Sunday, 24 October 2021

Covid-19 & VItamin D. 2020 & 2021 : Nature and anti-nature


1768: Edward Jenner and smallpox vaccination

Covid-19 & Vitamin D.  2020 & 2021 : Nature and anti-nature

Has the 2021 vaccination programme been of any benefit?

Covid-19 made an impact in the UK in March 2020. By March 23rd there had been a total of 258 Covid-19 deaths and so "Lockdown" became national policy, with closure of universities, schools, places of worship, places of entertainment and leisure, and also much of the economy. The impact of lockdown on the pandemic was not very obvious, and we can see its non-effect on the time-line. 

Figure 1. UK: Covid-19 deaths per day in early 2020

Covid-19 deaths continued to increase and a peak was reached in mid-April 2020 with almost 1,000 deaths each day. After that there was a daily decline. This was entirely predictable as we know from experience that deaths from respiratory infections decline during the summer months. The reason for this is that starting in mid-April, the Sun rises to more than 45 degrees above the horizon, and thereby it has the intensity to produce Vitamin D from 7-dehydrocholesterol synthesised in the skin.

Many medical scientists were aware of the importance of the Sun and Vitamin D in optimising defensive immunity. The science of this had developed since about 1980 and many valuable research papers were readily available. I, and many medical scientists who were much more knowledgable on the subject than I was, tried to bring this to the attention of the government and its agencies, but our voices fell on deaf ears and the news media were not interested. The science was completely ignored in favour of dubious mathematics.

Covid-19 cases and deaths continued to fall steadily to a minimum in August 2020, when deaths each day were in single figures. At this time vitamin D stores would be maximal. The hospitals that had been struggling with the impact of Covid-19 found themselves almost empty with little work to do. This was of course a good thing, if only temporary.

Figure 2. UK: Covid-19 deaths per day during 2020

It was anticipated that case numbers and deaths would increase after mid-September, when Vitamin D synthesis would come to an end at the UK latitude of about 53 degrees north of the equator, and when Vitamin D stores would diminish. So it did, and the numbers of Covid-19 deaths each day increased to a plateau in late November and December, about 500 each day. This cycle was under the influence of nature, to be precise, the Sun and Vitamin D. 2020 was the year of nature, and the pattern is exactly what would have been predicted on the basis of experience of previous epidemics.

I would have hoped that the favourable impact of Vitamin D production on the pandemic during the summer, would have led intelligent and knowledgeable people to develop a public health policy of adequate dose Vitamin D supplementation for the winter, knowing of the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency. But it was not to be: vitamin D was ignored and its potential benefits were denied.

The refusal of the government and its agencies to accept Vitamin D as a prevention and treatment of Covid-19 led to the astonishing and very regrettable fact that 26 working doctors in the UK died from Covid-19 during March, April, and early May 2020. 25 of the 26, 96%, were of Black African or South Asian ethnicity. Vitamin D deficiency was the obvious explanation. It is a disgrace that this was not acknowledged by the government and that it was ignored by medical professional bodies. But it was not ignored by my intelligent, knowledgeable, and caring medical friends, Professor Parag Singhal and Professor David Anderson. Their action was to advise by email immediate vitamin D supplement to doctors of Black African or South Asian ethnicity and to provide supplements whenever necessary. The deaths came to an abrupt end but the story was not acknowledged.

2021 the year of anti-nature

In the UK in early 2021, rather than a continuing winter plateau of cases and deaths, January saw a sudden increase from about 500 Covid-19 deaths each day to a rapid peak reaching 1,500 Covid-19 deaths each day. This was followed by a decline during February. This was all unexpected and puzzling, especially as it followed the introduction of the new vaccines in mid-December.

Figure 3. UK: Covid-19 deaths per day in 2020 and early 2021

The number of cases per day fell rapidly from a maximum of 68,053 on January 8th 2021 to 2,235 on May 23rd. At this stage we were tentatively reassured. 

