Saturday, March 28, 2020

As the UK continues to defy the World Health Organization on mass-testing and contact tracing, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer attempts to gaslight the public into thinking the WHO's recommendations somehow don't apply to us



























Posted by James Kelly at 6:06 PM 16 comments
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Friday, March 27, 2020

The latest right-wing American conspiracy theory that could lead to millions of deaths if it goes unchallenged

As we all know, Imperial College published a paper ten days ago stating that if the UK persevered with its mitigation strategy (ie. the notorious 'herd immunity' strategy) the NHS would be overwhelmed and there would be a totally unacceptable number of deaths - at least quarter of a million.  However, if the government switched to a full-on suppression strategy with radical social distancing measures, deaths could be kept to a much lower figure of 20,000 or below.  

A day or two ago, the lead author of the Imperial paper, Professor Neil Ferguson, went before a parliamentary committee and reiterated the figures.  He noted that because Britain had now implemented the recommended social distancing measures, the lower maximum figure of 20,000 would now apply - as long as we stay the course, and that's the crucial caveat.  A three-week lockdown won't be enough to have that effect, it'll have to be extended, and extreme social distancing will have to go on for a very prolonged period.

Because journalists are unable or unwilling to read, Ferguson's comments to parliament were apparently misreported in some quarters as Imperial "walking back" on their estimate of quarter of a million deaths.  That led to Trump supporters in the US pushing the entirely bogus claim that Imperial were admitting they got their sums wildly wrong - when in fact all Ferguson had done was reiterate exactly what had been in the original paper.

Most disgraceful and sinister of all, though, was Dr Deborah Birx of Trump's task-force lying through her teeth at a White House press conference by claiming that Imperial had radically changed their projections, and that she was "trying to understand" how that could possibly have happened.  I simply don't believe she's that stupid - it's pure propaganda on behalf of Trump, intended to undermine the overwhelming scientific evidence that millions of Americans will die needlessly if social distancing is prematurely abandoned, as Trump apparently wants to happen.

The irony is that right-wing American conspiracy theorists are trashing Ferguson as if he's some sort of "liberal" hellbent on ruining the American economy, when the reality is that it was earlier Imperial modelling that had been partly responsible for leading Britain down the disastrous herd immunity path in the first place.  When new data came in from Italy and the UK, the modelling was updated and Ferguson's team concluded that a suppression strategy was the only viable option.  Trump supporters are shooting a messenger who originally told them what they wanted to hear, but who can no longer do so for the simple reason that the evidence in front of him no longer supports it.

It may be that nothing can save America from itself, but it's important that the Trump propaganda isn't allowed to take root in this country.  Professor Ferguson has put out a crystal-clear clarification which you can see below, so there shouldn't be a problem as long as people can read.  But here's the thing: can they read?

"I think it would be helpful if I cleared up some confusion that has emerged in recent days. Some have interpreted my evidence to a UK parliamentary committee as indicating we have substantially revised our assessments of the potential mortality impact of COVID-19.

This is not the case. Indeed, if anything, our latest estimates suggest that the virus is slightly more transmissible than we previously thought. Our lethality estimates remain unchanged.

My evidence to Parliament referred to the deaths we assess might occur in the UK in the presence of the very intensive social distancing and other public health interventions now in place. 

Without those controls, our assessment remains that the UK would see the scale of deaths reported in our study (namely, up to approximately 500 thousand)."
Posted by James Kelly at 12:58 PM 16 comments

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Why are the most vulnerable people being forced to work and put themselves at risk?

I received this email earlier...

"Hi James,

Imagine being told you are an essential worker when you are blind, forced to travel in taxis and/or on trains, then placed in a building with 100 others. Even though spaced farther apart, you can’t see the hand sanitisers.

My friend who is blind (visually impaired people sometimes have a little sight but she does not) has been told her work is necessary.

This is because she works for a sub-contracted industry for financial services and they are regarded as essential workers. She does not want the specific agency mentioned though it’s not hard to guess what service a blind person can perform so I’m a bit limited in what I can say.

