No government would want to accept that lockdowns were a terrible idea and that wider spread of the pandemic could result in the build-up of herd immunity and fewer number of deaths. However, it must be kept in mind that governments can neither be blamed nor credited for the spread of the coronavirus, because it was nature at work.
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If governments cannot be blamed, or credited, for something that they ostensibly claim to be able to control, then the very idea of government is discredited. Government is ultimately, nothing more than the decisions of bureaucrats applied to human beings and property under threat of force. As I have pointed out, the example of King Canute who knew the limits of State power is one that ultimately warns against politics and statism as guiding stars to live (and die) by.
“Lockdowns”, in the sense of government orders, don’t seem to do all that much in most cases. But “lockdowns”, in the sense of people staying home and distancing, matters immensely. The orders don’t matter because people don’t comply with government orders like that unless they want to, and we don’t have a police state that could force them to. (Nor would I want one, of course.)
But the idea of “herd immunity”, as people use it in this debate, is just not a plausible course of action. If you just let everyone get it, deaths will be far higher than what we’ve seen – probably three or four times as bad as the worst-hit areas even if hospitals have capacity, and it could easily be ten times worse if they were overwhelmed and had to let people die because they were unable to treat them. That’s not “fewer deaths”. Alternately, some people argue that a fast spread, combined with extreme isolation of vulnerable populations(which can be weathered because of the relatively short duration), could lower overall deaths. That’s not insane on the surface of it, but this isn’t a disease like HIV where you can control how it spreads relatively straightforwardly. It’s hugely contagious, and isolation to that extent is likely not possible. The worst-hit areas are nursing homes, after all, and those depend on large numbers of manual labourers in close contact with the residents. Isolating that from an otherwise-universal disease, which is as contagious as covid, is impossible.
Still, I do agree that blaming or crediting governments is kind of silly. They can affect some things around the edges – especially vaccines – but the disease wasn’t caused by Trump or Johnson or even Xi. Shit happens. (And Mr Ed, which government claimed to control the development of new viruses?)
There could be a legitimate debate in March 2020 – but now (January 2021) it is horribly clear that the lockdown policy has been a disaster in many countries, including the United Kingdom.
More than one thousand people have died of Covid 19 here (at least if we believe the official figures – we can debate that another time)and the death RATE is higher (not lower – higher) than any of the countries that did NOT lockdown, and the economy has been smashed – and that will lead to many more deaths over the coming months and years (including my own). ALL political parties supported the lockdown policy – and ALL political parties, it turns out, were wrong.
As for what could have been done instead.
A policy of closing the borders at-the-start might have worked – as it did in Taiwan (7 dead – out a population of over 20 million), the government is doing that NOW, but closing the borders now is pointless (the virus is all over the U.K. now). “Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted”.
Also there is the matter of EARLY TREATMENT.
It is basically impossible to talk to medical and academic bureaucrats about this – they just chant “There is no Early Treatment” and get applauded by my old friends the Guardian newspaper, they have no interest in the truth what-so-ever.
Senator Johnson (Wisconsin) had United States Senate hearings in which medical doctor after medical doctor, academic scientist after academic scientist, testified ON OATH that there were indeed Early Treatments for Covid 19 and that they could reduce hospitalisations by around 80%.
So some people would still have died – but about 80% fewer people would have died with Early Treatment, in short the vast majority of people who have died could-have-been-saved with Early Treatment when the first started showing signs of the disease.
Some (private – independent, not working for the big hospitals) doctors in the United States have treated THOUSANDS of patients in the United States – and treated them successfully. Whilst down the road other people are told “there is no Early Treatment” by bureaucrats and have died.
How did the international establishment react to the United States Senate hearings on Early Treatment?
They reacted by first SMEARING (they have been SMEARING Early Treatment for almost a year) and then by CENSORING doctors and scientists.
At first “Google” (and the rest of the Davos filth) “only” censored doctors and scientists when they tried to speak out themselves. But now the Tech Lords are even censoring testimony ON OATH from the United States Senate hearings.
Perhaps even more than the ELECITION RIGGING of November 2020, the smearing and covering up of Early Treatment for Covid 19 is terrible.
