Are Vaccines Working ?

 On the face of it, yes, they are. About 25% of the population of the UK has now being vaccinated and the data does show a decline in covid cases and deaths since January. 

However, a similar decline in cases and deaths can be seen in Ireland which has only 6% of it's population vaccinated :

Of course, we may not know for sure until UK actually opens up again. 

Sweden All Cause Mortality for 2020 Not Significantly Higher

Graham Neary has put together a graph of Swedish all cause mortality rates for 2020. It shows that their decision not to impose a lockdown did not lead to any significant increase in deaths. 

I've plugged the actual 2020 result into my spreadsheets. Result: all-cause mortality is just 3% worse than 2018, and is better than all years prior to 2014. They won't acknowledge it. But this is not what the advocates of lockdown said would happen:

This does not mean that Swedes went about their lives as normal. Presumably, there were some people who felt safer staying at home most of the time or wearing a mask. It just means that the government did not impose restrictions on everyone. People could make their own decisions and civil liberties were protected.  For example, the Swedish government encouraged people to work from home where possible.

Society does not ban smoking, it advises people that smoking is bad for them, and after that leaves it up to citizens to decide for themselves. The long term departure from this societal convention is worrying.

The Real Health Crisis was One Year Ago

2019 was the worst year ever for hospital overcrowding with 118,000 patients left without beds. December 2019 into January 2020 was the worst winter on record for overcrowding. 

53,000 patients went without beds last year, so less than half of 2019. 

Yet here we are in lockdown in a health crisis only half as bad as that of the previous winter. 

There were also no excess deaths this winter, as Leo Varadkar has admitted "no more people have died this winter than any comparable winter for the past five years" 

Yet nowhere in the hysterical headlines are these simple facts reflected. 

Ireland - The Land of the Common Good or the Individual ?

 The Irish Constitution refers to the common good ten times. By contrast, the freedom of the individual is mentioned only once.  During the abortion referendum in 2018, the majority of the political and media establishment made it clear that we were now a country of individual rights and individual choices. No longer did individuals have a responsibility towards the common good, in effect dispensing with the main spirit of the Constitution and in particular Article 41 which sets out the importance of the family to the achievement of the common good. 

Within just two years, Ireland had done a complete U-turn. 2020 was the year that Ireland returned to a nation of the common good. The Covid-19 legislation that has being enacted aims to restrict the movements of healthy people in order to safeguard those who are at risk. No longer do individuals have a personal choice to decide what is best for them. The State now decides how individuals should act for the benefit of the common good. 

This means that we live in a country with no legal certainty about the direction we are heading in. The constitution is no longer a rudder as was originally intended but a paddle, going different directions depending on which way the wind is blowing. 

Covid Related Deaths more than Doubled during Second Lockdown

 The second lockdown began on 21st October and lasted for six weeks. Deaths due to Covid-19 during that period rose from 1,868 to 2,086. 

In the six weeks to 21st October beginning from 7th September deaths rose from 1,777 to 1,868. 

This means that deaths rose at a rate of 11% during the lockdown as opposed to 5% prior to that. 

So covid related deaths more than doubled during the second lockdown. 

The policy of locking down everybody every time there is a spike in cases should be abandoned but the pandemic is now more about hysteria than evidence.

All data from government official website -

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/ff65a-statement-from-the-national-public-health-emergency-team-monday-7-september/

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/ac874-statement-from-the-national-public-health-emergency-team-wednesday-21-october/

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/6a9bb-statement-from-the-national-public-health-emergency-team-friday-4-december/

The Financial Wonderland of Covid-19

According to economic experts, Ireland does not have to worry about paying back the massive borrowings that were needed to fund the endless lockdowns : 

“Government debt does not have to be paid back, particularly the kind that sits minding its own business in the vaults of the ECB” - Chris Johns, Irish Times

 The problem with that is Article 123(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU :

 

 This means that it is illegal for any Member State to use the ECB as a bank overdraft facility.  The only reason why we can afford the luxury of endless lockdowns is our access to lots of free money. The Irish government have already borrowed €20 billion interest free this year and they plan to borrow another € 20 billion next year.   This is in addition to around €35 billion borrowed at very low interest rates since 2015 from the ECB's PSPP programme, prior to the covid "pandemic". So the free money bonanza that has enveloped the EU is not a new thing as some commentators have argued. 

All this free money being created by the ECB has resulted in the ECB becoming the largest single creditor of the member states in recent years. The German Council of Economic Experts have warned that this could present a threat to monetary policy independence in the long term.

