Coronavirus – A perspective from Britain Part 8

Written by Andy Rowlands on August 3, 2020. Posted in Current News

This article covers the month of July. The graph below gives the number of new cases in Birmingham and Solihull for July. On July 2^nd, data on tests in the community were added to the number of cases for English local authorities causing the numbers to increase sharply.

Figures for the rest of the UK already included people tested in the wider population, but it had not been made clear that was not the case in England. The number of cases increased by 1401 in Birmingham, and 197 in Solihull. This is actually good news, as it means the percentage of deaths compared to the number of cases has reduced.

During July there was one day with no new cases in Birmingham, and five days in Solihull. I have left out the spikes on July 2^nd, as they make the other numbers too small to see.

Since March, there have been 1174 deaths in Birmingham, and 261 in Solihull, up to July 17^th. This is the most recent data available.

The chart below shows the number of new cases across the UK to 31^st July.

Notice the heading says confirmed cases are starting to rise. This is due to the inclusion of previously unrecorded data detailed in the opening paragraph, and of course increased testing.

A lot has been made of spikes in cases in places like Leicester, Merthyr Tydfil and Bradford, but all those places have seen an increase in the number of tests given, so an increase in cases should hardly be surprising. Leicester was placed back under full lockdown again on June 29^th.

Also on July 2^nd, the Department of Health and Social Care reduced the number of new cases by approximately 30,000 due to a ‘revision of data’. This resulted in the UK dropping from 5^th place to eighth place on Worldometer, having been ‘overtaken’ by Peru, Spain & Chile. By the end of July, the UK had dropped to 11^th place on Worldometer, and to 9^th place on Covidly.

The number of people in the UK in critical condition had dropped from 1559 at the end of May, to 279 by June 30^th, and to 84 by the end of July.

The chart below shows the number of deaths across the whole of the UK up to 31^st July.

The chart for the number of suspected virus cases in hospitals was removed from the BBC virus webpage on July 2^nd, and the chart for the number of tests done was removed from the webpage on July 4^th. Neither have been reinstated.

This curious statement appeared on the BBC virus webpage in early July:

The government has argued it is too soon to make definitive international comparisons but, as the impact of the first wave becomes clear in many countries, analysis is beginning to suggest the UK has been the hardest hit of the leading G7 nations.

Notice the wording. The first wave. Is it just me, or does this suggest the government somehow knows there will be a second wave? Or as some postulate, are going to tell us there is one regardless?

The BBC virus webpage can be seen at www.bbc.co.uk/news

An article appeared in The Evening Standard on June 18^th, but I only became aware of on July 3^rd. It says school teachers are noting many younger pupils seem ‘withdrawn, disturbed and traumatised’ on returning to schools, according to Sir Daniel Moynihan, CEO of the Harris Federation, which runs 48 schools in the UK. The articles states, in part:

Sir Daniel told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s fair to say many children have been severely damaged educationally…’ and ‘have gone backwards in their emotional development.’

“They have missed interaction with their friends. They haven’t only gone back in learning, they have gone backwards in emotional development as well.”

More than 1,600 paediatricians have added their voices to the call to reopen schools, saying there is a risk of “scarring the life chances” of a generation of children if they remain shut.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister, signed by members of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, they said vulnerable children were suffering while schools were shut. They fear for the impact on children’s mental health and the loss of educational achievement.

The article can be seen at www.standard.co.uk

The article by Arjun Walia on July 3^rd published on PSI seems to hit the nail on the head with its description of the ‘excess deaths’ on top of those allegedly caused by the virus. I won’t copy any of it here for space considerations, as you can see it yourself at principia-scientific.org

The same day, I was made aware of an article on the website GreenMedInfo, about the effectiveness of wearing facemasks during a viral outbreak. It is quite a long article, so I will quote just a few pieces –

There have been extensive randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies, and meta-analysis reviews of RCT studies, which all show that masks and respirators do not work to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses, or respiratory illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles. (Emphasis added)

