Open email to my MP regarding government policy on Covid-19
I am appalled that the UK government is pursuing a policy of getting herd immunity which may see many millions of deaths. So I wrote to my local MP, Helen Whately https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Whately to explain my views. I am especially annoyed that she said the government is following the evidence, which is very clearly wrong since the evidence is that stringent measures do control the spread of the virus. Here’s the content of the email
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Subject: You’re wrong about the evidence
Dear Helen
You have been reported as saying “As the chief medical officer said, and I have been advised, the evidence tells us that stopping mass gatherings doesn’t have a huge impact on the spread of the virus”
We cannot cherry pick the evidence that fits our preconceptions. We have to consider all the evidence even if it disproves our preconceptions. The evidence is that stopping mass gatherings and all kinds of gatherings does have a huge impact on the spread of the virus. You have to look at the experience of China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. They have implemented strict controls and stopped the virus spreading in the case of China, and considerably slowed it in other cases. See https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-taiwan-case-study-rapid-response-containment-2020-3?r=US&IR=T for examples.
It needs to be borne in mind that the Chief Medical Officer’s views and many others in the British medical establishment are academic models not based on actual experience.
Their views evolved when the prevailing consensus was that it’s not possible to prevent the spread of a highly infectious disease. Those views have been disproved by the experience of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The scientific method requires that if evidence disproves a theory then the theory must be abandoned. At present the Chief Medical Officer seems to want to dismiss the evidence from other countries because it does not fit the theory that the infection cannot be contained and we have to let the infection progress through the country to get herd immunity.
The WHO, and medical experts from other countries, especially countries which have more experience of this disease strongly disagree with the view of the UK’s Chief Medical Officer. The UK is alone in wanting to pursue the goal of herd immunity.
If you look at Professor Whitty’s arguments you’ll see that they’re based on the opinion that many more people are infected who don’t show symptoms and that therefore the true mortality rate is less than 1%. Since we do not do random testing in the UK there is no attempt to back up that opinion with hard data.
In South Korea where they test 20,000 people a day (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51836898) they do estimate that the mortality rate is 0.7%. In Italy they estimate the mortality rate is between 6% and 7%, but that’s based on the case fatality rate not random testing. So there is weak evidence that the mortality rate might be less than 1%. But that might be due to the large demographic differences between Italy and South Korea. See this article for a good analysis https://medium.com/@andreasbackhausab/coronavirus-why-its-so-deadly-in-italy-c4200a15a7bf
The big worry is that we don’t actually know what the mortality rate is going to be in the UK and we’re making no attempt to find out. It could be like South Korea, it could be like Italy. It’s more likely to be like Italy since the UK has a similar demographic. Suppose we go down the route of getting herd immunity on the untested opinion that the fatality rate is less than 1%, and then find at a later stage that in fact it’s more like Italy with a fatality rate of over 6%. How do we reverse course?
Has the government made a plan to reverse course if the untested opinion turns out to be wrong? It would be a very serious dereliction of duty if the government does not have a plan in place in case the untested opinion that the fatality rate is less than 1% turns out to be wrong. What is the plan?
You need to to sit down and do the calculations for yourself.
Herd immunity for a highly infectious disease requires 80% to 90% of the population to be infected. Since we don’t know the actual fatality rate elementary risk analysis requires that we have to assume a worse case scenario, the data from Italy which has a similar demographic to the UK is that it’s about 7%.
The population of the UK is 66 million. 66 million x 80% x 7% = 3.67 million.
Are you really willing to accept the deaths of 3.67 million people in order to get herd immunity in the UK?
If you are then you need to state that publicly so the whole country knows what the plan is. If you sincerely believe it then you should be willing to go on TV and say “I think the deaths of over three million people is worth it to get herd immunity”. Obviously you’re not willing to do that. Which implies that the government has decided to not come clean with the public about this.
To date no one advocating herd immunity has deliberately infected themselves. You could be the first.
If you think the target of herd immunity is achievable without too much loss of life then please lead from the front. Get yourself infected and contribute to herd immunity.
If you are not willing to accept that level of mortality then you need to decide right now how many people have to die before you’ll abandon the quest for herd immunity. One thousand, one hundred thousand, one million? At what point do you break ranks?
The government is performing a medical experiment on the entire country, with substantial chance that hundreds of thousands of people will die, without asking for our informed consent, based on nothing more than an untested opinion and without performing random testing of the population to validate or disprove that opinion.
Has the government considered the issue of how other countries will treat the UK when we are alone in our quest for herd immunity?
Other countries are enacting ever more stringent rules to prevent the spread of the virus. This means that the UK will have to be sealed off from the rest of the world as an isolated medical experiment. No lorry drivers will want to risk their lives to cross the channel with cargoes of essential food and supplies.
What is the government’s plan to deal with the consequences of being sealed off from the rest of the world for the duration of this medical experiment?
I think it is certain that the government has not thought this through.
If the untested opinion that the true fatality rate in the UK is substantially less than 1% turns out to be wrong and it is in fact more like 7% then the consequences for the country will be devastating. The consequences for the Conservative Party will be terminal. Voters will never forget or forgive.
The consequences for ministers would be that a future government will hold a public inquiry and find that there are good grounds to charge ministers with the crime of misconduct in public office. Hiding behind the views of small number of experts, which are at variance with a much larger group experts who have practical experience of this disease will not be a valid defence. Such a defence is considerably weakened by the fact that the government is eager to dismiss the opinions of experts when they give their views on the consequences of Brexit.
Therefore ministers and MPs who vote for this course of action will be prosecuted for misconduct in public office and the the public will demand maximum sentences of life in prison. Actually that’s not true, the public will demand that hanging be brought back for this one particular crime.
My view is that the government is behaving as if they are clinically insane, to the Pol Pot level of insanity. All sane Tory MPs should be seriously thinking of joining with the opposition in an urgent vote of no confidence so that the present administration can be replaced with a sane one. The situation is too dire to think about tribal affiliation.
The evidence from other countries contradicts the view of the Chief Medical Officer. Change course now.
Yours sincerely
John Small
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After I wrote this I found another article which supports my view that the government is clinically insane https://eand.co/why-britains-coronavirus-strategy-is-literally-one-of-the-most-insane-things-in-modern-history-45c755f1db2d
Up until now we would have considered such a course of action to be the preserve of insane autocratic dictators with a callous disregard for human life.
To find that in fact authoritarian dictators, such as China, quickly stamp out the disease through stringent controls, and it is a democratically elected government which has the requisite degree of callous disregard for human life to run an experiment in herd immunity doesn’t fit the script.
It seems that one way or another, populism always ends up with piles of dead bodies. As the UK and USA are about to find out.