Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[toblerone3]

Just gone back to rewatch the original video and I think you're being overly harsh. All of the four figures of deaths related to the COVID pandemic described in the first three minutes of the video were accurate as far as can see and he did clearly explain the difference between them.

Indeed he started with excess deaths at the one minute mark and said that that this was perhaps the most accurate way to look at deaths.

Three out of the four ways of counting COVID deaths were well-known, so it was understandable that he was focussing on the one that that had recently come to light via the FOI request. That is the nature of news you focus on what is new and you have to bear in mind that he posts almost every other day.

While he had explained the different definitions clearly in the initial part of the video, from the 14 minute mark he did put in further caveats noting that "I don't want to be disingenuous here, people always die from a variety of causes.....

Just because it was near the end of the video doesn't make it not there. The discussion about life expectectancy and QALYS was also pretty near the end of the video. I had a feeling that some of the arguements there were a bit flaky and that would have been a better way of criticising the video.

Also I didn't think that the response video was insincere or anything like a "pathetic wriggling response"

Of course other people may have used the 17,000 (or so) deaths from COVID with non other underlying cause to further other agendas. It was clear that the ONS article was not about Dr John Campbell alone because if you believed that the ONS article was was a misrepresentation. Campbell simply did not state "the true number of deaths caused by COVID-19 in England and Wales is ‘only’ around 17,000 people" everything was defined and caveated from the very beginning of the video. Another piece of context that you might have missed out on is that he is not an anti-Vaxxer and often states on his videos that he is triple-vaxxed.

 

[teuchter]

It made me curious to watch the original video too, and I agree elbows description is a bit harsh. He could have presented things a little differently, placed emphasis differently but I don't see a reason to read some kind of sinister agenda into it.

 

[elbows]

Pull the other one.

He said things like the following and I have a massive issue with these statements so I stand by what I already said. I'm afraid I had to mostly use youtubes auto-transcription for these quotes because there is no way I can watch it all again without having a blood pressure problem.

"the number of deaths actually solely attributable to covid may be way lower than anyone had thought"

"that's why I wanted to bring it to you now there's been no mention of this whatsoever on mainstream media um at least on the bbc sort of itv channel 4 in the uk and i haven't seen anything on the us channels that I follow so surprising surprising that they haven't picked this up because it's a huge story"

"without being melodramatic about it it's really quite surprising surprisingly low"

"so where covid 19 is the only attributable cause of death we see that the the rate of death is actually uh remarkably low. Now there's still deaths but it's much lower than we've been thinking and it's much lower than mainstream media seems to be intimating"

"so it looks like the average age of death in men as a result of that year of the pandemic has gone down by seven weeks and the average age of uh death women has gone up three or four days"

"as of the 30th september official uk data one three seven one three three deaths within 28 days of a diagnosis versus the ones where covid was the only attributable cause one seven three seven one. um it's a massive difference isn't it so um i thought that was pretty uh pretty interesting"

His use of phrases like "solely attributable to Covid" and similar is an utter disgrace, blatant propaganda, and something that the ONS very much had in mind when they wrote the blog post I linked to earlier.

His 'surprise' at the data is also completely ridiculous given that we have long known about the age profile of the majority of covid victims, and that a huge number of older people will have had various underlying health conditions. Health conditions that in many cases may well have made them more vulnerable to covid, but it was still very much covid which killed them. And thus their deaths were directly caused by covid, their other health conditions made them vulnerable to covid but these other conditions did not kill them, covid killed them.

Just one quote from the ONS blog:

We distinguish between deaths that are “due to COVID-19” and those “involving COVID-19” to provide the most comprehensive information on the impact of the disease on mortality. More than 140,000 deaths have been due to COVID-19, meaning that it has been determined as the underlying cause. To exclude individuals with any pre-existing conditions from this figure greatly understates the number of people who died from COVID-19 and who might well still be alive had the pandemic not occurred.

As for him not being anti-vaccine, there are a bunch of different stances people can take in this pandemic which leave them open to accusations that they are disgusting propagandists who are peddling an agenda that seeks to downplay the number of deaths caused by this virus. You dont have to be anti-vaccine to peddle that shit.

