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."

Thanks for that @Northernsoulgirl45

Now everyone can see that there isn’t a virologist or epidemiologist amongst them.

No-one is trying to stop healthy debate, but the expert opinions being put forward as a counter argument to those of Whitty, Ferguson, WHO etc, need to be credible.

From a cursory glance, there are 2 immunologists in that group, and one of them is a vet. How many of these scientists are from the UK’s great universities? Oxbridge? UCL? Imperial? UMIST? Not exactly the best and brightest in relevant fields, are they?

A bunch of psychologists are rightly concerned about the cost of mental health of lockdown, and economists are obviously going to focus on the financial costs - it doesn’t mean they are right about those being worse than the costs to not locking down.

The Hart Group dossier is an opinion piece written by scientists largely lacking relevant qualifications in the science of virus transmission and quite often based on incomplete or incorrect reading of the source material they reference.

That’s why it’s not worth debating. No nefarious reasons or conspiracies; it’s just not good science.

@thatonehasalittlecar exactly 💯

You know, anyone can package partial shit into a "report" and publish it. Just look at the recent report on Racial Equality in the UK.

Any opposing views to the the way covid was managed were quickly suppressed and banished from mass media since the start of the lockdowns in 2020. There are also other professionals who try to speak out and beg for a review of the measures but they are being ignored.

Exactly. Very troubling.

But it will be to 'a bunch of psychologists and economists' we turn to in the long run to clear up this mess. Should they not input into the debate now? The chapter authors are more than qualified to contribute to such discussions. I am not saying they are a 100% right but it is downright creepy the extent to which dissenters are discredited and shot down.

No, they shouldn’t get an input into the best way to stop an epidemic, any more than an epidemiologist should be consulted about the best way to balance the books.

There is nothing creepy about discrediting people without the correct credentials to weigh in.

You don’t ask the accountant at your GP for a second opinion on your prescription, do you?

For all of you lamenting the lack of debate on MSM, you fundamentally do not understand the role of the news. We are not America. We do not have opinion masquerading as news, we have very strict rules governing our output. If you think these are being broken, you have places to make your thoughts known.

But not giving airtime to fringe opinions and non-expert testimony isn’t actually breaking the guidelines. Quite the opposite, actually.

Not that any of you have been able to give examples of any of these much maligned freedom fighters.

@Wildswim opposing views have been allowed.

There is are groups of MPs who are opposed to lockdown, opposed to certain lockdown restrictions, opposed to the length of lockdown or opposed to the Covid emergency powers being extended. (My own MP is one of the latter group.)

There have also been academic scientists, though I noticed they were mostly veterinary ones, who especially last year made it clear they were against lockdowns.

Then there are journalists and broadcasts who openly state that they were and are against lockdowns. While some of the journalists and broadcasters have changed their point of view, others are still broadcasting on radio stations that have a national and, thanks to the internet, international audiences.

@thatonehasalittlecar Some people don't seem to realise that in the MSM there are dissenting voices but they don't hear them because they expect them on the news.

I understand. You see the goal as stopping the epidemic. I see the goal as reducing the threat from the epidemic, protecting (in the broadest sense) citizens while we do it, and maintaining some sort of functioning society at the end of it. If the goal is just to stop the epidemic then there doesn't need to be any regard given to the consequences of the actions taken.

The BBC is statutorily obliges to be impartial and thus provide both sides, and also question and hold the government to account, yet it's become nothing more than a mouthpiece for the government. Propaganda, not news, is what we're getting from the MSM.

Alternative views can be read in the Spectator... Maybe Telegraph?? Nowhere else.

I am not saying they are a 100% right but it is downright creepy the extent to which dissenters are discredited and shot down

I don’t think creepy is quite the right word, as professionals in their fields (even if not directly related to immunology) they should be used to robustly defending their arguments. That’s how it works, people put forward their argument and it’s thoroughly examined and questioned. It only discredits them if they haven’t got a strong enough defence of their claims at which point they can either double down (which will absolutely discredit them) or go and collect further evidence to back up their proposal. There isn’t, and shouldn’t, be any difference in the way proposals like this are handled.

