UnHerd Video: Oxford epidemiologists: suppression strategy is not viable
From UnHerd
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Read the accompanying article on UnHerd here: Oxford epidemiologists: suppression strategy is not viable We wanted to learn more about the current state of the pandemic and the direction it was headed. Joining Freddie Sayers was Prof Heneghan and his Centre for Evidence Based Medicine colleague Tom Jefferson who shared their thoughts in this wide-ranging discussion. Have a watch above, key quotes below…
00:00 – Intro
2:55 – Masks • Tom Jefferson: “Aside from people who are exposed on the frontlines, there is no evidence that masks make any difference, but what’s even more extraordinary is the uncertainty: we don’t know if these things make any difference…. We should have done randomised control trials in February, March and April but not anymore because viral circulation is low and we will need huge number of enrolees to show whether there was any difference”. • Carl Heneghan: “By all means people can wear masks but they can’t say it’s an evidence-based decision… there is a real separation between an evidence-based decision and the opaque term that ‘we are being led by the science’, which isn’t the evidence".
9:26 – Pandemic life cycle • CH: “One of the keys of the infection is to look at who’s been infected, which shows a crucial difference when comparing the pandemic theory to seasonal theory. In a pandemic you’d expect to see young people disproportionately affected, but in the UK we’ve only had six child deaths, which is far less than we’d normally see in a pandemic. The high number of deaths with over-75s fits with the seasonal theory”.
14:00 – Covid seasonality • CH: “The stability of the virus is far less when the temperature goes up but humidity seems to be particularly important. The lower the humidity, the more stable the virus is in the atmosphere and on surfaces… It’s now winter in the southern hemisphere, which is why places like Australia are suddenly having outbreaks.”
20:37 – Lockdown • CH: “Many people said that we should have locked down earlier, but 50% of care homes developed outbreaks during the lockdown period so there are issues within the transmission of this virus that are not clear… Lockdown is a blunt tool and there needs to be intelligent conversations about what mitigation strategies can keep society functioning while we keep the most vulnerable shielded".
25:20 – Nightingale hospitals • CH: "They are the wrong structure. What you need is fever hospitals which were here until around the 1980s or 90s. They were on single floors and had isolation within isolation. Theere were no lift shafts and staff were trained, which meant that everyone was protected from each other… It looks like at leats 20% of people got the infection while they were in hospital"
27:30 – Suppression strategy • CH: “The benefits of the current strategy are outweighed by the harms…When it comes to suppression, only the virus will have a determination in that. If you follow the New Zealand policy of suppressing it to zero and locking down the country forever, then you’re going to have a problem… This virus is so out there now, I cannot see a strategy that makes suppression the viable option. The strategy right now should be how we learn to live with this virus”
32:45 – Response to the virus • TJ: “I am a survivor of four pandemics and for the other three, I didn’t even realise they were going on. People died but nothing changed and none of the fabric of society was eroded like this response… Do I see steps being taken at a European level about learning from our mistakes and changing policies? The answer is no…
39:30 – Politics of the virus • CH: “We as individuals are part of the problem because sensationalism drives people to click and read the information. So it’s a big circle because we’ve created the problem — if we put the worst case scenario out there, we will go and have a look. If you want a solution, you’ve got to get people to stop clicking on this sensationalist stuff”.
43:30 – IFR • CH: “We will be down about where we were with the swine flu: around 0.1-0.3% which is much lower than what we think because at the moment we are seeing the case fatality”. • TJ: “If you look at the whole narrative, it was distorted from the very beginning by the obsession with influenza which was just one or two agents and nothing else existed. We’re no different now”.
Tim, thanks for the link to Unherd. I have subscribed.
Posted by: susan welch | July 21, 2020 at 05:08 AM
The ones making them as Jenner did with his own kid who died,they should be the first to have the vaccines after all..Pollard et-al assure us they are safe..
Scottish centre to expand and produce millions of doses of ‘promising’ coronavirus vaccine
A Swedish-owned facility in Livingston is at the centre of a big push to manufacture 100 million doses of a new coronavirus vaccine that the public are being urged to sign up and test.
The public are also being urged to sign up to a new NHS website to make it quicker and easier for potential volunteers to join vital studies that could help save lives.
The aim is to get 500,000 people signed up by October to help scientists and researchers to better understand the effectiveness of each vaccine and to speed up efforts to discover a safe and workable one.
Alok Sharma MP, the UK cabinet Business Secretary, said the government has now secured access to three different types of Covid-19 vaccines that are being developed here and around the world.
Fresh polling has suggested that almost a third of Britons definitely will not or are unsure about whether they will take up a Covid-19 vaccine as anti-vax misinformation takes hold online. PA Photo. Issue date: Tuesday July 7, 2020. In a survey conducted on behalf of research group Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), only 6% of people polled said they would definitely not get vaccinated. But a further 10% said they would "probably not", while another 15% said they did not know, taking the numbers of those who may not get vaccinated against the deadly disease up to almost a third of the population.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scottish-centre-expand-produce-millions-22383429
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | July 20, 2020 at 03:58 PM
Unheard is great, and Freddie Sayers in particular. https://unherd.com/author/freddie-sayers/
A breath of fresh air in a miasma of propaganda.
Posted by: Tim Lundeen | July 20, 2020 at 03:56 PM