The brutal fact is that our international governmental and Corporate overlords (the aforementioned Davis filth) are prepared to anything, anything at all, to push the Corporate State agenda – call it what you will, Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, Sustainable Development, Build Back Better, Great Reset, Stakeholder Capitalism, Fascism, Saint-Simonism, our rulers have decided that the world must have it – even if they have to create it by producing a vast pile of dead human beings.
Nature? I thought it was the chinks.
Alsadius – we do not know whether the development and release of Covid 19 at the research centre near Wuhan was an ACCIDENT (we all hope it was an accident) or deliberate.
However, the spread of the disease was not an accident. The Chinese government denied that it could be spread from person to person – but they knew it could. And people from Wuhan were denied the right to go to other places in China – but, for quite some time, Wuhan international airport remained open and people were encouraged to go all over the world.
So whether “President” Xi ordered the creation or the realise of the disease (and we do NOT know that) he certainly encouraged its spread outside China – and there was the Chinese propaganda campaign.
All over the world fake videos of Wuhan showed up (after the virus had spread) with people dropping dead in the streets – Covid 19 does NOT operate like that (it takes a long time to kill you – it is not some fantasy virus that suddenly makes you drop dead in the streets).
There was also a vast amount of PRO lockdown propaganda – it was all over the internet, you must have see it. And it turns out that a lot of that propaganda came (disguised) from the People’s Republic of China.
The PRC dictatorship knew the virus itself would not cripple the West (those few countries and few American States that have done nothing much about the virus have not been crippled) – they knew that only a LOCKDOWN would cripple the West, so the LOCKDOWN policy was what they pushed.
“But they also did it China” – in Wuhan they did (and not for all that long), not the long crippling national lockdowns they encouraged in the West.
And the Western establishment helped the campaign every-step-of-way.
That is why Early Treatment was smeared in the West – they needed lots of people to die to justify the lockdowns.
Yes it was that way round – the lockdowns were not intended to fight the virus, the virus (or at least its spread) was needed to justify the lockdowns, so that small businesses could be destroyed, and the Agenda 21 Agenda 2030 vision of vast government and a few vast “pet” corporations, could be achieved.
There was a conference and special celebration of that Agenda in a city in late 2019 – that city was Wuhan.
I say again – the virus might have been released by ACCIDENT, but this accident was most certainly taken advantage of to push a pre existing agenda. Both “President” Xi and by the forces that control Puppet (“President”) Biden.
As for Donald John Trump – for most of 2020 (as for the four years years) he struggled with the horrible fact, which he could not seem to admit even to himself, that he was NOT in control of the American government.
Every time he mentioned Early Treatment a creature (such as Dr Fauci) would appear – and smear, and smear, and smear,
Ditto everything else – such as when he started to wonder if the lockdowns were a good idea.
The fatal flaw of President Trump was pride – he could not seem to be able to say publicly “the United States government is not controlled by the President – it is part of an international establishment which has nothing but hatred and contempt for ordinary people”.
After all he was in the Whitehouse he had all the trappings of power (the trappings of power – but not the reality of power) – people saluting him and so on, it was too difficult to admit (perhaps even to himself) “I do not have power”.
Should anyone doubt this – remember that the crimes (the very serious crimes) of Joseph Biden and others were not prosecuted when President Trump was “in power” – indeed he himself was put on trial for the “crime” of mentioning these crimes.
The FBI and the “Justice” Department had no intention of prosecuting the crimes of people such as Joseph Biden – they have no loyalty to the Constitution or the people of the United States, in fact they hate and despise the Constitution and people of the United States.
As does the government and international establishment in general.
The virus may indeed have been an accident – but the present situation is most certainly NOT an accident.
Indeed various international bodies (Corporate as well as governmental) were wargaming how they would use a virus (should a virus happen to come along) to impose a totalitarian society – they were wargaming that as recently as 2019.
@Alsadius
I won’t take issue with the rest of what you say, although I might, but it really isn’t hugely contagious (and do you mean contagious or infectious?). Measles is much more contagious/infectious, for example.
I don’t blame government for the spread of the virus among the general population. I do blame then for deliberately exposing old and vulnerable people to infection by discharging infected patients into ‘care homes’, where the residents suffered more, because such facilities are not equipped to provide the sort of medical care necessary under the circumstances, and their ‘nearest and dearest’ relatives were denied access to their dying relatives.
