The Observer leads with a new poll by Opinium that reveals fewer than one in five of the British public believe the lockdown should be lifted. 67% of people think schools should remain closed, against only 17% who think they should reopen. Just 11% think it’s time to reconsider reopening restaurants, with 78% against, while only 9% think pubs should reopen, with 81% against. When it comes to sporting events, 84% are against allowing mass gatherings to take place, with just 7% in favour.
Unfortunately, that poll isn’t an outlier. A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times found that just 25% of adults would feel safe returning to work and the public opposes reopening schools by 48% to 28%. And 59% of people polled by the Sunday Express said they would not feel comfortable going out and don’t plan to resume a normal life any time soon.
It’s official. We’re a nation of bedwetters. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
And it isn’t just us. In America, the lockdown zealots are on the march, having got the hashtag #extendthelockdown trending on Twitter. New York Times journalist Taylor Lorenz has been banging the drum for this cause, tweeting: “The ‘open up the economy’ people are truly the dumbest ppl on here. How do they think the economy will look when millions are dead and our hospitals are overwhelmed? If u want to ‘save the economy’ then u need to keep everyone *alive.*”
Among the “dumbest ppl” expressing scepticism about the effectiveness of the lockdown policy is Michael Levitt, Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2013. Levitt has given a great interview to Freddie Sayers at UnHerd pouring scorn on lockdown advocates and their scientific handmaidens. Among the points he makes is that the total number of deaths we are seeing in places as different as New York City, parts of England, parts of France and Northern Italy all seem to level out at a very similar fraction of the total population. “Are they all practising equally good social distancing?” he asks. “I don’t think so.” He points out that the lifecycle of the virus, wherever it has broken out, is remarkably similar, regardless of local differences and irrespective of whether lockdowns have been imposed or not. In particular, after a two week period of exponential growth infections and deaths tail off, meaning the projections of Neil Ferguson and other modellers, which assume constant exponential growth absent a lockdown, are vast overestimates. And worth bearing in mind that so far Levitt’s death toll estimates have been much more accurate than Professor Ferguson’s.
Here’s one of the interview highlights:
I think the policy of herd immunity is the right policy. I think Britain was on exactly the right track before they were fed wrong numbers. And they made a huge mistake. I see the standout winners as Germany and Sweden. They didn’t practise too much lockdown and they got enough people sick to get some herd immunity. I see the standout losers as countries like Austria, Australia and Israel that had very strict lockdown but didn’t have many cases. They have damaged their economies, caused massive social damage, damaged the educational year of their children, but not obtained any herd immunity. There is no doubt in my mind that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor.
One of the most interesting sections of the interview is when Levitt explains why epidemiologists’ predictions tend to be so apocalyptic. The reason, he says, is because if they underestimate the death toll likely to result from a viral outbreak they face catastrophic reputational damage – if people die, they get the blame – but if they overestimate it they face zero consequences. “In my work, if I say a number is too small and I’m wrong, or a number is too high and I’m wrong, both of those errors are the same,” he says. “It seems that being a factor of 1,000 too high is perfectly okay in epidemiology, but being a factor of three too low is too low.”
Worth reminding ourselves that Neil Ferguson’s estimates of the impact of previous viral outbreaks – which have been almost comically inaccurate – haven’t damaged his scientific reputation in the slightest. In 2001, he predicted that foot and mouth disease could kill up to 50,000 people. It ended up killing less than 200. In 2005, he told the Guardian that up to 200 million people could die from bird flu. The final death toll from avian flu strain A/H5N1 was 440. And in 2009, a Government estimate based on one of Ferguson’s models estimated the likely death toll from swine flu at 65,000. In fact, it was 457.
Just in case the Government’s anointed scientific experts haven’t done quite enough to scare the bejesus out of people, another group of experts is intending to shadow the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and publish what looks to be even more cautious advise. According to the Sunday Times, the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government, Sir David King, will chair the group, which is meeting for the first time tomorrow. “It is expected to focus on seven key areas,” says the report. “These include the criteria being used to lift the lockdown, how testing and tracing can be achieved, whether the policies on quarantine and the shielding of vulnerable groups are sufficient and how untapped resources can be better deployed.”
Whether the existing lockdown is sufficient?!? God give me strength.