I already commented on what he said towards the end of the video, and why saying it only at that stage of a video is a red flag to me. I do not consider that his statements near the start of the video were his attempt to accurately frame the 'new data'. Rather, he mentioned those other, high, numbers at the start in order to set the stage for going on about how staggeringly low the number he was about to discuss was, and plenty of the language he then used was designed to imply that the small number was the 'true' number of covid deaths.

Also please keep in mind that the previous occasion where I had to pick apart one of his videos was one where he was talking absolute shit about what he expected the future trend of 'for' and 'with' covid hospitalisation data to show. The very next weeks data in that regard demonstrated his projections on that were bullshit, but of course he did not then draw attention to that data and his highly suspicious error. Same fucking agenda that time too. If that agenda appeals to you, then I hold you in the same low regard. And note that I do take care to routinely point out the real data in regards 'for' and 'with' hospital data, and more recently the same sort of 'for' and 'with' split in the ONS death data (though I only noticed that aspect of death data from the ONS existed quite recently). I'm not afraid to point out what the data shows even when it might be considered inconvenient to my own stance, unlike dubious shitheads like Campbell.

 

[elbows]

The next ONS data is out later on Tuesday so I will be sure to comment here on what the latest trend is. In the meantime, here is what was reported last week, in regards ONS deaths data for the week ending 21st January:

Of the 1,484 deaths involving COVID-19, 72.9% (1,082 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death in Week 3 compared with 77.4% in Week 2.

Thats from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics

Those are the sorts of figures people should pay attention to when trying to get a sense of deaths caused by Covid, not the stuff Campbell misused in that video.

In addition to the ONS's own 'involving' and 'underlying' analysis of the death certificate figures and how thats evolving week by week, I expect that at some point the difference between the number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test in this wave will be contrasted to those death certificate numbers for this wave, in order to point out how the 'incidental' proportions seem larger in this wave - a phenomenon which makes proper interpretation of the 28 day death figures require greater attention be paid to such caveats. As long as its done properly and is not turned into really crude propaganda, I will have no objections to this at all and will draw attention to it. In the meantime, if in doubt use those death certificate figures, not deaths within 28 days of a positive test figures which include incidental cases that cannot be separated out.

As for the stuff I just mentioned about a previous video of his regarding what he told everyone we might expect to see in terms of 'for' and 'with' covid patients in hospital beds, here is the post where I repeated his technique using the subsequent weeks data and saw a very different picture to what he predicted in his video on that subject. #45,208 I dont know if that post of mine will make much sense on its own though, people probably need to see the video in question and the conversation here about it leading up to that post, but I'm not going to go over all that again now. And the picture has evolved further since that post, and I've often posted graphs of that subsequent data too. There have been a lot of 'with' cases in hospital, to the extent that recently the number 'with' covid finally exceeded the number listed as being treated primarily 'for' covid in hospital beds in England. Hence incidental cases did make up a larger proportion than previous seen. Even so, his video on that remains misleading. I will post the latest graph again this Thursday when the next weeks worth of hospital data on that becomes available.

In a nutshell the nature of Omicron, the huge size of the infection wave and the levels of immunity from severe disease in the population mean that we are seeing different proportions of 'for' and 'with' hospitalisations and deaths in this Omicron wave compared to previously. There is good news in this story, the detail of which should legitimately alter peoples interpretation of various headline data. But that good news still does not stretch as far as the likes of Campbell are often keen to suggest. We are at a stage of the pandemic in this country where the burden at the deadly sharp end of things is not as great as it was, which is why authorities in countries like the UK are able to rely much less on non-pharmaceutical measures at the moment. But it seems that those with an agenda to minimise the impression of how bad covid is still feel the need to go way too far and to make claims that are incompatible with the truth. I am quite happy to report on the improving situation without bullshitting.

 

[elbows]

Also note that when it comes to peoples impressions of Campbell and his agenda, some people on this forum reported that they went off him and lost trust in him because he was wanking on about Ivermectin. I cannot really comment on those videos myself and his views on that drug, because I havent followed that side of his output at all, but that subject is understandably seen as another large red flag in this pandemic for sure.

