21stcenturywire--2020-07-19--Florida Man Killed in Motorcycle Accident Recorded as ‘COVID Death’

Previously , 21WIRE detailed the shocking scale of statistical fraud being carried out by Florida health officials recently exposed as inflating the number of COVID “ cases ” in the state .
Clearly , revelations from Florida and other states point to systemic practice cooking on coronavirus cases , but it ’ s still unclear what the precise motivations might be for health officials who are clearly over-exaggerating the number of COVID cases in their states .
Is it political , or are these “ second wave ” fears being used to drift out a whole raft of ‘ New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compulsory vaccinations , contact racing regimes , more lockdowns and ad hoc ‘ social distancing ’ rules , school closures , and travel quarantines ?
This latest story is really indicative of how corrupt government and public health officials have become , and how desperate some of them are to keep the crisis going for as long as possible .
On Saturday , Kent Donahue , from Dr. Pino ’ s office , said the motorcyclist ’ s death “ was reviewed and he was taken off the list for COVID fatalities.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , health officials confirm that a motorcycle death that was initially counted among COVID-19 fatalities has been removed from the state ’ s data .
A spokesman for the Florida Department of Health in Orange County said it was reviewed and removed , but he didn ’ t know exactly when .
FOX 35 began investigating this on Thursday after Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino said that a man who had coronavirus but died in a motorcycle crash had been added to the COVID death data .
At the time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to remove it from its numbers , but he didn ’ t know if it ever was .
After reporting on this Thursday and Friday , officials notified FOX 35 on Saturday that they verified the death is no longer being counted .
A person who died in a motorcycle accident was added to Florida ’ s COVID-19 death count , according to a state health official .
FOX 35 News found this out after asking Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino whether two coronavirus victims who were in their 20s had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ answers surprised us .
“ The first one didn ’ t have any .
He died in a motorcycle accident , ” Pino said .
Dr. Pino was asked if the man ’ s data was removed .
“ I don ’ t think so .
I have to double-check , ” Pino said .
“ We were arguing , discussing , or trying to argue with the state .
Not because of the numbers — it ’ s 100 … it doesn ’ t make any difference if it ’ s 99 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t die from COVID-19 … died in the crash .
But you could actually argue that it could have been the COVID-19 that caused him to crash .
I don ’ t know the conclusion of that one.
” There are still two people in their 20s on Orange County ’ s data list for coronavirus deaths .
SEE ALSO : UK Government Panicking As Fraudulent COVID Death Count is Revealed

By
Previously, 21WIRE detailed the shocking scale of statistical fraud being carried out by Florida health officials recently exposed as inflating the number of COVID “cases” in the state. Clearly, revelations from Florida and other states point to systemic practice cooking on coronavirus cases, but it’s still unclear what the precise motivations might be for health officials who are clearly over-exaggerating the number of COVID cases in their states. Is it political, or are these “second wave” fears being used to drift out a whole raft of ‘New Normal’ policies like mandatory masks, compulsory vaccinations, contact racing regimes, more lockdowns and ad hoc ‘social distancing’ rules, school closures, and travel quarantines?
This latest story is really indicative of how corrupt government and public health officials have become, and how desperate some of them are to keep the crisis going for as long as possible.
FOX35 updated report…
On Saturday, Kent Donahue, from Dr. Pino’s office, said the motorcyclist’s death “was reviewed and he was taken off the list for COVID fatalities.”
Two days after a FOX 35 investigation, health officials confirm that a motorcycle death that was initially counted among COVID-19 fatalities has been removed from the state’s data.
A spokesman for the Florida Department of Health in Orange County said it was reviewed and removed, but he didn’t know exactly when.
FOX 35 began investigating this on Thursday after Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino said that a man who had coronavirus but died in a motorcycle crash had been added to the COVID death data.
At the time, he said he had asked the state to remove it from its numbers, but he didn’t know if it ever was.
After reporting on this Thursday and Friday, officials notified FOX 35 on Saturday that they verified the death is no longer being counted.
More questions about Florida’s #COVID19 data tonight after state health official tells us a person who died in a motorcycle accident was added to the state’s coronavirus death count. Story at 10 #FOX35News — Danielle Lama FOX 35 (@DLama_FOX35) July 17, 2020
FOX 35 had originally reported…
A person who died in a motorcycle accident was added to Florida’s COVID-19 death count, according to a state health official.
FOX 35 News found this out after asking Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino whether two coronavirus victims who were in their 20s had any underlying conditions. One of his answers surprised us.
“The first one didn’t have any. He died in a motorcycle accident,” Pino said.
Dr. Pino was asked if the man’s data was removed.
“I don’t think so. I have to double-check,” Pino said. “We were arguing, discussing, or trying to argue with the state. Not because of the numbers — it’s 100 … it doesn’t make any difference if it’s 99 — but the fact that the individual didn’t die from COVID-19 … died in the crash. But you could actually argue that it could have been the COVID-19 that caused him to crash. I don’t know the conclusion of that one.”
There are still two people in their 20s on Orange County’s data list for coronavirus deaths.
Watch this explosive video report:
SEE ALSO: UK Government Panicking As Fraudulent COVID Death Count is Revealed
READ MORE COVID-19 NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire COVID Files
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-20--America’s Addiction to Lockdown is Resulting in Lower Wages

Ever since the current COVID crisis began , governments were quick to assure the public that there was no need to worry , because the government would be covering everyone ’ s payroll and handing out cash to business that is struggling as a result of the government-issued lockdown .
Governments have also been busy buying corporate bonds and debt too , in order to prop up the stock market and supposedly stave-off a major economic calamity .
Well , the catastrophe came alright , but unfortunately – the worst is yet to come .
As it turns out , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order to stay afloat during the government-induced economic shutdown – potentially damaging the labor market for a decade .
Millions of Americans who managed to hold onto their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic have seen their incomes drop as employers slashed wages and hours to weather what they expected to be a short-term shutdown .
Now , with the virus raging and the recession deepening , those cuts that were meant to be temporary could turn permanent — or even pave the way for further layoffs .
That could portend deep damage to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so many workers who have kept their jobs have less money to spend than a few months ago .

By
Ever since the current COVID crisis began, governments were quick to assure the public that there was no need to worry, because the government would be covering everyone’s payroll and handing out cash to business that is struggling as a result of the government-issued lockdown. Governments have also been busy buying corporate bonds and debt too, in order to prop up the stock market and supposedly stave-off a major economic calamity. Well, the catastrophe came alright, but unfortunately – the worst is yet to come.
As it turns out, businesses have been forced lower wages in order to stay afloat during the government-induced economic shutdown – potentially damaging the labor market for a decade.
Politico reports…
Millions of Americans who managed to hold onto their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic have seen their incomes drop as employers slashed wages and hours to weather what they expected to be a short-term shutdown.
Now, with the virus raging and the recession deepening, those cuts that were meant to be temporary could turn permanent — or even pave the way for further layoffs. That could portend deep damage to the labor market and the economy because so many workers who have kept their jobs have less money to spend than a few months ago.
The numbers haven’t received the same attention as job losses, which are highlighted every week in government data. But at least 4 million U.S. workers have received pay cuts since February even as they continued working the same job, and millions more have seen pay freezes, according to economists from the Federal Reserve and University of Chicago who put out a study analyzing data from the payroll processing company ADP.
Other estimates put it higher: Roughly 7 million workers have likely received a dock in pay, according to Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. Combined with those who have been forced to log fewer hours, the number climbs to 20 million people — or 1 in 8 workers — who have seen their paychecks shrink over the past few months even as they continued to work, underscoring how much harm shutdowns have caused beyond layoffs alone. “We have an income crisis that is even larger than a jobless crisis,” Claudia Sahm, director of macroeconomic policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, wrote on Twitter recently. “There’s so much that falls under that,” Sahm, who previously worked at the Federal Reserve, said in an interview, referring to the “income crisis” label. “There’s these massive job losses. There’s hours being cut, overtime being lost. And then on top of that — and this is something we just really haven’t seen at all — is a large fraction of workers taking cuts in their wages.” Continue this story at Politico READ MORE COVID-19 NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire COVID Files SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV


21stcenturywire--2020-07-20--MEK Favorites Speak at Virtual ‘Free Iran’ Regime Change Conference