Figure 4. UK: Covid-19 cases per day 2021 

Was the pandemic was going away? But this graph shows 2021 only until mid-May. 

In July, at the height of a good summer, there was a sudden increase in Covid-19 cases. The number of new cases per day increased to an astonishing 54,674 on July 17th, then reducing but stabilising at about 40,000 per day up to the present time. This was completely unexpected, especially as the vaccination programme was going so well, with most of the population double-vaccinated. The policy became third vaccinations for all.

Figure 5. UK: Covid-19 cases per day in late 2020 and in 2021

This dramatic increase in cases in July (marked in the yellow box) was against the pattern of nature, and against our experience of natural vitamin D dependent immunity. The quiet summer of 2020 was not the experience of 2021. What has been happening? Is there a causal relationship between the vaccination programme of 2021 and the peak of Covid-19 cases? Are the PCR tests identifying viruses or just spike proteins from the vaccines?

The Netherlands had the same experience, the onset slightly later than the UK, but the increase far steeper so that the peak was reached in mid-July in both countries. The rate of increase in the Netherlands was quite remarkable for a viral epidemic. A significant number of cases per day continues, with a further increase during October.

Figure 6. Netherlands: Covid-19 new cases per day during 2021

This pattern in a less dramatic form is seen in most other countries in Europe – in France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Finland, Norway, Austria, Belgium, and others. 

Iceland has experienced the most dramatic peak of all during the summer of 2021. What was happening in this, one of the most vaccinated of countries? 

Figure 7. Iceland: Covid-19 new cases per day during 2021
from: Our World in Data

The steepness of the peak in Iceland during late July and August 2021 is perhaps more suggestive of a chemical attack on the population rather than a microbial epidemic. This extraordinary peak has not received any official comment, perhaps because it is completely out of keeping with the official narrative of the pandemic and the vaccination programme. A sudden peak in mid-summer is not we expect from a microbial epidemic or pandemic.

In late October 2021 we see the start of another peak, perhaps an early warning of a winter effect. The example in Figure 8 is Austria, which also experienced a summer increase. This late October increase is also seen in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Poland, Norway, and Finland.

Figure 8. Austria: Covid-19 new cases per day during 2021

Tropical countries experienced nature in 2020, vaccines in 2021

We saw very low levels of Covid-19 in tropical and semi-tropical countries during 2020. We expected  2021 to show a similar low risk, but 2021 turned out to be very different.

Cambodia, for example

The first case in Cambodia was in January 2020, and by the end of the year there had been just 378 cases. By March 31st 2021 there had been 2,440 cases, and by October 17th 116,860 Covid-19 cases had been recorded.

Figure 9. Camdodia: Covid-19 new cases per day during 2020 and 2021
from: Our World in Data

There were no Covid-19 deaths in Cambodia during 2020. The first Covid-19 death was on March 11th 2021. Then there was a rapid increase in deaths, and by October 17th  2,670 Covid-19 deaths had been recorded. Why was 2021 so different from and so very much worse than 2020?

Figure 10. Camdodia: Covid-19 deaths per day during 2020 and 2021
from: Our World in Data

Was it just a coincidence that the vaccination programme in Cambodia started on February 10th 2021, immediately before the first death and the rapid increase in cases and deaths? The pattern was the same in the neighbouring countries of Laos and Vietnam, and also in the larger countries of Malaysia and Indonesia.

2020 and 2021

2020, as we have seen, was the year of nature, with no pre-hospital Covid-19 interventions other than lockdown and population control. The pandemic progressed in an anticipated way, with optimism that through subclinical infection during the summer months, nature would extend natural immunity against Covid-19, and that the pandemic would have a much reduced impact during 2021.

Since the time of Edward Jenner who introduced vaccination against smallpox, vaccines have been based on nature. An attenuated or a dead micro-organism (or part of it) would be injected into the body to produce a mild pseudo-infection so that immunity would be achieved. This natural approach has worked well for many years. 

