Today is Victory in Europe Day, the 75th anniversary of the day the Allies accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. To mark the occasion, I’ve decided to replace the usual newspaper front page with a picture of Winston Churchill.
Many readers of this site will be aware of the disconnect between the victory we’re celebrating today and the ongoing restrictions on our liberty that we’re expected to endure without complaint for the foreseeable future. One particular reader – a distinguished journalist and author who cannot say what he really thinks about the lockdown without jeopardising his career – has sent me what he’d like to say publicly. I’m sure many of you will share his sentiments. I know I do.
There’s a horrible irony that the 75th-anniversary of VE Day should fall during the lockdown. The British nation fought the Nazis to preserve our ancient freedoms, so that future generations would be able to live without fear. At this moment, Parliament is no longer properly functioning, jury trials have been suspended (perhaps permanently), technology giants appear to be censoring free speech, protest is deemed a dangerous activity and the citizens of this country remain under indefinite house arrest. A Government adviser, Professor Dingwall, of Nottingham University, today admits (in the Telegraph) that the Government has created a “climate of fear” that has “terrorised” Britons. Fear has replaced hope and an untrammelled statel has replaced limited government. A year before VE-Day, Friedrich Hayek published The Road to Serfdom. Never before has our nation progressed so far down that route. What in the hell is there to celebrate?
The Telegraph article referred to above quoting Professor Dingwall is here. In addition to being a Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham Trent, Rupert Dingwall is a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, aka NERVTAG. He also featured in a report broadcast by Newsnight last night by Deborah Cohen, a BBC reporter with a background in medical journalism. This was the first time I’ve seen a senior BBC journalist properly scrutinise the advice the Government was relying on when it decided to place the entire country under virtual house arrest in March. It includes an interview with Dame Deirdre Hine, author of The 2009 Influenza Pandemic, the official inquiry into the Swine Flu outbreak. Hine is pretty scathing about the quality of the predictions generated by computer models in 2009 and although she doesn’t mention Neil Ferguson by name we know that his modelling helped guide Gordon Brown’s response. You can watch the 12-minute report here. Deborah Cohen is my Sceptic of the Week.
The Telegraph‘s Camilla Tominey reports that Boris Johnson is alarmed by the hares that have been set running by newspaper headlines proclaiming the lockdown will end on Monday. Yesterday, a spokesman for the Prime Minister tried to lower expectations, saying “we will advance with maximum caution” and Number 10 insiders have warned that any “easements” to the current Government guidelines will be “very limited”. The same tone is struck on the front page of the Times, which reveals Boris is planning to keep the country locked down until June. One close ally of the Prime Minister is quoted using the phrase “baby steps” to describe the easing of restrictions. Meanwhile, Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, has announced Wales is dropping the limits on outdoor exercise from today and garden centres and libraries can reopen from Monday. Looks like England, the birthplace of liberal democracy, is going to be one of the last countries in the world to set its people free.
Another ‘we, the undersigned’ letter has been published and it reads like a reply to yesterday’s letter in Le Monde signed by Madonna, Robert De Niro and others urging us not to return to normal. This one is co-authored by three Catholic Cardinals and an Archbishop and signed by more than 80 people, including prelates and theologians, doctors, lawyers, journalists and intellectuals. It contains many of the standard Catholic objections to vaccination programmes, but large parts of the letter will appeal to all lockdown sceptics, not just anti-vaxxers. Here’s one of the opening paragraphs, setting out the argument:
The facts have shown that, under the pretext of the COVID-19 epidemic, the inalienable rights of citizens have in many cases been violated and their fundamental freedoms, including the exercise of freedom of worship, expression and movement, have been disproportionately and unjustifiably restricted. Public health must not, and cannot, become an alibi for infringing on the rights of millions of people around the world, let alone for depriving the civil authority of its duty to act wisely for the common good. This is particularly true as growing doubts emerge from several quarters about the actual contagiousness, danger and resistance of the virus. Many authoritative voices in the world of science and medicine confirm that the media’s alarmism about COVID-19 appears to be absolutely unjustified.
Yesterday, I mentioned a new piece of research the University of East Anglia (UEA) had done that the Mail picked up on. I’ve now found out a bit more about it and it’s definitely worth a closer look. Researchers from EUA’s Norwich Medical School examined the impact of different social distancing measures used in 30 European countries using data from the European Centre for Disease Control, analysing how effective they’ve been in reducing the number of COVID-19 infections and fatalities. They concluded that the most effective measures are closing schools, banning mass gatherings and closing some non-essential businesses, particularly in the hospitality industry. However, some measures, such as compulsory face masks, have not been effective. In particular, indiscriminate stay-at-home measures are ineffective.
According to Dr Julii Brainard of UEA’s Norwich Medical School: “We found that banning mass gatherings, closing some non-essential businesses, and closing educational facilities are most strongly associated with reduced incidence after a certain lag period. But widespread closure of all non-essential businesses and stay-at-home policies do not appear to have had a significant effect on the number of Covid-19 cases across Europe.” You can read a summary of the report’s findings here and read the preprint here.
For a layman’s view of “the science” that sat behind the Government’s decision to lock down the country, I recommend this excellent piece sent in by a reader that I’ve published alongside the review of the code that powered Professor Ferguson’s computer model. Lot’s of meat to get your teeth into. You can read it here.
