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Tuesday 24 November 2020

TalkRADIO “Expert” DEMOLISHED

Murdoch property TalkRADIO has made a name for itself during the Covid-19 pandemic by telling their listeners that the Government, the MSM and their chosen science experts have got it wrong. To support their contention, a number of alleged experts have been prompted, rather than interrogated, by their hosts. One of those indulged, especially by the self-promoting Julia Hartley Dooda, is Dr Mike Yeadon, formerly of Pfizer.


His most recent video, on Unlocked, had been flagged for false claims by both Facebook and Twitter. Immunologist Andrew Croxford wanted to know why. First he observed “Shock-jocks talking immunology is painful. You have to ignore it and be thankful they aren’t in charge. Going after them is pointless: the Dunning-Kruger is too powerful. Here for example: low numbers in summer = CoV pandemic over. Insulting scientists in the first paragraph”. That was the loathsome Toby Young in the Telegraph.

Dr Mike Yeadon

Then he got on to Yeadon. “A video came to my attention after it was blocked by FB and Twitter. It was an interview by Dr. Michael Yeadon published on a site called ‘Unlocked’? I was curious. What did he say? How bad can it be? Why is this even necessary?” He begins with Yeadon’s claim of 5% false positives. And is unimpressed.

The Dooda is strong with this one

We begin with 5% false positives. This is simply his opinion. He has no reason to say this, and offers no evidence. He paints a picture of tired, unprofessional & inexperienced staff swimming in a sea of contamination, which is fantasy … There are articles … outlining why this is just not correct. Experiments have controls, FPs are detected, and that is why the FP rate is somewhere below 0.1%. Nobody knows how *low* it really is”. There is more.


How about sampling? “Where the sample is taken is irrelevant. The samples are taken to labs for RNA extraction etc. The idea that if you sample in a car park that the integrity of the results are in question is untrue. He implies the tests are run in car parks”.


It gets worse for Yeadon. “On we go with ‘it's just the flu’.... He ‘believes’, he says…. Well, the majority of data points to a clean 10-fold greater lethality of SARS-CoV-2. Even including highly biased studies, you get to an IFR of 0.68 for COVID-19. It’s not just the flu … Here just a fraction of the data on the topic (on the right a widely shared and regularly updated chart from [ZorinAQ]) . And as I mentioned, you need to include rather risky and potentially biased studies to get the IFR below 1. It's not the flu. Don't be fooled”.



By the time the discussion arrived at lockdown and social distancing, Croxford had seen enough. “He claims to be an experienced immunologist. I apologize for being abrupt: If you don’t accept that transmission of respiratory viruses is interrupted by keeping people physically apart, you cannot claim to understand this pandemic. The entire history of virology is against him”. But he’s lionised by the hosts at TalkRADIO.


While at the same time, those who do understand the subject rather better than Yeadon, and who are ready and willing to pass adverse comment upon his conclusions, do not get invited on. Thus the broadcaster pushes what is effectively a sham analysis.

The pandemic is not over, not by any means. And if this quack science keeps being aired, it could be a lot deadlier than it need have been. And that’s not good enough.


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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another quick way to slap this down. If we assume the false positive rate is 5%, we can look at New Zealand. Going with the worldometers numbers here (assume they're okay for our purposes) New Zealand has done 1.2 million tests. At a FP rate of 5% we should have around 60,000 false positives. New Zealand in total has had 2031 confirmed cases. If instead they're really false negatives then we have to assume NZ has 60,000 people with covid running around and it hasn't spread further or killed anyone. Again, nonsense. As NZ doctors have a pretty similar education to ours, and indeed many are from the UK then we have to further assume in this idiotic scenario the Kiwis can do tests properly while British/American/European doctors have no idea what they're doing. Hmmm.

Recall that the shit-tier press were saying FP rates are much higher a few months ago and that most people with Covid positive tests were false.

They're wilfully spreading false information - there's zero chance this is a mistake or simple error. How hard is it for a hack to ring up their local university and ask an epidemiologist to look over their articles?



Anonymous said...

Just had a look at today's Mail. They've done it again.

This article has the current death numbers and is right:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8982447/Britain-records-11-299-Covid-19-cases-lowest-daily-figure-eight-weeks.html

This article - also published today - shows a graph with an almost flat death curve. The graph mysteriously stops just before November begins:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8979123/Number-10-used-apocalyptic-Covid-19-graphs-frighten-public-lockdown-statistician.html

Anonymous said...

Anybody who listens to and believes that load of extruded turds deserves the kind of rotten to the core society we currently endure.

Tabloid radio, nothing more. Bought-and-paid-for Murdoch scum.

Anonymous said...

Id spotted NZ too...see also Austrailia and Taiwan....

It doesn't necessarily cancel him but DrMs twitter has very detailed descriptions of CV regulation changes in France..

I cant listen anymore but surveillance of %age give to different voices would be interesting.

People genuinely believe this stuff..