If their statements attract questions those should be tackled head on - it’s not particularly helpful to their credibility to have anyone claiming it’s suppression when actually there should be a relatively clear answer to rebuttals if it’s a strong argument.

No, you don’t get it. I used ‘stop’ the epidemic as shorthand for ‘prevent as many deaths as possible, prevent the chronically underfunded NHS being overwhelmed, and prevent the endless repeating of the cycle of new variants emerging and taking hold.’

The best way to do all these things in a timely manner and go back to ‘normal’ is to listen to the experts who have spent their lives working out how to do this.

No-one is suggesting that these measures will be forever, but we did the quick-lift lockdown this time last year. We ignored the many voices in scientific unison, crying out that it was too soon, preferring the voices of ‘reason’ who warned about the crippling effect on the economy; how well did that turn out?

We kept the borders open for trade and business, we re-opened the restaurants and pubs for economic prosperity, we sent children back to school and encouraged workers back to the office. And as we were warned, the virus took control again.

No-one is suggesting that this isn’t going to be a painful rebuild of our economy and mental health. No-one is suggesting that we can love like this forever.

But let’s deal with the most pressing issue at hand first: getting the pandemic under control. Then let’s refocus our attention to our minds and wallets - guided by the brightest and best psychologists and economists.

@Wildswim

Impartial absolutely does not require both sides to be put forward. You need to do some further reading about the role of the media, specifically in news.

Reading opinion pieces in newspapers like the Spectator, Telegraph, Guardian, whatever is not the same as watching the news. You will not find a psychologist’s paper on the efficacy of lockdown at containing the spread of the virus quoted in a news article, because they are not a credible source of that information.

For a start, have a look at the statements over the BBC no longer giving airtime to climate change deniers. They were absolutely wrong to do so, as it flies in the face of scientific consensus.

It would be wrong of them to give news airtime to anti-vaxxers for the same reason. Or flat earthers or homeopaths or mediums.

(I’m not conflating the Hart group with mediums or flat-earthers, before I’m accused of that, they are just extreme examples of why impartiality doesn’t equal presenting both sides)

@Wildswim Talk radio stations have people broadcasting who have dissenting views as their shows are wholly based around opinion.

However when programs are essentially the News, such as breakfast programs on the television or drive-time programs on the radio, broadcasters have to be very careful of what opinions they air.

This is to avoid giving air time to conspiracy theories and people whose academic credentials don't cover the academic subjects they are giving their opinion on.

To lift an analogy from the Hart report, it is the sunk cost effect. So that by Christmas 1914 it was clear amongst all protagonist countries that WW1 would not be over quickly and was a stalemate costing a lot of lives. The smart thing would have been to call it quits and avoid (with hindsight greater loss of life) however that would have meant that all lives lost up to that point would have been for nothing. Anyone proposing that approach would have been heavily criticised or called a traitor or a coward. So they just carried on with greater loss of life but unable to ever stop it until one country was bled white.

A similar analogy can be found in investments where for example you buy a £1000 worth of shares which then drops to £800 but you continue to hold because psychologically you don't want to lock in a £200 loss, it then drops to £600 and then to £400 until it goes bust. The smart thing to have done was take the first loss and take emotion out of your decision or as the trading ditty says " the first cut is always the cheapest".

Similarly the mainstream view is that the lockdown and restrictions were needed despite its wider impact. To question if that is the right approach (rightly or wrongly) would mean that all the personal, educational, mental and physical health and the economic costs of the lockdown would have been for nothing.

No one wants to hear that message so we carry on and those that do question whether lockdown and restrictions were a good idea are criticised or called Covid deniers or anti vaxx.

