Professor Robert Dingwall, perhaps the most sceptical member of Government advisory group NERVTAG (which feeds into SAGE), appeared on BBC Radio 5 on Friday morning to talk to presenter Rachel Burden about the Indian variant, vaccines, models, masks and social distancing. This is about as sceptical as you will get on the BBC, and Rachel finishes by saying “I know there’ll be scientists who disagree with you, but we try and reflect the broad range of views here”, which will come as a surprise to many. Let’s hope she keeps her job after letting such heresy air on the BBC. You can listen here (2:43-2:50) and Lockdown Sceptics readers Teresa Wood and Stuart Robertson have kindly sent us a transcript.
Rachel Burden (0:04): What’s your assessment of how dangerous this variant is at the moment?
Robert Dingwall (0:09): Well I think it is very important not to confuse two things. The first is to say that something is more transmissible does not mean that it’s going to create more severe infection. In a sense you can see this is a trial run for what it means to live with COVID as an endemic infection as we will do in the future, the Indian variant, by saying it’s more transmissible, it’s perhaps easier to catch it, but all the evidence so far is that the vaccines continue to offer very effective protection, and where the infection is clustering in younger people, this is in age groups who are very unlikely to get seriously ill as a result. So we shouldn’t expect to be seeing the sort of waves of hospitalizations, Intensive Care Unit admissions and deaths that we’ve, we’ve seen previously.
Rachel Burden (1:04): Well that’s really encouraging because I was reading some stats this morning that had been produced by SAGE, I think, which was suggesting that if it was X percentage more transmissible that we can be seeing 6,000 hospitalisations in the summer by August and so on and all of that looks really quite alarming, particularly as we’re just beginning to open up, but as we know there is no perfect modelling when it comes to this virus is there?
Robert Dingwall (1:27): Well indeed. One of the problems with the models all along has been the lags between obtaining new data, and understanding for example the linkage between mild infections and hospitalisations, which has changed quite drastically since the beginning of the vaccination programme. So the models are a helpful thing to think with, but we shouldn’t take them as crystal balls. And in this case it really is very hard to see, as the vaccination programme continues to roll on, where all those extra admissions and deaths would come from.
Rachel (2:08): You’re speciality is not specifically for virology, but, but, sociology, but I just wonder with that in mind how do you manage public expectations at a time like this because we’re trying to always find that balance here, myself and Nikki on the show between, you know, reflecting the confidence and positivity people are beginning to feel, that which I think is really important, but with that sort of background anxiety and I suppose some realism that this virus isn’t just going to disappear overnight, and we need to be aware of that still. How do you advise the government to manage public expectations around that.
Robert (2:48): Well, it’s very much a question for a sociologist, what we have had, really, I think, last spring, there were very good reasons to be fearful of the Covid virus. Nobody had ever seen it before. It might have been an existential threat on the scale of the Black Death in the 14th century or something like that. As we learn more about it, it’s clear that it’s not that kind of threat for most people, the experiences of mild respiratory illness which will, which may give them a really unpleasant week, also may take some weeks or even a few months to get over. But the focus has always been on the hospitalisations, on the deaths, to some extent on the amplification and prolongation of the fear just to try to encourage people to maintain various sorts of behaviours which are thought to interrupt the transmission of the infection. I think the problem that we now have really is dialling down that fear, is really asking the Government’s behavioural scientists to turn around, instead of trying to find ways of making us more afraid and more compliant, there’s not actually much to worry about. As we proceed to vaccinate the adult population, the risks of death, the risks of serious, serious hospitalisation. These are things which are declining day by day.
Rachel (4:27): And you’re absolutely right, I suppose it’s, it’s that on the one hand on the other. A colleague of mine here this morning saying they’ve been to a café one morning over the weekend. Nobody wearing masks, not in the cafe. The staff like nobody and, and I’m sure you could go to pockets all around the country and find that to be the case. But are there some sort of particular issues with behaviour and compliance with basic social distancing measures that, that are going to be really problematic in the months to come?
Robert (5:03): Well probably the only social distancing measure that’s had a real impact has been working from home, for the rest the evidence is very equivocal.
Rachel (5:12): Including masks in your view?