But in 2021 we have experienced the new so-called vaccines, which are in truth experimental gene therapies, the brilliant products of the biotechnology laboratories. These “vaccines” had not been licensed and were used under Emergency Use Authorisation. But this did not inhibit the evangelism of governments and the enthusiasm of the people.

We expected that the vaccines would add to the immunity provided by nature, and that the pandemic would effectively disappear during 2021. But it has not worked out as planned. We have had more Covid-19 cases and deaths in 2021 than in 2020. In the UK we had approximately 2.5 million Covid-19 cases in 2020, but so far this year we have had more than 5.5 million cases. 

In the UK during the summer of 2021 we have experienced between 30 and 50 times more cases of Covid-19 per day (green line) compared to 2020 (blue line). We expect an increase during the autumn, but we expected fewer rather than more cases in 2021 than in 2020.

Figure 11. UK: Covid-19 new cases per day during 2020 and 2021

Please note that the case numbers in July 2021 were 30 times greater than just two months earlier, in May 2021. This is very mysterious, but as usual, the victims are blamed for their alleged misbehaviour. But is there a biological explanation for this great increase during the summer months?

Figure 12. UK: Covid-19 deaths per day during 2020 (blue) and 2021 (green)

We have seen the high numbers of deaths during the first three months of the pandemic in 2020, deaths mainly of the vulnerable including the very elderly, the very obese, and UK residents of Black African and South Asian ethnicity. But the daily deaths came down to single figures during August 2020.

Figure 12 shows that in the UK Covid-19 deaths decreased substantially during July and August 2020, the year of nature, as shown by the blue line. In 2021, as shown by the green line, the numbers of deaths each day were initially low but then they increased

On September 9th 2020 there were 3 Covid-19 deaths in the UK. On the same day in 2021 there were 185 Covid-19 deaths. Between July 1st and October 10th, there were 2,009 Covid-19 deaths in 2020, but 6,370 in 2021. This is both astonishing and disturbing. What is happening?

Why should 2021 have been so much worse than 2020? We expected that nature would bring about minimal Covid-19 cases and deaths during the summer of 2021, and that the numbers would have been even lower than in 2020 with the additional benefit of the vaccination programme. But we saw a massive increase in the number of cases and an increase in deaths. 

Something has gone seriously wrong.

Although extensive data are available from Worldometer and Our World in Data we do not question what we are doing. There is no open debate in the national press or broadcast media. We hear little from government agencies. We see no debate in medical journals and we hear no debate from medical organisations, for example the Royal College of Physicians of London. Although it has led medical knowledge and progress during the past 500 years, it has unquestioningly followed the government narrative during the pandemic. 

If the major difference between 2020 and 2021 is extensive vaccination. Can we really see any evidence of a favourable impact of the vaccination programme on the course of the pandemic? Is it conceivable that the vaccination programme has been detrimental?

UK Health Security Agency – an important clue

The UKHSA, in its Covid-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report Week 42, drew attention to an unexpected, and as yet unpublicised observation. It reported increases in Covid-19 case reports across all age-groups and regions of the UK. But the important observation was on page 23: 

(ii) waning of the N antibody response over time and 

(iii) recent observations from UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) surveillance data that N antibody levels appear to be lower in individuals who acquire infection following 2 doses of vaccination. 

"N antibody" is antibody to nucleocapsid.

This official observation indicates that in double vaccinated individuals, the immunity antibody response is impaired. This would explain why the number of cases of Covid-19 has been increasing during the summer of 2021, and why Covid-19 cases and deaths are occuring in the double-vaccinated. The effect of a third vaccination remains to be seen.

What next?

During the week ending October 24th 2021, the UK has experienced 328,287 new cases of Covid-19, and 948 Covid-19 deaths. This is with 80% of the population older than 15 years being "fully" vaccinated. We need something more, and vitamin D is glaringly obvious but still denied. 

