By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Boris Johnson’s transfer to intensive care for Chinese-virus symptoms is bad news for lovers of liberty on both sides of the Atlantic. Very sadly, on current data, he is more likely to die than not. Being ill has hit him doubly hard. Not only has he continued working 15 hours a day when he should have been resting: he has never been ill enough to be admitted to hospital before, and has always thought of illness as a sign of weakness.
His Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, just a decade younger, threw off the disease in a week. Hancock had formerly suffered from two of the commonest comorbidities that kill Chinese-virus patients: overweight and diabetes. However, some years ago he altered his diet so as greatly to increase his intake of fat and to reduce his intake of carbohydrates, which are not only the primary cause of overweight, obesity, diabetes and its complications but also a significant cause of hypertension.
This permanent lifestyle change has brought him down to a normal weight and has eliminated Mr Hancock’s diabetes, just as a similar lifestyle has eradicated mine. During his tenure as Health Secretary, the National Health Service has been creakily revising its previous catastrophic guidelines for diabetes patients that had recommended patients to reduce their fat intake and keep their cholesterol low.
Mr Trump, who is working closely with chief executives of drug corporations seeking either to repurpose existing licensed medications or to develop new ones to attack the virus, has said he has put some of the chief executives in touch with Boris Johnson’s doctors so that, if he is willing, he can try out some of these medications.
In three respects, Mr Johnson’s handling of the emergency placed him at great risk. First, when he visited hospitals he shook hands with staff and patients long after it had become apparent to other nations that very great caution should be exercised. Secondly, he was one of the last leaders in the developed world to introduce first social-distancing measures and then a lockdown.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the social-distancing advice was in one grave respect flat wrong. The recommendation was that people should keep 6ft 6 (2 meters) apart. That is all very well out of doors, where the volume of air dilutes the viral density and the chaotropic effect of sunlight kills the virions. Indoors, however, 16 ft is the minimum distance necessary to be reasonably sure of interfering with transmission.
I wish him a speedy and complete recovery.
Meanwhile, here is today’s updated graph of the lockdown benchmark test. The graph shows that the daily compound percentage increase in total confirmed cases continues to fall. This is very good news. Provided that the falling trend continues for a few weeks more, and provided that the capacity to test the entire population is achieved in that time, enough will be learned about the rate of transmission and the case fatality rate to begin ending the lockdowns.
Fig. 1. Mean compound daily growth rates in confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection for the world excluding China (red) and for several individual nations averaged over the successive seven-day periods ending on all dates from March 14 to April 6, 2020.
Since WordPress has not yet updated its system to allow for the fact that most computers have landscape screens, some commenters have complained that the graph is not easy to make out. It is easy to see that the trend in the case growth rate is firmly declining, but it is not easy to distinguish the curves for the individual nations. So a .pptx file is accessible here.
There are still a few commenters who would prefer that analyses such as this should not be carried out. The value of a reasonably objective benchmark, however, is that it gives all of us some real hope that the lockdowns can be progressively phased out in the not too distant future.
But it ought to be clear to anyone who has even an elementary understanding of exponential growth that, at the 20% mean compound daily growth rate in confirmed cases worldwide that had obtained over the three weeks to March 14, when Mr Trump declared a national emergency, the 67100 confirmed cases that day would have become billions by the end of April, or, allowing for the reduction in the number of susceptibles, at the latest by midsummer.
Since the confirmed cases are at present chiefly serious cases, but bearing in mind that there is considerable under-reporting of recoveries, the death rate in closed cases – those confirmed cases who have either recovered or died – is some 27%.
Given these figures, it would simply not have been responsible for governments to allow unrestricted transmission of the virus. That was why lockdowns were necessary. Yes, Sweden and some other countries took the risk of not introducing lockdowns, and Sweden, as the graph shows, has kept its compound daily case growth rate quite low with partial restrictions, just as South Korea has.
Stephen Mosher, who is in South Korea, has been kind enough to supply some details of the control measures by which the public health authorities were able to avert lockdowns:
Testing, testing, testing. Anyone who feels ill calls a central number to arrange a free drive-through test. Results are available not in 24-36 hours, as in the UK, but in just six hours.
In emergency, anyone can show up at the drive-through without an appointment, but then the test will cost $140.
No one goes to doctors’ surgeries for testing, for that would make the surgeries a focus for transmission.
Anyone flying into South Korea is tested and quarantined at home, where the authorities will telephone thrice a day to make sure you are there. Everyone coming in through the airport has a temperature test and those with fever are admitted immediately to a health centre.
South Korea has carried out close to half a million tests, representing almost 1% of the population. Of these, 10,000 were positive, or about 2%. Contrast that with the State of New York, where 30% of tests are provinjg positive.
In South Korea 20,000 people with no symptoms – contacts of those found to be infected – are awaiting tests even though they are asymptomatic.
Tracing, tracing tracing. The contacts of everyone found to be infected are actively traced. At the outset, some five cases in six were successfully tracked back to a known source, the index patient.
Recently, the average success rate in contact-tracing has risen to 95%.
If anyone is found to be infected, his whole family, contacts, church and workplace will be tested.
If anyone in a nursing home the nursing home gets sick, all residents, all staff , all family members and all visitors are tested.
If a co-worker gets sick, the whole business will be tested, together with those who share the building. All their contacts and family will be tested.
If a hospital patient gets sick, all staff, all patients, all family and all visitors are tested.