Incidentally, it’s probably a good idea to watch Professor Levitt’s interview ASAP because there’s a risk YouTube will take it down. Yesterday, the video platform deleted David Icke’s channel, telling the BBC it had “clear policies prohibiting any content that disputes the existence and transmission of COVID-19 as described by the WHO and the NHS”.
The censorious attitude of the tech giants – and the gatekeepers of the mainstream media – to anyone who challenges official Covid orthodoxy is reminiscent of the suppression of dissent in totalitarian societies. A reader pointed me towards this quote by Friedrich Hayek:
The situation in a totalitarian state is permanently and in all fields the same as it is elsewhere in some fields in wartime. Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavourable comparisons with conditions elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions, will be suppressed.
Friedrich Hayek, The road to Serfdom
Yesterday I flagged up the fact that America had endured a bad bout of seasonal flu in 1967 that killed 100,000 people – more Americans than COVID-19 has killed so far – and managed to cope without placing its citizens under virtual house arrest. A reader has drawn my attention to this piece in the National Review about how America responded to what was referred to in 1968 as “Hong Kong flu”, which, needless to say, didn’t involve closing schools or shutting down businesses or imposing stay-at-home orders. As an article in the American Institute for Economic Research pointed out, Woodstock took place during that flu outbreak. And the Telegraph ran a similar piece yesterday, pointing out that the British authorities responded to the same pandemic without over-reacting, recommending hand-washing and social distancing at work but nothing more. Both pieces drew on an article in the British Medical Journal by a retired professor of medicine called Philip Philip Snashall, whose two-year-old daughter was the first known case of Hong Kong flu to hit Europe. “How things change,” he noted. “The stock market did not plummet, we were not besieged by the press, men in breathing apparatus did not invade my daughter’s play group.”
It’s not all bad news in today’s papers. The Mail on Sunday reports that the Royal College of GPs and the British Medical Association have warned the Government against quarantining healthy people aged 70 and over when the lockdown is eased – and a furious row has broken out between Matt Hancock and the Sunday Times, which has the same story, in which the Health Secretary disputes that quarantining the elderly for 12 weeks is official Government policy. “The clinically vulnerable, who are advised to stay in lockdown for 12 weeks, emphatically DO NOT include all over 70s,” he tweeted above a screen grab of the Sunday Times‘s front page.
Here’s a quick round up of stories that have stood out for me, and been flagged up by readers, in the past 24 hours:
- ‘The science is becoming clear: lockdowns are no longer the right medicine‘ – Op Ed in the Sunday Times by John Ioannidis and Rohan Silva
- ‘Wuhan virus lab “cover-up”‘ – Story in the Mail on Sunday about lax security at the Wuhan Virology Institute
- ‘Is evidence rising that Britain’s lockdown could be a deadly mistake?‘ – Great column in the Telegraph by Sherelle Jacobs
- ‘I’ve worked the coronavirus front line – and I say it’s time to start opening up‘ – Op Ed by a New York City ER doctor in the New York Post
- ‘We’re destroying the nation’s wealth – and the health of millions‘ – Peter Hitchens, an early sceptic, in the Mail on Sunday
- ‘Protesters in London take part in group hug in defiance of coronavirus lockdown outside Met Police headquarters‘ – Story about a small protest in the Evening Standard
- ‘GCHQ granted extended powers to demand data from the NHS during the COVID-19 crisis‘ – Story in Computing about the intelligence-gathering hub being given extended powers by Matt Hancock
- ‘Why do we clap the NHS, yet take the success of the private sector for granted?‘ – Good column in the Telegraph by Dan Hannan
- ‘Capitalism 1, Big Government 0‘ – Entertaining column in the Critic by the always amusing David Starkey pointing out that privately-run supermarkets addressed critical shortages much better than the publicly-run NHS
In what may be becoming a series, here’s another letter in the Telegraph about the wrongful diagnosis of COVID-19 as the cause of death in a care home:
Sir – My mother died last week in a care home at the age of 98. When my brother registered her death, as expected the cause given was “frailty due to old age”, but he was surprised to see that the doctor certifying the death had added “presumed COVID-19”, an inclusion that also shocked the home’s manager.
The day before our mother died, my brother was allowed to sit with her for an hour. His temperature was checked before he was admitted, but there was no form of isolation and none of the home’s staff were wearing personal protective equipment.
