Lockdown zealots like Piers Morgan and Carole Cadwalladr have exploded with delight at the Guardian‘s story that Dominic Cummings attended the Secret Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) on March 23rd, the day Boris Johnson announced the lockdown. “This may turn out to be the biggest scandal of the crisis,” tweeted Piers, while Carole declared it “unfuckingbelievable”. Ooh, mother!
So are they – and the Guardian – suggesting the decision to impose a lockdown was, in part, a political one and not just based on the wise counsel of the Government’s scientific advisors? That the Machiavellian Brexit mastermind had to infiltrate SAGE to browbeat the boffins into advising Boris to do what he judged to be in Boris’s best interests, not the country’s? Does this mean they’ve all done a reverse ferret and joined the ranks of lockdown sceptics? Not sure how the Guardian‘s scoop will sit with its columnists, who until now have tried to out-bid each other in their enthusiasm for the lockdown – “No I care about the NHS more.” “No I do.” “No I do.” Hitherto, the Guardian‘s main criticism of Boris is that he didn’t place the British people under house arrest even sooner. Now, apparently, the lockdown is just a piece of political theatre staged by Dominic Cummings.
The statement from No 10 rebutting the story, attributed to a “spokesman”, denied Cummings was a member of SAGE, claimed he sometimes listened in to meetings “to understand better the scientific debates concerning this emergency” and “the limits of how science and data can help Government decisions” and said he “occasionally” offers to help “when scientists mention problems in Whitehall”. (Darn those pesky bureaucrats.) The statement concluded: “Public confidence in the media has collapsed during this emergency partly because of ludicrous stories such as this.” Sounds like Cummings wrote that himself, but I can’t help thinking he has a point.
In other news, it looks as though the Government is engaging in a bit of “pitch rolling” ahead of an exit strategy announcement. At yesterday’s Downing Street press conference, Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, seemed to admit we were beyond the peak, albeit in a mealy mouthed way. “It isn’t over, we’re riding perhaps, we hope, a downward trend but it is by no means, no means established yet,” he said. Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England, told MPs on the Science and Technology Select Committee that the virus’s reproduction number – its R0 – is now less than one. “The R that we have at the moment is somewhere between 0.5 and 1,” he said. “Let’s say for the sake of argument it is in the middle of that range, which I think is likely, that does give a little bit of scope for manoeuvre and ticking some things off while still keeping it below 1.” Scope for manoeuvre. Geddit?
As if in anticipation of Monday’s big reveal – yes, I’m still optimistic – several of today’s papers report that the Government has “discreetly” told various businesses to get back to work, although not all that discreetly since it has evidently briefed this story out. (See this story in the Telegraph and this one in the Mail.) McDonald’s, British Steel and Persimmon are among those companies that have announced they’ll be reopening next month.
While we wait for Boris’s return, I thought it might be helpful to list the countries that have either eased their lockdowns or announced they’ll do so shortly: Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Columbia, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany… actually, this is going to take too long, but you get the idea. The UK is now an extreme outlier. Incidentally, Dominic Raab’s five tests have all been met according to Alistair Haimes in the Critic. You can read his persuasive analysis here.
If Boris still hasn’t decided on an exit strategy, I can recommend this one by the climate change researcher Nicholas Lewis. He’s crunched the data and concluded that the infection fatality rate for those under-70 who do not suffer from any of the chronic health conditions associated with COVID-19 morbidity, as well as those under 30 who do have one or more of the relevant health conditions, is 0.03%. That’s 41 million people, according to Lewis. Let them return to normal life while keeping the elderly and the vulnerable fairly isolated. By the end of the year, he calculates, approximately 54% of the population would no longer be susceptible to COVID-19, which would be sufficient to give us herd immunity. (It would also have the advantage of minimising the risk of a second wave of infections next winter, although my own view is that such a risk is negligible.) Lewis’s plan won’t be popular with readers of this site aged 70 and over, but this piece by John Humphries in today’s Mail will be. The headline is: ‘Keeping grandparents away from their loved ones after lockdown ends isn’t “shielding” – it’s cruelty.’
