Modelling suggests Covid-19 cases to rise steadily unless more is done

‘The number of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia is expected to rise steadily over the next four weeks unless stronger interventions are introduced to curtail its spread, according to projections by Imperial College London’s MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis.

‘Its model estimated that the number of Covid-19 infections in Malaysia is projected to increase steadily to about 7,467 infections per day by Dec 8 if no new measures are introduced to curb its spread. It also projected there would be about 16 Covid-19 deaths per day.

‘This is an increase from the model’s estimate of 4,413 infections per day as of Nov 10. The figure is vastly different from the official tally of 869 confirmed cases that day due to the model’s particular approach to account for underreporting of Covid-19 cases.’

Read here (Malaysiakini, Nov 14, 2020)

Antibodies ‘fall rapidly after infection’

‘Levels of protective antibodies in people wane "quite rapidly" after coronavirus infection, say researchers. Antibodies are a key part of our immune defences and stop the virus from getting inside the body's cells. The Imperial College London team found the number of people testing positive for antibodies has fallen by 26% between June and September. They say immunity appears to be fading and there is a risk of catching the virus multiple times. The news comes as figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the number of Covid-19 deaths in the UK rose by 60% in the week of 16 October.’

Read here (BBC, Oct 28, 2020)

Read here NEJM paper on Iceland which throws into question this

Seroprevalence study estimates 6% of Britain's population infected, higher among ethnic minorities and healthcare workers

‘Researchers at Imperial College London reported findings from a large seroprevalence study involving more than 100,000 participants in the UK... It estimates the overall UK seroprevalence to be 6.0%, which translates to approximately 3.36 million adult infections through June 20. For comparison, the UK has reported 313,798 cumulative cases to date, which corresponds to approximately 0.6% of the total UK adult population.’ -- John Hopkins e-newsletter.

‘The pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 infection in England disproportionately affected ethnic minority groups and health and care home workers. The higher risk of infection in these groups may explain, at least in part, their increased risk of hospitalisation and mortality from COVID-19.’ Conclusion of the study.

Download here (Imperial College Institute of Global Health Innovation, August 2020)

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt on the lockdowns: “I think it is a huge mistake”

‘Q: What’s your view of the lockdown policy that so many European countries and states in America have introduced?

‘A: I think it is a huge mistake. I think we need smart lockdowns. If we were to do this again, we would probably insist on face masks, hand sanitizers, and some kind of payment that did not involve touching right from the very beginning. This would slow down new outbreaks and I think that for example they found as I understand, that children, even if they’re infected, never infect adults, so why do we not have children at school? Why do we not have people working? England, France, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, are all reaching levels of saturation that are going to be very, very close to herd immunity — So that’s a good thing. I think the policy of herd immunity is the right policy. I think Britain was on exactly the right track — before they were fed wrong numbers and they made a huge mistake.’

Read here (AIER, May 31, 2020)

Swedish epidemiologist Johan Giesecke‘s forthright views on Covid-19

In this 34-minute interview, Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:

1. UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based 
2. The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only 
3. This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product” 
4. The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better 
5. The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact 
6. The paper was very much too pessimistic 
7. Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway 
8. The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown 
9. The results will eventually be similar for all countries 
10. Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people. 
11. The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1% 
12. At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available

View here (LockdownTV, Youtube, April 17, 2020)

For the record: Two game-changing studies from Imperial College that affected Europe-wide policies

The Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team in London produced two studies that influenced policy in Europe in a big way. In particular, it helped push Britain to switch its strategy from one based on ‘herd immunity’ to that of "suppression".

(1) March 16: ‘Suppression the only viable strategy’

The first study, published March 16, 2020, concluded that ‘epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time. The social and economic effects of the measures which are needed to achieve this policy goal will be profound. Many countries have adopted such measures already, but even those countries at an earlier stage of their epidemic (such as the UK) will need to do so imminently.’

Read here (Imperial College, March 16, 2020)

(2) March 30: ‘59,000 lives saved in 11 European countries via non-pharmacologial interventions, between 7 to 43 million individuals infected -- as of March 31’

The second study, published March 30, 2020, said that ‘with current interventions remaining in place to at least the end of March, we estimate that interventions across all 11 countries will have averted 59,000 deaths up to 31 March [95% credible interval 21,000-120,000]. Many more deaths will be averted through ensuring that interventions remain in place until transmission drops to low levels.

‘We estimate that, across all 11 countries between 7 and 43 million individuals have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 up to 28th March, representing between 1.88% and 11.43% of the population. The proportion of the population infected to date – the attack rate - is estimated to be highest in Spain followed by Italy and lowest in Germany and Norway, reflecting the relative stages of the epidemics.’

Read here (Imperial College, March 30, 2020)

Coronavirus lockdown measures may have saved 59,000 lives in Europe already, says new study by Imperial College

 ‘At least 59,000 lives have already been saved in 11 European countries due to the social distancing measures introduced to stem the spread of Covid-19, new modelling suggests.

‘According to the analysis, 370 deaths have already been averted in the UK - where a nationwide lockdown came into effect just one week ago - while Italian interventions have saved 38,000 lives to date.

‘But the study also shows that the continent remains a long way from developing “herd immunity”, whereby the vast majority of people have caught, recovered and become immune to the coronavirus.

‘The modelling, published yesterday by Imperial College, London, analyses the impact of lockdown in 11 European countries, including the UK.’

Read here (Telegraph, March 30, 2020)