The argument for Stopping the Spread of Infection, as opposed to Slowing it down.

#StopTheSpread #SpreadTheLove

The lock down, keep your distance, no large crowds, stay at home, isolate the elderly and the vulnerable for 12 weeks and wash your hands approach is best described as the top down approach.  Government Advice.

It is imposed or suggested from above.

It is an umbrella policy. 

It is a very broad brush.

It has no detail.

It is partly an order,  and partly an advice, issued by the UK Government.

The policy is to slow the spread of the infection.

As things stand there is no policy in place to stop the spread of the infection.

Two entirely different policy choices, with profoundly different outcomes.

The UK Government's claim is that this slowing of the spread is necessary in order to prevent a potential overwhelm of the NHS as it stands.

Their claim is that by isolating the elderly and those in care settings we can allow the infection to spread among the general population of 'fit' people and thus protect the vulnerable and the NHS.

Sounds good.

What does slow the spread of infection really mean?

It means to allow the spread of the infection, albeit more slowly.

How is that possible?

When we all  carry on as normal, what do we need to do to make the infection spread more slowly than if we deliberately exposed ourselves to the viral infection by continuing with our everyday interactions.

Masks, physical distance, hand hygiene, limits on indoors gatherings, work from home is what is on offer.

What is not available is the resource base for rapid suppression of localised surges and outbreaks - expert effective local contact tracing,  economic support for quarantine, economic and medical support for isolation treatment, local real time data and information so that locally people can see where outbreaks are happening and take action to reduce contact or exposure to infection and then stop the spread of the infection.

What is on offer guarantees that the infection WILL spread, just slowly.

That is what slow spread means. There is a problem - slow spread cannot be controlled, it will always lead to exponential growth at some stage.

The Government ignored calls by responsible health professionals an epidemiologists to properly resource the NHS and the 15,570 care homes across the UK with PPE.

The UK Government ignored calls to make other provisions in advance, calls that were made from early January when the genome of the new virus was sequenced, and the virus given it's name (SARSCOV2). The disease was named COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease 2019).

Because of that failure to respond to rational warnings,  the NHS frontline staff have been placed in harms way,  they are forced to deal with a multitude of cases of infection without the appropriate protection kit, and other essential supplies amidst staff and bed shortages, and they are suffering the impact of the governments choice, and we can see clearly now that the claim that they are protecting the NHS was and is obviously false.

They knew it was false the day they announced the policy to slow the spread of the infection.

Slowing the spread means infections have already hit care homes, and the entire population within care homes, carers and the cared for alike, are now at serious risk because they do not have the PPE kit and other situational practices to prevent infection spread.

Therefore the claim to be protecting the elderly and the people in care homes was a non-starter, it is demonstrably not the case.

What does slowing the infection spread mean for the 5,000,000 people in the UK with known  chronic compromised immune system conditions?

It means they are guaranteed to be imprisoned, in isolation or in shielding, for as long as the spread is allowed to progress, however slowly.  It means masses of early, painful, horrific deaths within that cohort -  a conservative estimate would be 1% of that population would be 50,000 deaths.

Slowly, over a period of a many months, or more up to a tear - what does that mean?

How many deaths a month is acceptable?

Why not adopt a stop the spread policy?

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/01/the-coronavirus-crisis-eight-week-suppression-strategy-could-stop-covid-19-in-its-tracks-says-ex-who-director/

"We know we can get this under control,” says Dr Anthony Costello, a former Director at the World Health Organisation (WHO), where he headed up maternal, child and adolescent health. “The problem is that Europe has been too slow to act compared with Asia; and America is now facing a huge crisis.”

Costello, who is Professor of Global Health at University College London where he previously headed up the UCL Institute for Global Health, spoke to me via telephone from Yorkshire, where he is currently isolating from his family members, many of whom are experiencing symptoms of the novel Coronavirus.

Having worked at the WHO from 2015 to 2018 before returning to UCL, Costello pulls no punches about the failures that, he says, have allowed the virus to rampage across Western countries.

He is also concerned about tepid Government messaging. “It’s not enough to just have modellers, virologists and behavioural scientists.

You need people who can translate this into action. Social scientists. Public health experts experienced in community mobilisation.

Right now, we are locked into this strange idea that the Prime Minister or President makes a speech and suddenly the entire country changes its mind. That’s just a fantasy.

