COVID-19: an overview of the evidence

[savethegrannies]

www.hartgroup.org/covid-19-evidence/
Key take-away: "The data is in: lockdowns serve no useful purpose and cause catastrophic societal and economic harms. They must never be repeated in this country."

Who are the Hart group?

They are a non-profit, a group of UK doctors, scientists, economists, psychologists and other academic experts.
All done on a voluntary basis, though doubtless somebody will be along soon enough to say they are being funded by a right wing think tank or whatever.

These are the people leading each area of the organisation’s research:

Mental Health and Education, led by Professor Ellen Townsend
Other Harms from Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions, led by Dr Ros Jones
Evidence on COVID-19, led by Dr John Lee
Policies and Economics, led by Professor Gordon Hughes
Treatment Interventions, led by Dr Edmund Fordham

Thanks for posting this link, savethegrannies, it looks like an organisation to watch

I just hope these guys can pick up media coverage. The BBC always seem to interview the same academics.

Their papers are poor. The references at the end are not from reputable scientific journals. They clearly have an agenda but their arguments are not persuasive and they don’t appear to have any scientific authority

How can anyone say lockdowns serve no useful purpose. Can you qualify that as on its own it is a nonsense statement.

I don’t see how any of their proposed alternatives would have prevented collapse of the healthcare system. I’m all for alternatives but their solutions seem to rely on throwing money at the problem like it’s an instantaneous fix.

It’s my understanding that widespread testing early on helps to keep the virus under control as evidenced in Asian countries, Australia and New Zealand. I’m a bit surprised that a group with their collective CV are proposing less testing.

They are known for putting out poor quality research and there isn't an established, respected epidemiologist among them. They have quite a few dubious views which they haven't backed up - Texas is fine now, we don't need to vaccinate healthy adults, masks aren't necessary, lockdowns don't work.

Note how any scientist worth their salt won't use emotive language, or make sweeping statements. Their statements are full of both, and they don't make any effort to present a balanced argument.

Testing for what reason though? The horse has bolted on that, it bolted ages ago. With this testing obsession they are fighting a battle they will never win. And that’s not even accounting for the staggering level of false positives - so many, in fact, that testing is being rendered meaningless because the figures are so distorted. I honestly don’t even think the govt know why they are testing any more.

@oldegg123

They are known for putting out poor quality research and there isn't an established, respected epidemiologist among them. They have quite a few dubious views which they haven't backed up - Texas is fine now, we don't need to vaccinate healthy adults, masks aren't necessary, lockdowns don't work.

Note how any scientist worth their salt won't use emotive language, or make sweeping statements. Their statements are full of both, and they don't make any effort to present a balanced argument.

You've made most of that up. How do you know they are known for poor quality research? Who says that? As for sweeping statements, what about Chris 4,000 deaths a day Whitty?

Did they come from a neutral, investigative stance or did they set out to 'prove their pre existing opinions? If the latter, then it's so easy to find data and stories to back you up. I completely agree thst lockdown has done a huge amount of harm. I also think it's done a huge amount of good (for Covid, not for anything else!) and it woukd be easy to find data and stories to show that too.

Why test? Testing finds infections, infections and identified at risk contacts can then be isolated which then breaks infection chains. It’s a pretty simple flow chart.

I’ll agree that at a high level of population infection this becomes reactive rather than proactive but it’s pretty basic infection control that has been proved effective by other countries and in the control of other diseases. It’s not a cure all but I would expect professionals to have a balanced view of its benefits and capabilities for infection control.

Thank you for this OP

pp 35 - 37 with Sweden, England and North and South Dakota are particularly striking

P44 re Ivermectin is something that many doctors are trying to draw attention to

I'm disappointed the paper doesn't talk more about Covid 19 as a hospital acquired infection. I agree with the statement about spending the testing money on earlier intervention and the provision of meds for use at home, note that doxycycline was mentioned too.

But I think they should have drawn attention to the fact that billions were spent on Nightingales which would have been better spent on hospital cubicles. Everyone I know who was hospitalised with covid was on an open bay. Government scientists initially said exposure to higher viral load was a problem - are they still on that? - so even basic plastic screens between patients could have been helpful.

@Cornettoninja

Why test? Testing finds infections, infections and identified at risk contacts can then be isolated which then breaks infection chains. It’s a pretty simple flow chart.

I’ll agree that at a high level of population infection this becomes reactive rather than proactive but it’s pretty basic infection control that has been proved effective by other countries and in the control of other diseases. It’s not a cure all but I would expect professionals to have a balanced view of its benefits and capabilities for infection control.

The amount spent on testing of asymptomatic people could have established far better treatment for patients.

The amount spent on testing of asymptomatic people could have established far better treatment for patients

But we did both in the UK? The REACT study (along with others) monitored spread and contributed to identifying early symptoms and the RECOVERY study contributed hugely to global treatment protocols for covid and I’ve seen it quoted by physicians from many countries.

