Many in the UK dismayed by Boris Johnson's statement"Many more families will lose loved ones before time." Leading experts are also shocked and outraged by the UK's decision to stop containing COVID-19, stop detecting mild cases and simply use social distancing to delay it when it happens. spreads in our population.
All of these ideas are diametrically opposed to the advice of WHO. They say that we must run after the virus, prosecute all cases, including mild cases, quarantine those who have the disease, find all contacts and isolate them. The WHO says all this at every press point and constantly reiterates that this disease can be contained and then stopped. We have had clear scientific evidence to support these conclusions for weeks now, and know how to do it. Here are some recent examples of WHO statements:
Now that the virus is present in many countries, the threat of a pandemic has become very real. But it would be the first pandemic in history to be brought under control.
The bottom line is that we are not at the mercy of the virus. The great advantage we have is that the decisions we all make, as governments, businesses, communities, families and individuals, can influence the trajectory of this epidemic.
… Countries that continue to search and test cases and reconnect not only protect their own populations, but can also influence what is happening in other countries and in the world
Transcript of the WHO press conference on COVID-19 emergencies, March 9, 2020
We are convinced that, although it is the first coronavirus to be labeled as a pandemic proportion, we believe at the same time that it will be the first to be contained or controlled.
Transcript of the WHO press conference on COVID-19 emergencies, March 11, 2020
Yes, it is true that most people only get a light version, 80% recover quickly. Children under 10 won't die at all, and 99.8% recover from under 40. Even if you're old and have health problems, few in a hundred will die – but you can stop it all with the right precautions.
Yes, it is true that their decision can lead to a late but major outbreak in the United Kingdom. It would make sense for the flu because it can't be contained. Delaying the flu helps the health service. They aim to delay its peak in April beyond the end of the flu season and flatten the peak to facilitate the NHS response.
However, it is a deadly disease, make no mistake about it. The case fatality rate is much lower than for Ebola or even SARS. But Boris Johnson was right to say that his decision could result in many people in the UK losing loved ones before time. We are talking about thousands, if not tens of thousands, of additional deaths as a result of this decision.
Some diseases can be contained without using a vaccine. An example is Ebola before having an Ebola vaccine. The only way to stop Ebola at the time was to contain it, and it is still a major part of the Ebola strategy. The Chinese have successfully used similar methods of quarantine, isolation and rigorous contact tracking to stop COVID-19. Singapore, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and several other countries have done the same. This is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus. Then, among the coronaviruses, there are Covid19 features that facilitate contact tracking only for SARS.
WHO is an evidence-based scientific organization. WHO says the data and evidence are now clear. COVID-19 is another disease that can be stopped by containing it, such as Ebola.
In this context, several experts published tweets formulated with firmness on the decision of the United Kingdom. Here is an example of an online conversation between them on Twitter:
Text on image:
Devi Sridhar – My colleagues all think we are wrong – Professor of Global Health, Edinburgh
Teacher. Sunit K. Singh – Not ethical to make unman guinea pigs in the name of "Herd Immunity" – Prof. and Head of Microbiology, BHU
James Smith – The opinion of Italian colleagues is not translatable in a polite manner – Deputy director and teacher, Edin.
Martha – How do we learn about this disease and its transmission by counting only those hospitalized? – BA (Hons). LLB. MSc.
The tweet itself is here:
Try to explain the UK approach and goals to health security colleagues around the world and they all think we are doing it wrong. Do other governments think the same? If so, we could further isolate the UK when we need help from other countries more than ever.
– Devi Sridhar (@devisridhar) March 14, 2020
In case it goes wrong, the answers to his tweet are here, by Professor James Smith, Prof Sunit K. Singh and Martha
The tweeters here are:
- Devi sridhar Professor and President of Global Public Health at the Edinburgh School of Medicine, Director of Health Governance, Funding, Policy, Systems and Health Security.
- James Smith, Vice Principal and Professor at the University of Edinburgh.
- Teacher. Sunit K. Singh Molecular virologist, Virus Hunter: professor and head of molecular biology, Institute of Medical Sciences, Hindu University of Benares.
- Martha BA (Hons), LLB, MSc.
They can expect 1 or 2 in 1000 infected young people under the age of 50 to die and up to 19 in 100 of the 90-year-olds will die, when we could stop it in its tracks and avoid all of these deaths. If these people are not exposed to the virus, none of them will die.
No one seems to know why yet, but for some reason babies or children under the age of 10 usually get a very sweet version of it and they don't die from it.
Adapted graph from an analysis of 1016 patients who died in Italy and tested positive with COVID-19. See my Deaths in Italy of Covid19 – similar to China – higher death rate due to increase in number of elderly patients
They are similar to the Chinese figures and in some ways better. Even at 90 and over, 81% recover – you are much more likely to recover than die from this disease at any age. But all these deaths are useless.
Mortality rate in China for comparison
First column, 21.9% for those aged 80 and over is based on a mortality rate 55,924 laboratory confirmed cases
The second column is 72,314 confirmed, suspect and asymptomatic cases, in another report:
If we contain it, almost none of these people will be exposed to it and we will save the lives of thousands of people. If we don't contain it, many will die in the UK and this will make the UK a source of COVID-19 for the rest of the world.
WHO strongly states that we CAN contain this, at every press point, that the scientific evidence is clear of the successes of China, South Korea, Singapore, Japan and many other countries with smaller epidemics.
Dr Tedros Adhanom, Director-General of WHO, said:
"Several countries have demonstrated that this virus can be suppressed and controlled. The challenge for many countries that face large clusters or community transmission is not whether they can do the same, but if they will. "
Transcript of the WHO press conference on COVID-19 emergencies, March 11, 2020
He also said:
"If something is going to harm the world, it is a moral decay. And not considering the death of the elderly or the elderly as a serious problem is one of the moral degradations."