Throughout my career, I’ve seen that just giving people a few of the right messages won’t necessarily change behaviour. We need a more serious, decentralised approach and to share data with local communities.”

He refers to some of China’s mass communications measures.

“The Chinese managed to suppress the virus in provinces outside Wuhan without the same sort of total lockdown by operating quickly.

They had a TV station giving out information on the virus round-the-clock on a 24-hour basis.

We had policing of supermarkets and pharmacies.

But most importantly we had a comprehensive mass testing and contact tracing programme. And proper protection for frontline health workers. And that’s how this was brought under control within seven weeks.”


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636331/ - a paper outlining how the SARS epidemic was stopped in it's tracks.

Which is to say take the proven steps to eradicate the virus from within the population in any given area, from a village to towns, to cities and entire territories.

Because we have no vaccine we have no time to waste.

There is no lee-way, no room for any margin of error. Every error will cost lives, will cause avoidable horrible deaths.

So here is the protocol to stop the spread of infection.

A) Officially declare a legal shut down, and pay all non-essential workers to stay at home, by providing a Universal Basic Income for the duration of 3 months itwho  would take to stop the spread, and eradicate the virus from the population.

To make this easier to bear, if UBI is not acceptable then consider a pause rents, mortgages, major bill payments and roll out temporary income support for the duration of the program to stop the spread of the infection.

That money will not be wasted, it will  be going back into the local economy.

Support all essential workers - food production, distribution and retail, public transport, utility, health, police, fire brigades, NHS, military and civil service by ensuring they have full PPE and training adequate to their roles, and provide them and their employers with exact and accurate information on the virus, the infection, the disease and the protocols demanded by the situation.

Clear communications that  treat the citizens as rational adults.

B) Roll out fully resourced contact tracing - Trace all the contacts of every case that presents, and meet each and everyone  of those contacts with a team who can gently and firmly assess and test every one of those contacts to see if they

1) have the virus - send for treatment in isolation wards to avoid treatment at home which leads to more spread

2) have the antibody - have survived the infection, are presumed immune

3) have not yet been infected - people who could become infected - they must be protected from contracting the infection and also quarantined for two weeks to see if symptoms emerge.

Use school buildings that are empty as co-ordination centers locally. Distribute testing and organise local contact tracing through these as well.

C) Treat symptomatic people from the contact list and all who present with symptoms in isolation hospitals, rather than leaving them at home, where they can spread the infection, and where the patients condition can escalate without support to deal with that.

(This was observed in Wuhan before the contact tracing and new build isolation hospitals kicked in - in the end they had 1800 teams of 5 people each meeting all the contacts, contact tracing is resource heavy in that it needs lots of people working at it, nonetheless it works really well, and then mobile phone tech was integrated into that to monitor symptoms and spread. Potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs which puts more cash back into the local economy and build community cohesion at the same time.)

D) Quarantine all asymptomatic contacts, and as soon as they show symptoms, move them to treatment hospitals to prevent or reduce escalation to severe or critical  - this also means less pressure on the available intensive care units and general hospital admissions.

E) Everyone who is quarantined is supported financially and monitored for signs of symptoms so that earliest treatment can be given, to reduce escalation of symptoms into severe or critical.

If the Government had taken this route, back in February, or even in Early March, a method which is proven already in 5 largely urbanised states, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea and is being deployed successfully in others as I write, we would be closer to stopping the spread and then eradicating the infection spread within the UK population.

We know that it would take 8-12 weeks to stop the spread across a large populous state.

Those states that have applied this protocol are experiencing imported cases, that is to say the infection is being carried in by travellers from outside those States are bringing the virus back into those virus free territories.

F) Quarantine all incoming travellers, via Air, Land or Sea, for two weeks, and monitor them strictly.

If the Government were to move immediately to stopping the spread with an eye to eradication, we could clear the infection within three months.

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/01/the-coronavirus-crisis-eight-week-suppression-strategy-could-stop-covid-19-in-its-tracks-says-ex-who-director/

We have the resources, we have the people, we have the desire - but do the Government share this vision?

The aim is to find all infection routes and to chase them down to where everyone infected is known and observed, and no new infections are starting - when the virus runs out of new hosts, it vanishes in that population. Quarantine must be fully implemented upon all incoming  and returning domestic and international air, sea and land travel. Even from Northern Ireland.

