Public Health

I have sent variations of this email to my local MP, the shadow health secretary, leaders of the main parties etc. Dear Please challenge the government and ask for an evidence based science debate on the basis for their COVID-19 policies. You can check what I say here with the experts at the WHO. I have just sent this email to the Prime Minister: Screenshot Dear Prime Minister, The WHO say we have a precious second window of opportunity to win against the COVID19 pandemic. But as Italian scientists said, "the virus is very fast and really lethal. Every minute is exceptionally important as…

Few in the UK seem to realize that our policy for controlling COVID-19 differs radically from the WHO recommendations. The WHO say we need to test all suspected cases, quarantine them, trace all close contacts and ask them to self isolate. The UK was doing that until the 12th March when they decided to stop testing for mild cases. skip to: Request for urgent evidence based science debate? Also if in the UK and worried, see: You can protect yourself. For discussion of the model the UK uses for its policy guidelines, and its assumptions, skip to: The Imperial college London study .Also -…

The director general gave a really good speech on Friday, and I am sharing it here, to help people have more courage in what are going to be difficult times. Up until March 20th, the WHO said this is the first pandemic we can stop. Now the WHO say that Wuhan has its first day with no cases which shows the world that even the most severe situation can be turned around. They are particularly concerned about the effects if it reaches vulnerable populations of malnourished children and people with AIDS which is endemic in parts of sub Saharan Africa. He says however none of this is inevitable.…

Singapore is controlling its outbreak with case finding and contact tracing. Any other country can do the same. Singapore is a particularly clear case. They test everyone for COVID-19 if they go to a doctor or clinic for treatment with symptoms of a respiratory disease. For instance if you are living in Singapore, and get a cough or fever, and go to see your doctor - he or she will take a swab which is automatically tested for COVID-19. That's in a country of over 5 million, as large as Scotland. skip to: Contact tracing in Singapore On the 20th Singapore had 40 new cases. Of those, most…

Everyone in the UK - please share this widely, this and other posts that explain what is happening in the UK. We are no longer trying to contain COVID-19 in the UK, only to slow down its spread. Also, we no longer try to keep track of who in our society has the virus, as people with mild symptoms are not tested to see if they have COVID-19. This would be good advice for influenza which is a very different disease. Sadly the Netherlands have also joined us in declaring a similar policy. I hope both countries soon realize how important it is to contain this virus. skip to…

A vegetarian diet is promoted as beneficial to heart health and even the environment in more advocacy-based studies, but as its popularity has grown images of thin beautiful people are being supplanted by reality of just as many obese people as in a conventional diet. A vegetarian diet can't perform miracles, it's still about calories.  A new study is only observational, like almost all diet studies, but it found that a plant-based diet will really only be helpful if it's in conjunction with lifestyle changes. People on vegetarian diets who frequently consumed less-healthful foods…

Summary (of WHO press briefing on 16th March): We must test every suspected case for COVID-19. We must immediately isolate all cases, even the mild ones. Isolation needs to continue through to 14 days after the symptoms cease to make sure the patients are no longer infectious. The mild cases are best treated in hospitals but when there aren’t the beds for them, they can be treated in stadiums, or gyms, or treated at home. If they are isolated at home, the caregivers must know how to protect themselves or they risk infecting others in the same household. [skip to next section: video] We all…

I often get asked - “How long is this COVID19 pandemic going to last?”. The answer, according to the WHO, is that it is up to us. We can stop this. The only question is whether we will. Most countries in the world are acting vigorously to stop it with rigorous case finding, contact tracing and isolation. But the UK and, sadly, Netherlands have decided to follow another direction. This can only be stopped if all countries are in it together, and for just one country to depart from this strategy means the virus will continue in that country and reinfect the rest of the world, at least until we…

COVID19 can be stopped. China has nearly made it go away completely. China had no new cases even in Hubei yesterday (17th March). It had four cases only on the two previous days - and it's only getting a few cases from other countries. South Korea has nearly got rid of it, down to less than 100 a day for several days after a peak of over 1000 a day. China peaked in early February and has been declining ever since. If you add all cases over the WHO "West Pacific" region of South Korea / Japan / Singapore / Malysia / Indonoesia then it had its peak of cases two weeks ago. Text on image:…

Smoking is in decline to such an extent that there is no longer fear about creating Prohibition-style casual criminals with totalitarian rules or outright bans, so the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is doing the next best thing; mandating graphic warnings on packages. That's a much different culture than 1984, the last time a substantial change was made. Back then, smoking was still common but had been clearly shown to be a risk of cancer and other diseases, so the concern was turning the awareness knob enough to get people to be concerned, but not to get too hysterical and make people…