If doctors are attributing all deaths in care homes to COVID-19, it makes a nonsense of any statistics and does great reputational damage to both individual care homes and to the care industry as a whole.
Tony Parkinson, Christchurch, Dorset
And for a bit of light relief, there’s a story in the Sunday Times about how the lockdown has given an unexpected boon to amateur pornographers (‘Debbie does lockdown: coronavirus home porn goes viral‘.) “Data from Pornhub, the world’s most popular video-sharing website, suggests COVID-19 is far from a turn-off for libidos inflamed by the sight of a mask or the thought of a police officer hiding in the bushes,” says the paper. “It has reported more than 8.2 million searches for videos about ‘quarantine’, with overall viewership up by about 25% since lockdowns were introduced.’ Wannabe porn stars have to apply to be verified by the website, but after they’ve received Pornhub’s imprimatur they can then upload their videos and are paid when the clips are viewed. The site now boasts more than 165,000 amateur performers, up 41% in the past year. According to the Sunday Times: “Popular themes in the coronavirus genre include ‘doctors and nurses’ inspecting ‘patients’; women performing sexual acts in return for loo paper or dried pasta; and police officers turning up at opportune moments.”
Another candidate for Hero of the Week has been nominated by a reader: Plants Galore, a company that has garden centres in Plymouth, Exeter and Newton Abbott. Not only has this company defied the lockdown order, arguing that their garden centres are also hardware stores and therefore should be exempt, it has also started a petition to try and stop the local council shutting down its outlets. The petition has already attracted over 3,500 signatures, including mine. Thanks to CBird for flagging this up in the comment thread below yesterday’s Latest News.
Readers have suggested more theme tunes for the site: ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now‘ by the Smiths, ‘No Restrictions‘ by Men at Work, Thomas Tallis’s ‘Spem Alium‘ by Stile Antico and ‘I’m a Lazy Sod‘ by the Sex Pistols.
Thanks to those who donated to this site yesterday. If you feel like donating, you can do so by clicking here. (Every little helps!) And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in tomorrow’s update, you can email me here. See you tomorrow.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The Robert Koch Institute in Germany is about as trustworthy as the Imperial College Model by Prof Ferguson (NB: they both are on the Gates’ IV money drip). The RKI started off with a “every deceased is a Corona fatality” message in March and officially recommended not to conduct any autopsy postmortems due to fear of spreading the virus despite the clear necessity for postmortems to understand the true fatality rate and impact on the human body.
A pathologist in Hamburg, Prof. Püschel, decided to go ahead with autopsies anyway in early April and went on national television saying that the autopsies prove that hardly anyone seems to be dying OF but WITH the virus as a passenger. Note that in the last few weeks, the RKI has since back paddled significantly and reversed its original statements about autopsies…
The most significant difference in the Coronavirus crisis between the UK and the continent/Germany seems to be the number of German, Swiss and Austrian doctors who are very vocal about the disproportionality of the Coronavirus measures versus the lethality of the disease – according to their findings and research – similar to their US colleagues; the UK seems to have put… Read more »
Good news! Tesco now have so much pasta they’re selling it cheap. Time to start stockpiling for that second wave.
Interesting article on a potential anti-inflammatory drug treatment for coronavirus, currently being trialled in several countries. By Cade Metz published in The New York Times, 30th April entitled ‘How A.I. Steered Doctors Toward a Possible Coronavirus Treatment’. Here is the link if Toby or anyone is interested:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/technology/coronavirus-treatment-benevolentai-baricitinib.html?fbclid=IwAR3lwNCuIr_jgp0RFptzSh9Y_Lf97GJ36mIyK3Htg7tQpKs__13ZKE8KPnE
Hope to God no one in authority in the UK sees this. They may not realise it is satirical.
https://babylonbee.com/news/governor-unveils-innovative-37-step-plan-to-reopen-state-over-the-next-10-years
See figure 2
The full lockdown in Germany 22nd March.Sensible, non economical suicidial, social distancing measures started 13th March
Clearest data yet (from Germany) that infections were already on the way down before lockdown. Why are we continuing with this madness?