It would be a paradox if masks and respirators worked, given what we know about viral respiratory diseases: The main transmission path is long-residence-time aerosol particles (< 2.5 μm), which are too fine to be blocked, and the minimum-infective-dose is smaller than one aerosol particle. (Emphasis added)

The article then shows abstracts from seven studies between 2009 & 2020 that show facemasks do not prevent infection from spreading. It continues:-

By making mask-wearing recommendations and policies for the general public, or by expressly condoning the practice, governments have both ignored the scientific evidence and done the opposite of following the precautionary principle. (Emphasis added)

In an absence of knowledge, governments should not make policies that have a hypothetical potential to cause harm. (Emphasis added)

The present paper about masks illustrates the degree to which governments, the mainstream media, and institutional propagandists can decide to operate in a science vacuum, or select only incomplete science that serves their interests. Such recklessness is also certainly the case with the current global lockdown of over 1 billion people, an unprecedented experiment in medical and political history. (Emphasis added)

The article can be seen at greenmedinfo.com

On July 4^th, the CDC in Atlanta reported that the percentage of deaths in the United States has dipped low enough so that the nation is at the epidemic threshold, which means if the percentage drops any lower, the CDC will no longer call the coronavirus an epidemic.

On July 5^th, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 was not known when thousands of patients were released from hospitals into care homes without being tested. Blanket testing of all discharges was introduced on 16 April, but figures released by NHS England show 25,000 were discharged from hospital into care homes in the month leading up to that date.

When questioned about this by the BBC’s Andrew Marr, Mr Hancock said: “At that point it was not known about the asymptomatic transmission of this disease, because no other coronavirus transmits asymptomatically, is my understanding.”

So, no other known coronavirus can be spread asymptomatically, but Covid-19 can? Does that sound credible to readers?

The video can be seen at www.bbc.co.uk

This lack of asymptomatic transmission is backed up in a study published on the US website PMC on May 13^th. The abstract reads, in part:

An ongoing outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread around the world. It is debatable whether asymptomatic COVID-19 virus carriers are contagious. We report here a case of the asymptomatic patient and present clinical characteristics of 455 contacts, which aims to study the infectivity of asymptomatic carriers.

The median contact time for patients was four days and that for family members was five days. Cardiovascular disease accounted for 25% among original diseases of patients. Apart from hospital staffs, both patients and family members were isolated medically. During the quarantine, seven patients plus one family member appeared new respiratory symptoms, where fever was the most common one. The blood counts in most contacts were within a normal range. All CT images showed no sign of COVID-19 infection. No severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections was detected in 455 contacts by nucleic acid test. (Emphasis added)

In summary, all the 455 contacts were excluded from SARS-CoV-2 infection and we conclude that the infectivity of some asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers might be weak. (Emphasis added)

We can see from this that 455 people were exposed to an asymptomatic carrier, and none of them developed symptoms of the virus. This strongly suggests there is no asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19.

The article can be seen at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

On the 6^th, The Times published an article saying work done by Health Data Research UK; the national institute for health data science, suggested that we could see upwards of 18,000 excess cancer deaths in the next few years, partly because referrals for cancer treatments had been delayed or cancelled, and partly because many people had been scared of seeking help from their GP, or going to hospital for treatment for fear of catching the virus.

The article can be seen at www.thetimes.co.uk

In April, a report produced by the Department of Health, the Office of National Statistics, the government’s Actuary Department and the Home Office, concluded that the disease itself could kill 50,000, but delayed healthcare would kill 12,000 to 25,000 in the short term and 185,000 people in the long term. On top of that, the inevitable recession caused by the lockdown could kill thousands more, approaching a quarter of a million according to their estimates.

The report is discussed in detail at www.spiked-online.com

A retired former senior government scientist I am acquainted with commented:

“This is what I was saying at the outset – and it won’t just be cancer deaths. Excess deaths over the next 5 – 10 years as a knock-on from government policies are likely to outstrip anything the virus could have done. Neither are deaths the main issue – additional costs of extended care and excess morbidity are going to rocket across the board.”