I don’t even know if it were a deliberate policy, but it was probably a policy initiated by bureaucrats who have/had no experience outside their decision making committee and cared only to meed their targets.
Just a symptom of the Kafkaesque society we now live in.
By the way Dr Fauci has not gone away – I spotted him American television the other day.
He was gloating over the agenda of “President Biden” (or rather of the forces that control this senile puppet who was imposed by massive Election Rigging) of spreading ABORTION around the world and in the United States itself.
Fauci used the term “reproductive health” which is the code term for mass (industrial scale) abortion.
There is one human life that Fauci values – his own, which is why (for example) he takes a lot Vitamin D ever day (not really advising other people to do so – because other people do not matter) and it is why that if ever got Covid 19 he would rush to get the Early Treatment he, and the entire establishment (some far more than he) have smeared for the best part of a year.
Remember “New York get everything right”.
New York has the highest (not lowest – highest) Covid Death Rate in the world.
But Fauci did not misspeak – he meant exactly what he said.
After all – without a high death rate how would one justify a lockdown and (after the lockdown is over) the rest of the Progressive Corporate State agenda?
From his point of view (indeed from the point of view of the international establishment generally) New York DID INDEED “get everything right”.
Their plan worked – it achieved exactly what it was intended to achieve. And very large numbers of people dying was a necessary part of that.
The international establishment will do anything, anything at all, to achieve the society they wish to create.
“President” Xi (perhaps the most senior member of the international establishment) was talking about it only the other day.
International governance, with much the same taxes and regulations everywhere – and the joining together of Big Government and Big Business (for the good of everyone – of course).
What is a couple of million dead from a virus if it achieves such a noble objective?
The establishment in the West firmly agrees with “President” Xi – which is why they are busy spreading the Social Credit system of censorship and control.
It is NOT because the love Xi (they may not even like him) – it is because he shares their Davos objectives.
When we are all correctly “re educated” it will all seem totally and reasonable and correct to us.
On American television various “nice” people are already explaining how this is necessary and for our own good.
Short version.
Lockdowns – a terrible policy which will cause terrible harm and much death. (whether or not it was intended to).
The correct policy is to treat the sick (treat EARLY with the combination of medications the establishment have smeared) and let everyone else work.
Just one stray comment regarding this small point:
If I were running a virus lab and wanted to release the Kraken (so to speak), I wouldn’t run down to my small local market and dump it out.
If this was an accidental release, then all of China’s actions following would be logical, not wanting to be the only nation in dire straits. Once you have the virus throughout your own local area and it’s too late, you send out carriers to make sure everyone suffers with you.
Alsadius,
What data do you base this statement on?
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/corona-closure-is-nuclear-bomb-german-researcher-654026
https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns-dont-prevent-coronavirus-spread/
https://fee.org/articles/3-studies-that-show-lockdowns-are-ineffective-at-slowing-covid-19/
Why do you say that it’s not a plausible course of action? I think what you mean to say is that it’s not an optimal course of action, right? But doesn’t that depend on what one wishes to achieve?
For instance, let us assume that you are right: achieving herd immunity would lead to lower overall deaths. A lot of data does not support your view, but lets assume you are right for the sake of argument. Then if the goal is to lower overall deaths at ANY cost, then achieving herd immunity is not the optimal strategy, but if the goal is to lower overall deaths at almost any cost, then achieving herd immunity is probably not the optimal strategy but it MIGHT be. This leads us to those messy question you do not appear interested in asking yourself: how much is one life worth?
How many freedoms for [insert population of country or state or city or town here] is worth giving up for [insert number of weeks or months here] for the sake of a [insert % here] chance of saving [X] more lives? How many additional jobs lost is worth saving X additional lives? Etc.
But you do not appear to be interested in asking these hard questions.
This certainly makes sense intuitively for many reasons and I certainly used to believe this. Some things that make sense intuitively are actually false. What data do you base this statement on?
Do you know what percentage of people are asymptomatic? If everyone in theory got coronavirus “at once” what percentage would require hospitalization, do you think? If a city has already achieved herd immunity how would you know?