 

[teuchter]

What do you think his agenda is, and why is he pursuing it?

 

[Spandex]

I know elbows has covered this in detail, but for the avoidance of doubt: that '17,000 deaths' figure is a meaningless bullshit number forced out of the ONS by weirdo cunts with some weirdo cunt agenda to pretend that Covid isn't as bad as it is. It's calculated by arbitrarily excluding most people who were at risk from being killed by Covid from the death figures, all the people with asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. People who wouldn't be dead if they hadn't caught Covid. Do these people's deaths not count? Why not? Because they have a health issue/disability? That's properly fucked up. They could have got the numbers even lower by excluding women or black people, but that would've been too obvious in a way that saying disabled peoples' deaths don't count apparently isn't. That's some disgusting shit. And anyone repeating it is repeating disgusting bigoted meaningless shit that only exists to create a false impression about how many people have died from Covid.

Which brings us to Dr John: dear old Dr John with his title and his reassuring manner and his data (the same data you or I could get off the internet if we could be arsed). I watched a video of his ages ago and his interpretation of the data beyond the beedingly obvious was hopeless. He might as well be any random. He is just any random, albeit with a title and a reassuring manner, some data off the internet and a YouTube channel. That he made a video about this meaningless 17,000 figure, that he publicised this figure at all, that he claimed it was a huge issue not being reported, shows that he's either a hopelessly clueless gimp whose opinions are worth less than dogshit on a shoe, or that he's fallen into wanting to minimise the impact of Covid.

Why do people want to minimise the impact of Covid? For many and varied reasons; as a coping strategy for dealing with the immense catastrophe that has befallen the world over the last two years; as a contrarian position to show they know better than everyone else; because they hated the restrictions on their life Covid bought and they don't want to see them return ever again no matter what happens; probably almost as many reasons as people who think this way. But throwing around meaningless disablist numbers to further their misguided worldview is a cunt's trick.

 

[andysays]

What do you think his agenda is, and why is he pursuing it?

Maybe he's just being an attention seeking contrarian twat for the sake of it.

It baffles me why people would do this, but there's no denying that some seem to get a perverse kick out of it.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Apparently Farage has been banging on about the 17k figure during his GB News shows, but I think we can all agree he's a hopelessly clueless gimp.

 

[two sheds]

yes some twat on Nextdoor brought up that 17,000 FOI answer. It took half a second to search for the ONS response which luckily shut the twat up.

 

[elbows]

What do you think his agenda is, and why is he pursuing it?

Well he has several million subscribers so maintaining or growing those would be an obvious agenda. Perhaps beyond that he doesnt even have an agenda of the sort I moan about, and the videos I've mentioned which serve an agenda I am critical of only served those agendas unwittingly. I cannot climb inside his head to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt.

I intend to stop talking about him. But before I do I did check a recent video of his which was looking at the paper by economists that made stupid claims about lockdowns not having saved lives (already discussed here recently). A good subject with which to check whether he has a really simple dodgy agenda. On that front he does not, because he was quite happy to point out various flaws of the paper, and add some thoughts of his own which ran contrary to the papers findings. So if I wanted to insist that he has such a foul agenda, I'd be reduced to saying stuff like 'well he still drew peoples attention to the dodgy study'. I could comment that some of his thoughts were still along the lines of 'the lockdowns just dragged the deaths and hospitalisations out over a longer period, the same people still ultimately died', similar to the 'pushing the curve down' stuff that the likes of Vallance mentioned with our original pre-lockdown plan a in this country. And I take issue with that because actually it seems that very large numbers of people that the virus had the potential to kill did not end up meeting the virus in the pre-vaccine era, and that there were people in this group who would have died if lockdowns an massive behavioural changes hadnt happened. But then to be fair to him he does also go on about how many people would have died for other reasons if hospitals had been totally overwhelmed by covid, he talks about lockdowns being late and botched here, and he thinks that lockdowns were the right thing to do. So I'm not accusing him of being a straightforward one-dimensional pusher of the most simplistic reality-denying pandemic bullshit.

