Raffin

DOH Weekly Covid Report

After no news since January 22 for some reason a report, only shown in the Manila Bulletin, came out for Feb 6 -12.
I almost missed it:
Nothing for the next week. One wonders what the criteria are for giving out the information. New cases falling?

Feb 6 - 12

661 cases...apparently down 35% over the previous week.
7 new serious/critical new cases
184 admitted on Feb11
11% ICU use
14% non ICU

The covid information came out with flu information.
Jan 7 to 20 cases down 10% over the previous period.

Other neighbouring countries from Worldometers?

India the only country still reporting some cases daily.
Philippines not reporting at all now.
Malaysia 17 Feb: 113 cases and falling.
Thailand Jan 22-29 had 621 cases
Singapore Feb 1 - 8: a relatively high 310 cases.

Other local covid news:

From SS lately:

A lot of newsletters digging into US reports from the use of US made vaccines in the Philippines:

Analysis by age group:

Pediatric deaths:

Pharmacovigilance (local vaccine serious effect reports): 72 deaths
US FDA: 64

Ages 18-39

Local: 361 deaths
US FDA 261 deaths plus 27 disabled permanently.

Age 60 and over

Local 1,614 deaths
US FDA 2,189

Information on batch numbers can be linked, with the major issues being with Pfizer and especially the one shot Janssen vaccines.
ABS - CBN data says Pfizer importation here 93M doses, Janssen 13M doses, all single.



SS newsletter Feb 24.
https://supersally.substack.com/

First, what numbers do we have on Philippine excess deaths?

From Rappler:

https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in...pandemic-2021/

WHO estimates:

2020 -40k
2021 214k
The 174k for the two years puts the Philippines in the upper 28% of middle income countries.
They say they are also within 9% of the PSA figures from death certificates.

The Economist has a model and we can compare their estimates with the WHOs from this graphic from OWiD:



The Economist estimates quite a bit higher in 2021 than the WHOs.

Another study...Migrino et al Nat. Library Medical Jan to March 2023.... used PSA data and a mortality calculator from the W Pacific WHO office:

https://file:///C:/Users/ADMIN/Downl...sar-14-984.pdf

2020 -14k
2021 212k


OWiD's estimates themselves:



OWiD similar in 2021 but showing some also in 2022 and the first half of 2023
2021 approx 225k
2022 29k
2023 first half 12.5k

The article in the SS newsletter has no author named. Looks to me it could well be by someone, possibly a Filipino, who wants to be anonymous. From reading it seems aimed at the Congress,so possibly was intended for the now defunct excess death enquiry in the House.

From the start the intent in the article is on blaming excess deaths on the vaccines. Through temporal correlation and vaccine safety reports.
A straw man is raised over lack of health treatment during the Pandemic. The missed diagnosis of covid deaths and unrecognised deaths from covid sequelae are not considered.

You tube videos



Mentioned this Campbell video last Feb 13. As it happened Dr Susan Oliver
came out with critical video soon after:



As mentioned McCullough with Campbell nodding along ignores the much higher
risk of myocarditis from covid. In addition Dr Oliver provides links to articles by other
cardiovascular experts unhappy with what he says about the autopsies.




Tabloid Campbell entitles his video "Death Stats". Misleading many of his followers that major changes are going to happen with recording of deaths. Actually it's all about Excess Deaths. Something Campbell has done many videos about and always uses the term Excess Deaths.
The ONS have made a long awaited change to move from calculating UK Excess Deaths using averages from past years to using trends from past years.
Specifically to use population, age and mortality trends..
For the Pandemic the ONS previously removed a whole year, 2020, to avoid the Pandemic dominating the expected deaths calculation. Now they say they have found a better way.....remove individual weeks and months. For example they removed 10 weeks in 2020. The criterion is when covid deaths were more than 15% of deaths across the UK.

To give examples of changing UK trends:

2018-19 there was a 3.9% fall in age standardised mortality.
2006 - 2023 a 12.2% increase in population
Over 70s: 11.5% in 2006, 13.8% in 2023

A statistical model includes all the trends.....a quasi Poisson regression model. Good for fitting data which is in the form of a count and very dispersed.

One other innovation is that they will provide 95% confidence intervals.

The overall UK results were::

Small reductions for 2022 and 2021. 2022's actually increased by 11.5%. Most noticeable is that excess deaths in 2022 fell by 65%.

A sad looking Dr Campbell muttered a bit saying things like:
"Doesn't look like the same number died"
"We do need more clarification on this"

He went back to his favourite source, the OECD, for some higher UK numbers. So from them 2022 was 52,514. Over 9,000 more than the new improved ONS number.
He also went back to the causes of death excesses. Which do need explanation. But are not all in excess Eg cancer.
There are "tensions" he says. "Needs a better explanation".That should have been his job but he said nothing about tyhe new methodology. Though he did give this link:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...death/articles
/estimatingexcessdeathsintheukmethodologychanges/february2024

Of course he knows most of his watchers don't follow up the sources. This ONS explanation would not be easy for many to follow in depth but they could get a general idea from the first section alone.

Campbell said he might ask Prof Norman Fenton to look at it. Fenton is no lover of the ONS either. He and Campbel both. But Excess Deaths are a judgement call and it's difficult to see Fenton.,who is more of a mathematician than a statistician, find any argument to stay with the old 5 tear average method or to radically change the method the ONS have moved to.

Campbell is obviously most annoyed that this new ONS method deals a big blow to his argument that 2022 excess deaths were so high they must have been caused by the boosters.

COVID NEWS UPDATE

A study from the University of Boston looks at the question of whether non covid excess deaths in the US were caused mostly by health service disruption, socio economic impacts or were really unrecognised covid deaths.

https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles...vid-19-deaths/

Covered all US counties over 2 1/2 years of the Pandemic. They looked at excess deaths natural non covid in relation to covid. For the US that came out as 15.8 natural non covid deaths to every 100 covid deaths.

