Corona Virus Treatment

I'm not aware of any conspiracy theories which have turned out to be true: but perhaps my definition is not the same. By conspiracy I mean something which runs contrary to the reliable evidence (recognising that the whole point of the scientific method is that when better evidence comes along, then the old is thrown away and the new taken). And usually conspiracy would require collusion of a population who's size is just not credible.

But when the CDC publishes a review of the literature into whether wearing masks reduces infection rates (for example), and concludes definitively that the literature is consistent and says - yes it does - then one has to have a very good reason to disagree with that. And to stand in line, as I said, for the nobel prize which is surely coming.

The distrust is fed: daily, people read that they cannot trust an invisible enemy. However, that message is being very deliberately distributed. And it is pernicious, because of course there are bad actors here who one should not trust. And how to tell the difference? Well - I go with the scientists.

 

No, putting words in my mouth
I didn't say that, all I said was would they inform the people who come up with the figures so that they can tell us.

When I get on an aeroplane I make up my own mind if it is safe to do so, I have a choice. We do put our trust in those that maintain and fly them but it is not always safe.

I think you will find even epidemiologists have varying "opinions", its the way things are in reality.
I'm not one to believe conspiracy theories, and never take anything I read as gospel, which, as you said yourself, even the experts are miss reported.

 

So masks have become mandatory in certain environments. I have never heard the claim that this was a conspiracy. It was on the cards from very early - and the CDC and WHO both said so back in early March 2020 that it was likely to be required. There was no consirpacy.

And I have never heard the likelhood of vaccines becoming mandatory to access certain public environments described as a conspiracy. There is after all a long hisotry of mandatory vaccines in Europe and America. There is no conspiracy. Those saying they feared it were catching onto a likelihood that was being regularly discussed in scientific circles.

What I find extraordinary is the fact of saying that in certain places a minor inconvenience which has been well demonstrated to reduce infection of a sometimes fatal disease, is an infringement of anyone's rights.

And co-morbidities are still deadly. Is there any meaningful distinction here? Whether Covid kills directly (which it clearly does in some instances) on indirectly - the person is still dead and the measures we would take to minimise that death toll are likely to be the same.

And of course we do also have Long Covid too: a chat with my friend Anouk who has it is a deeply distressing experience. She caught Covid in late Feb or early march 2020. She got out of bed a little around December and January 2020/2021. And then again recently she has been able to get out of bed a bit. She was a successful journalist. She is now unrecogniseable.

 

I'm going to ask a medic mate whether the difference between directly deadly, or indirecetly is a meaningful distinction in his world. I really don't know. I do know that getting that kind of nuance over to the general public is incredibly difficult - especially via the mainstream media. And worse the mainstream media has so little interest in doing so. Ben Goldacre's books Bad Science and Bad Pharma are excellent reads (Bad Science is genuinely funny in places - like where he describes buying 'Dr' Gilian McKeiths PhD for his dead cat and framing it for his toilet wall) and do a great job of nailing the worst offenders at bad science reporting in the UK press. The Mail, Express and Telegraph get an absolute slating as I remember. Think he wasn't too keen on the Mirror either.

The 'opinions' of the epidemiologists though are meaningless unless they;ve been through peer reivew. Of course that doesn't make them infallible - just the best we've got.

And when I get on that aeroplane I do trust the engineers - precisely because I have no basis on which to doubt them. Just like with Covid and the epidemiologists...

 

I've searched for any such statement or evidence of it made by the WHO and cannot find it. There is a clear CDC statement from April that masks were effective. There is ongoing research into cloth masks - and their efficacy. And that's been discussed and researched extensively - and not really concluded on. Which suggests that any benefit is marginal at best.

We don't know the long term implications of any medicine: genuinely - read Ben Goldacre. Its fascinating stuff. The paucity of medical trials and the mendacity of the pharma industry on this is absolutely shocking. But why are we all so concerned about this one specifically? (I know why: because there are serious political and financial interests in ensuring we are). The side effects of specific vaccines are being found now. And there are some. As there are with every single medicine in the world. These are no worse than any others - and we can now have some confidence in that.

That's tragic. How do they know that it was the vaccine though? And if it were definitely the vaccine, as this is not a described side effect it sounds like a personal and specific reaction - of which there are always a tiny tragic few. Which as a population we accept, hoping like hell it wont be us - but knowing that the vast impact is beneficial and life saving. So we go for it. Same for all medicines in fact.

It is just not accurate to say that the risks of the vaccines are not being discussed. They are being studied and the results published. It is a conspiracy to suggest otherwise.

There is indeed no guarantee. But there is a whole set of statistics which tell us she'd have had much better chances had she had the vaccine. That's the point: science, research, painstaking stuff with hard-to-detect effects in big populations which tell us the vaccine is massively effective. It's not sexy. And it doesnt sell newspapers or prop up despotic regimes who will do all and anything to promote division in the West.

But science is all we have. And there is absolutely zero evidence of a massive conspiracy to defraud the public. Apart from anything else, think about the number of people who would have to be in on it!