In 2008, after the banking crash, the debt laden on to the backs of the Irish was paid back through taxation. This makes the situation at present different as there is no pressure to increase taxes. 

The natural effect of all this free money is massive inflation but we have not seen any sign of that yet (it may help to reduce government debt by de-valuing the euro). What is the most likely outcome - my guess is that we will see some inflation next year but more importantly negative interest rates will skyrocket so that most of the extra cash lying around on deposit will be recouped.   

There is already a similar precedent for this in the EU banking system, when deposits were confiscated in Cyprus in 2013 in what became known as a bail in. 

So as Mr Johns maintains, the ECB may well continue to play ball by printing infinite quantities of free money but the price will be an eradication of savings, either through inflation or negative interest rates or a combination of both. It will also mean that the EU will once again bend and mold its own laws laid down in it's treaties. This further erosion of the rule of law will sow yet more discontent within the union. 

"Wet Pubs" - Is There Evidence that Incidence Rates Rose in Counties where Pubs Reopened ?

 

 Counties where so-called "wet pubs" reopened at the end of September experienced an increase in the 14-day incidence rate of Covid-19 ten days later. A data analysis survey carried out by Ernst & Young (EY) and provided to Government stated that this increase was not seen to the same extent in Dublin, where wet pubs were not permitted to reopen. The report noted, however, that the reopening of pubs on 21 September - everywhere except the capital - also coincided with the opening of universities and specific sporting events.

 "Wet" Pubs in Dublin closed on the 21st September while in the rest of the country they remained open. What were the Covid incidence rates 10 days later ?

Source: https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/15c67-the-covid-19-picture-in-your-county-over-the-last-2-weeks/

As you can see, Dublin had the third highest rates in the country, dropping from first place. This seems to be the sole reason for concluding that opening "wet pubs" results in higher incidence rates. But statistically speaking, there is no reason to draw this conclusion. Dublin rates are still increasing, as most counties are. 23 counties have lower rates than Dublin. If  almost 90% of counties still have lower rates than Dublin, 10 days after opening all of the pubs in Ireland except Dublin, then the problem is not "wet" pubs. 

What appears to be the case is that when "wet" pubs close, house parties increase, and with more people crowded into smaller spaces in the latter, the incidence rates rise faster. 

The evidence shows that "wet" pubs should be opened immediately. 

Covid-19 Nine Times Less Deadly during October

 

In this graph from the CSO we can see that the second covid wave was nine times less deadly than the first in March. 

In March, mortality rates were at 48 per 1,000 cases which reduced to 5 per 1,000 in October. 

The ICU rate was 27 per 1,000 in March reducing to 3 per 1,000 in October. 

So for both mortality and ICU rate, that's a reduction of nine times. 

In the six weeks up until the end of October, the number of deaths from Covid-19 was around 21 per week. That works out at about 1,092 deaths per year at that (lower than first wave) rate. Compared with the number of deaths from pneumonia and other respiratory diseases for the year 2019, that's 3.5 times less (total deaths from diseases of the respiratory system in 2019 was 3,807 or 73 per week).

Which means the pandemic is well and truly over. 

2,000 Covid Deaths Milestone - A Time for Perspective

Yesterday it was reported that total deaths due to covid in ireland had passed the 2,000 milestone.

Now is a good time to try to get some perspective :

   • 93% of those had underlying conditions. 

  • 6,000 people die in Ireland every year from smoking related illnesses. 

We don't punish the rest of the population for smoking related deaths. Instead society takes a risk acceptance based approach, we highlight the dangers of smoking, the risks to your health and to others around you and the risks during pregnancy. Society accepts these risks and the hospitals deal with the 6,000 plus sick patients every year as best they can. Smokers are not ostracised nor are they locked into their homes but are treated as equal members of society, individuals with the freedom to decide what's best for them. 

While governments can be excused for over reacting to a virus we now know is 3 times less deadly than smoking, it is now time to adopt the same risk acceptance based approach to Covid-19 and return to normal living. 

Coronavirus Numbers not in the Media

 The basis for the second lockdown is on numbers, numbers that are broadcast everywhere everyday. But only certain numbers get media coverage. Testing is supposed to uncover new cases giving an indication of the impending threat but in reality it does not matter if 50% or 100% of the population have the virus. All that matters are the numbers in hospital and the numbers who have died as only these numbers reflect the threat to the nation.

As of yesterday, 315 people were in hospital with the virus, which is 0.0064% of the population of Ireland. It seems preposterous that we cannot handle this without locking down the entire country.

According to the WHO, around 10% of people have or have had the virus, so about 490,000 in Ireland. Total deaths are 1882, which is a death rate of 0.38%. Once again, this doesn't seem like a very frightening number. 

