The Times today leads with the story that the Government is planning to quarantine all travellers coming to Britain for two weeks. Under the new measures, likely to come into force in early June, travellers will be asked to provide an address at which they’ll self-isolate for 14 days, with spot checks and fines of up to £1,000 for those who don’t comply.
Needless to say, the aviation industry isn’t happy abut this and nor is the travel industry. Airlines UK, which represents British Airways, EasyJet and others, says the proposal will “effectively kill international travel to and from the UK, and cause immeasurable damage to the aviation industry and wider UK economy”. It added: “Nobody is going to go on holiday if they’re not able to resume normal life for 14 days, and business travel would be severely restricted.”
Isn’t this a case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted? According to Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government, 6.6 million Brits might already be infected. Screening arrivals into British airports and ports, and quarantining those with a temperature, would have made much more sense back in January. Similar policies were adopted in those Southeast Asian countries that are the success stories of this pandemic, such as Thailand, which introduced airport temperature screenings on January 3rd. Had Britain followed suit back then, it might have nipped the problem in the bud.
But we should hesitate before blaming the Government for this oversight. The Department of Health and Social Care asked the Newly Emerging Respiratory Virus Advisory Group (NERVTAG) to hold a meeting to consider the need for port-of entry screening in January and one was duly convened on January 13th chaired by Peter Horby, an Oxford professor with links to the World Health Organisation. At that point, seven other countries had introduced temperature screening at airports for visitors from Wuhan, the centre of the viral outbreak in Hubei. The NERVTAG recommendation was that there would be no point in doing this if exit screening at Wuhan airports was already taking place, although they had no evidence it was.
At the next NERVTAG meeting on January 21st, this one attended by Chris Witty, the Chief Medical Officer of Engalnd, and his deputy Jonathan Van-Tam, the boffins were asked to reconsider the question, but again they passed the buck to the Chinese authorities. By now, human-to-human transmission had been confirmed, i.e. China’s attempt to cover-up the outbreak had been exposed and greater doubt should have been cast on any information coming out of the Communist dictatorship. Nonetheless, NERVTAG’s response was the same:
Neil Ferguson noted that from the modelling perspective, with exit screening in place in China, effectiveness of port-of-entry screening in the UK would be low and potentially only detect those who were not sick before boarding but became sick during the flight. NERVTAG felt there was a lack of clarity on the exit screening process in Wuhan, although it was thought that this process would be robust, and statements had been released by Chinese authorities about stopping febrile passengers from travelling. However, as noted, there were no data on the implementation of this programme.
Minutes of the NERVTAG Wuhan Novel Coronavirus Second Meeting: January 21st 2020
A lack of clarity on the exit screening process in Wuhan?!? You can say that again. As I’ve flagged up before, the Chinese authorities cut off travel from Hubei to the rest of China on January 23rd, two days after this NERVTAG meeting, but not from Hubei to the rest of the world, including the UK. If the exit screening process in Wuhan was as “robust” as the boffins thought – if the Chinese authorities really were “stopping febrile passengers from travelling” – why was the process not good enough to prevent infection spreading to the rest of the country?
I’m basing all this on the minutes of the NERVTAG meetings which are available online here. (Hat tip to a reader who flagged them up and went through them for me.) Could some BBC journalists start looking into this as well please? Like Deborah Cohen, who put together a great package for Newsnight on Thursday? I have no doubt the NERVTAG recommendations will be scrutinised very carefully by the inevitable public inquiry.
Another focus of that inquiry will be the code that sat beneath the model developed by Professor Ferguson and his team at Imperial College. The pseudonymous author of the article I published about the code that attracted so much attention earlier this week has written a follow-up that I’ve published today. The reason he’s revisited the subject is because an enterprising coder realised they could unexpectedly recover parts of the original code’s deleted history from GitHub, meaning we now have an audit log of changes dating back to April 1st. It still isn’t exactly the original code Ferguson ran, but it’s significantly closer. The author, who worked for eight year as a senior engineer at Google, is no more impressed than he was by the more distant version of the code. Read the new piece here.
The Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM), a great source of data about COVID-19, has published a graph plotting the rise and fall of deaths from the virus. This shows the numbers who have died in English hospitals and tested positive for the disease at the time of death up to May 7th:
Note that deaths peaked on April 8th, less than three weeks after the lockdown was imposed on March 23rd. Professor Carl Heneghan, the director of the CEBM, has repeatedly made this point. As he says, it suggests the social distancing measures recommended by the Government on March 16th were more than adequate to suppress infections without the need for more draconian measures.
My colleague Jonathan Kay made a similar point in an article for Quillette yesterday using metadata available from Moovit, an Israeli-based transit-app that maps transport use in dozens of cities around the world. Kay has crunched the numbers for four cities – Seattle, New York City, Miami, and Stockholm – and concluded that people stopped using mass transit at the same time, regardless of whether the city went into lockdown or not. He writes: “Much of the lockdown effect was imposed not by top-down fiat, but through millions of small decisions made every day by civic groups, employers, unions, trade associations, school boards and, most importantly, ordinary people.”
Kay’s conclusion is that sceptics have over-stated the negative effect of lockdowns on economic activity – it would have fallen off a cliff anyway – and says the zealots v sceptics debate is “phoney”. But as I pointed out to Kay, the sceptical case isn’t just that the impact of lockdowns will be economically disastrous – and he doesn’t address the argument that the economic damage will be worse in those countries that locked down. The restrictions have also been disastrous for public health. To give just one example, Professor Karol Sikora, an NHS consultant oncologist, believes there could be 50,000 excess deaths from cancer as a result of routine screenings being suspended during the lockdown in the UK.
Defenders of the status quo will point out that we won’t know for sure whether the lockdowns caused a net loss of life for some time, and the debate will probably go on for years. For instance, we won’t know for decades whether the economic impact of the lockdowns has had a negative effect on mortality, assuming we can disentangle it from the impact of the pandemic (the problem Kay flags up). But the uncertainty surrounding this doesn’t mean governments around the world were right to place their citizens under virtual house arrest. As a classical liberal, I accept that in some circumstances the state is justified in suspending people’s rights if it can show that doing so will save lives – during wartime, for instance. But the burden of proof always falls on those seeking to take away our rights and the case for lockdowns hasn’t even been proved on the balance of probabilities, let alone beyond reasonable doubt.
It’s worth remembering that beneath the statistics about the people likely to die from missing hospital appointments during the lockdown lie thousands of individual human stories. Here’s one a reader sent me today:
I have/had prostate cancer and am meant to have regular blood tests. Told by my local surgery not to go to be tested until lockdown is over! Six weeks overdue I went last week anyway, having cleared it with the hospital who said I should come. Normally there is a very lengthy queue. I walked in to find three nurses and me. What must be going undiagnosed is horrifying.
I’ve referred to Simon Dolan’s legal challenge to the lockdown several times on this site, but there is at least one other challenge, this one being mounted by the English Democrats. The co-chair of the English Democrats, Robin Tilbrook, is also the solicitor acting for it in this matter and you can read the Government’s response to his pre-action letter, as well as Tilbrook’s response to that response, here. And if you feel like donating to support that lawsuit, you can do so here.
In case you need reminding of how draconian the lockdown is, the Manifesto Club has compiled a photographic record of public parks and beauty spots in Britain that have been closed by the authorities since March 24th, as well as first-person accounts by people who’ve been harassed by the police at these locations. Read it and weep.
How much longer can these restrictions on free movement be maintained? I went for a walk along the Thames yesterday and was pleased to see plenty of people ignoring the lockdown: couples walking arm-in-arm on Putney Bridge, children playing football in Fulham Palace, groups of friends drinking either side of Hammersmith Bridge. Several readers have reported similar “green shoots” in their neck of the woods – or, as one put it, “the sand slipping off the side of a sandcastle as the tide comes in”. Here’s a report I received from a reader in the Midlands:
Interesting afternoon here in my village on VE day, in a part of the nation where there never hasn’t been a Conservative MP. Various conversations and interactions. Not one, and I do mean not one, person we talked to is in favour of the lockdown carrying on as it has been. These include people working for the NHS. One is a GP practice manager. Her daughter is a doctor in A&E nearby who reports there are no evening drunks coming in but instead they have an elevation in overdose cases. Another is a manager of a gynaecological unit in an East Midlands town – she reports there has been a small but detectable rise in stillbirths since lockdown began.
Of course, there are some benefits to the lockdown, as the writer Harriet Sergeant reminds us on Twitter: “My local heroin dealer has decided lockdown is over. He’s back on the bench outside my house. Customers come and go. But now I know how to get a police response – report him for social distancing.”
And it isn’t just the British police who are zealously enforcing the rules. Police officers in Laredo, Texas are straining every sinew to keep the city’s residents safe. The city’s Covid-19 Taskforce Enforcement arrested Ana Isabel Castro-Garcia and Brenda Stephany Mata and charged them with violation of emergency management plans after they caught them running underground nail-and-eyebrow salons at their homes. With heroic disregard for their own safety, officers disguised themselves as regular customers and scheduled appointments for nail and eyelash services and then took the dangerous criminals in to custody. KGNS News has the story.
In Singapore, by contrast, there’s no need for police officers to enforce social distancing rules – robots are more than capable of doing the job. Take a look at this YouTube video of a four-legged robot patrolling Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park. (The Straits Times has more.) At present, all the robodog does is broadcast social distancing propaganda and take photographs of people breaking the rules. But how long before it’s equipped with more persuasive tools? I’m reminded of this scene in RoboCop in which the pampered executives of Omni Consumer Products are introduced to ED-209, the latest enforcement droid. Warning: contains scenes some readers may find distressing.
Meanwhile, back in Blighty, police are searching the social media profiles of those who dare to criticise their Gestapo-like behaviour. I was contacted by a reader who has been very critical of police over-reach on Twitter. He saw a Tweet from another sceptic complaining the police had checked his profile on LinkedIn and thought, “That can’t possibly be true. Surely, they’ve got more urgent maters to attend to?” He then checked his own LinkedIn profile and found this:
Someone who must be in the police’s cross-hairs by now is Dr John Lee, a former consultant pathologist for the NHS. He has compiled a list of 10 reasons to end the lockdown for the Spectator. Dr Lee, a retired professor of pathology, was one of the first senior medics to question the wisdom of locking up the entire country. His 10 reasons are:
- You cannot understand the significance of this virus simply by looking at the raw death figures
- The policy response to the virus has been driven by modelling of Covid – not other factors
- We don’t know if lockdown is working
- We should ease the lockdown to save lives
- Lockdown is not sustainable
- Lockdown directly harms those most likely to be affected by coronavirus
- Lockdown directly harms those who will be largely unaffected by coronavirus
- The health service has not been overwhelmed nor likely to be
- The virus is almost certainly not a constant threat
- People can be trusted to behave sensibly
Dr Lee also has an article in today’s Mail making the same argument and it’s worth reminding ourselves that his views are by no means uncommon in the medical establishment. I was pleased to see this letter from a biology professor in today’s Telegraph:
SIR – Science proceeds by putting forward conjectures or hypotheses, collecting empirical data to test them, and accepting, rejecting or modifying them on that basis. The implication is that our scientific understanding is not fixed, but changes as evidence accumulates.
In the United Kingdom the initial decision to impose lockdown to control the effects of COVID-19 was based on a conjecture or model that has now been tested against real data and is found to be wanting.
The model predicts that, under the sustainable public health measures taken by Sweden and in the absence of lockdown, there should now be 60,000 deaths in that country from Covid-19, whereas there are currently only about 3,000 there, with deaths now well past the peak and declining.
Given the failure of the model to make useful predictions, there is no justification for using it to guide future policy. In contrast, large amounts of empirical evidence have now been gathered which demonstrate that for a very large fraction of the population the virus poses a very low risk, while a small fraction – whose immune systems are compromised – are vulnerable.
Therefore, to follow the science, an appropriate policy is the targeted shielding of those who choose to be classified as vulnerable, rigorous screening of their carers to prevent transfer of infection to the vulnerable sector, and release from lockdown for those outside these categories.
Continuing the blanket lockdown cannot be justified on the basis that it is “following the science”.
Professor Richard Ennos, Edinburgh
I have written a comment piece in today’s Telegraph asking what happened to our famous stiff upper lip. Forget about the bulldog spirit. We seem to have become a nation of scaredy-cats. Readers of this site will already be familiar with my views about the supine acquiescence of the British people to having their rights curtailed, but here’s a quote in case you need reminding:
How did it come to this? We’re supposed to be a nation of indomitable yeoman who guard our ancient liberties more fiercely than any other people on earth. These islands, which haven’t been invaded since 1066, are the birthplace of liberal democracy.
Yesterday, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the day the Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany after more than 350,000 British soldiers gave their lives to protect this country from tyranny. Yet when the Government enacted a statutory instrument on March 26th that suspended the rights of every freeborn Englishman, some of them dating back to the 12th Century, we didn’t let out so much as a squeak of protest. Probably just as well because protests of more than 100 people are now illegal.
I got a great response from a reader – of the Telegraph, not Lockdown Sceptics, although I suspect she would like this site too. Here are the first three paragraphs:
I have never in my life written to a columnist to berate or applaud something they have written. But after over six weeks of pointless and frustrating lockdown, and an inability to read anything on social media or newspapers for fear of punching a tree, I read your article today in the Telegraph.