So because this isn’t a disease like HIV, you don’t think that such a plan could “lower overall deaths”? Why not? And lower overall deaths compared to what? What data are you basing this on? Is lowering overall deaths the primary goal of how you analyze the policy responses to COVID or is lowering overall deaths effectively the only goal of how you analyze the policy responses to COVID? You may claim the former, but I believe you lack the self awareness to recognize that the latter is an unspoken presumption you believe in that informs how you approach this entire issue.
If, in your analysis of policy responses to COVID pandemic, you are valuing human life too much and unemployment and individual rights too little, how would you know? There is of course no “right” answer of how many freedoms for (lets say) 100 people for 6 months that 1 life is worth, but there are wrong answers.
How do you know that your answer to that question (which is an assumption you are unaware of that undergirds your analysis of policies in response to COVID and leads you to dismiss alternatives to your own preferences you have not analyzed with data as “not plausible”) is not wrong?
Clovis has got there first, but please can we stop regarding this thing as highly infectious.
We have massive queues for testing at the moment in New Zealand because of this misinformation. People really believe that incidental contact, even going to the same place days later, can cause infection. Yet we know that contact has to be for quite some time or very close to deliver sufficient viral load. Because we have had few cases we have been able to track all of them in cause, and no-one has been an incidental contact.
So we have people worried to death who are 100% safe because of this stupid “hugely contagious” thing the media keep pushing.
@Alsadius,
My personal opinion on Covid is as follows:
There was a release of a virus in Wuhan from their biological weaponry laboratory. The Chinese did not know which one so went into lockdown mode. The rest of the world followed suit. Now the politicians have painted themselves into a corner, they will not admit they were wrong and besides, the power, once acquired, is never given up without war.
Not a single politician had enough sense to stop and think things through. I must have posted about the Diamond Princess cruise ship either here or elsewhere. It provided a perfect petri dish experiment with the infection. The relevant bit from the Wikipedia entry is:
So out of 3,711 people only 712 became infected (a 19% infection rate among a population in close proximity with each other and sharing the same dining rooms, air conditioning etc.) and of those infected, 14 died for a death rate among those infected of 1.966%. Bear in mind that the passengers were likely elderly (to afford such a cruise) likely to have pre existing conditions (high blood pressure, diabetes, heart and circulatory conditions and other age related factors etc.). But set that aside and note that 14 dead out of 3711 is a 0.377% death rate. Sad for the people concerned but compared with a normal flu season, it is a rounding error.
Similarly, worldwide, there have been a claimed 2 million dead. TWO MILLION DEAD!!!!!! TWO MILLION I TELLS YA!!!!!!!. Which, taking the world population as 7 billion means a death rate of 0.02857% or one person in 3,500. Hardly what I would call either a highly infectious disease or a disastrous death toll. Compared with the numbers of people dying every day of diseases such as malaria, measles etc, and it is trivial. And we have this pantomime going on? Pull the other one – it has bells on.
So where is your evidence that this highly contagious, has a high mortality rate and justifies your claims? All I can see is that the various governments have continued to count anyone dying with Covid (not “of Covid”) or tested positive within the last 28 days as a Covid death, even if they died in a car crash, were shot or some other cause of death. Just like Chicken Little claiming that the sky is going to fall and kill everyone, they are maintaining the panic for their own ends.
The Governments of the world have also not “closed the book” on the last Flu season but continue to total up the numbers from the first occurrence, which they do not do with the normal seasonal flu. We might as well go the whole hog and total up all the deaths from Flu from the 1918 outbreak and claim that ZOMG!!!! Flu is so lethal that we must shut the entire world down in perpetuity. It makes as much sense as counting every single death of anyone over the last year regardless of the true cause of death.
And where are the deaths from ordinary, seasonal influenza? Odd that no one has recently died of that cause, eh? But the governments have fudged the figures so much that we will never find out the truth.
As for vaccines, then the politicians have conveniently forgotten the Nuremberg protocols – one of which is that you cannot administer drugs or vaccines to humans unless it has been tested on animals first or perform medical experiments on people without their consent. Jews for some inexplicable reason are not considered to be animals and are broadly defined as human (the world needs a sarcasm font, right enough). Another is that you cannot rely on “I vuz only obeying zer orders” when committing crimes against humanity. So forcing people to have a vaccination using an untested vaccine and commanding doctors to “obey orders” to do so … Can I call them Nazis and be done with it?
There is a certain class of commentator that wishes to spread fear and panic. It’s what they do.