The cellphone data of all who are infected are collected. To make sure South Korea was ready for this, it has long had a policy that to obtain a phone number, receive mail or connect to the internet one must have a national identity card. Data about the location of infected people are published.
Searching, searching, searching. Beginning in Daeugu, where a large church congregation was the original focus of infection, all churches, nursing homes, mental institutions and other places where infection might pass readily are tested.
Distancing, distancing, distancing. All mass assemblies were cancelled as soon as China, having at first lied to the effect that the virus cannot transmit from human to human, admitted – catastrophically late – that it could.
Churches do online broadcasts. Churches that refuse to comply are fined, and are made to pay the medical bills of anyone with the infection who is traceable to them.
It is still possible to go to work, and most do, but any form of work that involves mass gatherings is prohibited.
Schools are closed, and an online school will open soon.
Protecting, protecting, protecting. South Korea’s chief medical officer – far and away the most impressive of the health officials I have seen interviewed – says that wearing a mask, however homemade, makes a significant contribution to controlling the spread of infection in public. When I go out, I wear a full-face motorcycle helmet, for the virus can enter the body not only through the nose and mouth but also through the mucous membranes of the eyes. Around nine-tenths of the South Korean population wear masks in public.
To prevent panic-buying of masks, they are rationed to two per person per week.
Hand-washing in South Korea is already standard practice, because the nation has had so much recent experience of epidemics originating in the squalid, filthy conditions that prevail in Communist China – SARS, MERS, swine flu H1N1 etc., etc.
All unnecessary trips outside the home are forbidden. Go to work or to the food shop, but otherwise do not go out.
Since even this partial lockdown may cause psychiatric problems for some, mental health professionals are at the other end of a hotline, waiting for anyone to call them for reassurance or advice.
Informing, informing, informing. The South Korean civil defence organization are known as the yellow-jackets (for they wear hi-viz jackets). The yellow-jackets provide factual briefings to the public twice daily. No politics: just the numbers and the facts. The sharing of information with the public is known to have an immensely reassuring effect. If there are difficulties, the yellow-jackets admit to them openly and explain exactly what is going to be done to overcome them.
A recent daily briefing is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-WyK0uKuWI&t=639s.
Encouraging, encouraging, encouraging. The dead are honoured, The public are given encouragement. All are thanked for their efforts and their understanding.
I am most grateful to Mr Mosher for that information, which I have not seen anywhere else. It is important that we should all learn from the country that has achieved the most successful containment of the pandemic.
Some commenters here have questioned South Korea’s approach, saying that the very effectiveness of the control measures will leave most of the population without what the British chief medical officer of health (still suffering from Chinese-virus symptoms) has called “herd immunity”.
As I shall explain in my next posting, this is not the case. Confirmed cases represent only one-tenth to one-hundredth of the true number of cases. We do not yet know exactly, but, as I shall explain and demonstrate in a later post, we know that those who die today will have contracted the infection about three weeks previously, but we also know that the total number of reported cases three weeks ago was far less than the number of deaths reported today.
Therefore, much more population-wide immunity is being acquired than the official confirmed-case count shows. Particularly in the absence of widespread testing, the confirmed-case count inevitably highlights only those cases serious enough to have come to the authorities’ attention.
However, anyone who has worked at a senior level in government will know that, when there is insufficient information to be sure that population immunity is being acquired, and when the confirmed-case count is rising at a compound daily rate of 20%, as it did on average during the three weeks to March 14, it would be irresponsible to bet that that rate would not persist. That is why the lockdowns were introduced.
Finally, some commenters have pointed out that even if the daily compound case growth rate is falling, the actual growth in cases may well be stable, or even rising. Yes, of course. That is self-evident. But the purpose of control measures was to prevent the rampant, exponential growth in confirmed cases, and eventually in deaths, that could have overwhelmed the capacity of the hospitals to provide intensive care.
Already, the British National Health Service has had to lay off a quarter of its staff because they or those close to them show signs of infection and there is not enough testing capacity to check whether they are free of infection (it is believed that five-sixths of those off work are not infectious). Huge emergency hospitals have had to be built to cater for the expected number of cases, and similar steps have had to be taken in New York, for instance.
At the Porton Down facility in England, detailed serological research on thousands of blood samples from randomly-chosen members of the public is now being conducted, and will be ramped up in coming weeks, to reveal the extent of the population immunity.
As always, keep safe. And please understand that lockdowns have not been introduced as a way of extending the police state. They are a temporary measure, and the results of the benchmark test are beginning to suggest that the lockdowns can begin to be carefully dismantled a great deal sooner than HM Government had at first feared.
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I’m saying some prayers for Boris and for all the other innocent people who have been afflicted with this disease. It’s a terrible situation.
We’ll get it all straightened out eventually.
All nations need to up their testing game. We need to have the whole picture of the Wuhan virus and mass testing will give it to us.
Good luck to everyone.
The initial slow response in countries such as the UK, the USA, and Sweden now looks increasingly poorly judged. As leaders scramble to acquire diagnostic tests, personal protective equipment, and ventilators for overwhelmed hospitals, there is a growing sense of anger. The patchwork of harmful initial reactions from many leaders, from denial and misplaced optimism, to passive acceptance of large-scale deaths, was justified by words such as unprecedented. But this belies the damage wrought by SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome, Ebola virus, Zika virus, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, and a widespread acceptance among scientists that a pandemic would one day occur. Hong Kong and South Korea were tested by these previous emerging infections, leaving them better able to scale up testing and contact tracing.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30686-3/fulltext
A Lancet editorial? Pure cant. This was Richard Horton’s twitter feed on January 24. He is editor of the Lancet: –
“A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language.”