The news this week has been dominated by testing, with lockdown zealots in the media eagerly looking forward to Matt Hancock missing his target of 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month. (In an ominous portent, the Government’s website allowing essential workers to book coronavirus tests shut down yesterday after 16,000 people rushed to make an appointment.) At yesterday’s press briefing Grant Shapps said the Government hoped to have 48 test centres open across the country by next week. But if people think they’ve got the virus, do we really want them using public transport to get to one of these centres? And once they get there, how are they going to stop themselves infecting other people queuing for tests? (Although that might help us achieve herd immunity quicker.) Perhaps most important, how reliable will these tests be? Lockdown Sceptics has published an analysis by David Crowe, an infectious diseases expert, of 33 of the PCR tests approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and concluded they all have serious limitations. You can read his article here. Will the Government’s PCR tests be any more reliable?
One reader has been in touch to take issue with my use of the “hawks v doves” language to describe those in Government in favour of easing the lockdown (the hawks) and those against (the doves). “The trouble is that doves are always seen as the kind caring guys – in geopolitics they favour peace over war, in central banking they call for easy money, in government they prefer deficit spending, etc,” he writes. “Is it really correct to describe someone who wishes to keep a nation locked down on the flimsiest of evidence with fathomless economic, social and now mounting healthcare costs, a ‘dove’? They more closely resemble the pelican that rips at its own breast.”
Lots of people have been in touch to recommend this video of two doctors in Bakersfield who’ve studied COVID-19. Some of what they say will be familiar to readers of this site – the initial modelling underestimated the percentage of the population who’ve been infected and overestimated the IFR (which these doctors put at 0.03 in the state of California), non-COVID-19 patients are being neglected by healthcare systems geared up to treat COVID-19 patients, lockdowns are no more effective at flattening the peak than more modest social distancing measures, etc. But some of it will be unfamiliar, such as their scepticism about the effectiveness of wearing masks and gloves. Worth a watch.
Among those groups who aren’t having a good crisis, celebrities must be near the top. This video produced by an Australian comedy troop is very funny and Ricky Gervais took aim at celebs in typically withering style on Radio 5 Live yesterday. (The Mail has the highlights.) The gist of the criticism is that if you’re living in a tiny flat in a high rise, self-isolating with your wife and three kids, it won’t be much comfort to watch a video clip of a multi-millionaire on Twitter, recorded at their 2,000-acre ranch in Montana, urging us to remain in our homes and assuring us that we’re all in this together.
Yesterday I was asked by one lockdown zealot whether this site is receiving “funny money” from Russia. Not sure he’d thought that one though. Surely, if Putin wants to crush his geopolitical rivals then it’s in his interests for Britain to prolong its lockdown for as long as possible, thereby turning our economy into a basket case? In fact, Lockdown Sceptics is entirely dependent on readers’ donations – and thanks to those who donated yesterday. If you’d like to donate, please click here. As far as I’m aware, Putin is not a reader.
And finally, the Free Speech Union (which I co-founded in February) fired off a letter to Ofcom yesterday complaining about its ridiculous decision to reprimand ITV and London Live for comments made by Eamonn Holmes and David Icke about links between 5G technology and coronavirus. Holmes’s sin, according to the regulator, was to say on ITV’s This Morning that the theory linking 5G and coronavirus deserved to be discussed in the mainstream media, even though he agreed with his co-presenter that it was “not true and incredibly stupid”. Ofcom said that this view – the view that the theory deserved a public hearing – was “ill-judged and risked undermining viewers’ trust in advice from public authorities and scientific evidence” and could lead to “significant harm to the public”. The Free Speech Union regards these decisions as highly inimical to freedom of expression for reasons set out in the letter, which you can read here. As I’ve said several times before, the state has substantially increased its powers and imposed restrictions on long-established liberties during this crisis and it’s absolutely vital that we should scrutinise and challenge those measures. The idea that any dissent from the official line causes “significant harm to the public” is for the birds. No doubt if this site was regulated by Ofcom it would have been sanctioned too.
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“health and social care workers who feel greater pressure from their employers to receive Covid vaccinates are more likely to decline it.”
or
“people likely to decline vaccine feel more pressured”?