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/2020-05-03-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
See figure 2
Fascinating figures.Look at the deaths.We have all heard that female deaths less in all countries and that is true also in Germany between 70-90.But in 90-100 years old ,double amount of female deaths compared to males. There must be some explanation like fewer males in that age interval unless former surviving members in the Reichs army had a health advantage
Completely agree. A puzling thing is that in the former DDR much less cases and the same in all the Eastern European countries. There has been speculation that they all had enormous vaccination with BCG for tuberculosis giving some cross immunity.
The more I think of this the more angry I get at this government, I mean if their plan was for “herd immunity” and the Swedish route why wasn’t the Nightingales being built at the end of February/beginning of March ? The Swedes knew their strategy back in January so I’m guessing SAGE did too, so why the hell wasn’t the NHS ramped up as soon as the shit hit the fan in Italy ? Every man and his dog knew this was heading our way so if your plan was to sit it out and go for herd immunity wouldn’t you get that plan rolling at the earliest point you could ? If they would have done that I’ll probably still have a job.
Vice website has a good account of the things Boris was, and wasn’t, doing at the start of the year. Missing 5 Cobra meetings was one of them, holidaying in Mustique another. Apparently he is very good at not doing things. Sorry to hear about you losing your job.
Yes absolutely right. They should have doubled the number of ICU beds in January (not 10x but doubled because we’re undercapacity anyway), made sure they had all the PPE ready etc. This way they would have got through the peak without overwhelming the system and without even a short lockdown.
As it was, if we needed the lockdown down at all, 3 weeks would have been enough anyway. But even 3 weeks of lockdown is hugely more expensive than preparing properly in time would have been.
But now we’re getting at least two months of lockdown for no reason at all than for Johnson to make people think he’s warm and caring and not the flippant git he may have come across as when this started.
It’s completely shameless irresponsible populism, which is how this bunch of thugs got into power in the first place.
The NHS and the public sector in general exists only to protect itself.
The element that grinds my gears the most is “protect the NHS”. It’s the NHS’s job to protect us. We give it £134 billion per year to do this. The NHS knew about the virus at the same time we did. The NHS knew all about Italy, etc. So, why didn’t it impotently sit back and not prepare earlier, as you rightly ask?
We’re being told to delay our cancer tests, stay at home, lose our jobs all to protect the biggest employer in Europe, whose single job – asides from hiring equality managers at £51,000 per year – is to protect our health, especially in the time of a pandemic.
I too have been perplexed and enraged by the insanity of the public policy response to CV19. Reading Lockdown Sceptics gives me a daily fix of sanity and honesty that I appreciate greatly given how much distortion and misinformation there is about. After the lunatic and disastrous lockdown it looks like needless social distancing is going to be both draconian and never ending. Why, from the start, was a selective approach not taken, focused on high risk groups and their families. Even if that affected 25% of the population that would have been better than locking everybody up and shutting down 90% of the economy. Neil Ferguson, who was at the same college as me at Oxford in the early 1990s, neglected to model selective shielding of high risk people and their families. He, and the likes of Matt Hancock, should be locked up and we should throw away the key.
I live in the US but every time I see Matt Hancock the phrase that immediately comes to mind is “lean and hungry look.”
Daily deaths in Spain, France and Italy are now declining rapidly, with the UK likely to be doing so in another week or two. It appears the outbreak will have lasted for around 12 weeks in each country before things return to normal.
Is it too much to hope that MSM hysteria will follow a similar pattern so that we can all get back to normal life?
I don’t know about anyone else but life as we knew it before this is a distant memory and I don’t think we’re ever going back to it.
Given the state to which the economy has been trashed and the accumulating excess deaths (cancer, heart attacks, etc) that will have been caused by the absurd, dystopian and tyrannical lockdown (to quote Steve Baker), let alone the terror that has been instilled in the sheeple, I rather agree!
There are basically TWO urgent messages to get “out there” to the British sheeple (including the ovine MSM):
1) THIS VIRUS IS NOT THE BLACK DEATH. At worst, it’s the equivalent of the 1968 Hong Kong flu. WE GOT THROUGH THAT ONE WITHOUT LOCKDOWN. (Doctors, virologists, immunologists, medical statisticians and epidemiologists – stand up and be counted!)
2) THE LOCKDOWN WILL TRASH THE ECONOMY, COLLAPSE THE NHS, REMOVE CIVIL RIGHTS, AND CAUSE FAR MORE DEATHS THAN THE VIRUS.