Andy Shaw, Spectator Life‘s resident satirist and the co-host of Comedy Unleashed, the monthly politically incorrect comedy night in Bethnal Green, has written an amusing piece about his phrase of the week: “Herd Immunity.” Andy also co-hosts a weekly podcast for the Spectator called That’s Life with Benedict Spence in which they interview different commentators and comedians. This week, I was the guest on the podcast, which you can listen to here. And in case you missed it, James Delingpole and I recorded a regular episode of London Calling on Tuesday, along with a “shagadelic” special about the resignation of Neil Ferguson on Wednesday. You can listen to the normal one here and the special here.
I flagged up a new anti-lockdown petition on the UK Government website yesterday which I said had got past the gatekeepers. Turns out, I jumped the gun. After receiving enough signatures to get over the first hurdle, it has now disappeared to be processed. Will it ever re-emerge? Who knows. Apologies for the bum steer (and thanks to the 256 people who emailed me to point out my mistake).
Latest data from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute suggests no “second spike” in infections as a result of the country easing its lockdown. Here’s a graph that illustrates the point nicely:
A reader tells me about an encounter with a doctor on his daily bike ride this morning:
I bumped into a neighbour cycling with her daughter. Her daughter is a doctor at a large hospital in the East of England. The mother has been an assiduous lockdown observer but has had enough. So has her daughter who has been working in a Covid ward, and she’s come home for a week’s rest, driving across country to do so. The neighbour’s elderly grandmother died a week or so ago (not from the virus) and will be buried at a funeral with five mourners next week, which will include the profoundly traumatised neighbour’s mother who was unable to see her mother (the grandmother) in her last weeks. The neighbour says she wished she’d arranged the funeral to be in B&Q since on a click-and-collect trip the other day there were so many people in there it was obvious a full wake could have been surreptitiously arranged.
In spite of the polling showing the majority of Britons don’t want the lockdown to end, there is a growing minority of sceptics out there. The driver of this van is one of them:
Avaaz, the US campaign group that Neil Ferguson’s girlfriend works for, has published a letter calling for even more censorship on social media of anyone who dissents from Covid orthodoxy. Perhaps Antonia Staats could get a job as a member of what the Mail describes as “Facebook’s new thought police”. According to today’s paper, an oversight board has been set up which will be the ultimate court of appeal for those people whose posts are removed from the platform or those who’ve been banned outright. Members include Alan Rusbridger, ex-editor of the Guardian, and Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the wife of Labour MP Stephen Kinnock and the former Prime Minister of Denmark.
Great letter in the Telegraph this morning from Virginia Ironside, a reader of this site, abut exactly what Professor Lockdown did wrong – and it wasn’t breaking the rules:
SIR – When I heard about Professor Neil Ferguson’s slip-up and resignation (report, May 6) I felt like clapping on my balcony. I’ve distrusted him and his advice from the start. And yet wasn’t he just doing what we’re all doing – sticking to the rules, but only up to a point?
I’ve caught the most law-abiding of my friends arranging get-togethers in their gardens or streets, or meeting friends for walks when it’s not strictly allowed – simply because they realise there’s no logic to doing otherwise.
What Professor Ferguson did wasn’t wrong. If only his edict could have been: “Be as sensible as you possibly can.” Wouldn’t that have caused less misery?
His sin was to think that he knows when the rules can be bent, but everyone else is too much of an idiot to do the same. The idea that there’s an oikish and irresponsible “them” and a responsible and upright “us” is one that pervaded the Brexit argument. It’s patronising and reprehensible.
Virginia Ironside, London W12
A round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention by readers, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker‘ – Gizmo created by the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford that lets you see how different countries have responded to the pandemic. Useful for researchers seeking to show that lockdowns have had no impact on “squashing the sombrero”
- ‘If lockdown is to continue, we should be trusted to know the real reasons why‘ – Excellent column in the Telegraph by Fraser Nelson arguing the Government should be more open about the scientific data it’s basing its decisions on
- ‘“Lockdown” may cause outbreaks of preventable children’s disease‘ – Interesting blog post on Lockdown Truth, a sceptical website, with some data about the number of children not being vaccinated in the US and the UK
- ‘What the Spanish Flu pandemic teaches us today‘ – Simon Heffer compares our response to the current pandemic to the Spanish Flu outbreak. He’s not impressed: “It was an age when the current cultural determination to avoid risk, illness and death did not exist and for that reason, as much as for the war effort, there was no question of halting normal life.”
- ‘Social media networks scrambling to remove viral “Plandemic” conspiracy video‘ – The New York Post reports on the continuing efforts to suppress the 26-minute interview with Dr. Judy Mikovits in which she sets out a conspiracy theory involving the Gates Foundation and global vaccination programmes
- ‘Men are TWICE as likely to die from coronavirus as women, reveals biggest ever study of COVID-19 risk factors‘ – News story in the Mail. Elderly, obese and ethnic minorities are also substantially more likely to fall victim to the illness, according to NHS England analysis of 17.4million patient records
- ‘Bank of England’s gloomy forecast may still prove to be too optimistic‘ – The Bank of England says we’re on track for the worst economic recession in 300 years, but Andrew Goodwin of Oxford Economics says that’s a “best-case scenario”
- ‘Revealed: How an email from a Turkish T-shirt salesman led to a PPE fiasco‘ – The Telegraph gets to the bottom of why 88 tonnes of PPE imported from Turkey turned out to be useless
- ‘Has social distancing made much difference after all?‘ – Will Jones turns up the scepticism in the Conservative Woman
- ‘Why lockdown doesn’t work‘ – Johan Giesecke, Sweden’s former epidemiologist-in-chief, at his persuasive best in Spectator USA
Song suggestions for today: ‘Wake Up Everybody‘ by the Blue Notes, ‘Rabbit‘ by Chase and Dave, ‘Trapped in My Flat‘ by Reeves and Mortimer, ‘Release the Bats‘ by The Birthday Party and, in anticipation of Sunday’s lockdown announcement, ‘Five Years‘ by David Bowie.