Pot meet kettle.
Milord,
At the Porton Down facility in England, detailed serological research on thousands of blood samples from randomly-chosen members of the public is now being conducted, and will be ramped up in coming weeks, to reveal the extent of the population immunity.
Do they actually have reliable test to determine so? What I’ve heard it’s matter of month or so just to tune such test to detect appropriate antibodies. Only after then large-scale testing can kick off.
The Case Fatality Rate is completely useless in this epidemic. Because of the Testing Bottleneck, only those sick enough for hospitalization are getting tested and therefore the only ones getting counted. The 400,000 cases in a country of 330 million 4 months “in” does not describe an epidemic. Flu that spreads more slowly than the Corona (according to all reports) routinely reaches 10 to 30 million cases by mid season.
We desperately need to know the INFECTION FATALITY RATE. To get that number, we need the Serum Antibody Tests…and the FDA has unnecessarily been withholding EUA (emergency approval) until a 95% accuracy is proven. That’s fine for a final emergency product, but we had 90% accurate tests way back in February that could have been (AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN) used forensically…to get a decent number of the Infection Rate.
You cannot manage an epidemic without knowing how many have had the damn infection. That number and the fatality number are the 2 most important numbers…AND WE STILL DON’T HAVE ONE OF THOSE NUMBERS. Maddening.
And the CDC is still not scrambling to get that most important number. Why is that?
Fauci is the poster boy for how government bureaucracy manages anything. It kind of reminds me of the blitzkreig German invasion of France in WWII. The French thought they had a perfect defense and 6 weeks later the Germans were marching down the Champs-Élysées. The French just couldn’t think outside the box.
At least la “ligne Maginot” wasn’t broken until quite a time; technically, it worked.
It didn’t work because the Germans went around it. France left the Ardennes virtually undefended, wrongly thinking the forested region “untankable”. Had they even put tank traps and antitank guns in it, far from recreating the mighty fortresses of the Maginot Line, the outcome could have been different.
But France made another mistake by deploying its own armor in “penny packets” as infantry support weapons, rather than concentrating them in armored divisions and corps, as did the Germans. For the French, large armored formations would have served as counterattack forcess, with which to cut off attacking German spearheads.
De Gaulle, CO of a last-minute paper division, tried to do this, scraping together a scratch brigade of three light and one heavy tank battalions, but his force was too little, too late. While too weak to stop, let alone cut off, the left flank of the German armored offensive, this inadequate counterattack slowed down the enemy advance a bit.
Later, the British also attempted with an ad hoc battle group to attack into the right flank of the advancing German armored columns, and delayed them long enough for the Dunkirk beachhead to stiffen its defenses.
But the 1940 French 25mm antitank gun was also inadequate. However, at short range in the woods, against the lightest of German tanks, it was better than nothing.
The British 40mm ATG was better, but in short supply, so the BEF was largely armed with the French 25mm “door knocker”.
The Belgian 47mm was a good ATG by 1940 standards, but again, too few were fielded, although at ~750, enough for first-line units. Reserves had to make do with virtually useless AT rifles.
Just read, that BJ feels well and is in good mood.
And he is healthy stable
“Downing Street said Mr Johnson was in “good spirits” as he continued to receive standard oxygen treatment. He was breathing without any assistance, such as mechanical ventilation or non-invasive respiratory support.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52208156
• Monckton of Brenchley
April 8, 2020 at 3:40 am
“In response to Mr Nelson, I do not advocate lockdowns.”
I always appreciate Lord Monckton’s contribution and usually find his arguments persuasive. IMHO this lockdown is downright wrong.
A lockdown is an “extreme action and extreme actions require extreme proof.” Data supporting the claim that COVID-19 is an extreme virus are mostly based on assumptions and, gasp, computer models. Extreme consequences, E.G deaths, not infections, seem a more appropriate criteria for extreme action. On average, the communicable disease tuberculosis , kills 1,100,000 people every year. What is the threshold in lives per year, for taking extreme action? I would hope that whatever number is chosen is higher than 1,100,000.
In his April 4th post, Lord Monckton said “The Chinese virus is considerable more infections and more fatal than HIV,” which kills 770,000 every year. While this statement may be accurate, no proof is offered.
Arguments for a lockdown were based on “flattening the curve,” not saving lives. It is my understanding (misunderstanding?) that, baring a vaccination or other medical interventions, the virus will be around for a long time and sooner or later 60-80% will be infected. Although my crystal ball is cloudy, as of April 8, worldwide, less that 100,000 have died. I think a better argument can be made that substantially less than 1M will die than then that over 1.1M will die. Whatever the number, there will be arguing for years about how effective the lockdown has been vs. other actions.
The argument “Would it not be better to allow everyone to acquire immunity, and to accept the resulting loss of life,” is a strawman argument. It is not an either/or choice. As South Korea and Sweden have shown, you can still do targeted quarantines, social distancing, testing, and take other remedial action without a lockdown.
Calls for a lockdown are from those least effected. I doubt those who live paycheck-to-paycheck or customer-to-customer concur that a lockdown is a good tradeoff. In the US the estimates are that up to 20M people will lose their income. Many will lose their home and family, will not be able to afford going to a doctor, will turn to crime or drugs, or commit suicide. Arguable, poverty is the #1 cause of death. The cost to those most effected by the lockdown must be considered in addition to the benefits to those of us who are least effected.
