Does reducing the mobility of healthy people help to mitigate the impact of an airborne virus?
Does reducing the mobility of healthy people help to mitigate the impact of an airborne virus?
Analysing England COVID deaths in the context of Google mobility data.
Preface
Dr Clare Craig asked me for one of my old charts. I produced it for a video podcast we did together with Ivor Cummins wayyyy back in 2020. Nowadays, I am not so impressed with my work from back then but the premise of the analysis was valid and the conclusion is consistent so I am doing it again.
Last night, I also noticed my friend, the very righteous, Francis Hoar get drawn into another toxic Twitter spat with some of the Mutton Crew™ which provides further context.
I can’t mention the issue without reference to the evidently libellous action of Mutton Chief Commander, Graham Bottley who already has a whole load of deserved pain coming his way:
But, it’s some of the other comments that are more pertinent to this article:
These three tweets alone pretty much sum up the levels of ignorance and delusion that still pervade Camp COVID even after years of data that provides the truthful evidence of the situation.
They whine that no-one could have predicted the outcome of COVID or the hysterical reactions to it and still believe the nonsense that was peddle by Whitty and Valence throughout which justifies the topic of the GB News debate when it is clear that there is indeed sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the duo should be investigated for misfeasance at the very least.
The analysis I will present below is of much better quality than that which I produced back in the midst of 2020 but the conclusions are the same. The conclusions were compelling enough for me to write explicitly about the overt failings of England’s Chief Scientific Officer to my “representative” MP at the time, Julie Marson.
Of course, most of my letters were ignored. Every now and then I got a stock response forwarded from the government PR department. Many, many thousands of people died as a result. Many, many more had their lives ruined either medically or financially.
Some commentators are correct - the investigations and trials of misfeasance in public office should not stop at Whitty and Valance. I personally have reams of evidence to put several more politicians in the dock when the rot of our political and legal system has been cleared.
And it’s only with stoic lawyers like Francis Hoar that this is going to happen.
Mobility Analysis
Since Feb 2020, Google has been publishing mobility data based on users’ geolocation data:
In the first instance, it’s a great tool to establish how successful the COVID policies were in reducing social contact. Thereafter, we can mark the significant changes in mobility against the progression of COVIDS deaths to measure their impact (one way or another!).
As we can see in the chart above, Google measured traffic in a variety of places:
retail and recreation
grocery and pharmacy
transit stations
workplaces
residential
They also included parks but the data was messy so I have left it out of this particular analysis.
Mobility drops substantially in the week before England closed schools (19th March 2020), which was the first major intervention. In the week to 18th March 2020, mobility to retail and recreation dropped by 27 percentage points and in transit stations and workplaces by 33 points.
In the following week, which also included the infamous lockdown of 23rd March 2020, retail and recreation traffic dropped by another 46 points, transit stations and workplaces by another 33+, and grocery and pharmacy by 56 points.
The low point for mobility across all places (outside the home) was during the week to 1st April 2020, from whence mobility steadily increases regardless of government dictate, with the exception of retail and recreation which spikes up in July when the nations “leaders” decide it is safe for people to live their lives fully again.
When schools return in Sept ‘20, mobility drops steadily back down, having never recovered to pre-emergency levels.
By the time lockdown #2 comes around in Nov ‘20, it is evident that the people of England have had enough of the ill-conceived policies of their ignorant rulers and mobility barely changes. In fact, mobility drops more when it is lifted in early Dec ‘20!
Conversely, traffic in residential settings has the inverse relationship with traffic to retail, recreational, transit stations and workplaces, including immediately post the lifting of lockdown #2.
There were various other restrictions throughout 2021 which had no material impact on mobility. I have marked some on the chart for reference but for a full suite, including the narrative that went with them, Wikipedia is not a bad resource1.
There is something that forces people back into their homes mid-Dec ‘21 but I couldn’t find anything in the timeline and don’t recall anything from memory. Perhaps someone could help to explain why mobility drops significantly at that point in time?
COVID Deaths Analysis for London
In order to isolate any issues of overlapping deaths distributions, I have chosen to use London on its own for analysing COVID deaths in the context of mobility changes and other interventions.
As we can see in the aggregated chart above and split out in the one below, my Gompertz model fits pretty much perfectly to COVID deaths. What is the implication of this? It means that there was no exogenous factor that caused a reduction in COVID deaths. None. Zero. Zilch. With a very high degree of confidence, I can tell you that virtually no lives were saved by any of the COVID policies instigated by the UK government upon the advice of Whitty and Vallance.
My model is actually comprised of 5 distinct waves, broken down above. So, even if there is no evidence for factors reducing COVID deaths, we might be able to identify an event that potentially triggered the start of a new distribution, i.e.
11th March 2020
22nd April 2020
30th Sept 2020
9th Dec 2020
30th June 2021
29th Sept 2021
1st Dec 2021
Finally, plotting mobility changes and other interventions, we can accurately determine their impact on COVID deaths.
The first substantial mobility drop occurs at the exact point that COVID deaths explode on 11th March 2020. Curious? Just to confirm, if this is just coincidental timing then it is abundantly clear that there was no benefit from this reduction in mobility. Why? Because if those COVID deaths were due to the virus, they would have been the result of infections that occurred 3 to 4 weeks prior to 11th March. In that case, given that the deaths distribution is continuous, this mobility reduction had zero impact on COVID deaths and therefore, by implication, viral spread to those who succumbed.