Thank you. For voicing everything I want to but don’t have a platform to. We are small business owners who have had no financial help and expect none, and are struggling like everyone else. We have young kids who are being damaged by this prison they live in, and struggling with maintaining the hope that they feel is being snatched from them, despite our protestations. We are all caged in our homes, and my strong belief in liberty is now seen as a badge of defiance and shame. I resent being told what to do by anybody, generally, but I will always respect authority and knowledge. I voted for Boris and Brexit in that belief. But now I do feel that my respect for that authority waning, as the world becomes infantilised and patronising. I can’t take my dog for more than one walk a day or sit on a fallen tree to take in the view without people feeling they have to point and tut. I despair of the example this all sets for the new generation that fear everything, and take pride in nothing except their own social media profiles; who have fallen blindly behind ‘science’ in the form of a randy, fear-spreading, and inept epidemiologist professor.
I idolise the Queen, but she was wrong – I think my wildly brave grandfather and those of his generation would be turning in their graves at the lily-livered modern Britishness, and despair or those neighbours who curtain twitch as I leave the house. I love the NHS, having worked in it for most of my life, but I detest the clapping when I recall that I had no respect shown to me by most people (who are now clapping) when I turned up as a paramedic to treat them. And does the NHS deserve all of this? Well, yes, those in Covid wards do of course. But, my God, there are plenty of complete idiots in the health service who are now relishing their deification, despite never earning it. And many are actually not even working at all, as we have scared the life out of everyone to go to hospital or the GP. I see selfish and self-absorbed self importance all about, and I truly don’t know how I explain this period of history to my children without embarrassment at how my nation has behaved. Suddenly the BBC treats the part-time bin men and supermarket workers as “heroes” and worth more than my young kids – we need only to hear the BBC news that speeding drivers at the moment “may even kill a key worker going to their vital work” to see this view. And why does everyone want now to identify as a key worker? Please…..
Victor David Hanson, writing in the National Review, argues that the divide between lockdown sceptics and zealots reflects the ancient conflict between empiricism and abstraction — between common sense and abstract science. He may be on to something, as this story in the Telegraph about front-line doctors in New York illustrates. State governor Andrew Cuomo favours a phased exit from the lockdown, with life not returning to normal for months, whereas the doctors fighting the disease think the battle has been won, and the fact that the state’s hospitals are now half-empty means people who need urgent medical treatment aren’t getting it. “It’s not often I agree with Trump, but I think that we should open up on May 15,” says Dr Samir Farhat, who runs the emergency room at New York Community Hospital as well as working as a physician at Mount Sinai Brooklyn.
In UnHerd, Douglas Murray highlights the idiocy of those trying to censor what people are and aren’t allowed to say about the virus on social media. Includes an absolute gem from the website of the Institute for Strategy Dialogue (ISD) which describes the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as opposed to the Wuhan wet market, as a “right-wing conspiracy theory”, claiming “there is absolutely no scientific evidence that the genome is man-made”. Evidently, the ISD missed this podcast with Dr Luc Montagnier, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine, who concludes the virus could not have evolved naturally and must have been created in a laboratory. As Murray points out, this supposedly crackpot theory is being investigated by a consortium of Western intelligence agencies, as was revealed in the leaked “five eyes” document. (Proud to say Douglas Murray is a director of the Free Speech Union.)
A round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘Graph Lover Doesn’t Want This Shit To End‘ – Satirical article in the Beetota Advocate about a man who suffers from graphodisiac, someone who gets sexually aroused by graphs, and is currently having the time of his life
- ‘WHO ate all the pangolins?‘ – Article by Henry Williams in Spectator USA abut the World Health Organisation’s tacit defence of Traditional Chinese Medicine, including eating Pangolins
- ‘Don’t sacrifice freedom at the altar of safety‘ – Frank Furedi, author of How Fear Works, says we’ve made a terrible mistake in surrendering our freedom in return for safety
- ‘This is international hysteria‘ – Brendan O’Neill interviews Spectator columnist Lionel Shriver for his Spiked podcast. Lionel has been a lockdown sceptic from day one
- ‘Nearly half of world’s workers risk losing their livelihoods over COVID-19 lockdowns‘ – euronews report on the warning of the International Labour Organisation that half of the world’s workforce risk losing their livelihoods as a result of the lockdowns
- ‘Lockdown fanatics scare me far more than Covid-19‘ – Brendan O’Neil’s latest for Spiked
- ‘The underground doctors’ movement questioning the use of ventilators‘ – Matt Strauss, a former ICU doctor, on the courageous doctors who’ve risked their careers to speak out about the risks of treating COVID-19 patients with ventilators
- ‘Coronavirus pandemic may lead to 75,000 “deaths of despair” from suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, study says‘ – CBS News reports that deaths from suicide, drug and alcohol abuse as a result of the lockdown may eclipse the Covid death toll in the US
- ‘The Most Monumental Social Engineering and Ideological Transshipment Effort in History‘ – Useful compendium of the evidence against lockdowns from the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property
- ‘Sorry, but we can’t always be safe‘ – Richard Harper argues that we should abandon the fantasy that we can ever be completely safe
- ‘Europe’s Communists Are Trying to Blame COVID-19 on Markets and “Neoliberalism”‘ – Not an article in the Onion or the Babylon Bee, but a piece from the Mises institute flagging up a genuine theory
- ‘The Economic Lockdown Catastrophe‘ – The editorial board of the Wall St Journal responds to the news that 20.5 million Americans have lost their jobs since the beginning of the crisis
- ‘Ferguson’s Fall, Imperfect Polling and Messy Modelling‘ – Excellent podcast from Nic and Andrew Elliott at Sounding Board
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.
No songs today, but I’ll leave you with a quote from my piece in today’s Telegraph:
Let’s hope Boris screws his courage to the sticking place tomorrow and announces an end to this authoritarian nightmare. This is a country in which every man’s home is supposed to be his castle, not his prison.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
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Stunning quote from CDC planning for pandemic
https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1259142805105938432
“ The results suggest that the effectiveness of pandemic mitigation strategy will erode rapidly as the cumulative illness rate prior to implementation climb over 1 percent in an affected area”
The comment of the twitter says it all
We just paid $4 trillion to close the barn door after the horse was long gone
According to an Italian member of Parliament the Italian National Institute of Health says that 96.3% of Italians who died WITH the corona virus died OF other causes.
So not only is the total death toll a big nothing burger, but 96.3% of that isn’t even IN the nothing burger.
My view is that bad medical advice from experts has killed more corona virus patients that an other cause, due to a number of overlapping factors:
– peak flu season loads on poorly managed hospital systems
– simplistic rush to ventilation of the already-fragile without proper supervision (see first point)
– extremely poor test methods and mechanisms giving excessive proportions of false positives
– already-done-to-death extremely poor modeling pedaled by “if it bleeds it leads” sensationalists
– the inherent knee-jerk tendency of bureaucrats to treat every crisis as a massive power grab opportunity, exacerbating all of the above
And for this shabby mirage we’ve destroyed the global economy, upended a thousand years of slow progress toward liberty, set precedents that will haunts us for centuries to come (such as each of us having to prove to the government that we’re safe to be let out, instead of the government having to prove that an individual is dangerous), encouraged the already virulent vaccinazis, meekly submitted to the most irrational fears and tinpot tyrannies, exalted the insolence of office to absurd Olympian heights, and produced our own infectious plague of well-meaning busybodies.
Strikes me, in those quiet reflective moments, as somewhat of a bad deal.
Is there a reference for those % stats from Italy? They’re very worth sharing, but without the source I can see them being challenged.
from a speech in the Italian parliament, by Vittorio Sgarbi:
“Non dite anche qui venticinque mille morti. Non è vero! Non usati per retorica e terrorismo. I dati di Istituto Superiore dal Sanità dicono che il novantasei virgula tre percento sono morti per altro patologie”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=Fz5z126qliY
You can see it’s not a popular message in that forum where, as he points out, none of them wore masks while deciding to destroy their own national liberty and prosperity.
Even WITH the source they will be challenged. The Italian Superior Institute of Health also published the average age of the dead before the global lockdowns started, at 79.3 years of age, with more than half having THREE pre-existing serious medical conditions. Nobody cared because it didn’t fit the preferred narrative.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/UBFi2Xt4d2oR/ this is the video
Ok, you start with some Italian member of parliament over here (A) tells you that the Italian Institute of Health over there (B) says that nearly all Covid-19 deaths are from some other cause entirely. (Boy, you need a lot of cooperative liars for such stupidity given that health care people especially can quite often tell what someone died of. I mean, I break my skull and die and some arse says I died of Covid… well that sure takes a lot of cooperative liars, especially on such a grand scale.) Then you put forth this beautifully written set of conjectures based on… your own mind.
So, I have some questions.
Where’s the link to the report by that Italian Institute of Health?
All these evil people in power and yet, who gives you the information upon which you build your entire argument? One of those very people.
You mention the flu season as if we’re in the middle of one. What are the dates (roughly) of flu seasons?
If we actually have flu seasons, can we not have a covid-19 season? Is this not an unusual time of year for these seasons?
Is it not possible that there actually is a really serious pandemic AND that all this corruption and democracy destruction is going on? Do we really need a grand dichotomy? (Indeed, I would suggest that your overwrought suggestions are as hysterical as those on the other side of the coin.)
I would suggest that historically this kind of societal destruction has regularly gone on all the time. But this is NOT an argument that the Spanish Flu in 1918 was a hoax. Furthermore, a lot of lives were lost then by quarantines ending too rapidly. Furthermore, later estimates in retrospect were a lot lower than contemporary estimates. This too is normal. And this too did NOT mean it was all a great hoax, though there were plenty of people who thought it was then too.
Do you know anyone who has contracted this virus? I do. A family. They were very very very sick for a couple of weeks. Much like a flu, yes, but a flu of 3 or 4 times the intensity.
I have emphysema. Pretty bad too. If I caught this infection and died, what would you say killed me?
How about if I walked out and got killed by a bus?
I think all the bad things are happening that you think are happening. I also think a very serious illness is about. How serious is the big question I suppose, but I don’t think we’ll have that insight for a long time yet. But in the meantime, I don’t need any false dichotomies to confuse matters or to frighten people any more than they already are.
I think if I had children I would steer them clear of crowds right now. Wouldn’t you?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/ Quotation of Ricciardi
Nah.
Me neither.
F
Hi Terry,
Thanks for your constructive feedback.
Firstly with regards to your first point: re the Italian’s overestimation on the cause of deaths being attributed to Covid-19. I refer you to Professor Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health, who said, “The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.” He continues:
“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,” he says.
As regards your second point, I don’t believe anybody on this website thinks Covid-19 is a “hoax” or does not exist. Yes, to anyone over the age of 70 or with pre-existing health conditions, it does present a significant threat to life. However, this is essentially an issue of proportion. The government could have chosen to manage this “crisis” with a sensible, balanced and proportionate response that would have saved people’s livelihoods, children’s education, people’s mental health and the economy from crashing to a level not seen since the Great Frost of 1709. We need look no further than Sweden, who only last week was described as “a model of how to respond to a pandemic” by the World Health Organisation.
Instead our Government is choosing to enforce an extreme, never-seen-before approach that has stifled people’s liberty, wellbeing, physical and mental health, and effectively written off an entire year of people’s lives. This approach has stemmed from panic and fear, in response to a virus which leading epidemiologists, virologists, microbiologists and epidemiological statisticians have said presents a relative background mortality risk no greater than a potent influenza season. Despite the plethora of evidence that lockdowns cause more deaths than the virus itself, still our Government is continuing on this self-destructive path, with seemingly no end in sight.
The mounting evidence is that the lockdown is causing more deaths than lives it is theoretically saving. I simply cannot support a strategy that is so spectacularly draconian and authoritarian, especially when are supposed to be citizens of a free and democratic society.
I want to be you when I grow up
Thanks for the 12% quote which I’d read before but couldn’t attribute
From the ONS:
The majority of deaths involving COVID-19 have been among people aged 65 years and over (24,009 out of 27,356), with 43% (10,410) of these occurring in the over-85 age group.
I’d just like to ask Terry why he’s on a site called Lockdown Sceptics expecting us to agree with him.
@Farinances – perhaps Terry has ventured to this site, aiming for a broader more insightful understanding than the initial one that favored lockdown.
Is it helpful to consider that people are afraid and trying to make sense of this, even just as a way to regain some emotional/psychological control?
Personally, I am doing exactly that: seeking validated facts that uphold my rights so that I can remain calm and balanced in the face of any further extreme impositions.
Generally, people have a tendency toward seeking and aligning with validation of where we already are philosophically, politically, religiously, etc.; and this tendency intensifies when we are afraid. It takes courage to break out of the “safety” of such group thinking, but it is essential if we ALL are to evolve beyond the cluster mentality, kneejerk reactions and face-saving policies that are currently dominating the narrative.
It seems we all have something to be afraid of here: loss of rights, loss of life, loss of economic stability, loss of trust in those meant to ‘serve and protect’ in their various official capacities, and a growing fear of being able to co-exist in every day life …
Acknowledging fears on both sides, and aiming to step calmly into a non-partisan, non-reactionary arena where ideas can all be passed through a filter of “How does this help?” might expand our local and global humanitarianism more effectively than remaining behind the mutually exclusive camps of self-justifying yay-sayers and nay-sayers.
