gdp's Comments

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Garvan Walshe: We can be sure that those who have been vaccinated won’t die of Covid. So the case

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 10:32:02 +0000

I hope you're correct. My view remains lockdown and vaccination will be proven to be an entirely counterproductive strategy. Still got 3 to 4 years of this crisis left to run? Hopefully I'm wrong.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The mass testing 'blitz'. Cummings' Operation Moonshot strategy returns.

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 19:21:32 +0000

Total insanity. So pretty much par for the course these days. If you ever want people to accept living indefinitely with Covid 19. You need to restrict testing to only the vulnerable part of the population.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The relaxation of lockdown. Coming soon. Usual terms and conditions apply.

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 16:25:40 +0000

Because further research has already shown that whilst they're effective against the original variant of SARS-CoV 2, at least for short periods of time. They're much less efficacious or not efficacious at all against newer variants. Hence SA pulling the plug on the OX AZ vaccine. Either way we end lock-down though because if vaccination actually works great, and if it doesn't there is no more reason to lock-down.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The relaxation of lockdown. Coming soon. Usual terms and conditions apply.

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 10:45:09 +0000

What do you imagine will stop lockdown 5,6, 7 and so on ad infinitum? What stops SARS COV 2 circulating in any kind of return to normal life? The core point is that lockdown never made any sense for a virus like SARS CoV 2. It will keep on coming indefinitely and there is little we can do. For a virus like SARS CoV 2003 it made sense as only spread symptomatically had was 100x more lethal. Therefore it was quite easy to stamp it out with a short lockdown. The truth is we've got this wrong from day one.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : The relaxation of lockdown. Coming soon. Usual terms and conditions apply.

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 09:50:15 +0000

We'll know how well vaccines work in real world usage 6 months or so after the resumption of normal life. Presume they aren't effective would we then lockdown again? What after all, would be the point? That is the huge potential problem with lockdown as a policy, potentially it doesn't go anywhere other than more lockdown and a catastrophic economic collapse.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Drakeford attacks the Government over the laxity of the border quarantine programme

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 10:59:01 +0000

Variants are simply evolving spontaneously within the UK, there is already hard evidence of this from Kent and Bristol. It's just another misconception, that variants must originate from somewhere else. Stemming from the moronic geographic naming of clades as the "South Africa", "Brazil" or whatever variant.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: 'A lot of reason to be optimistic we'll be in a much better place in two-to-four weeks' time'

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 10:47:47 +0000

I would encourage Professor Spector to read Andrew F. Read's work from 2015 on this subject.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Conservative MPs on when lockdown should end. "We should start on March 8."

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 09:46:13 +0000

Yes, in the phase 3 trials efficacy data released so far (Moderna and Pfizer) was measured at 14 and 7 days after the booster shot only. Not in real world conditions. It's really remarkable to me that any government or scientist took them at face value. We are already seeing evolution past first wave vaccines, both spontaneous here in the UK (Kent adding 484K, Bristol etc) and in variants from abroad (SA, Brazil etc). I can't see what stops that continuing. More so if you have a functioning economy where people have to be in close contact for it to function. I expect within 6 months or sooner we simply see natural selection produce further variants that first wave vaccines offer little protection to. Big question for me is if applying wide evolutionary pressure speeds that process up or not. It seems the government are at least aware of this and are seemingly planning "booster shots" in the Autumn from PMQ this week. There is no guarantee of how effective or not those will be. Most of the deaths from COVID-19 also occur in people who are immunocompromised in some way and for whom vaccination of any kind therefore doesn't work well. Unlocking, without having a plan to deal with much higher than 2019 rates of hospitalisation (more like 1993), simply makes it inevitable we end up locking down again.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Conservative MPs on when lockdown should end. "We should start on March 8."

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 09:02:33 +0000

You presume it's possible to ease restrictions at any pace and not end up at square one. I believe that is incorrect. Until we have the hospital capacity to deal with the extra demand from the permanent presence of COVID-19. We will always end up back at square one in lockdown 6 months or before after unlocking.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Conservative MPs on when lockdown should end. "We should start on March 8."

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 08:59:17 +0000

What stops a new variant simply taking hold and us being back under lockdown in 6 months or sooner? Have we expanded the capacity of appropriate NHS beds or do we at least have a plan to deal with that scenario? If not what is the plan?

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Iain Dale: Why would any sensible person even think about booking a holiday in countries with low im

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:27:23 +0000

How so ? As far as I can see I've got it essentially entirely correct from day one.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Iain Dale: Why would any sensible person even think about booking a holiday in countries with low im

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 07:38:40 +0000

What a moronic comment, logically then we should never go anywhere with Malaria, Rabies, TB and the multitude of other nasties and dangers that exist across the world. Yet tens of thousands of people have been regularly going to SA, India, Asia, South America for the last several decades. Why would anyone healthy under 60 be concerned about COVID-19? More people in this group died on the roads than from it, per the telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/28/60s-d... Is everyone now terrified of getting in the car? SARS-CoV2 is seemingly now seen like smallpox? People including the author have totally lost the plot. Most importantly though, what do governments imagine will have changed in 1, 5 or even 10 years? Sars-cov-2 will, still be there, still evolving around vaccines and our natural immune response to it. Nothing much will have changed. Well, we might get anti virals after year 5 or so. So if we're wearing masks and not travelling now we can expect that to continue, on and on.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Johnson - "We're going to have to get used to the idea of vaccinating and then re-vaccinating

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 17:57:13 +0000

Yes. It's more a psychological problem for governments. How do you un-dig the hole?

