At the biological level, stimulus and response is how the body reacts (response) to a change in its environment (stimulus). As an example: you go to pick up a plate that you didn’t realise was hot. Receptors detect the presence of an unexpected heat source and convert this information into nerve impulses. Neurons transmit this sensory input to the central nervous system, your brain, which processes the information and decides what to do (let go, put it down, drop it, shout out etc.). The decision is then transmitted by neurons as motor output to an effector (usually a muscle) that carries out the instruction as an action.
The central nervous system usually makes very good decisions, often subconsciously, based upon the huge amount of data it has accumulated: it knows that a hot plate straight from the oven is too hot to hold with a bare hand and will cause the effector – your hand – to release its grip. There are times when the central nervous system encounters a new stimulus, one it can’t find in its library of previous decisions. It will naturally err on the side of caution, basing its decision on a similar previous stimulus. It will not fail to make or decision or make an incorrect decision, it will just make the best one it can based upon the available information.
Now think about the whole SARS-CoV-2 situation from the same perspective.
News about a novel coronavirus is the stimulus. It represents a change in the environment. It is a novel virus but – importantly – it is not completely new, as there are 23 other known coronaviruses plus 15 other known species within the coronaviridae family. Also – equally importantly – it is not a high risk virus (or to use the official term high consequence infection disease (HCID)). So the brain is trying to work out the best response, as it mulls over the available data, thinking to itself ‘hello, you’re new…but you’re related to these others…not sure at the moment though how much of a threat you represent…’. In effect this was the position back in January 2020, when public health organisations across the four countries of the United Kingdom categorised this novel coronavirus as a HCID, before it was designated SARS-CoV-2 and the disease COVID-19 by the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses. For these organisations to be talking about this novel virus in January means they were already aware of it and evaluating the available information earlier. The fact that it is COVID-19 and not COVID-20 is because the disease was already sufficiently in existence in 2019.
So the stimulus is already being thought about by the brain in January. In March COVID-19 is downgraded as the available information indicates it is not a HCID, principally (although not exclusively) because of its low mortality rate. At this point, the brain would think ‘aha, low mortality rate and not as dangerous…what previous data have I got in the library about similar previous stimuli?’. Logically it would seek the closest matches, which would be Influenza A(H1N1) & A(H3N2), seasonal or winter flu.
Its decision should be a response that deals with a virus with a low mortality rate. The vast majority of those who get the virus are asymptomatic and the vast majority of those who get the disease have mild to moderate symptoms that require no special treatment. The brain considers the data it has on the SARS-CoV outbreak in 2003: a death rate of 9.5% but total deaths worldwide of only 774. The brain considers this data against total worldwide deaths from seasonal or winter flu every year in the range 290,000-650,000.
At this point, the brain would decide upon a response, sending the neurons to the effectors to implement a response that is appropriate and proportionate to the stimulus. Using the opening example, the brain wouldn’t tell the hand to drop the plate and the feet to carry the individual away into the next room just in case there might be a second plate still in the oven. The brain would be its reasoned, rationale and efficient self.
On this basis, it has been a case of completely the wrong response to the actual stimulus.
The government has of course been doing everything it can to make out that the stimulus is very bad (remember Had Mancock’s hilarious TV interview in which he described ‘thecoronavirus’ as the worst virus that the world has ever seen) but this has not been the case. It is possible that one of the responses being considered by the brain in February and early March was based upon the stimulus being an HCID, with the brain’s evaluation clouded by the introduction of data stating that 510,000 could die. Being the dutiful and effective decision-maker it is, it was bound to consider it, despite the fact it was wild speculation from a buffoon of Brobdingnagian proportions.*
*Out of interest and if you fancy a laugh, here are some of Neil ‘crap at maths’ Ferguson’s comedy predictions from previous medical events where someone was daft enough to give him the time of day:
1994 – BSE
Neil Ferguson prediction: 150,000
Actual deaths globally: 231.
2003-2009 – Avian flu
Neil Ferguson prediction: 200,000,000 (I shit you not)
Actual deaths globally: 282.
Hold on, you mean he was out by a factor of 709,219x ?
2009 – Swine flu
Neil Ferguson prediction: 4,000,000 (only four million this time, much more like it)
Actual deaths globally: 18,449 (nope, still hopelessly wrong).
Essentially Neil Ferguson has no idea what he is doing. How stupid would you have to be to give an ounce of credibility to such apocalyptic speculation in 2020 when the author has such an abysmal record…oh, he had the ear of government. Enough said. Don’t forget that the stimulus was downgraded on 19th March, before the response was announced. In deciding upon a response, the range of options isn’t hard to define:
Correct stimulus : Correct Response
Correct stimulus: Incorrect Response
Incorrect stimulus : Correct Response
Incorrect stimulus: Incorrect Response
What the United Kingdom has ended up with is Incorrect Stimulus : Incorrect Response.
The data sent to the brain was corrupted, filled with incorrect predictions and ‘dodgy dossiers’ (now where have we heard that one before?). As a result the brain decided to instruct a response that was completely inappropriate and disproportionate, utterly detached from the stimulus.
As a result, a nation is bleeding to death on a daily basis. Over 1.5 million people have applied for Universal Credit since it was so ‘generously’ opened up to those whose lives have been ripped apart by the government’s negligence. To put this into context, at 9th January 2020 the total number of claimants on Universal Credit was 2.8 million. That’s an increase of 54% in three months. One in seven mortgage borrowers have requested a mortgage payment holiday. All for what again? Oh that’s right, a virus that is far less deadly than seasonal or winter flu and kills fewer than sepsis every year (despite the government’s best efforts to bump up the total deaths figure by counting all suggested not actual deaths, in a rather vile practice that sees the government using the dead as justification for its own negligence).
Lockdown has not worked, does no work and will never work as a response to this type of stimulus. You would not lockdown for seasonal or winter flu.
Lockdown has increased the death rate through the confinement of individuals in close proximity to each other for sustained periods of time, causing viral dosage to increase above the levels the innate immune system can deal with itself.
Lockdown has increased the death rate through the combining of the sick and those caring for them in close proximity to each other for sustained periods of time, through excessive viral dosage and viral load. Hospitals and now care homes have become concentrations of high viral dosage and viral load, increasing the death rate still further.
Social distancing has little, if any, rationale or benefit as the majority of the population have already had SARS-CoV-2. If lockdown and social distancing had not been imposed, the virus would have run its natural cycle and would now be disappearing.
In other words, all of this – self-isolation, social distancing, lockdown, panic, hysteria, draconian suppression of liberty – have all been for nothing.
Had the government done nothing other than shield the vulnerable and those at high risk, plus antigen & antibody test frontline healthcare workers (to create an increasing group who had had the virus and could therefore care for the sick without risk of their own infection and without risk of making the sick sicker), the death toll would be lower and the country would be going about its daily activities on an uninterrupted, normal basis.
The government’s response and its advice are costing lives every day.