Perhaps such a meeting of minds and hearts will help form better planning for “where do go go from here” because this will not be the last time we see this or a similar virus.
Fear is failure, SKW.
Meetings of hearts/minds are good things. Good faith on both sides, though, is a sine qua none. We haven’t seen a lot of that from the ICL gang. Nor from our ‘lockdown based on zero evidence of benefit’ government.
Being ‘calm and balanced’ is good when two-way communication is taking place. But not when one shower are ruling on science-free diktat.
“Good faith on both sides, though, is a sine qua none. We haven’t seen a lot of that from the ICL gang. ”
In fact even just in terms of the discussion we’ve seen the direct opposite, with them openly and repeatedly trying to shut down dissent by claiming it’s “dangerous” to disagree with them.
These people do not deserve any respect, not because of their views but because of their unwillingness to sustain honest discourse..
“Strikes me, in those quiet reflective moments, as somewhat of a bad deal.”
Thanks for your comments Terry. I would take my children and walk into a crowded stadium right now- we are no more at risk than we were before.
If your children are young you are at virtually no risk at all.
“The majority of deaths involving COVID-19 have been among people aged 65 years and over (24,009 out of 27,356), with 43% (10,410) of these occurring in the over-85 age group.”
Terry if you’re still reading this thread, you MUST listen to Dr John Lee, former Professor of Pathology at Hull Medical School.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1013854/3675205-episode-4-dr-john-lee-part-1?client_source=twitter_card&player_type=full_screen
He explains the REALITY of this virus – it is NOT the Black Death, it is NOT Ebola or anything remotely like such diseases.
The lethality of Covid19 is similar to that of a severe flu bug. THAT’S IT. All the rest is panic, hysteria and fearmongering.
You would not be terrified to take your kids out during flu season; nor should you be during this “pandemic”. In fact, seasonal flu is MORE dangerous to children than is Covid19.
( Note that “pandemic” simply means a virus which has spread to all – “pan” – continents. The word implies NOTHING about the severity of the disease, only how far it has spread.)
Terry, it’s always hard to judge whether someone posting the kind of stuff you do here is a genuinely open-minded questioner or a provocateur who has no intention of listening to any responses. On the assumption you might be the former, here’s my suggestion.
You need to take a step back from all the scary pictures and stories, and all the anecdotal stuff, and look at the numbers, and look at them in proportion, not in isolation. 0.2% of ten million people is 200,000, which sounds like a big number but it is still only 0.2%, which is probably the kind of risk level people overall are facing of dying from this disease, if we catch it (and most probably won’t catch it even in a pretty bad epidemic). If you have very bad emphysema then your own personal risk might be much higher, but that should be a matter for protecting individuals who are at high risk. It should not be used to argue for trashing the whole of society in a vain attempt to suppress a virus that is harmless for most, and is best addressed long term by building resistance in the general population to reduce the severity of future epidemics.
You ask how serious this is? Flu is clearly the best comparison. It sweeps through and kills a small percentage, mostly the very elderly and already very ill, and it makes a rather larger percentage ill for a while, some quite seriously. A disease that “finishes off” very old and ill people should not be regarded as in the same category as one that kills a lot of young and healthy people (and I say that as someone well past his prime). We all have to die sometime – it’s not a matter of if but rather of when and how.
Just to establish that the idea that this disease is “like flu” is not just empty words by an anonymous internet commenter, I’ve attached below my own list of occasions I happen to have seen where experts in the relevant fields, some of them as entitled to an expert opinion on this point as anyone alive in the world, say exactly that. There will always be people who say “ah, but it’s worse than flu because it actually kills 0.5% rather than 0.1%”, or it has this or that particular characteristic, or it actually kills a lot more of the very old and ill. But these are mere argumentative nit-picking. The difference is with diseases that actually kill or disable very high proportions of those who catch them, such as ebola (20-80% fatality), or larger percentages of the young and healthy. In those cases you can’t rely on population immunity. But with flu-like diseases, you absolutely can, and should, because as we are seeing the alternative is economically, culturally and socially disastrous. And we’ve barely begun to pay the costs if we really are going to try to live long term as though we are stalked by a disease as infectious as flu but as deadly as ebola.
“The death rate due to this disease is probably going to end up round about 0.1%, which is similar to flu”
John Lee is a recently retired professor of pathology and a former NHS consultant pathologist, who writes for the Spectator
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1013854/3675205-episode-4-dr-john-lee-part-1?client_source=twitter_card&player_type=full_screen
(From ~15 mins in)
“I expect about 0.1 or 0.2 percent, the same mortality rate as with influenza. I think this virus is comparable to influenza, but it could be a little more dangerous. If influenza were a new disease, nobody had it yet, and it had suddenly come into the world, the reaction of most countries would be the same as that of the corona virus.”
Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO
https://www.addendum.org/coronavirus/interview-johan-giesecke/
“There is no evidence to show that the 2019 coronavirus is more lethal than respiratory adenoviruses, influenza viruses, coronaviruses from previous years, or rhinoviruses responsible for the common cold.”
Dr Pablo Goldschmidt, an Argentine-French virologist specializing in tropical diseases, and Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry of the University of Buenos Aires and Faculty of Medicine of the Hospital Center of Pitié-Salpetrière, Paris.
– Interview on Clarin.com, 9th March 2020, quoted in https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/28/10-more-experts-criticising-the-coronavirus-panic/
“That is the main fear: the disease is presented as a terrible disease. The disease per se is like the flu in a normal winter. It is even weaker in the first week.”
Dr Karin Mölling, a German virologist whose research focused on retroviruses, particularly human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). She was a full professor and director of the Institute of Medical Virology at the University of Zurich from 1993 until her retirement in 2008 and received multiple honours and awards for her work.
– Interview on Anti-Empire.com, 23rd March 2020, quoted in https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/28/10-more-experts-criticising-the-coronavirus-panic/
“Personally, I view this Covid outbreak as akin to a bad winter influenza epidemic”
Dr. John Oxford, an English virologist and Professor at Queen Mary, University of London. He is a leading expert on influenza, including bird flu and the 1918 Spanish Influenza, and HIV/AIDS.
https://novuscomms.com/2020/03/31/a-view-from-the-hvivo-open-orphan-orph-laboratory-professor-john-oxford/
“If you take these numbers into account, they suggest that the infection fatality rate for this new coronavirus is likely to be in the same ballpark as seasonal influenza.”
John Ioannidis, Stanford University’s Rehnborg Chair in Disease Prevention, Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Population Health, and (by courtesy) of Biomedical Data Science, and of Statistics; co-Director, Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS).
https://allergiesandyourgut.com/2020/04/27/coronavirus-19s-infection-fatality-rate-is-about-the-same-as-for-seasonal-flu-stanford-university-epidemiologist-dr-john-ioannidis/
Sigh! 0.2% of ten million people is 20,000, not 200,000! Spotted it as soon as I’d hit post. Proof-reading has never been one of my strengths…..
Thanks Mark, very well summarised. You’re at your prime now, sir !
He isn’t reading any more.
He didn’t come here for sense. He came here to argue.
Very well said. Thank you
“……I think if I had children I would steer them clear of crowds right now. Wouldn’t you?”
No. Me neither, I’m afraid – indeed my inclination would be to encourage them to mingle. I remember my biology lessons covering how childhood immunities are cultivated (and potentially catastrophically diminished by isolation).
I agree, Children must be allowed to mix and play with one another, humans are highly socialized creatures, the current orthodoxy the 2 metre rule the not being allowed to mix with your friends is incredibly devisive, you only have to visit a supermarket to witness that now humans are viewing other humans as a threat, as a carrier of contagion that needs to be kept away. We cannot teach this as a norm to our children, an adult looking at a toddler approaching with horror and shoeing them away! whats wrong with us?.
Terry
Where have you been, the moon? Have you looked at the ONS web site before making such absurd and ridiculous statements as, …a lot of cooperative liars…
Allow me to educate you. Covid is a reportable disease like Typhus, Botulism, Mumps but NOT flu) and requires reporting in line WHO classifications U07-1 and U07-2 that state:
An emergency ICD-10 code of ‘U07.1 COVID-19, virus identified’ is assigned to a disease diagnosis of COVID-19 confirmed by laboratory testing.
An emergency ICD-10 code of ‘U07.2 COVID-19, virus not identified’ is assigned to a clinical or epidemiological diagnosis of COVID-19 where laboratory confirmation is inconclusive or not available.
From WHO directly:
U07.2 COVID-19, virus not identified
Probable COVID-19
Suspected COVID-19
o Clinically-epidemiologically diagnosed COVID-19
The key element here is that Covid need merely be SUSPECTED as being present, with that it must be reported and will be included in the toll, a very long way from being the main or significant cause of death.
If that is not enough then how about from a spokesperson in the US, who have a similar reporting protocol to the UK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9iqFCByk2k
It is not rocket science Terry, just take a little time to do some research and cease believing everything you hear from those desperate to avoid being embarrassed during the public enquiry that will surely come.
The death toll for Covid in the UK, USA and Italy at least are wildly over stated for reasons that will form the basis of argument for years to come. But for now, just take in data rather than propaganda.
As you might be aware most doctors unquestionably follow the ” official line ” which does tend to change every 24 hours. We all gather first thing in the morning for the conference call with updated information from the bigwigs . Do we believe it ? Well at lunch hour after wearing our PPE to see the few patients triaged to come through the doors all the doctors and nurses ( about 12 ) gather in a small room about 15 feet by 15 feet with two sofas to chat about the ways of the world . I can assure you that nobody then gives a fig about social distancing .
Peter, why are doctors not speaking out en masse about what is going on? The public still think that they are inhaling the Black Death with every breath they take outside their “safe space”. We have a terrified population who think that infection from this virus is 100% fatal. Is there nothing you can do to change the narrative?
As a crude general observation the younger women in medicine tend to follow the offical line the older males tend to be ” open” to different viewpoints. Medicine is these days a very female dominated profession .
The general public tend to give credence to the narrative of the main stream media which for its own reasons has pumped 24/7 corona horrorporn for the last 3 months. They have little concept of mortality figures and would be surprised if I told them nearly 2,000 people die every day in the UK .All they have in their mind is horror pictures from the TV of italian hospitals.
We fight this Government get rid of it or stay at Home cowered like sheep We just celebrated Yesterday 75 Years since VE Day My Grandfather did not spend 5 Years fighting Nazis, so snowflakes and cowards sit at Home allowing a useless Government remain in office
In fairness, it’s not a useless government that you’re up against, it’s a useless political establishment. They are all at least as bad as the “Conservative” Party on this, and many are worse.
fair enough though I don’t hate Johnson I do dislike the 3 Main Parties, the Civil Service Limp Dick Media etc
Peter Thompson, how sodding stupid. Are you suggesting that the sex of a doctor affects their professional judgement? That the reason they aren’t speaking out is because they’re female? Maybe it’s because they’re all menstruating. What a silly, ignorant, profoundly idiotic thing to suggest. In my experience as an NHS nurse government workers do what the government dictates they must, end of. During this episode my medical colleagues are as imposed upon as everyone else, fully aware of the consequences to their patients and yet required to adhere to the rules. In a situation like this they have no influence over the decisions made nationally by the government or how they’re to be implemented. It is fairly evident that nobody does. In addition, my predominantly male consultant colleagues have never demonstrated themselves more able to be open minded or free thinking than their female counterparts, ever. Even if they were, what would they be able to do with it? They’re (you’re) just little worker bees like the rest of us. Did you only just work this out? The doctor may have all the skills and knowledge to diagnose your ills (yes, even the lady ones) but the state decides absolutely everything else. I thought this sad state of affairs was being made glaringly obvious by the current situation? But of course as you suggest if all the doctors and surgeons were in fact middle aged men with mustaches none of this would have happened.
Maybe it just makes you feel better to believe it’s women that are the problem rather than face the fact that barring the modicum of control you exert over your patients you’re not able to influence anything. Harsh, but sadly true.
Try and write a valid reasoned reply . I only write my observations from years of experience.
My observation differs somewhat. In the past it used to be that the older doctors were hidebound and the younger ones more questioning.
Nowadays it’s the exact opposite, the older ones with more experience have learned things, the young ones believe in “Evidence Based Medicine” without realising that half the evidence is missing. I have had both good and bad doctors of both sexes.
Two doctors in California did speak out, on YouTube, in a video that was seen millions of times, before Google, the owners of YouTube, took it down, because they didn’t agree with official guidelines, i.e. the WHO.
I suppose they can take comfort that unlike the doctor and others in China, they weren’t “disappeared.”
They didn’t take it down, it’s still there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f0VRtY9oTs&t=1823s I watched it yesterday. Propaganda does not help the sceptics cause
My Son sent me the link of the press conference and it certainly wasn’t available for some time. Now, however, there are more interviews available of those doctors on YouTube
So the BBC now has a “disinformation and social media” correspondent.We are now officially in an Orwellian nightmare……..
Two epidemic death curves. Just look at the curves not the numbers but the peak date
UK
https://twitter.com/carlheneghan/status/1258766782044741632
Sweden
https://twitter.com/ThomasSteelfire/status/1259051879167909888/photo/1
There is a time line being infected, incubation time, clinical illness, hospital admission, ICU admission and death. This is between 21-28 days. That is also the time between the peak of infection (not peak of detected cases) and peak of deaths.
