ukcolumn--2020-04-20--Retired chief EU epidemiologist: "How long can you keep a lockdown in a democracy?"

Below , we transcribe UnHerd 's interview of Friday 17 April with Dr Johan Gisecke .
We place the term `` social distancing '' in quotation marks , in recognition of its novelty .
Q : We are joined from Sweden by Dr Johan Gisecke .
Did you train originally at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine ?
A : No , I used to be an infectious diseases clinical doctor and worked a lot with AIDS patients during the 1980s .
That 's what got me into epidemiology .
And then I spent two years at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then I came back to Sweden and became State Epidemiologist , which means having control over all infectious diseases .
I actually hired the current State Epidemiologist for Sweden , Dr Anders Tegnell , twenty years ago .
I was his boss , and now he 's my boss .
He 's working quite well .
Q : And you then became Chief Scientist at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control .
What roles do you have now ; who are you advising at the moment ?
A : I am @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Public Health on a consultant basis .
I 'm retired , really , so I 'm doing this mostly because it 's fun .
Q : You were saying that you were on a call with the World Health Organisation earlier today .
Do you have an ongoing relationship with them ?
A : Yes , I 'm advising the Director-General [ Tedros Adhanom ] , together with a group of old scientists , but that 's unpaid ; an honorary post , in a way .
Q : So , having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on this topic : There 's been a lot of confused thinking , and a lot of confusion , about what the correct response to a threat such as Covid–19 should be .
I wanted to begin by getting your summary thoughts on how Sweden is differing from other countries and why you think that is .
A : The main reason is that we , or the Swedish government , decided early in January that the measures we should take against the pandemic should be evidence-based .
And when you start looking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] measures that are being taken now by different countries , you find that very few of them have a shred of evidence base .
One we know , that 's been known for 150 years or more , is that washing your hands is good for you and good for others when you 're in an epidemic .
But the rest — like border closures , school closures , `` social distancing '' — there 's almost no science behind most of these .
Q : So what is the current policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is part of the policy , is n't it ?
What is the régime that Sweden has gone with ?
A : The main difference to other countries is that you 're not locked up in your home .
If you go out to buy food or groceries or medicines , there 's no police to stop you in the street and ask you what you 're doing there .
That 's one thing .
People are asked to stay inside , but there is no enforcement of that .
People do it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have the rule that a crowd can not be bigger than 50 people .
Q : So I can still have an event for 49 people if I want ?
A : Yes , you could .
And the upper schools and universities are closed ; schools up to age 15–16 are open .
What more do we have ?
The nursing homes and homes for old people are closed to visitors .
Q : So it sounds like it 's a moderate `` social distancing '' régime at the moment , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It 's very similar to the one that the UK had before there was a famous paper by Imperial College , by the modellers who made models for infectious diseases .
The day after that came out , you made a U-turn in Britain .
Q : Tell us about that .
The original strategy in the UK became known as a kind of herd immunity .
Before we come on to talk about the Imperial model , is it correct to call [ the original strategy ] herd immunity , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : It 's not a strategy , but [ herd immunity ] is a by-product of the strategy .
The strategy is to protect the old and the frail , to try to minimise their risk of becoming infected , and taking care of them if they get infected .
And if you do that the way we 're doing it , you would probably get herd immunity in the end , but that 's a by-product of it ; it 's not the main reason to do it .
Q : You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seemed to be similar to what you in Sweden are doing now , and you thought that was better .
A : Yes .
I think it was very good , actually .
We were very pleased we were having the same policies as the UK ; that gave some credibility to what we were doing .
But then Mr Johnson made his 180-degree turn .
Q : There may have been other political factors involved ; he was definitely under a lot of pressure , because lots of European countries were doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But the turning point did seem to be that Imperial College report , which forecasts 510,000 deaths in the UK with a completely unmitigated approach ; 250,000 deaths with a mitigated approach , which is roughly equivalent to what you 're doing in Sweden ; and then it suggests that it might be as few as 20,000 if we did a full suppression or lockdown .
What was your impression of that paper ?
A : I think it 's not very good .
And the thing that they miss a little bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infectious disease spread are very popular ; many people do them ; they 're good for teaching .
They seldom tell you the truth , because — I make a small parenthesis — what model could have assumed that the outbreak in Europe would start in northern Italy ?
Difficult to model that one !
And any such model looks complicated — there are strange mathematical formulae and integral science and stuff — but it rests on the assumptions [ its authors make ] , and the assumptions in that article could be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go through that ; it would take the rest of your day if I went through them all .
The paper was never published scientifically ; it 's not peer-reviewed , which scientific papers should be ; it 's just an internal departmental report from Imperial .
And it 's fascinating : I do n't think any other scientific endeavour has made such an impression on the world as that rather debatable paper .
Q : So is your impression that it was overly pessimistic ?
A : Oh yes , very much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guess it comes down to some degree of speculation , but what 's your impression of how serious the disease is and what kind of fatalities we would be looking at if we had a more moderate or more mitigated approach ?
A : What 's the number of deaths in in the UK now ?
A : So you 're getting close to 20,000 now — but probably not 510,000 !
I think … Well , let me back up one step .
One thing that the model has missed is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same , and that 's not what 's happening anywhere .
I mean , in Sweden we 've tripled our intensive care capacity , and I think that 's happening in the UK as well .
But the paper completely overlooks that ; it 's quite certain that is a static thing .
Q : So , just to come back to this : I think what most people who support the lockdown would say — and that is the overwhelming majority of people in politics and in the media — is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flattening and the numbers of deaths are gradually coming down on a daily basis is because of the lockdown , and that that shows that the policy has worked .
Professor Neil Ferguson , who led the Imperial paper , suggests that he stands by his prediction that 500,000-odd people would have died had that not taken place .
So , if it was n't the lockdown that has been flattening our curve , what else could it have been ?
A : Well , one thing is immunity .
Another is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ die first , and when that group of people is sort of thinned out , you will get less deaths as well .
The other thing is that when you start your exit strategy — that 's the favourite word now in public health , `` the exit strategy '' — when you start it , you [ in Britain ] will have some other deaths that we [ in Sweden ] had already .
Q : So does that mean , then , that as the disease passes through the population , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ third spikes now after this ?
A : That would be part of the exit strategy , because the only way to check — if you are taking away one restriction ; let 's say we open the schools again , as an example — how do you evaluate that ?
You will see [ officials saying , ] `` Ooh !
Numbers are going up again ; more people are dying !
We have to stop that ; we have to pull back that softening [ of the lockdown ] and try @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what the exit strategy will be in all countries : countries will ease up a little on a restriction , see what happens over the next two to three weeks , [ and officials will say ] , `` Ooh , that did n't work .
We 'll resume that [ measure ] , we 'll try another restriction , we 'll lift that one — ooh , it worked ! ''
And every country will have to do it that way , and that means that the increasing number of deaths will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be kept and [ which ] not .
Q : So what should we be doing instead ?
A : Well , you ca n't !
A : When I first heard , six weeks ago , about the different draconian measures that were taken , I asked myself , `` How are they going to climb down from that one ?
When will they open the schools again ?
What should be the criterion for reopening schools ? ''
Did any of the strong and very decisive politicians in Europe think about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they introduced it ?
And I think that will be a problem for the UK as well .
Q : Let 's take , as a comparison , your neighbouring countries in Scandinavia .
A lot of people are sending around these charts that show that Denmark and Norway and Finland have had much fewer deaths on a per-capita basis and in Sweden the rate is still climbing — and they take that as proof , essentially , that Sweden should have gone into a more draconian lockdown .
What do you say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , firstly , it 's not true for Denmark .
Secondly , one important thing is that the nursing homes in Norway are usually quite small , whereas the nursing homes in Sweden are quite big , with hundreds of people — which means that if you get the virus into one nursing home in Norway , it will affect far fewer people than in a big one .
That 's part of the reason ; it 's not all the reason .
For Finland : the epidemic never really took off there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had even started .
But I think that we should have this discussion a year from now .
Let 's decide that we do this on 17 April 2021 .
I think that the difference between countries will be quite small in the end .
Q : So you do n't think that the severity of these intervening measures is going to make that much difference ?
A : No , I do n't think so .
Should I tell you what I really think ?
I almost never do this .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tsunami of a usually quite mild disease which is sweeping over Europe .
And some countries do this and some countries do that , and some countries do n't do that , and in the end there is very , very little difference .
Q : When you say it 's a usually quite mild disease , what do you mean by that ?
A : That most people who get it will never even notice they were infected .
Q : So does that mean that you think the actual fatality rate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the numbers that have been talked about ?
Q : Have you made any speculations as to what sort of zone the real fatality rate might be in ?
A : I think it will be like a severe influenza season .
The same as that , which would be in the order of 0.1 per cent , maybe .
Q : So , for a country like the UK , that is heading towards 20,000 deaths , that would suggest that many millions of people have already had it ?
Q : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Sweden , then — that a substantial percentage of the population has had it ?
A : Yes .
I 'm rather certain of that , actually .
And we do n't have the tests really , yet .
As you know , you have these two kinds of tests : one that tells you that you have it now , and another one that tells you that you had it at some point before — an immunity or serology test — and [ the latter kind ] are just being developed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from discussions with friends in the UK that you started last week with 3,500 such tests , and you will go on with about 8,000 per week .
And when you get tests that show which people have the disease , you 'll see that most of them never even dreamt they had it .
Q : But we do n't have yet any effective antibody tests , I think .
A : No , you 're right , but it 's coming .
