Malevolent Designer News - How Creationism's Malevolent Designer Got It's Retaliation in First With a More Lethal Variant of SARS-CoV-2

Mean trajectories of weekly cases and deaths for various model variants. Deterministic trajectories for the various model variants are shown, along with data (black). Models without change in infection fatality rate (IFR) are shown as dashed, models with change in IFR solid.

U.K. study suggests COVID-19 became much more lethal in late 2020 - PLoS

According to a study by Patrick Pietzonka and colleagues, of the University of Cambridge, UK, it looks, from an intelligent [sic] design perspective as though the putative divine malevolence who designed the SARS-CoV-2 virus, got it's retaliation in first, ahead of the approval of the anti-COVID-19 vaccines, in late 2020.

According to information supplied by PLoS ahead of publication, their new statistical analysis supports beliefs that COVID-19 became more lethal in the U.K. in late 2020, while also suggesting that multiple factors—not just the alpha variant of the virus that causes COVID-19—were to blame. According to their press release:

Studying how the lethality of COVID-19 has changed over time in different regions could help guide continued efforts to address this disease. While simple, preliminary evaluations of infection and mortality data suggest that COVID-19 may have become more lethal in the UK in late 2020, more rigorous analyses have been lacking.

To explore whether COVID-19 indeed became more lethal in late 2020, Pietzonka and colleagues employed a statistical approach known as Bayesian inference. This enabled them to draw statistically stronger conclusions about lethality from weekly data on the number of cases and the number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the U.K. Specifically, they used Bayesian inference to compare predictions from different mathematical simulations of COVID-19 spread and deaths, some of which incorporated increased lethality.

This analysis suggests that, in late autumn of 2020 in the U.K., COVID-19 did indeed become more lethal—meaning that the probability that an infected person would die from the disease increased.

Prior speculations hold that this increase in lethality was driven by the alpha variant (B.1.1.7) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which was more infectious than previously widespread variants in the U.K. However, the new analysis suggests that lethality increased to a greater degree than the alpha variant would have accounted for, and that the increase in lethality began before the alpha variant became widespread.

These findings suggest that, while the alpha variant contributed to increased lethality in late 2020, other factors were also in play. Further research will be needed to identify those factors, but the authors suggest they may include increased strain on health care services and seasonality—a seasonal cycle in the severity of a virus that is commonly seen for other respiratory diseases like the common cold and the flu.

According to the abstract in their open access paper published in PLOS ONE:

Abstract
We apply Bayesian inference methods to a suite of distinct compartmental models of generalised SEIR type, in which diagnosis and quarantine are included via extra compartments. We investigate the evidence for a change in lethality of COVID-19 in late autumn 2020 in the UK, using age-structured, weekly national aggregate data for cases and mortalities. Models that allow a (step-like or graded) change in infection fatality rate (IFR) have consistently higher model evidence than those without. Moreover, they all infer a close to two-fold increase in IFR. This value lies well above most previously available estimates. However, the same models consistently infer that, most probably, the increase in IFR preceded the time window during which variant B.1.1.7 (alpha) became the dominant strain in the UK. Therefore, according to our models, the caseload and mortality data do not offer unequivocal evidence for higher lethality of a new variant. We compare these results for the UK with similar models for Germany and France, which also show increases in inferred IFR during the same period, despite the even later arrival of new variants in those countries. We argue that while the new variant(s) may be one contributing cause of a large increase in IFR in the UK in autumn 2020, other factors, such as seasonality, or pressure on health services, are likely to also have contributed.

Pietzonka P, Brorson E, Bankes W, Cates ME, Jack RL, Adhikari R (2021)
Bayesian inference across multiple models suggests a strong increase in lethality of COVID-19 in late 2020 in the UK.
PLoS ONE 16(11): e0258968. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258968

Copyright: © 2021 The authors. Published by PLoS
Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

So, what are we supposed to make of this from the perspective of ID advocates, bearing in mind that they also assert that their putative designer is the omniscient god of the Bible and Qur'an? Clearly, such a god would be fully aware of the progress human medical science towards finding a vaccine against the virus and was fully in control of the changes in the virus, which it could produce at will at a time and place of its choosing.

If we assume this then, the only explanation is that this increase in lethality and increase in infectivity of the α variant was deliberately timed to do maximum damage before the vaccines were approved for general use and the vaccination campaign got going.

In other words, what ID advocates would have us believe is that they worship a divine malevolence who not only designed the SARS-CoV-2 virus but modified it to do as much harm as it could before we had a means to control it and reduce its lethality. Creationists hold that this malevolent, pestilential monster is one and the same as the supposedly omni-benevolent god of the Bible and Qur'an who allegedly loves its creation and only wants the best for it!

And... for extra nastiness, it did it to spoil the plans we had for celebrating Christmas in family groups and parties after a long period of enforced isolation.

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