WHO press briefing on coronaviruses in emergencies 09 March 2020
It is not about whether we can stop it. We know we can. It is about whether we will do it. Many countries, including Italy, are taking vigorous action to end it, all in accordance with WHO guidelines. Yet the UK ignores this advice and clear scientific evidence that these methods work.
What about our hospitals? Without testing the mild cases, how do they prevent healthcare workers from receiving COVID-19 or patients?
Share this article and try to spread awareness because I think few people in the UK are aware of the WHO opinion.
It is almost never reported here, although at every press conference they said, from the start, that it could be contained, and more and more clearly, as the evidence grew. 39; accumulated that not only he could but was content.
Video for this article:
(integrated) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwULBQi0IKA (/ integrated)
This is another article I am writing to support the people we help in the Doomsday Debunked Facebook Group, who find us because they are afraid, sometimes to the point of committing suicide about it, by such stories.
Share this with your friends if you find it useful, as they can also panic
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COVID-19 IN THE UK
If you are in the UK, don't worry, no matter what our government does, you can protect yourself and your loved ones by taking the right precautions.
Discover WHO Advice to the public for more details. I describe them here:
These methods really save lives. People in the UK largely ignore these instructions or treat them as a joke – but they are real.
This is the main thing you can do about COVID-19 on a personal level. Learn how to protect yourself and tell everyone how to do it too. This not only protects you, but stops the chains of transmission that pass through you. It's not the flu. These tips also reduce your risk of flu. But for COVID-19, a different disease, this advice can pretty much stop everything.
You can say like Dr. Bruce Aylward, co-manager of the WHO-China survey after his 9-day return from touring China, including Wuhan for a day and a half:
"I don't have COVID-19 – I'm at very low risk".
((72:58 in his presentation of February 25)
Those I help on the Internet often worry about me because I am 65 years old and I am in the UK. Do not worry. I know what to do and I would be safe even in Wuhan :). You can all be too if you do the right things with rigor.
BASE FOR SOME HOPE
My main hope here is that they manage to delay it – and that during this time Italy will contain their outbreak.
WHO expects Italy to manage the outbreak and begin to reduce the number of cases in the coming days.
WHO has repeatedly mentioned Italy as a country that is responding appropriately to the crisis – doing everything, including contact tracing, relying on local community organizations to carry out the research. Other European countries that respond appropriately according to the WHO include Spain and Ireland. Another country with strong historical ties to the United Kingdom with its strong response in line with guidelines is the United States with its new $ 8.3 billion fund and the deployment of millions of dollars for COVID-19. from WHO.
If the UK succeeds in delaying its outbreak until April, it suffices to note that these other countries have brought their outbreaks under control while ours continues.
Or, if we can raise awareness in the UK, the weight of opinion may perhaps stop this in its tracks before it gets worse.
With this in mind, I have addressed a new petition to the British government asking it to reconsider this decision.
It is not yet ready to be signed – the petition must first be verified, which can take up to 7 days. I will publish again when it is open for signature. You can read my draft here:
Many countries in the Western Pacific, such as Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, have not only contained it – overall, the Western Pacific epidemic has far outweighed its peak case per day. Unfortunately, with the Italian epidemic still on the rise, these successes aren't getting much publicity in the UK.
However WHO could not be clearer, these countries in the Western Pacific are not unique. There is nothing they have done that we cannot do. Europe is just as capable of containing its epidemic as the Western Pacific.
Italy shows by example that a European country can use the same measures to control this epidemic. WHO predicts that these measures will soon bear fruit with results similar to those of countries in the Western Pacific region. It is normal for the numbers to increase quickly and alarmingly enough when you are in control of the epidemic, due to the mild cases that you find through aggressive screening.
HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION CORRECTLY ASSESSES THE SITUATION AND THE UNITED KINGDOM INCORRECTLY?
Here I am of course assuming that WHO assessed the situation correctly and the UK incorrectly.
WHO has extensive experience in many areas, including the eradication of smallpox, the cessation of epidemics of Ebola, the eradication of malaria in many countries, the response to 200 disease outbreaks each year and the head of the China study, Bruce Aylward, led the campaign that led to the almost complete eradication of Polio.
Meanwhile, British experts, as far as I know, base their advice solely on the flu experience. At least they didn't mention any other illnesses in the presentation. Professor Whitty is an expert who has written on Ebola – but for some reason, he does not seem to be able to apply the methods that have proven effective for COVID-19 Ebola (case finding, contact finding, quarantine and isolation). At least he did not mention Ebola in his presentation.
For me, there is no competition for who to go with as the most reliable source here.
I also have scientific knowledge and am able to read sources cited by WHO. The evidence is clear. Meanwhile, video presentation he gave to MPs for Westminster, the UK seems to ignore this evidence and base its decision on information about the flu which is not the same disease.
Meanwhile, if you're scared – to remind yourself again, you can totally prevent yourself from getting it, and your loved ones too.
I know it may sound incredible. Not many know – but even with the flu, these tips reduce your risk to a minimum.
But COVID-19 is radically different from the flu, not the same virus at all. This advice will reduce your risk of COVID-19 to a very low risk, close to zero.
Only the government can resume case finding, contact tracing and quarantine and self-isolation. But as individuals, we can all do hand hygiene, social distancing and respiratory etiquette.
