Earlier this year, a group of Oxford University scientists published a non peer-reviewed article on the MedArchive web site stating that:
Our simulations are in agreement with other studies that the current [Covid19] epidemic wave in the UK and Italy in the absence of interventions should have an approximate duration of 2-3 months, with numbers of deaths lagging behind in time relative to overall infections. Lorenco, J. et al. March 26, 2020.
The paper was posted at MedArchive on March 26, 2020. Therefore, the prediction that the disease in the UK would transition from epidemic to endemic within 2-3 months can be evaluated by the published data.
What the data show is that Covid deaths in the UK peaked on April 20 at 1,172 and fell by 96% to 43 by June 20, i.e., three months later. Thereafter, the rate of Covid deaths in the UK has remained low and stable with a count of 24 recorded on September 24.
Why then would the British Government introduce new lock-down measures that interrupt the education of both school children and university students, while causing massive economic costs?
With a new lock-down even more severe than the last, the ending of the Covid epidemic, which has yet to register in the minds of most citizens, overwhelmed as they are by the mass media Covid terror campaign, will be attributed to an all-wise government, rather than to the natural progression of the disease.
That naturally raises the question, why?
Why would the government of the UK along with governments in many other Western countries deliberately trash their own economies on the basis of a false alarm?
The Covid scare continues as governments seek to terrify the public by reporting ever increasing numbers of "cases," aka the deadly Covid19 "Second Wave."
But what is a "case"?
Is it an illness with symptoms characteristic of a Covid19 infection or just a positive reaction on the generally unreliable (with many false positives) Covid RT_PCR test, or something else?
Rarely if ever is this rather important detail divulged.
But whatever may be a "case," UK Covid deaths peaked at 1152 on April 9 and "cases" hit a peak of 6201 on May 1. "cases" then dropped by 94% to 352 on July 3, by which time the daily death toll had also fallen 94% from the April peak.
Then as the supposedly deadly "Second Wave" hit, "cases" rose to 6873 by last Friday, an 11% increase over May's peak.
This recrudescence in "cases" seems to have turned Boris Johnson into the Great Dictator intent on locking everyone up. Funny thing, though, UK Covid deaths are down to 34, or only 3% of April's peak rate and only half of the rate at the time of the July minimum in "cases."
The same pattern is evident in Canada and other North temperate zone countries. The US pattern is somewhat different, as the epidemic started later and is peaking later in Southern than in Northern states, a difference in pattern also seen with the seasonal flu. Nevertheless, it is now clear that the "Second Wave" is by no means comparable in lethality with the first and is not generating a significant excess death rate.
So the epidemic of Covid-induced death in Northern countries is largely over -- for this year, anyhow.
The only plague that remains is the pack of liars and swindlers in government intent on shrinking the economy and driving unemployment to Great Depression era levels by imposing unnecessary lockdowns, wildly spending money that central banks obediently print to the detriment of the value of your savings, disrupting education and driving a significant section of the population to a condition of clinical depression.
Breaking down the New York City report, Cuomo noted thatthe Bronx had the highest infection rate of the five boroughs, with a staggering 27.1% of respondents having COVID-19 antibodies. ...
“That number remains obnoxiously and terrifyingly high,” Cuomo said. “It’s not where we want it to be.” Source
There is a pernicious idea that the media, politicians and public health officials in the US, Canada and elsewhere seek to encourage, namely, that the spread of Covid19 is a bad thing. Actually, it's a good thing: here's why.
Epidemics don't end with everyone in quarantine, because life cannot be sustained by a population in perpetual quarantine. Eventually, a quarantined population must get back to work. then people will have to come face to face once again, and the disease will resume it's spread.
So how do epidemics end? They end when the number of people with immunity to the disease rises to the point that the number of people each infected person infects falls below one. At that point, disease spread slows and dies.*
And what determines who has immunity? There are two key factors. One is the acquisition of immunity among those who have been infected and survived the disease. The other is the process of natural selection. Those who lack the necessary immune system genes to fend off the disease die, so that a higher proportion of the residual population has the genes that provide either immunity to infection, or the capacity for recovery from infection.
The seasonal flu is an example of a non-lethal disease that induces immunity in those infected. The plague, or black death, is a an example of a more or less lethal disease that kills many but not all that it infects, leaving a more resistant population more or less immune to the disease.
And, in the worst case, are diseases against which an entire population is vulnerable, and in that case the entire population dies, as was the fate of many Amerindian communities afflicted by diseases brought by explorers and colonists from Europe to the New World.
Covid-19, fortunately, is a relatively mild disease for most who are infected by it, leaving them with protective antibodies that reduce susceptibility to future infection. The Covid epidemics working theirs way through the nations of the world seem to be killing no more than 30 to 40 people per thousand of those infected (at least in the developed world), these being mainly the elderly with existing heart or respiratory diseases**.