Thanks as always to those who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of the site. 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.
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.
I am starting to believe we are now all starring in a 2020 re-make of the 1956 classic sci-fi movie ‘Forbidden Planet‘. We have created the id – an impulsive demon that takes control of us and serves its own purposes regardless of the impact to our well-being. In the film, the explorers eventually realise the invisible monster they are fighting is, in fact, themselves. I hope we can do the same.
“What lockdown? Police turn sunworshipping covidiots away from the seaside amid 79F heat on ‘hottest day of the year’ as Coastguard reports highest number of call-outs since stay-at-home rules began ”
Is there nobody with inside knowledge who can “name and shame” the low-lives at the Mail responsible for their persistent use of the childish abuse term “covidiots” on their front pages (and probably inside as well)?
It merely confirms that the Mail is just a gutter rag along with the redtops, but it would still be nice if there were some comeback against the individuals involved. In future years when the disaster of this policy is generally recognised it would be nice to put names to some of the worst offenders amongst the media enablers.
I agree, they demean themselves. But at the same time they actually publish Peter Hitchens and, today, there’s an excellent article by Dr. John Lee.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8302055/Bail-billions-anaesthetise-reality-economy-tatters.html
Judging by the photos in The Mail online this afternoon it’s game over for the lockdown. Unless Boris is prepared to send in water cannons or the army there’s no way the Police can control it any longer. Maybe that’s part of the plan.
Worryingly, that scenario actually isn’t really staggering
Mine, which was conditionally on loan to Boris, went with the HS2 and Huawei decisions.
Don’t worry, I think people have rumbled them. And that’s why nobody is giving any fucks any more.
“Life won’t return to normal”, “we are entering a new world” – what is this nonsense ??
Well if we are going to pretend we are living in a world that is stalked by an endemic virus that has the infectiousness of flu or worse and the deadliness of ebola, then yes, of course we are going to have to change our society profoundly for the worse and give up much of what we comfortably assumed was ours, from wealth to liberty.
We are all going to have to live the way only those rather pathetic hygiene- and disease-obsessives did in the past. And if we prefer not to we will be compelled by law, with the approval of the fearful majority.
Meet the new world same as the old world …aka Soviet Russia Nazi Germany and our friends the CCP
But we mustn’t get fooled again…
I think wearing facemasks in public might become a ‘new normal’, as it has been in Asia for some time already.
Just thinking, but say a virus emerges in the next few years that really DOES require a brutal lockdown for a lengthy period of time to save humanity. Something with, say, a death rate of 80% for under 65s and 100% for those older, and easily transmissible. When the backlash from C-19 has happened, it will be next to impossible to persuade the population in western countries to believe the threat and obey the lockdown. Like the boy who cried wolf.
Me personally would follow the data and science and if i could see that the death rate was high as 80% I would take it seriously.
If the death rate was 80% it could never spread to be a pandemic … Kill too many people too quickly
I don’t think that would help. With SARS-COV2 you’re either dead or immune after a few weeks. The virus doesn’t care which. So if 80% were dying it could still spread just the same. The social response would be different though and you would also notice it sooner.
If it wasn’t for PCR testing we would probably not have noticed this pandemic at all.
like Hong Kong Flu back in the 1960’s.
” it wasn’t for PCR testing we would probably not have noticed this pandemic at all.”
If it wasnt for all the *media coverage/scaremongering* nobody would ever have noticed or commented on this “pandemic”
Unless it was slow-acting, of course.
You’d hope that governments and society would have learned from this epidemic how to deal with it better. Unlikely I know.
If it was that fatal you would notice it sooner and might manage to achieve containment/eradication early on. You wouldn’t be in this crazy situation of having extended lockdowns after an epidemic had already mostly finished.
I’ve read that one of the reasons SARS2 is more infectious but less fatal than SARS1 is because it’s usually an upper respiratory tract infection (ie a cold) whereas SARS1 is more often deeper inside the lungs.
But there is no guarantee that something in the future won’t be both highly contagious and deadly.
Correct. There also will be no money left.
For goodness sake: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/09/doctors-frontline-worst-hit-city-world-say-time-end-shutdown/
Of course, there have been NYC doctors and doctors elsewhere in the U.S. calling for reopening for weeks.
Hi folks. Wow, a busy set of comments in the past few hours.
Ok, so I’ve been thinking. If the MPs are not responding to their inboxes, perhaps we can use social media to make them sit up and take notice. Here’s what I’m suggesting.
Set up a Twitter account. We agree a defined message, and at an identified date and time, everyone tweets at Dominic Raab and Matt Hancock to end the lockdown.
Around 10 years ago I attended an anti-austerity event that was campaigning against cuts to youth services. At a pre-arranged time we all sent the exact same tweet to the then Minister for Young People and Families and it was very effective. I think this technique has a name like Tweet-bombing or something like this. If we can get some big names on Twitter to support it, I guarantee it will be effective. The key is getting everyone to do it at the same time.
Suggested message:
“This lockdown is destroying our lives and our economy. There is no scientific justification or legal authority to allow this to continue. We demand our freedom be returned now.
#WeWillBeFree”
Comments…?
PS I have started up my… Read more »
I’m banned on twitter for wrong think alas, but it’s a good idea.