BRITISH EXPERTS HAVE BUILT THEIR EXPERIENCE WITH INFLUENZA EPIDEMICS – BUT IT IS NOT A FLU
The United Kingdom says it is not a virus that can be contained. But British experts have only experience with flu epidemics. This disease is not the flu. This is the very first coronavirus pandemic and what's more covid19 behaves very differently, even from SARS.
COVID-19 is
For more details, see the
The UK decision with covid19 is NOT guided by science from China / SK or WHO.
This is ignoring all the evidence that COVID-19 is different from the flu. I treat it as if it were the flu.
Unfortunately the UK has decided not to contain it, just try to delay it
Their actions may mean that it takes longer to reach figures similar to those in Italy.
WHO ARE EXPERTS TO STOP DISEASES – EVERYTHING FROM EBOLA TO SMALLPOX
WHO are the experts here. They have just stopped Ebola again in the Congo. They say that at the height of the epidemic, Ebola tracers traced 25,000 contacts in the Congo during a war zone with people who were shooting at each other.
China traced half a million contacts at the height of its seizure epidemic19
WHO is responsible for the eradication of smallpox. With the cooperation of many countries, they are on the verge of eradicating polio. They have eradicated malaria in many countries. The expert who led the team of recently returned experts from China, Bruce Aylward, was in charge of the polio eradication team.
WHO knows what it is talking about. Why doesn't the UK listen to them?
THE UNITED KINGDOM SUSCEPTIBLY CLAIMS 5000 TO 10 000 INFECTED BUT TO THIS DAY THERE IS NO PROOF
The United Kingdom claims that based on 500 known cases, probably 5,000-10,000 people have it already, that is, they claim that we already have it worse than South Korea or Italy.
The UK says that many other countries with a similar number of confirmed cases already have thousands.
This is based on modeling, not data. Such a model is still only a hypothesis until it is tested. It must be tested to find out if the modeling assumptions are correct.
Singapore is the country with the most reliable data on this virus because it
- test samples for the presence of viruses from anyone with fever or cough across the country. they obtain these samples from general medicine clinics and polyclinics for respiratory viruses.
- They test 300 to 600 cases per month for flu, colds, etc. – in a population of over 5 million inhabitants, of similar size to Scotland
- Since January 28, 2020, they have added a test for COVID19.
(Summarizes some of the information from WHO "very impressed" by Singapore's COVID-19 response)
They have no cases of COVID19 outside of their known clusters. This may be the clearest and most vivid example, but there is a lot of data from China, Hong Kong and others if you follow the example. Chinese rigorous case research, contact tracing, quarantine and isolation, there is very little hidden iceberg. »Cases not detected.
For more details:
The United Kingdom has the capacity to do the same to confirm or refute their hypothesis. Yet not only did they not do any tests, but they completely abandoned the tests. This makes it a completely untested hypothesis.
The UK could have done these checks weeks ago. WHO has been saying this for weeks, to check with community surveillance.
On February 25, the international team led by Bruce Aylward recommended that all countries:
Immediately expand surveillance to detect chains of COVID-19 transmission, testing all patients with atypical pneumonia, screening some patients with upper respiratory disease and / or recent exposure to COVID-19, and adding tests for the COVID-19 virus to existing surveillance systems (for example, influenza-like and SARI systems)
Two weeks later, the UK still has not carried out community surveillance for COVID-19. Therefore, we have no idea how many cases we actually have.
BORIS JOHNSON SAYS WE SHOULD BE PREPARED TO LOSE OUR LOVES
This is what scares so many members of the group.
If you are afraid of this – remember – your loved ones will not get the disease if they take these simple precautions. You can protect them as well as yourself by making sure they know what to do.
However, many people I speak to via PM in the UK are not fully aware of this advice. It is not widely accepted that you can stop this disease in this way or the details of how to do it.
The UK does the opposite of what the WHO recommends: it stops testing even for mild cases with a history of travel to other countries.
They say we just have to let him travel around the country and develop immunity. Boris Johnson even went so far as to say that we must be ready to lose loved ones before time!
I have to match the British public, many more families will lose loved ones before time.
WHO denounced this approach several days ago as deeply unethical.
If anything is going to harm the world, it is a moral decay. And not to consider the death of the elderly or the elderly as a serious problem is one of the moral degradations.
Every individual, regardless of age, every human being, counts. And it hurts us to see, in fact, in some places, when they want to switch to mitigation, because the virus only kills the elderly or the elderly
It is dangerous. Whether he kills a young person, an elderly person or an elderly person, every country has an obligation to save this person.
That’s why we don’t say white flag. We are not giving up. We are fighting. To protect our children, to protect our seniors. Ultimately, it's a human life. We can't, I have said many times besides, we can't say we care about millions when we don't care about an individual who can be senior or junior. Who can be young or old.
So that's what the WHO says. And for all countries, a global approach, a mixed approach, an approach that can help contain this outbreak, is very important because the mortality rate from this outbreak is high.
We should not classify it by young or senior. Of course, to understand epidemiology, it's good to do it. But for action, I think every life counts. Each individual life counts. If we don't care about one person, whether old or young, then we are not being serious. And that's why we say it's a moral decay, if we try to categorize it that way. A moral decay of society.
The official transcript is here: WHO press briefing on coronaviruses in emergencies 09 March 2020
The video is here:
GROSS ESTIMATE OF HOW MUCH DEATH WOULD DIE IF WE HAVE DEVELOPED HERD IMMUNITY
This is just to give you a rough idea of the kind of numbers we are talking about. It is not an accurate forecast if we continue on this path. All I have done is apply 50% infection rates to UK population figures as well as Italian case fatality rates for the first 1016 cases (which are better than those from China)
The idea of "Collective immunity" it is that so many people contract the virus and develop antibodies to it that it can no longer spread.