The recent “ Free Iran Global Summit ” – a virtual cavalcade of regime change hawks , including longtime favorite of the MEK , Rudy Giuliani .
An exiled Iranian opposition group held its annual Free Iran conference online on Friday that featured speeches from an array of former US politicians and military officials .
The conference was held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran , a coalition led by the People ’ s Mujahedin of Iran , or MEK ( Mujahedin-e Khalq ) , a controversial group widely considered to be a cult , and up until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organization by the US government .
The MEK is considered the top Iranian opposition group in Washington , and if Iran hawks had their way , the MEK would replace the current Islamic regime in Tehran .
Trump administration officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have appeared at events with MEK members .
After the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January , it was reported that President Trump sought advice on Iran from MEK-linked allies , like his personal attorney and former mayor of New York City , Rudy Giuliani @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Giuliani spoke at Friday ’ s conference , calling for regime change and railing against the Mullahs .
“ To me , the mullahs are like the people who ran the mafia , the people I prosecuted who ran the mafia and extorted their people , ” Giuliani said .
The former mayor also praised Maryam Rajavi , the MEK ’ s leader .
“ Regime change in Iran is within reach .
That ’ s the goal of NCRI and Maryam Rajavi.
” Senator Martha McSally ( R-AZ ) and Rep. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the conference , the only sitting members of Congress to attend .
“ Thank you to Madame Rajavi on everything she ’ s done .
I want to encourage young people to continue your fight , your resistance … the people of the United States are with you , ” Gooden said .
Other speakers from the US included former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman , former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich , former New Jersey Senator Robert Toricelli , and others .
The MEK pays well for these short speeches .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Elaine Chao collected $ 50,000 from the MEK for a five-minute speech in 2015 .
Although he was missing from this conference , former National Security Advisor John Bolton is a MEK favorite and has delivered many speeches to the group .
Records show the MEK has paid Bolton at least $ 180,000 for speeches over the years .
From the MEK ’ s compound in Albania , in front of hundreds of screens , Rajavi addressed the conference .
“ Our first commitment is that we , the Iranian people and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and will reclaim Iran , ” Rajavi said .
“ The final word is that the mullahs have no solutions and their regime is doomed to fall in its entirety.
” The MEK is now based out of Albania , but for many years they operated in Iraq after the group was kicked out of Iran in the 1980s .
The MEK started as a leftist organization in the 1960s and carried out attacks on the US-backed Shah ’ s police force throughout the 1970s .
The group played a role in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opposed the new Islamic government and carried out major attacks against the Mullahs .
The MEK was welcomed into Iraq by Sadam Hussein , who gave them refuge at a military base , Camp Ashraf .
From their base in Iraq , the MEK carried out terrorist attacks inside Iran and took Hussein ’ s side in the brutal eight-year war between Iran and Iraq war .
For these reasons , it is believed the MEK has little or no support inside Iran today .
The MEK is also suspected of being involved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took place in 2012 .
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq , the US government commissioned a report on the MEK from inside their former headquarters at camp Ashraf .
The report said , “ many of the typical characteristics of a cult , such as authoritarian control , confiscation of assets , sexual control ( including mandatory divorce and celibacy ) , emotional isolation , forced labor , sleep deprivation , physical abuse and limited exit options .
”

By
The recent “Free Iran Global Summit” – a virtual cavalcade of regime change hawks, including longtime favorite of the MEK, Rudy Giuliani.
Antiwar.com reports…
An exiled Iranian opposition group held its annual Free Iran conference online on Friday that featured speeches from an array of former US politicians and military officials. The conference was held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition led by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq), a controversial group widely considered to be a cult, and up until 2012, was designated as a terrorist organization by the US government.
The MEK is considered the top Iranian opposition group in Washington, and if Iran hawks had their way, the MEK would replace the current Islamic regime in Tehran. Trump administration officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have appeared at events with MEK members. After the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January, it was reported that President Trump sought advice on Iran from MEK-linked allies, like his personal attorney and former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani.
A frequent guest of the MEK, Giuliani spoke at Friday’s conference, calling for regime change and railing against the Mullahs. “To me, the mullahs are like the people who ran the mafia, the people I prosecuted who ran the mafia and extorted their people,” Giuliani said. The former mayor also praised Maryam Rajavi, the MEK’s leader. “Regime change in Iran is within reach. That’s the goal of NCRI and Maryam Rajavi.”
Senator Martha McSally (R-AZ) and Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) also spoke at the conference, the only sitting members of Congress to attend. “Thank you to Madame Rajavi on everything she’s done. I want to encourage young people to continue your fight, your resistance … the people of the United States are with you,” Gooden said.
Other speakers from the US included former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former New Jersey Senator Robert Toricelli, and others. The MEK pays well for these short speeches. President Trump’s Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao collected $50,000 from the MEK for a five-minute speech in 2015. Although he was missing from this conference, former National Security Advisor John Bolton is a MEK favorite and has delivered many speeches to the group. Records show the MEK has paid Bolton at least $180,000 for speeches over the years.
From the MEK’s compound in Albania, in front of hundreds of screens, Rajavi addressed the conference. “Our first commitment is that we, the Iranian people and the Resistance, will overthrow the clerical regime and will reclaim Iran,” Rajavi said. “The final word is that the mullahs have no solutions and their regime is doomed to fall in its entirety.”
The MEK is now based out of Albania, but for many years they operated in Iraq after the group was kicked out of Iran in the 1980s. The MEK started as a leftist organization in the 1960s and carried out attacks on the US-backed Shah’s police force throughout the 1970s. The group played a role in the 1979 overthrow of the Shah but ultimately opposed the new Islamic government and carried out major attacks against the Mullahs.
The MEK was welcomed into Iraq by Sadam Hussein, who gave them refuge at a military base, Camp Ashraf. From their base in Iraq, the MEK carried out terrorist attacks inside Iran and took Hussein’s side in the brutal eight-year war between Iran and Iraq war. For these reasons, it is believed the MEK has little or no support inside Iran today. The MEK is also suspected of being involved in assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists that took place in 2012.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US government commissioned a report on the MEK from inside their former headquarters at camp Ashraf. The report said, “many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse and limited exit options.”
READ MORE IRAN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Iran Files
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-23--It’s All About Vibrations: A Resonance Theory of Consciousness

One of the main aspects of resonance theory is the idea that what we as humans experience as consciousness is based on the vibrational frequency of all matter .
It ’ s what hold the universe together , or what tears it apart .
But this is only the starting point .
What happens when these various vibrational phenomenon start to ‘ sync up ’ ?
It is here where we discover what might be the key to understanding another dimension of resonance , known as consciousness .
Why is my awareness here , while yours is over there ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for each of us , into a subject and an infinity of objects ?
How is each of us our own center of experience , receiving information about the rest of the world out there ?
Why are some things conscious and others apparently not ?
Is a rat conscious ?
A gnat ?
A bacterium ?
These questions are all aspects of the ancient “ mind-body problem , ” which asks , essentially : What is the relationship between mind and matter ?
It ’ s resisted a generally satisfying conclusion for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enjoyed a major rebranding over the last two decades .
Now it ’ s generally known as the “ hard problem ” of consciousness , after philosopher David Chalmers coined this term in a now classic paper and further explored it in his 1996 book , “ The Conscious Mind : In Search of a Fundamental Theory.
” Chalmers thought the mind-body problem should be called “ hard ” in comparison to what , with tongue in cheek , he called the “ easy ” problems of neuroscience : How do neurons and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Of course they ’ re not actually easy at all .
But his point was that they ’ re relatively easy compared to the truly difficult problem of explaining how consciousness relates to matter .
Over the last decade , my colleague , University of California , Santa Barbara psychology professor Jonathan Schooler and I have developed what we call a “ resonance theory of consciousness.
” We suggest that resonance – another word for synchronized vibrations – is at the heart of not only human consciousness but also animal consciousness and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sounds like something the hippies might have dreamed up – it ’ s all vibrations , man !
– but stick with me .
All things in our universe are constantly in motion , vibrating .
Even objects that appear to be stationary are in fact vibrating , oscillating , resonating , at various frequencies .
Resonance is a type of motion , characterized by oscillation between two states .
And ultimately all matter is just vibrations of various underlying fields .
As such , at every scale , all of nature vibrates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things come together : They will often start , after a little while , to vibrate together at the same frequency .
They “ sync up , ” sometimes in ways that can seem mysterious .
This is described as the phenomenon of spontaneous self-organization .
Mathematician Steven Strogatz provides various examples from physics , biology , chemistry and neuroscience to illustrate “ sync ” – his term for resonance – in his 2003 book “ Sync : How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe , Nature , and Daily Life , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certain species come together in large gatherings , they start flashing in sync , in ways that can still seem a little mystifying .
• Lasers are produced when photons of the same power and frequency sync up .
• The moon ’ s rotation is exactly synced with its orbit around the Earth such that we always see the same face .
Examining resonance leads to potentially deep insights about the nature of consciousness and about the universe more generally .
Neuroscientists have identified sync in their research , too .
Large-scale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ measurable frequencies , with mammalian consciousness thought to be commonly associated with various kinds of neuronal sync .
For example , German neurophysiologist Pascal Fries has explored the ways in which various electrical patterns sync in the brain to produce different types of human consciousness… Continue this story at The Conversation