The trouble is that there are a lot of very short-sighted sheeple out there who want even more Lockdown. You just have to look at sites like order-order(dot)com to see that, even on the right of politics, there are many very easily led and panicked idiots out there. They WILL not see anything which contradicts their world-view. A tragedy, but that is much of humanity.
I would like to suggest that people do not use the “f” word in comments on this site. We should present our thoughts calmly and rationally if we want to gain support from the not-so-sceptical.
Feel free however to use the “C” word (so long as it’s followed by the number 19) 😉
Which one – Ferguson?
Guilty as charged…But It’s hard to hold in the rage that has been building for the past couple of months that was so obviously the wrong move to anyone who had half a brain
Why? Apparently swearers not only have bigger vocabularies, but are are more ‘trustworthy’ than non-swearers 😊 apparently swearing is like the beard of conversation
Well, I agree with the suggestion, but I don’t think many of the hard-of-understanding will come here!
“…without jeopardising his career.” That is as big a story as the fiasco over lockdown. How can journalists be censored so effectively? Without free reporting, as it once was, it is worthless as is democracy.
Hilarious – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QECEv3ERyg0
I’ve got a question. If everyone is too scared to leave the house, go to work, send kids to school, what I want to know is why aren’t all the shop workers dead? The chap in the Londis hasn’t had a day off for weeks, he’s seen thousands of people, all day every day. I’m on speaking terms with the ladies in Co-op, and I recognise every face in Aldi. They are not socially distancing with each other, or as they walk around the store. Surely it should be front page news, the tragedy of the retail workers. As far as I can see, it’s been the same team, working extra shifts, through extremely busy periods, and they’re all in fine fettle.
What a brilliant observation. Bravo. Truly excellent and infinitely sensible.
Same here; whenever I visit the local Morrison’s, I ask the staff how they are. They’re all well-thankfully- and cheerfully carrying on.
They’ve all said that the first few weeks were bad- when the loo roll smash and grab raids were in full swing, amid much bad behaviour but now, all is well.
These folk deserve medals; they’ve kept us all going, they’re mostly paid the minimum wage and they never complain.
Politicians and MSM please note.
I’ve spent weeks thinking people were scared and that lead their reaction.
That changed last night when the Guardian published their article about excess deaths that vastly outstrip Covid deaths both in and out of care homes and at the same time released a statement saying we should be in lockdown for three more weeks….
I posted it all over my social media and not a person responded. Not a single person. Now I think it’s apathy and the simple fact that people are quite enjoying chance to recharge their batteries.
The fact that I’m already on 20% less wage and their is no plan to reverse that, people I know and like will be out of a job very soon and my kids education and future is impended more each day this goes on, no one seems to care.
We’ve discussed this before here, I think it’s dishonesty too, they turn out and clap, but really when they say save lives, they mean ‘me’. And I never thought I’d say this, as generally I tend to think people are good, but I’m starting to think we’re a bunch of workshy, idle layabouts, not helped by great weather, and cut price booze in the supermarket. That’s on employers too, some jobs and conditions are truly grim, but if you hated your job, you’re getting paid, your disposable income goes up (even if your total income goes down) as you’re on a mortgage holiday, you’re not paying for a commute, meals out, cinema tickets, gym membership, new schools shoes etc, what’s not to like?
I agree, and unlike healthcare staff, no PPE. We’ve only had those silly screen things (with a ruddy great hole in them!) for a couple of weeks, they are bustling around the store, working hard, they must be tired and run down, they seem totally fine. Plus they go home to their families, as do we after we’ve interacted with them, you’d think shops would be a hotbed of disease?
Just been to Tesco. Only people wearing masks are in their twenties.
Somebody saw a lad the other day in a full crime scene paper suit, mask and gloves. They are more likely to be hit by an asteroid than die of covid.
They are allowing you a view of their most virtuous signal, I hope you thanked them?
I hope every family has at least one rebellious member who takes pictures of their folks in masks. And drags them out every Christmas from now until eternity. 🙂
Can confirm, my wife, daughter and myself all work for a big supermarket and no one in our store has come down with this and we have another even bigger store less than five miles from me and no one there has had it. I must have seen multiple tens of thousand of people in the last few weeks. I am in Scotland and we’ve got less of the invisible illness but even still. In my area of 365000 people we’ve got less than one hundred people in hospital and they all appear to be very old people. It’s anecdotal i know but there it is
Interesting. I bet that’s the same everywhere. PS bet you’re shattered, dealing with the mindless loo roll hoarders for weeks!
Thanks for what you’re doing 😊
Indeed, retail workers are just getting on with it. As are warehouse staff from what I’ve seen. Lo! The people who actually keep the country running are doing so without complaint and without demanding a payrise! (Take note, NHS).
Actually at least that’s one good thing that may come out of this. People will suddenly realise who really keeps the country going.
I might have been dreaming because haven’t been sleeping well at all due to this dystopian future you know what but were my eyes deceiving me in the early hours on the sun’s website?? Was gauging MSM turn, and am SURE I saw a headline page about an infant child dying from covid??? Fucking impossible from what we know but was I hallucinating as can no longer find it…?
Tune of the day, was about racism but ties into my thoughts and theme that people have been plugged into a dream world for the past few months, so you know where it’s from…
https://youtu.be/wauzrPn0cfg
Rage against the machine – wake up
Sure it wasn’t the Mirror? https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-coronavirus-tragedy-six-week-21996469
Should point out ons figures and 2500 infants (under 1yo) die annually. So that’s 6 or 7 infants deaths in England and Wales every single day. Infant mortality is 4x worse if you are poor.
Also from the photo, pretty sure that’s not an NHS hospital, I don’t think that’s the standard mask/visor?