They gave no figures on the figures that would have to die to get there. But suppose that enough of the British population is infected to achieve their "collective immunity". For SARS, the range of values is 50 to 80%. Take the lowest number, 50%.
Suppose it is the same percentage for each age group. Using Italian numbers, this is the number who would die to reach this level of "collective immunity"
90+: 55,000
= 19% of 50% of 579,77680 – 89: 167,000
= 16.6% of 50% of 2,012,91770 – 79: 190,000
= 9.6% of 50% of 3,956,21960 – 69: 82,000
50 – 59: 20,000
= 6% of 50% of 6,785,60940–49: 4,100
1% of 50% of 819961530 – 39: 3,700
= 1% of 50% of 7,416,076Total: 520,000 deaths
(rounded to two significant digits)I used the numbers for each age group from these numbers: Age groups
These do not include 90+, so I took the number for 2017 by Estimates of very old people, including centenarians, United Kingdom and subtract them from the 80+ to give a rough idea of those numbers. I know they are for different years, so these numbers may be a little higher, there are probably more than 90 and less in 80–89 than these numbers suggest.
They would try to save the lives of some of these elderly people by asking them to stay at home at the height of the epidemic for a few weeks until they are gone.
With this rough estimate, the total for 70+ is 412,000
(190,000 + 167,000 + 55,000)
Less than 70 years ago 91,800
(3700 + 4100 + 2000 + 82000)
So you can see why the UK government plans to ask everyone aged 70 and over to isolate themselves for up to three months at any given time during the epidemic: Isolation of the virus for people over 70 "in a few weeks" ((Isolation of the virus for people over 70 "in a few weeks")
However, many would still die and surely tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people would eventually die if we achieve "collective immunity". If the less get it, the less die, but we don't reach this "collective immunity", and the more die the next time it re-emerges.
NOT YET SOME THAT THERE WILL BE LONG-TERM IMMUNITY
In fact, we do not yet know how long immunity to COVID-19 lasts. Coronaviruses are known to not always confer lifelong immunity.
The British Society of Immunologists made this point in an open letter to the government: it sent this letter to Professor Chris Whitty, chief medical officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, scientific director and Rt Hon Matt Hancock, Secretary of State to Health and Social Affairs.
The world faces a huge challenge in light of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic. The UK public health strategy differs from that of many other countries, with the aim of strengthening collective immunity to protect the population. Within the immunology community, we have important questions about this strategy. The ultimate goal of collective immunity is to stop the spread of the disease and protect the most vulnerable in society. However, this strategy only works to reduce serious illness if, when building this immunity, vulnerable people are protected from illness, for example through social distancing. Otherwise, the consequences could be serious.
In addition, there are many unknowns about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus interacts with the human immune system and how it could play out in current scenarios. For example, it is not yet known whether this new virus will induce long-term immunity in affected people, unlike other related viruses. Therefore, it would be prudent to prevent infection in the first place. There is an urgent need to continue research on this front.
The United Kingdom is the world leader in the quality of our research in immunology. Given our current lack of knowledge about SARS-CoV-2, our community of immunologists has two questions. First, we believe that more needs to be done to ensure social distancing in order to limit the number of COVID-19 cases in the short term, especially for vulnerable members of our communities. This will save us time until we understand the virus better and can start to develop therapies. Deuxièmement, pour soutenir les efforts, nous demandons au gouvernement de publier ses données de modélisation afin de permettre à la communauté scientifique de les examiner afin de mieux prédire le cours de cette épidémie.
Nous avons une petite fenêtre d'opportunité pour protéger notre nation, pour en apprendre davantage sur ce nouveau virus émergent et pour faire face à cette menace sans précédent pour la santé mondiale.
Professeur Arne Akbar
Président, British Society for ImmunologyBSI lettre ouverte au gouvernement sur la riposte à l'épidémie de SRAS-CoV-2
LA RECOMMANDATION DU ROYAUME-UNI À TOUT LE MONDE DE S'ISOLER AVEC DES FROIDS OU DE LA GRIPPE POUR 7 JOURS
Leur approche consiste à demander aux personnes qui présentent des symptômes de grippe ou de rhume de rester à la maison pendant 7 jours, de s'isoler. Cela ne peut évidemment pas être appliqué, alors ils espèrent que les gens suivront ce conseil.
Ils pensent que covid19 peut être le plus contagieux pendant les premiers jours de la version bénigne de la maladie.
Personne n'a essayé cette approche auparavant pour covid19 et elle n'est basée sur aucune recommandation de l'OMS.
Certains patients COVID-19 présentent des symptômes si bénins qu'ils ne se sentent même jamais malades.
(incorporer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idTWP5FiPS4 (/ incorporer)
1:02 Non, je ne suis jamais vraiment tombé malade – j'ai eu un peu de toux quand ils me l'ont dit – et quand je suis arrivé, j'ai eu un peu de fièvre mais tout cela s'est normalisé et je n'ai aucun symptôme.
Je ne me suis jamais vraiment senti mal '' – patient coronavirus
Elle ne s'isolerait probablement même pas au Royaume-Uni, et si elle le faisait, ce serait pendant 7 jours arbitraires.
L'OMS dit que si vous avez COVID-19, vous devez être mis en quarantaine jusqu'à ce que vous obteniez deux tests négatifs pour COVID-19 à deux jours d'intervalle. Vous pouvez vous sentir bien longtemps avant que cela ne se produise.
