On an 8 minute extract from the Highwire, Jeffery Jaxen describes what is happening in India (80,000 “cases” a day at one time, posted by @PontiusPrimate in Sept last year) and then in many third world countries. For instance, from the Guardian, in Nepal “It’s As If Nothing There Is No Covid”. This is despite their weak public health system, and families of many generations sharing crowded accomodation.
Or look at Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with completely different figures. Haiti’s death rates (with all their health and economic problems), their death rate was 14 times lower than the world rate.
For the die-hard lockdown proponents, and the Imperial College students (remember 500,000 in the UK will die), this has got to be difficult to explain. As with every post I make on this subject, the caveat of “cases”, treatment protocols, and death reporting still stands.
More on this later Pat, and don’t know whether I posted it here, or wrote about it elsewhere, but the most important news on this came from the Indian Ministry of Health a few weeks ago - that antibody surveys had found 55-60% positives in New Delhi, and that the cases had been falling rapidly across India with some states now “covid-free”. Just a week later Modi was making a huge fuss on how all 1.4 Billion people in India would be vaccinated - in what appears now completely an unnecessary and life-endangering measure. The sharp fall in cases was the same in the US and UK, and had nothing to do with vaccinations in those countries despite the attempts of authorities to suggest it, as well as say the lockdowns did it.
The greatest falls in the UK were in the SE where the most cases of the ‘new variant’ had occurred, suggesting that herd immunity was happening locally there too.
But as long as they keep saying that having the virus doesn’t make you immune, and that asymptomatic people can spread it, and that “recovered” patients still need vaccination because we all have to be safe before we can open up…
Ditto the rest of the world, Africa - where I think without evidence that the viral epidemic has already passed, and vaccination would be a waste of time and money. I’m afraid we’ve lost it though; the rift is permanent now.