Anyway I dont intend to spend my time following more of his videos and offering my own critique all the bloody time, I only tend to mention him if the news or people start going on about something he said.

 

[teuchter]

Well he has several million subscribers so maintaining or growing those would be an obvious agenda. Perhaps beyond that he doesnt even have an agenda of the sort I moan about, and the videos I've mentioned which serve an agenda I am critical of only served those agendas unwittingly. I cannot climb inside his head to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt.

I intend to stop talking about him. But before I do I did check a recent video of his which was looking at the paper by economists that made stupid claims about lockdowns not having saved lives (already discussed here recently). A good subject with which to check whether he has a really simple dodgy agenda. On that front he does not, because he was quite happy to point out various flaws of the paper, and add some thoughts of his own which ran contrary to the papers findings. So if I wanted to insist that he has such a foul agenda, I'd be reduced to saying stuff like 'well he still drew peoples attention to the dodgy study'. I could comment that some of his thoughts were still along the lines of 'the lockdowns just dragged the deaths and hospitalisations out over a longer period, the same people still ultimately died', similar to the 'pushing the curve down' stuff that the likes of Vallance mentioned with our original pre-lockdown plan a in this country. And I take issue with that because actually it seems that very large numbers of people that the virus had the potential to kill did not end up meeting the virus in the pre-vaccine era, and that there were people in this group who would have died if lockdowns an massive behavioural changes hadnt happened. But then to be fair to him he does also go on about how many people would have died for other reasons if hospitals had been totally overwhelmed by covid, he talks about lockdowns being late and botched here, and he thinks that lockdowns were the right thing to do. So I'm not accusing him of being a straightforward one-dimensional pusher of the most simplistic reality-denying pandemic bullshit.

That seems fairly reasonable, unlike what you wrote yesterday -

I dont know what you are playing at by taking his word for it via that pathetic wriggling response video.

I watched the original video in question, not the shitty one you posted where he was on the defensive (although Ive watched a fair chunk of that one in the past too), and indeed have just forced myself to watch the original one again before replying to you. It is a terrible disgrace and he did not put the correct caveats in the video in question at the stage of the video where it mattered. His agenda was on pretty naked display and he utterly misrepresented the data in question. In the last few minutes of the video he did take a more reasonable tone with somewhat better framing than some of his earlier shit, but as already pointed out in a debunking video that someone else already posted on this thread, he had also made some errors in regards life expectancy which still left his choice of angles near the end of the video wide open to fair criticism. Even when talking about quality of life years lost, he tried to downplay how large that loss probably was. Pathetic, disgusting shit of the most dangerous kind. Its not enough for him to stick some caveats at the end, he hugely inflated the significance of the data he presented, and distorted reality to an extent that leaves everything else he will ever say open to suspicion.

And that criticism did not just come from the BBC, the ONS themselves wrote a blog post about it. To say only 17,000 people have died from COVID-19 is highly misleading | National Statistical

I think he knows exactly what he is playing at. His exact motivations are unclear, but a simple explanation is that he has learnt what sort of audience he has ended up attracting on youtube, and had tuned much of his content to tell that audience what they want to hear.

 

[elbows]

Where there is a contradiction in what I said its because I do find it utterly impossible to watch that particular video about those deaths without developing a hideous sense of an agenda being on display in that particular video. That agenda disgusts me, and anyone who strays deep into that territory is going to get me ranting and will raise my suspicions. Especially when another of their videos I saw in recent months was talking shit about hospital 'for' and 'with' trends, If they've strayed into that area only unintentionally, eg via sloppy language or analysis, then some of my resulting comments will probably not be entirely fair. Today I watched a different video in order to see if a broader case could easily be built or not, since bullshit analysis of the merits of lockdown tend to go hand in hand with the most obvious dubious pandemic agendas. I tried to be fair by doing that, even though I really dont enjoy having to sit through any of his videos. What I'm not going to do is watch loads of his other videos in order to build an even larger picture. I still believe that the video that started this current conversation was worthy of debunking for reasons I already explained, and the BBC were not wrong to mention him in their article.