The peak of deaths in the UK is 8th April. The lockdown was 23rd of March. The peak of infection in the UK was between 11th to 18th March. The peak of deaths in Sweden was around 12th April a week later than the UK. Don’t trust the Worldometer’s death which is the reporting date.
These two curves have exactly the same form of classic Bell curves and are mirrored on a gigantic scale 21-28 days earlier at the time of the peak of infections.
The UK was well on the slope down on the infection curve before the lockdown. Herd immunity has already been achieved for this time, otherwise we would not have the downward slope of deaths.
I agree, except it looks like the average time between infection and death is around 16 days. The survey ‘Features of 16,749 hospitalized UK patients with COVID-19 using the ISARIC WHO Clinical Characterization Protocol’ finds average 4 days of symptoms pre-admission and 7 days hospital stay (all patients, both deceased and surviving). The incubation period averages 5-6 days – see the Covid-19 wiki article for references. Also in NYC the death curve lags the admission curve by 5 days. In England it’s 6 days. The report ‘Characteristics of COVID-19 patients dying in Italy’ found average 10 days between symptoms and death. Put this data together and you get average around 16 days from infection to death corroborated from a number of sources. The larger estimate came from an earlier Wuhan survey that said 14 days average between symptoms and death, plus 6-10 days incubation gave you 20-24 days. (There’s evidence the strain dominant in East Asia is not the same as in many western countries.)
Thanks for the comment.The timelines I quoted was from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine published very early March about the Farr curve but just now I cannot find the link.He discussed other time lines also at least the shorter Italian time line above. But it could be shorter as you stated.
The link from Tom Jefferson Oxford Group Evidence Based Medicine
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-william-farrs-way-out-of-the-pandemic/
Will, I find that report lacks a category for time spent in hospital in which the outcome was death. But I might be wrong. Are those who die likely to spend longer in hospital? And has that changed with different use of ventilation? It’s not clear from the report, the 7 days is an average for all patients.
They all follow the same curve (bell), but the peak itself can be of very different height.
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-9th-may/
CEBM (The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Oxford) analysis says much the same. They have been collating the data, and displaying the deaths as date of death, not date of reporting.
The peak was 8th April for England.
“NHS England releases data at 2 pm each day and reports daily count up to the previous day as well as a total figure. We wrote about the problems with reconciling the different data here:
Today’s reported figure is 207 deaths in hospitals in England: 71% fewer than the 711 deaths reported on the same day two weeks ago (Saturday 25th of April). These deaths are distributed back to the 12th of March: 183 (88%) of the deaths were in the last week, and 24 (12%) occurred more than 7 days ago.”
The lockdown was sold to us as necessary to “flatten the curve” and not overwhelm the NHS. That’s been achieved. It’s been hugely successful. But there’s no sign that lockdown is going to be lifted in any meaningful way, so what are the government waiting for? What are they trying to do? They couldn’t destroy our economy any better if Corbyn and McDonnell were both in charge, along with Extinction Rebellion.
Hugely successful only if one believes the ‘lockdown’ has saved most lives than it has/will cost.
Perhaps a little context on the terrible Anglo-Saxon employment situation?
Covid-US unemployment rate now 14.7%; pre-COVID Spain , January 13.7%
Covid-UK (Bank of England forecast) 8%; pre-COVID France, January 8.2%
So, a terrible, everyday (best case) European scenario. The virus is neither necessary nor sufficient for a sustainable crisis. A socialist super-state ego trip is.
Regarding, “State governor Maria Cuomo…”
The governor of New York is Andrew Cuomo. He is the son of a former governor, Mario Cuomo.
Toby the difference between empiricism and abstraction is often called the battle between the Theorists and Empiricists. Or at least it was when I was doing my Phd in Physics.
The best quote is Thomas Huxley – ‘The Great Tragedy of Science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact”
The big problem with abstraction is that you often fall down the rabbit hole that Richard Feynman spoke about – that science is all about not fooling yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
But also it’s worth reading Influence by Robert Cialdini, in which he describes the 6 “weapons” of persuasion. One being Commitment and Consistency where once you commit to a viewpoint it gets very hard to backtrack. Because we don’t want to be seen to be a flip-flopper. It’s how many years after the Korean War, US veterans who were interrogated by the Chinese (and not tortured or even harmed) would firmly believe in communism.
To mix up Mark Twain and Feynman – “It’s easier to fool someone than convince them they’ve been fooled. But it’s even easier to fool yourself and harder to convince yourself otherwise”
Hi All,
You might have missed this post I made yesterday. I’m planning to drop a massive Tweet-bomb this Thursday, 14th May at 8:02pm. (Immediately after the happy seal clapping state NHS worship)
Here’s how it works…
1. Set up a Twitter account, if you haven’t got one already.
2. Tag @BorisJohnson @DominicRaab @MattHancock at the start of the Tweet.
3. Write the following text:
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.
#EndTheLockdown
#WeWillBeFree
4. At precisely 8:02pm on Thursday, 14th May, send your Tweet.
This will only work if we all do this at the EXACT same time. I’m planning to put a promotional graphic together that can be shared widely on my new social media page here: https://twitter.com/WeWillBeFree82
Who in theory, would be up for supporting this? It’s completely legal, easy to do, and can be shared widely for mass effect…
Cheers
R Dawg
Link to graphic here: https://twitter.com/wewillbefree82/status/1259188428194840577?s=21
Let me reactivate my Twitter account!
If you message me on my Twitter account, I can send you a copy of the graphic via direct message. Then you can forward to your friends on WhatsApp etc.
Twitter is @WeWillBeFree82
Let’s do this!
I am in
Why 8.02?
I will be there in spirit but as I have no social media accounts* ……
*an absolute blessing in this ‘time of crisis’ …. as it always is
8pm on Thursdays has become state worship time in the U.K. I figured let the people have their two minutes of applauding an NHS that refuses to treat cancer patients and has empty hospitals and GP surgeries.
Our response will be a mass Tweet bomb the second it finishes (at 8:02pm), to let the government know what we, the lockdown opposers, really think.
In other words, they have their say, we have our say.
Thursday 8pm – State worship NHS clap
Thursday 8:02pm – Anti lockdown protest time.
Lol I’d actually forgotten that Thursdays are seal clap days!!
That makes me proud.
I’ve PM’d you for the graphic
It’ll be a pleasure….
I hope those who support this lockdown are happy at the moment because in the very near future they’re gonna be very unhappy indeed. It’s like they’ve decided that a few months holiday on full pay will do for a start and then a limited return to work for another year. Well the food shortage is here. You want to see the products unavailable list at Asda for instance but i know it’s for all supermarkets. In the next few days the shelfs will be bare of, now get this Tea, Coffee, brown sugar, biscuits, pasta, rice, tomatoes, fizzy juice, crisps, tomato sauce, ready meals, meat, veg, fruit and cleaning products. Things are going to get very grim. Oh and don’t think i’m making this dire warning up for effect or something, i have read this list a few times at work yesterday and i’ll tell you this even i am getting freaked out about how the food chain is nearly collapsing. The Regional manager says he doesn’t know when this is gonna change and his advice is to stock up as much as you can because when the tea for instance runs out we’re looking at 6 months at the least without there being any more tea!!!!!! If we don’t open up society right now and get back to normal working like it was before, no half measures, we are in big big trouble. Either Boris knows this and is gonna do the right thing on Sunday or he doesn’t and we’re all screwed. I don’t believe in god but i’m praying Boris has the balls to stand up and tell all the country that in the space of a couple of weeks our country is gonna be like some third world hell hole with starving people everywhere so we have to open back up now.. How all these fools who’ve been sitting in their garden drinking wine, eating too much food and getting a nice tan react to no more easily life will almost be worth it.
This is very scary, and I agree that the country is falling apart under the lockdown with potentially much worse to come. Do you actually work for Asda?
i won’t conform or deny i work for asda (they don’t like employees talking about work on line and you can be fired) but let’s just say i don’t work for anyone else.
Diplomacy at its best
Bring back the Bradbury Pound end the FIAT money system https://www.newchartistmovement.org.uk
A lot of people didn’t want to be furloughed. They’d far rather be in work.
Govt helped by giving them 80% pay, mortgage hols & telling them to stay at home or they will die. Dread to think where this is all going.
Thanks for the heads up.
We have a Co-Op here and it’s astonishing how after all this time there are still loads of shortages and things which come and go off the shelves, and a restriction on buying more than two of anything. If they could get more they could sell more and MAKE MORE PROFIT it makes me wonder where in the supply chain the restrictions are imposed.
We’re better off than many, we have proper butchers, veg shops and farm shops and so far the local food supplies aren’t affected. So far.
If this is true (and I defer to your greater experience in food retail) and Johnson has not been advised about it then we have the worst government in history. If he has been advised and takes no action to ameliorate it then we are looking at a conspiracy which has, in fact, nothing to do with saving lives. (Trouble is, how will we know if he’s been advised or not?)
i can say they have a massive list of products that they’re gonna not have on the shelves this is 100% true, the time frame from talking with others looks like what i said but with these things a day or two longer maybe the case but make no mistake this book of products on the scarce list is totally true
This Government makes May’s look competent in comparison
I love the article by Douglas Murray about censorship of the Covid narrative on social media. Investigative journalist Sheryl Attkisson was told she was sharing ‘fake news’ when she posted the factually correct Epoch Times video on the virus origins. She discovered that the fact check led to an unsigned article at a website called healthfeedback.org., and the reviewer is a US scientist who actually works in the lab! Here’s a link to the story https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/04/facebooks-dangerously-fake-fact-checking/
Very interesting link. Dr Daniele Andersson was a scientist working in the Wuhan lab.She published an article in Lancet https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7133556/ in Feb claiming bat origin of the Covid-19.She was the person used by Facebook to censor Epoch Times video. She had personal interest in doing so considering she was working in the lab. Even more interesting that Dr Fauci himself in a press conference referred to the Lancet article above as proof of bat origin. He certainly had reasons to do so considering that he was illegally transferring money from his institute in US to outsourced dangerous work on Corona virus in bats in Wuhan lab. I know that some blog members don’t think we should discuss the possible origin of the virus but there is something rotten here.
And why should we not be discussing the origin of the bat virus? It’s free speech isn’t it?
Angela, you might like this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z5VYqJqrtI&feature=youtu.be
Out today
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/wuhan-biolab-where-coronavirus-was-studied-mysteriously-shut-down-october-report
https://twitter.com/NikolovScience/status/1257510869581262849
2014 the Obama administration stput a moratorium for this dangerous work but Fauci directed money 2015 to the Wuhan lab
It’s a shame Kay didn’t also look at when deaths started to plateau in the cities so he could actually see whether social distancing makes a difference rather than just assuming it does. I did that for Manchester here https://conservativewoman.co.uk/has-social-distancing-made-much-difference-after-all/ and found social distancing did not appear to affect the infection rate.
It’s also a shame he didn’t look at Belarus, the only country where the government has not introduced or encouraged any social distancing at all.
I’ve just looked up the death curves for Seattle and Stockholm and in neither does it match up with social distancing. In both, as in Manchester, there is exponential increase in infections while social distancing is well underway. Defenders of social distancing need to explain this.
Claus Köhnlein is another of the many sceptical German doctors. In a video he describes a case study he had read in the Lancet about a 50-year old coronavirus patient, not in any risk group, who turned up in hospital with a sore throat, a cough and shortness of breath. The patient was treated with high doses of cortisone, which makes breathing easier if you have asthma, but does more harm than good in the case of a virus. This was followed by a very strong antibiotic, protease-inhibitors used in AIDS treatment (all fairly toxic stuff, in Dr Köhnlein’s words), interferons which have immuno-suppressant effects and finally another broad-spectrum antibiotic. The patient died. Dr Köhnlein believes the treatment was what killed him. Are covid19 patients in hospital still given all these drugs? If not, how are they treated, bearing in mind that intubation is not recommended? Will the shortness of breath go away on its own?
Dr Brownstein has treated more than a 100 patients with COVID and all of them survived https://www.drbrownstein.com/dr-bs-blog/
Mini local breakthrough. Just been to Aldi for wine (quantities of which my elderly Dad and I have been drinking in well over the recommended amounts since this started). I was behind a woman who was clearly a harassed young mother of toddlers by the groceries on the belt, and we had a (very nice, very young, very chatty, very tattooed) chap on the till who remembered me from the last time (he’s still not dead, despite being there every time I go in). She was telling him how fed up she is trying to entertain small kids all day, wished they could go back to nursery, and looked really down in the mouth. He says, ‘well we’ve got three more weeks of this’ and she said ‘I know’ in a defeated voice. So I risked it. I said something.
‘I don’t think they can justify that on the data they have now’ and they all agreed with me, including everyone in the queue (apart from the old boy behind me, who looked appalled). She and I had a laugh about Boris, ‘every man thinks he’s dying when he gets the flu, hahahahaha’.
Chap on tills tells me everyone is loving this, as it’s a holiday. I explained about job losses, how our business is on 10% sales, how we have 20 staff, and how we are planning for 40% business when this is over. Builder at the back of the queue was smiling and nodding when I said ‘people are in for a shock when this ends, there won’t be jobs to go back to, why keep them, there’s nothing for them to do’. Chap on tils pointed out, people actually have more money in their pocket, not less, no mortgage, no petrol, no gym, no going out.