Aussi, pourquoi demander à tous ceux qui ont un rhume et une grippe à travers le Royaume-Uni de s'isoler pendant 7 jours, alors que nous pourrions simplement mettre en quarantaine ceux qui en sont atteints et demander à ceux qui sont des contacts de s'isoler pendant 14 jours? C’est beaucoup moins de personnes, beaucoup moins d’heures de travail perdues, beaucoup moins de perturbation de la société.
L'isolement des contacts des patients COVID-19 connus est également exécutoire. Il existe un risque public évident et le Royaume-Uni l'a en fait rendu exécutoire par la loi.
Cette nouvelle directive est basée sur des personnes qui remarquent volontairement qu'elles ont des symptômes et s'isolent ensuite. Il n'y a aucun moyen de l'appliquer. Les personnes qui ont des choses urgentes à faire peuvent prendre des décisions exécutives de ne pas s'isoler. Ils peuvent supprimer les symptômes afin que personne ne remarque de remèdes contre le rhume et la grippe.
Même si le Royaume-Uni comptait déjà 10 000 personnes atteintes de COVID19, il serait beaucoup plus rentable de les trouver grâce à un dépistage agressif, de les mettre en quarantaine et de retrouver leurs contacts, que de le faire.
Si ce qu'ils font retarde la transmission, cela peut réduire la vitesse à laquelle les chiffres au Royaume-Uni augmentent. Peut-être le fera-t-il assez longtemps pour remarquer que l'Italie, les États-Unis, l'Irlande, etc. réussissent à suivre la stratégie de l'OMS. Cela, plus les confinements déjà réussis en Chine, en Corée du Sud et à Singapour, pourraient éventuellement constituer un poids de preuve suffisant pour qu'ils ne puissent plus ignorer ce que le reste du monde fait, avec succès
NOUS SERONS EN MESURE D'INVERSION, MÊME DES SEMAINES DANS L'AVENIR, MAIS PLUS NOUS RETARDONS, PLUS IL EST DIFFICILE À FAIRE
Dans quelques semaines, elle sera toujours réversible avec des efforts plutôt héroïques. Nous devrons tester agressivement tout le monde présentant des symptômes pseudo-grippaux, car nous avons perdu la trace du virus.
Le Royaume-Uni peut le faire. Singapour l'a fait, ainsi que la Chine, et même certains pays d'Afrique subsaharienne l'ont fait, en le reliant à leur réseau déjà existant de surveillance des symptômes de type grippal (SG), selon les conférences de presse de l'OMS.
Nous aurions besoin de tests gratuits pour tout le monde, et pas de vérification des antécédents, une amnistie comme pour les victimes de l'incendie de Grenfell. Nous aurions également besoin d'offrir des soins de santé gratuits pour COVID-19 pour tous, encore une fois sans vérification des antécédents.
Cela est nécessaire une fois qu'il est répandu, pour pouvoir trouver des immigrants illégaux, des dormeurs grossiers, etc. Nous aurions également besoin de tester la population carcérale – elle est obligée d'entrer dans les prisons et se répandra facilement dans un tel contexte.
Mais il est tellement plus facile d'empêcher ce génie de s'échapper de la bouteille que d'essayer de le remettre plus tard.
À mon avis, ainsi que pour beaucoup d'autres, nous devons revenir sur cette décision maintenant, sans délai et sans délai. Cela sauvera de nombreuses vies et d'immenses souffrances.
DES DÉCISIONS SAGES DEVRAIENT ÊTRE FONDÉES SUR DES DONNÉES
Pour prendre des décisions judicieuses, nous avons besoin de données. L'OMS est une organisation fondée sur des preuves. Les experts britanniques ne sont pas, apparemment, ils vont par intuitions sur la base de données nulles et ignorent les données recueillies par d'autres pays!
La preuve de l'étude de l'OMS en Chine est qu'elle peut être contenue, qu'elle est contenue et qu'il n'y a presque pas de propagation asymptomatique.
DR WHITTY N'A PAS DE DONNÉES POUR SUPPORTER SON HYPOTHÈSE
Oui, le Dr Whitty a une autre hypothèse. Il pense qu'au Royaume-Uni, contrairement à toutes ces preuves, il se propage maintenant dans la communauté avec 10 000 personnes qui l'ont déjà.
Nous avons des tests PCR, nous sommes un pays riche, nous pouvons nous permettre de collecter les données pour tester cette hypothèse. C'est ainsi que vous faites de la science, elle doit être fondée sur des preuves.
L'OMS dit depuis des semaines que nous devrions faire une surveillance communautaire étendue pour trouver les cas qui ne sont pas dans les grappes.
De nombreux pays l'ont fait et n'ont rien trouvé. Singapour teste tout le monde et ne trouve rien.
Si l'Italie avait fait cela, elle aurait pu augmenter leur flambée avant qu'elle ne commence. Ils doivent le prouver avant d'agir comme s'il y en avait 10 000 déjà infectés.
Le Royaume-Uni a ignoré les conseils répétés de l'OMS pendant des semaines pour effectuer une surveillance au niveau communautaire et déclare simplement qu'il a probablement 10 000 cas non détectés sans les rechercher.
LE ROYAUME-UNI RÉCLAME QU'IL FERA UNE AUGMENTATION EN CAS D'ARRÊT MAINTENANT
Ils prétendent que s'ils l'arrêtaient complètement maintenant, ils augmenteraient à nouveau des mois plus tard.
However, China has reduced it so much that it has days with no native transmission cases inside China and it is on the point of re-opening Hubei province.
The evidence is absolutely clear. For instance Hubei province has now closed all 14 of the temporary hospitals it built to treat patients at the height of the epidemic.
There is no surge, there are almost no cases at all.
