Massive antibody growth in UK, 3.4 million have Covid antibodies, ten times more "cases" than UK government “dashboard” tally showed. Many never knew they had Covid in the past, had few or no symptoms-UK Telegraph, 8/13/20

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UK antibody tests reveal ten times more Covid “cases” in UK than government Covid “dashboard” showed. Gov. said only 313,798 in UK have had virus, but antibody tests show 3.4 million in UK have antibodies. Many never knew they had Covid in the past, had few or no symptoms. 

Aug. 13, 2020. “We are massively overreacting to new Covid ‘outbreaks’,” UK Telegraph, Ross Clark 

“New research confirms that the Government’s reliance on case numbers is driving an unnecessarily draconian response.”  

“The Imperial College study published this morning claiming that 3.4 million people (six per cent of the UK population) have antibodies indicating that they have been exposed to Covid-19 provides no great revelation. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has already published similar figures suggesting that 6.5 per cent of the population has been infected. Nevertheless, it is yet more confirmation of how irrelevant are the official statistics for Covid 19 cases – and what a nonsense it is to rely on them for policymaking. 

According to the Government’s Covid “dashboard,” updated at 4pm on Wednesday, 313,798 people in Britain have had the disease. This is less than one tenth of the number [3.4 million] suggested by the Imperial study [today]. In other words, for all Matt Hancock’s efforts to ramp up testing, the vast majority of cases have not been detected. 

This should come as no surprise. Back in March, the Government ordered people with mild symptoms not to bother the NHS; just to stay at home and wait to get better. Moreover, a significant proportion of people infected with Covid-19 show no symptoms whatsoever (the Imperial study claims 30 per cent fall into this category, but evidence from Italy and China suggests it could be as high as 70 to 80 per cent).  This group will have seen no reason to get tested. 

The vast disparity between actual and recorded infections matters hugely because the Government keeps acting as if the recorded cases do reflect reality. A small percentage increase in recorded cases in Leicester and in Greater Manchester led quickly to a return to partial lockdown in those areas. Daily, the Foreign Office scans infection rates in other countries to decide whether or not to quarantine people returning from those places. People and businesses are being put to huge inconvenience on the back of a small uptick in a statistic which is pretty well meaningless. 

What the official recorded statistics on Covid cases are really measuring is the extent and effectiveness of a country’s testing programme. The more tests you conduct, the more of those silent Covid infections – the 90 per cent which would previously have gone unrecorded – you will pick up. 

As Luxembourg protested last week when people travelling from there to Britain were ordered into quarantine, there was a very straightforward reason why the duchy appeared to have suffered an upsurge in recorded cases: the previous week it had tested 10 per cent of the population. It was a Herculean effort, the reward for which was to have a metaphorical yellow cross slapped on its door. 

It is a similar story in Britain. Leicester’s “second wave” came after mobile testing vans were sent to the city. When you see graphs of new infections on Britain you need to read them in conjunction with the ever-increasing numbers of tests being conducted-15,000 a day in mid-April rising to 164,061 on Tuesday [in August]. 

There is a moral here. If you are a country whose economy relies on UK tourists, don’t test more people than you need to; let those very mild and asymptomatic cases go unrecorded. If you are resident in Britain and value your freedom to meet relatives, go down the pub and so on, think twice about getting yourself tested – your reward may well be to have your whole town locked down. 

That shouldn’t be the moral – the Government ought to be encouraging people to get tested as it helps to work out where the disease is and to isolate individual cases. But thanks to an over-reliance on meaningless, raw statistics for recorded infections, it is the moral which people will inevitably pick up.”
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Added: In May 2020, 17% of Londoners had Covid antibodies: 

May 21, 2020, “17% of Londoners Have Had COVID-19, Health Secretary Says,” Newsweek, Basit Mahmood 

“Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said that 17 percent of Londoners have had COVID-19. 

Hancock outlined the figure during the Downing Street press briefing. 

The health secretary said that the results of the Government’s antibody surveillance study have shown 17 percent of people in London and five percent of the population in the rest of the country have tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies. 

Given London’s population, that would mean 1.5 million people in the capital have had the virus [some without knowing it, having few or no symptoms]. 

It comes a week after the government announced that a new COVID-19 antibody test to tell whether someone has had the virus has been approved for use in the U.K. after being found to be 100 percent accurate. 

The test, developed by Swiss pharmaceutical company Roache, has been tested by Public Health England and was found to be highly specific and accurate. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson had previously labeled a reliable antibody test as a “game-changer” as it would allow the government to understand how many people had COVID-19 and if they had developed immunity."”

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Added: UK government removes 5376 Deaths [11.5%] from Covid death tally, previous system over counted deaths: 

8/12/20, “5,000 [5376] Deaths [11.5%] Wiped Off England Coronavirus Tally After Government Fixes Overcounting Glitch,” Huffington Post UK, Rachel Wearmouth 

“More than 5,000 deaths [5376] have been removed from England’s grim coronavirus tally after a data glitch meant the government had over-counted…. 

The government will now move to publishing deaths as related to Covid-19 only when the loss of life was within 28 days. 

It means that some 5,376 deaths were counted as due to Covid-19 when it should not have been recorded as a factor, the review ordered by health secretary Matt Hancock has found.

It means that the new working total is 41,329 rather than 46,628, the figure published by PHE yesterday. That is despite 77 more deaths-using the new methodology-recorded over the last 24 hours. 

Professor John Newton, director of health improvement at Public Health England, said: “The way we count deaths in people with Covid-19 in England was originally chosen to avoid underestimating deaths caused by the virus in the early stages of the pandemic.”…

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Related…

8/12/20, “UK Test and Trace system ‘is not fit for purpose let alone world class’ says senior NHS official,” Press Association, UK Daily Mail

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