I will just skip over the “certificates of immunity” as not a serious proposal for a free society.
I do find this series of posts to be very informative and helpful and I thank Lord Monckton for his work.
‘Very sadly, on current data, he is more likely to die than not. ‘
Hmm.
that’s not the story I’m being sold… er, told… by UK govt and media.
Given these figures, it would simply not have been responsible for governments to allow unrestricted transmission of the virus. That was why lockdowns were necessary. Yes, Sweden and some other countries took the risk of not introducing lockdowns, and Sweden, as the graph shows, has kept its compound daily case growth rate quite low with partial restrictions, just as South Korea has.
So lockdowns were necessary – but somehow Sweden, with no lockdown – just very light restrictions (and no super-snooper-test-imprison South Korea policy) has kept its curve low. Remarkable.
Meanwhile, the Chinese dominated World Health Organisation agrees with Monckton of Brenchley that lockdowns must be maintained. What are lockdowns definitely doing? They’re hosing our Western economies down the toilet. Which ghastly, power hungry communist dictatorship beginning with Ch strategically benefits by an exhausted and depleted West?
End the lockdowns now!
The fat lady aint sung yet.
Christopher
You said, “… when Mr Trump declared a national emergency, the 67100 confirmed cases that day would have become billions by the end of April, …” No. Epidemics are self limiting as potential hosts either die or acquire immunity. Your graph shows declines that you attribute to the lock downs, but even Sweden (and Norway) show declines in the infection rate. You of all people should understand that correlation does not establish causation. Occam’s Razor suggests that the graph you present is best explained by a natural course of events, particularly when Sweden is behaving similarly to the countries that have locked down. It would seem that there are factors at play besides lock downs that need to be identified and explained. If you want to convince your readers that lock downs work and are necessary, then you need to explain the outliers with hard data and not speculation about resistance to colds and flu in high latitude countries.
Maximum number of US cases about 330 million, so billions would mean each person infected more than six times on average.
“Polytechnique” (or “X”) is the most prestigious French institution for making bright engineers. We say in France “il ne faut pas sortir de Polytechnique pour comprendre que …” which means “you don’t have to be super talented to understand that …”. “Polytechnicien” is codename for really super-bright.
One Polytechnicien wrote that the probability of a major nuclear accident in the EU is greater than 100%:
“Par Bernard LAPONCHE, hysicien nucléaire, expert en politiques de lénergie et Benjamin Dessus, Ingénieur et économiste, président de Global Chance — 3 juin 2011 à 00:00”
(hysicien is not a word BTW)
https://www.liberation.fr/france/2011/06/03/accident-nucleaire-une-certitude-statistique_740208
John
Nice catch. That is one reason that even the worst epidemics flatten out. The pathogen runs out of hosts.
Thank you Clyde, quite simply and clearly put. CofB knows his argument is BS but thinks the surfs are too stupid to realise.
Not only does correlation not imply causation , he does not even have a correlation ! Just saying some metric is lower a the end than the beginning does NOT establish a correlation. Artic sea ice is also lower than it was when Trump made his announcement , are we to conclude that is “correlation” too?
To show correlation you need look at all the data and detect a change which happened at the right time and look at the magnitude of the change in relation to other variability with some measure of statistical significance.
So do we see a change at the right time?
NO. The slowing effect of the French confinement was ZERO POINT ZERO.
That is why Monckton refused to comment on all these graphs.
regards death rate, this is the key phrase -“we know that those who die today will have contracted the infection about three weeks previously, but we also know that the total number of reported cases three weeks ago was far less than the number of deaths reported today.”
but what if the length of the disease for those that die (after they report symptoms) is 2 weeks, not 3? then the death rate is around 30%. So, how do we “know” it is 3 weeks? any data?
Dear Lord M
Thanks for the informative update. Indeed, there is no cure as yet and all we can do now is praying that a medicine /vaccine will be found soon. In South Africa we are also in complete lock down. I cannot even take my dogs for a hike. Ridiculous, I think, too.
I am so glad to hear that you are up and healthy again. I really was worried about your health some time ago. And I prayed that would be OK again.
Somewhat OT here, – maybe it will be OnT again when this stupid virus has been killed-
as a hobbyist, I have done an investigation into the CO2 warming thing, looking at it from a completely different angle, here
https://1drv.ms/w/s!At1HSpspVHO9pwx0EPc_q0yoFNKR?e=kE8DTl
I know you are pretty much the big expert on this…. If ever you have some time or do get some time, would you perhaps have a look at it, and let me know what you think of it.
I would very much appreciate any comment you can make.
You can click on my name for contact details.
Many thanks!
5491 new cases and 938 new deaths in the United Kingdom
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1247914958568009728/photo/1
We have to be careful assuming lock-down is effective.
Why, because of the suffering it will cost, in particular in countries with low GDP and/or a large proportion of people living from hand to mouth. India comes to mind.
Do we know if lock-down is effective?
I don’t think so. Out of “State Of Fear” (ISBN-13: 978-0061015731) I strongly believe many of us fail to read the current trend objectively. Considering the long term damage the lock-down undoubtedly will cause, the slight differens we see between countries, with same style culture, with and without lock-down, it is difficult to defend lock-down.
You may argue that the virus has not spread very much yet – I doubt that too. At a hospital in Sweden they tested 100% of the staff:
50% tested positive.
50% of the positives had no symptoms.
0% of the positives were severely ill.
Granted, the hospital staff is probably in a way better medical condition than the average population, thus not as sensitive to the virus. But what I find interesting is that 50 % of the hospital staff have the virus, despite these people have long educations touching virus transmission.