China's Xi Jinping pays first visit to coronavirus epicentre Wuhan
13 international experts and 12 Chinese experts toured the worst hotspots in China for 9 days and they were unanimous in agreement that the Chinese by their prompt action were stopping it and had saved hundreds of thousands of infections in China.
I can't understand why scientists are ignoring the very clear scientific evidence. They are treating it as if it was flu and ignoring all the details about Covid19 that make it different from flu.
These scientists in the UK have not been to China, not studied this disease in detail, and haven’t collected more than minimal data from the UK either. They are just not trying to collect this data.
MANY COUNTRIES ARE CONTAINING IT AT A FRACTION OF A PERCENT OF THE POPULATION
In China, it is nearly over at 0.006% (100*80,796/1.386 billion)
Even in Hubei province it is only 0.116% (100*67781/58.5 million)
South Korea is close to containing it at 0.015% infected (100*7,869/51.47 million)
Singapore is containing their outbreak at 0.003% (100*187/5.612 million)
This is not flu. You could not do this with flu.
PROBLEMS FOR DOCTORS' SURGERIES
Up to now, if you had covid19 or were a contact, you knew. But now, nobody knows if they have it if they have mild flu symptoms or fever.
So what do you do if you have flu and it turns to pneumonia? I have heard some GPs are now doing consultation via the internet because they don’t want to treat people in person.
After all if someone with COVID-19 comes into a surgery they could infect the other patients waiting there or the doctor, and the doctor has to treat anyone with mild respiratory disease as a possible COVID-19 patient, and yet they can’t get them tested for COVID-19 unless they have severe symptoms resembling COVID-19
People with mild symptoms coming from Italy, Iran or South Korea are not going to be tested at all, even if they have a fever. They will only test them if they reach the point where they need hospital treatment. So again what do these people do if they want to go to their local GP for help with something minor, that could be to do with COVID-19 but is not serious enough for hospital treatment?
What a mess? How can they stop nosocomial infections – infections spreading in hospitals and surgeries?
I can't believe that such distinguished people can say such things not based on science.
Why do they ignore what the WHO say?
NOT POLITICS JUST SCIENTIFIC CONSERVATISM
I think it is scientific conservatism – not conservative politics, I just mean being used to a particular scientific mind set.
They have developed scientific ideas based on one set of evidence and when they find facts that contradict their ideas they constantly doubt the facts even when there is clear evidence against their hypothesis.
In this case their hypothesis is that this disease is like flu. All the evidence is against this hypothesis but they have never had to deal with a respiratory disease that is not like flu.
So, because of their scientific conservatism, instead of recognizing this as a new type of disease they just say the evidence against it being like flu must be wrong.
They have a particular mindset and ways of handling such epidemics from the influenza epidemics and are being very resistant to changing this in response to new scientific data.
Instead of adjusting ideas to the data, they are continuing to doubt the data when faced with the clearest possible evidence.
I don't think this is politically motivated. Just bad science.
MORE ABOUT THE RISK FOR HOSPITALS AND DOCTOR’S SURGERIES
To try to reduce the risk that people with COVID-19 infect health facilities GPs are being told to do as many as possible of their consultations online rather than in person.
“To mitigate any risk that potentially infected patients book appointments online and attend the practice when they should be receiving advice to self-isolate or go through testing, all practices are now being advised to change face-to-face appointments booked online to triage appointments via telephone or video,”
Coronavirus: GPs urged to go digital to prevent spread of COVID-19
However there are several issues with this.
First, since people with mild symptoms are only being asked to self isolate for 7 instead of 14 days, and contacts are not traced and not tested to see if they have the virus, many may still be infectious and not know they are. They may also
You cant self isolate with a mild flu if you need doctor's attention for a heart attack.
You can’t postpone going into a hospital if you have accidentally sliced off your thumb and need it reattached. If you are pregnant you cant self isolate with a flu when your baby is due. If you have a heart attack you need emergency care right then.
This happened in Wuhan. They had separate hospitals for covid-19 patients and for ones without. However, sometimes a patient would go to the non covid-19 hospital not knowing they had it for something else and this sometimes lead to hospital workers being infected as they were in the wrong hospital where the health workers were not using personal protection equipment.
Wuhan gradually developed procedures to stop this happening. But we won't be doing anything to stop this.
It will also spread from families of health workers to the health workers and then into the hospitals. That also happened in Wuhan and was more significant than the better publicized but rarer infections of health workers inside the hospitals.
For details see the WHO China joint mission on COVID-19 final report
and the live press conference from the WHO from 25th February 2020.
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vwshXayRQE(/embed)
So based on the experience of the Chinese in Wuhan, this is bound to happen. Some hospitals are going to get infected. Then COVID-19 will spread to doctors, nurses and other patients.
From there, the infection will spread out again to society. The WHO says this is often one of the main drivers of an epidemic in their experience.
CAN ITALY’S EXAMPLE CHANGE THE UK’S DECISION IN THE FUTURE?
Italy’s outbreak is expanding in an apparently uncontrolled way. But Italy is doing a lot to contain it.
Maybe the UK will switch back to contain once they see that Italy is containing its outbreak?
Italy looks like the start of the South Korean outbreak, but they noticed it much later and it is a larger outbreak, so it will take a while for it to turn around.
2020 coronavirus pandemic in Italy – Wikipedia
2020 coronavirus pandemic in South Korea – Wikipedia
I am using Wikipedia as a source here because they have proved to be accurate on this topic of the COVID-19 statistics. They tend to be good when there are lots of eyes on it and a high profile page.
Although the cases per day for Italy are still rising, if you look at the percentage increases from the previous day you see a slightly different story:
Let’s ignore the first few figures of 90% or more.
