A Case of Stolen Identity and the Death of Common Sense
Why hasn’t anyone mentioned that COVID has virtually cured Cancer? The Lancet medical journal studied it extensively. In August 2020, it found that Cancer admissions referred from GPs were down 80% as a direct result of COVID measures. Eighty percent! That’s a miracle cure, surely? Obviously not; one would need to be bordering on stupid not to draw the appropriate conclusions. And it’s not just cancer patients suffering either; virtually all aspects of medical care have taken a back seat in the NHS, in preparation for the onslaught from the virus that never occurred in the vast majority of hospitals.
Featured in Decision Magazine, Nov 2020.
NHS digital data shows that admissions, nationwide, are down 36%, to protect us from a virus that turns out to have an average victim age of 81. When considering 7 non-COVID related major illnesses, including heart attacks, admissions were down by 173,000 just for the three months up to June 2020. Medical wait lists are now the longest they’ve been since 2008 and, despite a mandate for patients to be seen within 18weeks, 140,000 of them now have queues longer than 12 months.
Matt Hancock’s claim that ‘the NHS is open for business’ doesn’t ring true for many.
None of this will be new to you though; it’s a conversation that’s been had, up and down the country, for months now. The COVID pandemic makes a very small percentage of the population vulnerable, yet the economic pandemic, caused by COVID-measures, makes virtually everyone vulnerable; how is this acceptable? And how have we let our civil liberties be eroded, so easily, to an extent that has never been seen before?
Fear.
People act out of fear because it is fed to them on a daily basis. Early on in the crisis. statistics were, and still are, manipulated, along with the exceptional tragedies highlighted as if common-place. Fear of this potentially indiscriminate killer generated a level of conformity that has never been seen outside of dictatorships.
The Government acts out of fear of losing voters and having ‘blood on its hands’; the ‘premature’ death of many elderly and vulnerable. This comes at the expense of a much greater price to pay, in the form of death and suffering throughout a much larger group of society, who ironically wouldn’t be affected by the virus any more than they would by a mild flu or a cold. However, this ‘blood’ is presumably easier to deal with because the impact isn’t so immediate, so transparent; the effect will be seen over years rather than weeks.
Statistics show an increase in suicide, domestic violence and mental illness; a worrying indicator of what’s to come but, evidently, these numbers still don’t challenge the emotive power of the daily toll of our elderly citizens.
The justification for the second lockdown couldn’t be the actual figures, so the ‘potential death-rate’ was used instead; the wrath we would face should we not surrender our freedom of movement. Highlighted as up to 4,000 deaths per day, these statistics were based upon the same figures that suggested up to 1,000 per day by September 2020, yet only reached 250. Criticised immediately by the UK Statistics Authority as ‘out-of-date and over-estimated’, it seems that the Government’s advisory committee was never going to let the real facts get in the way of a good scaremongering strategy. In addition to the misleading data, the same rhetoric was delivered regarding the overloading of the NHS, despite this already having been identified as a very geographically-specific issue; some metropolitan areas may well face peak-loading issues, but the corollary to this being that businesses in Cornwall and the Highlands should be forced to close, is a nonsense.
And, lastly, we were told that ‘we can’t put Doctors and Nurses in the position of having to choose who will live and die’ yet, this is being done subversively with tens of thousands of patients, with other ailments, who aren’t receiving essential early diagnosis and treatment.
What’s really going on here? Why is the Government mitigating a potential risk of some ICU’s being overloaded, by guaranteeing the decimation of vast swathes of the economy? Is this really a strategy to protect the greater good or a delicately trodden path that’s attempting to avoid a PR disaster?
In a vein that feels similar to companies that chase positive short-term sentiment to appease shareholders, at the expense of a longer-term strategy, it seems that the Government is chasing popularity and knee-jerk reacting to whatever it feels will minimise voter fall-out. This isn’t an approach that’s limited to the party in charge though; in fact, the opposition seems to infer that it would be even more aggressive with lockdown measures, should it be at the helm.
The Left’s support for such authoritarian measures is quite surprising, given its traditional working-class supporter base suffers most from these draconian initiatives. In fact, it seems as though we no longer have left-wing thinking in these strange times. The Left and Right are both peddling authoritarian rule under the guise of care, yet the controlling measures being implemented are traditionally reserved for the far right. And ironically, it’s the usual suspects in the form of Trump, Bolsonaro and Farage, typically accused of being far right, who have been campaigning to free the people and allow civil liberties to return – we couldn’t have made this up a year ago.
Let’s assume that the ‘Lockdown 2’ is effective at addressing the rising curve, what then? Presumably on Dec 2nd, we go back to social distancing, eating out and being able to resume a modicum of normality again. But, with December, January and February likely to be the coldest months since the virus hit our shores, what happens when the inevitable spike reappears? Lockdown 3; the final nail in the coffin for myriad organisations that have been annihilated in recent months and are hanging on by a thread?
Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) suggests that flip-flopping with strategies is not an acceptable course of action; eat out to help out to Lockdown 2 and then back again. His solution is to have a far longer and more consistent Lockdown ‘until a Vaccine is available’. It’s no surprise that a scientist would advise this course of action; without taking any other factors whatsoever into account, this is indeed the most effective way to deal with this pandemic. However, we don’t live in a science lab and his advice is laser-focused upon solving a COVID specific issue, not leading a population and an economy through an unprecedented challenge.
We have created a medical catastrophe for hundreds of thousands of patients. We have decimated the economy and destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of workers. Thousands of families are at breaking point, financially and mentally… to protect the few, who arguably could protect themselves, either independently or with state support.
The Great Barrington Declaration ( https://gbdeclaration.org ) is a report that has been produced by a consortium of infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists. It sets out their ‘grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts or prevailing COVID-19 policies’. Signed by almost 12,000 medical and public health scientists, 35,000 medical practitioners and over 625,000 concerned citizens, it recommends an approach entitled ‘Focused Protection’. The declaration is apolitical and identifies that not only will there be non-COVID 19 excess deaths for years to come, as a result of current measures, but also that ‘the working class and younger members of society will carry the heaviest burden’.
The report makes for compelling reading, though critics argue that it can’t be this clear cut. As a matter of course there is no magic wand, no silver bullet; any approach will have its detractors and not everyone will benefit. But where is the greater-good in all of this decision making? Not the sentiment du jour, but the long-term strategy that will deliver the lesser of two or more evils?
And where is the learning from our current modus operandi, if another virus was to hit in the next few years? Will our approach be to repeatedly decimate all economies until the vaccines can be created, for fear of overloading ICU’s?
Jonathan Athow, the ONS's deputy national statistician for economic statistics notes "Overall employment is down about half a million since the pandemic began and there are particular groups who seem to be most affected, young people in particular." A significant jump in unemployment is also expected when the furlough scheme ends.
Whitehall’s spending watchdog has said, the Treasury’s furlough scheme, with a price tag of £47bn for the first 6 months, was the single most expensive intervention in the National Audit Office tracker. Despite this, unemployment rose in the third quarter of 2020 faster than at any other time in recorded history. Rishi Sunak, stated “the figures underline the scale of the challenge we’re facing” adding “I want to reassure anyone that is worried about the coming winter months that we will continue to support those affected.” This ‘reassurance’ comes at substantial cost; a cost for a problem that we’ve proactively created.
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which keeps tabs on government spending, the Government would have to borrow £372bn for the current financial year (April 2020 to April 2021). And that's before the cost of new lockdowns and support measures announced in the autumn are considered. To put this into context, the planned borrowing for this period was originally £55bn.
While a good proportion has been and will be spent on the NHS, PPE, Test and Trace and the like, it is reasonable to assume that £200bn of this borrowing is directly attributable to mechanisms created to support the economic collapse that was caused by the COVID response strategy (Furlough, CBILS, BBLS, Eat out etc). One has to ask the question as to whether this could have been spent more wisely, if a Focused Protection approach had been adopted from the outset? And, let’s not forget, this cost is merely the spend in the current period. The actual cost of the economic collapse will be far greater for years to come, in the same way as the medical ramifications for myriad delayed, deferred and downright neglected patients.
A true leader would ‘grasp the nettle’; acknowledging that we will have excess deaths and that some metropolitan areas will have excess loading in ICU’s. Once we’ve accepted this reality, the focus of all our efforts would be on the protection of the elderly and the vulnerable, and the redistribution of the peak-loading of ICU’s to other facilities with capacity. Yes, this will result in a non-ideal situation, some patients will die as a consequence of ambulances having to drive another 50 miles. It won’t be perfect for the Grandparent primary carers who face having to choose between an exposure to the risk or keeping their grandchild away from school. It’s not ideal; virus pandemics aren’t ideal, that’s innately part of their proposition. But the greater good is the majority of the population, not the few and, as abrasive as this sounds, certainly not the octogenarians if their salvation is at the expense of all the generations below them.
If we had leadership that chose a strategy to live with the virus and protect the minority, our entire orientation would change. Businesses would largely function as normal, as would most people. Government business bail-outs wouldn’t exist and furlough wouldn’t be everyone’s newly-learned noun this year. Instead, we’d accept that we have to amend our lifestyles to accommodate a contagion. We’d channel extensive funding into the protection of the elderly and the vulnerable, additional funding for care homes, hospitals and into mechanisms that could allow flexible scaling for ICU facilities, whether via overflow facilities such as Nightingale or rapid response and distribution resources to feed neighbouring hospitals.
As for the Left-leaning politicians, how they’ve allowed the introduction of police state powers, the suspension of democratic accountability, tech giant censorship and a reduction in the rights of free speech – all under the guise of COVID response – it beggars belief.
A true leader would direct its citizens to learn to live with the virus, while focusing protection only towards the vulnerable, allowing the majority to function as normal - economically, medically and mentally.
No leader wants to be in the position of having to choose who dies. But sometimes they don’t get a choice. And, when it comes to the tough calls, the best leaders always choose the greater good – not just today’s greater good but also tomorrow’s, because COVID-19 is certainly not the last virus pandemic that we are going to encounter.