They found that when there was a peak in covid deaths that coincided with a peak of deaths. Non covid deaths would necessarily peak after covid deaths if health care interruptions were the cause.



Key to lines on this graph:



Coincidence of peaks. The same for other areas in the US.

If this is confirmed by other studies it means more attention needs to be paid to diagnosis...possibly increasing the period after a covid test...often 28 days, within which covid can be listed a cause or the cause. It is also another statistical argument against vaccination or lock downs being major causes of excess deaths.

Raffin

Erratum.

I now see that in two places in my post today I said 2022 rather than 2023 for the big fall in excess deaths under the new methodology.
Pretty obviously 2023 but just in case...

Raffin

Covid news update

The excess death enquiry, which last met in Niovember, seemed to be moribund. But I was alerted by SS in a recent newsletter that it has been revived through another one of the 56 committees in the House being added, to make it a joint enquiry. So to the lead Public Safety Committee is added the Human Rights Committee. Note: not the Health Committee!

Meetings were held in November about this joining up, we are told. Did the subject matter aired at the first meeting look to be implicating the previous administration and people who served in that and are still serving now? Resulting in the DOH not being put in with Public Safety as that will not put the too much focus on the vaccine. Easier to look at Human Rights.




https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/...63408775035306

Notice the empty seats RHS. Guests were there from about a dozen government departments, agencies and campaigning groups. But only one head, participating via Zoom from Taiwan. Only one head sent in an apology. Gen Galvez, now the President's Peace Adviser, who was unexpectedly away in Mindanao. Interesting as he was the head of the Pandemic task Force (IATF).

As noted before Chairman Fernandez seems to be already convinced that the covid vaccines were not safe and effective and sympathetic to the idea that they have caused at least a significant number of serious effects and possibly deaths.
Fernandez very excited about the fact that the EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) was signed by President Duterte, even though, in his view, it conflicted with the Coronavirus Vaccine Act RA 11525 Sect 2, 27 July 2020, which states that the then experimental vaccines should be "safe and effective". Obviously they weren't then, he suggested, and as during the roll out reports of serious adverse effects came from Pharmacovigilance here. Ignoring the fact that a great deal of safety evidence came out during the 2021 roll out around the world, timely for the Philippines, given that vaccination of the general population here started at least 6 months after other major countries.He asked the FDA representative, a non medical doctor, whether they took action on the reported serious effects.Yes, she said, they updated the IATF regularly. In any case the benefits exceeded the risks.

What about medical interventions, said the Chairman to the same FDA representative.. Did you recommend any to be tried first? There's vitamin C, Hydro Hydro Hydroclorox...!!! Fernandez said almost but not quite jokingly. The FDA lady's lame reply to that was not that they were known not to work but that the doctors can try what they want.

SS showed herself for once as the representative of the Lumad coalition.. She went through her usual chart showing an almost exact temporal correlation between excess deaths and vaccination roll out. As before ignoring the effect of the late vaccine roll out and all the other research from the UK and US which shows the vaccines actually saved lives and that covid was behind many of the excess deaths, both directly and indirectly. Also covid infection rising more convincingly than vaccine roll out a few months before the rise in 2021 deaths. At the end she talked about bad US Janssen batches. See a newsletter from her on this Feb 27.Not allowed much time by the Chairman. Under instructions?

Other topics covered included the WHO and digital vaccine passports. The latter topic involving the DOH Chief Information Officer, Dr Tayag. Human Rights discussion was on the vaccine mandates and the refusal of the CHR to protest against them for employees,

The ever smiling Chairman also put out a Greatest Hits compilation of his probing questions on You tube. Link in SS newsletter.

Also from the prolific SS:

A study claiming to show health service interruption was not behind Philippine Excess Deaths appeared in a newsletter of Feb 27. This was in accordance with a study from the University of Boston mentioned in my last post. However that study showed strong evidence it was the non diagnosis of covid deaths in the US causing most excess deaths. Whereas the study here went on to blame the vaccines.

https://supersally.substack.com/

A study of over 99M people in 8 countries identified two new rare covid vaccine side effects. Though it did not look into the rates of occurrence or rates after covid . Hence it was used by anti vaxxers to denigrate the covid vaccines!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...64410X24001270

An article from the Guardian summarizing it:

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...-of-99-million

Brain Fog from Covid was covered in last Wedesdays edition of Newsnight on BBC2.

For those of you able to watch it:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...ns-of-mob-rule

Article was in the NEJM:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2311330

A summary:
https://www.statnews.com/2024/02/28/...oms-iq-impact/

Shows even regular short spells of covid can make memory poorer. Small deficits up to a loss of 3 IQ points. Longer deficits after ICU hospitalization can persist over 12 weeks with a much greater IQ loss. Earlier variants were associated with greater memory loss.

Raffin

Two recent You tube videos and a post



Previously Dr Oliver had thought it sufficient to refer watchers to a previous video
debunking these white clots. But when Campbell tripled down she obviously felt a
new video was necessary,
Correct identification of clots is made and more sources confirming they only
appear after death. She reveals the real motivations of the Alabama embalmers
and suggests the UK Funeral business owner, at least, was not an unbiased source
of information. The ex US Air Force Major's survey also gets short shrift.



For once a hobby horse of Dr Campbell's which has a lot of support amongst qualified
medical doctors. Though there isn't agreement about dosage. It's a long interview at over
an hour and Dr Grimes speaks lucidly.
Nobody disagrees about the need for certain amounts of vit D. A minuscule amount to
prevent rickets and much more to achieve optimal immunity. Guidance and opinions
differing on the latter though..Something Grimes talked about at length:
These factors need to be taken account of, he says::

Availability and strength of UV rays
Skin colour
Dress customs
Weight
Obesity (fat layers absorb it)
Age

The big difficulty though is with measuring whether the immune system is optimal!