I’m so relieved. Then I heard on the radio in the car on the way home, London has given up trying to enforce distancing in parks, and the RNLI have put out a plea to stop people congregating on beaches. I think the end is nigh.
I really hope the end is nigh but I’m not getting my hopes up for what will surely be a very disappointing announcement from Boris tomorrow. I’m actually dreading it in a way because I know I’ll feel devastated and dejected after hearing we have to endure another 3 weeks of severe restrictions, which will take us to 9-10 weeks in lockdown by the time they’re up. Our lockdown will end up being longer than Italy’s at this rate.
In my neck of the woods, people still stop and move aside quite significantly when I walk past, definitely more than 2 metres away. It’s quite disheartening really, being treated like a leper by total strangers.
When people move away from me, I walk towards them
I hear you, I was never a rebel at school, did a few dangerous things at uni, had two speeding tickets since, but in the intervening period, recovered my wits and learned to suit myself. I’ve never thought what other people told me to think, even when I didn’t speak up, I can’t be alone. I think us free thinkers have to lead by example, nothing radical, but just small acts of rebellion, like starting conversations, chatting to neighbours, walking the dog three times, waltzing into the supermarket unmasket and unconcerned, and suiting ourselves. I am not sure quite what is going on, but I don’t think stupidity is it, or at least not entirely. People need permission, confidence to think differently or to say what they are really thinking. We’ve got to nudge them. Social media is a lost cause, but in person, it really makes a difference. Us Brits aren’t stupid and we aren’t boot lickers, I think it’ll be small things that tip it back the other way. I trust that in the main, my fellow citizens are decent, kind, and know what’s right and what’s wrong. We’re just not great at making a fuss. I think it’ll be the little things that do it.
People need permission. Couldn’t agree more.
The social pressure is immense, my town has a massive facebook group, it’s got 20k members, that’s pretty much every resident with an internet connection, dissent is piled on, there is post after post about ‘selfish idiots’ and ‘saving lives’, although if you look, for such a big group, the traffic, likes, comments, shares are low. I think people are keeping quiet, but I’m starting to hope that doesn’t mean agreement.
We only have to endure 3 weeks further severe restrictions, Poppy, if we do what they tell us to.
I think you nailed it, Boris has made such a monumental fuck up from beginning to end that his only way out is to have The Longest Lockdown In The World.
I agree Poppy,I expect the announcement from Boris to be even more disappointing than all of the speculation about it is leading us to believe,I am quite sure I will end up feeling more angry and despondent than I did after the last extension.I am also tired of being treated as if I am radioactive or something when I meet other people on my walks,I’ve had people suddenly head away hundreds of metres through crops in fields,through dense undergrowth and also out into the middle of the road just to avoid passing me.I regularly get people approaching me stop,look horrified and retreat quickly back the way they had come from !,this also happens when they approach from behind.I have also found that a lot of people have become very unfriendly,I generally say ‘good morning’ or ‘hello’ to everyone I meet but increasingly I get no response other than a nasty scowl,I honestly don’t know what has happened to our country in the space of a few weeks,I don’t think the future is looking very good at all.
Hold firm Paul, Just ignore them, I nearly got run over by someone pulling out in their car driving solo with a mask on. Gotta laugh!)
Not quite so bad here, though there are some. I do the supermarket shop one day, the town shops another day and walk somewhere pretty much every day. Still get to chat with people I know and people I don’t, the paranoid are there but a distinct minority
That’s what I said at the till, ‘I don’t think it’ll change until it hurts people’s pockets’ which is when the builder at the back started laughing and nodding his head. We’ll be making redundancies, not because we want to, but with the business shrunk by 60%, there isn’t enough work for them to do.
Richard Harper from Conservative Woman has a point when he says we can’t always be safe. It’s the same as the expression ‘business wants certainty’. The only thing we have been certain of in the past 15 years is uncertainty. As well as the fact that the world isn’t a terribly safe place. If we could just move out of our limbic brain for a moment this might finally sink in!
https://www.getborisout.com
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/09/in-london-today-the-police-behaved-disgracefully/
Welcome to the new reality, and to the Britain we have made out of the country that won two world wars.
The Met have always been ‘special’. They kill deaf people carrying chair legs, ffs.
Total deaths in Scotland April 2019 = 5,834
Total deaths in Scotland April 2020 = 4,715
Taken from
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/general-publications/weekly-and-monthly-data-on-births-and-deaths/monthly-data-on-births-and-deaths-registered-in-scotland
This is 5 months too LATE.
Taiwan had quarantine for ill passengers arriving at airports way back in January.
They have had no lock-down and 6 deaths so far from Covid-19.
You should see the comments on Yahoo, I am beginning to think that it’s part of the BBC.
Especially the story of the park in London today….it’s insane the people calling for water cannons & the army to move them on.
The amount of people on there that are absolutely falling for all this scaremongering is insane.
Wo betide anyone who comments against the lockdown & it’s stupidity.
Honestly, it makes me ashamed to say that I am from the UK.
The ‘water cannon / army’ people are quite likely 777.
What is your take on this alleged leaked memo from German goverment?
https://www.tichyseinblick.de/daili-es-sentials/exklusiv-auf-te-ein-vorwurf-koennte-lauten-der-staat-hat-sich-in-der-coronakrise-als-einer-der-groessten-fake-news-produzenten-erwiesen/
Thank you, well worth a read (via Google translate.)
Just looked at my LinkedIn account….Police Scotland have viewed my profile this week!
No Police searches on mine , so far. I have not actively used LinkedIn for a long time but I will now check it regularly.
I’m not surprised as they don’t do any real work like catching criminals anymore! Do you have a gold account? I can’t view most of those who’ve looked at my profile.
I’ve been working for a great company the last five years that is in the events scheduling business, and as is not hard to guess, it’s now going downhill due to this lock-down. Naturally I’m having to keep my eyes open for something else if it gets worse, which is what I’m expecting. I’m dismayed and outraged by what this government has done.
Yes – I do have a premium account that allows me to see who has been having a look. Quite hilarious…read Toby’s post and had received an alert earlier today that I hadn’t paid attention to.. I have now!!
I might upgrade to premium, even if just for the first free month!
I binned Linkedin last week, when I heard they had binned Brian Rose.
Boris Johnson, having himself survived a serious bout of COVID-19, is probably the only one in government who has not only the power but also the moral authority to declare the end of the lockdown on Sunday and open up the whole of society immediately. He could justify this by arguing that the lockdown saved the NHS, preventing it from being overrun, and that we should now concentrate all our efforts on establishing a “cordon sanitaire” around care homes and on voluntary self-isolation for the over-70s until the pandemic is over at the end of June.
Were he to give such a speech, though, he would at once become the most hated man in the country. The Tories would sink in the polls like a stone in water. Labour would almost certainly regain power in 2025, when there is still likely to be a recession. The government’s propaganda machine (i.e. the BBC and mainstream media) has managed to transform a once heroic country into one teeming with hypochondriacs. Most of the lockdown enthusiasts would love to continue receiving pay cheques from the government in perpetuity. They have been told by the BBC and mainstream media that there is a high risk of dying if we return to normal life before Bill Gates’s vaccine becomes available.
If Johnson were to end the lockdown on Sunday, the Labour party would find itself in an absolute win-win situation. Every COVID-19 death would be blamed on the cynical Tories controlled by the callous bankers in the City. When the pandemic subsides in June, they will change tack. Every single death caused by a delayed diagnosis of cancer, every suicide, every bankruptcy, every new spike in unemployment will be attributed to the Tories. How could it ever have occurred to them to impose a lockdown – something that was obviously invented by rapacious Big Pharma capitalists in the United States?! However, that is after all just normal politics. What is not normal politics is to have 650 shell-shocked sheep in Westminster unanimously voting for a lockdown model that was imported from Communist China and that clearly infringes civil rights, and, what is more, doing so with a speed reminiscent of the Reichstag in Berlin during the 1930s.
Will Boris Johnson do what is best for his country or what is best for his party? Remember
“One man with courage is a majority.” T Jefferson
Great post. It will only give Johnson a bit more time, once reality starts to bite (jobs gone and no more paying to sit at home), many of the masses will wake up. Voters will not forget, especially those who had their futures stolen from them by ineptitude and politicking.
I don’t envy him. But people aren’t stupid. If the govt presented us with some well researched and balanced facts behind their recommendations I’m sure the public would start to understand and lockdown could be eased. Also, the govt needs to stop listening to all the ‘experts’ that the MSM wheel out of nowhere and contradict them and push them into decisions that are just wrong for the country. They need to show some backbone!!!!
He didn’t have a serious bout, all men think they are dying when they catch a sniffle! You wouldn’t see women being so hysterical about a dose of flu.
Johnson is still more charismatic by miles Raab or Hancock would just irritate People
Laugh (or cry) of the day:
In supermarket. Woman aged ~30 wearing surgical facemask buying pack of cigarettes at counter whilst glaring at too-nearbyers.
Paused briefly, just out of badness really, to educate regarding concepts of ‘relative risk’, but got told off by Supermarket Stasi for contravening social distancing rules.
But at least I claimed a small victory for the Resistance later by going Up on a Down isle in the bread section.
Well done. Keep it up!
Jonathan Kay’s piece is interesting and makes some good points, but rather misses a key point, which is that in some areas of life the government can actually be quite effective.
The fundamental truth is that government action in this kind of area is clumsy, slow and inflexible, whereas individual action is the opposite. Either might be “right” or “wrong” in a particular case, but at least individual actin is tailored to the situation of the individual.
It’s absolutely unsurprising that a shutdown imposed by the government is late, and it’s equally unsurprising that a government will close many businesses that never need to be closed, and will be late in reopening in areas that can be reopened. And while some people and businesses can get away with turning a blind eye to government rules, many others can’t or won’t.
Furthermore a big part of the problem is the excessive levels of fear around this disease. A lot of that is due to media and experts putting out very misleading coverage and information, but all that is given huge added credibility in most people’s eyes by dramatic government actions. And unfortunately people are then sceptical when told it’s safe after all to go back out, because actions speak louder than words.
Flexibility is key. Many, many aspects of the coercive lockdown are foolish when applied to particular cases, or are especially costly and of limited benefit in particular cases. Voluntary measures allow actions to be tailored to individual circumstances by people who in large part are actually able to think for themselves, when they aren’t in the grip of some kind of mass emotional delusion such as fear. And there’s a huge difference between businesses such as restaurants and bars limping along for a while on reduced business, and the same businesses being forcibly shut down wholesale. You can give state support in either case, but it’s going to be a lot more, for longer, and in the teeth of a deeper downturn in government revenue, with the coerced closure.
Of course a big part of the problem has been media propaganda that says lots of people are being “stupid”, as Kay himself perpetuates by referring to people not stopping going to the beach when he thinks they should. But where’s the evidence that going to a beach or a park, even a reasonably crowded one, contributes much if anything to spread of the disease? People in each other’s general vicinity outdoors are highly unlikely to spread anything, especially if they are all generally aware that disease is an issue, most who are actually coughing stay at home, and the rest mostly take reasonable contact and hygiene precautions, and as he points out himself, most are actually capable of taking that kind of action, voluntarily. And given that we are not actually dealing with a very deadly disease that is some kind of combination of the infectious potential of flu with the deadliness of ebola, the costs of a few continuing to spread it a bit faster are a price more than worth paying for maintaining a degree of liberty and of flexibility.
This quarantine of international travellers, British Citizens or not, pours more grist in the mill of The Goverenment’s claims they are following the science. I have written to my MP twice and to Grant Shapps on this matter asking them to present the science ether are following. At the same time I drew their attention to a couple of peer reviewed papers that demonstrate there is no evidence to suggest that “entry screening practices for infectious diseases among travellers’ points of entry” are efficacious. See links below. Unsurprisingly I received no answer.
For a government suggesting they are ‘following the science’, perhaps they could show us what science they are referring to before condemning us to such restrictive conditions apparently under threat of imprisonment, not to mention condemning the airlines and associated industries to even more economic mutilation or pouring cold water on any aspirations for a Global Britain.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6926871/
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0993_article
Letter sent to MP:
I am writing to express my opposition to the current lock-down along with my desire that the government comes to its senses and ends it in full within the next week.
Having failed to implement a proper course of action back in January by quarantining ill passengers arriving at our airports (as Taiwan did – they’ve had 6 deaths from Covid-19 and no lock-down), the government should have adopted the approach taken by Sweden.
Instead, a full lock-down was imposed, which in my opinion was a gross overreaction which will have severe repercussions for a long time to come, and which will most likely end the “Conservative” Party’s time in office at the next election.
First Huawei, then the HS2 white elephant, and now the unnecessary lock-down. This will not end well. I am particularly appalled at the behaviour of our “police” force, which having already lost the respect of the public a long time ago has now cemented its reputation as a bunch of bullying twits who prefer to boss people around, spend time on Twitter and go to gay “pride” parades, rather than do what they are paid to do, which is to prevent crime and catch criminals.
The chances of catching the coronavirus are miniscule, especially outside in the open air. The death rate is extremely low, and the number of deaths so far is comparable to the flu spike of 2014/15 and previous pandemics we have weathered as a country (without any lock-downs).
