BBC article on misinformation groups

[beentoldcomputersaysno]

The BBC has actually published an article on disinformation groups HART, UsforThem (obviously not named Government's links with them as it is the BBC). Wonder why they've timed this now?

www.bbc.com/news/health-58783711

@BewareTheLibrarians, only the first sentence directed at you, in case it came across differently!

@beentoldcomputersaysno 85! Thanks for the correction.

I absolutely agree re struggling on these boards about kids and covid. Ds was so badly affected by covid, but on here the narrative is that covid doesn’t affect kids/it’s just a mild cold/the vaccine is more dangerous, which is all absolute bollocks. There was even a charming poster trying to assert that “anxious parents” were causing long covid symptoms. Last time I checked my powers weren’t strong enough to cause heart problems!

I actually posted the same link as you a day or so ago, and it got zero replies The usual “but vaccines are more dangerous!” bunch are staying well away from it for some reason.

Completely agree too that the deliberate disinformation spread - especially by those with links to and influence over government/cabinet members - is an absolute fucking disgrace, but as you said it’s very good news that’s it’s finally being brought to light.

@Dishhh that’s quite possible, yes!

Yeah. The fact that you’re happy to push the “serious side effects” of the vaccine, yet seem completely unaware of some of the serious and long term effects of covid infection suggests not that well read though, lost.

I've seen you post about DS. 💐

[quote BewareTheLibrarians]@beentoldcomputersaysno 85! Thanks for the correction.

I absolutely agree re struggling on these boards about kids and covid. Ds was so badly affected by covid, but on here the narrative is that covid doesn’t affect kids/it’s just a mild cold/the vaccine is more dangerous, which is all absolute bollocks. There was even a charming poster trying to assert that “anxious parents” were causing long covid symptoms. Last time I checked my powers weren’t strong enough to cause heart problems!

I actually posted the same link as you a day or so ago, and it got zero replies The usual “but vaccines are more dangerous!” bunch are staying well away from it for some reason.

Completely agree too that the deliberate disinformation spread - especially by those with links to and influence over government/cabinet members - is an absolute fucking disgrace, but as you said it’s very good news that’s it’s finally being brought to light.[/quote]
I have a feeling one might be on a temporary ban. I reported so many times for lying about vaccines and harassment of other posters the other day, and they haven't posted since. Maybe here under s name change. But HQ are pretty good at deleting the liars with their agendas. After all, it would look pretty bad for them (HQ) if they were seen to be allowing anti Vax agit prop groups to infiltrate. Particularly as the lies they spread could be believed and acted upon by parents, who might not, as a result, get their children vaccinated.
I've noticed the more canny of them no longer post links, have you seen? They can't, you see, because as their bullshit is based on no science whatsoever, and is easily disproved, any link just takes you to more lies so they get deleted. So now they don't post links. Just vague crap. And the usual laughable conspiracy shit. Bless 'em.

Hope your son continues to make progress

[quote Lostinacloud]@leafyygreens, my point is that mainstream media has sadly become not much more than a government mouthpiece.
I welcome any other group that seeks to question, or at least highlight, some of what is not being asked of the government and of which is never challenged by mainstream media.
The data on covid is there for everyone to see, published by the ONS or PHE but nobody other than people from these groups ever seems to look at it and ask questions, like why do we need to vaccinate children and teens with a vaccine that is still administered under emergency status, with known serious side effects, when the risk to this age group of serious illness or death is pretty much zero. Especially now we all know that the vaccine protects the host and doesn’t stop spread. Comments from Fauci himself admitting that viral load is just as high in vaccinated carriers as those unvaccinated just got ignored. Same as any questions about natural immunity and the requirement for recovered people to have a vaccine. I want to know the answers and follow up action to these proven scientific developments and knowledge growth but the bbc don’t ask.[/quote]
I welcome any other group that seeks to question, or at least highlight, some of what is not being asked of the government

Well yes - but that isn't what these specific groups (HART, U4T, BIRD, FLCCC) are doing. Questioning the government's decisions and the narrative put out by the media isn't the same thing as spreading misinformation.

There have been many scientists and groups who have spoken out against the governments decisions - this wasn't problematic as the issues they were raising were actually evidence based.

Especially now we all know that the vaccine protects the host and doesn’t stop spread. Comments from Fauci himself admitting that viral load is just as high in vaccinated carriers as those unvaccinated just got ignored

This is incorrect. But you already know this as I've seen multiple posters correct you every time you (repeatedly) say it.