But even if it is ‘hugely infectious’, it is not hugely fatal*. Unless you fall into specific categories, which, indecently were well known back in March; extreme old age, weakened through some existing illness or other medical condition or morbidly obese, but even these people can ‘self isolate’ and remain relatively safe.
In my opinion the BBC, part of the ‘deep state’ are largely responsible for the terror campaign waged against the British population, with their headlines of ‘China shutdown fifteen cities’ in February, to Italy can’t cope with the huge number of COVID victims – telling us at the same time, COVID-19 attacks everyone, as filming in a supposedly overcrowded ward in Lombardy, showing clearly elderly patients who had probably enjoyed a very rich and fulfilling life – ( they were Italians in the affluent part of Italy, after all ) – a life, which sadly was drawing to a close. Something always gets you in the end.
It’s not through ignorance, but malice. OK, it could be stupidity.
* The common cold is hugely infectious, influenza is hugely infectious. It goes around every year, and life goes on as usual. Except 2020, when those with little perspective and no emotional continence somehow, managed to take over. You might think there was a plan or something.
Dear Samizdata Illuminatus (Arkham, Massachusetts)
Nature is as nature does.
There is f*** all our beloved government™ (PBUI) can do about that.
England and Wales all-cause mortality 2020 week 1 to 2021 Week 2 by age group:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/189200946@N04/50878336787/in/dateposted-public/
Forget about ‘with covid’; that is so hopelessly compromised – the only metric worth considering is all-cause mortality.
DP
Just a thought on the original question of hubris on the part of government officials and their experts: I am a bit of an outlier here but it seems to me that the pols were in a Catch 22. It’s a two way street, vast numbers of people expect and demand that the government does something, anything. Bold, decisive people are perceived to be leaders, while honest, realistic people don’t grab the attention of the public. It is very difficult to face down the public and acknowledge reality and uncertainty.
Consider, also, that the back and forth flow of information between the public and the political class is mediated by the media. The input of down to earth, practical people is disregarded and doesn’t pass through the media filter; they are mundane and BORING. The media, of course, distorts the information flow by disseminating the most attention getting data while simultaneously amplifying the input of the cranks and histrionics. This influences the perception of both the public and the officials.
BTW, after 9/11 there were numerous committees looking into establishing guidelines, protocols, and contingencies for a bioterror attack et al, yet the US was still caught flat footed, lest you thought that bureaucrats are actually doing their jobs.
I am amused the Biden administration is claiming they will turn this crisis around by relying on the science and the experts, never mind that they are the same damn people.
The discussions about lockdowns would not have been necessary, had the use of HCQ not been banned by the government.
The government knowingly withheld a treatment that could have significantly improved health outcomes, but for political reasons (Trump I suspect)
Across the worlds hundreds of thousands have been sacrificed for political goals.
If they’re prepared to do this, I’m not willing to give them any benefit of the doubt. They’re evil bastards, and we’re so fucked because we cant do anything about it.
BTW here’s a new report from the American Journal of Medicine highlighting the positive results from HCQ use:
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30673-2/fulltext
But its all posturing bollocks, because the studies published around the time of SARS spelled out HCQ’s use with corona viruses.
Politicians in general, maybe. But not Boris Johnson. He’d just been elected in December, had a very respectable majority and was assured of five more years. But because he isn’t the man he gave us to think he was, he buckled from his original stance ( it was the BBC that applied the buckling force, yes ), and listened to the Communists on SAGE. The ‘Red Wall’ may have crumbled, but the Red Army has been well entrenched and were fighting a successful rear guard action in the British Civil service. The measure of its success can be assessed, by the fact that it’s Whitty et al, who govern us now.
Had Johnson followed the Swedish example ( which admittedly hadn’t yet been set in March 2020 ) we would have the same degree as mortality as Sweden, but much less economic damage – and he could have cruised home to another election victory in 2024, by which time us Proles would have completely forgotten about COVID.
How many of the comments on this thread if made by private individuals on Twitter would have been deleted and possibly led to accounts being closed?
How many, if made by public figures or politicians, would have ended careers or at least current employments?
Further to my post re: HCQ
Facebook is now backtracking
https://twitter.com/drsimonegold/status/1354936464254107650
Trumps been ousted, mission accomplished. Time to rehabilitate HCQ.