She is concerned that many disabled people work in sub-contracted services for utilities and banking and, though they are providing services for vulnerable people, they are themselves vulnerable. It can’t be right that they have been told they must come in to work.

She thinks this is a loophole in the current situation – forcing disabled people to work. She’s writing to her MSP. I know MSPs will be inundated at this time. Can you help?  People to contact?"

Posted by James Kelly at 5:44 PM 45 comments

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

The UK's boneheaded refusal to accept the World Health Organization's central recommendation on testing and contact tracing remains the missing piece of the jigsaw

First of all, credit where it's due - the government have moved much further than seemed conceivable a few short days ago when they were still talking openly about the desirability of sitting back and allowing 60%+ of the population to be infected.  What's been announced is really lockdown-lite, though, and experience from countries like Italy and France strongly suggests that people will exploit the weaknesses in the rules, and that even more stringent measures will then have to be brought in to achieve the intended effect.  You're still likely to see large numbers of people out and about in the morning as if the lockdown hasn't happened, and if challenged by the police they'll just claim they're out on their permitted 'one daily period of exercise'.  We'll just have to see if Boris Johnson is determined enough to close the loopholes in the way that will almost certainly prove necessary.

But an even bigger issue is the glaring contradiction between the government's actions and their words.  The Imperial College paper which proved such a turning point made crystal-clear that 'mitigation' (ie. an enormous managed epidemic) was no longer a viable strategy, and that 'suppression' would have to be attempted instead - ie. keeping the number of cases as low as possible by means of drastic social distancing measures, and then holding on for a vaccine.  The actions the government have taken over recent days are consistent with a suppression strategy, and yet their language remains that of mitigation.  Although Boris Johnson didn't specifically use the phrases "lower the peak" and "flatten the curve" in his TV address, he did use words that appeared to have a very similar meaning.  And as for the Blighty Knows Best duo of Vallance and Whitty, they've carried on talking without reservation about a mitigation strategy as if nothing has changed at all, while insisting that they're aiming for no more than 20,000 deaths - something that the Imperial paper adamantly stated would only be possible with a suppression strategy.  It really doesn't make any sense.

The obvious way out of this mess would be for the government and their advisers to drop their superiority complex and actually start listening to the World Health Organization's central recommendation of mass testing and contact tracing, which has proved so decisive in turning the tide on the epidemic in both China and South Korea.   Incredibly, this New Scientist piece reveals that the scientific advice the government has been receiving in recent weeks has completely ignored the whole concept of test-and-trace.  Not rubbished it, not advanced reasons for why it might not work, but simply ignored it.  The arrogance of taking it as read that the central recommendation of the relevant international body isn't even worthy of discussion is just breathtaking.

Instead the government apparently intend to eventually ramp up testing but without contact tracing, which makes no sense at all.  It seems the main purpose of the testing will be to attempt to prove Whitty's pet theory about there being a very large hidden number of asymptomatic cases out there, and if that happens to get those people back to work - ie. the 'solution' the government have in mind still appears to be a solution for the economy, not for people's health.  But let's hope a bit of common sense creeps in at that point.  Even if there isn't the manpower for proper contact tracing, it's not beyond the wit of man to find ways in which the public could do some of the work themselves.  If someone tests positive during the mass testing, they could be urged to have a friend or relative ring round their close contacts and suggest that those people should be tested as well.  In that way, the chains of transmission might gradually start to be broken.

Oh, and let's knock on the head Whitty's repeated 'truthy' claim that there's no point in any country trying to suppress an epidemic that is almost everywhere in the world.  The virus does not fly across oceans on its own propulsion - if it's successfully pushed back in the UK it could then be kept at bay with suitable quarantining arrangements until a vaccine arrives.  It's just a question of whether the will is there to actually get on top of this thing as the South Koreans and Chinese have done, or whether the government are still hankering after the impossible goal of 'managing' a mass epidemic with a mortality rate that Scotland's Chief Medical Officer now estimates to be 1.4% - much, much higher than Whitty 'confidently' predicted a couple of weeks ago on the basis of his dud modelling.