By
One of the main aspects of resonance theory is the idea that what we as humans experience as consciousness is based on the vibrational frequency of all matter. It’s what hold the universe together, or what tears it apart.
But this is only the starting point. What happens when these various vibrational phenomenon start to ‘sync up’?
It is here where we discover what might be the key to understanding another dimension of resonance, known as consciousness.
Tam Hunt from the Conversation explains…
Why is my awareness here, while yours is over there? Why is the universe split in two for each of us, into a subject and an infinity of objects? How is each of us our own center of experience, receiving information about the rest of the world out there? Why are some things conscious and others apparently not? Is a rat conscious? A gnat? A bacterium?
These questions are all aspects of the ancient “mind-body problem,” which asks, essentially: What is the relationship between mind and matter? It’s resisted a generally satisfying conclusion for thousands of years.
The mind-body problem enjoyed a major rebranding over the last two decades. Now it’s generally known as the “hard problem” of consciousness, after philosopher David Chalmers coined this term in a now classic paper and further explored it in his 1996 book, “The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.”
Chalmers thought the mind-body problem should be called “hard” in comparison to what, with tongue in cheek, he called the “easy” problems of neuroscience: How do neurons and the brain work at the physical level? Of course they’re not actually easy at all. But his point was that they’re relatively easy compared to the truly difficult problem of explaining how consciousness relates to matter.
Over the last decade, my colleague, University of California, Santa Barbara psychology professor Jonathan Schooler and I have developed what we call a “resonance theory of consciousness.” We suggest that resonance – another word for synchronized vibrations – is at the heart of not only human consciousness but also animal consciousness and of physical reality more generally. It sounds like something the hippies might have dreamed up – it’s all vibrations, man! – but stick with me.
All about the vibrations All things in our universe are constantly in motion, vibrating. Even objects that appear to be stationary are in fact vibrating, oscillating, resonating, at various frequencies. Resonance is a type of motion, characterized by oscillation between two states. And ultimately all matter is just vibrations of various underlying fields. As such, at every scale, all of nature vibrates. Something interesting happens when different vibrating things come together: They will often start, after a little while, to vibrate together at the same frequency. They “sync up,” sometimes in ways that can seem mysterious. This is described as the phenomenon of spontaneous self-organization. Mathematician Steven Strogatz provides various examples from physics, biology, chemistry and neuroscience to illustrate “sync” – his term for resonance – in his 2003 book “Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life,” including: When fireflies of certain species come together in large gatherings, they start flashing in sync, in ways that can still seem a little mystifying.
Lasers are produced when photons of the same power and frequency sync up.
The moon’s rotation is exactly synced with its orbit around the Earth such that we always see the same face. Examining resonance leads to potentially deep insights about the nature of consciousness and about the universe more generally.
Sync inside your skull Neuroscientists have identified sync in their research, too. Large-scale neuron firing occurs in human brains at measurable frequencies, with mammalian consciousness thought to be commonly associated with various kinds of neuronal sync. For example, German neurophysiologist Pascal Fries has explored the ways in which various electrical patterns sync in the brain to produce different types of human consciousness…
Continue this story at The Conversation
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Are you Doomscrolling?

We ’ ve all done it .
Pulling out the smartphone appendage at night before you hit the sack .
Scrolling away to see what ’ s happening in the news and in the threads .
But what are the long-term physiological and psychological effects of this type of automated behaviour ?
Is it possible to ween yourself off of these deleterious cyber habits ?
First you need to understand the mechanism which drives one to incessantly scroll down the bottomless well that is Facebook and Twitter .
Only then can you begin to learn how to break the habit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : You get into bed , turn off the lights , and look at your phone to check Twitter one more time .
You see that coronavirus infections are up .
Maybe your kids can ’ t go back to school .
The economy is cratering .
Still , you incessantly scroll though bottomless doom-and-gloom news for hours as you sink into a pool of despair .
This self-destructive behavior has become so common that a new word for it has entered our lexicon : “ doomscrolling.
” The recent onslaught of dystopian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ combined with stay-at-home orders , have enabled our penchant for binging on bad news .
But the habit is eroding our mental health , experts say .
Karen Ho , a finance reporter for Quartz , has been tweeting about doomscrolling every day over the past few months , often alongside a gentle nudge to stop and engage in healthier alternatives .
Ho first saw the term in a Twitter post from October 2018 , although the word may very well have much earlier origins .
“ The practice of doomscrolling is almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journalists , so once I saw the term I was like , ‘ Oh , this is a behavior I ’ ve been doing for several years , ’ ” she says .
If Ho ’ s daily reminders aren ’ t enough to break the habit , clinical psychologist Dr. Amelia Aldao warns that doomscrolling traps us in a “ vicious cycle of negativity ” that fuels our anxiety .
“ Our minds are wired to look out for threats , ” she says .
“ The more time we spend scrolling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the more we get sucked into them , the more anxious we get.
” “ Our minds are wired to look out for threats , ” she says .
“ The more time we spend scrolling , the more we find those dangers , the more we get sucked into them , the more anxious we get.
” That grim content can then throw a dark filter how you see the world , says Aldao .
“ Now you look around yourself , and everything feels gloomy , everything makes you anxious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for more information .
”

By
We’ve all done it. Pulling out the smartphone appendage at night before you hit the sack. Scrolling away to see what’s happening in the news and in the threads. But what are the long-term physiological and psychological effects of this type of automated behaviour? Is it possible to ween yourself off of these deleterious cyber habits?
First you need to understand the mechanism which drives one to incessantly scroll down the bottomless well that is Facebook and Twitter. Only then can you begin to learn how to break the habit.
NPR explains…
So many of us do it: You get into bed, turn off the lights, and look at your phone to check Twitter one more time.
You see that coronavirus infections are up. Maybe your kids can’t go back to school. The economy is cratering.
Still, you incessantly scroll though bottomless doom-and-gloom news for hours as you sink into a pool of despair.
This self-destructive behavior has become so common that a new word for it has entered our lexicon: “doomscrolling.”
The recent onslaught of dystopian stories related to the coronavirus pandemic, combined with stay-at-home orders, have enabled our penchant for binging on bad news. But the habit is eroding our mental health, experts say.
Karen Ho, a finance reporter for Quartz, has been tweeting about doomscrolling every day over the past few months, often alongside a gentle nudge to stop and engage in healthier alternatives.
Ho first saw the term in a Twitter post from October 2018, although the word may very well have much earlier origins.
“The practice of doomscrolling is almost a normalized behavior for a lot of journalists, so once I saw the term I was like, ‘Oh, this is a behavior I’ve been doing for several years,’ ” she says.
If Ho’s daily reminders aren’t enough to break the habit, clinical psychologist Dr. Amelia Aldao warns that doomscrolling traps us in a “vicious cycle of negativity” that fuels our anxiety.
“Our minds are wired to look out for threats,” she says. “The more time we spend scrolling, the more we find those dangers, the more we get sucked into them, the more anxious we get.”
“Our minds are wired to look out for threats,” she says. “The more time we spend scrolling, the more we find those dangers, the more we get sucked into them, the more anxious we get.”
That grim content can then throw a dark filter how you see the world, says Aldao.
“Now you look around yourself, and everything feels gloomy, everything makes you anxious. So you go back to look for more information.”
The cycle continues…
Continue this story at NPR
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-23--Oxford Epidemiologists: UK Gov’t ‘COVID Suppression’ Strategy is Not Viable

It ’ s not surprising that the public are quickly losing faith in the way Governments are approaching this supposed coronavirus ‘ pandemic.
’ Just as the virus is disappearing and deaths are falling to zero , technocrats are now doubling-down on draconian measures – enforcing the use of mandatory masks in public , bizarre ‘ social distancing ’ laws , and aggressively pushing the latest experimental Coronavirus vaccines .
Who is informing this aggressive government policy ?
Why are politicians refusing to update their extreme public health diktats to reflect the plethora of available science which contravenes the prevailing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ talks with Prof Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson from the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine .
Watch : 2:55 – Masks • Tom Jefferson : “ Aside from people who are exposed on the frontlines , there is no evidence that masks make any difference , but what ’ s even more extraordinary is the uncertainty : we don ’ t know if these things make any difference… .
We should have done randomised control trials in February , March and April but not anymore because viral circulation is low and we will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether there was any difference ” .
• Carl Heneghan : “ By all means people can wear masks but they can ’ t say it ’ s an evidence-based decision… there is a real separation between an evidence-based decision and the opaque term that ‘ we are being led by the science ’ , which isn ’ t the evidence ” .
9:26 – Pandemic life cycle • CH : “ One of the keys of the infection is to look at who ’ s been infected , which shows a crucial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seasonal theory .
In a pandemic you ’ d expect to see young people disproportionately affected , but in the UK we ’ ve only had six child deaths , which is far less than we ’ d normally see in a pandemic .
The high number of deaths with over-75s fits with the seasonal theory ” .
14:00 – Covid seasonality • CH : “ The stability of the virus is far less when the temperature goes up but humidity seems to be particularly important .
The lower the humidity , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ atmosphere and on surfaces… It ’ s now winter in the southern hemisphere , which is why places like Australia are suddenly having outbreaks.
” 20:37 – Lockdown • CH : “ Many people said that we should have locked down earlier , but 50 % of care homes developed outbreaks during the lockdown period so there are issues within the transmission of this virus that are not clear… Lockdown is a blunt tool and there needs to be intelligent conversations about what mitigation strategies can keep society functioning while we keep the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nightingale hospitals • CH : “ They are the wrong structure .
What you need is fever hospitals which were here until around the 1980s or 90s .
They were on single floors and had isolation within isolation .
Theere were no lift shafts and staff were trained , which meant that everyone was protected from each other… It looks like at leats 20 % of people got the infection while they were in hospital ” 27:30 – Suppression strategy • CH : “ The benefits of the current strategy are outweighed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only the virus will have a determination in that .
If you follow the New Zealand policy of suppressing it to zero and locking down the country forever , then you ’ re going to have a problem… This virus is so out there now , I can not see a strategy that makes suppression the viable option .
The strategy right now should be how we learn to live with this virus ” 32:45 – Response to the virus • TJ : “ I am a survivor of four pandemics and for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t even realise they were going on .
People died but nothing changed and none of the fabric of society was eroded like this response… Do I see steps being taken at a European level about learning from our mistakes and changing policies ?
The answer is no… 39:30 – Politics of the virus • CH : “ We as individuals are part of the problem because sensationalism drives people to click and read the information .
So it ’ s a big circle because we ’ ve created the problem — if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there , we will go and have a look .
If you want a solution , you ’ ve got to get people to stop clicking on this sensationalist stuff ” .
43:30 – Infection Fatality Rate • CH : “ We will be down about where we were with the swine flu : around 0.1-0.3 % which is much lower than what we think because at the moment we are seeing the case fatality ” .
• TJ : “ If you look at the whole narrative , it was distorted from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ influenza which was just one or two agents and nothing else existed .
We ’ re no different now ” .