The same day, the Independent newspaper published an article with the headline ‘Boris Johnson blames care home owners for deaths from coronavirus’. However, the headline is misleading, as the first sentence of the article states ‘Boris Johnson is under fire after appearing to blame care home owners for the huge death toll from coronavirus in their properties. (Emphasis added)

The article then goes on to contradict itself by explaining the real reason for the large number of care home deaths:-

Anger has grown over the decision to discharge 25,000 hospital patients who had not been tested, fuelled by health secretary Matt Hancock’s notorious claim to have “thrown a protective ring” around them. (Emphasis added)

As in America, infected elderly patients had been forcibly placed in care homes, which resulted in large numbers of deaths there. The article can be seen at www.independent.co.uk

On the 7^th, the BBC reported three pubs had closed again (in Somerset, West Yorkshire and Hampshire) due to some customers having tested positive for the virus.

It is interesting to note the article says ‘pub & hospitality trade bodies’ have told venues to record the arrival times of customers and how long they stay. It also says people can refuse to give information, but owners can choose not to serve them. In other words, do as you’re told or leave.

The article can be seen at www.bbc.co.uk

On the 7^th, the BBC virus webpage said:

‘Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the number of deaths from all causes registered in a single week has fallen below the five-year average for the second consecutive week.

The same day, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government will look again at whether people in England should wear face coverings or masks while out in public, after Dr Venki Ramakrishnan; a ‘Nobel Prize-winning biologist’, claimed they should just be considered a routine item of clothing and ‘part of the new normal‘.

This ‘new normal’ is what many are saying will be standard practice from now on in the ‘post-Covid world’, so this suggests wearing face masks in public will become permanent. This is despite the World Health Organisation saying they do not recommend face masks out in fresh air.

On July 10^th, an article appeared in The Telegraph that claimed the government is sidelining the SAGE group, and will be advised by the ‘Joint Biosecurity Centre’ on how to deal with the virus crisis.

For those who can get past the paywall, the article can be seen here:-www.telegraph.co.uk

On the 12^th, Michael Gove told Andrew Marr facemasks should NOT be made mandatory in shops. The video can be seen here:-www.standard.co.uk/news

The following day, Sky News reported the government is making facemasks mandatory in shops from the 24^th, but it does not apply to shop staff. The article says:

Enforcement will be carried out by police – not retail staff – and anyone failing to wear a face covering while shopping will be subject to a fine of up to £100.

It can be seen here:-news.sky.com/story

Another relaxation of the lockdown then. This measure should have been introduced at the outset, not when cases and deaths are falling steadily.

On the 14^th, during an interview on Radio 4’s The Today Programme, the chair of London’s Met Police Federation; Ken Marsh, said it would be “nigh-on impossible” to enforce the new requirement on face masks, and

“We’ll be driving round and round London looking for people who weren’t wearing masks, it’s absolutely absurd.”

The same day, the Office for National Statistics said the number of deaths from all causes registered in a single week has fallen below the five-year average for the third consecutive week.

On the 15^th, the Huffington Post website reported Matt Hancock said ‘People could be required to wear a face covering in shops until a vaccine for coronavirus is found.

“I expect that this law will be in place for the foreseeable future”.

How long is ‘for the foreseeable future’? Weeks? Months? Years?

The same day, another fearmongering headline appeared, this time from The Metro newspaper: ‘Second wave of coronavirus could see 120,000 hospital deaths’. The article states:

Scientists advising the Government have given the figure as a ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ in a new report from the Academy of Medical Sciences, commissioned by the Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.

The figures do not take account of Government intervention to reduce the transmission rate, or the use of the drug dexamethasone in intensive care units, which has been shown to cut deaths.