We need both the shut down and the bottom out approach.

Instead the UK Government policy is encouraging the slow spread of infection, and pretty much guaranteeing importing extra new infections by way of air, sea and land travellers arriving from other countries where there are serious infection outbreaks, because, as of today, 17 April 2020 is no testing or quarantining of those arrivals.

This is insane.

Let me repeat - within the UK we could, given the fullest resourcing, eradicate the virus in 3 months.

Then a fully funded quarantine must be in place for all incoming or returning travellers to maintain that eradicated status, until a vaccine is available or we have implemented the stop and eradicate policy across the Earths states and communities...

Allowing the slow spread will play out over many,  many more months, possibly years...

In economic terms the difference is between losing three months of GDP or losing a years GDP plus the other costs as various systems reach collapse or stress beyond repair due to continued shut down, re-opening and further waves of infection outbreaks generating a cyclic pattern that persists because there is no vaccine.

It's not just about me, or you my dear reader, it is about all of us.

This situation is about all of humanity as one human family, one society of many cultures and languages, it is about unity across diversity.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

England must ‘take it on the chin’ - historical precedence - understanding English Government Corona Virus Policy : making sense of the insane.

Making sense of the English Government Policy on SARSCOV-2 viral infection epidemic, and the COVID19 disease Boris Johnson's father has written a book on population, posing population as a problem to be resolved by reduction, rather than by changing what the population does. My perspective is that 7 billion people engaged in nurturing the world we share, deploying permaculture for example, is a different way to solve the problem. Here Johnson senior lays out the basics of his 'thinking'.

Who's chin, and for what? Late Victorian Holocausts is a book that looked in some detail at the many famines that 'occurred' during the reign of Queen Victoria. I grew up in Ireland and the stories of the Famine were part of my education. It was much later that I learned that even the Irish official narratives were incomplete. I read Late Victorian Holocausts at the same time as I read The Scramble for Africa. The threads of European Christian Imperialism were revealed to be steeped in the bloodied lives and deaths of millions of vulnerable people. Now we are living in the Late Elizabethan era, and since 2003 the British Government has perpetrated a series of mass population level harms at home and abroad. Iraq, Afghanistan, Austerity, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Millions of avoidable deaths caused by deliberate UK Government policy choices. And now COVID19. We are in potentially at the beginning of yet another holocaust. What is Herd Immunity? Why did Johnson even mention that concept, a pseudo-scientific 'theory' in the context of SARSCOV2 and COVID19 except to put that idea into the mix? It is scientific nonsense to postulate Herd Immunity for a new pathogen which we know so little about, which appears already to be generating variants more rapidly then we would like. He can claim, of course, that he has not chosen that policy. However the effect of the ignoring best advice since January 24th is that the population will be forced, by circumstances the Johnson Government have created, to take it on the chin. Slow spread guarantees the bulk of the population will inevitably be exposed to the virus.

Fully aware, as he must have been at this date, of the implications of ignoring the best advice, look at this interview (see below). What is going on here? Are we getting accurate and clear advice? The Government might not have stated the policy in public as such - take it on the chin - yet when we examine the time line of global awareness of a unusual form of pneumonia in emerging in Wuhan late November through to identifying a novel corona virus, in early January having sequenced it's genome and thus confirming the nature of a novel pathogen and the implementation of epidemiological protocols in January into February in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, then the British Governments lack of a response is at odds with the realities of the situation. Take note of the speed with which the Chinese and international medical, virology and epidemiological research community responded once they had identified that the virus was indeed a new virus for which there was no immunity, and the speed with which China, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong implemented the correct protocols to stop the spread of infection. Contrast that with the lack of a determined response in similar fashion by the British Government and National Health England when they were categorically warned and alerted that serious and immediate action must be taken, to prevent thousands upon thousands of avoidable fatalities, the only logical analysis is that the policy was indeed to allow the infection spread across the population. "Take it on the Chin." Now, it appears that in mentioning it on live breakfast TV, Johnson put that policy aside - and offered a different policy as the way forward. But did he? Did the policy really change? If it had, then there is no evidence in material terms at that time, that it has changed. The lack of PPE, the lack of stock piles of kit and medicines, the lack of effective and clear public communication, the failure to introduce distancing policies, the lack of attention to detail and the wilful rejection of prior learned experience notably the contact tracing work carried our in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, amount to allowing the NHS to take it on the chin.
As a background to the rest of this piece I will set out a context, a psyche-sociological behavioural and historical context. The psychology of artificial power disparity and it's historical patterns.

