Boris Johnson wasted seven weeks talking nonsense about coronavirus, says expert
Don’t take my word for it; this information comes from leading medical journal The Lancet.
Editor Richard Horton makes his feeling clear in this tweet:
It said it took a study from Imperial to understand the likely burden of COVID-19 on the NHS. But read the first paper we published on COVID-19 on Jan 24. 32% admitted to ITU with 15% mortality. We have wasted 7 weeks. This crisis was entirely preventable. https://t.co/eahwRnaBFZ
— richard horton (@richardhorton1) March 17, 2020
He points out that the current strategy of “suppression” was recommended by The Lancet on January 24. That’s now eight weeks ago.
That’s the strategy followed by China, South Korea, Taiwan and other countries that have been successful in reducing the rate of infection. China is now reporting no new cases at all.
And it was also recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The Conservative government is saying the science has changed, citing a report by Imperial College which states that Boris Johnson’s former policy of “mitigation” – allowing the virus to spread to create “herd immunity” – would lead to 250,000 deaths, both from the virus and because people with other illnesses would be denied treatment by an overwhelmed NHS.
(Fears are high that other patients will still be passed over for treatment – including cancer patients.)
But the information in the Imperial College report was already available when Johnson was forming his “mitigation” policy.
Writing in Byline Times, Mike Buckley stated that the government was right to think “herd immunity” was worth having – but ignored the fact that it has never been achieved through mass infection; it has only been managed via vaccination.
“To attempt to create herd immunity through mass infection for a disease with at least a 1% mortality rate would lead to an unacceptable numbers of deaths, all the more so in a country with a comparatively low number of intensive care beds, ventilators and specialist staff where access to care will be at a premium,” he wrote.
“Given that the UK knew that containment is possible from examples in Asia, to choose to go down this path – being aware that tens of thousands of vulnerable and elderly people would die as a result – is abhorrent.
“What makes the policy even more flawed is that we do not yet know enough about COVID-19 to know that mass infection would equate to mass immunity.”
His conclusion:
“Foreign governments, the WHO, teams of scientists and our own NHS professionals have been arguing for weeks that the Government’s strategy would lead to disaster.
“We have lost seven weeks which could have been used to order and make ventilators, testing kits and protective gear for medical and care staff.
“We have lost seven weeks which could have been used to retrain staff and build capacity.
“We have allowed the Coronavirus to spread for seven weeks when we could have held it back.”
Those are the facts of the coronavirus in the UK.
While Johnson has finally moved in the right direction by closing schools and leisure facilities, and launching an economic package of support for affected businesses, it comes more than seven weeks late.
When we come to count the cost, it will be our duty to hold Johnson responsible for his dithering. Will we?
Source: The Coronavirus Crisis: Mistake Over ‘Herd Immunity’ Has Cost Us Vital Time – Byline Times
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Dear Vox Political,
The Tories have been causing early death (biggest surge since after second world war since 2015) from babes to grannies.
The elderly have doubled in pensioner deaths from 1 to 2 per cent a year, we are dying quicker in retirement and, since 2011, women in their 50s and 60s have had a high and still increasing earth death rate. Men and women from 60 are the newest I Daniel Blakes, also increasingly early dying. Life expectancy has not stalled. The people BEFORE retirement are ALREADY DEAD.
The moment the WHO told Tory Boris, that most of the people who would die were the elderly, this fatal ‘herd immunity’ was permitted to be let loose on us.
The sole purpose of pension reform was for pension industry never to pay out pensions from contributions paid all working live.
And to further thieve the National Insurance Fund from people (90 per cent annual budget is state pension).
Well I could not have put it better myself, This virus is a gift from god the tories love it and will do well out of it including make money out of it
What I dislike is how the media and politicians in the early running compared CV to seasonal flu, n1h1 (swine flu) knowing the average person would look only at the death rate and not the rate of infection over a timeline.
Yes, less people die from CV, but this works in tandem with the outbreak being suppressed before it can get out of control, as well as the capacity of health services in an affected region.
This is important to note because while intensive care units fill up, people don’t stop getting having accidents, getting cancer or having other life changing health events.. and the outbreak directly impedes the hospitals ability to care for them, thus you have the situation where cv indirectly causes fatalities in persons who don’t even have it.
This should also be a kick up the arse for younger people.. yes we fair better than our elders but that doesn’t mean you won’t come unstuck if you need healthcare for other reasons.
Much like how many frail/vulnerable people depend on carers/pa’s, what happens to them if they can’t access help, not all have “friends, family, neighbours” (as suggested by government guidelines) to fall back on.
Its how they calculate their best/worst case scenario mortality rates, you have to consider the disruption/knock on effects to other aspects of life.
Very true. The point about the fact of life continuing to go on with road accidents, strokes, heart attacks was solved by the Chinese by having separate covid19 hospitals. The 7 week delay by this govt could have been use to do that sort of planning. But no. But now we do know that their strategy to infect as many as possible hasnt been dropped but just modified. That will result in hospital overload and the triage rules being applied. Basically whatever is the matter of you’re over 60 or have any other medical problem you will not be given any treatment no matter how survivable the problem. Fall and cut an artery ? Go bleed to death. Have a broken leg? No cast no treatment just a horrible death from kidney failure or gangrene
There was also a major error made when tourists returning from Italy were not isolated like the ones returning home from the cruise ship near Japan, instead they were allowed to return, making their own way to their homes. Thus spreading the disease in the UK.
I’m sickened by the amount of people sharing posts saying what a great job Johnson is doing.Right wing propaganda being shared by indoctrinated sheep.
Who actually agreed the selection of the current yes men intellectual experts who work Johnsons puppet strings? It would seem they never really took any notice or advice from those real experts in the real front line of fighting this threat on the ground and just carried on with their own intellectual models with the addition of a possible dark agenda. Once again with all things to do with the dark side they lack any common sense in terms of whatever they touch. The down side of continuing on their path is the potential for civil unrest ….. maybe that is also behind the close containment rules. What next on their agenda closing all supply shops? I still fear something dark is being formulated, big time.
Not all scientists are dispassionate, or methodical or even very clever. I look at those suppsely “advising” Johnson and i see a clique of political yes men and poodles as well as the svengali Cummings who has a very high regard for his own ability. He has a degree in history. Not dissing arts graduates, but they are not usuglly the ones to be making life and death decisions about milions of people. He is driven by his own sense of superiorty, in turn founded on eugenics. He needs to be locked up and tried at Nuremberg.
It seems widely believed that the government went down an erroneous path and that the Imperial College study about mass deaths opened their eyes. It certainly opened many other people’s eyes. But people seem to have forgotten that right at the start, the government told the media it was preparing for 210,000 to 315,000 excess deaths over 15 weeks from the epidemic. They pursued the strategy knowing exactly what the Imperial study revealed weeks after. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/06/uk-has-plans-to-deal-with-pandemic-causing-up-to-315000-deaths