The term "fully vaccinated" is becoming obsolete: there is no such thing. With declining immunity following double vaccination, and uncertainty after a third, it looks as though vaccinations will continue perhaps indefinitely, at shorter and shorter intervals.

WHO policy in 2020 and 2021 has been “2 Vs”:  Vaccination and Ventilation, nothing in between. More and more vaccinations are being performed. People who test positive for Covid-19 receive no treatment until they arrive in hospital and on the ICU.

What will 2022 bring? We obviously need something else for prevention and treatment. Will the denial of Vitamin D continue? If so, why?

Pharmaceutical companies are busy producing new treatments for Covid-19, but the very successful clinical trials of Calcifediol and Calcitriol (the activated forms of Vitamin D) remain ignored. Despite effectiveness, safety and cheapness, all forms of Vitamin D remain unused within official public health measures and within our hospitals. We have experienced more than 139,000 Covid-19 deaths in the UK, and the denial of Vitamin D is more than regrettable.

Covid-19 cases and deaths are increasing as we enter our winter, the Vitamin D deficiency season. Are we going to correct widespread VItamin D deficiency?

Should those receiving their third vaccination be given a vitamin D bolus dose in advance to minimise suppression of immune response?


  1. Hi David,
    Many thanks for your efforts, once again. These are depressing times, but your straightforward clarity provides hope. I can't imagine how frustrating you must be finding the inability to get your well-reasoned and common-sense message heard more widely. Keep up the excellent work.

  2. Thank you very much. I try to avoid using the words vaccine and vaccinated in relation to these novel therapies. I think you are the voice of reason.

  3. Excellent David. We are right in the middle of the Third World War, directed at the innocent, and run for profit jointly by the CCP, Big Pharma, BMGF, astro-wealthy psychopaths, and aided by the CDC, NIH, NIAID, WHO, unthinking doctors, gullible politicians, the Shameful Silent Media, and others on the 'Billindagate break-in'payroll. It is becoming increasingly obvious that this is World War D3, an undeclared bioimmunological kind of nuclear war, directed at the young and D-deficient innocents shot in the arm for no reason with nucleic acids, and run by the Profits of Doom.

  4. David this is devastating. I didn't think the situation could get even worse. A brilliant exposition of the data. This should be compulsory reading for everyone. My wife has just had Covid after double vaccination. Worse than me [although still mild] who had it before vaccination. I didn't notice it. Both of us already on Vit D of course. I was surprised at her severity but this explains all. Oh dear Oh dear .... Peter Hilton ITU Consultant for 40 years

  5. Mess with nature and expect serious unintended consequences.
    This the biggest medical cockup ever -- not just the massive global experiment, but the brutal denial of prophylactics and early treatment -- Vitamin D, IVM and HCQ.
    And all with the acquiescence of a once reputable profession.
    Shame indeed should be piled on medicine, and, when the autopsy is written for the lay public, I doubt we will regain our once esteemed position.
    Roger Hodkinson, school fried of David's and a retired Canadian pathologist

    1. Dear Roger, do you think that the 'autopsy' will ever be written and, if it is, anyone in any position of authority will take any serious notice? My feeling, at the moment, is that the mistakes made will never be admitted to, nobody (apart from the general public) will pay the price and that governments around the world will simply blame everything on the 'variants' and the 'covidiots'. I'm in the UK and I can't believe how the majority has simply rolled over and accepted everything. There's been no argument and no questioning, just blind acceptance. The majority is utterly compliant and whatever Bulldog spirit this nation once had, has long gone. I fear we're now a weak, over-indulged population being led by weak, dishonourable leaders, and that's a recipe for disaster.

  6. A stunning analysis, but how does it square with reports that death rates are lower in those who are immunised against Covid?