We live within a social material system or culture of hierarchic power where a few hold the material power to affect the lives of many, many people for good or for ill.

This is not an egalitarian society, what we live in. Inequity is the normative dynamic we see everywhere. It is a power hierarchy. Even with 'democracy' as it is, it is a violent hierarchy.

A few principles of the behavioural dynamic of such a system must be understood in order to understand what is happening in the UK at this time, where we face an epidemic of a viral infectious disease for which we have neither immunity nor a vaccine.

This is an unprecedented situation, where the population as a whole is suddenly made vulnerable, not only by the virus, but by the behaviour and actions of people who hold power over the population.

This situation requires that we see the true material reality of power and behaviour in order to confront the situation in the best manner with regards to public health and the care of our most vulnerable people.

1. Bullies will always exploit any emergent vulnerabilities in any family, community, organisation, institution or population where they gold a power disparity. It is a behaviour pattern, a psychology - it is not a conspiracy as such, even though bullies in a position of power will conspire within it...

It is a core behaviour pattern within hierarchy cultures.

Egalitarian cultures do not do this, ever. Ever.

Good decent people will never behave in that way.

Hedge funds do. Tyrants do. Predatory Corporations behave this way

2. The UK establishment/Government policy from day one was, as I have laid out above, in effect if not in publicly declared name, to "let the population and the NHS take it on the chin, in order to protect the Economy" (code for protect our Wealth and Power)

The British Government ignored warnings from expert communities, international epidemiologists, clinical practitioners and public health officials and workers. They adopted a policy of isolating the elderly and the vulnerable away from contact with the rest of the population, to allow the infection to spread through the fitter, younger population who would experience 'mild' symptoms.

This was a policy based on bogus pseudoscience,  "data modelling and behavioural sciences"  rather than virology, epidemiology and best public health protocols and practice.

Every push back exposing the flaws in that and subsequent policy decisions of the British Government, from the epidemiological, medical and public health experts has been carefully  co-opted with that in mind. 

Even the policies on protecting income are in real terms a wealth grab.

The media are refusing to call it like it is, and are protecting the Government/Establishment by portraying  this event as an unforeseen (lie) and difficult situation (true), or by claiming Government incompetence rather than the actuality, which is deliberate mediated negligence of the public's health, driven by a desire to protect the Wealth.

There is, of course, some genuine incompetence involved. But much worse than that is repeatedly not admitting errors and carrying on as if they (the government) have addressed their previous errors, whilst continuing with the original policy.

2.a There is an historical precedent for what we are seeing.

The British Government behaviour : their actions and and the outcomes during the Irish Famines (mid 1800s) and the Indian Famines (late 1800s) are instructive of the attitude we are seeing today.

Bear in mind the Eton/Harrow public school background and education of the main players of the British Government and the Establishment, their links to investment banking, their desire for a deregulated corporate environment, their protection of Tax Havens. A plutocratic ruling class. Priti 'No Potatoes' Patel
"Tory MP Priti Patel has told the paper that these *warnings should have been used as leverage against Ireland to encourage them to drop the backstop.
“This *paper appears to show the government were well aware Ireland will face significant issues in a no-deal scenario. Why hasn’t this point been pressed home during negotiations? There is still time to go back to Brussels and get a better deal.”
Using food shortages as a political leverage. https://www.thejournal.ie/brexit-threat-food-shortages-ireland-4381228-Dec2018/
People educated in a sense of entitlement to Rule, a sense of genetic and intellectual superiority to the general population, and an historic loyalty to the Crown and The Establishment above all else, the Power.
Sir Charles Trevelyan one of the British politicians charged with managing the response to the famine echoes the words of Iain Duncan Smith, who rejected the idea of applying Universal Basic Income as a short term solution to help workers and employers bear the burden of a shut-down during the looming crisis :
Sir Charles Trevelyan: his wiki page
"If the Irish once find out that there are any circumstances in which they can get free government grants, we shall have a system of mendicancy [begging] such as the world never knew”.

“The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people"
Iain Duncan Smith : source
"One proposal being pushed around at the moment is the redundant idea of a Universal Basic Income. Let me say now, it’s un-affordable, impractical, produces massive disincentives for people to work and most importantly won’t make any difference to poverty in this country. And even if that weren’t enough, this would not be the moment for such a massive upheaval of our welfare system."