Q : You 're confident that we will get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yes , that 's [ only ] a matter of time .
Q : And so what sort of percentage of the population do you think we will discover has had it , once we get mass antibody testing in place ?
A : At least half , both in the United Kingdom and in Sweden .
Q : So the whole rationale for introducing this lockdown across Europe , that has created such unbelievable side-effects and pretty much stopped the whole world in its tracks , you believe is a misguided policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more harm than good ?
A : Yes , I think so .
What I 'm saying is that people who will die a few months later are dying now , and that 's taking months from their lives — so that 's maybe not nice — but comparing that to what the effects of the lockdown may be , I mean , what am I most afraid of ?
It 's the dictatorial trends in Eastern Europe , that Orbán is now dictator of Hungary forever : there 's no finishing date @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on rule by emergency decree ] .
I think the same is popping up in other countries .
It may pop up in more established democracies as well .
I think the ramifications of this could be huge : we 're not even starting to see them .
Q : Just to get this clear : you think the correct policy , from the start , should have been to shield old and vulnerable groups ?
A : There , we failed .
Sweden failed .
We were not on our toes enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We should have banned visitors earlier .
Many of the people working in nursing homes are from other countries — they 're refugees or or asylum seekers in Sweden ; their Swedish may not be perfect , they may not always understand the information that has been spread to the population .
There are many things we could have done better a couple of months ago .
Q : So , at the point we are now , what you 're advocating is we protect those groups better , and as far as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerned , we just allow it to pass through the population , essentially ?
Q : Which is now commonly understood by what we call the herd immunity strategy , basically .
A : And there are others : it 's not just the old and frail that should be protected .
But I do n't think you can stop it .
You can stop it for some time , but then … I mean , [ among ] countries that have been successful : South Korea is giving up now — they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do n't know about Taiwan — they were quite successful ; Singapore — similar problem .
It 's too … Q : So [ in ] those countries that are held up as the most successful — in some cases , ones that totally managed to suppress the outbreak — you think that it 's just a question of delay and actually they wo n't be able to hold that back ?
Q : So how should we judge success , then ?
Numbers of deaths does seem like a fair measure , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 're essentially deaths that are just going to happen later , it will sound to some people like a slightly cold-hearted approach .
I suppose if you 're saying , `` They 're going to die anyway , so we should allow the disease to take its course , '' I think a lot of people might feel that a government ca n't sit back and do that .
If now , having had this lockdown , we are headed towards 20,000 deaths , how many deaths might we have had if we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been more than we have ?
A : Yes , probably a bit more , but in the end the result would be much the same .
And I agree , it 's a bit callous to say that we let people die .
We 're not saying that ; we 're saying protect the old , try to slow the spread of the epidemic a bit , so that the healthcare system will manage when we have many sick people , many severely ill people .
But I think you ca @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At some point — 'tsunami ' is not a bad word — it will roll over Europe , no matter what you do .
Q : And as it rolls over Europe , sooner or later , presumably , treatments will improve ?
Q : And we 'll get better at knowing how to treat it ?
Q : It already feels like the initial focus on ventilation has shifted toward other ideas , and people are thinking of new ways to treat it .
Is that in itself not an argument @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
A : But how long , in a democracy , do you think you can keep a lockdown ?
How long will it take before people say , `` Now I 'm not taking it [ any more ] '' ?
You can do it in China : you can tell people to stay at home , and you can weld their door shut so they ca n't get out .
But in a democracy you ca n't , and after three or four weeks , people will say , `` Well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's had Covid , and I want go out ; I want to go down to the pub . ''
And so how long do you think you could lock people up like this ?
`` Stay in your home !
You need a permit to go to the shop ! ''
Q : We do n't actually need a permit , but yes .
I mean , we 've now just had it extended by three weeks .
You know , there is an enormous amount of public support for it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ factors about this : that , at the moment , the public is very much on side with the lockdown in the United Kingdom .
Some people [ even ] seem to like it !
So it may be that it 's hard to persuade people to go back , in some way .
But , Dr Gisecke , how did the policies that have been put in place by the UK and by other European governments come about ?
You 've been a leading epidemiologist for your whole career : you 've @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you 've advised the World Health Organisation .
What was it about this pandemic that was so different , that has led to this global shutdown ?
A : A new disease , a lot of people dying , you do n't really know what will happen — and this fear of contagion , I think , is almost genetic in people .
And showing political strength , decisiveness , force , is very important for politicians .
Q : Do you think the fact that it came out of China , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — quarantining whole provinces and so on — set the tone in some way , and that that felt like the appropriate response ?
A : Could be — `` Let 's do like the Chinese [ did ] . ''
But , again , you ca n't compare to China ; it 's a different world .
And do you think you could keep the lockdown [ in place ] to protect the old people until we have good drugs and good vaccines — six months , a year , 18 months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bit tired of it , even if they support the policy in the UK .
Q : A couple of specific things have occurred to me during our conversation .
One is : how many deaths do you foresee in Sweden ?
You 're up at 1,400 or so .
A : I think it will be like a severe influenza .
And it 's interesting with influenza : when the flu comes , we all say , `` Oh , the flu is coming . ''
Like , every winter it 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is here '' — OK. And in this country , it usually kills around one to two thousand people .
But it 's normal ; it 's influenza ; we have it every year ; and they 're old and they were going to die soon anyway , so no-one is very upset about influenza .
But I think if influenza came around as a new disease — you never had it before , but suddenly this new disease called influenza popped up — we would have exactly the same reaction that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of deaths will about be about the same as in a severe influenza winter .
There are 65 million of you , so it would be 12,000 cases in the UK .
A : Maybe a peak [ as heard ] .
And a lot of influenza deaths are not recorded in that way , anyway , in a normal influenza season .
So I think this is about the same .
Anyway , it might be twice as much , but it wo n't be ten times as much .
Q @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , are very different , are n't they ?
That the way the disease progresses seems different from influenza .
A : Oh , yes , it 's different .
It 's not the same disease as influenza , but the shape of the epidemic is not that different .
There are a few differences : for example , an influenza outbreak is driven by children in society .
They are the ones who pass it on between generations , and this does not hurt children very much — they do n't have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very infectious .
So there are epidemiological differences .
Q : When talking about old people like you did , as opposed to children , a lot of people will say that young people have been dying of Covid–19 .
There are examples of young people dying , and some of the data from America suggests that a large number of hospitalisations are among younger people — and is it responsible to describe it as just a disease for elderly people ?
A : No , but influenza kills people too — even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid–19 ] is making much more headlines right now .
And if you look at the data , people under 50 are a clear minority of all the cases .
Q : I 'm 38 ; I 'm on the borderline between young and old .
If you 're younger than me , what is your advice to young people ?
Should they be campaigning to have the lockdown eased because it 's inappropriate ?
What are other risks for young people ?
I mean , we 're told that it 's about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ that ] they act as spreaders , even though they 're not vulnerable themselves .
What should we be doing with younger people ?
A : No , I think it 's good what you 're doing now .
They wo n't hurt that much .
You ca n't say that it 's completely safe — I mean , there will be young people who die , but for the majority , it 's [ not a risk ] .
But what you said is correct : that they should think about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , because they move around a lot , and they should n't meet their grandmother and grandfather too much until they 've had it themselves .
Q : I just want to get a sense of what the British government should do now , in your opinion .
Should we say , `` OK , lockdown is cancelled '' ?
A : No , you ca n't do that .
Then you have a wave of cases ; then you would really have a peak one to two weeks later , if you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you 'll have to climb down one rung of the ladder at a time , and probably start with [ reversing ] the school closures .
Maybe it 's a good thing : it keeps society [ going ] .
I mean , in this country , in Sweden , we have one million children under ten : they need to be looked after .
If they 're not in school , then someone has to stay at home with them .
One of my friends is a nurse and head of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she prays every morning when she wakes up that the government will not close junior schools , because then she loses half her staff .
So school closure is one thing , but I think one step has to be taken at a time .
And it 's interesting how the countries in Europe are , after the lockdown , approaching the Swedish policy now : they 're opening up schools in all the Nordic countries ; in Austria , you can shop in a shop that 's smaller than 400 square metres @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same thing on Monday .
In Germany , they 're also thinking about opening the schools again .
So countries are approaching the Swedish [ model ] , but they had a lockdown first .
Q .
There 's two things that people get very hopeful about : one is a vaccine , and that in some way we can suppress the disease completely until the vaccine comes .
Is that a feasible strategy ?
A : No .
It will take too long .
It wo n't work in a democracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is these so-called immunity passports for people who have been proven to have had the disease : they could then carry a wristband or something , and they would then be allowed back into jobs and in full society .
Is that a feasible strategy , in your view ?
A : There are some technical problems with it .
As you indicated , the antibody tests are not that perfect yet , so it will be [ a while ] , but it 's not a bad idea .
Do you [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If ] you tell your boss at work , `` I 'm immune '' , well , maybe he 'll want to see a certificate .
I mean , that 's the way it will work : that you find people are immune and they can go back , and you can work in the hospital without all this spacesuit on .
Q : Will that be part of the Swedish strategy ?
Q : In terms of what happens next , then , in Sweden : there 's a huge amount of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looking to prove that it was a mistake in some way .
Do you think the Swedish strategy will just stay as it has been ?
A : I do n't think it will be tougher , no .
We 're talking now about opening the final year of schooling so that people who spent twelve years in school can celebrate , which is a big thing in this country .
It 's not because of the celebration that it 's being done , but it 's to see that those who finish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grades and finish all the tests they have to take ; things like that .