Professor Stephen Holgate, a Medical Research Council clinical professor of immunopharmacology who led the study, said: ‘This is not a prediction, but it is a possibility. (Emphasis added)

In other words, there is just as much possibility of there being a second wave as there is of there not being one. IF there is a ‘second wave’, it will mean that the antisocial distancing, the masks and the lockdown were all a waste of time.

The article can be seen here:- metro.co.uk

On the 17^th, Matt Hancock launched an urgent review of how virus deaths are counted in the UK, after he apparently suddenly became aware that anyone who has tested positive for the virus even months before their death is being listed as a death caused by it, something many of us have known, and said, for some time.

The same day, Sky News also reported on the call for a review. Their article included the following:

A recent article published by the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM), based at Oxford University, described the “statistical anomaly” which means that “no one can ever recover from COVID-19 in England“.

Anyone who has tested COVID positive but subsequently died at a later date of any cause will be included on the PHE COVID death figures.

A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later. (Emphasis added to all three paragraphs)

Dr Jason Oke and Professor Carl Heneghan of CEBM said in reality, fewer than 40 people are dying from Covid-19 each day in Britain.

This is why Covidly is still showing a 97% mortality rate for the UK. It can be seen here:-news.sky.com/story

Also on the 17^th, Public Health England confirmed that reported deaths may have included people who tested positive months before they died. May have. I think we can probably take this to mean they did.

Does this strike the reader as either gross incompetence, or a deliberate attempt to jack up the death numbers?

The same day, the Office for Budget Responsibility said the economy is expected to shrink by 12.4% this year, which would be the biggest economic decline in 300 years, and the PM said he was devolving power to local councils to close shops, cancel events and shut outdoor spaces to manage local outbreaks.

On the 18^th, the ‘official’ global death toll from the Covid virus reached 602,000. That puts it on a par with the average number dying globally from seasonal flu every year. A significant part of this number is because deaths that would normally be attributed to other causes, are now being attributed to the virus, and deaths attributed to other causes have dropped significantly.

The following day, the Office for National Statistics’ chief Professor Sir Ian Diamond told Sky News that the UK’s current Covid infection rate is “basically flat,” adding that the trend will continue if we are “really careful“.

On the 20^th, Yahoo News reported the government say unless everyone agrees to be vaccinated, restrictions will remain in place. See: uk.news.yahoo.com

Kate Bingham, chair of the government’s vaccine taskforce, was quoted as saying:

“Vaccination has had a massively positive benefit to society and if we get large numbers of people vaccinated then the restrictions we are all currently facing will stop and we will return to normal.

“But conversely, if large numbers of people…do not get vaccinated, then the restrictions will have to remain and we will not be returning to normal until the vaccination is in place.” (Emphasis added)

This effectively means unless 90+% of the population agree to be vaccinated, the entire country will remain under some kind of restrictions permanently.

The same day, the government announced that it had signed deals with pharmaceutical companies to secure 90 million doses of a Covid vaccine. That’s on top of 100 million doses of an Oxford University vaccine being developed by the company AstraZeneca. 190 million doses for a population of 67 million??

On the 21^st, the Office for National Statistics said the number of deaths from all causes – including coronavirus – registered in a single week has now stayed below the five-year average for four consecutive weeks.

The same day, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told a Commons committee on Tuesday that the results of the death-number review would be published “very, very shortly“.

The following day, some supermarkets updated their policies on facemasks. Aldi said “you will need to wear a face covering to enter one of our stores from this date.”

It then contradicts itself by saying-

“It has been heartwarming to see customers remembering that not all disabilities and health conditions are visible, and being considerate of others who may not be able to socially distance or wear a mask.”

Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Lidl, Tesco and Iceland said they won’t challenge customers who aren’t wearing a mask in stores.

The Co-Op has said masks will be mandatory for all non-exempt customers.

Asda, Marks and Spencer, and Morrisons have yet to comment.

Also on the 22^nd, The Times reported Chris Whitty as saying “The Coronavirus pandemic was probably already in retreat before the full lockdown was imposed“. If this is so, it begs the question why the lockdown is still in effect, and being made worse by ordering mask-wearing in shops.