By
It’s not surprising that the public are quickly losing faith in the way Governments are approaching this supposed coronavirus ‘pandemic.’ Just as the virus is disappearing and deaths are falling to zero, technocrats are now doubling-down on draconian measures – enforcing the use of mandatory masks in public, bizarre ‘social distancing’ laws, and aggressively pushing the latest experimental Coronavirus vaccines.
Who is informing this aggressive government policy? Why are politicians refusing to update their extreme public health diktats to reflect the plethora of available science which contravenes the prevailing party line?
UnHerd host Freddie Sayers talks with Prof Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson from the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine. Watch:
Key Quotes:
2:55 – Masks
• Tom Jefferson: “Aside from people who are exposed on the frontlines, there is no evidence that masks make any difference, but what’s even more extraordinary is the uncertainty: we don’t know if these things make any difference…. We should have done randomised control trials in February, March and April but not anymore because viral circulation is low and we will need huge number of enrolees to show whether there was any difference”.
• Carl Heneghan: “By all means people can wear masks but they can’t say it’s an evidence-based decision… there is a real separation between an evidence-based decision and the opaque term that ‘we are being led by the science’, which isn’t the evidence”.
9:26 – Pandemic life cycle
• CH: “One of the keys of the infection is to look at who’s been infected, which shows a crucial difference when comparing the pandemic theory to seasonal theory. In a pandemic you’d expect to see young people disproportionately affected, but in the UK we’ve only had six child deaths, which is far less than we’d normally see in a pandemic. The high number of deaths with over-75s fits with the seasonal theory”.
14:00 – Covid seasonality
• CH: “The stability of the virus is far less when the temperature goes up but humidity seems to be particularly important. The lower the humidity, the more stable the virus is in the atmosphere and on surfaces… It’s now winter in the southern hemisphere, which is why places like Australia are suddenly having outbreaks.”
20:37 – Lockdown
• CH: “Many people said that we should have locked down earlier, but 50% of care homes developed outbreaks during the lockdown period so there are issues within the transmission of this virus that are not clear… Lockdown is a blunt tool and there needs to be intelligent conversations about what mitigation strategies can keep society functioning while we keep the most vulnerable shielded”.
25:20 – Nightingale hospitals
• CH: “They are the wrong structure. What you need is fever hospitals which were here until around the 1980s or 90s. They were on single floors and had isolation within isolation. Theere were no lift shafts and staff were trained, which meant that everyone was protected from each other… It looks like at leats 20% of people got the infection while they were in hospital”
27:30 – Suppression strategy
• CH: “The benefits of the current strategy are outweighed by the harms…When it comes to suppression, only the virus will have a determination in that. If you follow the New Zealand policy of suppressing it to zero and locking down the country forever, then you’re going to have a problem… This virus is so out there now, I cannot see a strategy that makes suppression the viable option. The strategy right now should be how we learn to live with this virus”
32:45 – Response to the virus
• TJ: “I am a survivor of four pandemics and for the other three, I didn’t even realise they were going on. People died but nothing changed and none of the fabric of society was eroded like this response… Do I see steps being taken at a European level about learning from our mistakes and changing policies? The answer is no…
39:30 – Politics of the virus
• CH: “We as individuals are part of the problem because sensationalism drives people to click and read the information. So it’s a big circle because we’ve created the problem — if we put the worst case scenario out there, we will go and have a look. If you want a solution, you’ve got to get people to stop clicking on this sensationalist stuff”.
43:30 – Infection Fatality Rate
• CH: “We will be down about where we were with the swine flu: around 0.1-0.3% which is much lower than what we think because at the moment we are seeing the case fatality”.
• TJ: “If you look at the whole narrative, it was distorted from the very beginning by the obsession with influenza which was just one or two agents and nothing else existed. We’re no different now”.
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-23--Greenpeace Founder: ‘There is No Climate Catastrophe – It’s a Lie’

Power Hour host Alex Epstein discusses the alleged ‘ climate catastrophe ’ with Dr. Patrick Moore , ecologist and co-founder of Greenpeace .
Incredibly , Moore completely eviscerates the concept of “ climate catastrophism , ” and dismantles the claim that man-made CO2 levels are warming the planet beyond a tipping point of human survival .
Moore makes a number of strong arguments which debunk the IPCC ’ s increasingly problematic pseudo-scientific and anti-human narrative which is being parroted by climate change activists and the likes of Greta Thunberg .
He explains : • None The beginnings of the climate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believes human beings would not only survive but survive better at far higher average temperatures ( which would be concentrated toward the poles ) .
• None Why Moore believes that contrary to being in a Sixth Extinction , we are actually at an unprecedented time of biodiversity with no end in sight .
– Why Moore believes “ ocean acidification ” claims are totally meritless .
• None The commonality among opposition to plastics , GMOs , nuclear energy , and fossil fuels .
– Moore ’ s unrefuted theory that human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terminal decline in CO2 levels .

By
Power Hour host Alex Epstein discusses the alleged ‘climate catastrophe’ with Dr. Patrick Moore, ecologist and co-founder of Greenpeace.
Incredibly, Moore completely eviscerates the concept of “climate catastrophism,”and dismantles the claim that man-made CO2 levels are warming the planet beyond a tipping point of human survival. Moore makes a number of strong arguments which debunk the IPCC’s increasingly problematic pseudo-scientific and anti-human narrative which is being parroted by climate change activists and the likes of Greta Thunberg. He explains:
Why Moore left Greenpeace.
The beginnings of the climate catastrophe movement.
Why Moore believes human beings would not only survive but survive better at far higher average temperatures (which would be concentrated toward the poles).
Why Moore believes that contrary to being in a Sixth Extinction, we are actually at an unprecedented time of biodiversity with no end in sight. – Why Moore believes “ocean acidification” claims are totally meritless.
The commonality among opposition to plastics, GMOs, nuclear energy, and fossil fuels. – Moore’s unrefuted theory that human beings actually saved life on Earth from terminal decline in CO2 levels.
Watch this highly informative interview:
READ MORE CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Climate Change Files
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-23--UKC News: Gov’t Accelerates COVID Psy-Op, ‘Russia Report’ Courtesy of Steele and Browder

The UK government accelerates its Coronavirus psychological operations with an aggressive roll-out of various new ‘ rules ’ including mandatory @ @ @ @ @ a major push for vaccines .
The much-anticipated ‘ Russia Report ’ has finally been @ @ @ @ @ Westminster , but upon closer examination , it was actually authored by some likely Russiagate @ @ @ @ @ ; Bill Browder , Anne Applebaum , Ed Lucas , Chris Donnelly , and none @ @ @ @ @ spook Christopher Steele .
Still , the media are giving it credence .
All this @ @ @ @ @ Gerrish and Mike Robinson are joined by guest analyst Alex Thomson for the midweek news @ @ @ @ @ MORE UK COLUMN EPISODES HERE

By
The UK government accelerates its Coronavirus psychological operations with an aggressive roll-out of various new ‘rules’ including mandatory masks, as well as a major push for vaccines. The much-anticipated ‘Russia Report’ has finally been released to great fanfare in Westminster, but upon closer examination, it was actually authored by some likely Russiagate enthusiasts and Integrity Initiative member; Bill Browder, Anne Applebaum, Ed Lucas, Chris Donnelly, and none other than disgraced former MI6 spook Christopher Steele. Still, the media are giving it credence. All this and more.
Co-hosts Brian Gerrish and Mike Robinson are joined by guest analyst Alex Thomson for the midweek news round-up. Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwPrzhDqhy0
SEE MORE UK COLUMN EPISODES HERE
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-24--Prof. Sunetra Gupta: ‘We May Already Have Herd Immunity’

