I am not dismissing anything! I am suggesting caution, until those with more knowledge than me, or anyone else here, has examined and critiqued the methodology and conclusions.

If a cynical approach is recommended for the "drug companies" then it ought just as appropriately be applied to all.

I have found the "study". It isn't one produced by John Hopkins. It is led by someone who is employed there. It is far too complicated and specialised for someone like me to try to understand the detail, but seems to bring together a number of disparate studies and then reach an overall conclusion. That approach, of itself, raises questions in my inexpert mind. Is this a conclusion looking for data, or data on which to reach a conclusion?

I await the reviews of those who are qualified to judge. I have no doubt that if the reviews are positive, and supported by other studies which reach similar conclusions, that this will turn out to be an important contribution to future pandemic response planning.

It does though deal only with one measurement. Excess deaths. There are other considerations when planning pandemic responses.

NHS staff do have a consensus on vaccination. They are overwhelmingly in favour. Having a consensus doesn't mean having unanimity.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Caution is not using a series of separately developed vaccines which every responsible scientist involved in their development knew were going to be proved safe. A conviction backed up by extensive prior to use testing and verified by the application of millions of doses, which has provided all the long term data necessary to make informed decisions.

Waiting whilst people died in queues waiting for a respirator in overwhelmed hospitals for something given clearance by science, the WHO and our own health authorities on the basis of misinformation spread by non-expert conspiracy theorists was never an option. Either for government, common sense or the bulk of us.

To describe the vaccines as "experimental gene therapy" is to parrot the nonsense to be found in the worst kind of US misinformation site. It's been debunked many, many times. Just read this balanced and objective assessment:-

[Link]

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

You could simply compare to countries that did not lock down

You can, but the problem is that no place is identical to another. Demographics vary, as does culture and behaviour. The only truly accurate measurement would be comparing a lockdown and no lockdown happening in the same place, at the same time. And that's impossible. So broad assumptions need to be made. Only a handful of countries decided not to do it. Brazil, as I referenced, resisted at Presidential level, and had a disaster. The only Western European country was Sweden, where the demographics ought to have lent support, but it didn't work out too well did it? :-

[Link]

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Public opinion for Sweden's approach was generally supportive.

Apparently a large concern for deaths was issues in their care-homes.

Again, the vast majority of people who died of this virus were elderly and already considerably ill. I like many others think that care and measures were sensible for them.....and many mistakes early on were made....the so called experts telling people get stay in being one.

Also, no one is saying that social distancing and hygiene wasn't sensible when possible but locking down a healthy population amid a massive fear campaign was not an adult nor honest approach.

The report correctly counts the costs...many of them mental ones now.....the idea that it can be shrugged off is more ideological than practical.

Edited by Stirlingsays (03 Feb 2022 4.37pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

It's all been a waste of money and probably hasn't saved many lives at all. The damage it has done to the ecconomy and to the comming generation is massive. Governments in general are bad at what they do. It's best to vote for parties they propose the least intervention in things. At least we left the EU, probably the worst in trying to micro-manage our lives.

Edited by georgenorman (03 Feb 2022 5.48pm)