The BBC is supposed to be impartial and uphold certain standards etc. If anybody seriously believes this and that it does not have its own agenda at times, they are deluded and incredibly naïve. I know people who work there and who have worked there - it is an incredibly political organisation.
BBC's 'coverage' of the pandemic, has been completely risible. Its dependence on the same cabal of rent-a-quote scientists throughout this pandemic is worthy of an enquiry in itself.
I've listened to interviews on Radio 4 where scientists have been cut off for straying from the dominant line around lockdowns. These alternate views were not anti-vaxxers, they were not covid-deniers, they were not conspiracy theorists. They were simply scientists who believe the net effect of current policies (in terms of cost benefit analysis which is typically how governments approach policies) raises serious questions about them; and that a more pragmatic way forward (less onerous restrictions over a longer period which more people might be likely to follow) might present a better way forward.
These scientists have been at various stages silenced, ignored or talked over; the BBC has presented pretty much one view throughout all this, a view designed to scare the living daylights out of people (particularly the elderly, many of whom I know seem to think you can catch this illness walking within a few yards of somebody OUTDOORS). That's not science, that's propaganda.
I fully expect a poster to come along and accuse my of being a denier, an anti-vaxxer or what-not as this is another of the tactics which was started at government level but now seems to have permeated into then general public. The government is fortunate in that sense - it does not need to do its scaremongering, it has useful idiot members of the public doing it for them.

The whole thing is a lie - I know two of the people listed and contacted them to ask if they HAD put their names to it as I was quite surprised given that they're actually scientists and the above is simply a hysterical conspiracy theory.

They both said they hadn't even heard of it and are wondering how on earth they can get their names taken off the list.

Seems a shame that people are stupid enough to be taken in by the crackpots that start up shit like this, but it seems sadly that they are.

@savethegrannies once again attacking people who don’t agree with you. To quote you: ‘how embarrassing’.

@bookworm1632 that’s shocking! I hope your friends are able to put a stop to it.

@1dayatatime you make good points and I admit I have found myself on the side of frustration at people seemingly happy to ‘waste’ all the sacrifice and effort made so far.

BUT, I also remain unconvinced that I have come across a better way that this could have been handled without dramatic and strict infection control measures. Since the emergence of all this in Wuhan I have remained convinced by the statement that anything we do that is successful will be viewed as an overreaction in the future. This remains true as far as I’m concerned and the problem is that each side has a large piece missing in that the worst case/alternative scenario is forever unprovable because we can’t undo what we’ve already done.

I feel that there is going to be a lot learned in the aftermath that will undermine decisions (not all of which I agreed with and some I still want the government held accountable for because I absolutely don’t believe it’s been handled anywhere approaching ‘well’ bar the vaccination programme) taken at the time which obviously didn’t have the luxury of having the time to analyse everything thoroughly because we were fire fighting a crisis. Strategies implemented in the context of the time they were used are going to be judged on information that was only available later. I’ve already seen it happening.

All that said, I fundamentally disagree with the OP’s link and don’t think revealed anything approaching a credible alternative.

@savethegrannies ‘I know people at the BBC so what I say about it is true’

@bookworm1632 ‘I know scientists named in the Hart report who didn’t sign up for it.’

@savethegrannies ‘bookworm is a liar, talking nonsense and peeling conspiracy theories’

Can you see why people are suggesting you’re a little hard of understanding, Savethe? 😆

*peddling

@Cornettoninja

"BUT, I also remain unconvinced that I have come across a better way that this could have been handled without dramatic and strict infection control measures. Since the emergence of all this in Wuhan I have remained convinced by the statement that anything we do that is successful will be viewed as an overreaction in the future. This remains true as far as I’m concerned and the problem is that each side has a large piece missing in that the worst case/alternative scenario is forever unprovable because we can’t undo what we’ve already done. "

+++++

Firstly thank you for your kind reply and taking the time to understand what I was trying to get across.

I think an important take away from the responses in this post is that "a better way" of managing the crisis cannot be openly discussed or argued for or against without debasing to a slanging match of anti vaxx or Covid denier accusations, which I hope you will agree is not helpful.

Secondly you are of course correct that "worst case/alternative scenario is forever unprovable" . However there is a useful comparison between Florida and California which adopted very different approaches to dealing with Covid but gave surprisingly similar results.