A recent study from Oxford University indicates that some parts of the UK may have already reached what is known as ‘ herd immunity ’ from COVID , revealing “ innate resistance or cross-protection from exposure to seasonal coronaviruses.
” Surprisingly , instead of celebrating these findings , politicians and mainstream media are actively ignoring them , and instead are claiming the threat of COVID is on the rise , and demanding the public accept mandatory masks , vaccines and rolling lockdowns .
From the onset of this ‘ crisis , ’ the UK government has been pushing ever-increasing and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ face of a threat which is still vague and largely undetermined .
One expert leading the Oxford team is epidemiologist Professor Sunetra Gupta , who argues that the cost of lockdown may be too high for the most disadvantaged , and for society as whole .
Gupta also challenges the parameters of debate the entire debate we are witnessing .
The following interview was conducted by The Reaction , with Maggie Pagano , Alastair Benn and Mutaz Ahmed interviewing Professor Sunetra Gupta from Oxford University : Alastair : In the debate over T-cell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ common-sense view is that exposure to things that are similar does give you some protection , and it seems to be borne out in recent studies .
Prof Gupta : Yes , exactly .
The principle of protection from exposure to related viruses , and indeed any kind of pathogen , is one that we ’ ve known for a very long time .
The very first vaccine we had , which is smallpox , was based on the idea that cowpox protects against smallpox .
This idea was already there well in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a virus – and indeed in advance of germ theory having been properly established .
So we knew about this cross protection even before we knew that diseases were caused by germs .
It ’ s a very old idea .
In my own studies , beginning with malaria and then later thinking about flu , the role of cross-immunity in protecting against disease seemed to be something that very much needed to be factored into our thinking .
Most of the people who die from malaria are children , and they die @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have no immunity at that stage .
That was one of the first things that struck me when I was working on malaria .
And then later when I was working on flu , it seemed to me a very good way of explaining why the 1918 flu had killed so many people , but why that didn ’ t seem to be repeating itself , was that it was likely that people hadn ’ t been exposed to flu .
Many people would have not had the flu at all .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ naive immunity in people under the age of thirty who were very badly affected when the pandemic came through .
Having those ideas in mind , when the Covid-19 virus started to spread , I was pretty certain it wouldn ’ t have a huge , devastating impact in terms of mortality , because we had all these other coronaviruses circulating .
What I didn ’ t anticipate was that some of our responses to previous exposure to seasonal coronaviruses might actually protect us from infection .
It ’ s one thing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what the new studies are showing is that people are actually fighting off infection .
So at an even more basic level , the pre-existing antibodies or T-cell responses against coronaviruses seem to protect against infection , not just the outcome of infection .
Mutaz : When the serological studies were conducted a couple of months ago , antibody rates were very low in the UK .
Is that because people weren ’ t vulnerable to infection , or because once they were infected they had some level of innate immunity ?
PG @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seropositivity rates in many parts of the world are much lower than we ’ d expect them to be if we assume that the epidemic has passed through and that people are resistant .
If you take a very simple scenario where everyone is susceptible , you ’ d expect 60-70 % of them to have some marker of exposure .
And that is not what ’ s been observed .
I mean , there are areas where it is very high .
There ’ s a paper published recently of a seroprevalence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aires , which reports a 50 % seroprevalence .
And there have been studies from Lodi , Italy , where it is I think 60 % .
So there are studies on the high side , but I think one can ’ t really trust studies on either side completely .
One has to take all these measures with a certain degree of caution .
What we have here are a range of measures .
In cities , it ’ s typically much higher than in rural areas or areas that are non-urban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s been done in reporting the seroprevalence , which is not correct , is that they ’ ve been homogenised .
When people say only 5-6 % of the UK population has been exposed , that ’ s not correct .
I think very few people would agree that exposure rates in London are less than 20 % .
The picture that we ’ re getting is heterogeneous .
But even in hotspots , apart from a few reports , they ’ re still quite low .
So why is that ?
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread of infection , so it was halted at a stage when , say , 20 % of people were immune and the rest of the people were still susceptible to infection .
Well , under those circumstances , the easing of lockdown should result in fairly rapid growth of cases .
And that ’ s not something we ’ re seeing .
So we ’ ve got those two bits of information .
The third bit , the missing piece of the puzzle , is this idea that some people are fully @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have really good defences .
That could just be part of our innate immunological makeup .
It ’ s also becoming clear that some of the people that have beaten it off have had responses to other coronaviruses which could have played a role .
The other bit of the puzzle is that some people do get infected and they make antibody responses , but those responses die very quickly .
So if you ’ re trying to measure exposure , you won ’ t get the full picture .
Some of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We ’ ve got four pieces of the puzzle , then .
If we put them all together , which is what the paper that we published on Friday does , it gives you a theoretical framework that you can use to look at how these bits connect up together .
You can see two things .
You can see why the seroprevalence level might be low , and you can also infer that the level of herd immunity needed to stop the thing from exploding again is actually much lower than the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quite incautiously might suggest .
Alastair : In a sense , there ’ s a control group , Sweden , which is a heterogeneous population with a couple of decent sized cities and a lot of towns , and it ’ s precisely as you illustrate .
Something happens to the epidemic and it dwindles .
PG : The fifth piece of this jigsaw could be that there is some seasonality .
I suspect that in the winter it will probably come back , but hopefully only to the regions where it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where the seroprevalence levels are genuinely extremely low .
We can be cautiously hopeful that in areas where the seroprevalence levels have achieved a certain value that ’ s compatible with there being a proportion who are resistant , that it might not come back with such vehemence .
Mutaz : Your paper said that in this framework , if you combine all factors , the exposure requirement could be as low as 25 % for a certain area to reach the herd immunity threshold .
PG : So , there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the point at which enough people are immune to a pathogen that the rate of growth will start to decline .
But there will still be more cases .
Typically in an epidemic , we overshoot that threshold .
So if you see an area that has a seroprevalence with 60 % , that doesn ’ t mean that herd immunity can ’ t be much lower than that .
What that threshold does define for us is how many people in the community you need to be immune for that thing not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s interesting that you mentioned folklore .
In the West we have this idea that we want to eliminate disease – that there ’ s a heroic figure who intervenes and then resets the social order .
In some parts of Asia there is a very different approach , it ’ s more about accommodating yourself to the natural world , and cultivating a more holistic view of how you live with disaster .
Things like lockdown have their own folklore .
PG : Yes , that seems to be much of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s semi-religious , actually .
As you say , I ’ m astonished at two things .
One is the bellicose language used with respect to the virus , which does point to this desire to annihilate , which seems to me strange .
Maybe it has something to do with coming from an eastern tradition , but I ’ d like to think it ’ s strange because we live with infectious diseases .
We do accommodate infectious diseases into our social contract , really .
We know that this is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The other interesting issue that I ’ ve suddenly realised with this particular threat , is that people are treating it like an external disaster , like a hurricane or a tsunami , as if you can batten down the hatches and it will be gone eventually .
That is simply not correct .
The epidemic is an ecological relationship that we have to manage between ourselves and the virus .
But instead , people are looking at it as a completely external thing .
What ’ s disappointed me about the way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been approached along a single axis , which , if you like , is a scientific one .
Even within that context , you could argue that it ’ s too one-dimensional , so we ’ re not thinking about what ’ s happening with other infectious diseases or how many people are going to die of cancer .
That ’ s the axis of disease , but then there ’ s the socioeconomic axis , which has been ignored .
But there ’ s a third , aesthetic access , which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives .
We are closing ourselves off not just to the disease , but to other aspects of being human .
Alastair : We talk about international travel as a disease vector , and talk about how we ’ ll never get back to that normal .
It ’ s the sledgehammer idea that you can eliminate it by stopping mixing .
It ’ s a kind of false trade-off .
PG : I think the trade-off is very extreme .
Obviously the most extreme manifestation of that trade-off is the 23 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poverty line as a result of this sledgehammer approach .
The costs to the arts is I think also incredibly profound – the theatres and all other forms of performing art .
But also the inherent art of living , which I think is being compromised .
Acts of kindness are being eschewed .
Someone was telling me yesterday that their mother said to them “ please don ’ t come home , you ’ re going to kill us ” .
Maggie : The lockdown has been so successful that people are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and politicians , and others such as yourself , can do to help us return to normal ?
PG : What politicians can do is maybe alter their language to reflect that we do live with risk , we have to make quite difficult decisions about trade-offs that exist between ways of life , between livelihoods , and sacrifices that have to be made at a societal level .
They would do well to urge people to think at a communitarian level .
I think the lockdown is really individualistic in its general @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within the community , such as individual risk , and individual blame .
Now I see young people being terrified , even though they realise the risk to themselves is low , that they might infect a friend who will then give it to their grandparents .
This chain of guilt is somehow located to the individual rather than being distributed and shared .
We have to share the guilt .
We have to share the responsibility .
And we have to take on board certain risks ourselves in order to fulfil our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So I ’ d like the politicians to remind people of that , because that ’ s what they ’ ve been elected to do – to see the social contract is being properly transacted .
Alastair : There ’ s an essential sense of contamination that pervades everything .
You see repeatedly people reacting with total vitriol to pictures of young people going to the park or the beach .
How do you transform a collective sense of contamination and sin into something productive ?
PG : It ’ s very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing to do except remind people that that is not only puritanical , but misguided .
Because actually , the only way we can reduce the risk to the vulnerable people in the population is , for those of us who are able to acquire herd immunity , to do that .
Even if there is a little bit of a risk .
I ’ m 55 years old , there ’ s some slight risk out there .