 

[elbows]

The next ONS data is out later on Tuesday so I will be sure to comment here on what the latest trend is. In the meantime, here is what was reported last week, in regards ONS deaths data for the week ending 21st January:

Of the 1,484 deaths involving COVID-19, 72.9% (1,082 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death in Week 3 compared with 77.4% in Week 2.

Thats from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics

As promised, here are todays figures from the ONS in that regard:

• Of the 1,385 deaths involving COVID-19, 71.2% (986 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death in Week 4 compared with 72.9% in Week 3.

Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics

Provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the latest weeks.

www.ons.gov.uk

 

[tim]

In times past, along with some of the threads here, he was one if my main source of Covid information because he gave fairly sensible sounding updates in more depth than media outlets. This means that quite a lot of what I know about the pandemic comes from him.

I began to get a little wary when he went in av out taking huge doses of vitamin D. Was I being taken in?

 

[elbows]

Well if I want to be charitable about it then I could just file it under 'all sources have their limitations' and declare that these limitations will show up more when the communicator in question tries to describe every single issue all the way through this pandemic.

For example I was most useful during stages of the pandemic where a whole bunch of forms of optimism were misplaced and reckless and too easily served an inappropriate agenda that was divorced from the reality of this virus. Under those circumstances the orthodox status quo approach, institutions and decision makers were bound to fuck up the detail and the timing, and I was well placed to point this out in some detail. The situation is more complicated now, and so I am of less use and more likely to get things wrong, or bore people as I try to adopt a new sense of balance that is appropriate for the current moment. Not that I am entirely allergic to optimism, for example I always had a fair chunk of faith that quite a large proportion of people would do the right thing when given the right information and opportunities to do so.

Drugs, treatments, medical advice are areas where it pays to be cautious and to go the extra mile in moderating claims made. Especially given that there are loads of holes in our traditional understanding of many details, and that proper data can take a long time to emerge. I try not to stray into this area too much, although I recall wanting to talk about one concern early on, fears that there might have been a correlation between some medicines that many people take which happen to affect ACE2 levels and their risk of severe covid disease. So I brought it up a few times but didnt persist with it because incorrect claims with too much confidence could have caused all sorts of problems of their own, and it was hard to talk about the theoretical possibility without people being tempted to reach solid conclusions.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Covid: Self-isolation law could be scrapped in England this month

The rules are due to end in March - but that could be brought forward if "encouraging trends continue".

www.bbc.co.uk

All restrictions to end in England by the end of February, including isolating.

 

[Numbers]

That’s nuts.

 

[weepiper]

Wtf

 

[StoneRoad]

That's going to lead to more deaths, if we haven't already had enough of those.

Murdering twunts.

 

[LDC]

Not a surprise they're rushing towards that. It's the law replaced by guidance though which tbh is mostly about the way it works now in my experience. People isolate as it's the right thing to do, or because they're ill and that will hopefully mostly continue.

 

[zahir]

I'm not expecting this to lead anywhere but I'm sure he's right.

Advisor to Government Agency Demands Police Investigation into ‘Criminal’ Healthcare Worker COVID Deaths

A formal complaint accuses the British Government of facilitating ‘the largest single health and safety disaster to befall the United Kingdom workforce since the introduction of asbestos products’

bylinetimes.com

An expert letter to the UK Government’s Health & Safety Executive (HSE) from one of its own advisors accuses the agency of failing to use its statutory authority to correct “seriously flawed” guidance on infection protection and control (IPC), imperilling “the health and safety of healthcare workers by failing to provide for suitable respiratory protection”.

The continued failure to protect healthcare workers by ensuring they are wearing the appropriate form of PPE (personal protective equipment) to minimise the risk of infection from COVID-19 airborne transmission, the letter says, has led to thousands of avoidable deaths. The failures amount both to “gross negligence” and serious “criminal offences”

 

[elbows]

Not a surprise they're rushing towards that. It's the law replaced by guidance though which tbh is mostly about the way it works now in my experience. People isolate as it's the right thing to do, or because they're ill and that will hopefully mostly continue.

Yep Its no surprise since they only changed approach in the pandemic in the first place because they couldnt get number of hospital admissions to stay within manageable limits, and now they think they've got beyond that problem.