Exactly!
https://healthimpactnews.com/2021/8430-dead-354177-injuries-european-database-of-adverse-drug-reactions-for-covid-19-vaccines/
8,430 DEAD 354,177 Injuries: European Database of Adverse Drug Reactions for COVID-19 “Vaccines”
If it was 84 dead, or even 843, I’d say the vaccines were relatively safe, but 8430 in a few months?? And I’d bet it’s the top of the proverbial iceberg. So thanks, but no thanks.
‘The harder you push, the more I’ll resist.’
These behavioural ‘scientists’ at BIT can stick their ‘Nudge Theory’ where the Sun doesn’t shine.
Yes indeed, I am the same!!! But seems their nudges work on most of the population and some of these try to coerce others too. I have decided I won’t raise the subject of vaccine with anyone. It is my medical business an not theirs.
I really think they will get their 80% of the population though. And when they do perhaps they will leave us alone.
I hope you’re right, but I fear you’re not. Covid is now the “gift that goes on giving”, with the big difference that this gift apparently has the ability to go on giving, whilst simultaneously changing, and forever mutating into “variants”. As they have seized the agenda and narrative, they can do and say exactly as they want to achieve whatever it is they require. One moment it’s gung-ho for vaccines, but the minute that doesn’t suit, it’ll be bully for lockdowns. We have already had a demonstration of this from the Great Leader himself.
It’s the new War on Terror.
The “vaccine” does not do anything to get to herd immunity though, it just supposedly makes COVID milder in the elderly…
It doesn’t prevent spread (if anything it makes it go under the radar)…
So just ‘cos you accented to being nudged, means you’ll get nudged more.
They will never leave us alone. The control system put in place for Event Covid will be used for future engineered crises around, for example, food shortages, environmental/climate ‘events’, ‘cyber attacks’, power cuts and so on for ever unless the normal mass of humanity takes power into its own hands.
Wishful thinking, I fear.
No, they won’t. They will be mandated for work, play, travel, the minute they get full licensed status.
Quite, with so many behavioural ‘scientists’ in SAGE they should know more about human nature.
As this makes perfect sense, but doesn’t come from Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson or the other creeps, the Government is bound to do exactly the opposite. It’s what happens when we have a fatal mixture of weakness, stupidity, greed and cowardice in a bunch of power-crazed psychopaths and sociopaths.
Warning to any (3rd party) employer / company owner / store manager / football club / sports venue / travel company /public house / restaurant / etc, which insists I must have received an experimental Covid 19 ‘vaccine’ (including but not limited to any of those currently undergoing phase 3 clinical trials until 2023, and only approved for usage under emergency government legislation) as a condition of work or enjoyment of previously inalienable civil liberties.
This group of experimental ‘vaccines’ includes but is not limited to those based on various mRNA technologies (which includes Pfizer-BionTech and Moderna), Adenovirus vector technology (which includes Astra Zeneca), Recombinant adenovirus technology (which includes Sputnik V) and non-replicating viral vector technology (which includes Johnson & Johnson).
This objection covers coercion and/or conditionality being used to force the taking of any medication or treatment, even if fully tested and approved by the relevant authorities. I therefore cite the Nuremberg Code, which forbids coercion and/or conditionality being involved in the decision to take any medication or treatment, whether experimental or not. The 1st principle of the Nuremberg Code follows the lead of the Hippocratic Oath taken by all medical practitioners and states:
Please note: The manufacturers of those above mentioned ‘experimental vaccines’ which have UK emergency approval currently enjoy exemption from damages (including but not limited to death) caused from experimental ‘vaccine’ side effects. Consequently uninformed recipients unknowingly consent to waive key legal rights to future compensation claims in the event of them or their future offspring suffering an adverse reaction to, or long term consequence of, having taken the experimental vaccine.
Therefore any attempt at 3rd party coercion and/or conditionality must also carry with it the absolute obligation for the 3rd party to compensate for ALL side effects suffered by the coerced individual forced to take the vaccine simply to enjoy previously inalienable civil liberties.
Accordingly, the imposition of any form of 3rd party coercion and/or conditionality would therefore be taken to indicate that the 3rd party insisting on the vaccine being administered simultaneously agrees to:
1) Cover all future costs and damages (including legal costs) arising from any health and associated impacts (including but not limited to death) caused by any experimental ‘vaccine’ side effects to the recipient or descendants thereof (arising from possible intergenerational impacts not covered by the limited scope of the emergency testing to date).