Yes, thank you!… One final desperate throw of the dice by the MSM. Oh but the children!!!
We should never forgive them
What on earth has been their motivation behind all this? It’s incredible
Selling papers, having got what they wanted they are stuck with ONE story moving at the pace of a snail, and having run with ‘selfish man goes to shop for non essential cellotape’ said man stayed at home and didn’t buy a newspaper either! Sales have tanked, ad sales are down, I think they scratching around for any angle to shift units. I hope there is a Leveson style inquiry when this is over.
Kids and the under 40s die from flu every year, so there is a possibility that someone in these age groups could die from COVID but unlikely. Either they died from another disease but because they displayed some type of Covid symptoms the death certificate indicated COVID.
There are many kids with severe deficiencies, especially Vitamin D deficiency that result in compromised immune systems without them being diagnosed as immune compromised. An example is the teenager that got blind last year due to a vitamin A deficiency (he only consumed junk ‘white foods’ and despite the doctors advising him to eat better he did not – sorry couldn’t find a link).
The average baby, kid and younger people will be fine.
Agreed, and we have some of the worst child mortality in Europe, as we have some of the worst deprivation in Europe, it’s very closely linked. Flu is deadly to children and babies too. I think this baby had underlying health problems.
It’s on page 7 of the Telegraph. It says that the infant “had serious underlying health conditions and had remained in hospital since birth. It is not known on what day the infant died”
Poor little mite, it’s horrible a baby has been exploited like this, the family should have had privacy.
Can’t beat RAGM!
Good news! They’re going to reopen the garden centres! No doubt it will be a great consolation for the under 60s to be able to go out and buy some lovely Montbretias for the gardens they haven’t got with money they also haven’t got.
The question is why they closed them in the first instance? Many plants had to be dumped – tragedy!
Great! Aldi will be gutted they’ve been doing a roaring trade in compost and bedding plants, as a monopoly these last few weeks.
Regrettably I have had to sack Aldi anyway as they wouldn’t let me in the shop because I arrived with another person or something.
I drop my mum off at one end of the carpark, she goes in first, I wait five minutes and go in after, and we pretend not to know each other!
I’ll stick to Sainsbury’s. The staff at Aldi are too intelligent.
An unusually sensible attitude, but perhaps even more unusual that the BBC those to publish it. I suspect they wouldn’t have done so even a week ago, but now the insistence on promoting fear for the Greater Good seems to be relaxing a little.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-52568535
“However, Matt said he was not scared about the coronavirus reaching the rig after comparing the statistics from the outbreak with the UK’s usual annual death toll of about 600,000.
He said more people had died during the Beast from the East storms in 2018 than had died from Covid-19 so far in the UK.
“I’ve looked at the Covid-19 mortality rates and the numbers dying from it are very small compared to the number of deaths per year,” he added.
“I don’t feel scared after looking at the statistics… you have to try to be rational about it.””
[Not sure why he thinks the storms in 2018 were that bad, though. Is he talking worldwide?]
He’s talking about how many people died over the time they occurred because of the cold for a large part. Not just the storms themselves.
If memory serves, 30k oldies die each winter due to cold.
My head just exploded at the sheer rationality.
https://youtu.be/WZhIcS4adwE
For those who are struggling with lessons at home…….
Hi,
I’m feeling slightly more optimistic today. On my walk with the dog this morning none of the people I encountered scattered away in fear on my approach as they have done before, none tried to move two metres away. The mood seems to be slowly changing, I think I read somewhere that the British do ‘quiet disobedience’ quite well and that seems to be happening.
On another note, I need some help with something that I don’t quite understand and am struggling to verbalise. I appreciate that the 8th April peak means that the peak infections were before lockdown, apparently thus pointing to the fact that the lockdown didn’t change matters. However, isn’t the counter argument that we should have locked down earlier and then the peak would’ve been earlier? I’ve spoken to someone and that’s effectively what they said but I struggled verbalising a coherent counter response. So, what I’m asking is how can I simply explain (and understand) that the 8th April figure disproves the efficacy of total lockdown? Thanks.
BTW, I sent my email to Sir Starmer yesterday, I’ll keep you informed if/when I get a response.
Kevin
The argument is that the infection rate was already falling for some other reason (yet to be proven) e.g. hand washing was highly effective or maybe the epidemic began much earlier and our visible cases were the tail end (see discussion below).
It is difficult to verbalise a response because of course if you lock a country down indefinitely you can ensure that there is virtually no infectious disease transmission. Equally if we make driving a motor vehicle illegal we will prevent all car accidents. Would we accept the trade offs?
Is there any evidence that an earlier lockdown would have changed the outcome? Certainly not yet. All the available data points to an infection with high rates of asymptomatic cases which makes it impossible to determine when it started or how widespread it is except with the benefit of hindsight and time for analysis.
Even if you had a crystal ball, the reasons you should not lockdown are well-expessed by the Swedish authorities. Apart from the fact that we like to think of ourselves as a democratic society, in the absence of a cure you cannot prevent the inevitable casualties. You are simply delaying and damaging your… Read more »
Great, many thanks. I understand better now. If true, and I believe it is, it’s kind of the nail in the coffin (pardon the pun) for the efficacy of lockdown. I believe the cases we’ve seen are the tail end, I’m pretty convinced my family and I had it mid-December, we were really poorly and had to go to the out of hours clinic at the local hospital.