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Johnson - "We're going to have to get used to the idea of vaccinating and then re-vaccinating

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 16:31:27 +0000

When do governments sort out our health care system to cope, shield the vulnerable and end the insanity of lock-down? Wondering how we get to endgame. The hole they have dug is just enormous, difficult to imagine them admitting they've got it all totally wrong now and changing course.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Johnson - "We're going to have to get used to the idea of vaccinating and then re-vaccinating

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 13:25:45 +0000

We vaccinate annually against influenza and this is similar. The huge difference is we have decades of research in to influenza vaccines. We understand little about the antigenic drift or shift capabilities of SARS-CoV2. It's very possible the first wave vaccines achieve little or nothing. Also very possible the entire approach of using the spike protein as vaccine target is unworkable. We should not be relying on vaccination on any kind of timeline. We simply don't know. Expand hospital capacity, shield the vulnerable, everyone get on with their lives. The long term structural economic damage from this is already catastrophic. Indefinite on off lockdown will be cataclysmic.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Bordering on impossible

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 10:33:07 +0000

Closing borders is just more panic knee jerking that has characterised the UK and global response to SARS-CoV-2. We have already seen convergent evolution with the so called Kent variant acquiring similar mutations to the SA one. What do governments imagine they'll achieve here? All countries inevitably end up with similar variants regardless due to evolutionary pressure being the similar everywhere. Vaccination will achieve little due to the adaptability of SARS-CoV2. Nothing will have changed in 6 months, 1 year or even 5, it's reasonable to expect indefinite on / off lockdowns. At least until the UK and globall economy entirely collapses. Governments have got this catastrophically wrong from day one. SARS-CoV2 needed and needs to be dealt with like influenza. There is simply not much we can do but expand hospital capacity, shield the vulnerable and live with it indefinitely.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Tony Smith: Covid and border control. As a former Head of the UK Border Force, here are my urgent re

Tue, 9 Feb 2021 12:40:33 +0000

The idea viral evolution will only take place outside the UK and we must stop it getting in, is utterly delusion. We're seeing convergent evolutionary paths is Sars cov 2 because it's responding to similar or the same pressure being applied by our immune system. We're witnessing more panic knee jerking as it looks likely vaccination will achieve little due to this evolution. The choice is accepting nature is in charge here and there is little we can do. Or total economic destruction.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Neil O'Brien: Imperfect vaccines, new variants, domestic mutations. Why there must be no rush out of

Mon, 8 Feb 2021 16:17:19 +0000

The NHS most definitely could have been expanded from day one in March 2020, if there was the will. Though some painful decisions needed to be taken to do it. I would call them "drastic", but compared to lock-down they amount to little. Takeover suitable buildings or build them like China did in weeks, get doctors from GP or other areas of the NHS, get nurses straight out of school and train more. Refresher training for the doctors. Get the army in. Offer all of them all fraction of the £400bn+ lockdown has cost so far. Decide which patients to split in to new and old hospitals. Even now nothing is being done. So you can guarantee we'll be in lock-down again later this year, and again and again, as beds are again overwhelmed. Until the NHS is expanded finally to cope. Beds have been cut 140k in the last 30 years, any kind of serious influenza pandemic would have caused the same pressures as Covid. Flu hospitals closed, everything centralised for "efficiency". This is what criminal mismanagement looks like. Not planning for pandemics (or any adverse event), of which there were 3 in the 20th century. Logically we should expect them every 30 years or so and have a plan to hugely increase bed capacity temporarily when they hit. Give I think vaccination will achieve little, ultimately the NHS will have to be expanded because we won't have any other choice. Then we will see it was possible all along. The economy will have been utterly and pointlessly destroyed in the meantime of course, with 20% unemployment, negative equity and a financial crisis to make 08/09 look like a picnic.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Neil O'Brien: Imperfect vaccines, new variants, domestic mutations. Why there must be no rush out of

Mon, 8 Feb 2021 13:18:37 +0000

Expand the NHS to cope, protect the vulnerable, end the insanity?

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Neil O'Brien: Imperfect vaccines, new variants, domestic mutations. Why there must be no rush out of

Mon, 8 Feb 2021 13:15:15 +0000

Why not just call everyone who disagrees with you a denier ?Burn the witches? Who is an anti vaxxer? Is pointing out we need a yearly influenza vaccine enough? What makes you think first generation SARS CoV 2 vaccines will be perfect? We don't even know if vaccination is viable yet? That is not a reason not to have one, of course. Just don't be surprised if vaccination isn't particularly effective.