UKC

A good summary of their position over the year, the data, the implications, and a seven point plan. Most probably all pissin' into the wind.

youtube.com/watch?v=QYf8jQazky8&

The only big surprise for me was age adjusted mortality rates in the third wave (Omicron) are still higher for the 20% registered disabled than for the age adjusted population average during the second wave.

They've published a four-paragraph summary & the plan in the BMJ here: 

https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj.o1793

The plan is so light touch and so sensible I can't understand why anyone wouldn't endorse it.

But only the first part of 2, 3, and 6 are points individuals & local communities, companies, and institutions can act on. Lack of political action on the other points means, I think, that we're going to have to continue pursuing mitigations longer than would ideally have been necessary.

Thanks for the link - my tolerance of talking heads videos has not improved.

1, 3, 5, and 6 could be expanded to mitigate other respiratory illnesses and expanded use of random testing against other respiratory viruses could allow 1 to be enacted more generally.  All of which would have benefits to individual health, demand on the NHS and employee productivity far beyond Covid.  It could have done for decades, but the data garnered from Covid makes it no longer a matter of debate but of simple facts.

I won't give my views on why the government ignore this, less the thread get shunted to politics.  By FFS it's embarrassing to see entrenched thinking against the evidence.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's any "probably" about it ☹

The only chance of getting the government to implement any of those actions is if a senior cabinet minister has a significant interest (not directly of course, just somewhere in the family or similar) in a company that produces air filtration/ventilation systems.

Can't see how any of the other actions would benefit those in power, and by benefit I mean of course personally benefit. PP2/PP3 "profit" is no longer available - too much scrutiny now, but that horse has already bolted.

Nor mine! I'm grateful to Offwidth for pointing out the detail about the higher Omicron mortality rate for the disabled, though. I'd have missed that looking only at the summary; it's information that can be acted on at a local level.

I agree. What happened to the combined covid/flu panels? I haven't seen any mention of them since last year.

As far as I can tell indieSAGE's stuff is now pretty much in line with UKHSA's own reports, which indicates what sort of thing is being ignored, if not why.

Ahhhhhh Indie SAGE, where do we start with these ideologically driven odd-balls? 

If the Indie SAGE grifters had their way we'd still be in full lockdown and test driven, mask wearing, social distancing, economy wrecking, madness from last spring.  And all for a virus where the average age of death from it (sorry with it) at approx 83 years, is older that the average age of life expectancy.

Yet Indie SAGE wonder why our NHS and schools are in chaos?  Couldn't possibly be because of all of that staff 'time off' and disruption due to the pointless ongoing testing of otherwise healthy people that Indie SAGE recommend could it?  Or the £400+ billion of tax payers money so far spunked up the wall on useless control measures which now seems to be driving an inflation crisis?  Indie SAGE wanted more of this didn't they?

Oh and these masks they keep promoting.  This chap might be rather qualified to de-bunk that little comfort blanket:

youtube.com/watch?v=J3dnkbKoj4A&

Still, no doubt you'll remove this post rather than debate.  Because that's all that myopic folk can do isn't it?  Haha! 

Good of you to sign up...

Thanks, someone has to call out the bull being spouted bu those who should know better.

This is probably the most sensible take on Indie SAGE.

A few members of the communist party and other assorted weirdos giving the most pessimistic view possible, which in hindsight has been proved to be completely and utterly wrong and disastrous for the economy and the wider wellbeing of society.

...again...

Endorsing it is one thing, paying for it is another.
Has anyone actually costed it?
In particular, the installation of ventilation/air filtration systems in all public buildings.
 

I see you didn't last very long. The analysis that Stephen Petty provided on cotten masks is wrong as pretty much every study has shown they have a small significant effect in reduction of covid spread indoors. He also forgets to mention that high viral load from an infected person when coughing droplets into someones face has higher risk of infection and mortality, than infection through arerosol, and masks block direct explusion of droplets pretty effectively. For fitted FFP2 and 3 masks the protection is much more significant and even protects the wearer to an extent. The Danish study he quotes was one of the few showing no significant  effect but that was run in a period of restrictions when few people were meeting indoors and even there the result was they most likely have some preventative affect but not at a proven level. Where Stephen Petty is correct is that engineering solutions would be better (but he then unfortunately overstated the gains for improved ventilation, filtration and destruction). Good public health policy in a pandemic should include everything  that makes a significant difference and a big plus for masks is they are a cheap and quickly implemented policy. Fortunately the US has made good progress on ventilation of public spaces that will help in any future viral epidemics. It would be great if that were ever so in the UK!

