Coronavirus

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by GrimUpNorth

Let's have another couple of paragraphs from further down the article, because sometimes the bits you select can say something quite different to whatever follows .

However, Woolhouse is at pains to reject the ideas of those who advocated the complete opening up of society, including academics who backed the Barrington Declaration which proposed the Covid-19 virus be allowed to circulate until enough people had been infected to achieve herd immunity.

“This would have led to an epidemic far larger than the one we eventually experienced in 2020,” says Woolhouse. “It also lacked a convincing plan for adequately protecting the more vulnerable members of society, the elderly and those who are immuno-compromised.”

What I have advocated is opening up society, but protect the vulnerable, particularly those in hospital and in care homes.

Incidentally, the advice given to the PM some weeks prior to the lockdown was in fact to let the virus circulate. Given that no inoculations were in sight, that was a sensible approach. But then, as Woolhouse says, they panicked as infections rocketed.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

What I have advocated is opening up society, but protect the vulnerable, particularly those in hospital and in care homes.

Incidentally, the advice given to the PM some weeks prior to the lockdown was in fact to let the virus circulate. Given that no inoculations were in sight, that was a sensible approach. But then, as Woolhouse says, they panicked as infections rocketed.

Given it nearly did for the idiot PM (allegedly), and it did take thousands of other lives, letting it rip wasn't the best advice.

[GrimUpNorth]

Who gave the PM the advice and when? Just interested.

[OLD BOY]

It was Whitty!

---------- Post added at 20:46 ---------- Previous post was at 20:45 ----------

Originally Posted by Mr K

Given it nearly did for the idiot PM (allegedly), and it did take thousands of other lives, letting it rip wasn't the best advice.

It was always known that some would die. Couldn’t really be avoided, could it?

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

It was always known that some would die. Couldn’t really be avoided, could it?

Some? Nearly 200,000 now.

If we'd locked down sooner like other countries thousands more would have survived and we not have had the highest number of deaths in Europe. Our Govt. let us down, but scientists dug us out ( and still get abuse from right wing nutters).

Originally Posted by GrimUpNorth

Who gave the PM the advice and when? Just interested.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

It was Whitty![/COLOR="Silver"]

---------- Post added at 20:46 ---------- Previous post was at 20:45 ----------

[/COLOR]

It was always known that some would die. Couldn’t really be avoided, could it?

Can you back that assertion up?

Originally Posted by Hugh

Can you back that assertion up?

Which one ?

It was Whitty who gave Johnson the advice to "let it rip"…

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Given it nearly did for the idiot PM (allegedly), and it did take thousands of other lives, letting it rip wasn't the best advice.

Apparently Johnson's admitted he was in no danger.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Apparently Johnson's admitted he was in no danger.

It was like feigning a injury in a football match to buy time for him ! Just a jolly game.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Some? Nearly 200,000 now.

If we'd locked down sooner like other countries thousands more would have survived and we not have had the highest number of deaths in Europe. Our Govt. let us down, but scientists dug us out ( and still get abuse from right wing nutters).

Except we haven't had the highest number of deaths in Europe.


https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/15...hael-fabricant
[EXTRACT]

The study referred to an analytical model that is described as "the most comprehensive assessment of excess mortality due to COVID-19 to date".

After factoring in excess deaths during the pandemic from all causes, the UK is now 29th in Europe and ninth in Western Europe in terms of death rate from the deadly pathogen.

Clinical Epidemiologist Dr Raghob Ali tweeted: "Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe, or even Western Europe, as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe and 9th in Western Europe.


Lockdowns delay transmission but they don't prevent it. The lockdown has to end sometime, and then it starts all over again.

Erm, already previously shown that info from the Express to be faulty/misleading/a lie, when you posted it on the 24th July…

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/show...0#post36129330

Originally Posted by Hugh

Actual source material from four months ago, like your link…

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...796-3/fulltext

The report state that it estimates three times the reported number of people died from COVID worldwide.