Q : And so you feel that the curve is improving sufficiently in Sweden to start releasing further the suppression measures ?
Q : And how did that happen without a lockdown ?
Just voluntary `` social distancing '' has already achieved that , you believe ?
A : Yes .
There are some ordinances , not as strong as a law , for restaurants .
The rule is , you can only eat sitting down ; the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the table ; you do n't go out ; you ca n't drink standing up — if you want your beer , you have to sit down at the table , which [ has to be ] five feet away from the next table ; and that 's being checked now .
But it 's not the government ; it 's the local medical officers of health that go out and check restaurants , and when they close two or three restaurants because the tables are too close [ together ] or people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ others follow suit .
You do n't need a law for that : they know that if the medical officer of health comes in [ and they are not in compliance ] , they 'll be closed for business .
Q : When do we get past that ?
When can we just be back to normal there , with no `` social distancing '' at all ?
What will be the metric for making that decision ?
A : That 's a good question .
I 'm not quite sure I can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will take a couple of months to climb down from a lockdown .
Can you `` climb down '' from a lockdown ?
I do n't know .
Open up .

Below, we transcribe UnHerd's interview of Friday 17 April with Dr Johan Gisecke. We place the term "social distancing" in quotation marks, in recognition of its novelty.
Q: We are joined from Sweden by Dr Johan Gisecke. Did you train originally at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine?
A: No, I used to be an infectious diseases clinical doctor and worked a lot with AIDS patients during the 1980s. That's what got me into epidemiology. And then I spent two years at the LSHTM in the early Nineties, and then I came back to Sweden and became State Epidemiologist, which means having control over all infectious diseases. I actually hired the current State Epidemiologist for Sweden, Dr Anders Tegnell, twenty years ago. I was his boss, and now he's my boss. He's working quite well.
Q: And you then became Chief Scientist at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. What roles do you have now; who are you advising at the moment?
A: I am advising Anders Tegnell at the Swedish Agency for Public Health on a consultant basis. I'm retired, really, so I'm doing this mostly because it's fun.
Q: You were saying that you were on a call with the World Health Organisation earlier today. Do you have an ongoing relationship with them?
A: Yes, I'm advising the Director-General [Tedros Adhanom], together with a group of old scientists, but that's unpaid; an honorary post, in a way.
Q: So, having established your credentials to talk with confidence on this topic: There's been a lot of confused thinking, and a lot of confusion, about what the correct response to a threat such as Covid–19 should be. I wanted to begin by getting your summary thoughts on how Sweden is differing from other countries and why you think that is.
A: The main reason is that we, or the Swedish government, decided early in January that the measures we should take against the pandemic should be evidence-based. And when you start looking around for the [basis for the] measures that are being taken now by different countries, you find that very few of them have a shred of evidence base. One we know, that's been known for 150 years or more, is that washing your hands is good for you and good for others when you're in an epidemic. But the rest — like border closures, school closures, "social distancing" — there's almost no science behind most of these.
Q: So what is the current policy in Sweden? "Social distancing" is part of the policy, isn't it? What is the régime that Sweden has gone with?
A: The main difference to other countries is that you're not locked up in your home. If you go out to buy food or groceries or medicines, there's no police to stop you in the street and ask you what you're doing there. That's one thing. People are asked to stay inside, but there is no enforcement of that. People do it anyway. [Secondly,] we have the rule that a crowd cannot be bigger than 50 people.
Q: So I can still have an event for 49 people if I want?
A: Yes, you could. And the upper schools and universities are closed; schools up to age 15–16 are open. What more do we have? The nursing homes and homes for old people are closed to visitors.
Q: So it sounds like it's a moderate "social distancing" régime at the moment, then.
A: Yes, it is. It's very similar to the one that the UK had before there was a famous paper by Imperial College, by the modellers who made models for infectious diseases. The day after that came out, you made a U-turn in Britain.
Q: Tell us about that. The original strategy in the UK became known as a kind of herd immunity. Before we come on to talk about the Imperial model, is it correct to call [the original strategy] herd immunity, and is that the Swedish strategy?
A: It's not a strategy, but [herd immunity] is a by-product of the strategy. The strategy is to protect the old and the frail, to try to minimise their risk of becoming infected, and taking care of them if they get infected. And if you do that the way we're doing it, you would probably get herd immunity in the end, but that's a by-product of it; it's not the main reason to do it.
Q: You were saying that the initial UK response seemed to be similar to what you in Sweden are doing now, and you thought that was better.
A: Yes. I think it was very good, actually. We were very pleased we were having the same policies as the UK; that gave some credibility to what we were doing. But then Mr Johnson made his 180-degree turn.
Q: There may have been other political factors involved; he was definitely under a lot of pressure, because lots of European countries were doing a formal lockdown at that point. But the turning point did seem to be that Imperial College report, which forecasts 510,000 deaths in the UK with a completely unmitigated approach; 250,000 deaths with a mitigated approach, which is roughly equivalent to what you're doing in Sweden; and then it suggests that it might be as few as 20,000 if we did a full suppression or lockdown.
What was your impression of that paper?
A: I think it's not very good. And the thing that they miss a little bit [is this]. Models for infectious disease spread are very popular; many people do them; they're good for teaching. They seldom tell you the truth, because — I make a small parenthesis — what model could have assumed that the outbreak in Europe would start in northern Italy? Difficult to model that one!
And any such model looks complicated — there are strange mathematical formulae and integral science and stuff — but it rests on the assumptions [its authors make], and the assumptions in that article could be heavily criticised for … I won't go through that; it would take the rest of your day if I went through them all.
The paper was never published scientifically; it's not peer-reviewed, which scientific papers should be; it's just an internal departmental report from Imperial.
And it's fascinating: I don't think any other scientific endeavour has made such an impression on the world as that rather debatable paper.
Q: So is your impression that it was overly pessimistic?
A: Oh yes, very much so.
Q: So — I guess it comes down to some degree of speculation, but what's your impression of how serious the disease is and what kind of fatalities we would be looking at if we had a more moderate or more mitigated approach?
A: What's the number of deaths in in the UK now?
Q: 13,000.
A: So you're getting close to 20,000 now — but probably not 510,000!
I think … Well, let me back up one step. One thing that the model has missed is that it assumes that hospital capacity will remain the same, and that's not what's happening anywhere. I mean, in Sweden we've tripled our intensive care capacity, and I think that's happening in the UK as well. But the paper completely overlooks that; it's quite certain that is a static thing.
Q: So, just to come back to this: I think what most people who support the lockdown would say — and that is the overwhelming majority of people in politics and in the media — is that the reason the curve is now flattening and the numbers of deaths are gradually coming down on a daily basis is because of the lockdown, and that that shows that the policy has worked. Professor Neil Ferguson, who led the Imperial paper, suggests that he stands by his prediction that 500,000-odd people would have died had that not taken place. So, if it wasn't the lockdown that has been flattening our curve, what else could it have been?
A: Well, one thing is immunity.
Another is that people who are frail and old will die first, and when that group of people is sort of thinned out, you will get less deaths as well.
The other thing is that when you start your exit strategy — that's the favourite word now in public health, "the exit strategy" — when you start it, you [in Britain] will have some other deaths that we [in Sweden] had already.
Q: So does that mean, then, that as the disease passes through the population, we are going to see second and third spikes now after this?
A: That would be part of the exit strategy, because the only way to check — if you are taking away one restriction; let's say we open the schools again, as an example — how do you evaluate that? You will see [officials saying,] "Ooh! Numbers are going up again; more people are dying! We have to stop that; we have to pull back that softening [of the lockdown] and try another [approach]. That's what the exit strategy will be in all countries: countries will ease up a little on a restriction, see what happens over the next two to three weeks, [and officials will say], "Ooh, that didn't work. We'll resume that [measure], we'll try another restriction, we'll lift that one — ooh, it worked!"
And every country will have to do it that way, and that means that the increasing number of deaths will be part of checking which strategies should be kept and [which] not.
Q: So what should we be doing instead?
A: Well, you can't!
Q: So …
A: When I first heard, six weeks ago, about the different draconian measures that were taken, I asked myself, "How are they going to climb down from that one? When will they open the schools again? What should be the criterion for reopening schools?" Did any of the strong and very decisive politicians in Europe think about how to get out of this when they introduced it? And I think that will be a problem for the UK as well.
Q: Let's take, as a comparison, your neighbouring countries in Scandinavia. A lot of people are sending around these charts that show that Denmark and Norway and Finland have had much fewer deaths on a per-capita basis and in Sweden the rate is still climbing — and they take that as proof, essentially, that Sweden should have gone into a more draconian lockdown. What do you say to those people?
A: Well, firstly, it's not true for Denmark.
Secondly, one important thing is that the nursing homes in Norway are usually quite small, whereas the nursing homes in Sweden are quite big, with hundreds of people — which means that if you get the virus into one nursing home in Norway, it will affect far fewer people than in a big one. That's part of the reason; it's not all the reason.
For Finland: the epidemic never really took off there. They started their measures before it had even started.
But I think that we should have this discussion a year from now. Let's decide that we do this on 17 April 2021. I think that the difference between countries will be quite small in the end.
Q: So you don't think that the severity of these intervening measures is going to make that much difference?
A: No, I don't think so.
Should I tell you what I really think? I almost never do this.
I think what we're seeing is a tsunami of a usually quite mild disease which is sweeping over Europe. And some countries do this and some countries do that, and some countries don't do that, and in the end there is very, very little difference.
Q: When you say it's a usually quite mild disease, what do you mean by that?
A: That most people who get it will never even notice they were infected.
Q: So does that mean that you think the actual fatality rate of this disease is much lower than the numbers that have been talked about?
A: Much, much lower.
Q: Have you made any speculations as to what sort of zone the real fatality rate might be in?
A: I think it will be like a severe influenza season. The same as that, which would be in the order of 0.1 per cent, maybe.
Q: So, for a country like the UK, that is heading towards 20,000 deaths, that would suggest that many millions of people have already had it?
A: Yes.
Q: And you think that is also true in Sweden, then — that a substantial percentage of the population has had it?
A: Yes. I'm rather certain of that, actually. And we don't have the tests really, yet. As you know, you have these two kinds of tests: one that tells you that you have it now, and another one that tells you that you had it at some point before — an immunity or serology test — and [the latter kind] are just being developed and just being employed. I know from discussions with friends in the UK that you started last week with 3,500 such tests, and you will go on with about 8,000 per week. And when you get tests that show which people have the disease, you'll see that most of them never even dreamt they had it.
Q: But we don't have yet any effective antibody tests, I think.
A: No, you're right, but it's coming.
Q: You're confident that we will get those tests?
A: Oh, yes, that's [only] a matter of time.
Q: And so what sort of percentage of the population do you think we will discover has had it, once we get mass antibody testing in place?
A: At least half, both in the United Kingdom and in Sweden.
Q: So the whole rationale for introducing this lockdown across Europe, that has created such unbelievable side-effects and pretty much stopped the whole world in its tracks, you believe is a misguided policy, and you think it's doing more harm than good?
A: Yes, I think so. What I'm saying is that people who will die a few months later are dying now, and that's taking months from their lives — so that's maybe not nice — but comparing that to what the effects of the lockdown may be, I mean, what am I most afraid of? It's the dictatorial trends in Eastern Europe, that Orbán is now dictator of Hungary forever: there's no finishing date [sunset clause to the Hungarian regulations on rule by emergency decree]. I think the same is popping up in other countries. It may pop up in more established democracies as well. I think the ramifications of this could be huge: we're not even starting to see them.
Q: Just to get this clear: you think the correct policy, from the start, should have been to shield old and vulnerable groups?
A: There, we failed. Sweden failed. We were not on our toes enough to really shield the old people. We should have banned visitors earlier. Many of the people working in nursing homes are from other countries — they're refugees or or asylum seekers in Sweden; their Swedish may not be perfect, they may not always understand the information that has been spread to the population. There are many things we could have done better a couple of months ago.
Q: So, at the point we are now, what you're advocating is we protect those groups better, and as far as the rest of the population is is concerned, we just allow it to pass through the population, essentially?
A: Essentially, yes.
Q: Which is now commonly understood by what we call the herd immunity strategy, basically.
A: And there are others: it's not just the old and frail that should be protected. But I don't think you can stop it. You can stop it for some time, but then … I mean, [among] countries that have been successful: South Korea is giving up now — they can't maintain their policy; I don't know about Taiwan — they were quite successful; Singapore — similar problem. It's too …
Q: So [in] those countries that are held up as the most successful — in some cases, ones that totally managed to suppress the outbreak — you think that it's just a question of delay and actually they won't be able to hold that back?
A: No, [they won't.]
Q: So how should we judge success, then? Numbers of deaths does seem like a fair measure, but if you're saying that they're essentially deaths that are just going to happen later, it will sound to some people like a slightly cold-hearted approach. I suppose if you're saying, "They're going to die anyway, so we should allow the disease to take its course," I think a lot of people might feel that a government can't sit back and do that. If now, having had this lockdown, we are headed towards 20,000 deaths, how many deaths might we have had if we had had no lockdown? Would it have been more than we have?
A: Yes, probably a bit more, but in the end the result would be much the same. And I agree, it's a bit callous to say that we let people die. We're not saying that; we're saying protect the old, try to slow the spread of the epidemic a bit, so that the healthcare system will manage when we have many sick people, many severely ill people. But I think you can't [stop it], really. At some point — 'tsunami' is not a bad word — it will roll over Europe, no matter what you do.
Q: And as it rolls over Europe, sooner or later, presumably, treatments will improve?
A: Yes.
Q: And we'll get better at knowing how to treat it?
A: Yes.
Q: It already feels like the initial focus on ventilation has shifted toward other ideas, and people are thinking of new ways to treat it. Is that in itself not an argument for suppressing it as much as possible?
A: But how long, in a democracy, do you think you can keep a lockdown? How long will it take before people say, "Now I'm not taking it [any more]"? You can do it in China: you can tell people to stay at home, and you can weld their door shut so they can't get out. But in a democracy you can't, and after three or four weeks, people will say, "Well, I don't know anyone who's had Covid, and I want go out; I want to go down to the pub." And so how long do you think you could lock people up like this? "Stay in your home! You need a permit to go to the shop!"
Q: We don't actually need a permit, but yes. I mean, we've now just had it extended by three weeks. You know, there is an enormous amount of public support for it, and that's one of the interesting factors about this: that, at the moment, the public is very much on side with the lockdown in the United Kingdom. Some people [even] seem to like it! So it may be that it's hard to persuade people to go back, in some way.
But, Dr Gisecke, how did the policies that have been put in place by the UK and by other European governments come about? You've been a leading epidemiologist for your whole career: you've dealt with influenzas and SARS, and you've advised the World Health Organisation. What was it about this pandemic that was so different, that has led to this global shutdown?
A: A new disease, a lot of people dying, you don't really know what will happen — and this fear of contagion, I think, is almost genetic in people. And showing political strength, decisiveness, force, is very important for politicians.
Q: Do you think the fact that it came out of China, where we had witnessed such an enormous response — quarantining whole provinces and so on — set the tone in some way, and that that felt like the appropriate response?
A: Could be — "Let's do like the Chinese [did]." But, again, you can't compare to China; it's a different world. And do you think you could keep the lockdown [in place] to protect the old people until we have good drugs and good vaccines — six months, a year, 18 months? I think people would get a bit tired of it, even if they support the policy in the UK.
Q: A couple of specific things have occurred to me during our conversation. One is: how many deaths do you foresee in Sweden? You're up at 1,400 or so.
A: I think it will be like a severe influenza. And it's interesting with influenza: when the flu comes, we all say, "Oh, the flu is coming." Like, every winter it's in the papers: "The flu is here" — OK. And in this country, it usually kills around one to two thousand people. But it's normal; it's influenza; we have it every year; and they're old and they were going to die soon anyway, so no-one is very upset about influenza. But I think if influenza came around as a new disease — you never had it before, but suddenly this new disease called influenza popped up — we would have exactly the same reaction that we have now. So I think the number of deaths will about be about the same as in a severe influenza winter. There are 65 million of you, so it would be 12,000 cases in the UK.
Q: We've already had 13,000.
A: Maybe a peak [as heard]. And a lot of influenza deaths are not recorded in that way, anyway, in a normal influenza season. So I think this is about the same. Anyway, it might be twice as much, but it won't be ten times as much.
Q: The reports from hospitals, though, are very different, aren't they? That the way the disease progresses seems different from influenza.
A: Oh, yes, it's different. It's not the same disease as influenza, but the shape of the epidemic is not that different. There are a few differences: for example, an influenza outbreak is driven by children in society. They are the ones who pass it on between generations, and this does not hurt children very much — they don't have any symptoms — and they're not very infectious. So there are epidemiological differences.
Q: When talking about old people like you did, as opposed to children, a lot of people will say that young people have been dying of Covid–19. There are examples of young people dying, and some of the data from America suggests that a large number of hospitalisations are among younger people — and is it responsible to describe it as just a disease for elderly people?
A: No, but influenza kills people too — even though not that many — and [Covid–19] is making much more headlines right now. And if you look at the data, people under 50 are a clear minority of all the cases.
Q: I'm 38; I'm on the borderline between young and old. If you're younger than me, what is your advice to young people? Should they be campaigning to have the lockdown eased because it's inappropriate? What are other risks for young people? I mean, we're told that it's about carrying the disease to other people and [that] they act as spreaders, even though they're not vulnerable themselves. What should we be doing with younger people?
A: No, I think it's good what you're doing now. They won't hurt that much. You can't say that it's completely safe — I mean, there will be young people who die, but for the majority, it's [not a risk]. But what you said is correct: that they should think about protecting other people. That's important, because they move around a lot, and they shouldn't meet their grandmother and grandfather too much until they've had it themselves.
Q: I just want to get a sense of what the British government should do now, in your opinion. Should we say, "OK, lockdown is cancelled"?
A: No, you can't do that. Then you have a wave of cases; then you would really have a peak one to two weeks later, if you took away all the lockdown. No, you'll have to climb down one rung of the ladder at a time, and probably start with [reversing] the school closures. Maybe it's a good thing: it keeps society [going]. I mean, in this country, in Sweden, we have one million children under ten: they need to be looked after. If they're not in school, then someone has to stay at home with them. One of my friends is a nurse and head of an emergency ward here in Stockholm: she prays every morning when she wakes up that the government will not close junior schools, because then she loses half her staff. So school closure is one thing, but I think one step has to be taken at a time.
And it's interesting how the countries in Europe are, after the lockdown, approaching the Swedish policy now: they're opening up schools in all the Nordic countries; in Austria, you can shop in a shop that's smaller than 400 square metres; in Germany, they're doing the same thing on Monday. In Germany, they're also thinking about opening the schools again. So countries are approaching the Swedish [model], but they had a lockdown first.
Q. There's two things that people get very hopeful about: one is a vaccine, and that in some way we can suppress the disease completely until the vaccine comes. Is that a feasible strategy?
A: No. It will take too long. It won't work in a democracy.
Q: And one other idea is these so-called immunity passports for people who have been proven to have had the disease: they could then carry a wristband or something, and they would then be allowed back into jobs and in full society. Is that a feasible strategy, in your view?
A: There are some technical problems with it. As you indicated, the antibody tests are not that perfect yet, so it will be [a while], but it's not a bad idea. Do you [really] need a passport? [If] you tell your boss at work, "I'm immune", well, maybe he'll want to see a certificate. I mean, that's the way it will work: that you find people are immune and they can go back, and you can work in the hospital without all this spacesuit on.
Q: Will that be part of the Swedish strategy?
A: Yes, yes.
Q: In terms of what happens next, then, in Sweden: there's a huge amount of pressure; a lot of people are looking to prove that it was a mistake in some way. Do you think the Swedish strategy will just stay as it has been?
A: I don't think it will be tougher, no. We're talking now about opening the final year of schooling so that people who spent twelve years in school can celebrate, which is a big thing in this country. It's not because of the celebration that it's being done, but it's to see that those who finish school [this summer] get their grades and finish all the tests they have to take; things like that.
Q: And so you feel that the curve is improving sufficiently in Sweden to start releasing further the suppression measures?
A: Yes.
Q: And how did that happen without a lockdown? Just voluntary "social distancing" has already achieved that, you believe?
A: Yes. There are some ordinances, not as strong as a law, for restaurants. The rule is, you can only eat sitting down; the food should be hot and served at the table; you don't go out; you can't drink standing up — if you want your beer, you have to sit down at the table, which [has to be] five feet away from the next table; and that's being checked now. But it's not the government; it's the local medical officers of health that go out and check restaurants, and when they close two or three restaurants because the tables are too close [together] or people are standing at the bar, the others follow suit. You don't need a law for that: they know that if the medical officer of health comes in [and they are not in compliance], they'll be closed for business.
Q: When do we get past that? When can we just be back to normal there, with no "social distancing" at all? What will be the metric for making that decision?
A: That's a good question. I'm not quite sure I can answer that for food, but it will take a couple of months to climb down from a lockdown. Can you "climb down" from a lockdown? I don't know. Open up.


ukcolumn--2020-04-22--Who controls the British Government response to Covid–19?

`` The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants '' — Albert Camus As Britain hurtles headlong towards neo-feudalist governance with heightened surveillance , micro-management of society and an uptick in fascistic policing of the draconian measures imposed to combat the `` threat '' of Covid–19 , it is perhaps time to analyse the real forces behind this `` new normal '' .
There is now serious doubt over the correlation between lockdown and saving lives .
Reality is creeping into the Covid–19 dialogue .
It is becoming apparent that people are getting sick because they are being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , condemned as `` murderers '' if they so much as think about breaking curfew , being snitched on by neighbours for `` gathering '' more than two people together in their back gardens .
The following graph was produced by UK Column and demonstrates the lack of correlation between lockdown and `` saving lives '' : The numbers game is acting in many instances as a smokescreen .
It is impossible to rely upon `` official '' statistics , that vary wildly from one website to another : statistics that rely upon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ based upon death certificates that misrepresent the actual cause of death as Covid–19 , regardless of pre-existing medical conditions .
Statistics , too , that were set in stone very early on in the development stages , when the perspective was limited and compressed , before a true picture could be seen .
The newly emerging statistics are now increasingly undermining initial conclusions and pointing to the futility and negative consequences of lockdown .
It is now accepted that there is a high mortality rate among the elderly in care homes in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elderly civilians who are being `` asked '' to sign DNRs ( Do Not Resuscitate ) forms .
This amounts to signing their own death warrant , should they present any of the Covid–19 symptoms .
They will be neglected , isolated from their families when at their most vulnerable and left alone to die , even though it is possible that they have not contracted the virus .
Instead of offering proactive and positive suggestions that will enable our immune systems to combat the disease , the British Government is ensuring conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ levels and create the perfect environment for Covid–19 to flourish .
Britain has now received an estimated 1.4 million new benefit claims for welfare payments , `` about seven times the normal level '' .
The government has pledged to bail out `` 80 % of pay of workers who are temporarily laid off '' but I have personally spoken to self-employed individuals who find themselves falling between the cracks that qualify them for financial support and now face an indefinite period of time without income .
These measures are being imposed in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has seen an exponential growth in child poverty to potentially sub-Victorian levels .
In March 2019 , the number of children living in `` absolute poverty '' grew by a staggering 200,000 in a twelve-month period , to a total of 3.7 million .
How will this number be further impacted by lockdown ?
How did we arrive at this point ?
Who steered the UK Government towards this questionable and alarmist lockdown policy ?
The unexamined assumption is that conclusions were formed on the basis of sound epidemiological analysis and research by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ welfare .
The reality is what we will examine in this article .
Neil Ferguson , a professor at Imperial College , was responsible for the modelling of a response to Covid–19 .
His virtual model was recommended by the World Health Organisation ( WHO ) and it passed through into policy with virtually no scrutiny .
Ferguson 's dramatic prediction of 500,000 deaths in the UK became the foundation of Boris Johnson 's U-turn from herd immunity to collective quarantine .
While some understood that Ferguson later reduced his mortality calculations , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Twitter , insisting that without drastic lockdown measures being taken , the numbers would be even higher .
Ferguson is acting director of the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium ( VIMC ) , which is based at Imperial College in London .
According to Ferguson 's biography on the website , `` much of [ his ] work is applied , informing disease control policy-making by public and global health institutions . ''
The professor who derailed Johnson 's semblance of `` herd immunity '' strategy is no stranger to controversy and is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ record of modelling pandemics by one of his academic peers , Professor Michael Thrusfield of Edinburgh University , an expert in animal diseases .
Ferguson was instrumental in the modelling of the British Government 's response to Foot and Mouth Disease ( FMD ) in 2001 , which Thrusfield describes as `` not fit for purpose '' ( 2006 ) and `` seriously flawed '' ( 2012 ) .
Thrusfield has highlighted the limitations of Ferguson 's mathematical modelling methods , and applied the doubts he expressed over FMD to the current Covid–19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twelve million animals were slaughtered as a result of Ferguson 's 2001 initiative .
The farming community was devastated by suicides and bankruptcies that irretrievably altered the landscape of British agriculture — forcing healthy smallholdings into agri-corporate mergers and empowering the EU central governance in the agricultural sector .
Insight : Slaughtered on Suspicion , a documentary made by UK Column in 2015 , provides a shocking insight into the suffering precipitated by Ferguson 's model and the `` new normal '' imposed upon Britain 's farming community .
The following is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the programme : In 2002 , Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would die from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease , better known as `` mad cow disease '' , increasing to 150,000 if the epidemic expanded to include sheep .
The reality is : `` Since 1990 , 178 people in the United Kingdom have died from vCJD , according to the National CJD Research & Surveillance Unit at the University of Edinburgh . ''
( 2017 ) In 2005 , Ferguson claimed that up to 200 million people would be killed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2006 , the WHO had only linked 78 deaths to the virus , out of 147 reported cases .
In 2009 , Ferguson and his team at Imperial College advised the government that swine flu or H1N1 would probably kill 65,000 people in the UK .
In the end , swine flu claimed the lives of 457 people in the UK .
Now , in 2020 , Ferguson and Imperial College have released a report which claims that half a million Britons and 2.2 million Americans may be killed by Covid–19 .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ despite this and Ferguson 's glaring record of mathematical sensationalism , the British Government has adopted the devastating socio-economic lockdown that Ferguson has proposed .
Why is the British Government so quick to follow Ferguson 's plan ?
The VIMC is hosted by the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College .
VIMC is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and by `` GAVI , the vaccine alliance '' ( GAVI 's own title for itself ) .
Bill and Melinda Gates began funding Imperial College in 2006 , four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Global Health Leaders Launch Decade of Vaccines Collaboration ( GHLLDVC ) and one year after Ferguson had demonstrated his penchant for overblown projections on mortality numbers from H5N1 .
Up to the end of 2018 , the Gates Foundation has sponsored Imperial College with a whopping $ 185 million .
That makes Gates the second largest sponsor , beaten to the top spot on the podium by the Wellcome Trust , a British research charity which began funding Imperial College prior to Ferguson 's FMD débâcle and which , by the end of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over $ 400 million in funding .
I will examine the Wellcome Trust 's connections in part two of this series .
The Gates Foundation established the GHLLDVC in collaboration with the WHO , UNICEF and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ( NIAID ) .
The following is taken from the Gates Foundation website : The Collaboration 's leadership council at the time included the Director-General of the WHO , the Director of NIAID , the Director of UNICEF , the President of Gates Foundation Global Health , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The steering committee included the Director of Immunisation , the UK Department of Health , and many other representatives from the WHO , UNICEF and associated organisations .
It is a cluster of immunisation-focused individuals controlling the policy of world health governing bodies , who claim to be neutral .
The WHO was nominated as the `` directing and coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations system '' and was set up to be responsible for `` shaping the health research agenda '' , among other tasks linked to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the `` world 's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries '' has on-the-ground access to children in over 150 territories and countries ( 2010 ) .
We are already seeing the potential for some serious conflict of interest behind the Ferguson model on Covid–19 , and this will become even more apparent as the connections are now made to an entire pharmaceutical complex potentially protecting its own interests over any genuine concerns for the health and welfare of global populations .
GAVI is funded and partnered by the same network that forms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : the World Bank and donor/implementing country governments .
The Gates Foundation is a primary sponsor , but is topped by the British Government , which was instrumental in creating GAVI and is its largest donor .
While many sectors of British society have seen their living standards plummet , with the elderly severely neglected , a National Health Service in decline and homelessness on the increase , the British Government , via UKAID , has pledged £1.44 billion to GAVI for 2016–2020 and will be hosting the 2020 GAVI pledging conference , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ June 2020 to `` mobilise at least US $ 7.4 billion in additional resources to protect the next generation with vaccines , reduce disease inequality and create a healthier , safer and more prosperous world . ''
( Emphasis added ) The conference promises to bring together political leaders , civil society , public and private donors , vaccine manufacturers and governments to support GAVI , the vaccine alliance — which boasts that it has `` helped vaccinate almost half the world 's children against deadly and debilitating infectious diseases '' .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pro-vaccine lobby but concerns over the efficacy and safety of these mass vaccination programmes must be taken into account , particularly when being tested in poorer , developing countries .
Global vaccination market revenue worldwide is projected to reach $ 59.2 billion by 2020 ; this number may well increase with the arrival of Covid–19 .
The British Government 's investment in GAVI alongside vaccine promoter Bill Gates must , again , raise the issue of conflicts of interest .
To what extent is the British Government protecting its own assets in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vaccines are set to be a major source of income for the world 's largest pharmaceutical corporations , and the British Government is invested in that lucrative future .
The GAVI replenishment conference is to be hosted by a British Government whose lockdown policy is effectively shattering the domestic economy and is collectively punishing the most vulnerable in British society .
When Bill Gates partnered with GAVI twenty years ago , he had been considering where next to focus his philanthropy and was `` increasingly focusing on the power and potential of vaccines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sponsorship that launched GAVI , and ten years later Gates launched his own `` vaccine decade '' plan for the 2010s .
The Global Vaccine Action Plan ( GVAP ) 2012–2020 , endorsed by the 194 member states participating in the World Health Assembly ( 2012 ) , is led by the same members of the Gates `` vaccine decade '' consortium , promoted by the WHO , and brings together governments , elected officials , health professionals , academia , manufacturers , global agencies , research and development , civil society , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promote global immunisation .
This is a profit-driven corporate complex harnessing the `` humanitarian '' sector to lend credence to the claims of philanthropy , or more realistically , philanthrocapitalism .
A glance at the partner page of the GAVI website reveals that not only is GAVI heavily invested in immunisation campaigns , it is also closely connected to the Gates , Microsoft and Rockefeller Foundation seed-funded ID2020 project ( Digital Identity Alliance ) , which incorporates Accenture , Microsoft ( Gates ) , Ideo-Org and Rockefeller Foundation into the GAVI alliance , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
ID2020 is promoting the concept that there is a need for universal biometric verification , because `` to prove who you are is a fundamental and universal human right , '' as asserted on the ID2020 website .
An article by journalist Kurt Nimmo for Global Research dismantles the `` humanitarian '' alibi for tyranny .
Nimmo describes the potential for Covid–19 to be used as cover for mandatory biometric ID .
An April article carried by Reuters confirms the suspicion that biometric ID might soon be introduced , ostensibly to `` @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infection and ensure the vulnerable get the vaccine when it is launched '' .
This may sound perfectly sensible to those who are buying the government strap-lines on Covid–19 but — as Nimmo warns us — `` COVID–19 is the perfect Trojan horse for a control freak state itching to not only micromanage the lives of ordinary citizens but also ferret out critics and potential adversaries and punish them as enemies of the state . ''
Prashant Yadav , senior fellow at the US-based Center for Global Development , has said : Such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ harbingers of mandatory vaccination and the inclusion of biometric ID in the `` humanitarian '' package .
Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Technologies introduces an even more sinister projection into the mix .
Armstrong talks about a digital certificate that verifies you have been vaccinated , developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) and Microsoft , which will merge with ID2020 .
Covid–19 will be exploited to encourage us to accept digital implants and tracking devices that will enable authorities to keep an eye on us .
Armstrong argues that just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ booths at airports , now we will be chipped alongside our dogs and cats .
At this point , it is worth remembering that UKAID is heavily involved in GAVI , and one presumes they are on board with the digital ID2020 project .
Rob Laurence , director at UK-based Innovate Identity , presented proposals for the future of digital identity back in June 2019 .
The UK Government Verify scheme was identified as a fledgling version of the future of digital ID .
Laurence describes the digital ID `` ecosystem '' that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Implementation at the Cabinet Office ( the British Government 's co-ordinating department ) , will form a new Digital ID Unit to `` pave the way for the government to consume digital identities from the private sector '' .
Laurence describes 2020 as the `` now-or-never year for government and industry to collaborate '' in the creation of an `` interoperable digital identity market '' .
Covid19 provides the opportunity that might just fulfil these predictions .
It is no coincidence that a British start-up — Microsoft-funded Onfido — has recently raised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ID technology '' to enable the creation of `` immunity passports '' for governments `` battling coronavirus '' .
In December 2019 , researchers at MIT created a `` microneedle platform using fluorescent microparticles called quantum dots ( QD ) which can deliver vaccines and at the same time , invisibly encode vaccination history in the skin '' : the QDs can be detected by specially adapted smartphones .
The `` new normal '' will mean we are tracked and monitored by our own communication systems to an even greater and more intrusive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — but not for our benefit In part one of this two=part series , my intention has been to raise questions over who is driving the British Government response to Covid–19 .
Those who have influenced the lockdown policy have very clear conflict of interest question marks over their agenda .
The scientific clique influencing government decisions is one that is incorporated into a for-profit Big Pharma industrial network which will , undeniably , benefit from the measures being taken by the British Government — a government that is financially embedded in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of epidemiologists , doctors , scientists , analysts and health advisors who challenge the lockdown being ignored or censored by the media and by government ?
Why is the government not widening the circle of advisors to take into account these opposing perspectives that might bring an end to the misery that is a consequence of enforced quarantine ?
Off-Guardian has recorded these views here , here and here .
It is also worth following Swiss Propaganda Research for regular updates on emerging analysis and statistics that you will not always find in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ British Government is effectively endorsing the breeding of distrust in society , the erosion of public assembly , the isolation and state-sanctioned euthanasia of the elderly , the emerging police state , snitch lines , loss of dignity and livelihoods , greater dependency upon the state for survival , depression , suicide and voluntary incarceration .
The UN has issued a warning that the economic downturn could `` kill hundreds of thousands of children in 2020 '' .
Gates , the WHO , the British Government and UNICEF are focused on global immunisation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not living up to the alarmist virtual projections sponsored by Gates and the Big Pharma complex , while children really will start to die from malnutrition , neglect and a myriad of consequence of extreme poverty generated by the `` steepest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s '' ( IMF ) .
In part two , I will delve deeper into the interlocking interests of state and private corporate sectors that should not be interfering in policies which affect the welfare of British citizens .
I will reveal how the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ensuring that their interests are given the most powerful platforms to promote their agenda .
The questions must be asked : Who is really in charge of the Covid–19 response ?
Who benefits most ?
Who will suffer most from the long term consequences ?
And who will provide respite from those consequences when the `` pandemic '' has disappeared from view ?

"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants" — Albert Camus
As Britain hurtles headlong towards neo-feudalist governance with heightened surveillance, micro-management of society and an uptick in fascistic policing of the draconian measures imposed to combat the "threat" of Covid–19, it is perhaps time to analyse the real forces behind this "new normal".
There is now serious doubt over the correlation between lockdown and saving lives. Reality is creeping into the Covid–19 dialogue. It is becoming apparent that people are getting sick because they are being isolated and effectively living under house arrest, condemned as "murderers" if they so much as think about breaking curfew, being snitched on by neighbours for "gathering" more than two people together in their back gardens.
The following graph was produced by UK Column and demonstrates the lack of correlation between lockdown and "saving lives":
Updated 21/4/20
The numbers game is acting in many instances as a smokescreen. It is impossible to rely upon "official" statistics, that vary wildly from one website to another: statistics that rely upon unreliable and sporadic testing procedures. and based upon death certificates that misrepresent the actual cause of death as Covid–19, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions. Statistics, too, that were set in stone very early on in the development stages, when the perspective was limited and compressed, before a true picture could be seen. The newly emerging statistics are now increasingly undermining initial conclusions and pointing to the futility and negative consequences of lockdown.
It is now accepted that there is a high mortality rate among the elderly in care homes in the UK and globally — among the same elderly civilians who are being "asked" to sign DNRs (Do Not Resuscitate) forms. This amounts to signing their own death warrant, should they present any of the Covid–19 symptoms. They will be neglected, isolated from their families when at their most vulnerable and left alone to die, even though it is possible that they have not contracted the virus.
Instead of offering proactive and positive suggestions that will enable our immune systems to combat the disease, the British Government is ensuring conditions that will suppress immune systems to dangerous levels and create the perfect environment for Covid–19 to flourish.
Britain has now received an estimated 1.4 million new benefit claims for welfare payments, "about seven times the normal level". The government has pledged to bail out "80% of pay of workers who are temporarily laid off" but I have personally spoken to self-employed individuals who find themselves falling between the cracks that qualify them for financial support and now face an indefinite period of time without income.
These measures are being imposed in a country that, since 2012, has seen an exponential growth in child poverty to potentially sub-Victorian levels. In March 2019, the number of children living in "absolute poverty" grew by a staggering 200,000 in a twelve-month period, to a total of 3.7 million. How will this number be further impacted by lockdown?
How did we arrive at this point? Who steered the UK Government towards this questionable and alarmist lockdown policy? The unexamined assumption is that conclusions were formed on the basis of sound epidemiological analysis and research by doctors and scientists who care about our welfare.
The reality is what we will examine in this article. Neil Ferguson, a professor at Imperial College, was responsible for the modelling of a response to Covid–19. His virtual model was recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and it passed through into policy with virtually no scrutiny. Ferguson's dramatic prediction of 500,000 deaths in the UK became the foundation of Boris Johnson's U-turn from herd immunity to collective quarantine.
While some understood that Ferguson later reduced his mortality calculations, he actually doubled down on his projections on Twitter, insisting that without drastic lockdown measures being taken, the numbers would be even higher.
Who is Neil Ferguson?
Ferguson is acting director of the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium (VIMC), which is based at Imperial College in London. According to Ferguson's biography on the website, "much of [his] work is applied, informing disease control policy-making by public and global health institutions."
The professor who derailed Johnson's semblance of "herd immunity" strategy is no stranger to controversy and is described as having a "patchy" record of modelling pandemics by one of his academic peers, Professor Michael Thrusfield of Edinburgh University, an expert in animal diseases.
Ferguson was instrumental in the modelling of the British Government's response to Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in 2001, which Thrusfield describes as "not fit for purpose" (2006) and "seriously flawed" (2012). Thrusfield has highlighted the limitations of Ferguson's mathematical modelling methods, and applied the doubts he expressed over FMD to the current Covid–19 "crisis" response.
An estimated twelve million animals were slaughtered as a result of Ferguson's 2001 initiative. The farming community was devastated by suicides and bankruptcies that irretrievably altered the landscape of British agriculture — forcing healthy smallholdings into agri-corporate mergers and empowering the EU central governance in the agricultural sector.
Image copyright: Nick Green
Insight: Slaughtered on Suspicion, a documentary made by UK Column in 2015, provides a shocking insight into the suffering precipitated by Ferguson's model and the "new normal" imposed upon Britain's farming community. The following is a statement made by one of the contributors to the programme:
12,000,000 animals [Meat & Livestock Commission statistic] were slaughtered but that did not include lambs at foot, aborted lambs, calves or piglets. Further, tens of thousands of chickens were slaughtered in the early months — on welfare grounds, apparently. 88% of all animals slaughtered had not contracted FMD [source: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs]. Great Orton airfield was used to slaughter sheep under the "voluntary" cull: that was anything but voluntary, and farmers not participating were ruthlessly threatened. There was only one mild case of FMD recorded from the thousands of blood tests done at Great Orton [source: DEFRA]. There was a travelator that ran from the slaughter tent at Great Orton to the graves. This ran 16 hours a day, transporting "dead" young lambs. Slaughtermen working there told me that many of the lambs were buried alive. The man that advised Blair during this fiasco was, as many will know, Prof. Ferguson of Imperial College. He was [reportedly] sacked by DEFRA late on during the epidemic, but the damage had been done! Prof Ferguson was awarded an OBE in 2002 for his work during FMD 2001." [Emphasis added]
In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would die from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, better known as "mad cow disease", increasing to 150,000 if the epidemic expanded to include sheep. The reality is: "Since 1990, 178 people in the United Kingdom have died from vCJD, according to the National CJD Research & Surveillance Unit at the University of Edinburgh." (2017)
In 2005, Ferguson claimed that up to 200 million people would be killed by bird-flu or H5N1. By early 2006, the WHO had only linked 78 deaths to the virus, out of 147 reported cases.
In 2009, Ferguson and his team at Imperial College advised the government that swine flu or H1N1 would probably kill 65,000 people in the UK. In the end, swine flu claimed the lives of 457 people in the UK.
Now, in 2020, Ferguson and Imperial College have released a report which claims that half a million Britons and 2.2 million Americans may be killed by Covid–19. The report has still not been peer-reviewed; despite this and Ferguson's glaring record of mathematical sensationalism, the British Government has adopted the devastating socio-economic lockdown that Ferguson has proposed.
Why is the British Government so quick to follow Ferguson's plan?
1. GAVI and Imperial College
The VIMC is hosted by the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College. VIMC is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and by "GAVI, the vaccine alliance" (GAVI's own title for itself). Bill and Melinda Gates began funding Imperial College in 2006, four years before the Gates Foundation launched the Global Health Leaders Launch Decade of Vaccines Collaboration (GHLLDVC) and one year after Ferguson had demonstrated his penchant for overblown projections on mortality numbers from H5N1.
Up to the end of 2018, the Gates Foundation has sponsored Imperial College with a whopping $185 million. That makes Gates the second largest sponsor, beaten to the top spot on the podium by the Wellcome Trust, a British research charity which began funding Imperial College prior to Ferguson's FMD débâcle and which, by the end of 2018, had already provided Imperial with over $400 million in funding. I will examine the Wellcome Trust's connections in part two of this series.
Wellcome trust also has a focus on global immunization programmes.
The Gates Foundation established the GHLLDVC in collaboration with the WHO, UNICEF and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The following is taken from the Gates Foundation website:
The Global Vaccine Action Plan will enable greater coordination across all stakeholder groups - national governments, multilateral organizations, civil society, the private sector and philanthropic organizations -- and will identify critical policy, resource, and other gaps that must be addressed to realize the life-saving potential of vaccines.
The Collaboration's leadership council at the time included the Director-General of the WHO, the Director of NIAID, the Director of UNICEF, the President of Gates Foundation Global Health, and the Chair of the African Malaria Alliance. The steering committee included the Director of Immunisation, the UK Department of Health, and many other representatives from the WHO, UNICEF and associated organisations. It is a cluster of immunisation-focused individuals controlling the policy of world health governing bodies, who claim to be neutral.
The WHO was nominated as the "directing and coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations system" and was set up to be responsible for "shaping the health research agenda", among other tasks linked to the policy of global immunisation.
UNICEF, the "world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries" has on-the-ground access to children in over 150 territories and countries (2010).
We are already seeing the potential for some serious conflict of interest behind the Ferguson model on Covid–19, and this will become even more apparent as the connections are now made to an entire pharmaceutical complex potentially protecting its own interests over any genuine concerns for the health and welfare of global populations.
Gavi, the vaccine alliance
"Gavi is the Vaccine Alliance, which brings together public and private sectors with the shared goal of creating equal access to vaccines for children, wherever they live."
GAVI is funded and partnered by the same network that forms the GHLLDVC, with some noticeable additions: the World Bank and donor/implementing country governments. The Gates Foundation is a primary sponsor, but is topped by the British Government, which was instrumental in creating GAVI and is its largest donor.
While many sectors of British society have seen their living standards plummet, with the elderly severely neglected, a National Health Service in decline and homelessness on the increase, the British Government, via UKAID, has pledged £1.44 billion to GAVI for 2016–2020 and will be hosting the 2020 GAVI pledging conference, which is due to take place in June 2020 to "mobilise at least US$ 7.4 billion in additional resources to protect the next generation with vaccines, reduce disease inequality and create a healthier, safer and more prosperous world." (Emphasis added)
The conference promises to bring together political leaders, civil society, public and private donors, vaccine manufacturers and governments to support GAVI, the vaccine alliance — which boasts that it has "helped vaccinate almost half the world's children against deadly and debilitating infectious diseases". This claim will be met with praise from the pro-vaccine lobby but concerns over the efficacy and safety of these mass vaccination programmes must be taken into account, particularly when being tested in poorer, developing countries.
Global vaccination market revenue worldwide is projected to reach $59.2 billion by 2020; this number may well increase with the arrival of Covid–19. The British Government's investment in GAVI alongside vaccine promoter Bill Gates must, again, raise the issue of conflicts of interest. To what extent is the British Government protecting its own assets in forcing the lockdown upon its population? Vaccines are set to be a major source of income for the world's largest pharmaceutical corporations, and the British Government is invested in that lucrative future.
The GAVI replenishment conference is to be hosted by a British Government whose lockdown policy is effectively shattering the domestic economy and is collectively punishing the most vulnerable in British society.
When Bill Gates partnered with GAVI twenty years ago, he had been considering where next to focus his philanthropy and was "increasingly focusing on the power and potential of vaccines". It was Gates' substantial sponsorship that launched GAVI, and ten years later Gates launched his own "vaccine decade" plan for the 2010s.
The Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) 2012–2020, endorsed by the 194 member states participating in the World Health Assembly (2012), is led by the same members of the Gates "vaccine decade" consortium, promoted by the WHO, and brings together governments, elected officials, health professionals, academia, manufacturers, global agencies, research and development, civil society, media and the private sector — to promote global immunisation. This is a profit-driven corporate complex harnessing the "humanitarian" sector to lend credence to the claims of philanthropy, or more realistically, philanthrocapitalism.
2. GAVI and ID2020
A glance at the partner page of the GAVI website reveals that not only is GAVI heavily invested in immunisation campaigns, it is also closely connected to the Gates, Microsoft and Rockefeller Foundation seed-funded ID2020 project (Digital Identity Alliance), which incorporates Accenture, Microsoft (Gates), Ideo-Org and Rockefeller Foundation into the GAVI alliance, all with ties to the ID2020 initiative.
ID2020 is promoting the concept that there is a need for universal biometric verification, because "to prove who you are is a fundamental and universal human right," as asserted on the ID2020 website. An article by journalist Kurt Nimmo for Global Research dismantles the "humanitarian" alibi for tyranny.