Even the most isolated of places, like the prison in UK where Julian Assange is currently held, one prisoner has died and many have contracted the virus. So how beneficial is a lock-down?
I was hesitating writing this comment, as I know it goes against the view of Christopher Monckton, but be ware Monckton I still admire most of your viewpoints, also within this subject 🙂
Can you please source the data about the hospital in Sweden having 50% positive tests of staff. If it is true, it is incredibly important. It means that those healthworkers have shown a susceptibility which appears to be 2.5 times any other sample population so far.
It was announced in Swedish national radio.
I just spoke in the phone with the friend who told me.
It would be the hospital in Linköbing.
I will see if I later tonight can dig up announcement in written form.
The problem with me is that I don’t listen much to TV and Radio.
Hi kribaez, I finally found it:
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&artikel=7448282
Headline SW: Symtomfria vårdanställda var coronasmittade
Headline EN: Symptom free hospital staff were corona infected
Sorry for the strange language, but there are translation robots on the Internet 🙂
Many thanks, Carl.
This is very disturbing.
It would be foolish to silence yourself for fear of challenging the opinions of someone else.
The information you provide is very pertinent and may explain why it is so hard to find any direct evidence of an effect of these draconian measures in the data. If the virus is already that widely spread confinement will achieve absolutely nothing.
Here are case numbers in Italy. Please can someone show me where the gamechanging restrictions came into effect?
I have already challenged CofB five times to point out where the effect of the measures he so firmly promotes can be seen and five times he has silently ignored the request.
I wonder why ?
Good news.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52221724
Coronavirus: Boris Johnson ‘improving’ as intensive care treatment continues….
Mr Sunak said Mr Johnson was “sitting up in bed and engaging positively with the clinical team”.
•2 minutes ago
Christopher
Thanks for the informative update. Indeed, there is no cure as yet and all we can do now is praying that a medicine /vaccine will be found soon. In South Africa we are also in complete lock down. I cannot even take my dogs for a hike. Ridiculous, I think, too.
I am so glad to hear that you are up and healthy again. I really was worried about your health some time ago. And I prayed that would be OK again.
Somewhat OT here, – maybe it will be OnT again when this stupid virus has been killed-
as a hobbyist, I have done an investigation into the CO2 warming thing, looking at it from a completely different angle, here
https://1drv.ms/w/s!At1HSpspVHO9pwx0EPc_q0yoFNKR?e=kE8DTl
I know you are pretty much the big expert on this…. If ever you have some time or do get some time, would you perhaps have a look at it, and let me know what you think of it.
I would very much appreciate any comment you can make.
You can click on my name for contact details.
Many thanks!
Related to some of S Korea’s measures highlighted by Mr. Mosher to track contacts, I received this email from my niece in Oregon (forwarded to me by my sister this morning):
“We just wanted to share the good news and let you see what the news is reporting… [her husband] and his team’s long work days and short nights are paying off and more importantly helping with the unprecedented covid-19 issues. What they’re doing really is helping save lives! Please excuse [husband] for some time to come as they work extremely long hours (14-22 hours a day!) to help fight the good fight! Thank you all for your prayers, know you are in ours too!”
This message was followed by 8 different news links related to India’s first automated “COVID-19 Monitoring System App” for contact-tracing CV19 cases in that country. My niece’s husband has an IT R&D background & has worked with IBM and others in Research Triangle Park NC. Here is one news example:
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/an-app-to-the-aid-of-health-department/article31273001.ece
Dearest Christopher Monckton: Thank you for your informational series! I have been evolving my thinking on the lockdowns, and it’s thoughtful information like from you that has helped me evolve. You are a global treasure in more than this area! Thank you again.
Mario, that is exactly what this minor league british aristocrat is trying to do. Help convince the sheeple to accept house arrest and the end civil society as we know it.
His claims this graph or his original table of numbers “proves ” lockdowns work is a sham. Nothing he pas presented even attempts to prove it in a scientific way. There is no evidence, no correlation, the attribution is assumed from the outset and never proven.
All epidemics slow down and fade out, even without human intervention. The question is how quickly is this happening and is there any evidence which clearly shows a effect at the right time to suggest attribution.
He does not even get to the point of marking when measures came into effect, so he is not even looking for proof.
This whole series is a sham of pseudo-science to push an agenda, which exactly what WUWT has always opposed. Why this frawwwd is allowed to continue here is beyond me. Very disappointing.
Why the Ad hominem attack? I find it yuk
Here is a man ( complete name and all) with the courage of his convictions willing to expose himself to the forum snake pit. Bigger balls than mine for sure
M
Michael: You said what I tried to say with so few words.
This is 10 seconds version and well worth the time:
After several days of him posting this BS and refusing even to comment on proper graph of the data ( not his concocted mess which would obscure a real effect even if there was one ) , he clearly is not interested in a proper scientific discussion about his fake “proof”. He is pushing an agenda.
While some here fawningly refer to him as “your lordship” bestowing on him a peerage he does not even own, his position in landed gentry may shed some light on why he is pushing the confinement of the lower classes. That is not ad hom as a substitute for a logical argument, he has refused have.
There is no distinction between classes Greg every one is locked down, unless you know better, your going into the wilds of conspiracy theory Greg, do you think lord monckton is flying the flag for the upper classes as they charge down on white horses to surpress the grunts, argue reasonably and stop attacking the man.
Greg:
I was careful in how I wrote what I wrote.