Also some interesting comments on the treatment of sepsis, auto immune diseases
and colon cancer. Also it's use post operative..

And a shocking section on the high death rate of Indian GPs during the pandemic.

Though a video where Campbell allowed the interviewee to talk, mostly kept
his own comments to nursing experience.at the end, he managed to get in another dig
at covid vaccination, and probably all vaccination. As we use up our available vit D
every day in fighting infection, the more so when actively infected, vaccinations,he
argued, and Grimes agreed, add to the using up and could result in reducing overall
immunity. Ah...but Grimes said he didn't know of any experiment! to show that
Campbell ignored that and pointed out that another vit D proponent he had interviewed
a few weeks ago had proposed a rule of no vaccination before vit D testing. So from that
Grimes seemed to be arguing strongly against repeated boosters.
I wonder why a medical doctor would not also say the benefit of vaccination also needs
to be taken into account? Boosters, especially the later ones in the UK, were recommended
or reserved for the vulnerable.against getting very sick with covid.
I have noticed that the medical doctors he interviews tend to have a book to sell, as this
one did. So is that why they keep quiet when Campbell expresses his anti vaccine views?



The title of Dr Susan Oliver's post referring to the fact that both Dr Campbell and Dr Grimes
seem to be OK with suggesting that the maximum safe dose in the UK of 4,000 IU can be
safely exceeded. Grimes suggesting 6,000IU is safe.
She refers back to a video of hers from 2 years ago, Especially good on explaining the
different units of measurement.





So the generally advised 4,000 IU per day safe limit for supplement
is assumed to give you blood levels below the harmful level in the table
...125 nM or 50 ng/mL. But this is subject to the contribution of the other
factors eg sun exposure, skin colour, body weight.
Although Dr Grimes said that excess vit D in the skin from sunlight is
automatically controlled.

Over dosing of supplements can bring on hypercalcemia (build up of calcium).
Also bone, kidney and arterial problems possible. An extreme case of vit D toxicity
was recently seen in England

https://www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk...overdose-death

So, what to do about vit D here in the Philippines?

We are a lot better off than the UK for sunlight. However let's remember that a substantial part of the year has rain nearly every day. You may not be exposed to sun for a good part of the Rainy Season...about 4 months. The sun can be strong, even now, when it is still the "cool, dry" season. So you might well cover up. Or not go out at all. This applies most to Filipinas. Scared stiff of getting darker. More indoor shopping here compared to the UK. Certainly less options for walking about outside in pleasant environments. So a good chance some of us may not be getting enough vit D.. Oily fish, eggs and mushrooms give you some but it has to be absorbed via the liver first. Though it is added to other foods.But that helps only a little.

So making an effort to get out more may be a good idea, even if the locale you live in is not so beautiful. Of course, not over exposing to the sun.You will see the recommended time needed per week in the UK is surprisingly low, if you look it up. Here you can presumably deduct a few minutes from that. Expose at least forearms.

If not, or in addition, some supplementation could be needed. The advantage here is that it would be easier get a blood level test than in the UK under the NHS.

I am only an a retired economist...but personally I would not bother with the tablets if you feel Ok generally and don't keep getting colds and other worse infections. But otherwise, and if you are also "in the line of 60" as they say here or older, putting on weight too, it might be worth having a chat with a doctor. Although vit D awareness is low here and you don't hear much about it as a medical issue..

So if that is not productive there are plenty of results online to get advice from. Start with a low dose to see if you improve.

Raffin

DOH weekly covid report.

...or should it be fortnightly report?

Cases Feb 27 to March 4 251 (c 344)
The previous week's total estimated from other information in a short press release.
The week before that 661.

3 new serious admissions. 156 admitted.
ICU use 10% (11% Feb 6-12)
Non ICU 11% (14% Feb 6-12)

7 Deaths, 5 of which Feb 20 to March 4.

Some neighouring countries:

Indonesia March 9 82, March 2 167
Malaysia March 4 66
Thailand March 5 462
Singapore Feb 17 306

Covid case data is now scarce...India the only country still reporting daily.
The UK though using sample surveys: They used these through the pandemic. Now the only option.


Wide confidence intervals.




UKHSA covid admitted.Twin peaks lately.


UKHSA covid deaths. Not falling until recently, Possibly as booster take up at only about 60%..


UK Autumn Booster campaign uptake plateauing.

UK Excess Deaths

w/e 8 March -4.9% covid 1.5%
w/e 1 March -7.4% covid 1.1%

Minus all weeks so far this year.



The second joint meeting of the two House Committees..Public Safety and Human Rights on the Pandemic took place earlier this week.

Present were mostly representatives of various government departments. Not heads.

DOH The Heath Secretary in the previous administration.Francisco Duque, turned up.
PNP
FDA
PSA
CHR

Plus a citizens group.

General Galvez...ex IATF head and vaccine Czar again absent.

For what follows I am relying mostly on what Sally Clarke (SS) says in her latest newsletter.today.
https://supersally.substack.com/
Because it is a long Facebook Live video, nearly 4 hours, Taglish, I only looked at a few minutes of it.

SS sums it up with: "So many diverse topics were discussed, so very quickly".
I might add the use of the time was poor, with topics discussed in no good order. The Chairman's style not helping the flow of the discussion.

The WHO Pandemic treaty and IHRs (International Health Regulations).

At the last meeting it was very unclear where the Philippines stood on amendments to the WHO treaty. Revealed at the meeting the newly formed Epidemiological Bureau will be dealing with that.

Excess Death statistics

This issue was supposed to be the main one before the committee.
The PSA have upped their figures a little for 2021 to 44.3% over 2020 and 50.9% over the 2015-19 average.
Excess deaths 2020-22 at 420,751.

