Covid-19 is not a disease let alone a deadly one. We’ve known this since day one. Now a study of coronavirus infection in London’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community appears to prove it. Two thirds of the community had Covid last year, that’s nine times the national average by the way, and only 0.3 per cent of those infected died.
Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) found that the rate of past infection was at 64 per cent in the community, which numbers around 15,000 people. This compares to rates of 11 per cent in London generally and only seven per cent across the UK, according to estimates by the Office for National Statistics. This is stunning news.
The authors of the study say that the reasons for the high rates of infection are unclear, but suggested that crowded housing and deprivation might explain it. Ultra-Orthodox families have larger households than the UK average, with five to six individuals per house compared to a UK average of 2.3. The community has been in the news a lot lately. The organisers of weddings, which were attended by hundreds of guests, were criticised for breaching lockdown rules.
Blood samples from 1,242 individuals were collected, with an overall infection rate was of 64%, one of the highest recorded anywhere in the world. 697 people (37.5%) reported an illness consistent with Covid-19. There were clear peaks in reported illness consistent with the first and second waves of the virus in the UK. 
A total of 16 (0.9%) people were hospitalised with Covid and a further three individuals (0.3%) were reported to have died of it. The results of the study appear to clearly demonstrate two things. Firstly coronavirus is not a deadly disease, not by any measure. 3 deaths and 16 hospitalisations in a community of 15,000 is no cause for concern. And secondly, the community appears to have achieved natural herd immunity. You might remember that the UK’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance called for a degree of herd immunity in March of last year.
Vallance told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on March 13th:
“Our aim is to try and reduce the peak not suppress it completely, also because most people get a mild illness, to build up some degree of herd immunity whilst protecting the most vulnerable”.
Vallance was quickly reined in by his SAGE colleagues who blitzed him with emails, demanding that he stay on message and stop talking about herd immunity. He was told that only a vaccine could help a population achieve herd immunity. The results of the LSHTM study prove otherwise. London’s ultra-Orthodox Jews got on with their lives, ignored the government’s lockdown rules and the virus has barely brushed them.
Here’s a link to the LSHTM study: https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2021/sars-cov-2-infection-rate-very-high-amongst-uk-strictly-orthodox-jewish