(Economists, psychologists, sociologists and lawyers – stand up and be counted!)
As Basil Fawlty would have said, “it’s not a proposition from Wittgenstein!”
Yes – Hong Kong Flu was a nothing event in late ‘60’s. Herd immunity developed, all without panic & lockdown. Interesting that the prof from Israel (forgotten his name) reckons Australia, Israel, New Zealand have taken the wrong action and likely to suffer later on.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
The thing is, it doesn’t matter if you deserve it or not. If you give up your freedom to obtain safety, you simply don’t get either one.
Let’s leave what people deserve to the moral philosophers and let’s talk about how reality actually works, in the light of what we know about how people and the systems of government we create really behave. The biggest problem in this whole lock-down farce is that people are building fake realities based on errant models and childish fantasies of safety, instead of dealing with how reality actually works.
I think this is a strong practical argument in favour of liberty generally. Governments are pretty hopeless and should stick to the basics. What’s happening in the UK is fairly typical: we’re spending millions on unused ventilators, PPE, tracking software, no doubt lots of other crap, that will all be too late, and billions on a lockdown that achieved next to nothing, while the politicians use most of their energy trying to pretend it was all fine and they knew what they were doing, and even extending it and making it considerably worse just to make a point. The epidemic has just done its thing and really isn’t bothered by any of this.
Even more disturbing was how in the early days “liberal” pundits were praising China for their approach of locking people up and trying to beat the virus out of them. The whole culture of lockdowns seems to have originated with people copying China– but we only have their word for it that achieved anything.
Italy were the first to copy them perhaps out of initially understandable panic, but then everyone else joined in, and it just became the thing to do. People were asking “why not a… Read more »
Just found this on the Telegraph site, and a quick google finds plenty of press coverage for it.
I will be tuning in today.
Rival Sage committee to make case for use of facemasks and quicker end to lockdown
Chaired by Professor Sir David King, the group will stage a press conference to be broadcast on Youtube before the Government’s briefing
mmm, bit unsure on the purpose actually. Telegraph implies the aim is to end lockdown earlier, but Guardian implies it is to keep lockdown longer.
It will likely be censored / removed by YouTube if it doesn’t fit the government narrative anyway.
Guardian article suggests very sinister facial recognition plan being hatched by the Uk Gov:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/03/coronavirus-health-passports-for-uk-possible-in-months
Clearly has no connection to testing, why would a workplace receptionist who you see EVERY DAY need to rely on a government system to know who you are? We need to make it very clear that we will not tolerate this.
They must have the technology to see through masks!
Holy sh*t, I am a proud remainer but now I find myself having to agree with Tory Steve Baker of all people, he’s put a good article in the telegraph on 3rd May. Shows how the damage lockdown is doing has really warped the world.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/03/boris-johnson-must-end-absurd-dystopian-tyrannical-lockdown2/
I feel your pain brother, we’re a broad church us sceptics.
Yup – only requirement (admittedly rare) is a functioning brain
I echo your sentiments entirely. It will be Mark Francois next! ( although I do prefer the other one on Twitter i.e Mark ne Francois pas.)
On moving goalposts in the U.S.; https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/03/policy_and_punditry_need_to_adapt_to_new_virus_data_143102.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/03/boris-johnson-must-end-absurd-dystopian-tyrannical-lockdown2/
Just sent the following to my MP. Feel free to copy, paste and share widely. Good luck everyone!
Dear Munira Wilson MP,
I am writing to express my deep concerns regarding the continuation of the restrictions on our freedom of movement and forced closure of businesses, otherwise known as “lockdown”. These actions were based on nothing less than science fiction, which originated from Imperial College’s false modelling and the predictions led by Professor Neil Ferguson’s non peer-reviewed unpublished paper, produced on 16th March 2020. His model was based on false assumptions, and relied on assuming a virus mortality rate which we now know was 10 times higher than has found to be the actual IFR.