Robert (5:15): Including, including masks. I mean the science around that is very uncertain, there is weak evidence that there might be a small benefit but then there’s other evidence which points to problems short term and long term. It’s always been one of those things that’s, to some extent been if you like a demonstration that something is being done. It’s what the psychologists call an action bias. The pressure on governments to do something in this crisis. A lot of the stuff around mass and social distancing has been very much in that order. We should see, we should see a decline. There are times and places where it’s useful but in these, in many of these general situations, many outdoor situations, even a considerable number of indoor situations, they’ve, they’ve never been of great value. But the messaging has been important in continuing to promote awareness of the general level of risk in the population.
Rachel (6:09): Very interesting. Thank you. I mean, I know there’ll be scientists who disagree with you, but we try and reflect the broad range of views here, but thank you very much, Robert Dingwall, Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University. He is part of the NERVTAG advisory group.
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‘we try and reflect that the broad range of a views here’ – who says that the BBC can’t do comedy any more.?
They “try” but in an ineffectual way.
BBC double speak.
oh, the DDR reflected a “broad” range of views. However, they also banned quite a lot of views. (To be fair, I did once hear a Darwin-sceptic view on the BBC).
Put Professor Dingwall in the house of lords immediately and give him a job in the cabinet.
Dingwall is just another pro-vaxx drone doing the government’s bidding.
I guess Auntie thought he was a doom merchant! Last BBC appearance for Mr Dingwall?
Does this amount to an admission, or is it simply an attempt by Dingwall to extricate himself from the inevitable public inquiry and the difficult questions? Yet he still bangs the drum for a killer experimental gene therapy vaccine that is currently killing at least as many per day as C19. In particular he, just like his NERVTAG colleague Prof. Anthony Harnden who was doing the rounds yesterday, is targeting the young when he says:
This despite the young having 100x more chance of dying from the experimental vaxx (leaving aside the other life changing side effects) than C19 according to the government’s own MHRA figures. Dingwall is no friend to sceptics, just another drone playing good prof – bad prof.
Dingwall has been a voice of reason during lockdown.
He is not saying anything new.
I don’t regard someone advocating mass vaccination as a voice of reason. Using the government’s own figures out of 9 million vaxxed school kids between 200 and 900 will potentially die from the vaccine. Whereas less than ten will potentially die from C19. WTF is going on here?
Even Dr John Lee and Dr Claire Craig speak of the vaccines as being effective. Won’t make me take it but probably better not to be an extremist either way.
Quite right.
Personally I have no confidence in the snake oil, but if belief in it works against lockdowns, I’ll go along with that for the time being.
If it eventually transpires that the snake oil really works to stop Covid, I’ll take it, just as I’ve taken vaccines that have some claim to stop other diseases. Cost/benefit.
so you want to take something that immediately causes more deaths than its stops, with absolutely no idea of medium/long term risks? some cost/benefit.
No I don’t. I just said so.
Sorry to see they have got to you. Before you take a sip from your jailer I suggest you check the vaxx death stats against the C19 death stats per age group.
I didn’t say I was going to take the snake oil. I said I would go along with other people’s pro-vax superstition if it worked against other people’s pro-lockdown hysteria.
Lockdown and Vaxx are the inseparable sides of the same policy coin, and have been since March 2020. To go along with vaxx superstition is to promote it, even by tactical non-opposition.
Jabbing 9 million school kids with experimental vaxx, knowing between 200 and 900 will die (using MHRA figures) is unconscionable, while realising the additional long term impacts are still entirely unknown and non fatal ADRs are already in their hundreds of thousands. How can anyone look the other way on the grounds these experimental treatments are a price worth paying to end lockdown and go back to normal?
Life can never never go back to normal if it has been as a consequence of such unethical policies. The fact this government is even contemplating such knowing slaughter (when less than 10 might die of C19) will leave a permanent stain on our collective conscience.
We will not deserve our freedom if we fail to oppose Big Pharma’s vaxx plans, nor will we get it.