The data on covid is there for everyone to see, published by the ONS or PHE but nobody other than people from these groups ever seems to look at it and ask questions, like why do we need to vaccinate children and teens with a vaccine

This is a bizzare claim. Many groups and public health bodies have independently evaluated the available data and used it to inform policy decisions regarding who should be vaccinated. HART et al make claims that are not backed up by the evidence we have regarding coronavirus and vaccines.

We’ve been over this several times olly and geamhradh and I can’t be bothered to argue with you both again. You are entitled to your opinions but I retain mine that members of the public not at risk of serious illness or death from the respiratory virus sars-cov2 do not need a vaccine, especially when the risks of that vaccine start to outweigh the benefits to the individual and could actually cause them more harm. Yes the risks of serious vaccine harm are small, but the risks of death from covid to a healthy 12 year old for example are even smaller, as per stats printed by the beloved bbc.

You still don’t seem to appreciate that I have a huge issue with the mass vaccine push to all age groups whether at risk of covid or not due to the loss of freedoms taking place if you wish to opt out. There’s no covid passport yet in the uk but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s coming. “Plan B”is well underway already with plenty of official regulations and guidelines already present on government websites. You already couldn’t take your one dose vaccinated or unvaccinated teen to a country like Canada for a holiday for example because they would be counted as unvaccinated. Hop over the channel to france for half term instead and your teen can’t eat at the restaurant with you unless they have a covid test every 3 days. How long before that comes into play in the U.K. and then where will the choice be?
The uk is hugely vaccinated and yet case numbers continue to remain high. None of it makes sense and it frustrates the hell out of me that more people can’t seem to grasp this or consider it a valid fear or opinion. It’s not misinformation just because it’s questioning policy.

And one last thing olly, how can you continually tell me that vaccine not stopping spread isn’t true when you only have to look at mumsnet to see multiple threads about double vaccinated people testing positive and feeling really unwell with covid?
I didn’t know a single person who caught covid all of last year. This year the only people I know who have caught it and been unwell are vaccinated.

It’s not misinformation just because it’s questioning policy

You seem to be conflating several points @Lostinacloud

This thread is about the psuedoscience groups who have been peddling misinformation about coronavirus, vacccination, and suppresion policies throughout the pandemic. This has cost lives and led to preventable disability.

The claims that HART et al make are not true. They are not based on robust evidence and have included using false information to coerce people into not being vaccinated.

It is deeply irresponsible given that no make can make an informed decision about vaccination if they are surrounded by misinformation.

This is not the same thing as using robust evidence to question whether specific policy decisions are beneficial or not.

@Lostinacloud

And one last thing olly, how can you continually tell me that vaccine not stopping spread isn’t true when you only have to look at mumsnet to see multiple threads about double vaccinated people testing positive and feeling really unwell with covid? I didn’t know a single person who caught covid all of last year. This year the only people I know who have caught it and been unwell are vaccinated.

I feel like it shouldn't need to be said, but a cross-sectional sample of posts from mumsnet does not give a robust answer to the question of vaccine efficacy.

This has been explained to you multiple times but comparing case rates now and last year is pointless. You are comparing completley different scenarios where other variables (ie confounding) are going to be explaining the differences in case numbers.

When trying to work out if something causes something else, you need to compare situations that are as identical as possible. 2020 and 2021 are obviously far from identical.

I understand that but the fact remains that vaccinated people DO catch and spread covid

Yes the risks of serious vaccine harm are small, but the risks of death from covid to a healthy 12 year old for example are even smaller

Comparing “a small risk of vaccine harm” to “covid deaths” is, again, not a like-for-like comparable situation. You’d need to compare the “risk of vaccine harm” to “the risk of covid harm”. Except you can’t, as the “risk of covid harm” (hospitalisations, MIS-C, long covid, organ damage). far outweighs any risk we’ve seen from the vaccine.

Sure, lots of people don’t like the idea of a covid passport, but throwing kids under the bus for your perceived “freedom”? Fucking hell, I actually have no words.

Thanks @Geamhradh
I hadn’t clicked about a temporary ban but it does make sense! As does your point about the links

@Lostinacloud

I understand that but the fact remains that vaccinated people DO catch and spread covid

Uhuh, and has been explained several to possible a million times, this risk is substantially reduced in vaccinated populations.