If you look at the data on R0 it plummeted as soon as we put handwashing and being sensible in place, and it’s remained below 1, significantly so, ever since, therefore it was not lockdown that did it, there was no need for lockdown. Plus if you look at the sage papers for their assumptions and benefit / cost analysis it’s clear that the only measures that work at all are washing your hands, staying at home if sick (on the assumption of 50% compliance) and being sensible if over 75. That’s it. Therefore, what we were doing before flattened it, before we even locked down (there’s a lag between infection and death, and a huge lag between date of death and reporting of death, CEBM mapping on date of death). Plus from what we now know about transmission, you cannot catch it outside, in fleeting encounters, only by prolonged exposure at close proximity (even then even in a household with a sickperson, only 40% catch it). Big pieces in the Times and Mail today from a Kings College expert saying the data is dodgy because we’re disregarding loads of symptoms which means infections are two thirds higher than thought… Read more »
I think the same thing about the antibody testing. I also think I had it in Feb – driest cough ever!
I’m sure I had it at Christmas – bad sore throat followed by a debilitating dry cough that wouldn’t shift for two weeks, and I was still not myself for several weeks following. If it wasn’t Covid then I’m not sure what it was, as it was unlike any cold or flu bug I’d had before.
I’m positive it’s been circulating since December which would mean many more people have had it, making this lockdown even more pointless.
A small note of optimism this morning is that The Telegraph is finally beginning to ridicule the government’s handling of this episode and the main published letter is a Professor from Edinburgh (I hope he has found this website) ridiculing the government’s claim to be following ‘the science’. Ridicule in the media is a powerful tool and and until this point has been completely lacking. We can but hope…
However, as and when this lockdown is ended, it will be important to continue to apply pressure in whatever ways we can to ensure that this arbitrary suspension of human rights cannot be repeated.
Like him or loathe him, Boris Johnson has largely libertarian instincts. Imagine this as a precedent for a leader without those natural restraints.
I think that, like many politicians, Boris was a libertarian UNTIL he got his grubby hands on the tiller. May is dead, long live May II.
Personally I think Boris was lma libertarian till he caught the lurg himself. Understandable i suppose, but not being able to separate one’s own personal experience from the bleedin obvious does not a leader make
Great article from Toby in today’s Telegraph
‘We have become a nation of scaredy-cats’
Hopefully Boris will be taking notes for tomorrow evening, but I fear he is himself chief scaredy-cat
He styles himself Top Cat, sadly, in practice he’s closer to Chooch
Tom and Jerry come to mind
Morning all, I’ve just sent an email to my local hospitals Patient Advice and Liasion team, as instructed by a member of that team.
I have ongoing health investigations that have been cancelled with no time scale in sight.
I explained my issues and experiences and with to discuss a way forward. If not, I would be seeking legal advice.
I urge everybody to do the same, the conversation I have last week, regarding the latest cancellation, with a senior member of the PALs team, she hinted that she wasn’t happy with the situation either, obviously she wouldn’t want to be explicit about her feelings…….
An excerpt of the email follows for some context-
“My previous experience as senior paediatric nurse, coping with, and managing, annual viral bronchiolitis epidemics with very sick ventilated infants gives me insight and empathy for the situation that the staff have to contend with.
That said, the population at large also needs their heath care needs met, and at the moment, there is no end in sight, my mental health is suffering and my worries are mounting.”
This situation needs to end.
Yes – this situation is a total disgrace! We feel your pain? Oh yeah???
Would the people of Scotland defy wee Sturgeon if Boris lifted the lockdown tomorrow ?
Among my peer group, yes.
This is what I’ve been wondering; definitely more activity in my small town. The nice lady on the till at the local supermarket said that she’d seen far more cars on the road, and people walking and cycling.
One friend, who is a nominal, but not entirely convinced, independence supporter, told me that she’s fed up and had enough.
If Boris were to take this step, it would put Wee Burnie on the back foot. However, no accounting for her acolytes’ reaction.
Human-bagpipes Blackford might blow a gasket
That would make my day! Many MPs become semi comatose when he gets up in the HOC to produce another bore-for-Scotland marathon.
Also, how she can’t see that she’s getting played by Westminster is testament to the power of the cult of personality. She’s so deep into her perceived public approval that she doesn’t realise that she’s going to be made to look like a right twat over how she’s handled this. The media will immediately spin her “no ease to the lockdown” message on Friday into one of exerting a Napoleanic control over this tiny nation.
Note that when Nickla speaks at her daily press conference it is always “I” and not “we” eg “I need to be entirely satisfied that it is safe”, “I need to be convinced that relaxing the lockdown is in the best interest of the Scoattish peepil” etc. It’s as if she is the benevolent dictator of this wee country. I want tp vomit.
She tried, unsuccessfully, to assume the role of kingmaker during the run up to the last election, making demands as to what ‘she’ would find acceptable.
She’s veering towards ‘l’etat, c’est moi’.
Which is, of course, just what Mr Bumble is doing from No 10! ‘I feel a right tit!?’ : that is because you are one de Pfeiffel!
Some frustrated Scots might be interest in looking at official Scottish statistics.
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/general-publications/weekly-and-monthly-data-on-births-and-deaths/deaths-involving-coronavirus-covid-19-in-scotland
“As at 3rd May, there have been a total of 2,795 deaths registered in Scotland where the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was MENTIONED on the death certificate.
The proportion of COVID-19 deaths which took place in care homes has risen each week and represented 59% of all COVID-19 deaths in week 18.
Three quarters (75%) of all deaths involving COVID-19 to date were of people aged 75 or over.
The NRS figures published here include all deaths where COVID-19 (INCLUDED SUSPECTED CASES) was mentioned on the death certificate.”