I see that there are more ways to view this than as a binary argument, and when information is well reasoned and laid out, we can have a better understanding of why the response has been so extreme. I have been a cheerleader against the government choosing who is legally allowed to earn a living!
I have always thought, and still think that the amount of damage we are doing economically is akin to cytokine storm on the economy, the likes of which we’ve never seen. And that cost is unimaginably huge.
I immediately thought and still think the biggest problem in all of this is that there is no concrete accounting of the denominator, so we don’t know the mortality rate. We may never know. And that is terrible.
I do think that the severity of the WuFlu is much greater than my direct experience of it (I sick for only 5 days of crud and breathing problems, fever, aches). I would take that over some flu’s I’ve had in the past, but my state of health is higher now for me so that certainly skews my opinion!
I now understand that a mortality rate number (especially that it’s incorrectly accounted for, but used anyway) is a less than poor indicator of the severity of this virus.
I also have conservative medical doctor friends who tell me this is very much more serious than the flu, in how it’s impacting staff at hospitals and how people are dying with this unlike anything they’ve seen. Maybe that’s self induced because of how we are treating it or maybe it’s a valid thing to know.
There is more to know from with this ongoing story –and without hearing reasoned opinions, from people like Monckton and yourself, we are all flying that much more blindly.
I would not class what CofB presents reasoned opinion and sadly he will not address issues raised by others ( that is not new or unique to this subject, his Bode paper was the same ). However, I thank you for you calm and measured language. It is refreshingly soothing.
I just did a news search on “Boris Johnson” in Duck Duck Go and Google
Duck Duck Go
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson Improving and Sitting Up in Bed
Newsweek|1 hour ago
The U.K. chancellor gave an update on the prime minister’s condition after Johnson was admitted to intensive care with COVID-19.
Boris Johnson stable in ICU as UK virus deaths pass 7,000
ABC|1 hour ago
Boris Johnson’s spokesman says the British prime minister is “responding to treatment” but remains in intensive care with the new coronavirus
Boris Johnson’s condition improving from coronavirus
The Canadian Press on MSN.com|27 minutes ago
Britain’s Treasury chief says Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s condition is improving in the intensive care unit of a London hospital. Rishi Sunak says Johnson has been sitting up in bed and engaging with his doctors at St.
Coronavirus: Boris Johnson ‘improving’ as intensive care treatment continues
BBC|1 hour ago
Google:
UK coronavirus live: record daily death toll of 938, as Rishi Sunak says Boris Johnson is ‘sitting up in bed’
Prime minister ‘improving’ in intensive care, says chancellor, as he announces £750m package for charities.
19 mins ago
The Guardian
Coronavirus live news: global trade forecast to fall by up to a third as US sees highest one-day death toll
Scientists predict UK will be worst-hit country in Europe; Trump threatens to stop WHO funding; Global cases pass 1.4 million.
10 mins ago
CNBC
Britain doesn’t have a deputy prime minster. So here’s who’s in charge while Boris Johnson is in hospital
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted into intensive care on Monday evening, after his coronavirus symptoms worsened. Foreign …
31 mins ago
The New York Times
Coronavirus World: Full Coverage
Up to 150 Saudi royals are infected, while Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, remains in intensive care. China ended its lockdown of …
47 mins ago
First four hits and Google mentions Johnson’s condition as an aside. Isn’t that just ever wonderful. What a bunch of ….
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley … very brave of you to broach the subject of something deeply sutured into the mortality rate: lifestyle choices, especially diet.
I say “brave” because it is a hot button issue. Do we run statistics on the foundational health of both recovering and fatal cases, and cross-check for obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes? And then further cross-check for high carb diet? I would conjecture that the correlation of mortality with “old people, period” is actually correlated with ‘old people who have eaten poorly for a longer time.’
The case can be made these are volitional choices. Personal responsibility. (I will immediately say that I am not advocating null treatment if you have the conditions.) There is another case to be made for the sanctioning of high carbohydrate diets by the scientific community – how to gauge the complicity for that.
The politically-incorrect position is to peer into these responsibilities at the root, while the general ethos is “who cares what is at the root, do not judge.”
In countries that are proud of their healthcare, the virus feels great. In countries where healthcare is weak, people don’t leave the house.
There you are drowning in the sea. A possible life line is thrown ,attached to it is a water tight plastic container.DO YOU SHOUT OUT “I CAN’T USE THAT ,IT HAS NOT BEEN APPROVED” AS A FLOATATION AID. BOLLOCKS ! TAKE THE HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE,AZITHROMYCIN & ZINC.
I feel that you’all are looking at the wrong countries. Note data/1m pop Iceland and Luxembourg (Worldometer) 300,000 + pop is enough
Switzerland and Norway should also be studied imo. These are all countries that we can trust with data
I feel that My Lord has been subject to unhelpful criticism. We need people like him to keep the debate active. I do disagree with some of his judgments but there is no “right” within this fog of war. There is only the least wrong of which we can not yet quantify
As for medications here proclaimed, images of a snake oil salesman standing on his wagon keep popping up
Me? My business is dead and may take years to rise again from the embers – a small price to pay for what I hope is a new world in which the wokey fluff and bullsheet is drowned by what really matters. The world was in a bad place
Cheers
M
When health care professionals put their entire reputation on the line based on scanty evidence, and furthermore seek out media to trumpet their claims as loudly as possible, we know from the global warming nonsense what happens: Such an individual has painted themselves into a corner, and can be counted on as a matter of human nature and logical certainty that this person is no longer an objective fact gatherer, but a biased advocate with and agenda that must be protected and defended.
