckton attempt to rewrite history to cast Trump in the
best possible light. With regards the dismissal of the Pandemic response team the story
has gone from Trump stating:
’I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need ‘em’ ‘ on Feb. 26th
to
“I mean, you say we did that. I don’t know anything about it,” on March the 13th to
now stating that he fired the team for incompetence. Although it stills like an error not
to replace them in that case.
It is not really surprising Izaak, Trumpsters do it all the time. Blame everybody else, abuse, racism, vile descriptors of all but the Donald. It is all taurus excreter as far as I am concerned.
Tell how your favorite politician of choice would have managed this crisis better?
In response to Mr Walton, one does not continue to employ thousands of people who had failed to take any of the elementary steps necessary to prevent the current pandemic. Such people are indeed not need, for they are useless.
Mr Monckton sir;
One question I have is are the tests actually testing for SARS-CoV-2 or do they detect any corona virus? If the latter then the data is worse than useless.
I am interested in what they are actually testing for. The inventor of the PCR test doesn’t think it is a good test for specific strains.
The RT-PCR test which has been used is for the presence of unique RNA sequences of SARS-CoV-2.
The inventor of the PCR test doesn’t think it is a good test for specific strains.
Really? He died last year!
Those not yet infected should remain in isolation at home, and should go shopping only once a fortnight at an allocated time, so as to prevent overcrowding at the shops. If necessary, the shops will have to remain open 24 hours a day, with extra manpower provided.
And you can have a nice colourful armband to wear with your biker gear as you strut around demanding to see people’s immunity papers.
Fortunately, none of your demented ramblings will come about. The not particularly high numbers will drop regardless of policy because this respiratory disease will follow the usual course and decline with the warmer weather and general increased immunity. Indeed, the numbers are already dropping faster than “models” predicted.
Hopefully the economy won’t be too shredded by then and we’ll have some money to spend preparing for next winter’s viral nasties, of which SARS-CoV-2 will just become another member of.
All those without a valid immunity passport will have to wear a yellow star sewn onto their jacket and ring a bell as they walk around in public like lepers in the middle ages.
They will only be allowed to go shopping between 5am and 6am, this will be called “leper’s hour”.
‘They will only be allowed to go shopping between 5am and 6am, this will be called “leper’s hour”.’
Yes, the hollow sarcasm may harbour a bitter truth, if the human immunity to this is very weak or short lived, then this approach makes immense sense.
We know nothing about immunity to this virus yet.
PJF and Greg continue to snipe childishly from behind their cloak of poltroonish anonymity. Whether they like it or not, the governments whom I advise are indeed considering immunity cards for those who have recovered from the infection. As to the pathetic accusation of armbands and yellow stars, that is as contemptible as those who made it. Grow up, the pair of you, and realize that adults, not screaming children like you, are dealing with this pandemic, and are beginning – to your fury – to deal with it effectively.
As to the pathetic accusation of armbands…
Yes, it’s entirely outrageous that someone who just suggested that essentially the entire population should remain isolated under house arrest (permitted to leave once a fortnight for a government allocated shopping slot) should suffer a rhetorical aside that perhaps they might be just a little unhinged in the direction of dark uniforms. You should inform Interpol immediately.
– to your fury –
I am indeed furious that our idiot government has been bounced by hysterical projections from agenda driven scientists (with previous) into destroying our economy and restricting our liberties – over a disease that can’t even make itself seen in the latest ONS death-from-respiratory-diseases stats.
Oh, and please do list the governments you advise on this matter. Suggestions in an unsolicited letter don’t count, by the way.
‘Generally increased immunity’ – there speaks ignorance.
We can not make any assumptions about immunity, the disease is too new to know what sort of immunity those who recover gain. MERS had effectively zero immunity in survivors.
The lack of knowledge about immunity and transmissiblity only strength the case for immediate lockdowns while we gain critical knowledge. Anything less is irresponsible ignorance.
I regret that I was more adversarial than necessary in my comments on Lord Monckton’s first posting. Some of us raised I think legitimate concerns about his approach but I see those concerns largely addressed here. Regardless of whether his metrics for lockdown success are meaningful, I think that this is a well reasoned proposal for how we should be proceeding in the weeks ahead. I hope that the competent authorities will heed his advice.
“competent authorities” is like “Military Intelligence”….
I hope that the competent authorities will heed his advice
Let us know if you ever come across one of these “competent authorities” they seem to be as rare as unicorns. incompetent authorities, on the other had, are a dime a dozen.
Anyone taken in by this monckey business needs to read this:
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/monckey_business/
His method itself produces the downturn which all datasets are showing. You get the same with constant new cases. That’s why they all end up looking the same even, surprisingly, Sweden which despite having done least reduces the most.
His spurious attribution to specific events which are in no way seen as specific events in the data is irresponsible and his arrogant refusal to address any correction or criticism from anyone is sadly typical. I remember the same thing when he presented his astounding Bode plot “paper” here, when he was convinced he’s found out that the whole world was wrong and only student of Classics could untangle the Gordian knot.
This is the kind of home spun made up methods that Mann has always specialised in and the results are just as flawed.
If I had the time I’d do a McIntyre on him and feed it some red noise data and see the same results.