Note the weasel words “mentioned” and “suspected.” Note the age of the majority of the deceased and the fact that the majority of deaths took place in care homes. On other pages there is information about co-morbidities, social deprivation and deaths from flu in previous seasons. As the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon probably considers anything as banal as official statistics beneath her notice. And she manages to spin the lockdown extension as care and compassion for the people of Scotland!
They’re already defying her. Don’t be fooled by the half-wits who post on FB pages such as the Daily Record.
I would, yes.
I would!
As I have been posting about the timeline previously, and why it is so utterly important to go back to the beginning of the winter season of 2019/20 for all mortality rates and health charts / graphs, it is now slowly coming into the mainstream…:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/08/covid-19-pandemic-may-have-started-october-says-uk-french-study/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget
It will take weeks and months for all this to sink into the British heads currently still deep down in the bucket of cognitive dissonance: the (whatever) virus was here and elsewhere for most of the winter.
But once it does sink in.. will the nation take a moment to ponder what that really means apart from many many people having been infected over the course of months…:
Lockdown (utterly nonsensical, in fact a murderous exercise causing more harm than good, plunging the country into economic recession of epic scale)?
The Coronavirus Act overwriting existing laws that are meant to safeguard our liberty and freedom of speech, and the nation did nothing but roll over on their backs playing dead bug?
The state of our minds – falling for FEAR (false evidence appearing real) – and just how easily we can be manipulated and led down whatever path they want us to… Read more »
Absolutely spot on.100 % agree. This is an astronomical deception.
Unfortunately our medics are largely at the mercy of a monopolistic employer. I have huge admiration for those like Dr Sikora who speak out.
It might be sacrilegious to suggest this, but might the silence of our frontline NHS staff be down to them not understanding what it is they’re fighting. This is not to impugn the clear courage of those nursing Covid 19 patients but we do have a bit of a record in this country for following asinine instructions/policy without question – the charge of the Light Brigade for starters!
You could be quite possibly right…
“the ones we are clapping for ” – speak for yourself!
Bound and gagged. It’s almost impossible as a journalist to get NHS staff to speak to you, even off the record. They get told not to and threatened if they do.
Unless of course you’re the BBC (or Ross Kemp?!) with a camera and a promise to let them air all their Labour activist grievances…..
Bail-out billions anaesthetise us from reality
https://mol.im/a/8302055
… and many people look blank when you talk about the economy taking a hit
Good article by Matthew Parris in today’s Times ‘Johnson needs to take control of the cockpit’.
‘Is there anyone in the cockpit?
‘Bojo’s lack of leadership has resulted in confusion in Downing Street and hostilities and factionalism between ministers, and with No 10’,
‘this is not the apocalypse’
My real worry is that Boris, as ‘captain’ of the plane, has decided the safest place to land is a runway four hours away without realising we have only two hours worth of fuel in the tanks.
I’m not usually a big fan of Parris, but totally agree, he hit the nail on the head today
So glad that Mr Johnson wasn’t around during WW2, we’d have been told to hide in our houses!
Italian parliament. Rage against the government.Lies about deaths. Subtitles. Happens in Westminster?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=250&v=bUCWcft6kao&feature=emb_logo
Wow..that’s a powerful watch. If only…..
Great stuff thanks. Can’t think of an English MP who could or would dare to do this.
Did you see the comments below the video though: broadly speaking no-one wants to stand up to be counted even though they know they are being lied to. Puts me in mind of the film of ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.’ When that came out in the 1970s I used to have furious (friendly) rows with my friends who wouldn’t accept the metaphor that we willingly live in a fascist/authoritarian state (remember most of the inmates are incarcerated voluntarily) and those who rebel get lobotomized, even though the willing inmates went along with you….up to a point. My friends used to say that wasn’t what it was like in the real world. Too far fetched. Wish I could speak to them now.
And, you know what, anyone tries to give me a lobotomy, I’m going to give them a piece of my mind! [Sadly that would probably be the literal result, given our current fascist state!]
A heartfelt plea from a disillusioned onlooker: would someone influential please let our so-called leaders know that public emoting does not cut it for the more rational and well informed members of the electorate: Nicola weeping about covid deaths, Boris holding a candle and bowing his head.
We need leadership, not blubbering and sensitivity signalling.
Do others agree ?
Yes, it’s contemptible. They’re a bunch of lying hypocrites, given that they wouldn’t dream of crying about these levels of deaths normally.
It’s emotional manipulation and it’s promoting the crisis mentality for which we will be paying a heavy price for years and probably decades to come.
I’m staggered that they think we fall for it
I fear that they’re relying on the Lowest Common Denominator assumption : we’re so thick and dumb that emotional incontinence will suffice to keep us in check.
Absolutely! This happened to me,who became ‘hard hearted Hannah’. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the teddy mountain materialised outside Kensington Palace.
And then Blair with his ‘the people’s princess’.
Where, I keep wondering, are all the tears for the excess 60,000 cancer deaths (as well as countless other ignored illnesses) that will now result from the lockdown? And what about the inevitable surge of suicides (which doubled following the much less severe downturn in 2008/2009) following the dreadful damage to businesses, jobs, livelihoods, mental health, etc resultant on the massive destruction of much of the UK economy? Where, even, is the sympathy for people in severe pain due to prolonged dental problems? I am one of the lucky ones who has avoided most of the personal downsides of this disgraceful theft of our ‘inalienable’ rights, but I despair for the younger folk who will pay the bulk of the price for Boris’s inept leadership – he could have been Churchill, but instead he has become Greta Chamberlain.
Agree. Also do not want o be thanked for sacrifices made or that we are all in it together. NOT!
