coronavirus
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Measuring Excess Deaths
Summary The way the Office for National Statistics (ONS) measures the number of excess deaths has never attracted much controversy before. The current method is relatively simple to understand and although far from perfect, it is a very easy task to explain the potential problems. It has proved particularly useful during the pandemic as a… Continue reading
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Future Covid-19 Vaccination Programmes to miss out millions – Are we heading for Privatisation?
On 7 February it was announced that there would be a spring 2024 Covid-19 booster programme covering the same groups as were covered this time last year. However, the really alarming news came later in the release where it emerged that a smaller programme was likely from Autumn 2024. This has happened at the same… Continue reading
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Vaccination Programme – looming privatisation : update 1st and 5th February 2024
The Autumn 2023 Covid-19 vaccination programme ended yesterday. As yet there is no news about when the next NHS booster programme will be, though there are signs that the vaccine will be available privately from this spring. In the meantime the Covid-19 virus continues to mutate apace. Also many thousands of clinically vulnerable people have… Continue reading
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What is Wrong with People?
Introduction A couple of weeks ago the Guardian ran a piece: ‘A public health message for this flu season: please keep your snot to yourself’ in which the author highlighted the seeming reversal of behaviour compared with before the pandemic, suggesting that people don’t seem to care if they spread germs around and refuse to… Continue reading
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The 2023 Covid-19 Booster Programme – have some early takers been failed (and what can they do about it)
Summary Recent evidence suggests that the boosters administered to people living in the UK in September 2023 are not particularly effective against the JN.1 variant currently causing problems across the world. Clinically vulnerable people and healthcare workers who had their Covid – 19 boosters in September 2023 after the Government brought forward the booster programme… Continue reading
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Happy 2024?
New Year is a time for reflecting back over the last year and looking forward to the next 12 months. At a time when the world is in the grip of a fresh Covid wave, driven largely by the immune dodging JN.1 variant, and evidence on the damage done by Covid mounts by the day,… Continue reading
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The ONS Winter Covid-19 Infections Survey is published! (updated 12 and 20 January 2024 – see end)
UKHSA published the results of the Winter Covid-19 infections survey this morning 21 December. It paints an awful picture of soaring Covid-19 infections across England and Scotland. It is estimated that about 1 in every 24 had Covid at the week ending 13 December, with infections highest amongst younger adults and in London where it… Continue reading
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Vaccination against COVID-19 – Where did the UK policy go wrong?
In 2020 and 2021 the UK Government were keen to boost that they were world leaders in rolling out vaccination against Covid-19. It now seems like a very long time since those heady days of early 2021 when vaccination centres sprung up in the most unlikely of places across the country, staffed by NHS staff,… Continue reading
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The BBC Strikes Again: Complaint
This morning the BBC ‘struck again’ with an article on their News Website about Covid. Whilst the article does acknowledge that Covid is continuing to make people ill, sometimes for weeks, the BBC continues to avoid bringing in leading immunologists to comment. And they continue to cling onto the idea of achieving some kind of… Continue reading
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Avoiding Covid?
Please note this blog was updated and a revised in August 2024 The vast majority of the population of the UK have had at least one confirmed or suspected infection. But some people have never had Covid (including myself and my husband) and many have only had it once. In some cases never having Covid… Continue reading
GILLIAN SMITH About Me
I am a semi retired social researcher and have previously held a number of senior social research positions in Whitehall Departments. See an interview with me here. I live in a London suburb with my husband who has suffered multiple serious illnesses over the last few years. I myself am living with MND.
This series of blogs represent a personal, evidence based perspective based on living in the UK at a time when we are all meant to be ‘living with COVID’. Although I am a social scientist by training, I have worked closely with people from different disciplines throughout my career in order to present a complete picture of the evidence on specific policy issues. I am therefore scientifically literate but where I quote evidence based on research beyond my particular expertise it is always validated with relevant experts. I am a member of the Clinically Vulnerable Families group, though please note that the information presented here and any views expressed are my own. We are a friendly, supportive group and can be found via Facebook in private mode or in public mode via X (formerly twitter) Or BlueSky.Social
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Living on Plague Island 