The hapless Greg is hopelessly confused. He has no understanding even of elementary mathematical method, which is why he hates the simple presentation in the graph in the head posting, which shows, whether he likes it or not, that the rate of growth in new cases is declining. Of course it would be blindingly obvious to anyone with a little mathematics that if the rate of growth in new cases is declining there may be periods when the number of new cases continues to increase, or to be stable, rather than falling. If he had any understanding of epidemic curves, he would know this. But the point is that the number of cases is a great deal less than it would have been if the exponential growth had continued at the previous rate of 20% per day compound worldwide, and 23% per day compound in the United States. Those rates had to be interfered with, and that is why lockdowns were introduced.
And yes, our paper demonstrating that official climatology has incorrectly defined temperature feedback has been rejected several times, not because it is wrong but because it is right. For instance, the editor of the journal that rejected our recent submission said, when I asked him to review our response to the reviewers, that we had answered all their points satisfactorily and that there was nothing wrong with our paper. But he had no power to overrule other editors who were not prepared, under any circumstances, to print a paper demonstrating that global warming will be small, slow, harmless and beneficial, and that concern over global warming was based on a scientific mistake. We are now preparing a brief for the police to send to Interpol, which has a large full-time climate-change fraud unit – and that unit has, to date, had little cause to investigate climate skeptics.
The French lockdown (started 17 March) seems to be working, with the corvid-19 deaths per day finally beginning to fall…
Nice to find someone capable of plotting an appropriate graph and calculating the slope but what are you showing there which you think shows any change is attributable to shutting down the economy?
To show “it is working” you need to have a clearly visible change about 5 days after March 17th which would provide some indication a change happened, was maintained and with a timing which could support
the suggested attritbution.
This one of the problems with the viscount’s monckey business: there is ZERO evidence of a causational other than the assumption it must work and any change of any form at any time thus “proves” it works.
Please read the link I provided above.
Here is my plot of the French data, please show me where the change in slope due to shutdown occurred.
Similarly for Italy, please tell me where the change in slope of the curve occurs, which is evidence that the clamp down which destroyed the lively hood of the nation has had a clear impact on number of cases?
The valiant viscount CofB has avoided responding to this question at least five times now, yet pretends that the data shows it’s working. I wonder why ??
Anecdotally, the way the lockdown was introduced in Italy killed a lot of people, by suddenly reducing the number of nursing staff available to care for elderly and disabled people. For details see the 1 April entry here: https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ . One of the many ways that lockdowns kill. If somebody wants to compare lockdowns with no-lockdowns, they need to consider lockdowns as they actually exist rather than some idealised, sanitised lockdown.
Greg, I suggest that you aquaint yourself with how each country actually introduced “lock down”.
In very few cases was it immediate so that you would have a clear cut-off.
They were phased in.
Wikipedia has the Government actions for each country so that is one place to start.
In that case there is not possible way to quantify what one would expect to see in a way which allows you to know whether you are seeing an effect or not.
In that light no attempt can be made at attribution and all claims like “it can be seen to be working ” totally baseless.
In any case the Monckey Business is fake stats just like Mann’s hockeystick. The reduction was entirely a result of his naive processing and nothing else. Pretending this is evidence it works is stupid incompetence at best.
The majority of people think otherwise.
Enjoy being different.
Greg simply does not possess enough mathematics to understand why lockdowns work. let him read any elementary textbook of epidemiology. He might begin by acquainting himself with the most elementary of the models – the susceptible – infected – decided model. Then, when he has learned how that works, he can look at how waves propagate through such models. Then, when he has learned that, he should stop and think a little before shooting his mouth off.
He has lost this argument, because he was at no point and in no way either intellectually or morally equipped to conduct it. Governments have accepted my advice, not his, and for very good reason. He can wriggle and whine all he wants, but lockdowns have been introduced, they are working, and the fact that they are working is well represented in the graph in the head posting.
Please describe these “phases”.
“All cause mortality” in Europe does not seem out of the ordinary. In fact the no lockdown countries seem to be doing the best. https://www.euromomo.eu/
That data is already 1 week out of date and therefore useless because things are moving so quickly.
No-lockdown Sweden now has a 7-day average new case rate of 8.2%, equivalent to a time to double of 8.77 days. Now level with locked-down neighbour Denmark.
Undoubtedly a lot to learn from the South Korean methods, but it is not accurate to say they have beaten the virus. They have contained its spread with highly invasive and expensive procedures which they must maintain at maximum for the foreseeable future. Short of a vaccine they will have no immunity and will be highly vulnerable if their systems break down. Let’s hope a vaccine comes soon.
PJF has not understood the efficacy of the South Korean method, which was devised because South Korea, being in the same theater as China, is exposed to each of the interminable succession of pathogens escaping from that squalid and unhygienic nation.
The purpose of testing and contact-tracing and isolation of carriers is precisely to prevent the need for lockdowns during the period when the entire population is inexorably acquiring immunity. The whole South Korean population will in due course be immune to the present strains of the Chinese virus, but the cost to South Korea of achieving that general immunity will have been far lower than the cost to countries not as experienced or as prepared as South Korea.
The whole South Korean population will in due course be immune
The South Korean policy is to stop the virus spreading altogether, not to regulate the spread. The policy seems to be successful, with 10,000 confirmed cases and the rate now reducing. It is not possible for the population of fifty two million to acquire immunity by this method.