Prof. Ferguson’s history of pandemic modelling, has been nothing less than disastrous, overblown nonsense. To remind you of Neil Ferguson’s estimates on the impact of previous viral outbreaks – which have been embarrassingly inaccurate: He was previously instrumental in modelling that led to the cull of more than 6 million animals during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, which left rural Britain economically devastated. In 2002, he predicted that mad cow disease could kill up to 50,000 people. It ended up killing less than… Read more »
Hi, I sent something similar to my MP last week. They did reply but it just felt like it had been copied and pasted from the party line, ‘protect our NHS, mantra. I’d be interested to hear your response. Sadly, a veil of fear and deceit has been pulled over the eyes of many and it doesn’t appear to be lifting any time soon if the latest polls are anything to go by.
Well done Kevin. I simply cannot sit back and do nothing. When I look back on this in years to come, I want to know I did everything I possibly could to challenge this illegal lockdown.
Me too!
Ok.
There seem to be two ways out of this.
1) A growing, indeed exponential realisation of the dire situation we now face – not from the virus, but from the lockdown.
Mainstream media journalists and broadcasters might possibly begin to realise that their constant fearmongering is not only going to eliminate their own jobs, but is trashing their children’s, grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s futures. They will have to change the narrative – FAST – or accept these consequences.
Ditto for the futures of the families of doctors, virologists, epidemiologists, microbiologists, economists, psychologists, sociologists and lawyers. They can speak out – SOON – or accept the ruination of their descendents’ lives.
Ditto for politicians. Speak up. Now.
If enough break ranks and speak up, we can get out of this, and quickly.
2) None of the above happens. The country is f***ed.
Anyone think of a (3)?
3) Civil unrest, further draconian measures, fascism and then a European war as we all blame each other, and we end up in a Mad Max Movie? In all seriousness, I hope the kids wake up, this is their future, they should demand it back.
3) I am inside a virtual reality imposed to destroy my psyche and punish me for what must have been some appalling crime in Real Reality.
Welcome to The Matrix
A break up of the UK,as the SNP sizes its chance. Cue
Thanks, I’ve used this as a template, I added more detail on the extra deaths at the beginning as this seems to be the only figure people are interested in
“These restrictions (otherwise known as “lockdown”) are based on wildly exaggerated numbers of deaths, are sold to us on the premise that they will save lives, and despite repeated repetition, there is NO evidence to support the supposition that staying at home does save lives, in fact it is leading to more deaths… The NHS has four times as many empty Acute beds as normal (patients who were previously considered ill enough they needed to be in hospital are now not getting this care) and there are still plenty of spare ICU capacity, with thousands of Nightingale hospital beds sitting empty. In fact the desire to push these Acutely unwell patients into the community has exacerbate the COVID deaths (there was not requirement to test them for COVID before sending back to care home!).
In April alone there were 25,000 fewer cancer referrals (and not doubt an equal or greater number of cancelled consultations), which will lead to disease progression and thousands of extra, early deaths. This has been… Read more »
This is brilliant RDawg. Would you consider plugging this in the mainstream MSM as well? Howw about Guido Fawkes?
https://order-order.com/
Excellent letter, well put.
I would add one thought though. The lockdown was not intended to save lives at the outset, it was intended merely to ‘flatten the curve’ to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The problem that you elucidate has been made worse by the fact that the powers that be have realised that their decisions were wrong, the virus is just another flu-like illness of similar lethality and that they were misled by in-expert ghouls peddling imbecilic models.
Rather than explaining to us all that they took the conservative approach relying on what they thought was good but turned out to be bad information, they have now decided to double-down on their rhetoric and terror campaign in the vain hope that we don’t notice.
They are wrong, when this is all done and dusted and we find out, as we surely will, the reality of this and the cost in lives and money, they will not be forgiven.
Can this be the laugh out loud link of the day…. ?may 3rd entry.. What a gem!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52506114
Spike in accidents due to this risible thursday clapathon…. Peak Darwin award? Can this situation get any more surreal?
Maybe when they end up in hospital they’ll see how EMPTY it is. Silver linings…..
This is like Taking Over The Asylum
Oh lord help us. Having not used Facebook for a long time due to the number of virtuous narcissistic pricks that inhabit it on a daily basis (yes that’s a hell of a load of people who I am supposedly ‘friends’ with), I decide to have a look today at people trying to outdo each other as ‘martyr of the day’ : answer = still lots. Fb even provide ‘photo frames’ for your pic with a number of lovely little status GIFs like #stayathome #stayingin. How crass. I looked at the list and not one for #endthelockdown sadly, or anything remotely like it. This is what the world has come to, debate is squashed, dissent is futile.