That's largely happened in the US. It will almost certainly save much more money than it costs irrespective of covid (eg when the next bad flu season comes around).

How much will installing air filtration systems cost?
Who will pay for it - From the budgets of individual schools, etc. the local councils/authorities, or from Government?
Who will pay for the rest of it?  For example, who will pay the wages of staff having to self-isolate - Individual companies or Government? 

I can see why you might think pseudoscientific exceptionalism  is a good thing with your politics and calling scientists commies and weirdos is better for your cause than actually looking at the scientific consensus.

It's obviously escaped your attention that Indie SAGE had no power. Any economic or health damage from restrictions was the fault of the government.

https://www.independentsage.org/who-are-independent-sage/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/25/government-scientist-has-advoca...

A member of the communist party who’s not a communist? That’s a first for me.

It’s there ability to shape public opinion (including yours) that frustrates me. They’ve always called for more restrictions, more lockdowns ect without any consideration of the costs.

Despite the negative impact of some of the policies they’ve championed they’ve never admitted to being wrong - not once.

Yes it costs money but so does the alternative. I'm not the person to talk on ventilation details but it's not that expensive according to organisations who have done it.

Paying to stay at home if infected is expensive during peak infection periods  but again cuts costs elsewhere. Forcing infectious people to a workplace is a terrible idea: even more workers end up sick and unable to work. This tends to impact poorer workers who are also more likely to require public transport, adding to population infection pressures. We are a sick man of Europe on sick pay.

https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2021/12/uk-sick-pay-remains-a...

The cost of retro fitting fixed systems to buildings is incredibly dependant on the building.  At one end of the scale it’s ludicrously expensive, and at the other it’s not too bad.

Portable systems can go a long way however, and they’re surprisingly cheap.  Good stop gap until buildings eventually get replaced.

8 million high quality portable systems could have been purchased for the cost of “PPE” from this scandal alone - https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/ne...

I’m not sure the capacity was there to make 8 million portable systems, but building a UK based factory then building filters would have been a far better use of the money wasted/diverted.

What on earth is your problem with one Indie SAGE scientist being a communist? She also happens to sit on a government appointed SAGE panel as well. Shouldn't she be judged on her work in work matters?

What's so wrong with shaping opinion. I thought you were a free speech warrior?

Several members of Indie SAGE have admitted mistakes. Some have even had public spats. Maybe you mean they haven't  said they were wrong where you (wrongly) thought they were.

Maybe she's right and maybe she's not but I don't understand the relevance of her politics, other than to weaken your argument. 

That is because it is not their remit to look at economic costs.. pretty simple really.

There is only scientific consensus because most scientists are funded by Big Pharma and those who don't agree with 'the Science TM' are threatened, bullied and censored.  Look what happened to the Great Barrington guys.  Whether or not you agree with what they said, they did not deserve the level of vitriol that was directed against them.  Science should be about open debate, not group-think and censorship.  If you are not sure how this works, might I suggest you invest an hour or so of your time in this:

https://odysee.com/@Merovingian:6/trustwho:5

Perhaps you will just dismiss this as another 'conspiracy' video.  That is up to you, but in that case you are only deluding yourself.

Except masks do not make any significant difference yet have many damaging downsides to the development of children, the environment, etc, etc.  And in any case, you are missing the point.  Almost everyone has been exposed to Covid by now and those that want to have been vaccinated so they are protected. So what exactly is the point to wearing a mask, even if they do work as you claim (which of course they don't)?  Zero point at all!

But the alternative seems to cost LESS money AND delivers better results on overall mortality and for the economy - AKA Sweden.  By keeping the economy open and by not spreading our resource too thinly then it enables us to focus our attention towards those who need it most, i.e. the elderly and vulnerable.  Makes sense doesn't it.

so is Bruce back already ? or just a coincidence

Anyway I await another ban.  I take it as a badge of honour as clearly the points I'm making cannot be refuted.  Far easier to ban and delete the comments and opinions we don't agree with eh? 

But then again why even allow any discussion at all on here?

My ears didn't appreciate me wearing a FFP2 masks for pretty much 7 days straight 2 weeks ago but I feel like it did play a part in me not passing it on to my partner. I didn't think that'd be possible with the new variants.