” I hope is a new world in which the wokey fluff and bullsheet is drowned by what really matters.”
I wish you were right but sadly you can not cure stupidity. What we are seeing is an pandemic of stupidity and I don’t see it being cured by 400mg of hcq, 5g may be a more suitable dose.
The marxist enviros will hail COVID as showing what we “need” to do , they will take the shutdown a blue print for the rest of the century. The Chinses will be quietely smiling to themselves.
“As for medications here proclaimed, images of a snake oil salesman standing on his wagon keep popping up”
I heard an interesting story tonight about hydroxychloroquine. Dr. Seigle, who is a contributing doctor/commentator at Fox News Channel said tonight that his own 96-year-old father was infected with the Wuhan Virus, and told him he thought he was about to die, and so Dr. Seigle arranged to get his father some hydroxychloroquine, and after taking the medication, his father made a miraculous recovery.
Maybe chloroquine is God’s secret weapon against Trump haters?
It could be. A lot of Trump haters seem to be focusing in on disparaging the drug, but what they are really doing is trying to disparage Trump. They just can’t be objective.
Anything Trump is for, they are against. A knee-jerk reaction.
If someone is convinced that they will die if they get this disease, and also think that chloroquine is the only hope of being cured, that person will be very afraid and think they are about to die if they get the virus.
It does not mean they were about to die.
Likewise, getting a drug which you think is “the cure” will then transform one’s thought pattern to “I am not gonna die”.
And how one feels can be very important, but none of that has anything to say about the value of the drug, or who lives and dies.
Looked at another way, if someone has a case of pneumonia which has been dragging on and that person is becoming mentally fatigued, to the point of starting to think about just giving up (There is very definitely a stage of injury or illness in which a person needs to fight to stay alive, and will die if they stop fighting. I had this when I was injured after my car accident. Collapsed lung, almost every rib broken, ruptured diaphragm, severe blood loss, and it happened in Yellowstone Park…9000 feet above sea level IIRC. I was fighting the whole time and knew if I stopped struggling to breathe I would die immediately), and in the middle of that, when such thoughts are entering one’s mind…then you get what you believe is what will save you. Regardless of anything else, this will strengthen resolve to fight on, which is all it might take to make the difference at that point.
This is the placebo effect. The belief that you are cured replaces the belief that you are doomed. Our mind becomes very important in times like this.
We all know of the stories of people who were at death’s door, and wanted to live for some particular event…a birthday, a Holiday, some person that was coming to see them…and then once that event passed, so too did the person. People can delay their own demise sheerly through willpower. It may not even be uncommon. A young person who is strong is less needful of a strong will to survive than someone who is very weak, sick, badly injured, etc.
Seeing diet advice in this Post & in some comments I am going to question any assumption that low-carbohydrate intake is necessarily going to be useful in ameliorating this Wuhan virus. Yes, I do understand that high carbohydrate intake & modern physical activity can be less than ideal for many.
What should be understood is that aside from glucose (blood “sugar” from diet) being used to burn metabolism we humans use glucose for another key purpose, which ketones & fats (fatty acids)are not capable of doing. It is glucose which our bodies ideally use in what is known as the pentose phosphate pathway; where for each glucose molecule we can get 12 NADPH molecules (pathway processes NADP+).
Why is this technicality relevant to lay people? NADPH is what our cells need to naturally deal with acute “oxidative” stress, which is the event when our key cellular anti-oxidants glutathione & thiols get “oxidized” ; in effect NADPH refreshes them for re-use. Infections (ex: lung) are naturally fought by the reactive oxygen species called “super-oxide” & hydrogen peroxide, both of which are made possible by using available NADPH.
So what blood glucose level, setting aside genetics, will exhibit more of the ideal level of NADPH for adults naturally fighting (say) acute lung infection? That would be closer to 8 milliMole glucose/mL than 7 milliMole/mL (while for around 8.5 milliMole & 7 milliMole there is the same anti-oxidant capability).
But then, after 10 milliMole glucose /mL the dynamic explained above unvortunately generates excessive reactive oxygen & becomes pro-inflammatory, which is undesirable in Wuhan Flu afflicted lungs. This hyper-glycemia blood sugar level is characteristic for Type2 diabetics & they are considered high risk for Wuhan Flu mortality.
gringojay
I agree that a violent switch from high carb to low carb cannot be considered a treatment for this crisis. The issues with that switch are to be evaluated long term and from 30,000 feet.
It also appears important to not do it, as you outline, because the shock of the switch could lead down the specific undesirable path you describe.
I’ll leave unchallenged your implication (If you are indeed making it) that running the human organism on ketones is a setup per se on inability to fight in general. A quick glance at the literature reveals counter evidence. I am on extensive long term ketogenesis myself, and I am not worried.
Nevertheless, in the background of all this: obesity, diabetes, hypertension … these are diet choices, largely. The finger is pointed at high carb in general, and especially high refined carb overeating.
Again W. – Ketogenic diets are not something I am disparaging. What I’d like to add is some greater context.
We fight foreign attacking viruses (& bacteria) when our bodies register them at what are callec “Toll-like” receptors. These receptors are part of what our human neutrophils are doing.
Neutrophil Toll-like receptors then provoke the production of reactive oxygen. This in turn causes neutrophils to create extra-cellular (outside a cell) “trap” to try & contain the pathogen inside.