As further evidence that the mobility change had no impact, as mobility steadily increases from the low point on 1st April, there is no emergence of a new distribution of deaths except for 15th April 2020. Do you know what happened at that time? That was around the time when Hancock issued the edict to discharge 25,000 care home residents from hospitals back to their care homes without testing. Despite the High Court ruling that this was illegal, Hancock is trying to squirm out of his responsibility for it2.
When hospitality reopens in the first week of July, associated with the spike in mobility traffic to retail and recreation venues, there is no immediate or subsequent emergence of COVID mortality. None. This is in stark contradiction to the predictions made by Neil Ferguson (epidemiologist) of Imperial College. Add him to the list! Why? Because his model put us into this mess and he never had the basic intelligence to even test it empirically. I did it for him well before the same useless policies were reconsidered the following autumn3. It wasn't difficult. Every single one of his premises was demonstrably false. This was evident even back in July 2020.
Also in July 2020, we have what is quite probably the single most absurd policy of the entire campaign that the ignorant COVID zealots still cling to as a bastion of public health policy failure - mask mandates. Take a look at the chart. Can you see the rationale and justification for the introduction of a mask mandate in the middle of summer? Regardless, of the fact that masks were already scientifically proven to be ineffective at that time?
In Sept 2020, we have a new wave of COVID deaths emerge. It’s not significant (certainly in terms of the spring COVID deaths) but then, it’s also not at all surprising, given that we’re dealing with a seasonal respiratory pathogen, after all?! Although coincident with the return to school, this death wave is actually associated with a decrease in mobility outside of the home.
Conversely, there is a mobility spike in Oct ‘20 followed by a substantial drop a couple of weeks later. I don’t know what caused this but there is no evidence whatsoever of a perturbation in the death distribution. Once again, mobility changes are demonstrating no impact on COVID deaths.
When we get to 9th December 2020, however, we have the leading cause of coincidental deaths ever in the history of recorded deaths - the mass mRNA experiment. With main participation from those victims of the mass formation psychosis, we see a substantial new wave of death emerge within days of the start of the experiment. Paradoxically, this death wave occurs during an absolute low point in terms of mobility outside the residential setting. Go figure.
There is the really peculiar unseasonal COVID death wave that emerges in July 2021. There is nothing significant in event terms that I could find to explain this. There was a push in the mRNA experiment to target younger populations a few weeks before that. Although there is much evidence to show that the mRNA experiment spawned the plethora of variants, allowing COVID to thrive where it naturally should have perished, all I can allude to is that this is six months after the primary jabbing campaign of the old and vulnerable, when again, it is now universally accepted that “protection” wanes. Perhaps, if better investigation was done on potential antibody disease enhancement (ADE), the public would be better informed about the long term risks associated with their alleged short-term protection? Now, who would be responsible for that?
The new death wave at the end of Sept ‘21 is a little easier to pinpoint of course. Booster time!
Finally, there is the mobility drop at the beginning of Dec ‘21. Again, I can’t readily identify the cause of this but it must be the result of some public announcement? At any rate, it coincides with yet another death wave. Again, go figure.
Conclusion
Well, really, I think I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusion.
On the basis of the evidence, is government policy an appropriate and effective tool in controlling the social interactions (“distancing”) of a healthy population?
On the basis of the evidence, does the control of social interactions amongst healthy people and various other experimental interventions have a benefit on deaths that result from a seasonal, respiratory pathogen?
The data is there, the analysis is there, despite what the COVID policy disciples and paid operatives believe or want you to believe. And it always has been.
If the data and analysis was available and known to those who advised and implemented the policies outlined above, knowing that they were ineffective but potentially caused harm then we are looking at malfeasance.
If the data and analysis was not known then we are looking at misfeasance because it should have been known and was readily available from a very wide range of sources, many much more credible than your own armchair epidemiologist, literally years ago now. I've been keeping notes4. Have you?
Who do you believe?
Francis Hoar deals with evidence in court. Is this sufficient evidence to prove him right or does he deserve the dogmatic attacks from the notorious Mutton Crew™?
It's very interesting to see the different time points highlighted - thank you for doing this.
I don't agree with your interpretations though. I think there are 4 seasonal surges in respiratory virus infections. See this thread: https://twitter.com/ClareCraigPath/status/1555098139928952833?s=20&t=f43Ipa_4TMsYdiRPjiNqJg The winter one, peaking in Jan, has the most hospitalisations and deaths associated with it. The spring and autumn ones have intermediate levels and the summer ones are pretty tame. All four were evident when we tested like crazy for swine flu in 2009. Therefore the winter surge was not all vaccine related and the summer wave does not need an explanation beyond us mindlessly testing.
The key is that these four seasonsal waves always peak around the same time suggesting outside factors are the cause for each rise and their fall. Attributing these natural phenomena to changes in human behaviour is the ultimate in vanity.
The Mutton Crew are bots or bot boosted accounts. Twitter is an incredibly toxic environment for debate. I wish people Like Francis Hoar and others would just abandon the site altogether.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-wmarqjom4