  7. Dr Colin Walsh - GP locum in Ireland

  8. It seems clear to me that the powers at be in many countries have deliberately suppressed endorsing the use of anything to boost the immune system whatsoever to mitigate the virus, other than vaccines. Their objective, presumably, was to avoid anything that could potentially for divert the case for vaccines, such as vitamin D. It is very unclear to me when this will end, it seems a long time ago when the pandemic started that it could be a great opportunity for governments and health authorities to nudge the public to improve their health...alas that never happened. We are still having only the vaccine narrative, while if anything the health of many nation's has deteriorated, including through medical treatments being postponed and the impacts of lockdowns etc.

  9. Yet another fabulous and factual summary of one of the greatest medical conspiracies of all time. I will be eternally grateful for your research which has helped me personally and which I am trying my best to pass on to all who will listen. Thanks David.
    PS Your book Vitamin D & Cholesterol was incredibly enlightening and whilst it took me a while to read and digest, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm just skimming back over it now.
    dove non va il sole, va il medico

    1. Thank you John. I was not aware of this proverb let alone how far back it goes. A quick search shows it variably as an Italian, Persian and Romanian proverb but I wouldn't be surprised if it had an earlier origin. Or is it something every society eventually wakes up to? I think we are still sleeping.

  10. Amazing blog David, you are reliably the best source of info.

    In Australia, NSW is letting covid rip during the summer months! Isnt that intelligent? A new premier...has a new strategy. He wants as many variants and people infected asap...before March.

    1. Thanks David2. I agree. During the summer of 2020 we should have encouraged mixing at a time of safety. Lots of cases, lots of immunity, minimal danger. Unfortunately the government policy is run by mathematical modellers who do not understand or factor in immunity. DavidG

  11. I guess the flaw in your argument is that the rates of infection are high in the unvaccinated young and low in the vaccinated over 60s group. Also despite the high number of cases the actual number of excess deaths for the time of year are small. And a number of these excess deaths are likely to be due to cancer patients who happen to test positive for covid.

    1. Hi Chris. We have very limited data on vaccinated and unvaccinated. A BBC website entry last week claimed that "13% of Covid-19 hospital admissions are unvaccinated", emphasise on unvaccinated. It could have read "87% of Covid-19 hospital admissions were vaccinated", but this would have given the wrong emphasis. I agree that we do not know what a Covid-19 case is, and we do not know the real cause of death in a Covid-19 death. We must rely on the data that we are given, knowing its limitations. Allcasue deaths are low, as you say.

    2. It also depends on how "unvaccinated" is defined. I read a comment on Twitter by a nurse who said that admissions in their UK hospital were recorded as "unvaccinated" if they were truly unvaccinated, had only had one dose or had both doses but within 14 days of admission. If that's true (and I believe the same is the case in the US' definition) then the data we are given take on a whole new meaning...

  12. What ever the data set presented, it must be corrected to "rates" or divided by the correct denominator. THis would provide the numbers that are accurate, easier to understand, and can use for comparative purposes. Presenting absolute number by the government, organizations or by individuals (e.g., rutinedone in countries like new Zealand and at times by the USS-CDC) are misleading.
    Good work David.

    1. My objective was not to compare one country another and I agree that to do this requires standardised data. I am looking at invidula countries comparing cases and deaths over a period of time, so that the population denominator remains unchanged. Using a number of countries is just to illustrate that the pattern is common and not just an abberations in one country.

  13. Is Covid somehow very special when it comes to vitamin D? After a very sunny summer spent on open waters an golf course and after 2 years ingesting 5000 IU vitamin D with K2 and Magnesium and zinc, I got all the daycare flu's and noroviruses now during the fall. I've never been this sick, so it seems that no amount of vitamin D or other supplements have any effect to the immunity when it comes to other viruses. So my question is - has it been confirmed that covid is a speciality where vitamin D actually makes a difference, when it absolutely does nothing for any other virus?