I’ve been deactivated on and off for weeks, did a two week stint and looked today (had to for a local campaign page I manage unrelated to this) and I’m spotting a few more asking questions, but mostly not. I post the odd cat picture to check everybody hasn’t unfollowed me (they haven’t, they like cats) but when I post ‘Nobel Prize Winning Scientist says Lockdown a disaster’ – not a sausage. What troubles me is my lefty mates won’t touch that with a barge pole because it’s ‘right wing’, it is so frustrating, when did caring about the bloody poor or listening to scientists who aren’t Neil Ferguson become ‘right wing’?? But this is why I’m anxious the sceptical argument remains a broad church, we need to tempt the lurkers into the fray, those that are nervous that supporting our argument is not ‘right on’. It annoys me, but I know enough about campaigning to know you can’t bludgeon people into agreeing with you, you have to take them up the ‘yes ladder’. My technique is obviously still rubbish, cos they are still on the bottom rung thinking I’m a granny killer …
I just looked at the FB comments under the daily government mantra and they are shocking! People are scared to death but not looking at the facts. I just keep posting the CEBM link on the posts in the hope people will read them!
So glad I’ve been off social media for…..
Can’t Even remember now. But it’s been a long time. Does wonders for one’s mental health.
I actually felt sick when I read this. God help us all:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/03/boris-johnsons-lockdown-speech-will-prime-minister-outline-exit/
Meh sounds like at least he does want to basically end the lockdown. Most of the measures appear to be addressing psychological issues (facemasks so people “feel safe” that sort of thing).
It all confirms the theory that nobody really believes Fergie or is serious about trying to do TTT. This is a good thing because it’s almost certainly too late for TTT to be possible in the UK and even if it wasn’t the government are so incompetent that it is certainly much better for everyone if they don’t try.
No doubt there will be a bunch of incredibly stupid regulations that everyone will ignore. “Health theatre” as someone (it might have been you 🙂 very aptly described it.
I felt sick too
I tried to put all arguments against and pro lockdowns in one article, and came to the conclusion lockdowns are doing more harm than good. Read it here: https://link.medium.com/2Al7Ck95b6
This should be published elsewhere as well Sophie; it’s excellent
Just back from a dog walk with the missus. An interesting point came up in the conversation.
We wondered if many of those furloughed think that the government has some sort of “obligation” to keep paying them for as long as lockdown lasts – even if that’s another 18 months or more.
That maybe, many people simply don’t realise where this money is coming from and that there’s some sort of bottomless reserve somewhere.
That they think they’ll just walk back into their old jobs 18 months down the line, having had a lovely 18 months’ holiday.
And that therefore they don’t want this lockdown to end anytime soon.
A few months ago I would have found it inconceivable to imagine that the average Brit could be dumb enough to think the above. But now…….
Spot-on. They are using “fear” of returning to work to prevent the nice holiday ending too soon…
I’ve been furloughed and I’m certainly under no illusion that this is any kind of paid holiday. I feel sick that the company I have worked for for nearly 20 years, and which has been going for over 60, may not survive and even if it does there’s certainly going to be a lot of redundancies. It’s not the sort of business that will just be able to instantly brush itself down and return to pre-lockdown productivity quickly, it will take many, many months. The ensuing worldwide recession will also take its toll.
I would be able to accept the situation a lot better if I thought the government had taken the right course of action but I believe the long term consequences will cause far more harm to far more people than the virus could ever inflict. They are being very short sighted.
I can’t understand how workers on furlough can be complacent. You still have 20% less salary and how are people going to manage with a reduced income. I would worry if I would have a job to go back to. For instance, if I was working in a shop selling products classed as non essential and the shop couldn’t open during the lockdown, I would worry the shop would not recover from not being to trade and lay off staff when being allowed to re-open.
Corona Crap Thought For The Day:
In a New Years’ Honours list in the not too distant future:
Professor Sir Neil Ferguson
Oh hell no
IIRC he already got one for his work on Foot & Mouth.
I am becoming increasingly enraged at the wilful ignorance of many in the media intent on destroying our lives for I can discern no credible motive. Cui Bono?
I have seen little intelligent comment on the Government’s ‘testing, programme apart from ideological arguments over whether an arbitrary target was met or not.