Well quite, the 45,000 daily cases and rising in the uk demonstrates such a huge reduction in spread

@Lostinacloud

Well quite, the 45,000 daily cases and rising in the uk demonstrates such a huge reduction in spread

Reduction from what?

You have no comparator, this is a meaningless statement.

Infection and tranmission is significantly reduced in vaccinated compared to unvaccinated populations, this is evident from epidemioligcal studies in the UK.

We are in a less than ideal situation but it would be far worse if no-one was vaccinated.

Hopefully the mainstream media will keep up this investigation into these dubious groups. BylineTimes have published some excellent articles about them over the past few months.

I'm always curious whether the same faces that pop up on these threads are involved with these groups in some way, or if they have just been completely brainwashed and taken advantage of

@Lostinacloud

Well quite, the 45,000 daily cases and rising in the uk demonstrates such a huge reduction in spread

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-infection-rates-highest-among-young-secondary-school-pupils-data-shows-12429102

Seems like vaccinating 12-15 year olds earlier would have helped sort out that particular problem

[quote Lostinacloud]@Dishhh that’s quite possible, yes![/quote]

Of course, it depends on what you're reading and your comprehension of the material ...

@Lostinacloud

Well quite, the 45,000 daily cases and rising in the uk demonstrates such a huge reduction in spread

So open minded

But ignoring the lack of restrictions, the transmission rate rate of delta and impact of autumn

It beggars belief that you can think this way

I have not seen one person argue that vaccines are anywhere near perfect. And there is much valid debate to be had, such as the vaccination of children, not expecting zero covid etc

But you start from a place that’s too far gone to have a rational argument

@sleepwouldbenice I feel the same way about all posters on this page. No open mind left to consider that there are some things going on that are not right, limits to freedoms to a greater extent than reasonable and a reaction and vaccination program that doesn’t make scientific sense in the grand scheme of things.
Cases don’t really matter if hospitalisations and deaths remain stable or as expected (nobody’s immortal) but it’s a crime to say that on here and out in the mainstream because covid is still seen as a deadly disease that kills all ages. Of course there are outliers but that’s the case for every virus, including longer term consequences other than death. In previous years we have all accepted those risks and outcomes as rare and not overreacted. These past 2 years we have lost all sense of risk and sensibility.
I’m fed up of the constant shutdown of any alternative opinion or viewpoint but accept that the posters on this page will never understand the points I’m trying to make and so I leave it here to go and enjoy my life, accepting that there are risks to all of us out there, but refusing to have my life limited by the incessant fear campaign. The fear campaign they have openly admitted to running is abhorrent in itself but none of you will ever seem to see it that way, as long as we all keep meeting those ever moving goalposts eh!

You don't even understand do you?

Yes, the 45,000 (or, more easy to compare with other countries is using % positivity of tests- England sits at 7% as of yesterday cf Italy with less than 1%, Germany and France slightly higher etc (see Data thread)) is a fucking disgrace.

Is it due to:
A) no restrictions, one dose only for teenagers etc
B) vaccines not working.

A fucking aubergine with a crocodile clip attached to it would understand.

Thank you for remaining civil in the debate. I don’t blame you for your style of replies to me, it’s what you’ve been asked to say to anyone like me so it goes over my head.
However, I have particular knowledge about france and can tell you that the difference in case rate is not because of vaccinating teens and additional restrictions (although there are very few really, just the masks on transport and in shops for show-nobody wears them in houses, at parties, in offices etc - there’s even leaked footage of Macron dancing in a huge room of ministers the other night with not a single one in a mask). The difference is down to attitude since the start and the fact that there is much less testing.
Since the start the french government never went as far as banning people from seeing their own family and a lot of the strict looking restrictions are actually very loose in practice. For this reason covid spread rapidly last year and during the earlier part of this year and herd immunity levels from natural infection have been achieved faster. Just like in the uk right now, last October in France you couldn’t move for bumping into someone who’d just had covid. School children have never tested twice a week and home tests aren’t actually really even a thing. You don’t get them free and they aren’t considered satisfactory proof for anything so hardly anyone uses them and definitely doesn’t pay money for them. Additionally, I see plenty of chat at ground level about parents sending their kids into school knowing that they have or probably have covid because they can’t afford the time off for isolating. Schools have also not been closed since last May and so it’s been able to spread round schools already.

It’s impossible to look at the raw data as you have and make comparisons because there is a whole other level of behaviour and attitude to consider.

What I've been asked to say by whom?