    1. Are you vaccinated for covid 19? Did you have any opportunity for immunity last year?

    2. Hi, our collective immune system was woefully underemployed due to working from home and lockdowns. In the absence of being continuously exercised, the immune system reacts over the top to to every day microbes it encounters. Hence SuperCold etc.

    3. Yes, this is what many say, but is there any evidence to support this. Do people who have been isolated, but not in an unhealthy way, get worse colds? Has this been studies in a RCT or is this just what people think would be the case. Anyway, this will be the same situation with covid, so is this is true, then Vitamin D is not likely to help with immunity that has been compromized by lack of circulating diseases.

    4. Vitamin D enhances or optimises defensive immunity, against all infections. Covid-19 has been a remarkable opportunity to learn more about the effectiveness of vitamin D. There is a great deal of positive learning from the past 20 months, but this learning has been ignored (at least publicly) by the medical-scientific establishment. I hope for the 20 months asleep at the wheel will soon come to an end.

    5. At least here everybody mostly knows that Vitamin D helps and I think most people are taking it. If there is some level of downplay of the Vitamin D effectiveness, It is because they are still seeing people with high Vitamin D hospitalized and dying. They obviously do no want to give any reasons not to vaccinate, since if there would be a message that Vitamin D Helps, then too many idiots would start popping D pils and not vaccinate. It is difficult to. fight with the anti vaxxers who often are cholesterol denialists, climate change denialists, holocaust denialists, just generally anti-establisment and they are just seeking anything to support theis bias

  14. Thanks David, this is a disturbing development.
    It's bad enough that none of our Chief Medical Officers care to even suggest we consider our immune system health since we know most of how it works and what it needs. Now there’s a possibility that these new vaccines that only give short term protection may even damage our immune system.
    Fortunately we haven't seen this problem yet in Australia as evidenced by this recent article:
    I expect the timing of our summer down here may give us a further advantage.
    Also, is it possible that your recent half summer lock-down could result in reduced Vitamin D reserves for the approaching winter?

    1. If only we had extensive vitamin D testing we would know much more. The UK has spent £37 billion of Covid-19 testing but nothing on the more important vitamin D testing.

  15. But the vaccination program has been a huge success,it must be,I keep on being told so .

    1. The vaccination programme has been a huge success in its delivery, but not in its effect. An effective vaccination programme would surely have resulted in fewer cases and deaths in 2021 compared to 2020 rather than more. Throughout civilisation the opulation has been told the most stupid things, such as dietary cholesterol causes heart attacks, or that tomato skins cause appendicitis.

  16. What is also not mentioned is the presence of a pre-existing condition. 95% of those who died in NHS England hospitals and tested positive for Covid-19 had a pre-existing condition. Tab (sheet) 3 of the following spreadsheet shows this.

  17. People who were the most frail and with the most pre-existing conditions would have died in 2020. This is one reason why deaths should have been lower in 2021, but this did not happen.

  18. From two UK hospitals, published in June 2021:


    "Vitamin D deficiency is associated with higher risk of COVID-19 hospitalization. Widespread measurement of serum 25(OH)D and treatment of insufficiency or deficiency may reduce this risk."

    1. £37 billion spent on Covid-19 Track & Trace (that did not work or help) would have been better spent on the public health initiatove of testing the blood vitamin D levels of the population and correcting deficiencies found. This would have been achieved at a fraction of the cost. But public health heads were buried in the sand, with up to 100,000 deaths resulting.

  19. Dr Grimes one factor that I think is missing is the arrival of the 'Delta Variant'. Is it possible that what the graphs show is the spread of Delta? It is supposed to be more infectious, and so spreads faster through the population(s). It would be interesting to see how just the Delta spread as a percent of the population. I doubt such data is available, though.

  20. Here's some further info from Israel on Vitamin D deficiency and Covid/Hospitalization outcomes.

    1. I am just preparing this very important study for a forthcoming Blog post.