From 24th February through to 1st March the Italian cases rose by between 27% and 51% a day. Average increase for those 7 days is (51 + 41 + 39 + 46 + 37 + 27 + 50)/7 = 41.57%
In the next week from the 2nd through to the 9th, it ranges from 20 to 27% with an average of (20 + 23 + 23 + 25 + 20 + 27 + 25)/7 = 23.29%
We only have 5 days after that but it ranges from 11 through to 23% with an average of (11+23+21+17+20)/5 = 18.4%.
Or looking at it another way, at the doubling time, from 227 on the 24th it took just two days to nearly double to 445 on the 26th. It took 5 days to approximately double from 10,149 on the 10th March to 21,157 on the 14th March.
It is too soon to be certain, but a reduction in the daily percentage increase and an increase in the doubling time both suggest it is coming under control and may be nearing its peak.
I expect Italy to peak and see the cases reduce some time in the next week or two, since the WHO say they are doing everything right.
By then the UK is likely to have thousands of cases, and since they won’t be testing mild cases any more, won’t even know how many cases they have.
But we will still have records of deaths from COVID-19. Here they are so far:
For the figures and detailed breakdown:
Perhaps their eccentric measures will slow down the rise somewhat, but if it doubles even every 5 days, as Italy is doing now, then by 10 days from now that’s 82 deaths per day and by 15 days it is 164 deaths per day. It’s unlikely to be slower than Italy with multiple lock downs and the Italians singing from the balconies in solidarity.
On the other hand given that there is little to prevent infection of hospitals which would endanger the lives of the most vulnerable and then spread out into the society at large, it could easily be a lot faster than for Italy.
If their measures are not so effective and it doubles every 3 days, say, then by 9 days from now we’ll be running at 164 deaths per day and by another 9 days after that, at 1312 deaths per day.
So it is not impossible that by, say, 23rd March the UK is running at over 1000 deaths per day – with COVID-19 largely eliminated in the rest of the world with the outbreaks in Italy, Iran, South Korea, Japan, all close to under control or nearly controlled.
EACH OF THESE LIVES IS A REAL PERSON – EVERY LIFE MATTERS
Each of these lives is a real person, someone’s child, partner, parent, grandparent, doctor, boss, nurse, scientist, gardner. Some might be future world leaders in their field. Some may save the lives of thousands, some may be like Bruce Aylward and lead a campaign to eradicate a disease from our world.
Every life matters. Just one life too many is too many to be risking through a theory based on a model only, and with that model just a scientific hypothesis never tested against any real world data for COVID-19 in the UK or anywhere.
NOT TOO LATE
Even then, it won’t be too late to contain it, if they then use measures similar to the ones used by Italy and go back to finding cases, contact tracing and isolation.
You don’t see the effects right away – in this image then the actual cases are in gray for the onset of symptoms but the detected cases are in orange because most people are not detected right away when they first get symptoms. The numbers with onset of symptoms for COVID-19 peaks almost immediately after the start of the lock down (it can take up to 14 days for onset but half the patients get symptoms within 3 days).
The dates of diagnosis though peaks 12 days later.
Adapted from figure 1 of The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outbreak in China—Summary of a China CDC Report
Later on the Chinese managed to get the time to diagnosis down to an impressive average of 3 days. But this requires on educating the public to go to a fever clinic right away as soon as they have a temperature and on having the capability to test large numbers of people safely in the fever clinics.
LARGER GLOBAL PICTURE
A larger picture can help too
China can get new cases from Italy, say. But China now detects cases very quickly so it can't start an outbreak, not unless the numbers outside of China get really huge. China is also quarantining people from Italy.
China is now doing the same thing to other countries that they originally did to China.
In the same way South Korea can contain its outbreak and then be watchful about any cases from other countries. Then Italy and so on.
It doesn't really matter how many there are in how many countries. It is the overall pattern that matters in the end.
Here is the epidemic curve so far – the cases per day in the Western Pacific are decreasing strongly, in Europe are increasingly strongly, in Eastern Mediterranean are increasing slightly and in the Americas then increasing quite strongly but early days yet. In South East Asia outside of China, most of the new cases were over by the middle of February and Africa hardly has any yet.
So now suppose that Europe turns it around and starts shrinking like the Western Pacific, that would make a big difference already. If the other regions decrease too – then soon it will get less and less and then there won't be any cases left.
The WHO say that everywhere can contain it – it is not a question of whether they can but if they will.
It helps to take this larger picture – dividing it up into smaller regions is confusing because cases splosh over from one country to another but it doesn't really matter how many countries it spreads over if they are well contained. Some countries often have no new cases for 2 weeks at a time – then get reinfected from another country. Countries like that aren’t really contributing to the global trend as the disease never gets a foothold and never actually replicates there.
This is the epidemic curve for confirmed new cases outside China by the date of the report and the region through to 14th March 2020.
of
You can see, for instance, that the epidemics in the Western Pacific region (which includes the Republic of Korea, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam as the top seven countries) are largely contained and reached their peak at the end of February.
The epidemic in Europe is growing rapidly (and from now on won’t have reliable figures for the UK now we have stopped counting mild cases).
The Eastern Mediterranean epidemic is growing somewhat.
The total for the Americas remains low and is growing but not by so much. Africa thankfully has few cases yet. The WHO say that their response is strong now after the work they have done helping them.
SUMMARY
SUMMARY
This is my take on the UK situation: Italy may already be on the cusp of controlling their outbreak – 17,000 cases, likely to increase a fair bit more, maybe to 20,000 or even 30,000. However the Italian outbreak does already show signs that it may be approaching its peak number of cases per day.