But I would be willing to take that , just as I do with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risk I might die of flu , but I ’ m willing to take that risk , because I know that if I don ’ t then flu will appear as it did before , it will enter the population of immunologically naive individuals , and then there will be a high risk of infection which will have a disproportionate effect on the vulnerable sector of the population .
Maybe the way to counter it now is to say , actually , not only is it a good thing for young people to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but that is almost their duty .
It ’ s a way of living with this virus .
It ’ s how we live with other viruses .
Flu is clearly a very dangerous virus , but the reason we don ’ t see more deaths from flu every year is because , through herd immunity , the levels of infection are kept to as low a level as we can get .
I think there is a way of living in a community where we do take some risk .
We do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We say , ok there ’ s a risk , we ’ ll take it , because if we didn ’ t take that risk we ’ d be living our lives in a way we don ’ t want to .
Maggie : The expression “ herd immunity ” has entered the same realms as austerity and Brexit .
It has become a sort of danger word because of that whole debate at the very beginning .
The minute you say herd immunity , the popular newspapers say you want to kill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s just a technical term .
It ’ s just a technical term for the proportion of the population that needs to be immune in order to prevent the disease from spreading , which is the central concept in vaccinations .
It ’ s a fundamental epidemiological concept , which clearly has been subverted .
I guess the fact it includes the word herd has made it easier .
The truth is that herd immunity is a way of preventing vulnerable people from dying .
It is achieved at the expense of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stop that by preventing the vulnerable class in the process .
In an ideal situation , you would protect the vulnerable as best you can , let people go about their business , allow herd immunity to build up , make sure the economy doesn ’ t crash , make sure the arts are preserved , and make sure qualities of kindness and tolerance remain in place .
We live , it seems , in this state of terror .
Yes , international travel facilitates the entrance of contagion , but what it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Why don ’ t we get flu pandemics anymore ?
Because before 1918 there was not sufficient international travel or densities of individuals to keep flu on as the sort of seasonal thing it is now .
Pockets of non-immune people would build up , and then they would be ravaged .
That was the pattern until the end of the First World War .
Since then , many of these diseases have become endemic .
As a result of which we are much more exposed to diseases in general and related pathogens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we are much better off than we would be if we hadn ’ t had some sort of exposure to it .
If coronavirus had arrived in a setting where we had no coronavirus exposure before , we might be much worse off .
It also seems that in addition to protection against severe disease as a result of exposure to related coronaviruses , some fraction of us seem to be resistant to infection .
That ’ s just fantastic news , actually .
Hopefully that will be consolidated at a scientific , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at how antibodies to seasonal coronaviruses can impact on protection against infection and disease .
Maybe we will be able to build up a picture that will reassure the public that actually we are much better off having been exposed to related coronaviruses .
We are in a better place to fight off this infection than we actually thought .
Mutaz : Do you think we are overestimating the size of a potential second wave , or if there ’ s going to be one at all in London , given how much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PG : There is no reason to be so confident , as many modellers are , that the proportion proposed is extremely small .
What you see regularly in articles and opinion pieces is this idea that herd immunity has to be over 70 % at least and only 5 % of the population has been exposed .
That is still a possibility , but actually it ’ s a possibility within a very small part of the whole parameter space that we should be considering .
There is also the possibility , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a large swathe of the population has been exposed .
Some have become immune , and therefore exhibit antibodies , or don ’ t because those antibodies have decayed .
And some were resistant to start with .
Under those circumstances , no , we shouldn ’ t see a huge surge in infections in those regions like London and New York where we ’ ve had a major incidence of infection and death .
Maggie : Would you like to see a national antibody testing regime ?
PG : Oh yes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The tests themselves are not perfect , and we now know that some people just don ’ t make the antibodies even though they ’ ve been infected , or if they make the antibodies they ’ re at such low levels that they ’ re below the cut-offs of the tests .
Knowing all of that , I think we should still go out and produce a very fine map of what the exposure levels are .
That will help us allocate resources in the winter , when it ’ s very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that should happen and I don ’ t know why it hasn ’ t .
Alastair : How can journalists do better when reporting crude statistics that often come out ?
The framing of it is so crucial , and what you see so many times is people misreport and exaggerate stats .
PG : Yes , I think the reporting has done us no favours and continues to remain that way .
One of the things that I find very difficult is the focus on national statistics .
Among the various @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become greatly underscored .
It ’ s really become a guiding sentiment in this miserable mess .
We should have dealt from the outset with this pandemic as an international problem .
Instead it was “ let ’ s lockdown my country , let me protect my citizens ” , which is incredibly individualistic .
These absurd comparisons between large countries and small countries .
It ’ s not a song contest , it ’ s just absolutely ridiculous .
It ’ s also very harmful .
When you think of the US @ @ @ @ @ @ @ missing the fact that the epidemic appears to be over in the north east and growing in the south west .
Why would you put them together ?
There ’ s no reason to lump a rise in cases in Arizona with everything else .
And then finally the whole business of reporting cases , which is deeply problematic because it depends on how many people have been tested in the first place and where they ’ re being tested .
I ’ m not saying journalists shouldn ’ t report case numbers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Deaths are deaths , but cases can be anything .
Obviously there ’ ll be some confusion , because this is a new virus and some of it is technical .
But these are simple things .
You could ask this question of a 10 year old .
Do you think it ’ s right to compare the number of deaths in Brazil with those in Italy , and the ten year old would say “ I don ’ t think so ” .
Alastair : What can states do better ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries doing a national quarantine in the past .
You can think of cities or ships… PG : There ’ s that village of Eyam which locked down during the plague to stop the plague from exiting .
Now that ’ s a decent reason to lockdown .
To lockdown to keep something out is highly individualistic .
To lockdown to keep something under control is , in the long term , quite misguided .
Maggie : Would you have kept the lockdown purely to care homes ?
PG : Certainly .
Shielding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong .
I think nations should follow both in the practical recommendations and the rhetoric of Sweden .
They made the decision , and it was presented without the hubris of “ this is the right thing to do ” .
They could have protected the care homes better perhaps , and we can ’ t get all of these things right , but we should try our best to shield the vulnerable .
A certain degree of humility and logical dialogue about this might have prevented the whole nation from being paralysed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Even with the measures easing , you can see that that terror has not dissipated .
Alastair : So you think that the New Zealand approach , eradicating the virus , is both functionally silly and also immoral ?
PG : Well , I don ’ t know whether I ’ d go so far as to say it ’ s immoral .
It seems to be very short-sighted , how can it possibly keep the virus out ?
I think the smugness , the self-congratulation with which it ’ s presented is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ridiculous .
If it turns out that the rest of the world , through herd immunity or vaccination , manages to reduce the risk of infection , then what New Zealand will have done would be tantamount to not vaccinating your own child .
Just waiting for everyone else to vaccinate their children and then go “ ok it ’ s all safe now ” .
Mutaz : At the start of the crisis , some epidemiologists seemed more concerned about predicting deaths than working out immunity .
Do you think some public-facing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and fear in an unreasonable way ?
PG : You could argue that was the worst case scenario , and they felt that that was what they needed to present to the government .
After that , there was no further consideration .
The debate was interrupted .
Any attempt that I made to keep that debate alive and to try and get the right data on board to make decisions , was essentially ignored .
And if anything , we came up for a lot of censure , and we were told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is really rather heartbreaking because right from the beginning we ’ ve all been very concerned about the effects of lockdown on underprivileged people , both in this country and globally .
So it hurts when we ’ re told we ’ re doing something dangerous .
Alastair : How is epidemiology developed in different parts of the world .
Is there a British approach , is there a diversity within epidemiology ?
PG : There are some schools of thought , it ’ s true .
What has come to prominence during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ epidemiology , where you use mathematical and computer models to predict what ’ s going to happen .
The school of thought I belong to likes to use simple mathematical models , and use these to make fundamental qualitative inferences .
For example , one of the things I do is work on flu vaccines , which come out of very simple mathematical models .
These simple models are where the main power lies .
But at the other extreme , people use very large , complex computer models .
They fit these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use them to predict what ’ s going to happen next .
That ’ s a school of epidemiology with which I ’ m less comfortable .
PG : The model that was used to predict what would happen was certainly of that ilk .
There are schools of thought in epidemiology .
But like schools of thought in English literature , we tend to respect each other normally , rather than going on Twitter in issuing rather defamatory statements as some of my colleagues have been doing .
Maggie : Do you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could have done more to try and make it a more open , scientific , natural event .
Or were they imprisoned by the politicians ?
PG : Well they seemed to be imprisoned within the system .
You know , that stage where they had to appear and present their viewpoints .
The stage was set so that they really didn ’ t have much room .
Mutaz : Do you think the social construct is repairable , can society bounce back from this terror , and can science bounce back ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ back .
We have shown great resilience , certainly in other times .
It ’ ll be interesting to see how this all gets represented in the literature .
There ’ s very little in literature in terms of the 1918 flu pandemic .
I just wonder what we will do with this .
In the best case scenario , it will be something that we will look back upon and say we never want to go back there again .
Maybe it will make us more thoughtful in our future dealings , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we think about risk .
So there could be good things that come out of this rather terrible experience .
In terms of keeping the debate alive , it ’ ll be interesting to see .
At some level , universities should be charged with that responsibility , but it ’ s hard to be confident they will provide the forum for these debates to take place .
At the moment , I personally feel that the calumny that ’ s been heaped on us that dare to disagree with what is believed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to my mind is utterly individualistic , is really quite scary .