WuhanFlu is eerily making patient’s lungs look like frosted glass; in part due to the massive fight the tissues are waging. Some of that severe x-ray image is the proliferation of neutrophil extra-cellular traps, which have alpha-defensin & myelo-peroxid-ase inside that can destroy pathogens.
Which is to say we naturally are using neutrophils as an upstream feature to combact WuhanFlu downstream. This relates to low-carbohydrate diet in the following context.
Cortisol levels that are high act on immunological components (CD11b & CD18) which in turn down-regulate (decrease) neutrophils. High fat & low carbohydrate diets in overweight adults (a WuhanFlu target population) causes cortisol to be higher than it would be in a more balanced fat to carbohydrate proportional ratio diet.
This is not to say low carbohydrate diets are completely anathema to us having neutrophils. Because when the sick lose appetite & do not eat this also elevates cortisol.
In turn eating things which stimulate insulin & insulin-like growth factor 1 are what increase our amount of neutrophils. So I wish to mention that high-protein meals boost insulin-like growth factor 1 & thus contribute to sustaining neutrophil levels.
Which in general terms means, to me, a ketogenic diet based on “fat” is relying on protein to counter-balance factors in such a way as to have suitable neutrophil fighters against the WuhanFlu. So I don’t think such a dietary switch is indicated at this time for strategic purposes & guess those already established eating in such a way for a long term have a reasonable adaptation.
I’ll close by mentioning ketogenic diets also increase one’s level of beta-hydroxy-butyrate & this can (not must) become a factor in cardiac complications for some individuals. We know another WuhanFlu target population is adults with heart problems & thus I hesitate to extoll the ketogenic diet as superior for this time of pandemic.
I already stipulated that I agree that a panic switch to what made you fat (SAD — too much refined carb) to ketogenesis a) might be dangerous; or b) would not help healing if you infected with this virus. Thank you for adding context, although I won’t drill down on it.
Your last paragraph weaves proximate crisis advice with general assessment. I won’t touch it.
I will repeat this: my word to Christopher Monckton of Brenchley is to salute bravery for broaching the politically incorrect subject of personal responsibility for individuals inhabiting the target population for mortality. I am a champion of ketogenesis as a countermeasure against obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. With that lifestyle there is little chance of widespread trend in that direction. High carb advocates have the responsibility of showing the world the way of restraint of sugar and binging. In other words, how do you prevent the monster of sugar and overeating from showing its fangs on high carb? Personal responsibility.
I do not believe that CM meant to suggest “that low-carbohydrate intake is necessarily going to be useful in ameliorating this Wuhan virus.” Rather, his point was that people who are in good physical condition, rather than overweight and/or diabetic, are much more likely to be able fight off this infection, and that a low-carb diet helps many people improve their physical condition.
Seeing diet advice in this Post & in some comments I am going to question any assumption that low-carbohydrate intake is necessarily going to be useful in ameliorating this Wuhan virus
Please quote where you think he said that it would be, as that’s NOT what he said *at all*. He very specifically mentioned such a diet, having been started years prior, as being a factor in ameliorating previous-existing comorbidities (overweight and diabetes).
Latest report is that Boris Johnson is now able to sit up, and is starting to feel better! He’s a fighter!
That’s good news. Hopefully he will come out this with a greater understanding of why we need a functional NHS, not the shell of a run down , under funded mess that we currently have.
The years of austerity and penny pinching have just come home to roost and are costing us far more than we ever saved.
The article seems a little overblown-
“Professor Klaus Püschel, head of forensic medicine in Hamburg, explains about Covid19: „This virus influences our lives in a completely excessive way. This is disproportionate to the danger posed by the virus. And the astronomical economic damage now being caused is not commensurate with the danger posed by the virus. I am convinced that the Corona mortality rate will not even show up as a peak in annual mortality.“ In Hamburg, for example, „not a single person who was not previously ill“ had died of the virus: „All those we have examined so far had cancer, a chronic lung disease, were heavy smokers or severely obese, suffered from diabetes or had a cardiovascular disease. The virus was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. „Covid-19 is a fatal disease only in exceptional cases, but in most cases it is a predominantly harmless viral infection.”
Thanks Richard. At least there are a few sane voices out there. The big story here is the damage we are doing to ourselves.
If this leaked man-made virus was indeed intended as a weapon, it has been amazingly powerful in destroying the West but not through its mortality but its ability to affect our brains.
With the help of our ruling classes we are doing far more destruction to our own societies than any enemy could have hoped.
CofB seems to have been allowed to leverage the circulation of WUWT to spread his Mannian pseudo-science as a fake “proof” this is all working in halting the epidemic, whilst ignoring the fact there is no evidence of any effect in the data:
It may well be serving his own personal interests but it is not serving ours.
Hi Greg,
“Infection control experts say there is no health-based reason to justify Ottawa’s quarantine measures. The decision is more likely a political response to a different epidemic: the spread of fear and anxiety’
Some weird stupidity has overcome the world. Thankfully the lawyers are lining up-
“Several German law firms are preparing lawsuits against the measures and regulations that have been issued. A specialist in medical law writes in a press release: „The measures taken by the federal and state governments are blatantly unconstitutional and violate a multitude of basic rights of citizens in Germany to an unprecedented extent. This applies to all corona regulations of the 16 federal states. In particular, these measures are not justified by the Infection Protection Act, which was revised in no time at all just a few days ago. Because the available figures and statistics show that corona infection is harmless in more than 95% of the population and therefore does not represent a serious danger to the general public.”