How to explain the cause of these high figures?

Duque said cases and death were "fairly low"! He put them down to covid and lack of testing.
Also people were scared to go to hospitals.
He might have said that some hospitals were closed to non covid patients and due to lock down
poor people had no money to go private. In any case those hospitals were difficult to go to as.
lock downs restricted travel. SS commented in her newsletter that you needed a covid test first.
Of course he wouldn't as it points to the poor state of healthcare and hospitals here..

Seems no scientific based discussion took place. Committee minds, and most noticeably the Chair's,
seem to have been made up from the charts and data showing temporal correlation with vaccination.
shown last time.
So much more evidence could have been put forward. Countering the large vaccine death
claim and supporting the consensus explanation that covid and its sequelae were the main cause.
The lower effectivity of Chinese and Russian vaccines was not mentioned. Nor was the very late
arrival of vaccines here.

But no one there to give it. The DOH representatives, politician doctors, present either didn't want to
or couldn't.

Vaccines

The Chair repeated his point made last time that if the vaccines were under emergency use ie experimental they shouldn't have been made mandatory. A human rights issue as it made people fearful, he said. Duque replied that the pandemic was
so deadly and they could rely on Phase 3 trial results.
On vaccine related deaths (officially 2,864) and serious adverse reactions there was some criticism of the indemnity fund.Which has only paid out to 20 cases totaling P2M out of a fund with P500M available. Maximum in each case set
at P100k.
Claiming was said to be difficult. Duque said that proving causation was also difficult. Obviously because no death has so far been confirmed due to the vaccine here! The UK admits to over 60. "Vaccine related" is the phrase used here..

Population statistics

The PSA agreed that population growth is slowing. But saying that is a trend started before the Pandemic. A disappointing answer for anti vaxxers who claim covid vaccines have reduced births.

SS comments that covid deaths were not missed and more people were misdiagnosed with covid due to PCR testing going to a too high threshold. But the PCR testing here follows international practice that if a PCR test only finds evidence of infection at a high cycle level then a retest is necessary and/or another look at the medical history. I might add that covid looks like being more of a cause of death from recent research (see the University of Boston paper in my last post).

President Marcos wants to move on. To do that he has already said the Pandemic is over and that we have learnt from it...making various changes to health bodies here being the main change. So he or his officials made sure this inquiry became a joint one to dilute the discussion on vaccination and not remind people of that time and some of its harsh policies. Put the focus on other less contentious human rights topics associated with the Pandemic.
Actually he needn't worry about publicity. None of the joint committee's deliberations have made the main media outlets here this week..And it's a feature of the Filipino people that they always want to move on and not focus on the past. Even when there are important lessons that could be learnt.

Ex DOH secretary Francisco Duque was sent in as a 90th minute football defender to preserve a 1-0 lead. Together with the DOH Information Secretary they just said we were facing a deadly Pandemic and we had to use the vaccines. It's over, time to move on.
No reference to any science. Something very noticeable here over the last few years is that they don't keep up with the latest research at the DOH. If they rely on any international advice it is from the WHO. A body not coming through the Pandemic with flying colours. With one exception... he did say he relied on vaccine phase 3 trial results. No mention of vaccine monitoring results from countries all over the world, which by the time the Philippines started mass vaccination had administered many millions of doses.

The approach of the committee, especially from the Chair, is lightly critical to government policy but an anti vaxxer one.Still, this inquiry is going nowhere on the big issues of excess deaths and vaccine safety.. Due to the lack of scientific evidence and the politics.
Next meeting in May. The second session of this congress ends on May 24. Presumably there will be a report in the next session staring in July.

Despite all its shortcomings the UK covid inquiry is being conducted incomparably better. Eventually it will report with some recommendations, even if they embarrass, unfortunately, what might by then only be the previous government and associated politicians. I think the inquiry here is a sad indicator of where the Philippines is now in terms of its level of development. It would have been better held in the Senate but the choice was the second chamber, which means nothing will be heard from it.

Next post a catch up on You tube videos and other covid news.

Raffin

COVID NEWS UPDATE cont.

After 4 years interesting to look back here in the Philippines and the UK:

https://news.sky.com/story/the-virus...th-it-13059424

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/2024/3...ilippines-1450

Not sure about the claim of the longest lockdown. Melbourne and Buenos Aires also claim that,

A comprehensive review of Long Covid from the journal Nature:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2

A cursory look through should be enough not to believe those who are arguing it is not so special or serious.

The Queensland Minister of Health made waves recently by suggesting the term Long Covid was unhelpful.
He said that at a news conference , though it is not in a paper, not Peer Reviewed.
Paper to be presented at a conference.

A good countering argument:

https://theconversation.com/why-scra...ndition-225880

In the UK the covid inquiry held some sessions in Wales:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-68575563

Many lockdown details and at least two major issues were difficult to decide.

A study in the UK concludes that the older bivalent boosters did surprisingly well vs the later monovalent ones.
But in the future the goal is to develop an all variant covid vaccine.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...316-7/fulltext

YOU TUBE VIDEOS



Dr Campbell gets excited by a letter sent to the Met Police Commissioner
by Andrew Bridgen MP. Alleging crimes have been committed and
requesting a good sized venue so that evidence can be taken from about 20 people,
some of them have previously guested on Campbell's channel.




Obviously a publicity stunt. No reply publicized by either Bridgen or Campbell to date.

The names include...an ex employee of Pfizer over a decade ago. A misinformation spreader and cardiologist. A proponent of Ivermectin. A film maker. A Southampton footballer from over a decade ago. An anti vaxxer funeral business owner, who employed embalmers finding, to them, worrying clots. Only also seen as abnormal in Alabama. An ex policeman who once worked at Porton Down.
A motley crew!