The pro-vax superstition is just that. It’s a trap.
probably better not to be an extremist either way Extremist???? The only extreme element here is government policy – both on lockdown and vaxx – which have been inseparable since Johnson’s first blusterings back in March 2020 – since when we have seen the shocking vaxx death and ADR figures rise and rise. Just to refresh on that… https://yellowcard.ukcolumn.org/yellow-card-reports (and don’t forget this is subject to a potential 90% under-reporting figure according to the government, so multiply by 10 to get a more realistic appraisal). How may doctors are actually taking this muck? In some USA states the refusal rate among medics is reported at being over 50%. Why is that? This article remains relevant from TCW, from which I quote: ONS data shows that deaths in the healthy under-65s ‘due’ to Covid-19 in 2020 numbered 1,549. Across all age groups (not including babies):For healthy:Under 10s 1 in 4 million10-19 year-olds 1 in 2.5million;20-29 year-olds 1 in 576,000; 30-39-year-olds 1 in 164,000; 40-49-year-olds 1 in 46,242 and 50-59-year-olds 1 in 16,277. Factoring in the chances of even developing Covid-19 at this stage in the game (as mentioned above, 1 in 500,000 according to Tim Spector who runs King’s College Zoe App) suggests that jabs… Read more »
I agree with most of what you say, and I think the idea of jabzin children is evil, BUT in the same way I wouldn’t force you to have a vaccine you didn’t want, I accept that I can’t make the same blunder and force adults to not take it if they want to.
There are many good and scientific people who do reject lockdown, but don’t reject the vaccine. It may be inseparable to you, but obviously it’s not to them. If Annie or anyone else can see a cost/benefit at any future time then that is their choice, and to deny it to them is no different to the nutters wanting us to be forcibly vaxxed.
There is scientific justification for vaccines, none whatsoever for the mediaeval superstition of lockdown
PsyOp
He talks the usual official arrant nonsense about the “vaccines”. Some people, even on this site, are so easily bought. His kind or reason has killed many thousands already.
Sweden lags behind on vaccine, but they are paying the price now.
paying the price:
Still unreadable.
Think you are better off looking at mortality rather than cases.
Yes – I see what you mean.
Sweden ‘suffered’ with an infection peak of around 600 cases per million while Israel and the UK breezed through their respective peaks of a mere 800 cases per million.
Since the start of the vaccine rollout on December 8th, the UK has only recorded around 65k deaths. We sure showed those Swedes how it should be done.
Cases – how about deaths?
Hard to see the price.
Hopefully readable – first time I’ve tried to add an image
Cases, for those who haven’t been paying attention, the case bs has been comprehensively discredited way back.
Revision for those who’ve only just woken up :-
It’s all to do with the CT of the PCR (method) as used in the various jurisdictions and for what purpose.
THE CASE NUMBERS ARE COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS.
Completely nonsense. Sweden started early vaccinations in long term care homes. They have had very low C-19 mortality not at all connected with the rise in cases. Sweden then started later the insane mass vaccinations when they have just protected those most in need. Sweden has negative total mortality despite the case spike and very low C-19 mortality. In fact, fon should have used Sweden as a positive example of vaccinations of risk groups.
The area under the curve looks pretty similar in total (Sweden behind us) but shouldn’t it be off the scale as their restrictions were far lighter than the UK? Nope… virus doing it’s own thing
You keep showing this graph and I expect it’s always unreadable for good reason.
You again?
Fon, you really have not kept up, have you…? Or are you just willingly blind? This is not a pandemic. It’s a CASEdemic.
As I pointed out elsewhere:
UK deaths officially attributed to covid from 2nd January to 5th May:: 53,105
Sweden deaths officially attributed to covid from 3rd January to 6th May (adjusted for U population): 37,295 approx.
That is to say, the IFR for the UK over that period is circa 1.424 times that of Sweden. I just don’t see how that equates to Sweden paying a price. A similar story with other European countries, by the way.
Vaccines kill do they?
I think he meant Fon(g) and his mania with The Vaxx?
Can understand where you are coming from, but to give Dingwall credit, throughout this shitshow he hasn’t been afraid to pit his head above the parapet to offer some dissenting and often very provocative alternative opinions. So I say good for him to take that risk and speak out.
He is not taking a risk. ‘Transmission is not morbidity’ is hardly rocket science, it has been said a thousand times – even I said it in a LDS post yesterday when criticising Prof Anthony Harnden. In fact Dingwall is just boxing clever, he can smell the coffee and is trying to distance himself from the government sh*tshow before it all comes down. Despite this he still advocates a dangerous vaxx that is counter productive for anyone under 65 (Tim Spector said this btw), and utter madness for the u20s.
