The focus now is on the UK. Perhaps tomorrow it will be your country, but the latest instalment of the Covid drama is now firmly targeting Britain, cruelly denying families across the country the one happy day of the year they were all looking forward to – Christmas.
And why?
Because there is a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 which government ministers claim is spreading rapidly, and so most of the UK must now lock down again.
But we’ve had dire warnings before which didn’t pan out. We all remember the millions of deaths guaranteed in the US and half a million in the UK that never happened, predicted by the now defunct Neil Ferguson model. And the superspreading kids that would cripple the country if they were allowed back to school.
It now seems the opposite was true and keeping children out of school could result in an extra 80,000 to 95,000 deaths.
Who can forget the asymptomatics that could kill you if you got near them, now firmly put to bed with the largest study done so far in China (nearly ten million people) demonstrating that no one was infected by an asymptomatic person – not one.
And now we are to believe yet another one: this time it’s the fear of the new variant.
For information on the UK SARS-CoV-2 variant we can turn to the consortium tasked to track genomic changes in the virus - COG-UK.
The variant described today in the House of Commons contains a novel set of mutations associated with a lineage spreading rapidly in the South East of England (and more widely) that is the subject of ongoing investigations by the UK Public Health Agencies, coordinated by Public Health England and supported by COG-UK. This variant carries a set of mutations including an N501Y mutation in the receptor binding motif of the Spike protein that the virus uses to bind to the human ACE2 receptor.
Continuing:
Most attention is on mutations in the gene that encodes the Spike protein, which is associated with viral entry into cells. There are around 4000 mutations in the Spike protein gene at the present time.
Judith Breuer, professor of virology and co-director of the division of infection and immunity at University College London, said:
We have absolutely no data to show anything related to disease severity. And indeed we have no data to suggest that any of the variants that have occurred over the last year have affected disease severity.
And we also have no data to suggest that this variant is evading immunity in the population or is behaving any differently to the other variants, so at the moment it’s a work in progress.
So the UK government cancelled Christmas for a large part of the UK based on no data to support doing so.
Is there anything different about the “new variant”?
Reported in the Daily Mail, Professor Nick Loman, from the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham, said:
There is (sic) actually 17 changes that would affect the protein structure in some way that distinguish this variant from its kind of common ancestor of other variants that are circulating, which is a lot.
However, it is quite a striking growth in that variance, much more than we would see typically, in our surveillance so far.
The second line of evidence that makes this concerning are simply the sheer number of mutations that make up this variant – quite a significantly larger number than we would normally expect to see, for reasons unknown, and the characteristic of some of those mutations.
He highlighted the lack of epidemiological connection as previously demonstrated by other variants:
And we don’t have that same epidemiological link with a large number of importations. We’ve not seen that, it’s not the same, quite the same idea, which does make you wonder exactly what’s going on.
As if it just appeared out of nowhere? A convenient new variant wholly different and unconnected to what had come before.
Of course, those observations may feed the fears of some who believe that it is in the interests of powerful biotech/pharma or even governments to keep us in fear.
By design or default we are here in a very strange and unsettling world. And there can be few now, when pushed, who would disagree that Covid and its variants are greasing the wheels of tyranny, albeit hiding behind a different paint job: Lockdowns, masks, social distancing, no theatre, no ballet, no arts, no hugging, global economies collapsing, no jobs. Being controlled by riot police and drones?
A “New Normal”
More of us are becoming aware that Covid by itself does not appear to warrant such global changes to the ‘old normal’.
According to the world’s leading expert in epidemiology, Dr John Ioannidis, it is clearly demonstrated that among people below the age of 70 years old, the median infection fatality rate was only 0.04%, strongly suggesting that lockdowns and global quarantines are not needed. That was also echoed by three leading professors of science in the Great Barrington Declaration:
The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.
So what exactly is going on? To some, who have witnessed the police violence, drones and food banks with queues stretching miles, Covid acts more like the palette that power, unbridled, paints on. A willing accomplice for those global leaders whose view of the world is a vista of violent destruction of the old order, to create a new one. Formed, seemingly, in the image of their internal demons — a ‘new normal’ — where we adapt our routine activities to enable consistent compliance to the COVID-19 protective behaviours. Protecting us from Covid while simultaneously destroying our lives.
Even the normal constraints upon a recently retired UK Supreme Court judge could not contain the prophetic warning of truth from being spoken:
if we are operating a healthy democracy what the judiciary provides is a vouching or checking mechanism for the validity [of] laws that parliament has enacted or the appropriate international treaties to which we have subscribed … The last thing we want is for government to have access to unbridled power.
Tragically, what we see is that unbridled power has now escaped and is flexing its muscle not just in the UK but globally.
But what of the data, the very facts that we can actually measure as to the real effect of any variants?
Below is a graph of the death rate associated with Covid in England from March to December, up to date. Surely, the most important measure of Covid?
What the graph demonstrates is two things: herd immunity being established, and variants, if they have had any impact, have weakened transmission of the virus, resulting in a drop in the case fatality rate (CFR) of 98%.
We are also informed that this "new variant" has been around at least since September 2020, so just how rapidly transmitted is it? And exactly what effect has it had? Well, the death rate dropped.
It seems likely that the UK's "new variant" will find itself on the rubbish heap where the Neil Ferguson Model currently lies.
Enjoy your Christmas as best you can. Put on a good movie and hug your loved ones. It’s time for this nonsense to stop, or more to the point – BE STOPPED.