A letter signed by 55 academics and scientists.
It's some way through its deliberations now so it won't be changed.
Found an article from last year which looks at the few
other covid inquiries around the world.
Italy is going to have one too soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...de-uk-scrutiny



Bridgen, ever active, catches out the minister on the numbers of long term sick in the UK,
That's not the first time a Health Minister has been shown not to be aware of the data.

Campbell presents a report from a body calling itself The Hart Foundation.
One of its charts




Of course Campbell latches on to this as he sees it as further evidence of post vaccine adverse effects.
Not due to the virus, some of the control measures and health service failures.

In addition he presents the latest excess death data by cause of death from the Office of Health Improvement
and Disparities. Again is appalled by the deaths due to ischemic heart disease. But 3 years ago he put out a video that
explains why:


Campbell also rails against the government for stopping the collection and publication of this data in the future.
But he got confused and a little research shows you an explanation that. like the ONS, they are making some changes
in the way they calculate the excess deaths, taking into account we are entering a post pandemic time and changes
in the UK population. So the series calculated on the old methodology was terminated Dec 29, 2023. A new one
continues and was backdated to January 2023.

Another example of Campbell's sloppiness and what happens when someone turns from being a presenter to a
campaigner...facts no longer matter. One could make some excuse for he being such a prolific uploader to You tube.
But that also can be seen as a campaign tactic...flood the zone to keep attention. Never mind the quality.

More from You tube coming later.

Raffin

YOU TUBE VIDEOS
Part 2

Dr Susan Oliver again enjoyed field days recently:

First over John Campbell's ONS Excess Deaths methodology video (Change in Death Stats)
Reviewed here Feb 25.



An open goal for Dr Oliver as in 11 minutes Campbell failed to explain the changes. Had to be deliberate because he waved a page of statistical notation from the ONS explanation in an attempt to mislead the audience into thinking it was all like that. Judging by the comments he succeeded. To get to that he had to have seen the introduction which gave an executive summary of the main changes and the rationale. So more evidence of how devious he has become in his campaign against the vaccine. UK excess deaths in 2023 were much reduced under the changes and have continued to fall in 2024.

As Dr Oliver explains it is misleading of Campbell to continue quoting the OECD figures...they were poorer than the previous ones issued by the ONS. Now the ONS, is following Our World with a similar approach. It is likely that the OECD will soon follow. Then he will have to find another out of date source to attempt to back up his claims. Oh de

There is a short video explanation from the ONS of the changes here:


Could have said a bit more, but at least something for people who can't be bothered to read the explanation.



A hyper vaccinated individual with at least 134 covid vaccinations and likely 217. At least 5 different brands.
Made the main World News page on the BBC online news site a couple of weeks ago.
Anti vaxxers claim that multiple vaccinations damage our immunity systems.
While this is just one case it is good evidence to add to all the other reasons that they don't.



Anti vaxxers went to substack and posted articles which they claim expose the 217 vaccinations case as a fake.
Dr Oliver goes through them and exposes misrepresentations they make of 4 studies about genetic material in vaccines. The aim to call the Lancet article out as fake news as surely, they argue, it is impossible that so little RNA/DNA material was found in 217 vaxxman's blood? First of all DNA would not be found at all. It is only used at a stage in the manufacturing process and then broken up and removed. Then the studies they quote didn't actually find much vaccine RNA at all.
By the way the study concluded that the subject had increased quantity of antibodies but there was no change in the quality of the man's adaptive immunity response. No adverse effects too..

Some recent Medcram videos of interest:




A Greek study of older adults looking for the associative factors that risked catching covid.
Age was not one!

Highly correlated were:

Urban area
Smoking
BMI index
Depression
Sleep Quality
Anxiety
Stress
Lack of exercise
A plant based diet eg Mediterranean diet lowered the risk substantially.




Dr Seheult reviews covid treatment options.
This also goes for influenza.
Paxlovid is an anti viral. Can't find a price here but saw one result that said in the US about $500 for a 5 day course.
NAC is an amino acid supplement. It hasn't been tested much. Whereas zinc is proven to help cold infections.
HCQ and IV: Doesn't recommend now...He wants to see large scale randomized trials..Though I thought a number have been done on IV and shown it not to be effective. Not recommended by the WHO and the CDC.
The doc's favourites are Sunlight...he makes the point that just getting outside on a cloudy day gives you enough near infra red radiation (just beyond what we can see, reflected off surfaces etc) to top up vitamin D levels and hydrotherapy eg sauna...although increased heart rate needs watching as the heat increases..



A conversation between two people I have referred to here in the past.

Interferon is a substance made by white blood cells, which assists the immune system. One study found interferon levels were increased by hydrotherapy. Seheult also mentions one US study where covid sufferers had an injection of interferon and it reduced their hospitalization by 50%.
Vitamin D3 is the same type of vitamin D made by the skin but taken as a supplement.

More on these treatments from Medcram



Another video:




Denis Rancourt is a former Physics professor and is now a prolific anti vaxxer.
Steve Kirsch, an American entrepreneur, also an anti vaxxer, publicised some
stolen NZ data. Incomplete so his work could not say anything about covid treatments in NZ.
Dr Wilson gives some excerpts from their conversation and comments.
Funny at times!

In the same vein the Philippines blogger, SS or Sally Clarke, who "outed" herself when she appeared at the House joint covid inquiry recently, sent out a newsletter on March 22. No data, which she is quite good at, but a ridiculous list of "Died Suddenlies"
She's been doing that for some time, but has increased it lately. Maybe because the local anti vaxxer campaign, she is one of its leaders, is getting nowhere. No MSM here reporting on the inquiry.

