By Jordan Schachtel
Politicians and “public health experts” around the world are using faulty models on a new variant of the novel coronavirus in order to cover for their failures in stopping its spread, while simultaneously leveraging the issue to demand renewed lockdowns and other punishing restrictions. Not much is known about the so-called “new strain” of the virus, but that hasn’t stopped the ruling class from using it to their advantage.
The latest narrative, which is being used as a vector for endless amounts of COVID-19 panic and fear mongering, is related to the claim that there is a new mutation of the novel coronavirus spreading, which is claimed to be much more contagious — a claimed 70%(!) increase in transmissibility — than the original dominant variant.
Here’s the problem with that claim: it’s based solely on a single model put together by a team of epidemiologists with a track record of failure. There is no actual evidence that the new variant of the coronavirus is any more or less transmissible or deadly than previous strains.
The 70% projection was first brought to our attention by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who, in a panicked address before his nation, appeared to blame the mutation for his government’s failure to “stop the spread” of the coronavirus through brutal draconian restrictions. He used the “new mutation” excuse to justify both his failures, and his doubling down on “tier 4” lockdowns to try to “stop the spread” of the new variant.
BREAKING: New Covid restrictions could be announced as soon as tomorrow after Boris Johnson was handed alarming new evidence of the virulence of a mutant new strain. PM in a meeting now.
Telegraph exclusive by @amylouisejones and @gordonrayner https://t.co/nE9ceZrynh
— Bill Gardner (@journobill) December 18, 2020
Johnson’s panicked address frightened the heads of state in other countries to such an extent that dozens of nations immediately instituted travel bans on the United Kingdom, with the hopes of attempting to stop this new coronavirus variant.
The U.S. does not have plans for U.K. travel ban as a new Covid-19 strain pushes more than 40 countries to halt arrivals from Britain https://t.co/9rL8vDdIMg by @ElanaLyn pic.twitter.com/6osEaOLYIC
— Forbes (@Forbes) December 21, 2020
In the United States, the “new strain” prevented a golden opportunity for pro-lockdown politicians and “public health experts” to push for further restrictions in the name of curbing a virus.
“New York is not going to wait for the federal government to protect New Yorkers. We made that mistake back in the spring,” New York Gov. Cuomo on a nationwide restriction on flights coming from the UK as a new strain of Covid-19 impacts the country. https://t.co/wF0oFH3yug
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) December 27, 2020
British media has reported Boris Johnson received his 70% more transmissible statistic from a single source, Erik Volz, an epidemiologist in his mid 30s who is currently a member of Imperial College London’s epidemiology department.
Live Q&A on the new #COVID19 virus variant with WHO, @CovidGenomicUK & @sangerinstitute experts https://t.co/QoRQcmjCfj
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) December 23, 2020
If Imperial College sounds familiar, that’s because the British institution is now infamous for its “plague of the century” epidemiological model for COVID-19, which projected that millions of Americans, and hundreds of millions of people worldwide, would die from the coronavirus in a matter of months. The Imperial model (which, again, was a mere projection of potential outcomes, and it used wildly inaccurate fatality and transmission data) was credited by The New York Times and other major publications with “jarring” the world into action and instituting brutal mitigation and suppression measures.
Neil Ferguson, the leader of Imperial College London’s COVID-19 response team, recently resigned from his top COVID-19 advisory role with the British government, following revelations that he was breaking the lockdown to meet up with his married lover. However, Ferguson reportedly played a pivotal role in convincing Boris Johnson to again reinstitute lockdowns over the holiday season. Ferguson has also been in the news for his new series of baseless claims that the new variant has a “higher propensity to infect children.”
In a presentation last week as part of the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, Volz explained how he was in the “early stages” of his thought process on the new mutation, and has admitted that his information, which was transmitted to the world by Boris Johnson, is not particularly useful.
“We’re still basically in the very early stages. We basically have one month of growth,” Volz stated, adding that “the growth rate” in cases of the new variant “does appear to be quite a bit larger,” before again sowing more doubt about his analysis.
Volz continued, warning that “trends you see early on don’t always pan out.”
“It’s really too early to tell, but this is the current state of our knowledge,” Volz adds, in revealing the 70% number of projected increased transmissibility over a compared variant.