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A recent study from Oxford University indicates that some parts of the UK may have already reached what is known as ‘herd immunity’ from COVID, revealing “innate resistance or cross-protection from exposure to seasonal coronaviruses.” Surprisingly, instead of celebrating these findings, politicians and mainstream media are actively ignoring them, and instead are claiming the threat of COVID is on the rise, and demanding the public accept mandatory masks, vaccines and rolling lockdowns.
From the onset of this ‘crisis,’ the UK government has been pushing ever-increasing and far-reaching restrictions on personal freedom in the face of a threat which is still vague and largely undetermined.
One expert leading the Oxford team is epidemiologist Professor Sunetra Gupta, who argues that the cost of lockdown may be too high for the most disadvantaged, and for society as whole. Gupta also challenges the parameters of debate the entire debate we are witnessing.
The following interview was conducted by The Reaction, with Maggie Pagano, Alastair Benn and Mutaz Ahmed interviewing Professor Sunetra Gupta from Oxford University:
Alastair: In the debate over T-cell immunity or cross-reactivity with coronaviruses, the common-sense view is that exposure to things that are similar does give you some protection, and it seems to be borne out in recent studies.
Prof Gupta: Yes, exactly. The principle of protection from exposure to related viruses, and indeed any kind of pathogen, is one that we’ve known for a very long time. The very first vaccine we had, which is smallpox, was based on the idea that cowpox protects against smallpox. This idea was already there well in advance of us knowing that smallpox was a virus – and indeed in advance of germ theory having been properly established. So we knew about this cross protection even before we knew that diseases were caused by germs. It’s a very old idea.
In my own studies, beginning with malaria and then later thinking about flu, the role of cross-immunity in protecting against disease seemed to be something that very much needed to be factored into our thinking. Most of the people who die from malaria are children, and they die upon their first exposure, because they have no immunity at that stage. That was one of the first things that struck me when I was working on malaria.
And then later when I was working on flu, it seemed to me a very good way of explaining why the 1918 flu had killed so many people, but why that didn’t seem to be repeating itself, was that it was likely that people hadn’t been exposed to flu. Many people would have not had the flu at all. So then that built up this population of naive immunity in people under the age of thirty who were very badly affected when the pandemic came through.
Having those ideas in mind, when the Covid-19 virus started to spread, I was pretty certain it wouldn’t have a huge, devastating impact in terms of mortality, because we had all these other coronaviruses circulating.
What I didn’t anticipate was that some of our responses to previous exposure to seasonal coronaviruses might actually protect us from infection. It’s one thing to get infected and not ill, but what the new studies are showing is that people are actually fighting off infection. So at an even more basic level, the pre-existing antibodies or T-cell responses against coronaviruses seem to protect against infection, not just the outcome of infection.
Mutaz: When the serological studies were conducted a couple of months ago, antibody rates were very low in the UK. Is that because people weren’t vulnerable to infection, or because once they were infected they had some level of innate immunity?
PG: What we know is that the seropositivity rates in many parts of the world are much lower than we’d expect them to be if we assume that the epidemic has passed through and that people are resistant. If you take a very simple scenario where everyone is susceptible, you’d expect 60-70% of them to have some marker of exposure. And that is not what’s been observed.
I mean, there are areas where it is very high. There’s a paper published recently of a seroprevalence study done in the slums of Buenos Aires, which reports a 50% seroprevalence. And there have been studies from Lodi, Italy, where it is I think 60%.
So there are studies on the high side, but I think one can’t really trust studies on either side completely. One has to take all these measures with a certain degree of caution. What we have here are a range of measures. In cities, it’s typically much higher than in rural areas or areas that are non-urban.
One of the things that’s been done in reporting the seroprevalence, which is not correct, is that they’ve been homogenised. When people say only 5-6% of the UK population has been exposed, that’s not correct. I think very few people would agree that exposure rates in London are less than 20%.
The picture that we’re getting is heterogeneous. But even in hotspots, apart from a few reports, they’re still quite low. So why is that?
One reason might be that lockdown stopped the spread of infection, so it was halted at a stage when, say, 20% of people were immune and the rest of the people were still susceptible to infection. Well, under those circumstances, the easing of lockdown should result in fairly rapid growth of cases. And that’s not something we’re seeing.
So we’ve got those two bits of information. The third bit, the missing piece of the puzzle, is this idea that some people are fully resistant to infection, because they just have really good defences. That could just be part of our innate immunological makeup. It’s also becoming clear that some of the people that have beaten it off have had responses to other coronaviruses which could have played a role.
The other bit of the puzzle is that some people do get infected and they make antibody responses, but those responses die very quickly. So if you’re trying to measure exposure, you won’t get the full picture. Some of the measures of seroprevalence might be underestimates.
We’ve got four pieces of the puzzle, then. If we put them all together, which is what the paper that we published on Friday does, it gives you a theoretical framework that you can use to look at how these bits connect up together.
You can see two things. You can see why the seroprevalence level might be low, and you can also infer that the level of herd immunity needed to stop the thing from exploding again is actually much lower than the figures that are currently being thrown around quite incautiously might suggest.
Alastair: In a sense, there’s a control group, Sweden, which is a heterogeneous population with a couple of decent sized cities and a lot of towns, and it’s precisely as you illustrate. Something happens to the epidemic and it dwindles.
PG: The fifth piece of this jigsaw could be that there is some seasonality. I suspect that in the winter it will probably come back, but hopefully only to the regions where it was kept from going by lockdown, and where the seroprevalence levels are genuinely extremely low.
We can be cautiously hopeful that in areas where the seroprevalence levels have achieved a certain value that’s compatible with there being a proportion who are resistant, that it might not come back with such vehemence.
Mutaz: Your paper said that in this framework, if you combine all factors, the exposure requirement could be as low as 25% for a certain area to reach the herd immunity threshold.
PG: So, there’s the herd immunity threshold, which is the point at which enough people are immune to a pathogen that the rate of growth will start to decline. But there will still be more cases. Typically in an epidemic, we overshoot that threshold. So if you see an area that has a seroprevalence with 60%, that doesn’t mean that herd immunity can’t be much lower than that. What that threshold does define for us is how many people in the community you need to be immune for that thing not to take off.
Alastair: It’s interesting that you mentioned folklore. In the West we have this idea that we want to eliminate disease – that there’s a heroic figure who intervenes and then resets the social order. In some parts of Asia there is a very different approach, it’s more about accommodating yourself to the natural world, and cultivating a more holistic view of how you live with disaster. Things like lockdown have their own folklore.
PG: Yes, that seems to be much of the language of it. It’s semi-religious, actually.
As you say, I’m astonished at two things. One is the bellicose language used with respect to the virus, which does point to this desire to annihilate, which seems to me strange. Maybe it has something to do with coming from an eastern tradition, but I’d like to think it’s strange because we live with infectious diseases. We do accommodate infectious diseases into our social contract, really. We know that this is a threat we have to deal with.
The other interesting issue that I’ve suddenly realised with this particular threat, is that people are treating it like an external disaster, like a hurricane or a tsunami, as if you can batten down the hatches and it will be gone eventually. That is simply not correct. The epidemic is an ecological relationship that we have to manage between ourselves and the virus. But instead, people are looking at it as a completely external thing.
What’s disappointed me about the way this has been approached is it has been approached along a single axis, which, if you like, is a scientific one. Even within that context, you could argue that it’s too one-dimensional, so we’re not thinking about what’s happening with other infectious diseases or how many people are going to die of cancer.
That’s the axis of disease, but then there’s the socioeconomic axis, which has been ignored. But there’s a third, aesthetic access, which is about how we want to live our lives. We are closing ourselves off not just to the disease, but to other aspects of being human.
Alastair: We talk about international travel as a disease vector, and talk about how we’ll never get back to that normal. It’s the sledgehammer idea that you can eliminate it by stopping mixing. It’s a kind of false trade-off.
PG: I think the trade-off is very extreme. Obviously the most extreme manifestation of that trade-off is the 23 million people who will be pushed below the poverty line as a result of this sledgehammer approach. The costs to the arts is I think also incredibly profound – the theatres and all other forms of performing art. But also the inherent art of living, which I think is being compromised.
Acts of kindness are being eschewed. Someone was telling me yesterday that their mother said to them “please don’t come home, you’re going to kill us”.
Maggie: The lockdown has been so successful that people are terrified. What do you think policymakers and politicians, and others such as yourself, can do to help us return to normal?
PG: What politicians can do is maybe alter their language to reflect that we do live with risk, we have to make quite difficult decisions about trade-offs that exist between ways of life, between livelihoods, and sacrifices that have to be made at a societal level. They would do well to urge people to think at a communitarian level.
I think the lockdown is really individualistic in its general construction. Things that we normally disperse within the community, such as individual risk, and individual blame. Now I see young people being terrified, even though they realise the risk to themselves is low, that they might infect a friend who will then give it to their grandparents. This chain of guilt is somehow located to the individual rather than being distributed and shared.
We have to share the guilt. We have to share the responsibility. And we have to take on board certain risks ourselves in order to fulfil our obligations and to uphold the social contract. So I’d like the politicians to remind people of that, because that’s what they’ve been elected to do – to see the social contract is being properly transacted.
Alastair: There’s an essential sense of contamination that pervades everything. You see repeatedly people reacting with total vitriol to pictures of young people going to the park or the beach. How do you transform a collective sense of contamination and sin into something productive?
PG: It’s very difficult. I think there’s nothing to do except remind people that that is not only puritanical, but misguided. Because actually, the only way we can reduce the risk to the vulnerable people in the population is, for those of us who are able to acquire herd immunity, to do that.
Even if there is a little bit of a risk. I’m 55 years old, there’s some slight risk out there. But I would be willing to take that, just as I do with the flu. There’s a risk I might die of flu, but I’m willing to take that risk, because I know that if I don’t then flu will appear as it did before, it will enter the population of immunologically naive individuals, and then there will be a high risk of infection which will have a disproportionate effect on the vulnerable sector of the population.
Maybe the way to counter it now is to say, actually, not only is it a good thing for young people to go out there and become immune, but that is almost their duty. It’s a way of living with this virus. It’s how we live with other viruses. Flu is clearly a very dangerous virus, but the reason we don’t see more deaths from flu every year is because, through herd immunity, the levels of infection are kept to as low a level as we can get.