As I said, let’s not be extremist here. I am not arguing the safety of the vax; I’m not having it, neither is husband (69 years old) and I’m doing my best to dissuade my non-sceptic son in his 30s not to have it either. (I will probably fail with that one, but I’ve really tried).
BUT there are people whose judgment I trust, who have not written off the vax and I’m humble enough to listen to all views and opinions and see what happens in a few months. It does APPEAR to reduce symptoms in the majority of the vulnerable (if you survive the first few weeks post-vax), and that’s all there is going for them.
The BBC like NPR, screens their interviewees. None is invited to voice an opinion that isn’t approved.
Yes, correct
ONS stats up to 25th April 2021 show more second wave deaths – in the age group 45 to 75 – than in the first wave.
There has been no second wave, just a convenient conflation of annual respiratory deaths and the cleverly timed vaxx roll-out (hoping that the resultant deaths – due to known post-vaxx immunity reduction – and other ADRs would be neatly hidden).
Currently vaxx deaths are equalling or out-pacing C19 deaths even on available MHRA figures, and if one follows the government’s caveat of applying a 10x multiplier to MHRA figures then 10x more people are currently dying of the vaxx than C19. If you then compensate for PCR false positives, this comparative figure goes off the map; making the taking of the vaxx a statistical nonsense.
Wise. In early March, when I was offered the so-called ‘vaccine’, I was 50/50, and said no, for the time being. Glad I did that, given the stats available now, and even less likely to want it.
That’s not really the right picture. With the bizarre methodology that has been adopted of recording a “covid” death as someone who dies, for any reason, within 28 days of a positive test the statistics are going to be essentially meaningless. The only sensible way of analysing this is to look at excess death – and this is not a perfect measure either – but it’s preferable than trying to make any kind of sense of the idiotic 28 day thing. So what do we see if we look at excess death? I took the usual measure of the average over the last 5 years for all-cause mortality (not age-adjusted) and looked at the excess death during the course of this outbreak. I’ve looked at both seasonal peaks here – the initial one, and the typical winter peak that is typical of corona viruses. In reality we should really be looking at periods from July one year to the next rather than looking at this whole outbreak as a single event. All data for England & Wales drawn from ONS weekly registration tables. You can clearly see the second (seasonal resurgence) peak is significantly lower than the first for the… Read more »
He’s seen the writing on the wall and is distancing himself. He won’t be the last.
He distanced himself last year.
I saw a woman wearing a face mask as she refuelled her car in a petrol station forecourt today. She was the only customer, and at 20 meters or so, I was the closest person to her.
Made me wonder about how utterly messed up “health and safety” has gotten in the UK. Because the risk to this woman from covid-19 was pretty much zero as she pumped highly taxed British petrol into her tank.
The real risk (not specifically to the silly woman) was from the hazardous petroleum vapours that are expelled every time we fill up our vehicles.
what are we meant to do, run it on whisky, you numbskull.
Whisky seems to do the trick for you.
So here again comes little fon,
A stubborn pest, we must admit.
The more we bid him to be gone
The more he stays, the little **** [fill in rhyme word of your choice].
A surprising number of insulting words end in ‘it’ !
Could always buy an electric car
maybe she thought if the mask is magic enough to keep out viruses, it will do the same for petrol & diesel fumes.
The odds of that woman dying in a road traffic accident once she left the station forecourt were probably much higher than her catching and dying of covid-19.
When you think about it, a near obsession with health and safety has nurtured this public paranoia for many years now and this is the end result …. a nation of mask-wearing bedwetters.
I saw some bedwetting moron with a mask on, on his own in a car with all the windows open in the pouring rain.
I saw one woman last summer in Europe ( I forget where) at a restaurant table, douse her muzzle in alcohol gel, and I mean really douse it so it was slathered and dripping. She then proceeded outside, pulled her muzzle down below her chin and lit up a fag. She could have been close to winning a Darwin award that day.
interesting comment Drew
In the USA, the petrol pump will not dispense the poison until the gasket surrounding the nozzle makes a perfect seal around the tank intake, because ‘they’ recognise that the aromatic fumes in green petrol are a health risk.
As are the exhaust gases, until the Cat is up to working temparature which may take five miles or so.