*  *  *

For anyone who wants to know more about the crucial role that contact tracing played in stemming the Chinese epidemic, let me once again recommend this excellent interview with the WHO's Bruce Aylward.
Posted by James Kelly at 5:03 PM 20 comments
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Wings-to-English translation





Posted by James Kelly at 3:49 PM 21 comments
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Monday, March 23, 2020

Alex Salmond and the future of Scottish politics

Alex Salmond is my biggest political hero.  I think I've previously recounted the story of how I was converted to the cause of independence about a billion years ago when I watched him one morning on an edition of Election Call with Nick Ross.  He spoke up for millions during the Iraq War, and of course was largely responsible for giving Scotland its first pro-independence government in 2007 - a government that remains in power to this day.

So I was heartbroken when Mr Salmond was charged with a number of sexual offences.  I didn't make any prejudgements about whether the allegations were true or untrue, but I was certainly very much hoping he'd prove to be innocent, and I'm extremely relieved that's turned out to be the case.  After the verdict, I said on Twitter that he should now be able to rejoin the SNP without any stain on his character whatsoever, and a number of people immediately said "he won't be rejoining the SNP, he'll lead Scotland to independence with his own list party".  Stuart Campbell seemed to be vaguely hinting at the same thing with the closing line of his own blogpost.  Is this based on wishful thinking or on inside knowledge of Mr Salmond's intentions?  I've no idea.

What I would say, though, is that when I've pointed out the impossibility of "hacking the Holyrood voting system" with a list-only party, I've sometimes added the caveat that there are a very, very small number of people (you could probably count them on the fingers of one hand) who are high-profile enough and have enough of a following that they might just about be able to tear up the normal rulebook and make it work.  Stuart Campbell isn't one of those people, but Alex Salmond is.  There's certainly no guarantee he'd be able to pull it off - history is littered with charismatic, well-known politicians who set up their own parties and got absolutely nowhere.  (David Owen and Robert Kilroy-Silk are two obvious examples.)  But you could at least make a plausible case that Mr Salmond would be given a hearing by SNP voters and might be able to convince a sizeable proportion of them that they'd be serving the cause of independence by voting for the SNP on the constituency ballot and for another party on the list.  With anything above 5% of the list vote, that other party would start winning seats.

Would Mr Salmond be remotely wise to attempt that?  In my view, no.  Movements that are divided against themselves, particularly along the lines of personal feuds, tend to fail.  I think he'd be much better advised to return to his political home in the SNP (a party he was leader of for almost one-quarter of its entire existence to date) and to fight the good fight from within.  That course of action would also have the added bonus of annoying the controversial journalist David Leask, who for several years has been trying to gaslight us into believing that there is something called "the real SNP" which Mr Salmond and his associates are not part of.
Posted by James Kelly at 7:30 PM 23 comments
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YouGov poll shows overwhelming public demand for lockdown

You probably saw this a few days ago, but I suspect now is an important moment to reinforce the point: a YouGov poll was conducted on Thursday to test support for a lockdown in London, and found that people were overwhelmingly in favour.

At this time, would you support or oppose London being placed under a "lockdown" where people are not allowed to leave their homes except to go to work or get essential supplies?

 Support: 64%
Oppose: 17%

 There was strong support even among the subsample of London residents, ie. those who would be directly affected - 57% of Londoners were in favour, and only 27% were opposed.  It's reasonable to assume that majority will just keep getting bigger as people wake up to the scale of the catastrophe that is unfolding.

Hopefully also the narrative has moved on since the poll was conducted, due to the disgraceful scenes all over the UK of people ignoring social distancing guidelines and acting like they're on a bank holiday break.  Any lockdown self-evidently needs to be UK-wide.  If there's any suggestion of it being confined to London, Nicola Sturgeon should insist (publicly if needs be) that it's expanded to cover Scotland.

The public demand a lockdown.  The science favours a lockdown.  (Needless to say I mean the international science associated with the WHO, not the discredited Blighty Knows Best "science" pushed by the herd immunity triumvirate of Cummings, Vallance and Whitty.)  What remaining excuse has Boris Johnson got for not acting decisively to save hundreds of thousands of lives?