Furthermore, absurd social distancing measures will guarantee the end of restaurants, pubs, concert halls and a whole host of other venues that depend on a good number of people using them to stay in business. Not to mention airlines, railways and other forms of public transport. Education will prove impossible and most company offices will not function.
It is apparent that most politicians have next to no understanding of operating in the real world, and appear to have limited intelligence. They are cocooned in their liberal Westminster bubble, making ridiculous policy decisions that make no sense and which do nothing except invite ridicule from the country at large. The joy of achieving a proper Brexit by 31st December has been replaced by the nightmare of this lock-down fiasco. It is time to end it now.
Thanks for taking the time to read this letter.
Great letter. Not sure about the ‘gay “pride” parades’ part though, as could this be perceived as being homophobic and detracts from the overall message.
However I am pleased you exercised your democratic right to contact your MP. Well done.
As you can tell, I’m not a fan of gay “pride” parades. For religious reasons.
Religious beliefs aside, I do hope Jonathan, that you at least respect their right to take part in such events? I’m not going to give you a patronising lecture about homophobia and gay rights, but if we want to live in a truly free society, then it is essential that such parades continue to exist.
That’s the whole point of this blog isn’t it? To challenge the importance of freedom, defend our civil liberties and live in a free and democratic society where we can fully exist without fear of reprimand, harm or intimidation. In some countries such as Uganda, their citizens risk facing the death penalty for openly being gay. So I will absolutely defend the rights of gay pride (or any other oppressed or marginalised groups) to continue to exist freely in our society.
Indeed people are free to take part in whatever they want. As long as those who disagree with their activities are free to express their opinion.
A nicely detailed letter, Mr Castro. I think your letter showed less impatience than mine (written 29th April). I did get a response, something along the lines of “ah, but you can’t be sure you won’t get ill, and that impacts on others and the NHS – hope you’re following guidance.”
Dear My MP
I share in the congratulations you gave to the PM and his partner on the safe birth of their son. However, it got me thinking, and I decided to undertake a quick Google research project and risk assessment.
Apparently, annually in the UK…
There are about 7 maternal deaths per 100,000 births.
1 in 200 pregnancies are stillbirths (after 24 weeks of pregnancy, where babies are considered ‘viable’)
60,000 babies are born premature (born at 24 – 37 weeks gestation) many with ongoing health conditions.
There is a strong possibility of 250,000 miscarriages (before the 24th week of pregnancy)
This list is not exhaustive, obviously, and does not cover the also-rans of postnatal depression, gestational diabetes, perinatal domestic violence, cholestasis, etc
In conclusion, it seems to me that pregnancy is a far more dangerous condition that covid 19 could ever hope to be, and we should therefore concentrate on isolating the sexes from each other, and lock them down completely. Think of the lives we could save! Nobody born = nobody dies in the long term. Short term, the NHS would be quids in.
My personal feeling is that women know and understand the risks of pregnancy, just as they know and understand the risk of crossing the road, not washing their hands before eating, contracting a nasty virus by going outdoors, wrestling wild boar, and so forth. Life is a constant risk assessment.
With this in mind, can you please push (pardon the expression) for a lifting of the lockdown for those who are willing to run the risk of contracting this disease, and focus all furlough payments, home deliveries and special medical arrangements for those who have assessed their risk and deemed it too high to leave their homes? We who are of sound mind and adult can take responsibility for ourselves.
A vaccination could take many years, and may never work. Found one for the common cold yet? Or HIV? There’s billions of dollars to be made on those, and we’re still waiting.
Thank you.
Bumped into a old fella (70) who drinks in my local, haven’t seen him since the lockdown started. He put his hand out for me to shake I was hesitant at first but before I could really think he had his hand in mine shaking it, then was telling me in some of his most colourful language exactly what he thought about all this.
Him and his friend Rob still meet up for a few beers they take it turns on whose house they meet at, he said its actually fun sneaking about without his neighbour’s seeing, reminded him of when he used to sneak to the pub when was married, haha.
He did say he misses the social interaction of the pub and he can’t wait for when they reopen and no one will be stopping him from going.
As he walked off he shouted back “Don’t worry I’ll wash my hands when I get home, so you haven’t killed me”
His comment about the pub though made think, the pub for people like him is the only place they have to socialise with like minded people and now that’s gone.
If I see someone avoiding me, I walk towards them
Ignore the social distancing rubbish and do what you would normally do.
I think in these situations you have to be guided by them. If she’s not herself frightened then just do what you would normally do. If she’s obviously scared it’s a little tricky, because there might be a place for giving some advice and reassurance if you know her or if they seem open to it, but often just trying to explain things is seen as threatening and confusing, especially from a stranger, so it’s best not to try.
All pretty depressing though.
Good on him. Legend!
I was out for a walk yesterday on the local cycle path. A guy (late 40s I guess) was running towards me holding a stick. He proceeded to hold his arm out fully stretched so the stick brushed against my shoulder and shouted, “that’s not 2 metres!” And then ran off. I was gobsmacked.
I also run my own business and I might post (tomorrow) some real eye openers I’ve heard from clients and suppliers re: furloughing
I must say, this site has been a godse
Please do!
Take your own stick next time, SWS.
I don’t think this lockdown is any longer – if it ever was – about controlling a viral outbreak, but much more about the perception of risk and risk management itself. It doesn’t and won’t matter what evidence is produced to show that the current approach is flawed, damaged, based on opinion rather than hard fact, and so on, it will make no difference; the only important factor in deciding policy will be ‘risk’ itself.
Risk of what, I’m not sure, as it isn’t concern for public health with the lack of diagnosis and actual treatment being undertaken in largely empty hospitals.
Nor is it out of concern for our economic health as the economy is being propped up by printing money (call it what you like, but that is what it is); it isn’t concern for our mental health and social well-being, given the level of anxiety that being under effective house arrest for an indefinite period is producing – it is beginning to feel that we’re in some sort of social pressure-cooker that is about to blow.
It is most definitely without concern for our political rights and liberties, with no effective dissent present anywhere in what has become a staged-managed democracy; they say all the right things, but they are just reading from a script which is then cast away.
The corporatist approach to just about everything these days, but particularly decision making, has a profound affect upon us and wider society – these affects include the lack of any real sense of personal responsibility for decisions made; hence no one ever resigns even when they are found to be incompetent.
That’s if you actually get to make a decision yourself, without having to refer it up, usually to an approvals board (the Cabinet?) – no one person is ever accountable. The most damaging part of this corporatist approach though is the infantilising of people, not trusting anyone to make a decision or to behave in the way that you want without constant reminding.
And God-forbid, never, ever let anyone question what is being done; don’t rock the boat, think of the effect on others, be a team-player – essentially, rely on group think and all will be well. Dissent not allowed – otherwise you will be pilloried, especially if you’re in the public eye and on social media.
Regardless of negative outcomes or contrary evidence, the management of the ‘risk’ has become all-consuming and, as people are constantly reminded, they are not ‘experts, so they must just do what they’re told because of the ‘risk’; but of what exactly? It isn’t quantified, and all we are fed is platitudes and exhortations in place of sound and reasoned arguments.
So now everyone is frightened of the ‘risk, no matter how small it might be; we can’t ignore the ‘risk’, no matter what the social, economic, and medical fall-out might be. So don’t expect anything to change very soon.
Also, am I the only one who is tired of talk of the ‘new normal’? It isn’t ‘normal’ at all, it’s abnormal. It’s not how we are, or how we behave naturally! The same goes for so-called ‘virtual reality’ – it isn’t real.
To pretend – as we’re encouraged to do – that it is like the ‘real’ seems rather Alice in Wonderland-like. But unlike Alice, it turns us into shallow, vicarious consumers who pretend to be with someone who isn’t there physically, or be somewhere we’re actually not – it is no substitute for reality.
I’m very much reminded of ‘Year of the Sex Olympics’, a play by Nigel Kneale I saw when it was broadcast on BBC2 in 1968. The play is about a dystopian world dominated by reality TV and the vicarious consumption of life by the viewers, which to me is beginning to seem more than a little like the ‘new normal’! The play is well worth a view (BFI).
As for a song for today, how about ‘Eve of Destruction’ by Barry McGuire, 1965? We might not be facing a nuclear holocaust, but the fall-out from this lock-down may well be as catastrophic for very many of us.
+1
OMG I just watched BloJo bloviating. I need a lie down
Has Germany had a spike of infections ? Seeing a few posts saying they have. Also Government new slogan apparently.
STAY ALERT
CONTROL THE VIRUS
SAVE LIVES
“Stay Alert”. “Control the virus”. LOL.
And so the Orwellian doublespeak continues …
How about
STAY FREE
PROTECT YOUR SANITY
LIVE LIVES
STAY ALERT – by letting us track, trace, and alert you every time you pose a ‘risk’ to society
CONTROL THE VIRUS – by acquiescing to our control of you
SAVE LIVES – by not living yours
If I had that cranky robot shouting at me I’d turn it on its back!
Listening to an advert on Classic FM by the Stroke Association, they report that there is a stroke suffered by someone in the UK every 5 minutes…. that is 20160 strokes suffered from 1.3.20 to 7.5.20
just to make a comparison to the same period of today’s bar chart…. many of these will be severely affected.
SAVE THE ECONOMY
GO TO WORK (STATE PAID HOLIDAY OVER)
SAVE EVEN MORE LIVES
p.s. As the state has none of its own money, YOU (and any offspring and their offspring) will have to pick up the tab for the ‘state paid holiday’!
Hi – I’m a new joiner….
Just wanted to say ‘well said’ for article in Telegraph today.
The supine, portly public has ceded freedom, common sense and economic stability to useless politicians, dodgy epidemiological modellers (the new ‘dismal science’ surely?) and the hopeless public health mafia. The hysteria has been fanned to conceal their collective ineptitude in failing to plan and execute anything approaching a sensible containment strategy.
I trust that when we finally stop cowering and wetting our collective undies and discover a semblance of a backbone that we will a) be suitably embarrassed at our pathetic behaviour and b) never ever let it happen again.
Time must be approaching when we protest on the streets…?
Agreed, I think we’ve got to start laughing at it, us Brits have a wicked sense of humour. If we can lampoon it, and mock it, I think that might help. I live in a rural backwater, small market town, surrounded by miles of fields, you are more likely to be trampled by a herd of escaped cows than die of covid. There was one (grown) man in a face mask in the supermarket, I didn’t quite have the nerve to point and laugh, but I’m working up to it! I don’t know how we do it, but it needs to become embarrassing to be (as my elderly dad would say) ‘a big girl’s blouse’.
So, its been a roller-coaster of emotions here in sunny Notts today, as per usual.
The scenes of cops harassing people in London were just awful. The venom directed at the VE celebrations by the Lockdown zealots on twitter has been downright evil. Speaking to several 80-year-olds over the last 24 hours, all of whom have told me that they don’t expect the country to get back to normal in their lifetimes, has deeply saddened me. The sick feeling in my stomach that Mr Bumble (Peter Hitchens name for him) will further become Nero tomorrow, allowing us to take baby steps while the country burns (Simon Dolan’s analogy). I used to love reading Boris’ columns in The Spectator when he was the editor. What a total and utter disappointment he has become.
But, I’m determined to try and be positive. Following yesterday’s fun VE day street party, we’ve decided to hold a big party as soon as Big Brother gives us the green light to do so. On one of our daily walks today (naughty!), we saw a number of neighbours and let them know that this is the plan. The response? ‘Mad for it’, as I do believe the kids say.
I know this seems frivolous when so many truly shocking things are happening to our country. However, one thing we can definitely commit to is getting back to normal as quickly as we can. We need to show the world that we’re not afraid to live. Stuff the ‘new normal’ and stuff living in fear of a virus which it looks like it has a much much lower mortality rate than Professor Pantsdown plucked out of thin air.
There’s already a working name for the celebration – ‘Escape from lockdown’.
Hang in there fellow Lockdown Sceptics – we won’t let the buggers grind us down.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/09/in-london-today-the-police-behaved-disgracefully/
Yes, the police were a disgrace in London. Seemingly they don’t care that they are just making themselves hated for no benefit to anyone.
Those who support the lockdown are supporting that. It’s no use saying “oh I don’t think that’s necessary! I don’t support that!” That’s what the lockdown is, that’s what it empowers thugs in uniform to do, and it’s the lockdown that enables them to justify it to themselves and to others as “dealing with idiots and selfish people who are endangering others”.
Well done, lockdown supporters. Hope it was worth it.
Were any of he uniformed shock troopers at all conscious of the irony of doing what they were doing while VE day celebrations are still in people’s minds? Welcome to what we have made of the Britain that won two world wars.
Germany: Thousands of protesters slam isolation measures
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-thousands-of-protesters-slam-isolation-measures/a-53382891
“Over 3,000 people rallied in Munich and thousands more gathered in Stuttgart and across Germany on Saturday to demand the lifting of restrictions ordered by the German authorities. Many of the protesters defied the guidelines which call for a limited number of participants and for social distancing to be maintained during such events.
The protesters accuse politicians and medical workers of spreading panic and infringing on the population’s rights with the prolonged lockdown. Some of the rallies included anti-vaccination activists.