Covid-19 is more mass hysteria than pandemic at this stage. 

 

Ireland's Handling of the Covid-19 Crisis Poor for Countries of our Size

Contrary to public opinion here in Ireland, Irish officials were among the worst in handling the Covid-19 crisis  in the EU/EEA area when compared with countries of a similar size.

Ireland has a population of about 4.5m and has reported 28,000 cases of Covid-19. Croatia, Finland, Slovakia and Denmark have similar populations but they have reported 10,000, 8,000, 4,000 and 17,000 cases respectively. So we have more cases than the first three countries combined. Bulgaria with a population of 7.5m has about 12,000 less cases.  

Hungary has a population of nearly 10 million, almost double that of Ireland yet has only 6,000 cases of Covid-19, nearly five times less than Ireland.  Many in the Irish media who have been very critical of Hungary in recent years should take heed.

Only Austria has a similar amount of cases as Ireland, but they have about another 4 million people so on a per capita basis, Ireland has twice as many. The only comparable country is Sweden which has double the population but three times as many cases. 

So Ireland has only handled the crisis slightly better than a country that choose not to impose a lockdown. The measures implemented here in Ireland have failed. Right from the start, the idea of closing down our borders was rejected, a rejection of common sense - the virus cannot travel on the wind. 

The focus on pubs and restaurants and lockdowns was misplaced, instead the focus should have been on nursing homes, meat factories and direct provision centres, most of which is a failure of our immigration and housing policies which results in large numbers of people living together in the same accommodation.   

Calls to Completely Eliminate Coronavirus are Nonsensical

by Pat Swords BE CEng FIChemE CEnv MIEMA

“He who can does; he who cannot, teaches.”

George Bernard Shaw (above) may have been harsh on academics, but as a professional working in risk management, I was appalled to read in the Irish Independent “We must completely eliminate coronavirus to return to normal, scientists warn”. To explain, as Voltaire phrased it “In his writings, a wise Italian says that the best is the enemy of good”. 20% of the effort may well get you 80% of the performance (Pareto principle), but perfection is solely an ideal. The plane designed never to crash could not lift into the air. While eliminating the circa 150 annual deaths on our roads, would require us to permit only walking.

Therefore, risk is inherently connected to a degree of reward. As the ISO and our legislation explains, safety is not zero risk, but where the residual risk is reduced to a level society accepts in a given context. The Lisbon Treaty does include the precautionary principle, but the Commission’s guidance on its application is very clear. It requires a strict adherence to risk management and “Measures (…) must not be disproportionate to the desired level of protection and must not aim at zero risk”.

Einstein is portrayed as an older wise man, but he was young and unknown when he published his theory of relativity, challenging the Newtonian physics established for centuries. Some considered him an upstart and a ‘scientific’ book was published ‘One Hundred Authors against Einstein’. Einstein’s alleged reply was one would not need the word of a hundred scientists, just one fact, which no one had produced.

Science is never about consensus, which is politics. Neither should 'so called scientists’ seek to establish the ‘consensus of scientists’ to deliberately push the political process. Society alone decides the acceptability of risk; after all, if our mothers believed in ‘zero risk’, none of us would have been born.

Furthermore, what happens if the evidence emerges to show these ‘scientists’ are wrong. Are they prosecuted for negligence, as professionals involved in the practical application of science, such as doctors and engineers, are? Have they accurately informed, in the wider context of ‘teach’? For example, the data is readily available and the sums not hard, if you are under 65, you are as likely to die from a road accident as from COVID.

Regulation is required to be based on Regulatory Impact Analysis identifying the costs, benefits, uncertainties, etc., conducted in a transparent manner with public participation. Not developed by ‘scientists’, who know what, is best for us.

The Government's Spending on Covid Crisis is not Proportionate

The acting finance minister, Pascal Donohoe, said yesterday that the Covid 19 crisis has so far cost Ireland €13 billion and that Ireland will have a national deficit of €30 billion by the end of the year. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, also said that Ireland cannot borrow cheap money forever. As the ECB prints more money, inflation will become even higher in Ireland and prices of goods will rise. Since natural levels of deflation have been prevented in Ireland since 2015 by the actions of the ECB, this means Ireland and the EU are starting at a higher inflationary point than would have been otherwise without the ECB bond buying, and is therefore on the road to very high rates of inflation. Negative interest rates may well be here to stay. High inflation may well suit the Government because it will make it easier to pay their previous debts, but it means savers and workers will continue to be robbed.