 

Well: if people get vaccinated, then less people die. So they do need it. Reducing the risk of death or Long Covid is definitely worth the very tiny risks that are now being reasonably well described because of the unprecedented population sizes involved.

It's not a question of derision: it's a question of asking why people think they have the wherewithal to beleive conspiracy and to second guess the epidemiologists. The clinician point is not a valid analogy: this is not some individual doctor making a mistake. This is an enourmous body of well studied and now comprehensive research telling us that masks and vaccines save lives. I - with no medical or relevant scientific training - have absolutely no moral right to decide I am going to believe those who, with no evidence, would say otherwise.

Here's a thing: I've worked a fair bit in Africa. I've seen yellow fever and cholera. I've managed an Ebola situation. If Covid were Ebola (which we understand an awful lot less than Covid by the way) we would not be having any discussion aboout vaccine efficacy or long term side effects. So at what death toll is it acceptable to so indulge? And it is indeed an indulgence.

 

I should have said by the way: I'm all up for the discussion about the relative merits of locking down/verus not locking down etc - economy, NHS etc. Those are great discussions. But the science of masks and covid vaccines - that's specialist territory and I'm not qualified to do anything other than accept what the experts say.

 

I'm sorry - but if the WHO had done a 180 on mask effectiveness we would hear an awful lot more about it from the conspiracists. And if the CDC were clear in April 2020, then it is a hard ask to believe the WHO were contradicting that a month or less earlier. They have access to the same research after all. But if they did change their view - it would be evidence - not opinion based. And that's the whole point here/

In the context in which they are working, and particularly being played as a pawn between the US and China, I do not accept that. I think their leadership on Covid has been spectacular and aligns to everything I ever saw of them in the field too back in the day.

Cloth masks. Not masks. Cloth masks. For medical masks - the evidence is crystal clear. They reduce infection. The enironmental point is a great one. But in no way pertinent to a discussion about whether they work or not.

I really do not give a moneys about what is being discussed on social media. Im interested in science and evidence. Personally I find GB News to be a total abonimation: they really have no itnerest in the difficult nuances of science. They are consiracy fuelled. And suckers buy it. As I said: science is dull stuff. Detailed, difficult, long winded, highy nuanced. That does not work well for dishonest populists like GB News who exist to make people feel like victims.

When I say that the evidence is being published it isn't being published on FaceBook or GB News - that's for sure. If social media sites have started pulling conspiracy lies it's a bit late given the deaths which have resulted directly from them. But at last... Science isn't a matter of he said she said. It's a matter of all that hard stuff. And social media is no source for scientific fact or evidence. It is a swamp of lies and disinformation. As is GB News.

SNP - well - are they more divisive than any of the others? I don't think so. Not really muchb of a fan - but I don't think they are more 'divisive' than others.

If pointing and objecting to racism and historic race injustice is divisive - then yes - BLM is divisive. People facing up to the loss of their historic privileges is always fairly divisive. But then social coherence based on injustice isn't worth having is it?

FBPE - is something to do with Brexit? Well - sure that was divisive indeed. What a massive load of lies we were fed there! I'm a keen European if that helps?

As for the next post: this is all good material for discussion - but has nothing to do with the efficacy of vaccines or masks. I agree entirely that there is a need to discuss impact. The resources put into Covid have had a very real negative impact on the NHSs ability to treat other conditions - that is a huge issue. The corruption of our current government is scandal the like of which I find it hard to comprehend - and that we should discuss, and the impact on our Covid ridden economy.

But again: the science about the efficacy of vaccines or (medical) masks is not up for discussion... and the side effects are being carefully investigated and discussed in places where such discussion matters - peer reviewed journals.

 

Your not alone. What I am struggling to come to terms with is the suicide rate and how its recorded as cause of death. A pandemic which has resulted in lockdowns, isolation, cut off from friends, family, help and yet the suicide rate is down. In the final quarter of 2020, the peak of the pandemic in the UK, its reported the suicide rate was at its lowest level since 2001, I would of thought it would of been the opposite. But then they say, these figures should be “interpreted with caution” Due to the pandemic, inquests are/were delayed for up to 5 months, so we do not currently know the total number of suicides during the pandemic.

So, in one sentence they say the suicide rate in the UK is down, ( a good thing if its true) but then they say, we do not currently know the total number of suicides that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic, so why say they at the lowest levels since 2001 then?

 

Isn’t that good science though? The epidemiologists give the figures for what they know and qualify them likewise for reasons given.

What else are they to do? If the say nothing the Daily Mail (and GB News as they’ve been brought up here) would suggest there has been a conspiracy and the facts are being withheld from us. They will say that every time because there is a huge market for that story: we love to believe that we are victims of a conspiracy to keep us in the dark for unexplained nefarious reasons. So this is claimed in some of the press routinely and without evidence. The damage to our society resulting from both this and the rise of actual bad actors playing in the public eye with impunity is what drives me to gardening.

If they publish without their caveat that would be wrong.

This sounds as though it has been handheld exactly as it should be.