In Munich, police used loudspeakers to urge the protesters to minimize the infection risk. While the participants failed to heed the instructions, the police decided not to disperse the gathering “on the grounds of proportionality” as the participants were not violent. However, the authorities dispersed a separate right-wing demonstration which gathered around 25 people in the same city, according to the Germany’s public broadcaster ARD.”
Some signs of life in Germany
“Some of the protestors were anti-vaxxers”
So of you agree with them about the lockdown, you too are evil and anti-The Science! Don’t be a covidiot! Clap for the lockdown! CLAP!! YOU BETTER CLAP!!
article by Daily Mail:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8304227/Riot-police-clash-hundreds-anti-lockdown-protesters-Berlin.html
there has been a protest in New Zealand too : https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12330888
STAY ALERT…STAY SAFE…CONTROL THE VIRUS…Blah…blah…blah…
Note the below 90s “stay alert” safety video for children which is an apt portrayal of how the government (boris et al) view us (sunday pm viewing). Don’t forget to use your radar machine to spot someone who may have the virus! 2 metres apart please before I reach a decision stranger!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgvv4wnVlFU
Toby gave a link to the minutes of NERVTAG. There must be a public enquiry about this.
NERVTAG is the group advising the Government about new diseases.
13 Jan Meeting of NERVTAG(Members of the group incl Neil Ferguson, observers DHSC, PHE)
31/12 WHO informed of new disease from China, Wuhan
9/1 WHO confirmed coronavirus the cause
12/1 WHO confirmed cases starting from 8th dec-2nd Jan. Connected with seafood market now closed 1st Jan
China reported NO new cases since 3rd Jan !!!!!!
“According to Chinese authorities, the virus in question can cause severe illness in some patients and does not transmit readily between people.”
“Current reports describe no evidence of significant human to human transmission, including no infections of healthcare workers”
“Cases of pneumonia possibly linked to Wuhan City have been assessed in Hong Kong and some of the surrounding countries”
“Reports suggest airport entry screening has been introduced by Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Singapore. There is a direct flight from Wuhan to the UK three times a week”.
“The evidence that is currently available, the novel virus does not look to be very transmissible”
“On the 13th January 2020, the Ministry of Public Health Thailand announced its first imported case of lab-confirmed novel coronavirus 2019 from Wuhan, China. The case was detected from thermal surveillance and interviewed by port health authorities at Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK). She had been symptomatic a couple of days before her departure date and during her travel from Wuhan to Thailand. The case is a 61-year woman living in Wuhan City and has a history of buying food from local fresh markets everyday but did not go to the Huanan Sea food market.”
“According to the WHO, regular exit travel measures are in place in Wuhan, where officials are verifying travellers’ temperature, but no enhanced measures have been added.”
NERVTAG does support the current position that port of entry screening is not advised. NERVTAG is fully aware of the single case in Thailand detected by a thermal image scan but, in spite of that, the NERVTAG recommendation does not change.
Extraordinary that the committee did not immediately became suspicious of the following:
China definitive saying no new cases in Wuhan 3rd Jan to 13th Jan
All countries outside but near China i.e. Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore ,Taiwan already having airport screening. These countries are well aware of that China is cheating most times about outbreaks. They have learned from the SARS outbreak 2003
How can the UK group take at full value all the information from China incl. WHO?
WHO has expelled Taiwan from the organisation because of China. A reported document from Taiwan to WHO warning about human to human transmission in Wuhan was not accepted by WHO as it was not authorized to act upon Taiwan documents according to China.
The UK group must have been already aware of that China could be lying and also that UK cannot completely trust WHO which is heavily influenced by China. The chief of WHO was handpicked by China.
The three weekly flights from Wuhan continued to UK even after China stopped internal flights from Wuhan to the rest of China in the middle of January but China happily continued with the Wuhan flights to the rest of the world incl. UK and Milan, Italy until they both stopped the flights in the end of January.
Now this government 6 months down the line is supposed to quarantine all inward passengers to UK after 215000 cases and 32000 deaths of Covid-19 in the UK and even more startling, during the lookdown accepting 100000 passengers a week
Just published
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-asked-who-delay-pandemic-announcement-deny-human-human-transmission-german
So apparently our Supreme Leader of North Korea, sorry the Prime Minister of the U.K. (keep getting those two confused lately) is going to announce tomorrow:
– Unlimited exercise
– Garden centres to open next week
– Mandatory 14 day quarantine for all passengers on flights into the U.K. Starting…wait for it…in June.
And that’s it.
I despair. I really do. And the reason he is reluctant to open up yet is because, and I’m not making this up, modellers at Imperial College have said 100,000 people could die if the lockdown is lifted too early.
Give me f—king strength! The peak was a month ago. A month! I think we need to axe these so-called government “scientist“ advisors because clearly they haven’t got a bloody clue!
£2bn on a cycle and walking package as we enter a “new world” as “things can’t return to normal”. Feel like I’m living in some weird t.v. program from the 70s or something.
If we are still using the imperial model, Ferguson has clearly gone nowhere. All this lockdown breach crap to get his end away was to let him disappear for a while and advise from outside public scrutiny. He mentioned 100,000 a few weeks ago so he’s still the kingpin in their policy. I would have thought if he was sacked the model goes with him so the government hasn’t sacked him at all or is paying huge sums of money to use his garbage.
I just can’t get my head around their dependence on this model? What the hell is the reason? There are experts all over the world, stating in the public domain, how shit it is. Yet were still using it, still slowly killing our own populace by default because if it’s recommendations. Surely to god, not all SAGE advisors are on board with it and dissent, for the live of gid, surely?
Nevermind, in 3 more weeks we’ll be allowed to go within 1.98 metres of someone, or go to a car wash.
Love of God
Hope you’re not dissing us gid worshippers ?
Watch this clip with Silly Billy Gates trying to trash Sweden’s approach:
https://youtu.be/FSmW-ryD-NE?t=557
What is he smoking?
Just embarrassing. He has money and somehow this gives him license to speak as an authority? That is preposterous.
what does a computer geek know about Pandemics Gates needs bringing to account
Confirms he has an agenda then
I’m not at all convinced that an early travel quarantine would have “nipped the problem in the bud”. The virus was most likely well-established in the UK, quietly doing its thing under the radar, well before mitigation measures were seriously considered, much less implemented.
But suppose it had choked off the infection: then what? Australian and New Zealand both imposed fairly early travel restrictions, with mandatory quarantine periods. Both countries have had few infections and deaths, but they now face the problem of when and how to open up to the rest of the world. New Zealand has been promoting the idea of a safe trans-Tasman “bubble”, with Aussies travelling to New Zealand to provide some of the desperately needed tourism dollars they have lost. Now both countries are talking about a broader opening up that includes China, Japan, South Korea and certain other Asian nations. There is undoubtedly a quiet desperation, because policy makers know that travel quarantines are economic suicide.
I think we will see, when all is said and done, that the nations that dealt most successfully with this are those that at a relatively early point took a pragmatic decision to resume ordinary life with some minimal testing and social distancing measures in place. Countries like Japan and South Korea probably have many more infections and more deaths than are being recorded; I just think they’ve wisely decided to stop testing everything that moves. This is what we all should be doing: treating this like the flu-like illness that is is, testing and treating the significantly ill, and otherwise carrying on living.
It probably wouldn’t have solved the problem, as you say, because we were unaware when it first entered the UK. However, it would have potentially stopped a lot of people travelling to the UK with the virus.
You are probably correct that it is impossible to stop but could perhaps delay a
week or two but that could still be useful for planning. Australia and New Zealand could also have less infection due to being in the Southern Hemisphere. Now there is an increasing suspicion that the outbreak already started in October in Wuhan. But not a very good idea to have three weekly flights from Wuhan to UK whilst China stopped all internal flights from Wuhan in January.
The infection wasn’t just in China then. It was already widespread in Europe. The Telegraph reported, for example, on a British family that believed they contracted the virus at the ski resort of Ischgl in Austria, which had a large outbreak.
What planning are you talking about? The early data from China and Italy showed quite clearly that this was an illness that overwhelmingly afflicts those already near the end of life with pre-existing conditions. That’s where we should have directed any additional resources, plus adding some hospital capacity as often happens during severe flu seasons. The rest is just unnecessary, panic-inducing, economy-crushing nonsense.
Yes to all of this, but back in early Feb we didn’t know when it started, or how widely it had already or was going to spread. So a bit of checking of people at airports would have been justified. If it was only going to spread to one or two countries and was caught early maybe we could have stopped it. I don’t think SARS1 ever got around the world, mainly because it is less infectious, but we didn’t know at the time how infectious SARS2 was.
Instead they’re talking about quarantining everyone coming to the UK starting in June (!). Completely stark raving bonkers.
Barn doors!
We could continue debating the pros and cons of this, but in theory some checks or restrictions might be justified at an early stage were a new infection genuinely mysterious. The problem, however, is then getting the authorities to modify and remove such measures in the light of accrued knowledge. The UK government is still acting as if this is the Black Death despite everything we have learned, so once they implement this new quarantine heaven knows what will be required for them to remove it.
With the benefit of the hindsight we now know it was much more spread earlier.But in January we could have with closure of airflights delayed perhaps a week or two.The planning I meant was to buy PPE gowns etc.China successfully bought up all these items before the pandemic was declared.
A tale of four countries. Tony Heller on form.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HSiVwlYi0w
Oh my… I hope it’s just my paranoid cabin fever but the latest government crappola from tonight about ‘terror threat level’ is now tying in the ‘carrot’ of more space on the streets, cycle lanes, less cars so to have a ‘safe distance’ when queuing ….oh air pollution has been reduced, how lovely! Similar schemes here there everywhere.
It was like parody piece.
Link that to all the collateral deaths due to lockdown that I have little to no doubt have occurred ( remove the sick) and a rather insidious little phrase about social distancing for 12 – 18 months!!! That would be the start of the depopulation bit? How will anyone meet anyone else?
I am seriously shitting myself now that this is some sort of agenda 2030 conspiracy and I don’t do them at all but how else can this worldwide insanity be explained?
140 countries in lockstep.
I certainly can’t think of any rational alternative.
(Welcome to the Dark Side, Luke …).
Like you, I find it impossible to understand the collective lockdown insanity going on across the world.
Maybe the best way to rationalise it is ‘and billions of flies eat shit every day! So what? Does that make it good?’ (Birdman movie, 2014).
Mass delusion motivated by fear, fecklessness, and greed
I can only see this as an agenda, unfortunately. I keep trying and trying not to. I keep trying to tell myself it’s just a godawful cockup. But as the insanity levels ramp up, I simply cannot believe that any government which actually has potential control of the situation, could be acting like it is.
Boris and his ministers would have to be, quite literally, mentally ill.
However, if our government is being controlled by the REAL power brokers, then everything makes sense. The world is being turned into a global North Korea and the neverending lockdown is necessary to facilitate everything needed for this – identity tracking, financial dependence on the state, forced vaccinations – the whole caboodle.
Let me be wrong. Please let me be wrong. The government are just nutters, that must be it. Surely.
I have been dubious about conspiracy theories but the lockdown effects match what conspiracy theorist have said. Gracie Knoll mentions financial dependence on the state. David Icke had a theory the lockdown is designed to create mass unemployment. If people can’t earn an income through working or running a business, they have no choice but to claim benefits from the state. David Icke said the government will introduce a universal basic income but it will have conditions and if claimants don’t do what the government wants, the basic income is is withdrawn which means unemployment and basic income is used as a tool of social control.
The lockdown is a perfect way of creating mass unemployment. Business go bust because they can’t operate, suppliers go bust due to lack of orders and unemployment takes spending money out of the economy which creates further unemployment. Finding work will be much harder if large numbers of businesses go bust. For instance, chefs will have difficulty finding work if the number of hotels, pubs and restaurants is reduced.
It’s also a way to deregulate everything and bin worker’s rights, mass unemployment, who’s going to argue. I know you brexiteers won’t like this, but we do have a bunch of fringe loony no dealers the cabinet.
Most of our workers rights originated in our law, not the EU.
If you go into what is basically a game of chicken having openly said you won’t under any circumstances risk crashing, you will lose because your opponent knows you will always swerve. That’s basically what the negotiations over leaving terms are, because of the deadline. And that’s basically why the EU side has never given an inch on anything substantive and has constantly stuck to unreasonable demands.
We should from the day after the referendum have declared that we were happy to leave with no deal and started active preparations for that, whether or not we actually were happy at the prospect, and we should have said publicly to the EU that we would love a better deal than no deal – what do you have to offer?
That’s regardless of what one might think the merits or otherwise are of leaving with no deal.
Sadly, this is exactly where I am. There is no rational reason to be carrying on the way we are. That is unless there’s something that we’re not being told.
The bigger picture is that there is a much bigger agenda playing out. YES. This isn’t just about the ineptitude of our politicians. I know some want to believe the politicians mean well and have been making mistakes, and surely soon they will come to their senses etc., and Bill Gates is just here to save mankind from itself. I suppose that’s where their personally blind spot is, where the cognitive dissonance even in highly intelligent and articulate people is so strong that they can’t look at the evidence because the implications are so big, so paradigm shattering that one must do all it takes to deny deny deny… ridicule the “conspiracies”… only that the ample evidence around us takes you exactly there and nowhere else.