Some papers showed that HCQ was effective against Covid.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/?fbclid=IwAR0PmDgxssg14vbCD5Q6yKtSb-IYNNqxXvSxdi-is5A8Pp2n6NWOiUVJ4BM
More studies were done, and the meta-analysis showed that it wasn’t.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7471562/
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.15.20151852v1
Ging, the medical efficacy of HCQ was clear for decades.
Then when it was proposed for COVID 19 a couple of spurious studies are generated to muddy the waters.
Then Biden “Wins”
Then further studies are released to repudiate those negative studies to effectively restore the status quo ante.
You’re free to think as you want.
But here’s a 50 minute presentation from Dr Simone Gold detailing the corruption of the Medical process by money and power:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxdxf-zHfU8
So, however they got there, the ChiComms had a virus running amok in Wuhan. They wisely close down Wuhan to travel…except to the rest of the world (!) How is that NOT an attack?
Whatever else they thought, can anyone believe the ChiComms were not thinking of this as a test: see how the virus spreads, see how governments and peoples react, measure what’s effective. All the while knowing the virus won’t really kill that many (I wonder if the ChiComms knew about early treatments discussed here? Have they stocked up on HCQ?).
And now that they’ve seen our pitiful reactions, they are updating their biowarfare plans. The next one won’t be a test.
Am I wrong? Paranoid? Both? “Even paranoids have enemies” – H. Kissinger 🙂
Oh yes, we have first hand experience of that, here.
Yep, before HCQ is prescribed for COVID-19, or the WhuHan flu, we must have widespread randomized double blind trials’, for a drug that has been on sale over the counter for forty years. This was the pretext to delay the use of a cheap effective freely available drug. The people who have put forward that lie, are responsible for tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Flubber, I agree that HCQ has been an effective medicine for decades. Though as I remember, it’s used against malaria and autoimmune diseases, not against viral infections.
This is the latest paper I’ve found that looks at large-scale studies of HCQ on covid.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7843108/
Do you have any others?
New York state gives you an idea of the death toll that we should expect by the end. We are more than half way there:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/
Look at the death graph at the end, their fatalities were front loaded and are about 0.23% of their population. Note the fact that they have a very mild second wave. NY has fatalities per million at 2208 and the UK has 1515.
So, we should expect about 30K more deaths before the pandemic is over—we should reach this number by the end of February at the current rate.
(This is just a putative analysis, but I think that it is interesting to consider, nonetheless. I wouldn’t bet too much on it.)
If you look at New York’s experience in and concentrate only on the graph that shows the number of deaths, you will see that they are essentially over COVID-19. Their first wave was about twice as bad as the UK’s per capita, however, they haven’t had second wave to speak of. New Jersey shows the same trend and approximately the same per capita numbers.
What we can learn from this is that the disease is likely to kill about 0.2% of the population.
In the UK, we have experienced a 0.15% loss leaving another 0.05% to go before we reach herd immunity. That’s another 33,000 people.
At the current rate, we would expect to hit this target by the end of February.
Is that centralized interference for political reasons in the relationship between a patient and his/her doctor has been an utter disaster.
And that .2% is drawn predominately from the older >60 age demographic. Those who may have other conditions that have weakened their state of health, pre-existing health conditions – obesity, diabetes ( not unrelated to obesity ). But, we already knew that back in January ‘2020, this is not ‘rocket science’, old people tend to be frail, sick people are already sick, and so on.
But, it’s not all hopeless for these folks. Given the correct advice at the beginning of the pandemic, they could have self isolated and taken reasonable precautions to reduce their chances of getting infected. They should probably be taking those precautions anyway.
QED: The lockdown was a futile counterproductive exercise, which has destroyed ~20% of our economy and will doom millions over decades to a poorer, less healthy, less fulfilling existence.
And of course we know that to be true because, flattening the curve of the death rate due to the pandemic, does not reduce the area under the curve. Rather it prolongs the duration of the pandemic.
What would have been over by April last year is still ongoing.
Everyone over age 50 must be vaccinated before the lockdown will be lifted. Anyone on Samizdata can not see where this is going?
Compulsion, and for those holdouts, turning the rest of the population against them.
Disease ridden refuseniks are stopping you from re-opening your business!