Done, thanks for highlighting it was you.

I worked with such scientists: most were solely funded through independent  research money (Government, EU or big charities like Welcome Trust) and for those who worked for Indie SAGE were not paid for that.

In contrast the Barrington leaders were part funded by right wing US covid denying pressure groups, including the Koch brothers. Plus they had numerous  other clear undeclared conflicts of interest. By September 2020 their claims about herd immunity were plain impossible. They still convinced Boris to hold off for two weeks on restrictions which cost about  20,000 UK lives, due to exponential covid infection growth they said couldn't happen. I think they should be stripped of any management positions and left as independent  Profs but their University haven't even put them on ethical warnings let alone discipline them. Prof Heneghan still runs the Centre for Evidenced Based Medicine at Oxford Uni.

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/04/21/scientist-linked-to-great-barrington-dec...

The UK mask regulations allowed those who genuinely suffered from mask use not to wear them as a medical exemption. The point of wearing one now indoors in public is to lower population infection levels so we don't lose so many day's work to illness and not have 2 million people with long covid and an age adjusted mortality rate for the disabled that is higher than for the non disabled figure at the height of the lethality of the pandemic, pre vaccination. 

I've commented many times on Sweden: one thing they got right (that we got wrong) was allowing responsible outdoor social distanced meetings (we couldn't be trusted, so those who didnt care about regs just met indoors where they couldn't be seen!). The Swedish government admitted they made mistakes (especially in care homes) but bottom line they also applied strict restrictions as necessary from their infection level data (just look at OWiD covid restriction plots versus time). They had much fewer mental health pressures as a result of more outdoor human contact. They also did better than us on mental health care related to their pandemic pressures, although I'd blame as much of that poor response in the UK on terribly low funding levels as on as the pandemic. Unlike us they acted quickly when the data indicated...lockdowns were not as long nor as strict and yes less economic damage as they followed their scientific line.

I'm not watching a 90 minute video without good justification  so I dont know if it is bs or not; a kid on a trampoline aint a great start ( it stinks of "think of the children"!). Please link some text based summary stuff first. You can email it and I will comment here.

Sweden vs UK pandemic restriction  stringency index is no longer available in a straightforward way, so I've linked the plot you need to dig for.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-containment-and-health-index?tab=c...

I didn't, and they did.  Using superficial scientific credibility to spread deliberate misinformation is particularly despicable.

Science being about open debate?  Well, certainly the applications and implications of science should be widely discussed, but our best understanding of scientific fact is tested by reproducible empirical falsification, not by populist antiscientific charlatans.  

That's irrelevant. Of much more concern is Indiesage's blatant political motivations. That undermines science generally, which given the difficulty with climate change sceptics is very bad news.

That seems to be a bit of a grey area with regards to schools:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/14/1086125626/school-air-...
As for saving money long term, who knows?  I can only use my experience on the effects of flu in schools and the workforce in general and say that I've never experienced any major disruptions due to sickness attributed to flu.  

To the Dislikers, maybe answer the questions objectively as opposed to cowardly stabbing at a button...  

It didn't  take me long to find counter examples in a search, including this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/flu-outbreak-si...

Your own link says "When a room is better ventilated, influenza rates, asthma attacks and absenteeism go down, reading and math test scores go up"

I'd agree with the general position on actual implementation in the link but I was talking about taking ventilation seriously as a public health measure: full implementation takes more time. I worry a bit that cheap interim solutions such as that which wintertree illustrated might be bypassed (like masks)  by over priced expensive ventilation solutions (I'd even ask is Stephen Petty potentially a lobbyist for higher cost solutions?).

I agree on the dislike cowards. The debate is important and I agree with you it's a balance.

Maybe but that would need demonstrating. HVAC systems are complex and expensive to install, run maintain, and use up valuable space etc.  Done badly they cause problems like sucking toilet/kitchen smells in to living spaces. They also significantly increase CO2 emissions unless designed as heat recovery systems too.  Many more US buildings have AC already so the change is smaller there

That still doesn't actually answer who is going to pay for employee's being off work due to self-isolation and in particular those in the private sector.
We seem to be going round in circles of people coming up with a plan, but being unable to say how it will be paid for.