At the beginning of the crisis, the government generously paid out covid unemployment payments of €350 per week, almost double that of conventional jobseekers payments. It has since materialized that 40% of those on the covid payment were earning less than €300 in employment. Meanwhile, on the covid subsidy scheme, where employers are subsidized to keep employees on the payroll, employers cannot pay employees more than their average pay and still qualify for the subsidy.   So the schemes were very badly thought out. There is also some fraud occurring where payments were made to non resident people. 

425,000 people are on the employers subsidy scheme and 600,000 are in receipt of the covid unemployment benefit. Before the crisis, there was about 2.3 million people in the workforce. So about 44% of the workforce are now in receipt of government supports. In the UK, there was 28 million people in the workforce before the crisis. Now, 6.4 million people have been furloughed - the equivalent government subsidy scheme for those affected by the covid crisis and another 2 million self employed people are receiving supports from another scheme. That is a total of 30% of the workforce. 

So Ireland has one and a half times the equivalent numbers on covid unemployment schemes as the UK has. This means that the Irish government should be phasing out the support payments. However, it is only the British government which is talking about winding down their schemes to reduce the cost to the exchequer. 

This was partly a reaction to the Bank of England warnings about the UK facing the worst recession in 300 years.  Meanwhile, in Ireland, there is strong opposition to any talk of protecting the taxpayer in all this. Leprechaun economics dictates that we must go blindly into the night and not prepare for a recession. Faith in the ECB money printing machines has never been better. And anyway, sure equality measures will ensure that we will all be equally poor. Except, of course, the few at the top who benefit from high inflation.

Covid-19 Crisis highlights dependency on Fossil Fuels

Delusional Statements in Media made about Climate Change and Coronavirus Crisis

You may have read some puzzling statements in the media recently along the lines of "we must ensure the economic recovery from Covid-19 tackles climate change" or depressing pleas like "we must not forget the even bigger crisis we face - climate change". 

The harsh reality for the climate hysteria movement is that the majority of (PPE) personal protection equipment that have being used during the coronavirus pandemic are made from hydrocarbons, i.e. petroleum based products.

Disposable gloves are made from either nitrile, vinyl or latex. The first two are made from ethylene, propylene and PVC (polyvinyl chloride), all of which are manufactured from materials extracted during the petroleum refinery process.  Latex gloves are made from natural rubber but of course that must be shipped from Malaysia using, what else, but diesel to fuel the ships.

The most popular face masks are the blue polypropylene masks. Polypropylene is manufactured using propene. Propene is produced from fossil fuels, mainly crude oil but in recent years China has used gasified coal. Propene is the second most important product used in the petrochemical industry, after ethene (which is used in PVC production).   

Then there is the issue around food hygiene. There will be increased pressure on shops to cover all food in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis. Plastic, produced from the distillation of crude oil, is of course the most popular cover used. 

So, the Covid-19 crisis only highlights the dependency we have on fossil fuels. Attempting to link climate change to the enormous challenge posed by the Covid-19 crisis is delusional given the worldwide dependency on oil in fighting the virus from masks and gloves to the transport needed to transport them and other necessities like food around . 

But if they really wanted to reduce emissions anyway, they would have to bring all that manufacturing back to Europe and produce everything we need here. 

Wasteful Spending Must be Cut in Wake of Coronavirus

Now that Ireland is entering a period of extended lockdown, which the people are complying with, people are asking what will the future hold.  Money will of course be tight in the future,  so wasteful spending will need to be curtailed.

The virus will simply not go away post lockdown but will be around in our environment for some considerable period of time. Quite considerable sums will have to be spent recalibrating the health service. In this context we have the European Investment Bank, the Commission's Bank, providing €530 million to fund the Celtic Interconnector to France:

https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/news-and-media/press-releases/Pages/Press-Release-Government-Secures-%E2%82%AC530m-EU-grant-for-Celtic-Interconnector.aspx   

We already have so much wind on the Irish grid, that huge surges occur whenever a low pressure system passes through. Not only are conventional plants being curtailed, but so to are the two Waste to Energy plants in Ireland, 50% of whose electrical output is renewable as that is the fraction of biomass in the incoming municipal waste. Their furnaces have to be maintained at a minimum of 850 C, to combust the incoming waste, so the steam is diverted away from the generators and into the cooling system. in 2018 these two plants curtailed the equivalent renewable electricity of 1.5 times what the Dart used that year, dumping instead the energy (in the case of Dublin Waste to Energy into Dublin Bay). As we know the whole programme is a mess.

