Author of Bioscience, Governance and Politics (Palgrave). Co-Author Science and the Retreat from Reason (Merlin/Monthly Review). Climber and Runner
London, UK
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John Gillott retweeted
📚BioNews Book Review
@gillott_john reflects on Professor Eric Turkheimer’s book: ‘Understanding the Nature-Nurture Debate’.
Read more for FREE in BioNews ⬇️⬇️⬇️
progress.org.uk/book-review-…
#Genetics #Heritability #Genetics #DNA #IQ #SocialCharacteristics #Traits
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The WHO never estimated the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of Covid at 3.4%. It's a myth that they did so. They very clearly distinguished, as is standard, between CFR and IFR. Very early on (Feb 2020) they estimated the IFR to be between 0.3% and 1%:
who.int/docs/default-source/…
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Johnson didn't mention/understand that (a) many people under 60 have at least one morbidity, (b) it's misleading to compare deaths from one cause in a short time period to those from another over a year, and (c) Covid deaths were heavily suppressed (by measures he opposed).
LOCKDOWN FLASHBACK: "Under 60s.. you're more likely to drown (than die of Covid)... we need to get things a bit in context" @LukeJohnsonRCP
None of the main parties who gave us lockdowns want to discuss it at all now, do they? @Conservatives @UKLabour @LibDems @theSNP
#Covid
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John Gillott retweeted
🚩Talks repeatedly about “non-Covid excess mortality” in 2020 and 2021 without acknowledging that on balance of probabilities these were undiagnosed Covid.
You just don’t get sudden large spikes of people dying of dementia or old age by chance at the same time as Covid spikes.
The balance of evidence so far points to undiagnosed COVID in the elderly being the most likely explanation for a majority of excess deaths that did not mention CV on certs
This fits: demography, locations, esp where testing was sparse, causes of death & timings of peaks
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John Gillott retweeted
🚩 Uncritically cites Ioannidis’ biased and implausibly low Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) estimates
These are inconsistent with other work and have repeatedly been shown to be impossible, based on real-world population fatality rates.
This is 4yrs old 👇
covidactuaries.org/2020/05/2…
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John Gillott retweeted
I’m late to this but I wanted to set out some thoughts on the awful @BMJPublicHealth excess deaths article.
Commentary has focussed on media coverage, linking deaths to vaccines, but I want to discuss the article itself, which should not have been published in its current form.
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More:
A combination of momentum, friction, and force of thrust-off the wall helps parkour performers move fast through the city.
But friction, is crucial to climb and adhere to surface without falling.
[📹 tim_champion]
x.com/i/status/1794863275873…
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The claim was not that it (100%) "prevented" transmission. The claim was that it significantly reduced it. And it did. Prior to the immune evasive Omicron variant, vaccines reduced community transmission by up to 80% (see link below):
Watch a Government Minister admit to Dan Hannan that the Covid vaccines did not prevent transmission, prompting Hannan to ask: "So why the hell did we force them on to young people? Why did we insist on vaccine passports?" dailysceptic.org/2024/05/03/…
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More myth-making: Sweden didn't follow the Great Barrington approach. The Great Barrington Declaration advocated herd immunity via infection (excerpt below). Sweden's approach is better characterised as half-mandated / half voluntary suppression, while waiting for vaccines.
The German language @Wikipedia site describes the @gbdeclaration as "anti- science", a fringe view. Left unexplained is why German all cause excess deaths in the covid era is higher than Sweden's.
Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy is a joke.
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John Gillott retweeted
There’s a lot of confusion about the new ONS excess deaths methodology. Some thoughts on the model, its limitations and #ExcessDeaths in general.
These are personal views. I don’t speak for ONS or any other organisations or individuals involved in updating the method. 1/17
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"We don’t pretend to understand the ONS’s overview of the change to its methods". Yes, this much is clear. Can I suggest that you read this thread by an actual expert on the subject?
"Something’s fishy about ONS’s excess death figures"
"Why we are only now seeing serious attempt to better understand excess deaths?
"In 2020, these figures were one of main drivers of lockdown. Where was urgent need to fix data then?"
- @carlheneghan
telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02…
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John Gillott retweeted
Key point is they are answering different questions.
CMI method was designed to measure the impact of the pandemic on #ExcessDeaths.
The new ONS approach is a go-forward methodology. It is not specifically designed to measure the impact of the pandemic.
blog.ons.gov.uk/2024/02/15/e…
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Details matter: in this paragraph of his witness statement Woolhouse repeats a favourite claim of the sceptics - that SPI-B, a sub-committee of SAGE, wanted to exaggerate risks for the purposes of locking everyone down. But he's wrong 1/4
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SPI-B's "Substantial" could mean, eg, the 33% aged 55-75 declaring themselves, mid-March 2020, "not very / at all concerned". Given the average IFR in that age group, SPI-B's concern was reasonable. Interestingly, that age group's risk assessment did soon shift 3/4
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For more on Woolhouse, including an examination of his support for both major national lockdowns (not at all obvious from his current statements), see here 4/4
johngillott.medium.com/middl…
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Woolhouse's claim in his written evidence, repeated here, that the Government and BBC promoted the idea that we were all at serious risk of serious outcomes, that the 'virus does not discriminate', is in fact a misconception on Woolhouse's part. It's a myth about a myth 1/3
The BBC was allowed to "misrepresent" the risk posed by Covid to most people to boost public support for lockdown, top Government adviser Professor Mark Woolhouse has told the Covid Inquiry. dailysceptic.org/2024/01/25/…
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This is what Woolhouse writes in his evidence statement, quoting the well known phrases from Spring 2020, 'we are all at risk'; 'the virus does not discriminate': 2/3
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These phrases were used by Michael Gove in a press conference, 27 March 2020 (below). Clearly, he was discussing the risk of catching and spreading Covid (he was telling the world that Johnson and Hancock had caught it). His statements were correct 3/3
bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-5206992…
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