Here is her specially stupid list:




All at UP Diliman. Which is a big University. SS finds it unusual that 5 alumni passed away recently.
One aged 41, the other 4 aged 63 to 88. Not unusual here to die in your 60s and 70s and certainly not
to die at 88 anywhere!
No causes of death, except the last lady died descending a mountain at 41. SS says her fellow mountaineers suspected a heart attack. And yet she puts her in her list, which of course, is saying they likely died from covid vaccination.
SS seems to have some background in health and a good general intelligence, so it just goes to show how being a campaigner can severely affect judgement.
Are they likely vaccinated? She doesn't say individually but then talks at great length about the support academics and administrators gave to the Philippines vaccination program at UP.

Raffin

A correction and more observations on UK long term sickness:




I think I was too hard yesterday on the Health minister.when he answered a parliamentary question from Andrew Bridgen MP.
His answer was very short but he did mention two explanatory factors to account for the rise in long term sickness.
Mental health and skeletal issues.

On the former the Pandemic is well known to have made people feel a loss of control and caused stress,anxiety, fear, loneliness and depression. People already suffering mental health issues may have felt them worsening.

Muscular and skeletal issues are thought to have greatly increased during the pandemic.In particular reduced bone density and aching muscles. Covid infection can cause hyperinflammation which leads to bone loss and joint pain.
Covid treatments, such as steroids, against inflammation can also cause bone pain. Pandemic controls reduced exercise and going outside likely also reduced vitamin D levels. Both necessary to build strong bones.

The Minister might have added something about Long Covid and the probability some people have conditions from covid which do not qualify as Long Covid but when combined with other factors, such as economic or mental ones, have made them long term sick.

Some are alleging many are exaggerating these pandemic effects to claim sickness benefits.Statutory sick pay is currently 109.40 a week but only lasts for 28 weeks. Long term sick pay is discretionary for the employer. So I am not sure that would be enough to encourage many fraudulent claims.

Andrew Bridgen said that "this huge increase started in the spring of 2021 at the same time as the roll out of the experimental vaccines...or does the minister have an alternative explanation?"
Using the charts from the Hart group (link in video) the one for men does not provide clear support for Bridgen:



A rise from the spring of 2020 to late autumn.Though something seen also in 2018 and to a much lesser extent in 2015 and 2019..There was no vaccination until December 2020. But then the Hart group points to a clear rise in sickness in the Spring of 2021, a few months after the vaccine roll out had begun and it went on to reach high levels in late 2021.

A temporal correlation only. To try to link with serious vaccine effects the Hart group claim these are significant. Though evidence for that is weak, Many relevant Google searches are seen, which they admit could just be general interest. Many Long Covid symptoms are not from covid but from the vaccine, they allege. Alhough the evidence is that the majority of serious effects happen soon after the vaccination.

Of course the Minister disagreed with Bridgen..

How about a covid explanation?



The rises in 2020 and 2021 temporally correlate well with covid rises.The 2020 rise could also correlate with the "stay at home" lock down measures. With only the 2021 rise correlating possibly with the vaccines. The mechanisms linking covid with sickness are much better known too. Testing was insufficient and covid cases were therefore missed in early 2021. So I think a stronger case for covid. Long covid is dismissed by the Hart group. They say that the amount from 2020 would be minimal.Yes, but covid infections from late spring 2021 could well have contributed to the steep rises in long term sickness later in 2021 as Long Covid.

The Hart group also give a chart for Women's long term sickness:




Similar for men's, except a plateau for a year from spring 2020.

The Hart group are obviously strong believers in covid vaccines being harmful. They say other changes in Public Health are "hard to fathom'. But there was also significant disruption in health care, with some people scared to even go and seek attention.

Obviously the government do not want to admit the vaccines were not safe. But difficult for them to disprove a negative. So we are left with a stand off between the two divergent views on long term sickness.

Raffin

Covid and other data update

Nothing more from the DOH.
The only country still reporting any data in SE and E Asia is Malaysia Weekly averaging about 50 cases a week over the last month.

For Europe and the USA:

UK



This year's UK case fall from a winter peak. From about 1,000 to 100 weekly
Data from the UK Health Security Agency Dashboard.



UK covid deaths falling also. From about 300 to100 weekly.
Although the most recent number w/e 22 March up 17% on the week before.

UK Excess Deaths

For England and Wales the below expected numbers from the start of the year continue:

w/e 22 March -5.8%
15 March -6.2%
8 March -4.9%

These are now calculated under a new methodology. But the numbers were also negative for the first few weeks of the year under the old one.

USA

Recent case data for the US as a whole no longer available but the CDC do publish this:







Germany



From Worldometers German cases had a small peak in the winter.
Last daily report Jan 3 was of 5,551 cases.
Since then no official data..



From a recent peak of about 100 to 30 daily.

Germany considers an inquiry:

https://www.dw.com/en/german-bundest...iry/a-68742472


So covid down but not out and as more countries stop reporting it gets more difficult to assess the long term outlook.

Last some updated PSA data from an April 1 SS newsletter

https://supersally.substack.com/

Deaths



Deaths for 2023 now confirmed to July.

SS makes a lot from 2023 deaths for the 4 month period March to June being well above those for the same months in 2022.
Certainly unexpected and something to explain. According to SS the vaccines "cannot be exonerated" for that. Anti vaxxers started off believing that vaccines killed many people shortly after vaccination. They still believe that but since the number of covid vaccinations fell greatly in 2023 they needed to suggest long term harmful effects are an additional cause. SS says "accumulating side effects". Mainstream opinion substitutes covid for covid vaccination to explain why there is a legacy of death following the acute phase of the Pandemic.

But ignored by SS is the dotted line projection showing the PSA expect them to fall greatly later in 2023. We should take that seriously as they already have a lot of data for the remainder of the year. Though SS believes she knows better and they will continue higher.

Births



While being above 2022 levels for 3 months in early 2023 births now projected to fall greatly later in the year.
Again covid vaccines "cannot be exonerated" SS says. Anti vaxxers believing they have an effect on fertility.
No such mechanism has been found. But it's very difficult to prove a negative!