Update - The post-Covid-19 war on the working class has begun early. Rishi Sunak wants to wind down the Job Retention Scheme, which has paid 80 per cent of the wages up to £2,500 a month of 6.3 million people, in July. “People are addicted to the scheme,” a senior government source briefed the Times: with a current price tag of £8bn a month the policy has been deemed not “sustainable”.

It appears that it was not Rishi Sunak who uttered those words - it was some other high official, who is remaining coy. Nonetheless, the pattern is clear and continuous. No mention of the upheaval of a tsunami of COVID 19 cases across the country, and the potential for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of fatalities, logn term chronic health impacts and the disruption of cycles of shut-down, open up, next wave, shut down etc.. So there it is, the repeated behavioural dynamic, across 100's of years.

I think it's worth mentioning in passing this website which record the details, of British Empire sentiment, action and rationalisations of policy as recorded in Hansard, the Parliamentary record, in news media of the day, and in private archives.

Late Victorian Holocausts is another go to text on this. This book examines in detail the British Empires attitude to famines across the empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts

Quite complex, yet not at all complicated once you understand what is happening and why.

3. Have you read the WHO final report on Wuhan, written  by a team the visited Wuhan for a week, speaking to those who had the experience, in February 16 -23? Have you read original sources, or what others have written about those materials, giving their perception rather than relaying the pertinent information.

If not, you know nothing other than what others are saying about it. You are rendered blind, and trusting. In such a severe situation, that is unwise.

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf

4. Get up to speed, seek accurate,  original sourced information in order to protect your family and loved ones.

4.a  Doctor John Campbell, a British Accident and Emergency Veteran and Epidemiology doctor and a senior Nursing Trainer, is a really good source on Youtube. 

He has been vlogging on this since early January.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9IOB2TExg3QIBupFtBDxg

4.b Mother Jones is a reliable independent news source on-line from the US... 

Superb article on examining the lessons learned by the Chinese Health System and  theirNational Government.

4.c Democracy Now, honest reporting, useful, US based video and transcript.

www.democracynow.org

4.d The Real News, independent viewer funded reporting, Canada based.

www.therealnews.com

4.e Google 'lessons learned' and 'China' or 'Korea' or 'Taiwan' or 'Hong Kong' - seek out source info.

5.  My top tip Advice - make no more assumptions, work off the available evidence, evidence, evidence!

There is so much information available - explore with google scholar for papers on any specific subject you want. 

It's all there, and there is shed loads of really good science done and dusted, and presented in clear language..

We are all indoors, we have time to peruse the real papers and our growth in knowledge will help dissipate the fear of the unknown.-

6.  Please study the experience of Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore - they know what they are doing because they had already experience with SARS in 2003, and they applied those learning's to this outbreak of the new infectious virus SARSCOV-2. They have managed to control the spread of infection, though they will remain, as we all will, vulnerable to further outbreaks. The thing is that precisely because of having successfully deployed the best epidemiological protocols, they are ready to respond rapidly to any new out breaks, and limit the harms caused..

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/3/taiwan_coronavirus_response - short, informative video segment on what Taiwan did that helped stop the spread of the infection.

7. In terms of how food can help support your immune system, and your bodies defences, it's fever dynamics, I present for your use a web page with nutrition advice, from the American Nutrition Association. Personalised Nutrition and the COVID-19 Era..

"At the moment, the nutritional strategies to deal with this infection are only supportive. In the absence of large-scale and long-term data, there is insufficient understanding of the subtle differences of specific nutrients on outcomes for individuals and populations. This task force of ANA nutrition scientists and clinicians has gathered to share collective expertise towards the potential supportive role of personalized nutrition during this challenging time for our society and our healthcare systems."

Has links to  research papers supporting the various bits of information, which is to say, proven efficacy, not theory or hope..

8.  Arm yourself with accurate, verified information that you can check.

Helpful tips on caring for relatives at home.

Dr. John Campbell, UK - I highly recommend his channel as a way to access grounded information that is presented calmly without diluting it's seriousness.

No need for fear, or belief, or assumption or fantasy. 

9. We will get through this, in spite of the British Government, Conspiracy Theories, UK Column  and the misinformation industry, the BBC and British Media in general.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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