2) Compensate any financial disadvantage suffered by the recipient’s immediate family and dependants arising from damage headings including (but not limited to) death, illness, health costs, loss of income/opportunity and other consequential impacts of any experimental vaccine’s side effects.
This obsession with getting 100% of us vaccinated….makes no sense. It’s not necessary. But this isn’t, as we have always said, about the virus.
There seems to be no sign of the average sheep rebelling. The rest of us dissenters, well no-one is listening to our concerns, no-one is interested, we are just viewed as cranky idiots. “Come join the flock”, they say, “you can’t survive alone”.
Hubby once spoke of 80:20 splits, in regard to other unrelated events in history. This is where we are again. 80% on board, 20% not. It doesn’t mean the 80% are right, though.
80/20. Pareto’s Law.
I agree with the 80:20 split – the 20% being those who know it’s all wrong, the 80% being unquestioning or easily persuaded and duped. The big problem we 20%ers have is that half of those who know it’s wrong have a vested interest in keeping up the charade, mostly because their livelihood depends on it. This includes all those NHS doctors workers who dare not speak out. So the real resistance is only 10%. Are we enough to make a difference?
It only makes sense if the intention is to microchip you!
OK I know I’ve said it before but I am infuriated! I have family who work in care homes and don’t want the vaxx and feel really pressured. So how can someone work in a care home who has AIDS or Hepatitis or any other communicable disease, but be free to not have to disclose this, and have the backing of the law if they are sacked? (And no doubt the backing of the London elite who would be furious if their gay friends were in any way discriminated against!) But (ordinary working class) people who won’t have a vaxxx for a disease THEY DO NOT HAVE have to be made to conform or face the sack? Someone explain it rationally to me because I am livid!
This is from a friend today:
“Been in hospital for the past 2 weeks with 5 blood clots .
1 in each kidney
1 in each adrenal gland , although one has already leaked
1 larger one in my lungs .
Not really a lot to say other than I am alive.
On steroids now for who knows how long and on blood thinners for at least 6 months . ”
That’s what they have to think of when they’re being pressured to have a vaccine.
Plus: it’s unlicensed, experimental, and being coerced into having a jab they don’t want and is unlicensed and experimental is possibly illegal.
Easy. Pfizer etc want the cash.
It’s completely rational.
I absolutely agree. I think that TB is the closest analogy to covid rather than HIV or Hep since it is also spread via the respiratory system. TB has been in the rise in the UK as immigrant populations have brought it in and we don’t insist upon screening and treatment (or it may also be a drug resistant variety). You can’t vaccinate for it after the age of 16ish as it has no effect on the adult immune system. People are under no obligation to disclose they have it and continue to spread it around. And yet we apparently care whether they’ve had a covid vaccine or not?! Bonkers.
Friend of mine, in her late forties, has been in hospital for the last two weeks after being vaccinated, and suffering from blood clots in her kidneys and in one lung. She’s probably lucky to be alive. She will have to be on steroids and blood thinners for six months.
I think she had covid last year, so should never have been given the jab anyway.
Speaking to one of my cousins, she knows of at least four people who’ve had the jab, one has been ill for over two months, two others have died: one died alone at home some time after the jab in late March, but they only found his body this weekend when friends tried to contact him as it was his birthday on Friday. The police were called and broke into his house to find his body. The other person died two days after the jab from a heart attack. His family were told it was a “coincidence.”
Ask her to contact Alex Berenson.
Those who know more about it are more likely to reject it; what a surprise. I suppose that many people watch the free advertising on certain media channels (paid for by the general public).
All concerned please note that there are legal steps being taken against coercion, such as: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-coerced-vaccination/
They will eventually pin them to the floor and inject them under “mental health”
or camps
Fascists and Communists love camps
Why would anyone accept these frankensteinian concoctions ..
Scroll down to No. 6 .. What the covid 19 vaccine Astrazenesa contains
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approval-of-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca/information-for-uk-recipients-on-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca
Phizer doen’t sound quite so bad .. but it is still synthetic frankensteinian stuff
..
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approval-of-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-for-covid-19/information-for-uk-recipients-on-pfizerbiontech-covid-19-vaccine
These experimental injections must not be given to children
The more you tell me to do something, the less likely I am of complying.