In terms of people continuing to do thae right thing, I expect that to be eroded due to changing perceptions, changing employer attitudes, and probably the removal of a huge chunk of the free testing system.

Personally I would have kept these parts of the system and law in place until we saw what happened next in terms of booster effects waning, learnt more about what sort of levels infections would persist at, and until we'd allowed at least some more months to see if another variant with large implications emerged. But if something does go wrong on any of those fronts in a big way in future they can always bring some of these systems back. And in the meantime they will still have some other forms of disease surveillance available, even without the mass testing system. All the same, there is a sense that Johnson has rushed the timetable for political reasons, beyond the still giddy timetable that the UK establishment would otherwise have settled on.

Its bad news for people that will remain vulnerable to the worst implications of this disease, but we'd need to change the very nature of the establishment and its priorities in order for this not to have happened at some point, and that has never looked to be on the cards.

 

[elbows]

I'm not expecting this to lead anywhere but I'm sure he's right.

Advisor to Government Agency Demands Police Investigation into ‘Criminal’ Healthcare Worker COVID Deaths

A formal complaint accuses the British Government of facilitating ‘the largest single health and safety disaster to befall the United Kingdom workforce since the introduction of asbestos products’

bylinetimes.com

Yeah this was a big issue that was never corrected and that the press mostly lost interest in after the first few months of headlines about grotesque PPE failures. Its truly another example of the cold calculations and indifference of the UK establishment, and its one of the areas where I will be interested to see how much focus it receives in the public inquiry. Quite possibly that will end up being a similar story to how the press framed it, where they focus on the initial failures and dont end up dwelling on stuff that would make a permanent difference to what standards are demanded in this area at all times as the bare minimum default.

 

[Chilli.s]

Covid: Self-isolation law could be scrapped in England this month

The rules are due to end in March - but that could be brought forward if "encouraging trends continue".

www.bbc.co.uk

All restrictions to end in England by the end of February, including isolating.

Seems as short sighted as usual, a virus that regularly mutates, who knows how deadly, what could go wrong?

 

[teuchter]

If some kind of deadly mutation arose, then restrictions could and would be brought back in.

 

[elbows]

If some kind of deadly mutation arose, then restrictions could and would be brought back in.

Yes.

We might expect our genomic surveillance to deteriorate once a big chunk of the mass testing system is disabled, but hopefully this wont make a large difference to variant surveillance overall. eg testing in hospitals and care homes should remain (I'll kick up a huge stink if they ditch testing in those settings) and they can sequence those, and also the wastewater surveillance system has a genomic component.

 

[Chilli.s]

If some kind of deadly mutation arose, then restrictions could and would be brought back in.

When it's too late... again

 

[Brainaddict]

Not a surprise they're rushing towards that. It's the law replaced by guidance though which tbh is mostly about the way it works now in my experience. People isolate as it's the right thing to do, or because they're ill and that will hopefully mostly continue.

To some extent that's true, but people will try to end isolation as soon as they feel a bit better and will regularly misjudge whether they are still infectious. And where it will make the most difference is with shitty employers. "Oh, you don't feel any worse than a cold? You can come in then, if you want to keep your job." This is capitalism we're talking about, it's not like everyone has a free choice to do the right thing.

 

[StoneRoad]

I ain't changing my company policy anytime soon.
Thanks to anno domini, I'm still wfh
[also easier for writing reports & tenders in relative peace & quiet --- if my advice is needed, there's this wonderful invention called the telephone ...]

Workshop to be kept ventilated, if you are working within arm's length of someone, both get a mask on.
Everyone is at least double vaccinated.
Paid time off for getting booster jab plus up to two days if bad side affects [not that this has been taken advantage of, but it was there if needed] ...

If Jack or Jill have symptoms / +ve test.
STAY AT HOME ... and you will get paid.
If someone in your household has the plaque - ditto until they are not infectious & you've tested clear.

Sorry, but not sorry.
Small company, we can manage [sort of] with one or two off under those conditions.

But not if Jack or Jill give the plague to everyone at one go because they didn't stay off when they should have done.