This scientist thinks we have got everything very, very wrong

[queenofknives]

I mean, he's pretty convincing so far tbh. Anyone else watching?

@queenofknives

How would you propose shielding someone like me? And I'm one of the lucky ones who can work from home! Idiotic suggestion

Thanks for the ad hominem! Well I think there are certainly possibilities for vulnerable people to be supported to be at home and to isolate from others. It is a shame if a minority of people can't live normal life because of the threat of this virus, but I think it's selfish to expect everyone to give up their lives. I'm sure that there are sensible solutions that could be put in place.

All I keep reading on Mumsnet though is how everyone’s 80 something year old relative has no intention of locking themselves away. Makes it a bit tricky to shield the vulnerable then 🤷‍♀️

@GoldenOmber

Lockdown is killing them.

What, even in places that didn’t have one? Bloody hell, it’s powerful.

Track and trace wasn't ready and bars were allowed to open at the end of lockdown (at the beginning of the summer season). The end of lockdown was bungled in Spain basically.

oops, quoted the wrong person

@Anniegetyourgun

Just been googling why Spain has had an upsurge in infections. It's not because they wear too many masks, that's for sure. Seems the population's movements aren't nearly as firmly controlled as some posters claim, and that track and trace efforts make even the UK's system look efficient (well, that may be a little harsh actually, nothing could do that). Maybe they ought to lock up all the over 60s (I may be a little bitter over this totally crap suggestion, being over 60 myself, also somewhat overweight, but working full time and having a mortgage to pay ffs).

Back to the UK, I may be wrong about this, but the recording of all deaths with COVID as COVID deaths" was I think changed some months ago?

Track and trace wasn't ready and bars were allowed to open at the end of lockdown (at the beginning of the summer season). The end of lockdown was bungled in Spain basically.

My Dad was not virtually no one to me. If he had not caught Covid he would still be alive.

@EvilPea

Long covid isn’t a laugh either so that’s what you’d be signing people up to.

I am interested to see the studies on them, how long their immunity lasts and if the damage their first contact has then leaves damage that makes it more severe the second time.

Long covid is a post viral symptome that happens with other viruses as well, it's nothing new.

But you're quite happy to inflict it on a significant proportion of the population who have the bad judgement to be in some way vulnerable.

Of course not. I am vulnerable myself. Why would I be happy to inflict a horrible illness on anyone at all? I'm not a psychopath.

I do think that people could try harder to have a conversation about this that doesn't devolve into name-calling and insults. Maybe I'm wrong, for sure - I'm open to evidence and debate. But I don't deserve this sort of horrible response just because I've said something another person disagrees with. There's nothing to be gained from twisting my words, other than perhaps the thrill of being mean - but that will wear off soon enough.

i don't see why those are the only two alternatives. Is there not some middle way, where we protect the more vulnerable people and allow others to continue normal life? I can't believe that such a thing is beyond us as advanced scientific nations.

Yes I would agree with this. I'm not going to break the rules. But I don't agree with them.

There are many ways to look at this problem, and lockdowns are not the only potential answer. They're just the easiest. Government passes the legislation and starts chucking huge mountains of debt around. People are lulled into a false sense of security because they're still getting paid something, and living standards haven't collapsed. We'll see what it all looks like in five years' time, when I think even 250,000 deaths would have looked like a better outcome than servicing an impossible government debt, with the concomitant credit downgrade, tax rises and completely unaffordable cost of living. The central point is not that it's not killing anyone (that's bollocks, it is and it will), but that there are no good outcomes.

Once would be good. I mean, those who are vulnerable would also be vulnerable to flu (no, I'm not saying it's the same thing) so how do we protect those people from getting flu?

Erm, by giving them a vaccine every year. I imagine without one there would be many more flu deaths annually.