The actual difference for the U.K. between reported and estimated was 3%…

There is no "league table" in that paper that shows the U.K. was 9th/29th…

If you look at the table from the report in this link, it shows that for Western Europe, there were 15 countries in that table of that had lower estimated rates than the U.K..

https://www.thelancet.com/action/sho...2821%2902796-3

Estimated excess mortality rate per 100,000

Austria 107.5
Cyprus 32.2
Denmark 94.1
Finland 80.8
France 124.2
Germany 120.5
Iceland 47·8
Ireland 12·5
Israel 51·0
Luxembourg 89·2
Malta 89·9
Monaco 74·4
Norway 7·2
Sweden 91·2
Switzerland 93·1
United Kingdom 126·8

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Hugh

It was Whitty who gave Johnson the advice to "let it rip"…

There is information in different sites on the web - this is one of them. You could have Googled it yourself, Hugh. Vallence and Whitty advised on the herd immunity option, and that is what the PM followed initially. I remember seeing this on the news at the time.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...ohnson/608065/

[EXTRACT]

With the peak of the pandemic still weeks away, the time hadn’t come yet for stricter measures, Johnson and his advisers said. They worried about “behavioral fatigue”—if restrictions come into force too early, people could become increasingly uncooperative and less vigilant, just as the outbreak swings into high gear. (As of yesterday, the U.K. has identified 1,391 cases, although thousands more are likely undetected.) And while suppressing the virus through draconian measures might be successful for months, when they lift, the virus will return, said Sir Patrick Vallance, the U.K.’s chief scientific adviser.

To avoid a second peak in the winter, Vallance said the U.K. would suppress the virus “but not get rid of it completely,” while focusing on protecting vulnerable groups, such as the elderly. In the meantime, other people would get sick. But since the virus causes milder illness in younger age groups, most would recover and subsequently be immune to the virus. This “herd immunity” would reduce transmission in the event of a winter resurgence. On Sky News, Vallance said that “probably about 60 percent” of people would need to be infected to achieve herd immunity.

That says Sir Patrick Vallance - Whitty isn’t mentioned (I had looked in this site and others, couldn’t find any Whitty references, which is why I asked).

Anyway, if you read the "Coronavirus: lessons learned to date: Sixth Report of the Health and Social Care Committee and Third Report of the Science and Technology Committee of Session 2021–22", you would see your interpretation in error.

https://committees.parliament.uk/pub...78687/default/

Page 33

The initial policy: flattening the peak

79. There has been considerable debate as to whether the early policy of the Government was one of seeking to achieve so-called “herd-immunity”. The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention defines community immunity/herd immunity as:
A situation in which a sufficient proportion of a population is immune to an infectious disease (through vaccination and/or prior illness) to make its spread from person to person unlikely.

Even individuals not vaccinated (such as newborns and those with chronic illnesses) are offered some protection because the disease has little opportunity to spread within the community. Also known as herd immunity.102

80. Non-pharmaceutical interventions such as lockdowns, and the testing and isolation of covid cases and their contacts, are tools of temporary application. Once they are lifted, there is nothing to stop transmission resuming. When Sir Patrick Vallance said at a Government press conference on 12 March 2020 “it’s not possible to stop everybody getting it and it’s also actually not desirable because you want some immunity in the population. We need to have immunity to protect ourselves from this in the future”103 he was, in a sense, merely stating what were thought to be the facts of the time. Sir Patrick, and Ministers, have insisted that this statement was not a policy to seek herd immunity but a description of the situation.

Matt Hancock wrote, as Secretary of State, on 14 March 2020:
We have a plan, based on the expertise of world-leading scientists. Herd immunity is not a part of it. That is a scientific concept, not a goal or a strategy. Our goal is to protect life from this virus, our strategy is to protect the most vulnerable and protect the NHS through contain, delay, research and mitigate…

… it would, however, be an overstatement to say that the Government and its advisers were promoting the acquisition of covid-19 to accelerate herd immunity in the population. But, in early Spring 2020, given that no alternative strategy was being implemented, that was the effective consequence.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Hugh

That says Sir Patrick Vallance - Whitty isn’t mentioned (I had looked in this site and others, couldn’t find any Whitty references, which is why I asked).

Anyway, if you read the "Coronavirus: lessons learned to date: Sixth Report of the Health and Social Care Committee and Third Report of the Science and Technology Committee of Session 2021–22", you would see your interpretation in error.

https://committees.parliament.uk/pub...78687/default/

Page 33

Fair enough, but Whitty was there, on camera, when Boris made that announcement. From my recollection, he didn’t demur.