The end to the Covid-19 pandemic will thus occur when the virus has gone through every population causing an increased level of immunity that halts the disease's spread.
What proportion of the population must have immunity before the rate of recovery from the disease exceeds the rate of infection is not something that can be exactly predicted, since it depends on the way people in each community interact. In a nation of hermits, the disease would never spread and there could be no epidemic. Otherwise, the particular features of specific communities, in particular the way in which people interact with one another, but also many other factors such as age distribution, air quality, nutrition, etc., determine the infection rate that must be attained before an epidemic dies.
What that means is that although lock-downs, quarantines, social distancing and face masks can slow the spread of disease, they have no effect on the incidence of the disease at which disease spread slows and ultimately stops.
So well done The Bronx. With 27% of the population reported to have antibodies for Covid19, they may not be there quite yet, but they are well on the way to the condition of so-called herd immunity, when immunity to the pathogen is sufficiently widespread to cause its spread to slow and die even after a return to normal life.
Despite what crackpots such as Ron Unz of the Unz Review, New York State Governor Cuomo and the political class generally, plus most public health officials tell you, the spread of Covid19 and hence of immunity to Covid19 is good news that heralds the return to normality. But don't expect to hear that from the gerontological medical experts, the politicians and the vendors of patent medicines and vaccines now in the limelight and positioned to profit by the present panic.
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* In New York City, the hardest hit place in North America if not the world, the number of new infections reported daily is down to about one third of the peak rate, indicating that, under present conditions of restricted social mobility, herd immunity has been achieved and the epidemic is dying. An end to the lock-downs in NY City may increase the infection rate if the percentage of the population with immunity is insufficiently high for herd immunity under the changed social dynamics. Certainly, an end to the lock-downs will cause a temporary increase in the infection rate, but a new downward trend leading to extinction of the virus will resume within a reasonably short time.
What percentage of the population must have immunity to achieve herd immunity is impossible to model accurately since people do not interact randomly, but in many distinctive ways according to factors such as age, profession, the need to commute, etc. Certainly, the percentage of infected people needed for herd immunity will be less than the theoretical 67% (assuming an R nought of 3.0), and quite possibly less than half that number.
** In the Bronx, with 27% having Covid-19 antibodies, the number infected is around 382,000 people, of whom 1,700 have died for an infection-specific mortality rate of 0.44%. Of those who have died, 545 were resident of nursing homes or adult care facilities, and most had other serious medical conditions. For the remainder of the population the infection-specific mortality rate has been 0.3%. (Source: Riverdale Press).
Infectious diseases cause epidemics when infected individuals infect, on average, more than one other person, causing the total number of infections to grow despite recovery or death of those previously infected. The number of individuals infected by each infected person is call the Reproduction number (R0).
Epidemics end when R0 falls below one. The COVID19 epidemic in China went exponential in January, with an R0 peaking at almost 4.0, and then tailed off throughout late January and February.
Why did it tail off?
Simple: quarantines and sequestrations.
Quarantine means restricting people's movement. This may mean restricting or prohibiting travel from one city to another, often referred to as a "lock-down,"or it may mean closing schools, universities, and places of business, thereby keeping people largely confined to their homes, rather than crowding together in the streets, on trains and buses, and in all places of assembly where those who are infected but asymptomatic can pass on the infection.
Quarantines may extend to ordering people to stay home, or even physically barring them from leaving their homes.
Sequestration means keeping the infected out of contact with the uninfected, including their own family or others with whom they share accommodation. In Wuhan, that was achieved by the creation of many thousands of beds in isolation facilities. These facilities are not primarily treatment facilities, they are simply places where sick people are put together out of contact with healthy members of their family and community.
The effectiveness of sequestration can be greatly enhanced if infected and infectious, but asymptomatic, individuals can be identified. Simple and rapid COVID19 tests have been developed, although control of the epidemic in China seems to have been achieved prior to widespread use of testing.
China's success in controlling COVID19 is proof of the effectiveness of China's authoritarian form of government in handling a crisis of the kind that would be experienced in the event of a biological WMD attack. As the virus spreads around the world, we will learn whether Western governments are can achieve by gentler means, China's remarkable success in containing this novel Corona virus.
But China's success remains to be confirmed. As reported here, some in China say the victory over the bat flu is FAKE.
By January 2, according to government report, the number of infections in China had reached over fourteen thousand, many fewer than the fifty-four thousand that would have resulted had growth in the infection rate continued at 53% a day. Thus, it would appear that control measures adopted in China are limiting the spread of the disease.
So is the coronavirus epidemic in China being contained, or is it raging out of control with an infection rate now doubling every 24 hours?
To that question, the answer should soon be clear. With a doubling time of 24 hours, infections will exceed one million within a week, 128 million in two weeks and more than the entire population of China in less than three weeks.
Let's hope that the Government of China's statistics are correct.