It shouldn’t make any difference but I think the UK may be more impressed by a geographical neighbour – another country in Europe than the successes of the more remote countries in the Western Pacific.
If Italy controls its outbreak following the methods of the WHO experts, it will be hyper embarrassing – we are very proud of our NHS – our free health care system which enjoys pretty much 100% support by the public and politicians.
For the UK to be the one country in the world with increasing cases while everyone else is decreasing would be acutely politically embarrassing here.
The worst is that we have abandoned testing mild cases. We can't give accurate numbers to other countries or the WHO, except hospitalized patients and deaths. So – it will be impossible to compare our outbreak with Italy directly.
However, if we have increasing numbers of deaths from COVID-19 while everyone else has decreasing numbers of deaths, say, mid April then it would be very embarrassing.
Also, it seems that the policy seems not well designed to protect health care workers, something that the Chinese in Wuhan discovered needs a very high level of care to prevent.
If we get health care workers dying of COVID19, and hospital patients that are in hospital for unrelated conditions – when this has stopped everywhere else in the world – then that would be quite a scandal too.
I can't see us continuing with this “delay” policy after that and it would likely lead to resignations and investigations.
We certainly have the capacity to roll out tests by the million, like the US is doing, and test everyone with fever and respiratory symptoms for COVID-19.
We could respond like that rapidly in a crisis and then find everyone with the virus who is showing symptoms and then go on to quarantine, isolation, lock down of regions with high case loads and then work back to lower numbers just as Italy is doing.
We might end up locked up in our communities and singing from the balconies as Italy did and as China did.
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_rLw6SCSmE(/embed)
Here is the Wuhan take on it
(embed)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_PSSTP8ROg(/embed)
We can certainly stop it, even at tens of thousands of cases. This may be Birmingham or Glasgow or London by the end of March.
But the more this is delayed the more cases we are likely to have before it stops and the harder it will be and the longer our outbreak will continue. Also the longer this continues, the longer the UK continues as a source of infection of the rest of the world with COVID-19.
I see the potential for this to become a big scandal in the UK, leading to resignations and investigations.
The media have a lot to do with this debacle. All the way through they have consistently only reported the negative story. Although with every single press conference the WHO have said that the pandemic can be brought under control, and with more and more emphasis after the detailed China report lead by Bruce Aylward and , I have yet to see any clear statement on the BBC website that the WHO consider that the outbreak can be contained.
They have simply not reported them. Especially, there is no mention that I can see of their statement that it i not a question of whether we can but only whether we will.
UK politicians are naturally most influenced by the UK media, so that may well be a factor too.
WE CAN STOP THIS NOW!
We can stop this by reversing this potentially disastrous policy RIGHT NOW!
Please especially if you are in the UK do share this to try to put pressure on our government to act – and to try to get the press in the UK to publicize what the WHO say.
PETITION TEXT – THE UK GOVERNMENT MUST IMMEDIATELY RETURN TO THE CONTAIN PHASE FOR COVID-19
I have submitted this petition but it has not yet passed moderation. When ready it will be available to sign here:
The text says:
Summary: The UK should immediately restart contact tracing, containment and testing of mild cases of COVID-19. Also, following recommendations of the report from the WHO-China Joint Mission headed by Dr Aylward & Dr Liang on 25th February, we should do widespread surveillance in the community to find cases.
Détails:
Dr Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the WHO said:
"Several countries have demonstrated that this virus can be suppressed and controlled. The challenge for many countries who are now dealing with large clusters or community transmission is not whether they can do the same; it's whether they will."
He also said:
"If anything is going to hurt the world, it’s a moral decay. And not taking the death of the elderly or the senior citizens as a serious issue is one of the moral decays."
Those two quotes are from:
WHO Emergencies Coronavirus Press Briefing 09 March 2020
Virtual press conference on COVID-19–11March 2020
The recommendation from the China report was:
Immediately expand surveillance to detect COVID-19 transmission chains, by testing all patients with atypical pneumonias, conducting screening in some patients with upper respiratory illnesses and/or recent COVID-19 exposure, and adding testing for the COVID-19 virus to existing surveillance systems (e.g. systems for influenza-like-illness and SARI) WHO China joint mission on COVID-19 final report (page 12)
You can protect yourself from getting it. Follow the advice and you won't get it.
But this sadly means that the UK is headed for an almost uncontrolled epidemic with some delay.
It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Any countries that follow this strategy are likely to be the main source of Covid19 in the world by the end of March / April with this approach.
HOWEVER YOU CAN HELP TO STOP IT
If everyone washes their hands regularly – and avoids touching their face with unwashed hands and keeps a distance it will stop it. Be sure to check out the details of what you need to do:
If the government is not going to act we can at least do our darndest as individuals to protect our own communities both in real life and online by following those instructions.
Until the UK government acts to change its posture we have to assume that anyone we meet in the UK might be infected with COVID-19. That includes doctors, nurses and other health workers. So – do those precautions even if examined by a doctor – they would be careful and doing whatever they can to avoid getting infected – so hopefully they don’t have it but they have to make close contact with many patients and could get infected as happened multiple times in China.
See my
See also my:
Doomsday Debunked
retour au sommet
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If you are scared: Seven tips for dealing with doomsday fears which also talks about health professionals and how they can help.
If in the middle of a panic attack, see
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There are many others in the group who are available to support scared people via PM and who can also debunk fake Doomsday “news” for you if you get scared of a story and are not sure if it is true. See our debunkers list
If you are suicidal don’t forget there’s always help a phone call away with the List of suicide crisis lines – Wikipedia
