Professor Gupta

[LadyLindaT]

May I just point out that this Oxford Professor who is all over the media at the moment is a Professor of Zoology?

@Papyrus

There is no good solution, we’re between a rock and a hard place. It’s not about protecting the elderly or giving them a choice about how they want to live. It’s gone far past that point. The issue is if we don’t do something pretty radical the NHS is going to collapse entirely and no one will be getting effective treatment for Covid or anything else. We also run the risk of a whole generation of NHS staff suffering ptsd or leaving in droves. It’s shit, but I don’t think at this point there’s an alternative. That ship sailed when track and trace was fucked up.

This is very true, sadly.

I'm not buying all this "the government has done all it can with the money available," it's not true. Billions of tax payers money has been poured down the drain in contracts given to the relatives of Conservative MPs, billions . All this s government cares about us lining,their own pockets and those of their extremely wealthy supporters. The government collect plenty in taxes and NI contributions. Those who pay the most in relative terms are the working poor.
Contracts have been given to those who know relatively nothing about how to run and organise efficient services. We now expect those who have the least to pay and sacrifice the most. I'm starting to see through it all.
Can you justify 100,000s or even millions loosing their livelihoods and for what?
What exactly is it for. Again there are not 1000s of young, fit healthy citizens dying of covid. They are however suffering greatly for this many may not recover and many will die as a result of the effects of losing their job, home, family, not receiving vital trratnent, not receiving screening also moments and so on. We live in a selfish, capitalist society. Yet those with most to give are not giving it, they are taking it. Taking their £26 daily food allowance whilst voting against children receiving free school meals.good
The problem is the NHS has been screwed over and the money squandered elsewhere, H2 anyone? Oh yes. Read arch where the money goes. There should be enough to find both covid wards and non vivid wards and staff them but there isn't. So we end up in this awful no win situation.
If this was about stopping the spread then schools would close immediately. But they aren't so the spread will continue.

@flaviaritt

We have to remember that lots of well-qualified people disagree violently on these issues. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ camps into which we can sort people. She is a very clever and well-qualified woman. I don’t know whether or not she is right.

Well said!

@Flyonawalk

Sunetra Gupta is an Oxford professor and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration. She argues that lockdown is ineffective as a means of controlling infection and that it has an unacceptably harmful effect on society, especially the poorest and youngest.

Her views have been sidelined by the media in favour of sensationalist headlines demanding another lockdown. Please look up online and read her views. I find her arguments sensible and humane.

This.

Really sorry to hear about your mum and MIL, emilybronte. That’s so hard for them.

I heard her on the BBC yesterday. She seemed to be saying a) we shouldn't need a lockdown because we should have managed re-opening and test and trace better and b) we should "protect the vulnerable" without actually saying how this should be done. (I assume she meant lock all the vulnerable people away and ket everyone else get in with life, tough shit if any vulnerable people need to access medical facilities or anything. She didn't actually say that, although she didn't come up with any alternative suggestions.

So she didn't actually have much to contribute about what we should do given the current situation.

Great Barrington declaration and Gupta's unnecessary flight to US to sign it was funded by a pro-Trump right wing US think tank that would line to see the NHS privatised.

...I also agree that the working poor are paying a terrible price. In terms of why people are so afraid in the virus even when given optimistic facts and figures, a sensible friend pointed out to me that our perception of risk is always flawed. Known risks don’t scare us - driving, flying, smoking, drinking - things that have been part of our lives for a long time don’t strike us as dangerous even when they are. But a new risk, covid, which at first we were told is deadly and terrible, is hard to keep on proportion.

I would like to hear more discussion between experts and less screaming about 5g, covidiots, etc. Considered and informed disagreements and debates are healthy and valuable. Dissent is not an existential threat. Hearing a position is not the same as agreeing with it.

I know experts are not very popular these days but what else have we got. The MN coronavirus board? runs

*In proportion, not On

Well Gupta was tolf before she went live on BBC the other day not to mention The Great Barrington Decoration and she did anyway. Scientists have always had differing views and its important to have these debates.

If we don't have a lockdown then in a matter of weeks we will have thousands of people dying with covid per day.

Possibly Prof Gupta thinks that's a price worth paying, and possibly she's correct from a 'holistic' point of view, but it's naive to think any government would stand idly by and allow that number of people to die in order to achieve some uncertain benefits at some unspecified point in the future.

Prof of theoretical epidemiology, with an educational history including a bachelors from Princeton, and PhD from Imperial College London on the spread of infectious disease.

May I just point out that the OP is trying to discredit someone. The statement is bordering on libellous - how low will you sink.

You sound like Trump trying to say everything he doesn't agree with is Fake News. Pathetic

In the mid 1990s they forecast some millions of U.K. deaths from vCJD.

I've read that paper, this is not true. The number of deaths falls within his predictions it's just that the uncertainty was so large the theoretical maximum was million.

Regardless the actual rate of transmission has proven slightly worse than the Imperial model predicted, so it's pointless slagging that model off as we're past that stage now.

She seemed to be saying a) we shouldn't need a lockdown because we should have managed re-opening and test and trace better

I agree strongly with this. We could have got away with much less chaos and economic damage if the communication had been more consistent and planning had been more long term.

The constant mind-changing, the drama and then false reassurance and the lies have erroded the effectiveness of less Draconian measures.

The failure to make high schools safer will be a big driver too.

Billions of tax payers money has been poured down the drain in contracts given to the relatives of Conservative MPs, billions .

That, alas, seems completely true.

We can't keep doing this. It's untenable. It's not worth it. Sad fact but it's true and I'm no covid denier.

Would you ask for treatment if you or your mum got covid?

I am trying to add a shot of a New York Times article from 2001, freely available online. It refers to the same Neil Ferguson, and we can see now how wrong his projections were.

Pic is sideways - sorry. Not easy to read!

Anyway, it’s not directly relevant, but I think it is worth us all bearing in mind that the catastrophic death toll predications are only predictions, and such analysis has been very wrong in the near past.

And this is a zoonotic disease is it not?

Protecting the vulnerable only works until you scratch the surface.

For a start, it’s estimated that 25% of the population is at least moderately vulnerable. Add in their households and carers and that’s a lot of people that would need to be shut behind closed doors.

Lockdown isn’t a solution. It’s a pause button. We had six months to get a proper test and trace in place and to give clear communication and behaviour expectations to people. The government has catastrophically failed at this task.

I like Guptas argument. We should be listening, not discrediting.

Nothing seems to satisfy the Great Barrington mob - they want us to let the virus spread to achieve "herd immunity" but we've hardly had the virus under control have we? How many cases per day do they think we need to get where they want us to be? 20,000? 40,000? 100,000? 200,000??

It's been spreading pretty freely - which is what they think should help us - but it's not really been helping has it?

But they keep popping up in the media with their "let is spread, lock up granny to save Starbucks" messages.

Professor Gupta is quite right and it is such a shame her views have been sidelined by the media in favour of mindless scaremongering and demands for lockdowns.

SAGE are a scientific advisory group- the only issue they have to consider is COVID. It is such a shame the government have become blind to the huge effects of lockdown on our young people and poorer in society.

They have become in totally in thrall to Imperial predictions that are totally false. To have 4000 deaths a day, there would need to be over a million cases a day. That has not happened anywhere in the world.

@bobbiester

The economy is not Starbucks as you well know. It is people’s jobs, livelihoods and ability to feed and keep a roof over their DC’s heads.

It is the opportunity for our young people to have a future.