I think there is a way of living in a community where we do take some risk. We do the same with motorcars and whatnot. We say, ok there’s a risk, we’ll take it, because if we didn’t take that risk we’d be living our lives in a way we don’t want to.
Maggie: The expression “herd immunity” has entered the same realms as austerity and Brexit. It has become a sort of danger word because of that whole debate at the very beginning. The minute you say herd immunity, the popular newspapers say you want to kill all the old.
PG: It’s just a technical term. It’s just a technical term for the proportion of the population that needs to be immune in order to prevent the disease from spreading, which is the central concept in vaccinations. It’s a fundamental epidemiological concept, which clearly has been subverted. I guess the fact it includes the word herd has made it easier.
The truth is that herd immunity is a way of preventing vulnerable people from dying. It is achieved at the expense of some people dying, and we can stop that by preventing the vulnerable class in the process. In an ideal situation, you would protect the vulnerable as best you can, let people go about their business, allow herd immunity to build up, make sure the economy doesn’t crash, make sure the arts are preserved, and make sure qualities of kindness and tolerance remain in place.
We live, it seems, in this state of terror. Yes, international travel facilitates the entrance of contagion, but what it also does is it brings immunity.
Why don’t we get flu pandemics anymore? Because before 1918 there was not sufficient international travel or densities of individuals to keep flu on as the sort of seasonal thing it is now. Pockets of non-immune people would build up, and then they would be ravaged.
That was the pattern until the end of the First World War. Since then, many of these diseases have become endemic. As a result of which we are much more exposed to diseases in general and related pathogens, so if something new comes along we are much better off than we would be if we hadn’t had some sort of exposure to it.
If coronavirus had arrived in a setting where we had no coronavirus exposure before, we might be much worse off. It also seems that in addition to protection against severe disease as a result of exposure to related coronaviruses, some fraction of us seem to be resistant to infection.
That’s just fantastic news, actually. Hopefully that will be consolidated at a scientific, laboratory level. We ourselves are looking at how antibodies to seasonal coronaviruses can impact on protection against infection and disease.
Maybe we will be able to build up a picture that will reassure the public that actually we are much better off having been exposed to related coronaviruses. We are in a better place to fight off this infection than we actually thought.
Mutaz: Do you think we are overestimating the size of a potential second wave, or if there’s going to be one at all in London, given how much exposure there’s already been?
PG: There is no reason to be so confident, as many modellers are, that the proportion proposed is extremely small. What you see regularly in articles and opinion pieces is this idea that herd immunity has to be over 70% at least and only 5% of the population has been exposed. That is still a possibility, but actually it’s a possibility within a very small part of the whole parameter space that we should be considering.
There is also the possibility, as we suggested in March, that a large swathe of the population has been exposed. Some have become immune, and therefore exhibit antibodies, or don’t because those antibodies have decayed. And some were resistant to start with. Under those circumstances, no, we shouldn’t see a huge surge in infections in those regions like London and New York where we’ve had a major incidence of infection and death.
Maggie: Would you like to see a national antibody testing regime?
PG: Oh yes, even though it’s flawed. The tests themselves are not perfect, and we now know that some people just don’t make the antibodies even though they’ve been infected, or if they make the antibodies they’re at such low levels that they’re below the cut-offs of the tests. Knowing all of that, I think we should still go out and produce a very fine map of what the exposure levels are. That will help us allocate resources in the winter, when it’s very likely to come back. So yes, that should happen and I don’t know why it hasn’t.
Alastair: How can journalists do better when reporting crude statistics that often come out? The framing of it is so crucial, and what you see so many times is people misreport and exaggerate stats.
PG: Yes, I think the reporting has done us no favours and continues to remain that way. One of the things that I find very difficult is the focus on national statistics. Among the various manifestations of individualism, nationalism has certainly become greatly underscored. It’s really become a guiding sentiment in this miserable mess.
We should have dealt from the outset with this pandemic as an international problem. Instead it was “let’s lockdown my country, let me protect my citizens”, which is incredibly individualistic.
These absurd comparisons between large countries and small countries. It’s not a song contest, it’s just absolutely ridiculous. It’s also very harmful. When you think of the US as a whole, you’re missing the fact that the epidemic appears to be over in the north east and growing in the south west. Why would you put them together? There’s no reason to lump a rise in cases in Arizona with everything else.
And then finally the whole business of reporting cases, which is deeply problematic because it depends on how many people have been tested in the first place and where they’re being tested. I’m not saying journalists shouldn’t report case numbers, it should just be heavily caveated. Deaths are deaths, but cases can be anything.
Obviously there’ll be some confusion, because this is a new virus and some of it is technical. But these are simple things. You could ask this question of a 10 year old. Do you think it’s right to compare the number of deaths in Brazil with those in Italy, and the ten year old would say “I don’t think so”.
Alastair: What can states do better? There aren’t many examples of countries doing a national quarantine in the past. You can think of cities or ships…
PG: There’s that village of Eyam which locked down during the plague to stop the plague from exiting. Now that’s a decent reason to lockdown. To lockdown to keep something out is highly individualistic. To lockdown to keep something under control is, in the long term, quite misguided.
Maggie: Would you have kept the lockdown purely to care homes?
PG: Certainly. Shielding the vulnerable is what we also got wrong. I think nations should follow both in the practical recommendations and the rhetoric of Sweden. They made the decision, and it was presented without the hubris of “this is the right thing to do”. They could have protected the care homes better perhaps, and we can’t get all of these things right, but we should try our best to shield the vulnerable.
A certain degree of humility and logical dialogue about this might have prevented the whole nation from being paralysed by fear. People are terrified. Even with the measures easing, you can see that that terror has not dissipated.
Alastair: So you think that the New Zealand approach, eradicating the virus, is both functionally silly and also immoral?
PG: Well, I don’t know whether I’d go so far as to say it’s immoral. It seems to be very short-sighted, how can it possibly keep the virus out?
I think the smugness, the self-congratulation with which it’s presented is misplaced. The self-righteous attitude is completely ridiculous. If it turns out that the rest of the world, through herd immunity or vaccination, manages to reduce the risk of infection, then what New Zealand will have done would be tantamount to not vaccinating your own child. Just waiting for everyone else to vaccinate their children and then go “ok it’s all safe now”.
Mutaz: At the start of the crisis, some epidemiologists seemed more concerned about predicting deaths than working out immunity. Do you think some public-facing scientists contributed to the sense of terror and fear in an unreasonable way?
PG: You could argue that was the worst case scenario, and they felt that that was what they needed to present to the government. After that, there was no further consideration. The debate was interrupted. Any attempt that I made to keep that debate alive and to try and get the right data on board to make decisions, was essentially ignored.
And if anything, we came up for a lot of censure, and we were told we were doing something dangerous, which is really rather heartbreaking because right from the beginning we’ve all been very concerned about the effects of lockdown on underprivileged people, both in this country and globally. So it hurts when we’re told we’re doing something dangerous.
Alastair: How is epidemiology developed in different parts of the world. Is there a British approach, is there a diversity within epidemiology?
PG: There are some schools of thought, it’s true. What has come to prominence during this pandemic is the field of theoretical epidemiology, where you use mathematical and computer models to predict what’s going to happen.
The school of thought I belong to likes to use simple mathematical models, and use these to make fundamental qualitative inferences. For example, one of the things I do is work on flu vaccines, which come out of very simple mathematical models. These simple models are where the main power lies.
But at the other extreme, people use very large, complex computer models. They fit these computer models to data, and then use them to predict what’s going to happen next. That’s a school of epidemiology with which I’m less comfortable.
Maggie: Is that Professor Ferguson’s school?
PG: The model that was used to predict what would happen was certainly of that ilk.
There are schools of thought in epidemiology. But like schools of thought in English literature, we tend to respect each other normally, rather than going on Twitter in issuing rather defamatory statements as some of my colleagues have been doing.
Maggie: Do you feel that Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance could have done more to try and make it a more open, scientific, natural event. Or were they imprisoned by the politicians?
PG: Well they seemed to be imprisoned within the system. You know, that stage where they had to appear and present their viewpoints. The stage was set so that they really didn’t have much room.
Mutaz: Do you think the social construct is repairable, can society bounce back from this terror, and can science bounce back?
PG: I hope society can bounce back. We have shown great resilience, certainly in other times. It’ll be interesting to see how this all gets represented in the literature. There’s very little in literature in terms of the 1918 flu pandemic.
I just wonder what we will do with this. In the best case scenario, it will be something that we will look back upon and say we never want to go back there again. Maybe it will make us more thoughtful in our future dealings, and maybe it will alter the way we think about risk. So there could be good things that come out of this rather terrible experience.
In terms of keeping the debate alive, it’ll be interesting to see. At some level, universities should be charged with that responsibility, but it’s hard to be confident they will provide the forum for these debates to take place.
At the moment, I personally feel that the calumny that’s been heaped on us that dare to disagree with what is believed to be a communitarian imperative, but to my mind is utterly individualistic, is really quite scary.
It’s been very tough.
END
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-24--Dr. Vernon Coleman: ‘These Are Five Battles We Cannot Afford to Lose’

The COVID crisis has given the State unprecedented new powers which politicians are more than willing to use in order @ @ @ @ @ Has Boris Johnson decreed mandatory masks to follow suite with Nicola Sturgeon ’ s diktat @ @ @ @ @ But are the public aware of the long-term costs to democracy and society as whole @ @ @ @ @ , international best-selling author , Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc FRSA , describes how @ @ @ @ @ government ’ s obsession with mandatory masks , as well the the incessant media lies @ @ @ @ @ promote the idea of more unnecessary lockdowns , social distancing and the banning of cash @ @ @

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The COVID crisis has given the State unprecedented new powers which politicians are more than willing to use in order to further consolidate power. Has Boris Johnson decreed mandatory masks to follow suite with Nicola Sturgeon’s diktat north of the border? But are the public aware of the long-term costs to democracy and society as whole?
In this brief video, international best-selling author, Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc FRSA, describes how we can fight against the government’s obsession with mandatory masks, as well the the incessant media lies which are being used to promote the idea of more unnecessary lockdowns, social distancing and the banning of cash. Watch:
READ MORE COVID NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire COVID Files
SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV