COVID – Who Is Being Irresponsible

You would think that those who promoted the idiotic lockdowns that everywhere have failed miserably, to an extent that everywhere they were implemented there have been tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, that the virus has resurged, and that, at the same time, economies have been trashed, would now be somewhat apologetic for the consequences of their actions. But, no. Their strategy having, everywhere, failed terribly, they continue to insist that the experiment be repeated, in the hope that, this time, the result will be different. Einstein called such behaviour the definition of idiocy. 

In fact, not only are they not apologetic, but they continue to decry those, such as the tens of thousands of scientists and medical practitioners that have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, who back an alternative strategy, a strategy that has been shown, in Sweden, to actually work! Those that promoted the lockdown strategy, and who did so on the back of promotion of the hysterical claims about the likely number of deaths from COVID, extrapolated from the analysis conducted by Imperial College, of course, continue to insist that their failed strategy is the only strategy; to use the words of Margaret Thatcher, they argue There Is No Alternative, because to do otherwise is to admit they got it very badly wrong, and that, in fact, they are responsible, indirectly, for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, as well as causing the worst economic slowdown in 300 years. What professional would want to admit that they got things so badly wrong that they brought about such a condition. 

But, not only do they refuse to admit they got it so badly wrong, but they condemn those that propose a rational alternative, not by providing any evidence or rational argument to show why that alternative is wrong, but simply by responding with what amounts to simply invective, much in the way of a troll. And, on the back of this narrative, we see those same people, and the politicians they advise, blaming the failure of their strategy on others, particularly young people. Young people, we are told, are acting irresponsibly, because they continue to ignore the advice of the proponents of lockdown, and continue to get on with their lives, in the way every generation before them has done. 

We are told that young people are being irresponsible because they continue to meet socially, and, thereby, to spread the virus amongst themselves, and that this then, somehow, mystically, results in older people also contracting the virus and becoming ill and dying. That, of course, is nonsense. Very, very reluctantly, most of the proponents of lockdowns have had to admit that nearly all of these young people are at absolutely no serious risk from COVID19. Like 80% of the population in total, they are likely to have no symptoms at all, having contracted the virus. Indeed, for their age group, nearly 100% will have no symptoms, or only very mild cold-like symptoms. 

For, most of the last six months, they would not even admit that, trying to push the narrative that everyone was at risk from the virus, even though we knew, from the start, that this is a virus that almost exclusively targets the elderly, those over 80, in particular, but also those over 60. Indeed, the mean average age of death from COVID has risen from 81 to 82, showing that it has become even more a killer of the old, even since the start of the epidemic. We have known, from the start, even on the basis of the data from China, tabulated by Imperial, that the elderly were more than 1,000 times more likely to become ill or die from the virus than are the young. 

So, to say that the young are being irresponsible by continuing to socially interact is totally idiotic. The young are at virtually no risk from the virus, and so why should they not continue to socially interact. Indeed, it would actually be irresponsible for them not to do so, for several reasons. Firstly, by such social interaction they quickly spread the virus amongst themselves. Because they are not going to become ill from such infection, it is safe for them to do so. By becoming infected they also, thereby, gain immunity from the virus, which means that they can then no longer contract it, or spread it to other people.

This is the way herd immunity has always worked as a means of natural vaccination, and of stopping the spread of infectious diseases in the absence of vaccines. It is only the same as what a vaccine does artificially. Those that respond that there have been some cases of people becoming infected twice are, really, desperately grasping at straws to rescue a failed strategy. Even if these isolated examples are true, and not explained by other factors, the truth is that they remain precisely that, isolated examples that can in no way change the overall reality. If instead of being exceptions that prove the rule, they were the rule, it would mean that developing a vaccine would itself be pointless, because a vaccine too, then, could not provide lasting immunity. In the absence of immunity, no one thinks that society can simply be locked down forever. 

Secondly, it is the responsible thing to do, because otherwise, the devastation caused to the economy, by the lockdown of social activity, caused over the last six months will get much, much worse. So, far, the economic damage has been mostly only a reduction in GDP, i.e. of new value created, and so of incomes. Most of the physical capital of society remains intact waiting to be utilised once more. But, another period of lockdown, with businesses going bust on a large scale, will mean that capital itself is destroyed. That destruction of capital will not be the positive kind of destruction described by Marx, which enables a new period of growth to resume, i.e. a destruction only of the value of that capital, but a negative destruction, whereby the physical capital itself is destroyed, and is no longer available to employ labour, and to enable such growth to occur. And, of course, the people who have been most badly affected by that economic chaos are themselves the young, particularly those aged 16-24. It is they who have lost jobs, and seen the largest falls in income. 

The argument used against young people is that they are being irresponsible because although they might not get ill their granny might, as a result of them coming into contact with them. Well, duh, yes that might occur if their granny were stupid and didn't ensure that any such contact was undertaken in safe conditions to prevent any such infection! Instead of attacking young people and calling them irresponsible, why doesn't the government and its advisors do the rational thing, and tell the people actually at risk from the virus to act responsibly, as most of them would do if so instructed, and supported, and as has happened in Sweden. 

Its not hard. As one of the people in that category, its what I have been doing for more than six months, even without the government telling me to do it, or having any support from government to be able to do it. I get my shopping delivered online, I avoid contact with anyone who might have the virus, including my son and his partner, other than in safe conditions out in the garden. It doesn't stop me walking the dog, or going for a run each day. Indeed, the only thing that stopped me doing that was the idiotic lockdown imposed on everyone for six months, which told me I couldn't leave the house more than once a day! 

To blame young people and claim that they are being irresponsible is ridiculous, when they are not the ones at risk from the virus, and the elderly almost exclusively are. If you look at any TV pictures of town centres, you see lots of elderly people continuing to shop, and socially interact, including in pubs and restaurants. Mostly, like Trump, they are also the ones not wearing masks. If you want to see who is acting irresponsibly look no further than that, because it is that group that are the ones at risk from the virus. But, of course, the Tories can't say that, because not only is it that age group that voted for the Brexit that is the centrepiece of its electoral strategy, but they are also the age group that overwhelmingly votes Tory. The Tories are not going to tell their main voting support that they are acting irresponsibly, or that they should self isolate! 

But, that is clearly what a responsible strategy would be saying, as the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration have set out, and which is also the conclusion to be drawn from the recent study by Edinburgh University, which showed that the determinant of hospital admissions and death is not the extent of infections, but the extent of infection amongst that elderly cohort. The government's strategy is like dealing with nut allergies by saying that the 90% plus of the population who have no such allergy, are acting irresponsibly by continuing to eat nut products, whilst not telling the small number of people who do have such allergies not to go out and buy a big pack of Dry Roasted! 

The proponents of lockdown simply respond to the reasoned arguments in favour of focused protection with invective, rather than their own reasoned arguments. They respond to facts with emotional soundbites. So, a couple of days ago, one of the medical advisors of the government, on TV, responded to a question about the policy of focused protection by simply calling it bunkum. He provided no argument as to why it was bunkum. The only “facts” he could marshal was an emotional statement that more than 400 medical staff had died from treating COVID patients. But, even if we take that statement on its own, what does it tell us? If the strategy of focused protection had been adopted, so that the elderly were isolated from the risk of infection, then none of the 42,000 deaths of elderly people need have happened. So, if we look at things on a purely rational perspective, any rational person given a choice between 40,000 deaths on the back of the current failed lockdown strategy, or 400 deaths resulting from a strategy of focused protection, would clearly choose the latter. The proponents of lockdown argue as though their strategy had been a glowing success rather than a miserable failure. 

And, the argument that was raised highlights an even greater failure. If we look at those 400 deaths of medical staff, they are also an indication of the failure of the lockdown strategy, but also more widely of the NHS itself. There is no reason why any healthcare workers need have died. It only required that the NHS put in place adequate contact procedures and provided all its staff with adequate PPE. On that basis no healthcare workers need ever even to be infected let alone die! But, the NHS completely failed. It failed to establish proper contact protocols, in the same way it did some years ago, when MRSA spread through it like wildfire. It failed to establish isolation wards or isolation hospitals so that people with COVID could be physically separated from other patients. When it did belatedly create the Nightingale hospitals, they were huge white elephants, set up mainly for show, sucking in vast amounts of needed resources, but which remained empty barns throughout the lockdown, with the Excel Centre, never having more than 25 people filling its 8,000 capacity at any one time. It only treated just over 50 people in total!  Meanwhile, although just a couple of hospitals in London came close to being overrun, in the rest of the country, capacity levels fell to around 40%, as sick people were told to stay away, or were frightened away by all the media reports, and operations and appointments were cancelled.

But, worse than that. If you want to know why those 400 healthcare staff died, do not look just to the fact that the NHS failed to establish adequate contact protocols, or isolation hospitals, or that it failed to provide its staff with adequate PPE, and that it has a culture of overworking its staff with ridiculously long hours of work for most of its doctors, which means that their own immune systems must become weakened, especially when in prolonged and heavy bombardment from viruses. Look also to the fact that the NHS called back retired health workers. In other words, it deliberately called into the field of battle elderly workers, i.e. those precisely in the group actually at risk from the virus!!! 

But, more than that. We know that, whilst age is overwhelmingly the determinant of death from COVID, age is not the only factor. We know that a secondary factor is the underlying health of the individual. A major factor is obesity. But, anyone who has been to a hospital, or other healthcare facility knows that the NHS does not even fulfil its duty of care to its workers in promoting a healthy lifestyle amongst them. Go to any hospital, and you will see that a sizeable proportion of the staff are, at the very least, overweight, and many of them clinically obese. Some years ago, my mother in law had regular visits from a healthcare visitor who was so fat that she could barely get up or down from a seat. Go to a hospital, and you will find that many of the people using the outside smoking areas are themselves hospital staff. On many occasions I had regular health checks with the NHS, and found that I was being given advice by people whose BMI and waist measurement was 50% greater than my own, and whose fitness levels were probably less than half mine, despite them being only half my age. If the NHS can't even look after the health and well being of its own workers, why would anyone believe its in a position to look after the health of the rest of us? So, its no wonder that the NHS had this level of deaths amongst its own workers as a result of them being so unhealthy. 

At the height of the epidemic we were all invited to clap for the NHS, but the truth is that whilst NHS workers acted valiantly, the NHS itself, as an institution, performed abysmally. Not only did the NHS fail to protect its staff, and called back retired staff putting them also at risk, but it also failed to protect patients too. By failing to set up isolation hospitals, and adequate contact protocols, by failing to provide adequate PPE, it ensured that many people who went into hospital with other complaints then contracted COVID19 in hospital, repeating the disaster that happened years ago with MRSA and C-Dif. In Britain, one of the highest profile cases of that was the comedian Eddie Large.

But, much worse than that, the NHS also sent elderly patients who had contracted COVID19 back to care homes, where they then spread the virus amongst these concentrated vulnerable populations. The NHS itself became a superspreader of the virus, and the inevitability was that large numbers of elderly people in those care homes died. About a third of all deaths have been of elderly people in care homes, where again there was a lack of isolation facilities, contact protocols, and adequate PPE. 

So, looking at the facts, exactly who is it that has been irresponsible here? 

The proponents of lockdown, like the medical advisor interviewed on the TV, claim, without evidence, that the focused protection strategy would result in huge numbers of additional deaths. As though their strategy has not already led to that, wherever it has been adopted. But, of course, there is evidence showing the opposite of this claim. Sweden never imposed a lockdown or extensive test and trace. Like most countries, it made a big mistake in not adequately protecting its elderly care homes at the beginning, and paid the price for it, which explains its total mortality rate. But, even that overall mortality rate, per capita, is lower than in Britain, and other European countries that introduced lockdowns.

More importantly, having dealt with the care home issue, Sweden then saw its number of new deaths fall dramatically, in stark contrast to the predictions that the proponents of lockdowns have always made. Sweden has reduced its number of new deaths to less than 2 per day. Even taking account of the different population size, that equates to only about 10 per day in Britain, compared to the average of around 50 that Britain is actually experiencing. And, because Sweden never introduced a lockdown, it has no problem with the potential for the virus resurging when a lockdown is lifted. Yet, the proponents of lockdown completely ignore the experience of Sweden when they put forward their unsupported assertions. 

It is they that are the real science deniers. It is they that are acting irresponsibly.