@StartingOver2020

My Dad was not virtually no one to me. If he had not caught Covid he would still be alive.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I'm not saying that anyone who's died was a nobody. That's a misinterpretation of my words. I'm talking about statistics. Of course any loss is devastating, but the question for me is the relationship between the data and the political response.

Ah, the Great Barrington Declaration, signed by a fringe group of scientists at the American Institute for Economic Research, a libertarian think tank that pushes for (in its words) "pure freedom" and vastly reduced government intervention. I wonder why they would be against lockdowns. Its herd immunity arguments have been widely rebutted by most other scientists (including here in the Lancet as being not only unethical but impractical (how do you just lock the elderly and vulnerable away? Do you deny them the right to access medical treatment?). Their ideas were well received by Donald Trump though!

Professor Gupta, one of the signatories, was on the news a week or two ago. She was critical of the lockdown approach but didn't have a single suggestion about an alternative way to manage the rising number of infections.

500,000 is the average number of deaths in a calendar year in the UK.
How does this connect to the Covid deaths this year?

@queenofknives

It’s not forever and I want to keep those I care for safe

I hope you're right. I hope it's not forever, and I hope it does keep people safe. But I'm not convinced. I would like to see a genuine public debate and for the government to be held to account for their decisions on this in a meaningful way. Otherwise, we are just being asked to do what we're told on the basis of data and science that scientists keep popping up and telling us is not right. Maybe it is right, maybe the government are doing all the right things. But I don't trust the government, and I want to see them held to account before I resign myself to giving up my life, plans, goals, relationships or anything else.

This fascinates me. What has happened to you that you think that this is forever? That you would even think about giving up life plans, goal, relationships etc? It's been a few months. Why would you think that this will be permanent, like what are you basing it on, not history, so what? And what would be the purpose in the government say keeping us all socially distanced forevermore? Are you just naturally very pessimistic or are there deeper issues at play?

Obviously, you don't have to answer this but with no evidence at all that this will go on forever, no pandemic in history has ever lasted forever, I would love to know what people like you are basing any of this off? It must be very worrying and tiring,

@queenofknives Look at the excess deaths rate across Europe and then come back and say CV isn't a huge threat?
Do you not think Italys health service was overwhelmed?

Sure its right to question the UK's response but almost every country in the world is treating CV very seriously.

CV is on top of what is normally expected, not instead off.

OrangeBlossomsinthesun I can certainly believe that.

@queenofknives

I'm getting to the point where I think the only way forward now is to ditch masks, forget about social distancing, ignore the lockdown and just go back to life. We can't lose all our rights and freedoms, give up the nhs and go into a devastating economic depression for a virus that kills virtually no one.

I take it you've not been in a hospital lately?? I work in one. You sound completely ridiculous.

We only lose the NHS if we all sit about and let it happen. If that situation is put on the table then we all have to get up off our backsides and do something. We would be quite literally fighting for the lives of everyone we love. If that's not a good enough reason to take to the streets and demand a say in where our tax money goes, I don't know what is. We have all the power if we all stand up at once. Forgetting that is what leads to backsliding on huge social steps forward like a national health service. We all have a duty to preserve it.

It’s not an impossible debt. It’s fairly large, but it’s over a very long term and at unprecedentedly low interest rates. Over a period of 25 years or so it’ll make a small but noticeable impact on GDP. It’s by no means crippling.

@ILoveYou3000

Once would be good. I mean, those who are vulnerable would also be vulnerable to flu (no, I'm not saying it's the same thing) so how do we protect those people from getting flu?

Erm, by giving them a vaccine every year. I imagine without one there would be many more flu deaths annually.

And if covid isn't put as a cause of death for everyone who tested positive in the last 28 days, we would have way less covid deaths this year.

It's crazy that the actual covid deaths could very well be on the level of the flu but we'll never know.

I am intrigued by the peer reviewed writings of John Ioannis’s that are mentioned in this video. Has anyone read it? I remember listening to him at the very start of the pandemic and he seemed like a rational, fair guy.