The same day, the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce chair Kate Bingham cautioned against over-optimism that a Covid-19 vaccine will be found. She told Sky News “We have to be very cautious, because there has never been a vaccine against a coronavirus and there may never be one.” (Emphasis added)

Should we take that to mean we may well have to wear face-nappies for the rest of our lives?

On the 24^th, ‘non-essential’ shops in Leicester were told they could re-open, but people were ‘urged not to leave their homes just to go shopping’. In other words, we’ve allowed shops to re-open, but we don’t want you to go to them.

The following day, Sky News reported the PM as saying the worst of it will be over “by the middle of next year”, although he warned of “tough times ahead“.

The worst of it? Does this mean we should expect at least another 12 months of restrictions and antisocial distancing?

The article can be seen here:-news.sky.com

On the 26^th, I did my parents’ shopping at Tesco, and didn’t wear a mask. Most of the customers were wearing masks, but not all. No-one said anything to me at all, though a couple of customers did give me Paddington Hard Stares 🙂

On the 30^th, an article appeared in the Leamington Courier that claimed ‘There have been a number of studies in recent weeks that have concluded those over six feet tall could be more at risk of contracting the disease.’

As if your height could make any difference!

It can be seen here:-www.leamingtoncourier.co.uk

The same day, the government announced separate households will not be allowed to meet indoors in Greater Manchester, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Rossendale, Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees from midnight due to an increase in the number of cases. This also applies to the city of Leicester.

The number of deaths from which the only cause could have been the virus, has increased from 1318 on June 2^nd, to 1385 on July 31^st. Click the link below, go about a third of the way down the page and click ‘COVID-19 total announced deaths (date) -weekly file’, then on the spreadsheet that opens, click Tab 3 ‘Deaths by condition’. The number you’re looking for is the ‘No’ column.

See: www.england.nhs.uk

On July 31^st, the BBC virus webpage stated: The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, known as Sage, believes the R number [Reproduction number] across the whole of the UK is currently between 0.8 and 0.9 as of 31 July. The estimate for England is between 0.8 and 1.0, while for Scotland it is between 0.6 and 0.9. In Northern Ireland it is 0.5-0.9, while it is 0.6-0.9 in Wales. This is a slight increase on last month.

The government has said that the R number is one of the most important factors in deciding when lockdown measures can be eased.

On the Gov.UK website, in the section ‘Face coverings: when to wear one and how to make your own’, section 4 says, in part;

The best available scientific evidence is that, when used correctly, wearing a face covering may reduce the spread of coronavirus droplets in certain circumstances, helping to protect others. (Emphasis added)

It can be seen here: www.gov.uk

A BBC article from November 2018 revealed there were approaching 60,000 excess winter deaths in England and Wales in 2017-18, the highest since the winter of 1975-76. The increase is thought to be down to the flu, the ineffectiveness of the flu vaccine in older people and spells of very cold weather that winter.

I was recently made aware of this illustration, which shows a list of viral outbreaks going back to the Antonine Plague of 165-180AD. We can see Covid is one of the ones that barely registers as a mortality percentage.

What happens if no vaccine for Covid can be made? Do we just accept mask-wearing and antisocial distancing for the rest of our lives? What happens when another virus appears? Do we just accept another lockdown, and suffer even more damage to mental health, livelihoods and economies?

I don’t know how true this is, but a friend of mine who works in a hospital in middle England told me there are half a million people waiting for treatment in hospital, but they cannot go because most hospitals are not taking anything but emergency admissions. How many of those people will die before they can be treated?

Another friend who is a supply teacher told me during July he’d heard other teachers saying they’d been told not to prepare work after October, as there will be another lockdown. It will be interesting to see if this transpires, or whether it was just rumours.

Across the world, at the time of writing, Worldometer says there have been 17.6 million cases and 679,000 deaths. Of the 5.9 million currently active cases worldwide, 5.8 million are mild, while just 66,000 are classed as serious / critical.

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