All these big wigs telling us how great the new vaccine is...

[dutchman]

Some elderly patients still succumb to Covid despite jabs, UK study finds



More than 500 elderly people developed Covid-19 symptoms severe enough for them to be hospitalised at least three weeks after vaccination, 113 of whom later died, according to the first detailed study of “vaccine failure” in the UK.

The research, commissioned by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) and undertaken by the Isaric Coronavirus Clinical Characterisation Consortium, analysed 52,280 patients hospitalised from December 8 when the UK vaccine rollout began.

Patients who had been vaccinated more than three weeks previously — meaning they should have benefited from immune protection against Covid-19 — made up 1 per cent of the hospitalised sample. About one-fifth of this group died from the disease.

Professor Calum Semple of the University of Liverpool, Isaric co-lead, said: “This is real world data showing that the vaccines work but it is not unexpected that it also shows some vaccine failure — mostly in the frail elderly population.”

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is also carrying out a broader survey of what it calls “vaccine breakthrough cases” of Covid-19 in the US. By April 20 it had received 7,157 reports of infections in people who had been fully vaccinated, including 2,078 hospitalisations and 88 deaths.

“Reported vaccination breakthrough cases will represent an undercount,” said CDC, because the data are incomplete and depend on voluntary reporting. “No vaccines are 100 per cent effective at preventing illness. There will be a small percentage of people who are fully vaccinated who still get sick, are hospitalised or die from Covid-19.”

Dr Annemarie Docherty of Edinburgh university, a co-author of the Isaric study, said: “We are talking about statistics but if it is your granny who was vaccinated and died later with Covid, it is a personal tragedy.”

Please note the FT has since changed both the headline and wording of this article to minimise its impact!

[rebbonk]

This twitter thread makes interesting reading. Obviouisly I cannot vouch for the veracity of it.

[rebbonk]

Is India’s Covid death spike related to vaccination? - An interesting and thought provoking article...

[dutchman]

Wow, just Wow!

It all coincides with my personal experience and understanding of vaccines.

[dutchman]

Indian variant Covid cases found in Nuneaton



Extra testing is being considered in Nuneaton after a "small number of cases" of the Indian Covid variant were found.

Warwickshire County Council said the cases of the strain known as VOC-21APR-02 were in the Abbey Ward area.

All close contacts are being traced and tested.

The authority said it is working with the borough council and Public Health England (PHE) to consider enhanced community testing.

While they assess the situation, people living or working in Nuneaton and Bedworth borough are being offered a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test.

Dr Shade Agboola, the county's director of public health, said there "is not enough evidence" to tell if the variant causes more severe illness or makes vaccines less effective.

"However, the more cases of the variant we find, the better chance we have at suppressing the virus and keeping our communities safe," she added.

There have been 520 confirmed cases in total of this strain of Covid-19 in the UK, according to government figures.

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization classified the Indian variant as a "variant of global concern".

The prime minister has said the government is "anxious" about the variant and "ruling nothing out" when considering its response

Boris Johnson said: "There may be things we have to do locally and we will not hesitate to do them if that is the advice we get."

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on the variant the government is "watching it very, very carefully".

[dutchman]

Dr Shade Agboola said there "is not enough evidence" to tell if the variant makes vaccines less effective.

Of course there is! As with any other virus the more variants are discovered the less effect any vaccine will have.

[rebbonk]

Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid crisis was ‘totalitarian’, admit scientists

Members of Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour express regret about ‘unethical’ methods

Scientists on a committee that encouraged the use of fear to control people’s behaviour during the Covid pandemic have admitted its work was “unethical” and “totalitarian”.

Members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) expressed regret about the tactics in a new book about the role of psychology in the Government’s Covid-19 response.

SPI-B warned in March last year that ministers needed to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” from Covid-19 because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”.

Gavin Morgan, a psychologist on the team, said: “Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government. By nature I am an optimistic person, but all this has given me a more pessimistic view of people.”

Mr Morgan spoke to author Laura Dodsworth, who has spent a year investigating the Government’s tactics for her book A State of Fear, published on Monday.

Ministers have faced repeated accusations that they ramped up the threat from the pandemic to justify lockdowns and coerce the public into abiding by them – a claim that will be examined by the forthcoming public inquiry into the pandemic response.

SPI-B is one of the sub-committees that advises the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), led by Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser.

One SPI-B scientist told Ms Dodsworth: “In March [2020] the Government was very worried about compliance and they thought people wouldn’t want to be locked down. There were discussions about fear being needed to encourage compliance, and decisions were made about how to ramp up the fear. The way we have used fear is dystopian.

“The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment. Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared.”

Another SPI-B member said: “You could call psychology ‘mind control’. That’s what we do… clearly we try and go about it in a positive way, but it has been used nefariously in the past.”

One warned that “people use the pandemic to grab power and drive through things that wouldn’t happen otherwise… We have to be very careful about the authoritarianism that is creeping in”.

Another said: “Without a vaccine, psychology is your main weapon… Psychology has had a really good epidemic, actually.”

As well as overt warnings about the danger of the virus, the Government has been accused of feeding the public a non-stop diet of bad news, such as deaths and hospitalisations, without ever putting the figures in context with news of how many people have recovered, or whether daily death tolls are above or below seasonal averages.

Another member of SPI-B said they were "stunned by the weaponisation of behavioural psychology" during the pandemic, and that “psychologists didn’t seem to notice when it stopped being altruistic and became manipulative. They have too much power and it intoxicates them”.

Steve Baker, the deputy chairman of the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs, said: “If it is true that the state took the decision to terrify the public to get compliance with rules, that raises extremely serious questions about the type of society we want to become.

“If we’re being really honest, do I fear that Government policy today is playing into the roots of totalitarianism? Yes, of course it is.”

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/14/scientists-admit-totalitarian-use-fear-control-behaviour-covid/

Now, tell us something that those of us capable of thinking for ourselves couldn't see.

Unfortunately, the sheep that couldn't see the woods for the trees also vote.

[dutchman]

Hancock is now using the Indian variant as 'proof' that the vaccines work despite the fact that one of those infected in Bolton had already been fully vaccinated!

[rebbonk]

Hand-on-c*ck is another one who would fail to find his own ar$e using both hands and a map.

[rebbonk]

This article has a few interesting thoughts...

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/delay-re-opening-we-saw-that-coming/

Lockdown is a policy not of public health but of psychological and economic war. The reason why the government is now pushing for reopening to be delayed is the same reason why it still hasn’t taken place despite ZERO evidence indicating the existence of a pandemic in Great Britain: the current phase of the ‘Great Reset’ transition to the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ is not yet complete.

For one thing, models are not showing sufficiently high vaccination rates to allow the smooth introduction of the vaccination passport, the linchpin of the global social control matrix that Johnson’s masters are seeking to implement. Equally, not enough small and medium-sized enterprises have yet been destroyed by the government to implement easily the programmable, traceable central bank digital currency planned to form the lifeblood of that system.