Bit of a disingenuous way to say how you would pay to build a factory to make the units as I very much doubt that anyone considered building a factory to make air filtration units as opposed to buying PPE - Factory very long term vs PPE immediate.
As for building the factory itself.  How long do you think it would take?
It's all a bit academic though as the BMJ want to install/upgrade the systems in all schools by the start of next term which is never going to happen. 

I suggested it would have been better to spend £8Bn on building the capacity to build air filtration, than on spending it on PPE that - per the government link I gave above - was so unfit for purpose it was burnt in a power station.

That’s not disingenuous.

I think you’ve misunderstood my post.

Which circles are we going round though?  When, as bruxist rightly pointed out, IndieSAGE advice is pretty similar to UKHSA reports, isn't this just showing money arguments are really because we are 'a poor man of Europe'?

I'm sympathetic  to cost issues in the private sector but it can be even more expensive if infection spreads in a workplace, such that it can't function (because too many people simply become too unwell to work).  What I'd expect is greater government support for sick pay and ventilation improvements, at least at EU average levels, given we regularly claim to be better than the EU.

I've perfectly understood your point.
You're trying to say in retrospect that it would have been better to spend the money on building a factory as opposed to wasting it on rubbish PPE.  
Can't disagree with that as we would now have a factory instead of a pile of smouldering face masks.
That isn't my point though and that is that no one at the time would have considered building a factory which wouldn't be of any benefit short/medium term (at best) to PPE which was hoped would have immediate benefit.
The fact that the PPE turned out to be useless has no bearing on what was decided in March 2020.

I think I first mentioned HEPA on here in March 2020 with regards Covid.  It’s not magic, it’s not hard to build and different decisions could have been made.  We’d have been better off building FFP2/3 fabrication capacity though.

Whose going to pay for the installation of the systems in schools?
The individual schools themselves?  The local education authority/council?  Government?
As for the private sector, I work in it and therefore know that the cost of enforced self-isolation cost a lot more than the dynamic response to outbreaks that businesses can currently do.
At the moment, we have the full quota of approximately 300 people in work and that consists of a production shop floor and the offices that house people to support that.  No face masks, no testing, no self-isolation and everything is back to what it was like pre March/April 2020.
If Covid kicks off again in the winter, then I'm sure there will be a response to it. 
The real fix for dealing with Covid is vaccination as that seems to be doing a good job of letting us all get on with our lives whilst Covid levels are still high.
 

If there was any return on investment for any of the measures being proposed they would have been implemented already.

We don’t have HEPA filters in schools and places of work because the cost doesn’t justify the savings.

We don’t wear masks because we consider the risk of getting Covid to be less than the inconvenience of wearing a mask ect.

Special interest groups can call for additional measures until they’re blue in the face, but the public doesn’t care anymore.

So you think the UKHSA is a special interest group as their message is pretty much the same as Indie SAGE?

They've both essentially got the same common interest of preventing illness regardless of economic cost.
The Government looks at that advice and balances that against the economic impact and comes up with a compromise.

Again, you're mostly talking from the comfort of hindsight.
You said earlier that a factory should be/should have been built to make air filtration systems.
How long do you think that would take?
Not aimed just at you, but the BMJ have stipulated that they want all schools to be fitted with updated systems in the next 6 weeks.  Does anyone think that is possible? 

Who is paying in all the other western nations who have a more coherent public health policy?

Maybe your workplace isn't representative if you have no covid absence (when population infection levels are above 5%) and no ventilation measures at work and require people to come to work when infected (..... or maybe you are exaggerating?). 

What about the normality of the disabled with age adjusted mortality  rates higher than the general population at the peak of covid deaths. What about the normal for the two million with long covid? What about the normal for the NHS which is pretty much on its knees with all this endless system stress?

Vaccination doesn't stop infection nor common 'flu level' impacts on a significant proportion  of infected individuals .

Covid is now just another problem/stress society has to deal with, along with e.g. Russia, climate change, fuel prices, failing democracies.  Latching on to one measure such as ventilation without looking across the piece at whether spending £xxx on that rather than mitigations on the myriad other problems isn't good policy.

The UKHSA is the government body specifically tasked to take costs and government position into account in national public health advice. It's simply not an arms length independent organisation. We are living in very weird times when covid is seemingly a non issue for tory politicians yet at the same time they maintain a public health face that completely contradicts their own behaviour.