Fertility has been declining for 30 years. A steeper decline during the Pandemic as that was obviously not seen as a good time to start a family!
Post the acute phase of the Pandemic phase economic factors may have been a further cause.

I will review some recent You tube covid videos and other covid news in the next post.

Raffin

Some recent You tube videos and covid research



This was the first chart of ONS data presented by the Hart group in their article on UK Long Term Sickness. Strangely, they choose to start with women, about 40% of the workforce.They used it to support their contention that the rise in 2021 had a lot to do with coviid vaccination. They also presented the men's chart which showed a similar but less pronounced rise in 2021.



Dr Susan Oliver prefers to look at the graph for the labour force as a whole. Sensible as it approximately doubles the numbers. Looking at it you see that 2021 does not seem much out of place compared to the graph in previous years.Then
you understand why the Hart group wanted to separate men and women.

Showing that groups with an agenda, even if made up from highly qualified medical professionals, cannot be trusted to present official data properly. Did the many doctors, or even a small number of them, approve this article or did they leave it to
some person not qualified in statistics to put this out? We know that Campbell would not have any idea as to its statistical worth. But he probably wouldn't care as he knows this group is anti vaxx, as he is.

Long term sickness Is multi factorial and Dr Oliver mentions Baby Boomers, people born in the late 1940s now reaching their late 70s, Long Covid, which would by 2021 be also affecting some of those who caught covid pre vaccine in 2020 and the ever lengthening NHS waiting lists. All these factors worsened in 2021 and are likely to explain the sharp rise seen that year.




One of two recent videos put out by Campbell recently on cancer with Dr Angus Dalgleish, which is a disease he seems to be concentrating on these days after running out of revelations on myocarditis and other serious diseases. Cancer a good choice for him as its causes are not well understood, people often not satisfied with explanations of random genetic mutations, and because some cancers can be aggressive.An aspect highlighted by anti vaxxers. Useful as it fits in with their claims that vaccines can quickly cause serious illness and death. Termed, only by them, as "turbo" cancers.

Even better for anti vaxxers is to try to link increases in "early onset cancers" with covid vaccination. Never mind that the data can record these as suffered by those at ages of up to 49 years of age and that covid vaccination of the very young was at a low level everywhere. I think if you hear about "cancer in the young", you don't think much older than 35.

Dr Dalgleish is Campbell's go to expert on cancer. Campbell descibes him as a leading oncologist in the UK, Though we should not rely on that. But Dalgleish is not an anti vaxxer. A rarity with Campbell's interviewees. Something alluded to in a recent critical video about him by Dr Susan Oliver, where she notes he wrote articles during the pandemic on the benefits of vaccination.

Early onset cancer does seem to have been increasing globally since the 1990s, as shown best by a BMJ article (link in her video) looking at data 1990 to 2019. The article includes this graphic on its likely causes.



Obesity, diet, lifestyle issues suspected.

Again, an issue where long term changes are being accidentally or deliberately ignored by campaigners to try to denigrate covid vaccines.

Dr Oliver blasts Dalgleish for suggesting in another interview that his personal anecdotes can serve as evidence for the increase. Which is supported by data up to 2019. Yet Dalgleish goes further and claims that there have been faster increases over the last two or three years. He suggests they might be caused by something other than changes in diet.
I recommend you stick with Dr Oliver's video to read something interesting from Dalgleish on his experience with vaccine trials relating to whether anecdotes are worth hearing.
Dr Oliver found that Dalgleish, in a magazine article, wrongly used data from the American Cancer Society to support his claim of a recent cancer rise there. Its data only went up to 2020.
So what is happening with England cancer data lately?



We see that cancer diagnoses have been roughly constant over the last 5 years, save for an understandable drop during the 2020 lockdown.



By age range. With early years (maroon line,up to 49) following the pattern of older ages.


The percentage of early stage cancers (stage 1 or 2) showing the same pattern for the young. So no increase in advanced cancers in the young.

Finally, a post script on the fall in Philippine and E Asian fertility. Yet another issue where changes have been long term and attempts have been made to link with covid vaccination.
The latest Philippine number at 1.5.


Prolific local blogger SS on covid and many other topics, in a newsletter April 9.

SS flirts withe covid vaccination and other childhood vaccines playing a part in the decline in fertility and in pediatric deaths. Relying on temporal correlation. Ignoring the Pandemic and the affect it had on health services.

Doesn't agree that there could be positive aspects from the fertility rate going below 2.1, which has been generally mentioned as the population replacement level for this country. Such as concentrating parental educational supervision on less children, reducing class sizes, unemployment and Increasing wage levels.

https://supersally.substack.com/

This seemed to me to be a thoughtful article on the issue

https://time.com/6836949/birth-rates...japan-decline/

The Philippines following a long term E (and SE) Asian trend. In the region a number of "baby making policies" have been tried. The Philippines, with its much younger population, will not be at the stage where they might be even considered for years. Nor does it seem likely that more immigration might ever be a remedy here.

Many experts think it better to make adjustments to a lower population. Make the labour force more productive by improving education, health and pensions in old age. But you do wonder if the Philippines can progress those changes over the long term given the continuing high levels of poverty.and of insecurity in the still small middle class.

One more post on recent covid research coming soon.

Raffin

Some more updates on covid:

In the Philippines the DOH has stopped informing about covid. Instead it is releasing data on other diseases.
The link with covid is that we see increased vaccine hesitancy, some of it stemming from anti vaxxer claims.
Also a similar late ordering of vaccines to that seen in 2021 with covid.

Pertussis (whopping cough)

1,112 cases so far in 2024. A 34x increase on the same period in 2023.
About 50 deaths.