You could have pointed out what could happen to her if she accidentally ‘picked up’ various compounds (which you mentioned) from the fuel in her ‘face cover’!
“Rachel finishes by saying “I know there’ll be scientists who disagree with you, but we try and reflect that the broad range of a views here”, which will come as a surprise to many.”
After doing no such things at all for 14 months…
And still pretending yesterday that 2 mass protests just didn’t happen.
It’s CYA and trying to develop another narrative based on a lie, likely on her superiors order, in light of the shifting public mood and the looming enquiry.
Same as SPI-B yesterday.
The oiks at the BBC must have been horrified when this little blast of common sense ruffled their skirts and sent them scampering to their safe spaces. Excellent.
They had to qualify Dingwall’s remarks but they get shagge* Ferguson on and he goes unchallenged!
Good observation
Dingwall do the honourably thing, resign.
Dingwall has no need to resign, the bombardment of absurdities has not been from him
If he means what he says, then he shouldn’t be on that committee, he should resign and go public why he has. Otherwise its just hot air and self publicity.
Maybe he saw it as his role to try and modify the nutjob tendency of the other members. He has been a voice of reason for months; just overruled, sadly.
https://www.vernoncoleman.com/
The hysteria is ridiculous, Johnson crying ‘Caution’, its pathetic when other places are now living normally. And we have these fools who don’t want to let go. Sage, is an Emergency group, once the emergency goes, so do they. Can’t come soon enough.
I see that risibly patronising and silly name ”nervtag” and I really can’t read any more.
Yes NERVTAG does really sound like something from The Thunderbirds, doesn’t it!
I shared this interview earlier. And got back “he’s not a virologist and he’s waffling some nonsense about masks not working. I am even more worried now”.
I was going to reply with some rant and name calling but in the end I just thought “fuck it” this is never going to end with numb nuts all over the place with their wrong opinions being right. I am hating humanity a lot more than I should. As long as I am not forced to do something I’d going to let the mask Nazi’s have their own funeral. All of them deserve to go swimming in the sea as recommended by pretend Dr Hillary.
He is not a virologist and nor are our leaders, most media scientists but yet have determined my freedom to choose by destiny. The most frightening and sadly idiotic mantra is “no one is safe until everyone is safe”. It took over 300 years to eliminate Smallpox (A DNA virus which does not significantly mutate) with a vaccine.
When we consider the handling of the pandemic must hold to account media experts,members of SAGE etc who have filled our airwaves with unsubstantiated guesswork and gloom. The investigating committee must be a balance between the skeptics and the lockdown advocates.
My son was in Manchester on Saturday and got caught up in a massive anti-lockdown protest- lots of police, no trouble that he saw, (he wasn’t taking part but was unaware of it), one crazed woman ripping down anti lockdown posters screaming at them but all good humoured basically. He thought it odd that he didn’t know about it since he is permanently connected to social media so he checked and found no mention of it on any news site, despite there being thousands of people, (his estimate), and many more protests in other cities. What scared him was the fact that the BBC, Sky, and co. could ignore such a big news story and pretend it hadn’t happened. Is this what is meant by reflecting a broad range of views?
I am afraid that this is an anomaly. Prof Dingwall has been speaking out against the great panic for a while now. How many times has he been asked on by the BBC? Isn’t this more or less the first time? Compare it with the saturation coverage given to our new celebrity doomsayesrs such as Edmonds, Shridha, Ferguson, Scally and their ilk.
Many thanks to Teresa Wood and Stuart Robertson for the transcript.
“the models are helpful, but not crystal balls”… No, they are just balls, as has been shown repeatedly.
Mildly surprised at this man’s scepticism, but to be welcomed, in the light of the rest of the shite we are force-fed with. Pity he seems to be the only one with some sort of rationalising brain…
Acc ONS the death rate for 2020 was around 10 to 11’000 per week. In march 2020 it went up to around 17’000 per week. Nearing the end on May 2020 the death rate went back down to normal background. One could suggest the pandemic finished around end of May 2020 so I have never understood why the death toll is quoted as accumulative for the first and second waves. Had the figures been given for each wave it may have went a long way in stopping this fear induced paranoia and we could have all been in the pub months ago. Cheers
We are preaching to choir — the brainwashed BBC SLY News watching sheep are too far gone, and we are wasting our lives with these cretins