Why are the fear mongering Twitter-trolls with 6 million followers and a dais on Breakfast TV not looking into the rationale for the Governments strategy, particularly bearing in mind that they are condemning its actions in every new Tweet? Their entire focus appears to be to perpetuate an irrational fear of Coronavirus. In any other situation were an expert to have published an opinion on which Government policy was based these trolls would have eviscerated the advisor and the Minister responsible, but in these times they completely ignore Ferguson and his discredited and absurd prognostication in favour of spreading the same narrative as though he had been correct, namely mass death on an industrial scale, rather then one following the path and severity of seasonal flu.
The Government has instigated a massive testing programme, which appears to be little more than a PR exercise that will do little… Read more »
A+++ couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve said
Yep, my mobile will be there alongside yours!
It’s a nasty virus not The Black Death.
It will kill the vulnerable (As Flu does every year and look up the 1968 pandemic)
The Govt panicked, having been given duff statistics by ONE dodgy scientist with a poor track record.
MSM have panicked the gullible sheep by preaching their 24/7 fear laden message of death and destruction.
Govt are weak (Boris has done himself no favours whatsoever)
Govt are starting to realise they have cocked up and are now struggling to find a way to back down.
The stats are being manipulated.
In the meantime the economy is going to be f****d and ironically more people will eventually die as a result of this, than will die of Coronavirus.
Let’s act sensibly, take sensible precautions (as we did at the start), get back to work and go and have a pint afterwards. Life is for living.
This is Steve Austin, reporting for the ‘I’m not a sheep and refuse to clap for the NHS on a Thursday’ and no. I’m not moving off the footpath, common sense news channel.
“One of Ferguson’s models predicted that 65,000 people could die from swine flu. In the event, no more than 500 died”.
Shouldn’t that have sounded alarm bells? Do our cowardly politicians know how to ask the right questions?
Join the discussion…I also refuse to clap for the NHS! What idiots so many in the UK have turned out to be. I’m ashamed to be British! Just think what we could have been doing with these weeks if we weren’t imprisoned. I’m feeling my grip on sanity is being eroded-& I’m an intelligent, fit woman! All life involves risk. Let intelligent commonsense & personal choice prevail
First French case may have been back in December 27th, didn’t Itailan press claim their first case might have been in December too.
https://twitter.com/cecileollivier/status/1256966423919935491?s=19
This article by Lord Sumption was an uplifting rabble rouser
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8281007/Former-Supreme-Court-judge-LORD-SUMPTION-gives-withering-critique-Governments-lockdown.html
He’s amazing. I wish he was my grandad.
Personally I’d rather he was the PM
Excellent article.
It is clear that the government still wants to stoke up plenty of fear to ensure that we are sufficiently submissive for whatever happens next. Face masks perpetuate the idea of an out of control virus which is literally everywhere and the stories about people being afraid to leave lockdown simply encourage people to continue to be afraid. And so it goes on.
Thanks again Toby. Still no news on the Robert Kok petition, it’s still showing as pending. It must be nearly three weeks now!
Starting to look pretty suspicious, I check it every day.
Agreed, why is it taking so long unless they want to censor it?
http://www.songlyrics.com/hidden-citizens-feat-ranya/let-me-out-lyrics/
Another theme tune
https://youtu.be/jySfU10IQu4
And this: The Importance of Being Idle
If i can work 36 hours a week in a supermarket then i can go to the pub and the football, i can visit my old man, i can race my dirt bike. No lockdown for me or my wife and daughter who all work in the same supermarket. I call those who are staying home cowards and those who clap the NHS braindead zombies who’d let our country become a dictatorship resulting in the likes of me having to fight for my freedom and, perversely, their’s too. They sicken my to my core.
We need more stalwarts like you with your good sense and robust independence-good on you!
Well said, mate.
I have a zero hours contract in social care and am more than happy to work at the moment as Im getting more hours than I can cope with. It means I can get out of the house for hours then have a nice drive home on empty roads. The clapping for theNHS and carers needs to stop though. Personally I find it patronising and condescending.
Thanks for what you’re doing 🙂
Like….. That’s all that needs to be said really, isn’t it? All the tokenistic seal-clapping BS only cheapens genuine sentiment