During a ww2 bombing in London , everyone rushed to basements , and NOBODY went outdoors saying … “oh , there’s very little chance a shrapnel would hit me , so I go for a pleasant walk in search for the scent of garden flowers “.
Are you really comparing this virus to world war II bombings? wow.
What’s your point?
100% of ww2 bombs contained explosives. 99.7% or thereabouts (i.e. 100% -IFR) of 2020 ‘bombs’ do not.
In fact, not everyone rushed to a bomb shelter when an air-raid happened. My grandparents lived in Bristol which was quite badly bombed in WWII. They lived near a main railway line and the house opposite theirs was destroyed by a bomb. However, I’m told that my grandmother despaired about my two aunts that lived at home, because they wouldn’t go to the shelter but preferred to stay in bed. One died 3 years ago age 92 and the other one was 95 in February.
“Mr Herbert Morrison, Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security, commenting in the House on 11th February 1941 on the introduction of the new type of indoor shelter, said that even in London at the height of the “Blitz”, 85% of the population were sleeping at home or in small shelters at or near home. The new shelter would mean that its possessors could sleep in their own homes with a considerable degree of added safety. The indoor steel air raid shelters, named after the Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security, Herbert Morrison, became available to householders in 1941, and it meant that people could now sleep in their own homes with a considerable degree of added safety. Over one million were in use by 1945.”
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30082790
My grandmother (in London) used to like telling us about how she used to push my mother’s cot under the kitchen table when the air raid sirens went off. With hindsight I wonder if she was talking about a Morrison shelter, but neither are around to ask now.
Congratulations, I think you’ve won the prize for the daftest comment ever posted in this forum.
A semi-relevant thought which occurred to me this morning… one often hears complaints about politicians ending up in jobs they aren’t qualified to do (e.g. a doctor should be the health minister, an economist the chancellor etc.) and instead the government/civil service is stuffed full of people who did PPE at Oxford.
The current situation does leave me wondering whether that would truly make things any better, or just reduce the pool of people available to take on these jobs; we currently have a government which desperately needs to build a logical train of thought, as well as apply a more sophisticated understanding of ethics than the primitive “deaths, bad” which seems to have taken over the country. A key part of the first P in PPE (philosophy) really ought to be logic and ethics, so we find ourselves in a situation where on paper several of these Oxford PPE graduates are eminently qualified for the task at hand, yet they still are incapable of doing it!
If I’ve understood correctly, this is what Dominic Cummings is trying to tackle, hence the endless slurs and his new found status as a sinister Svengali figure.
Cummings is smart but what worries me about him is that one can’t be sure how radical he is. He may be gameplanning all kinds of scenarios in which crashing the economy is somehow a good idea.
Yes I’ll have to agree, although I’d give his idea to introduce a new batch of thinkers a qualified welcome.
If he did support the lockdown then he has as much to answer for as the rest .
They know what’s going on and they aren’t stupid. But they’re applying all that brainpower to PR, psychology, spin, and trying to manage people’s emotions.
On topics for today, would welcome inclusion of Unions’ attempts to further debase society.
BBC reports…
Unions, including the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) and the National Education Union (NEU), have called for “clear, scientific published evidence” that schools are safe to re-open.
Ironically, this because of key principle that “safety and welfare of staff and pupils is paramount.”
Matt Ridley and other eminent folk comment how much we Don’t know about the virus. Safe as a return blatantly is (as other countries demonstrate), a guarantee of safety from science is obviously a silly request.
Indeed, we haven’t clear scientific published evidence that it was ‘safe’ to CLOSE schools, nor even sensible. Reports thus far indicate it has been spectacularly disasterous for some children and parents. The disadvantaged are mentioned, anyhow. The detriment to the gifted might be considered by the govt too, if not altruistically then as a resource who’s future achievement might be milkable for paying off debt so everyone could be paid by the state.
Back off to read your massively commented code review thread and see which GitHub issues have been silenced overnight. Keep up the good work Toby.
Interesting transparency in reporting from Norfolk hospitals:
http://www.nnuh.nhs.uk/news/2020/05/daily-announcement-covid-19-deaths/
The ages and prevalence of UHC put things in perspective.
I have in an earlier posting discussed that Sweden might have had cases among the military attending the Military World Games in Wuhan in Oct 2019.
https://www.thelocal.se/20200505/the-coronavirus-may-have-arrived-in-sweden-in-november
https://nsd.se/nyheter/lulea/regementslakaren-atta-norrbottningar-har-provtagits-nm5340524.aspx
https://nsd.se/nyheter/lulea/anders-nystedt-nara-men-ingen-cigarr-nm5341281.aspx
Because only one of six military athletes presenting with symptoms in November had antibodies against Covid-19 in Aril 2020, a firm conclusion could not be drawn of a Wuhan connection as you could not exclude that the athlete had been infected later in the Swedish outbreak. Still there has been rumours in other countries. Now this
https://www.tagesschau.de/sport/sportschau/militaerweltspiele-wuhan-101.html
The Italian OS gold fencing medallist had typical symptoms already in Wuhan. After the games coming back to Italy his son and partner developed similar symptoms. Although the German team did not report any illness some other countries have. The military games had 10000 athletes from 110 countries in Wuhan October 2019. This might have been the first super spreader event in the world.
We have now firm proof of cases occurring both in Italy and France in the end of December.
The logic is quite clear. An enormous spread of infection locally in Wuhan in Oct-Dec mostly asymptomatic but accumulating symptomatic cases. Then with new test in January we find the Covid-19 for… Read more »