They both have their place in infection control. Treatments take time to identify/develop and test. There’s a limit to how much impact throwing money at it can make.

It makes no sense to pick one or the other.

@Cornettoninja

The amount spent on testing of asymptomatic people could have established far better treatment for patients

But we did both in the UK? The REACT study (along with others) monitored spread and contributed to identifying early symptoms and the RECOVERY study contributed hugely to global treatment protocols for covid and I’ve seen it quoted by physicians from many countries.

They both have their place in infection control. Treatments take time to identify/develop and test. There’s a limit to how much impact throwing money at it can make.

It makes no sense to pick one or the other.

Did we though?

What do you think about earlier treatment? Remember when patients were told to do pretty much nothing when other countries were successfully using particular antibiotics, HCQ, etc?

I think we treated people badly. If you rang your GP, it was "stay away". Many of us have experience of doxycycline and others for use in anti viral situations. I have chronic health issues and can only think of one virus where they gave up giving me anything after 9 sets of pills. They weren't sure what it was but they tried. I wasn't just left to suffer.

Use of asthma inhalers was known to help with the cough quite early on but I've only heard of them being prescribed in hospital cases.

My dad was a doctor and his retired colleagues were stunned at the lack of care given to covid patients. All politics, no medicine.

Cornetto "It makes no sense to pick one or the other."

I wasn't suggesting a binary choice but asymptomatic transmission is rare. Our protocols for previous pandemics were better.

Maybe have a look a Brazil for somewhere that has had almost no mitigations in ace. Somewhere that the president wants to continue as normal without any restrictions or even coherent guidance as to appropriate behaviour

Did we though?

Yes and the NHS was one of the sources that identified hydroxychloroquine wasn’t a viable treatment.

I wasn't suggesting a binary choice but asymptomatic transmission is rare

Is it? I thought the jury was still out on that. Besides, how do you know that without testing to build evidence? I believe that testing has revealed that asymptomatic infections are more likely to be pre-symptomatic or very mildly symptomatic but how would that be identified without testing?

Our protocols for previous pandemics were better

Which ones and how are they comparable to covid?

@bumblingbovine49

Maybe have a look a Brazil for somewhere that has had almost no mitigations in ace. Somewhere that the president wants to continue as normal without any restrictions or even coherent guidance as to appropriate behaviour

And is still touting hydroxychloroquine as the go to treatment for covid because they manufactured a shit load early on

"Which ones and how are they comparable to covid?"

SARS and MERS. I was recovering from pneumonia when SARS hit and GPs were calling vulnerable patients as per norms and it was politely suggested I consider making sure dad washed his hands etc before visiting my flat because he worked with patients, but he specialised in infectious disease, so we were used to all that.

Honestly the main difference is hysteria. Of course he was worried about his daughter on the Tube going to an office of staff who travelled internationally.

But that worry was in proportion.

Infection control in his hospital was rigid. It's now a whole "let the patient have seven visitors feeding them crisps" shambles. One contact said they were doing bloods on the ward without changing gloves or washing hands.

I should go. I've got to do a care visit and frankly I'm exhausted having the same chat with MNers who seem to think infection control didn't exist before covid, and have no idea how notifiable disease worked before bloody apps were allocated to do what GPs and admin staff should do.

God help us when the next disease turns up.

But SARS didn’t manage to get a grip in pretty much every country on the planet besides which the WHO recommendations do the exact opposite of calling for less testing www.who.int/health-topics/severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome/technical-guidance/alert-verification-and-public-health-management-of-sars-in-the-post-outbreak-period. Countries with experience of SARS and MERS did well with covid but for some reason, that will forever remain a mystery to me, other countries decided not to look to their examples and knowledge. That ship sailed a long time ago.

Tbh your post seems to be mixing up political/personal arguments with factual ones and isn’t entirely clear if I’m honest. But no worries, it’s a forum not a chat room - there’s no compulsion to have a real time conversation or even continue it at all. There’s no need to explain anything about where you are

@savethegrannies

Testing for what reason though? The horse has bolted on that, it bolted ages ago. With this testing obsession they are fighting a battle they will never win. And that’s not even accounting for the staggering level of false positives - so many, in fact, that testing is being rendered meaningless because the figures are so distorted. I honestly don’t even think the govt know why they are testing any more.

Good use of emotive language there OP. 10/10 for effort, 0/10 for sense.

I don't news to use emotive language. The facts speak for themselves. The governmemt has humbled from one fuck cluster to another, seemingly with no strategy, no end goal and no clue. The possy of scientists/careerists it relies on have spent the past 6 months frantically covering their backs for the inevitable public enquiry. People have every right to ask wtf is going on, especially when as tax payers we be paying for it.

I don't news to use emotive language.

Then why do it? People recognise the use of emotive language as a marker of a poor or biased argument, in this case, correctly.