If we consider the East West Interconnector built a few years ago from Malahide in Dublin to North Wales, this was a completely uneconomic project, as the Irish Academy of Engineers pointed out several times, neither was there any justification other than to facilitate more wind energy. Hence no commercial bank would have provided the funding. The EIB stepped in with a €300 million loan, the EU Commission gave direct funding of €100 and suddenly the €600 million project was viable. The UK paid not a penny for the infrastructure and our network charges on our electricity bill, which is around 30% of it, went up by about 5% to pay these loans back. We don't have those hundreds of millions to be just wasted in this manner in the months ahead, there is after all resonance in that we need ventilators not wind turbines. 


The millions to be spent on the North south Interconnector now also looks questionable. What of the billions being spent every year on NGOs ? In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, difficult financial decisions will have to be made to ensure essential services such as health and social welfare are maintained. Priorities will have to change.

WHO not Fit for Purpose

Two months ago, the WHO claimed that the coronavirus was not a pandemic, and claimed that it could be contained without recommending the only solution that could contain it  - closing the borders to Europe. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday that the coronavirus outbreak is not yet a pandemic, and⁠—despite the growing number of cases and deaths⁠—is hopeful that the disease’s spread can be limited, therefore containing the crisis before it could actually be considered a pandemic. 

They were wrong. This is the greatest health crisis in the 21st century and they got it completely wrong. They backed the wrong horse, climate change. Does obsession with the climate lead to neglect on real issues? Most likely, yes. 

They are not fit for purpose and should be replaced. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/02/04/who-says-coronavirus-is-not-a-pandemic-despite-increase-in-cases-and-deaths/#3f872d2744ce

Back to Fossil Fuels

One third of Ireland's exports is Medical and pharmaceutical products but yet we are still reliant on China for medical supplies during the coronavirus crisis. Coal obsessed China. 

During the crisis, the obsession with renewables has being dispensed with and we are now as a nation happy to use fossil fuels guilt free again. 

Where hospitals get their energy from :

Cargo ships are keeping the nation fed during the crisis. 

How are cargo ships fueled ?  Heavy fuel oil and marine diesel oil.

And equally important are the diesel fueled lorries going up and down the motorways.  

When the chips are down in a crisis like we are now in, reliable energy sources are essential. It's just a fact that fossil fuels are the only option that meets that requirement right now. If Extinction Rebellion got their way, the deaths from coronavirus would be much greater.

Rainy Day Blues

It's been a very strange six months in Irish history. It began in October when the finance minister failed to top up the Rainy Day Fund he had set up the previous year. At a time when the economy was very strong, this seemed like a reckless move and so it has has proven to be in light of recent events. Unfortunately, government ideas of merit are not followed through with the same enthusiasm as the bad ones are.

After this, an early election was called in January 2020, which led to an historic result, but one that was still very much in favor of the status quo.

Then, a month later, as government formation talks continued to drag out, the coronavirus pandemic landed on Ireland's shores. This event has shaken the global order at its very core. The consequences of open borders and free trade are now very real for everyone. Critical thinkers of the global based economic system, who were branded outdated and backward as recently as January during the election debates, are now being proven correct weeks later. It was the governments allegiance to this system that prevented them from acting early,  closing the airports, and putting travelers from Italy in quarantine as the Icelandic government did right from the start. A contact from Iceland wrote to me :

Iceland put everyone in quarantine coming from Italy very early on and a few days later everybody coming from a ski resort in Austria. Now there are more than 6,800 people in quarantine at home. Last week everybody living in Iceland (not tourists) coming home from abroad had to go into quarantine. Authorities also put a big effort into contact tracing. A team of policemen and health workers (at least 60 people) trace every single case. Everyday 50% of new confirmed cases are amongst those in quarantine.

Back in Ireland, a match with Italy on the 7th March was cancelled but thousands of Italians were still allowed to wander the capital Dublin that weekend. In the week before the scheduled match cases in Italy had jumped by 5000. There is some talk about China not releasing information quick enough. I disagree, the authorities in Europe had plenty of notice, they just failed to act decisively. Iceland have managed to slow the virus, comparatively speaking. Since the 11th March, cases in Iceland  have increased by about 12 times, whilst in Ireland cases have increased by about 50 times. The cases are most likely understated in Ireland, because Iceland have tested 3% of their population, including people who do not have symptoms.

Now that we are in lockdown, climate change is well and truly off the agenda. Which reminds me, if we are in the middle of a climate crisis with the ice melting as the schoolchildren (sorry, teachers) are so fond of reminding us, why were schoolchildren flying fossil fueled airplanes to Italy to ski in the snow in February on their holidays ?