Vaccine stocks are low and the DOH says it is getting more in June.
Pertussis is one of the diseases protected against by a new 5 in 1 Pentavalent vaccine for babies.
The others are Diptheria,Tetanus,Hepatitis B and a type of flu.
Stocks of this vaccine at 64,400 last March 25, say the DOH.

I mentioned vaccine hesitancy. SS, a prolific blogger on these matters, opposes the use of whopping cough and measles vaccination:

March 27 newsletter "The Only Weapon..."




https://supersally.substack.com/

Hepatitis B, a viral liver infection, has been described as "Hyperendemic" in the Philippines.
Estimated to affect between 10 and 16%, both percentages are quoted, of people here. Much higher than in most other SE and E Asian countries.

Anti vaxxers are also trying to encourage hesitancy on another treatment.....blood transfusions. Some talk about getting transfusions only from "pure bloods" ie donors from the covid unvaccinated or blood purged from vaccine spike protein. Ignoring that these are fragmented and expelled quickly from the body. So far we haven't seen a case where someone refuses a blood transfusion and dies as a result.
Anyway, the stage we are at now is that in response to the concerns of some anti vaxxers, papers are being published , albeit in online journals..Eg a Japanese paper setting out what to look out for in donated blood.



Notice the anti vaxxer views of the researchers indicated by the language Eg ".."so called Genetic Vaccines".

Long Covid

Anti vaxxers are keen to downplay Long Covid as that also downplays covid, hence they say the need for vaccination.
Though studies suggest that covid vaccination reduces the risk of Long Covid and its severity to an extent.

This came out from the online UK Telegrah newspaper. A news outlet that has lately been one of the few in the UK MSM to print anti vaxxer claims: Relied on a great deal by Dr John Campbell..

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/med...es/ar-BB1lh7K2

So if that's the case Long Covid could be much less than officially claimed. Or if you just looked at the headline or don't read carefully, nothing to do with covid at all.

This was the publication they extracted that news item from:

https://le.ac.uk/news/2024/april/long-covid

Notice the difference in the headline from that in the Telegraph report.

Some recent research on Long Covid:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-68762171

How common is Long Covid? In the US anyway.

https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covi...is-long-covid/

On the body wide effects of covid:

It's the inflammation, not in the lungs, that is a major effect of covid:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-...lammation.html

Why did we see excess cardiovascular deaths during and after the Pandemic?

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20...lar-risks.aspx

Hydroxychloroquine

The malaria treatment was initially an emergency use approved covid treatment in the US. Supported in the Spring of 2020 by President Trump. Finally withdrawn as a treatment, except in trials, by the US NIH in the autumn of 2020 due to not being effective. Evidence from 6 large scale trials. Risks of serious side effects and deaths both from HCQ and not having an effective treatment. Some treatment use continued in India, says wiki.

An article linking Trump's tweets to HCQ use:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7685699/

Another on the deaths attributed to HCQ covid treatment in 6 countries:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...5333222301853X

Finally, yet another very misleading video from Dr John Campbell:




Campbell "presented" an article on Long Covid by a respected Australian immunologist, ignoring the subject of Long Covid! He just selected two paragraphs on possible covid vaccine damage. One of the papers cited by the author only discussed "temporary myorcarditis".
Perhaps worse was that again Campbell said nothing about the well known and much more frequent myocarditis after covid.

A stark contrast to the old Campbell.

Two examples:


"Both Vaccines Working". He methodically goes through trial results in 2021.


Also from 2021 on "Post Vaccine Deaths". Am I concerned? No!
He would say now he has had second thoughts in the light of the latest evidence. But his misguided analysis of that now much greater body of evidence has been the reason

Raffin

Covid data update, later to be followed by You tube videos and covid news.

Worldometers, a site which has tracked covid data very well from the start, stopped updating two weeks ago, as only a few countries were sending it their data.

Some final results:

WORLD

704.8 M cases, 7.0 M deaths

Top 10 covid deaths per M

Peru 6,595
Followed by Bulgaria, Hungary, Bosnia Herz, N Macedonia, Croatia, Montenegro, Georgia, Czechia
Slovakia 10th with 3,887

EUROPE

Same as for World deaths per M from No 2 down to 10.
San Marino 10th, Lithuania 11th with 3,718.
UK 3,389.
Compared with US 3,642.
UK cases per M slightly higher at 364k vs 334k.

Major countries further down the table:

Italy 3,261
Russia 2,762
Sweden 2,682
Spain 2,606
France 2,556
Germany 2,182
Netherlands 1,336
Norway 1,204

UK 24.9 M cases, 232.1k deaths

E and SE Asia

Countries ordered by deaths per M

Hong Kong 1,963
Malaysia 1,126
Taiwan 796
S Korea 700
Japan 595
Philippines 594
Indonesia 581
Thailand 494
Vietnam 437
China 347
Singapore 341
China 4

Ordered by cases per M

S Korea 674
Singapore 506
Taiwan 429
Hong Kong 386
China 347
Japan 269
Malaysia 159
Vietnam 118
Thailand 68
Philippines 37
Indonesia 25
Philippines 37
Indonesia 25

Notes
China numbers given little credibility.
Singapore with high cases per M but low deaths per M. Did well but a small rich state.
Indonesia and the Philippines with similar performance given infection rates.
Malaysia fairly poor.

UK data




UK Covid cases HSA.




England Excess Deaths update

w/e 29 March Deaths 9.389 vs 11,249 previous week
Easter week data collection difficulties so no excess death calculation given.

w/e 5 April -11.9%
w/e 12 April +9.9%

Data collection affected also for the weeks following Easter.

US data

Bealinehx

All well reported and many tanks Raffin. Covid is now just part of life as is influenza and pneumonia and we just wait for the next traumatic virus to attack we humans. I read that human intervention in the name of progress will accelerate the incidents of worldwide epidemics to perhaps very five years.