Posted by James Kelly at 5:31 AM 15 comments
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Saturday, March 21, 2020

A suppression strategy is the ONLY way to protect Scotland's rural communities

Over the last 24 hours or so, I've noticed an increasing number of senior SNP politicians quite rightly criticising people for going to rural areas (for example in camper vans) and putting vulnerable local residents at great risk.  Angus MacNeil posted a photo of preparations that had been made in Barra for anyone requiring emergency medical treatment, and he described them as "third world" in nature, lacking almost all of the necessary equipment.  He begged people to stay away from the island.

So there's a growing awareness in the SNP that the only way to protect rural communities is by means of a suppression strategy, ie. by stopping those communities from being exposed to infection in the first place.  That being the case, it's extremely hard to understand why Holyrood was, until only a few days ago, in complete lockstep with the insane "herd immunity" strategy of the UK government which would have entailed deliberately allowing 60%+ of the population to be infected over the coming weeks.  I'm sure you don't need me to paint a picture for you: if that had happened, there's no way rural areas would have been spared.  How did we get into such a grotesque position?  Did people in the SNP just not join up the dots and realise what they were signing off on?  Were they too in awe of a handful of London scientists to ask even the most basic questions?

Even now, it's far from clear that the UK government's chief advisers Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance are actually sold on a suppression strategy.  Reading between the lines of today's illuminating BuzzFeed piece, it seems that they're reluctantly going along for the time being with the suppression measures described as absolutely essential by the Imperial College paper, but are refusing to acknowledge that anything has really changed.  That leaves open the disturbing possibility that their influence could see the UK backslide into a "take it on the chin" approach.  Can we be assured that the Scottish Government are privately making representations to ensure that doesn't happen, and that rural communities (and the rest of the country, for that matter) are protected?  

I must say that Jason Leitch's Grand Complacency Tour of the TV studios hasn't inspired any great confidence that the Scottish Government's own advisers are doing anything other than showing total deference to whatever the London "science" happens to be today.  I'd suggest it's time for SNP backbenchers to speak out and urge that the UK should start following the real science and adopt the recommendations of the World Health Organization on suppressing and controlling the virus - which are about as far removed from Whitty's and Vallance's reckless outlier views as it's possible to be.

(By the way, none of this should be interpreted as a criticism of Angus MacNeil, who I know has been speaking out.)
Posted by James Kelly at 8:41 PM 35 comments

Friday, March 20, 2020

UK continues relentlessly with its wholesale defiance of the World Health Organization

I've just been watching a news briefing by the UK government's Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser, and it was an extraordinarily disheartening spectacle - it was as if time had stood still and the widely-briefed change of strategy from a few days ago had never even happened.  Yet again, Chris Whitty talked dismissively about the key recommendation of the World Health Organization to test every suspected case and trace all contacts as if it was some sort of fringe position taken by those who were "critiquing the science", rather than the international gold standard that it is.  He used a straw man argument to justify the abandonment of test-and-trace, suggesting that the practice is only supported by people who want "to make the virus go away" - but of course that's not the stated objective of the WHO, who merely suggest that the pandemic is "controllable" by means of test-and-trace.  Although testing in the UK will be ramped up, it doesn't seem to be with the intent of actually trying to control the epidemic - to a large extent it seems the aim is merely to prove Whitty's pet theory that a massive hidden wave of asymptomatic cases brought the outbreak in Wuhan to a natural end, which if true might be a get-out-of-jail-free card in this country.  But from what I can gather, that theory is regarded by most experts as optimistic at best and downright eccentric at worst.