OffGrid Healthcare explains:
What they really want is a fully standardized data collection and retrieval format, and cross-border sharing of identities of the entire population of the planet, in order for the stand-alone AI-powered command center to work without a hitch, and for purposes of calculating everyone's potential contribution, and threat to the system.
Nimmo describes the potential for Covid–19 to be used as cover for mandatory biometric ID. An April article carried by Reuters confirms the suspicion that biometric ID might soon be introduced, ostensibly to "help verify those who already had the infection and ensure the vulnerable get the vaccine when it is launched". This may sound perfectly sensible to those who are buying the government strap-lines on Covid–19 but — as Nimmo warns us — "COVID–19 is the perfect Trojan horse for a control freak state itching to not only micromanage the lives of ordinary citizens but also ferret out critics and potential adversaries and punish them as enemies of the state."
Prashant Yadav, senior fellow at the US-based Center for Global Development, has said:
Biometric IDs can be a gamechanger. They can help governments target population segments e.g healthcare professionals or the elderly population, verify people who have received vaccination, and have a clear record. [Emphasis added]
Such statements can easily be interpreted as the harbingers of mandatory vaccination and the inclusion of biometric ID in the "humanitarian" package.
Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Technologies introduces an even more sinister projection into the mix. Armstrong talks about a digital certificate that verifies you have been vaccinated, developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Microsoft, which will merge with ID2020. Covid–19 will be exploited to encourage us to accept digital implants and tracking devices that will enable authorities to keep an eye on us. Armstrong argues that just as 9/11 conditioned us to accept X-ray booths at airports, now we will be chipped alongside our dogs and cats.
The road to 2020 - the future for digital identity in the UK. (Title of Innovate Identity article June 2019)
At this point, it is worth remembering that UKAID is heavily involved in GAVI, and one presumes they are on board with the digital ID2020 project. Rob Laurence, director at UK-based Innovate Identity, presented proposals for the future of digital identity back in June 2019. The UK Government Verify scheme was identified as a fledgling version of the future of digital ID.
Laurence describes the digital ID "ecosystem" that is emerging: Oliver Dowden, Minister for Implementation at the Cabinet Office (the British Government's co-ordinating department), will form a new Digital ID Unit to "pave the way for the government to consume digital identities from the private sector". Laurence describes 2020 as the "now-or-never year for government and industry to collaborate" in the creation of an "interoperable digital identity market".
Covid19 provides the opportunity that might just fulfil these predictions.
It is no coincidence that a British start-up — Microsoft-funded Onfido — has recently raised $100 million to "boost its ID technology" to enable the creation of "immunity passports" for governments "battling coronavirus".
In December 2019, researchers at MIT created a "microneedle platform using fluorescent microparticles called quantum dots (QD) which can deliver vaccines and at the same time, invisibly encode vaccination history in the skin": the QDs can be detected by specially adapted smartphones. The "new normal" will mean we are tracked and monitored by our own communication systems to an even greater and more intrusive extent.
The future is being modelled — but not for our benefit
In part one of this two=part series, my intention has been to raise questions over who is driving the British Government response to Covid–19. Those who have influenced the lockdown policy have very clear conflict of interest question marks over their agenda.
The scientific clique influencing government decisions is one that is incorporated into a for-profit Big Pharma industrial network which will, undeniably, benefit from the measures being taken by the British Government — a government that is financially embedded in the same complex.
Why are the views of epidemiologists, doctors, scientists, analysts and health advisors who challenge the lockdown being ignored or censored by the media and by government? Why is the government not widening the circle of advisors to take into account these opposing perspectives that might bring an end to the misery that is a consequence of enforced quarantine? Off-Guardian has recorded these views here, here and here. It is also worth following Swiss Propaganda Research for regular updates on emerging analysis and statistics that you will not always find in the mainstream media.
World Economic Forum report on the psychological experiment that is the Covid19 lockdown.
Instead, the British Government is effectively endorsing the breeding of distrust in society, the erosion of public assembly, the isolation and state-sanctioned euthanasia of the elderly, the emerging police state, snitch lines, loss of dignity and livelihoods, greater dependency upon the state for survival, depression, suicide and voluntary incarceration.
An article in New York Times reports on the death toll in care homes which "reflect a global phenomenon" in a world under lockdown.
The UN has issued a warning that the economic downturn could "kill hundreds of thousands of children in 2020". Gates, the WHO, the British Government and UNICEF are focused on global immunisation for a "pandemic" that is not living up to the alarmist virtual projections sponsored by Gates and the Big Pharma complex, while children really will start to die from malnutrition, neglect and a myriad of consequence of extreme poverty generated by the "steepest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s" (IMF).
In part two, I will delve deeper into the interlocking interests of state and private corporate sectors that should not be interfering in policies which affect the welfare of British citizens. I will reveal how the same players are influencing the media response and ensuring that their interests are given the most powerful platforms to promote their agenda.
The questions must be asked: Who is really in charge of the Covid–19 response? Who benefits most? Who will suffer most from the long term consequences? And who will provide respite from those consequences when the "pandemic" has disappeared from view?


ukcolumn--2020-04-22--UK Column News - 22nd April 2020

UK Column News - 22nd April 2020

Brian Gerrish , Mike Robinson and Alex Thomson with today 's UK Column News , bringing you the latest Coronavirus updates .
START – CoronaVirus statistics update ONS releases latest figures for weekly deaths – are the figures really accurate… ?
Mumsnet : the hospital I work in is so quiet… Is excess mortality being deliberately caused by denial of hospital care… ?
The lockdown is killing far more people than the virus BBC : CoronaVirus – here ’ s how you can stop bad information from going viral FullFact : most reliable information sources are NHS , WHO or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Facebook groups fight ‘ fake news ’ and win BBC praise UK Column challenges the BBC and gets no response Guardian ‘ journalist ’ produces article just repeating what the NHS told her 11:28 – China : rhetoric building for war… ?
Henry Jackson Society : amplifying and projecting their opinions… ?
The Hill : Kissinger ’ s folly – the threat to world order is China Is a new cold war underway or is a hot war on the horizon… ?
20:20 – Good News : Prince Philip wades in… WHO World @ @ @ @ @ @ @ – Ian R. Crane is improving and in a good state of mind 22:50 – Porton BioPharma : developing and manufacturing life-saving products Telegraph : UK ’ s Onfido secures $ 100m to boost ID tech for immunity passports… Asian Voice : Onfido founder – meet Husayn Kassai Public to require proof of CoronaVirus vaccination… ?
Onfido : take it on faith… ?
Microsoft ’ s M12 involved in their funding… UK Column article : who controls the British government response to COVID-19… ?
Neil Ferguson : wildly innaccurate death predictions for CJD @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NERVTAG : New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group The revolving door of Bill Gates ’ MONEY = POWER influence on world ‘ health ’ 36:31 – GAVI , The Vaccine Alliance awarded diplomatic immunity… ?
Dutch Health Ministry : no Freedom Of Information requests allowed… Dr John Ioannidis interview : Perspectives on the Pandemic Professor warns : damage done by lockdown could outweigh that of CoronaVirus CoronaVirus in Scotland : more than half of ICU beds are empty Field Court Chambers : COVID-19 emergency powers are unlawful… 45:40 – A warning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Human Rights and vaccination : UNESCO Bioethics Statement ( 2005 )

Brian Gerrish, Mike Robinson and Alex Thomson with today's UK Column News, bringing you the latest Coronavirus updates.
START – CoronaVirus statistics update
ONS releases latest figures for weekly deaths – are the figures really accurate…?
Mumsnet: the hospital I work in is so quiet…
Is excess mortality being deliberately caused by denial of hospital care…?
The lockdown is killing far more people than the virus
BBC: CoronaVirus – here’s how you can stop bad information from going viral
FullFact: most reliable information sources are NHS, WHO or the CDC (USA)…
Local Facebook groups fight ‘fake news’ and win BBC praise
UK Column challenges the BBC and gets no response
Guardian ‘journalist’ produces article just repeating what the NHS told her
11:28 – China: rhetoric building for war…?
Henry Jackson Society: amplifying and projecting their opinions…?
The Hill: Kissinger’s folly – the threat to world order is China
Is a new cold war underway or is a hot war on the horizon…?
20:20 – Good News: Prince Philip wades in…
WHO World Immunization Week 2020: 24-30 April
21:56 – Ian R. Crane is improving and in a good state of mind
22:50 – Porton BioPharma: developing and manufacturing life-saving products
Telegraph: UK’s Onfido secures $100m to boost ID tech for immunity passports…
Asian Voice: Onfido founder – meet Husayn Kassai
Public to require proof of CoronaVirus vaccination…?
Onfido: take it on faith…? Microsoft’s M12 involved in their funding…
UK Column article: who controls the British government response to COVID-19…?
Neil Ferguson: wildly innaccurate death predictions for CJD, H5N1, Swine Flu and CV
NERVTAG: New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group
The revolving door of Bill Gates’ MONEY = POWER influence on world ‘health’
36:31 – GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance awarded diplomatic immunity…?
Dutch Health Ministry: no Freedom Of Information requests allowed…
Dr John Ioannidis interview: Perspectives on the Pandemic
Professor warns: damage done by lockdown could outweigh that of CoronaVirus
CoronaVirus in Scotland: more than half of ICU beds are empty
Field Court Chambers: COVID-19 emergency powers are unlawful…
45:40 – A warning from Lord Hailsham: Dilemma of Democracy
Human Rights and vaccination: UNESCO Bioethics Statement (2005)