In reply to MeMeMe:

More than 100% in some of the most vulnerable age bins were vaccinated, according to ONS population estimates! 

Explained here:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/De...

ONS were just comparing covid critical illness risk of the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. Efficacy against critical illness and death is long lasting. The Efficacy  that wanes fast is protection against infection.

I've not seen this oft made conspiracy claim verified anywhere. All cause mortality rates are currentl high (top of the pre pandemic decade range)  but in my view that's more likely due to the well reported impacts of the NHS being on its knees.

https://www.actuaries.org.uk/documents/england-wales-mortality-monitor-covi...

Yes I know of both those times, which have clear scientific reasoning behind them.

That's simply not true. Most deaths due to vaccination will be picked up as such (unless you can prove a massive conspiracy across the NHS, and coroners). The link below is old but shows the big difference at the time between yellow card and confirmed deaths due to covid vaccines.

https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/10/04/how-many-people-have-died-as-a-result-of...

You're forgetting the risk of critical illness comparisons the ONS make are based on vaccination status not antibody status. It's still 4 times more likely for people to be critically ill with covid if unvaccinated. The fact that has shifted from nearer ten times more likely may be partly because of increased infection based immunity.

On your percentage differences I think you are comparing two different things due to the population measues being different (one set NIMs the other ONS)

Great segue into Dutch farming being kept out of the news btw

https://www.politico.eu/article/police-fire-dutch-farmer-protest-nitrogen-e...

There's a lot of hot air but not much accurate information in this thread, and as many of the points being debated are already settled policy and the measures already implemented, much of the debate is nugatory. No point in demanding to know who will pay when the bill's already been paid, or saying that we don't have HEPA filters (and masks at the moment, in my area) in schools when in fact we do.

In schools, FE, and HE, the problem of poor air quality and its deleterious effects on cognitive capacity was recognized long before covid and was already being acted on. What covid has done is to shift the focus of attention from vehicle pollution at the school gates and poor examination hall conditions to the learning environment generally.

7 months ago, over 22% of schools in the UK had already been provided with HEPA filter purifiers. The costing happened ages ago; DfE footed the bill. That percentage will now be higher; I don't have more up-to-date figures. Getting it to 100% is not at all unfeasible; things are happening fast and there is a lot of political will (even within the Tory party, despite CRG/ERG covid denialism) & longstanding public desire to see it done.

An average of 10 AQ monitors per school have already been distributed. This is being increased and their use is being incorporated into the curriculum. The EPSRC, DfE, and UKHSA are footing the bill for that. The final in-school trial for a national programme started at the beginning of this month and is to roll out nationally at the start of the new school year this autumn.

LAs have footed the bill for monitoring & improved ventilation in public spaces and, at least in my area, that job is now largely done bar some snagging of older & less easily adapted buildings. The arguments were won pre-pandemic; covid has merely accelerated what was already acknowledged to be necessary.

The story in the private sector will of course be more mixed, as it was with previous public health crises - asbestos, smoking come to mind. But that isn't relevant to the points raised in this thread.

Yet it’s easier to link Capex on improved air quality to a financial cost/benefit analysis in the private sector than it is in the public sector (where many of the benefits are not immediately financial.)

Which makes it all the more surprising that what are now highly evidenced points over air quality are not being widely embraced by the private sector.  One could imagine a world where the government help illuminate the direct benefits of decent air quality in the workplace so that they’re acted on out of financial interest without needing legislative strong arming.

We might need something like an implicitly & widely accepted Wohnraumlüftungskultur for that, though. Which takes decades, and a strong green political movement unafraid of speaking to business interests. Plus I get the sense that in the UK, evidence-based analysis is mostly something to pay lip service to rather than actively pursue; I don't know if that's true for the private sector - just my (unevidenced) impression.

Latest news on fake news

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jul/28/gb-news-faces-ofcom-investiga...

Plus a more general position:

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-eu-idUSL1N2S924P

Pretty much every EU country have identified small numbers who have probably died directly because of an adverse vaccine reaction  and deaths that may have been influenced by covid vaccination. Plus larger numbers who have had serious but non fatal vaccine reactions. In contrast estimates indicate vaccination may have saved half a million lives across  Europe, especially concentrated in the most vulnerable groups.

In reply 

Just heard second- hand about an old work colleague of mine on our retiree monthly catch-up... tragically he lost his daughter and son to covid in the last two months, in the local critical care unit.