And the situation is now worse than one of Whitty merely defying the WHO.  He also appears to be ignoring the recommendations of his own modellers, because of course the Imperial College paper reached the definite conclusion that a suppression strategy would have to be followed until a vaccine is available.  Incredibly, Whitty once again rubbished any suggestion of holding on for a vaccine.  If the modelling is right, that means inevitably at some point that the UK government's lack of sufficient action will lead to the NHS going into meltdown, with the potential for hundreds of thousands of needless deaths unless there's a change of course.  My own view is that a change of course would be bound to happen sooner or later in those circumstances, but I had been nursing the hope that the Imperial College paper marked the decisive turning point and that we no longer needed to rely on the UK advisers seeing the light when calamity struck.  It seems that may have been too optimistic.

There were a few crumbs of comfort - I didn't hear any mention of 'herd immunity' as a goal, or of the idea that it's actively desirable to let the virus spread as widely as possible in case it pops up again in winter.  (I didn't quite watch the entire briefing, though, which means there's a small chance those things may have been mentioned in the part I missed.)  So perhaps the impossibility of 'herd immunity' working has been grudgingly accepted.  Vallance also reiterated the objective of keeping deaths down to a few thousand.  But that leaves us with a mystery, because the Imperial College paper was adamant that such a 'low' death toll would only be possible with a full-on suppression strategy.  Do we just have two very stubborn men here who can't quite bring themselves to pull their public narrative into line with the steps that they privately know will have to be taken?  We'll have to hope that's what's going on, because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.  There was some vague chatter about international technological progress providing the solution, so maybe what we're looking at is a modified version of the Imperial College recommendation, with some sort of suppression-lite strategy for a while, followed by the development of effective therapies as an exit strategy, as opposed to the farther-off development of a vaccine.

None of this exactly inspires confidence, though, and there must be a high probability that the weird mix of half-measures we've seen from the government thus far means we're hurtling headlong towards an Italian-style catastrophe, and a total lockdown as an emergency reactive step.  If a lockdown is near-enough inevitable anyway, it would be far better if it happened in an effort to stop us getting into a deep hole, rather than in an effort to get us back out of it.
Posted by James Kelly at 2:44 AM 34 comments
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Thursday, March 19, 2020

It's simply a fact that, until a few days ago, the UK government were pursuing a strategy that would have led to a large number of avoidable deaths

I've just had another exchange with Iain Macwhirter, who seems extremely muddled about the distinction between a 'herd immunity' strategy and a 'suppression' strategy - he thinks that herd immunity will somehow still be pursued during suppression.  That's not the case.  Although suppression doesn't wipe out the virus completely, it keeps the numbers so low that herd immunity is not achieved until a vaccine is available.

This tweet of mine seemed to particularly anger Iain -

"Herd immunity was a trade off. It did accept a number of deaths and severe illnesses as a price worth paying for getting back to normal more quickly. The only thing that has changed is that the numbers involved were far greater than the govt realised."

Iain replied that there was never any "callous calculation" in the herd immunity strategy that would have led to people dying needlessly.  He claimed it was "disgraceful scaremongering" to suggest otherwise.  But I'm afraid it's simply a fact that belatedly accepting that a suppression strategy is viable constitutes a tacit acknowledgement that the infections, illnesses and deaths associated with the herd immunity strategy had never actually been unavoidable.  Until a few days ago it was being pretended (not least in Jason Leitch's grand tour of the TV studios and in Iain's own Sunday column) that they somehow were unavoidable.

It's worth taking a look at this video from 11th March by Professor Neil Ferguson, the lead author of the Imperial College paper.  He sets out absolutely straightforwardly that the herd immunity (ie. "mitigation") and suppression strategies are binary choices, and that each option has its downside.  The downside of suppression is the length of time that social disruption will have to last, and the downside of herd immunity is the avoidable loss of life.  The politicians had to decide which was the lesser of the two evils, and until last week the government were plumping for the excess deaths.  Iain may or may not believe that was justified based on the known facts at the time, but to claim that the choice never even existed is deeply disingenuous (or delusional).

So what changed?  It's quite simple: a few days after he made that video, Professor Ferguson and his colleagues told the government in no uncertain terms that there was essentially no longer any choice at all, and that suppression was now the only game in town.  New modelling showed that pursuing herd immunity would have broken the NHS.
Posted by James Kelly at 8:59 AM 17 comments
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