Contact tracing / apps, vaccination programs, universal basic income tied to conditions are all a part of this. All you need to do is read up on the following agendas / headlines online to get a grasp of the bigger agendas that have been out in the open for years:
IMF pushing for a digital world currency since 2013
The Known Traveller Digital Identity Project
ID2020
Basic Universal Income (similar to China’s social credit score system)
The Internet of Things by 2030
Forget Brexit. Forget freedom. Forget being sovereign. Forget freedom of speech. This isn’t just about a lockdown finally ending… this is about us hitting the biggest fork in the road now at the beginning of this decade of 2020-2030 and finally getting a grip of what is really going on and where their roadmap is taking us by 2030 if we don’t #remove consent and truly claim our state as #sovereign citizens.
That’s why they keep pushing the “we are only in Chapter 1” message in this Coronavirus crisis because we truly are…!
So let’s support Simon Dolan, push petitions, ask questions, write to MPs and Broadcasters, say NO to contact tracing, demand a public enquiry into gov UK handling this pandemic, demand investigation into the true death rate of Covid-19, demand transparency re Ferguson and his model…. and not fall asleep behind the democratic wheel ever again.
I recall watching many disaster and apocalypse type movies over the years and thinking ‘thank gooodness that couldn’t happen for real,even the worst governments aren’t that stupid’ but then look where we are now,like you Gracie I just cannot believe the situation we are now in and the fact that our so-called leaders appear determined to make the chasm we are rapidly falling into deeper and deeper and all with the silent acquiescence of most of the population,this is now becoming very unnerving indeed.
You could look into Bilderberg as well as Bill Gates
Hi Toby. Outstanding work. Here is the piece I published on my facebook page today:
Sweden by the numbers — in proper context
Context is everything and right now we live in a time of panic at all levels and context is hard to find. Every day, I take the numbers published by their health authorities here and I update my spreadsheet and graph. https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/smittskydd-beredskap/utbrott/aktuella-utbrott/covid-19/bekraftade-fall-i-sverige
(Note: the numbers in the world trackers are all wrong. They represent the deaths on the day they are reported, not the date of death which almost always different.)
Sweden is a big problem for the WHO, and for most governments worldwide — basically everyone who has been fear mongering. Why? Because Sweden didn’t fear monger and they applied interventions based on scientific evidence and now they are making everyone else look the fool. Given that context it isn’t surprising that 9 of every 10 articles I read point to Sweden being a disaster with the implication they should have locked down like everyone else.
Every single critical article cites the same two points:
1) Sweden’s elderly care homes were hit hard
2) They have a much higher death/population rate than Norway, Denmark and Finland
Those are both true facts and on the surface those seem like very logical arguments. In fact, the Swedish authorities have readily admitted their strategy failed to protect the elderly in the homes, I think their elderly home deaths are around 50% of total COVID deaths in Sweden. The problem is that lockdowns clearly don’t protect elderly homes, so the lockdown advocates are barking up the wrong tree on this one. In fact, here in locked down Ontario, 80% of our deaths are in elderly homes. That is worst of every jurisdiction I’ve read about. Lockdown or no lockdown, almost every country failed to protect the vulnerable (there are a few exceptions).
Let’s examine the second argument: Sweden has a much worse death rate per population than it’s geographical neighbours. The second last word is the one that should stick out. Why aren’t people comparing Sweden to Belgium, Lockdown Italy, Lockdown UK, Spain? Those countries have far worse death rates per population. Oh, they’re not in the same geographic region. Really? Should we be comparing our death rate with Mexico because we are all in North America. By that comparison, we are doing 5x worse than Mexico. I think we can both agree that is a ridiculous comparison as is the one between Sweden and Norway.
Death rates are all about demographics as we have seen first hand, especially in the US. Sweden has one of the highest percentage of people over 80 in all of Europe. Sweden also has a huge percentage of immigrants with darker skin. This is important because we have seen higher death rates in multiple northern countries in people with darker skin. I’ve read several hypotheses that Vitamin D deficiency plays a role in COVID mortality. Whatever the reason, demographics is the valid comparison, not geography.
So with those two arguments being eliminated, how do we determine if Sweden’s strategy has been successful?
I will argue there are several indicators we should look at:
1) Did their approach lead to unconstrained exponential deaths?
2) Did their approach lead to unnecessary deaths from an overwhelmed health system?
3) Did their approach lead to significant excess death?
4) Did their approach cause unnecessary damage?
You can see from the graph on this post, the answer to #1 is a clear NO. Sweden has seen the exact same curve reflecting a dropping R0 value. There was never any sustained exponential growth. Just like everywhere else. This is indisputable.
For #2, Sweden has maintained 20% excess capacity for COVID cases the whole time. In addition to that, they have continued to deliver health services unlike Locked Down jurisdictions like here, the US, or the UK. That means Sweden is not only not overloaded they aren’t killing sick people who don’t have COVID like the rest of us are.
#3 gets interesting. I don’t have the data to properly adjust the death rates by age, but I have a much simpler, and arguably better measure. If we look at the overall death rates from the past few years, we can see if the COVID deaths represent a significant increase. For the past 8 years, Sweden’s death rate per year has ranged from a low of ~89K to a high of ~92K, a spread of around 3.5K. Their COVID deaths are sitting at 3200 which is still less than their annual fluctuation. Their chief epidemiologist predicted that the deaths would likely be in the range of a year with a bad flu. It looks like he was right, since their death rate has settled down. Sweden is not seeing a ton of excess death at all compared to what they normally see. No need to compare to other countries.
If we want to cross validate my calculations, we can go to their annual flu reports and we see that the excess deaths in 2018/2019 (assumed to be flu or flu like illness) are in the same range (higher actually) than the COVID deaths. https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/i/influenza-in-sweden/?pub=63511
So by two separate measures, the excess deaths from COVID in are well within their regular annual fluction, or as their chief epidemiologist predicted, a bad flu season.
For more perspective, all deaths are undesirable, but Ontario with 1.6K deaths represents a mere 15% of the difference between the minimum and maximum annual deaths for the last 10 years of 12K. Ontario had a record high 109K deaths last year. 1.6K is a drop in that bucket.
#4 Sweden didn’t close any businesses, they didn’t force battered spouses and children to stay at home with their abusers. They didn’t close schools below the age of 16. The damage done everywhere is almost certainly going to exceed the lives saved — almost none.
Sweden failed in their elderly homes, just like everyone else. However, by every measure that matters, Sweden achieved a very good outcome. They aren’t killing people who don’t have COVID. They didn’t decimate their businesses. They didn’t ruin the schooling of their children. Their economy will be less damaged than those of us who locked down. The predictions of armaggeddon never materialized. And they haven’t suffered any significant excess deaths.
Most importantly, they did not teach their children or their population to act in FEAR! They taught them how one should act in the face of uncertainty: follow the evidence. Most of the rest of the world panicked and did the opposite. We certainly did, and we’re still cowering in our homes despite seeing first hand how it should be done.
Now, how long before I see another article comparing them to Norway or Denmark again because geography is the only valid comparison? No, because it’s the only thing they can pick on to try in vain to justify the damage we’ve done for nothing.
I agree with this wholeheartedly, but sadly this doesn’t matter anymore. The general public, well who knows how many, are so cowed hook line and sinker to the mythical flattening of the curve and eliminating all cases ( IE chasing their fucking tails) that they would sell themselves into slavery and starvation for it. It’s all lining up now with the ridiculous ‘threat level’ which is a right to declare martial law.
Who says these tests are even accurate? They will be rolled out randomly at some point in the future and hey presto … We have a case!!! Must tack race, lockdown.
This feels like an endgame but there aren’t even of the unbrainwashed to take to the streets
Civil libertarians are here, trying to get their voices heard above the clamour of servile obedience. Seems to me this ends badly, one way or another. Either we succumb to Orwellian dystopia or we rise up. And that could be painful physically. Those of us who most seem to be willing to stand up (not all, don’t want to appear age-ist, but the only people wearing masks where I live are in their twenties) are getting on in years. I was demonstrating in solidarity with Grosvenor Square in 1968 while still at school, I bruise easily these days.
I see your point also. That’s why I, as a lapsed leftie, have parted company from most of my leftie friends who want to beat me to a pulp for objecting to the lockdown. I always thought the right were more authoritarian (hence my left leanings). I’ve had my eyes opened during this fiasco.
Great post. I’m gonna copy it and use it on the Sweden bashers
Hey Schwartz! Would you please join the OpenCorona group on fb and post this there? Thanks! (Click my name to get to it)
Very good explanation. Agree that the comparisons with Denmark and Norway are just otiose cherry-picking to make a point, but there may be some correlation between latitude and mortality possibly because of Vitamin D (or for whatever other reasons more people usually die of flu and coronaviruses during the winter).
Lots of Second World War analogies around. Here’s another:
Sweden is Churchill’s Britain; Britain is Vichy France.
Well done Sweden.
Stockholm is the odd man out in Sweden. Big population lots of immigrants,metro and very big care homes with not adequately trained staff. I think half of the deaths is in Stockholm.I suspect that if you take out Stockholm from the figures,Sweden would look pretty like their neighbours.
UK population is about 66 million. Officially 31,609 people died of or with Covid-19 which is 0.05% of the population and the vast majority of them are over 70 years old. The remaining 99.95% of the population are survivors of the virus who are all younger people who have been robbed of their education, their social interactions, their freedom, their future livelihood which which in many cases will turn into poverty, despair and ill health.
Putting the same numbers another way, 2000 younger people are paying this price to extend the life of one person who is likely near their end anyway.
??
I shocked my neighbour (also a sceptic) when I asked her to guess on average how many people die in the world each year. She had no idea that it was in the region of 57 million people, which works out at an average of 19 million over the first four months of a year. We are currently looking at less than 280000 deaths worldwide ‘with corona’. Says it all really.
As I’ve mentioned before social isolation is just as much of a death threat to the elderly as Covid-19. Quality of life is vital and to deny those who may only have a year or two of life left the chance to see friends and relatives, and to stroll round an open garden or the shops is tantamount to a punishment. Most older peole are able to make decisions about the risks they’re willing to take and should be allowed to do so.
More than a punishment, it’s conscious cruelty. I am witnessing it with a 96 year old mother who hasn’t spoken to another human in the flesh for eight weeks.
I’m relieved that my mother died before all this started. She was born during World War 1 and lived through World War 2 but I doubt she would survive the lockdown. Especially she had a keen eye for bullshit.
On the subject of the police closing public spaces and parks etc.
I took my oldest son a drive two weeks ago as the lockdown was truly getting to him. He was in his second year at uni (he’s decided he won’t return after this). Like the rest of us, he hasn’t seen his friends for 6 weeks (many of whom are lockdown cucks – his words) and was just feeling a bit flat.
We drove to a spot over the hills that he and his friends have driven to many times. But, of course, the car park gates were closed, with several signs on display with print justifying their closure “due to COVID-19”. We drove on to the next, smaller car park, that didn’t have a gate, where we parked.
Access to the nature trail was blocked by a locked gate, however, another sign boldly proclaiming lockdown restrictions.
And in a moment that will live on in my memory with pride, he strode over to the gate, grabbed the sign, and in one gesture full of energy and defiance, ripped off the sign, folded it in half, threw it away, climbed over the gate and walked on. I don’t think I can imagine a more symbolic gesture of lockdown defiance.
Like I say, I’ve never been prouder.
My wife went one further. Having ripped down a similar sign in a fit of frustration and rage, she proceeded to scrape our dog’s shit up with it before throwing the shit-covered sign into the bushes.
Your wife is pretty darn awesome too!
Great, but could have least have chucked it in a bin. I’ve been doing litter picking in my spare time for a few years…
No bins in the woodland, unfortunately. Chucked it well away from the path and into tangled undergrowth where it wouldn’t be seen or trodden on.
Good lad. He’s our future and my hero.
Huzzah!
We should maybe all of us follow his example, as far as we are willing and able ?
Scissors for plastic tape.
Marker pens for ‘correcting’ notices.
Our own leaflets/posters, with facts/URLs on them.
Please expand anyway you can think of folks.
Very good. Keep it up!
I wonder if the petty officials who drive around putting up signs and closing car parks and laybys ever feel a scrap of guilt that they are able to be out and about in the beautiful spring countryside whilst at the same time trying to keep the rest of us out of it!
My guess? No, not for a second. Too busy feeling all smug and warm that they are serving the Greater Good, and stopping those “covidiots” they read about in their red-top or Times/Guardian rag from murdering people by going outside
He sounds like just the sort of kid who’d do really well at and be an asset to any university.
We have 90% of our citizens educated in relatively uniform ‘bog standard’ state schools with a state imposed curriculum.
We have a large state run bureaucracy.
We have a state broadcaster.
We have a state run health service
We have a unionised public sector, unions stating no return to work until they ‘feel safe’
State spending accounts for 34% of GDP
We could not really expect independence of thought in a majority of the general public, given that context.
If this minor coronavirus common cold epidemic has shown us anything, it has shown us the merits of depoliticising health. There are many to whom the idea of mixed funding for the NHS is anathema, but, if we are to protect the elderly and infirm on a permanent basis, as we must and should already have been doing, this country’s health service must have an independent health authority able to make recommendations on health but also on alternative models of mixed funding that have worked so well elsewhere in Europe, in stark contrast to the present administration of our own health service.
I hope I can speak freely on this site about British politics (and world politics) even though I am a humble Kiwi.
What has disappointed me the most in this shambles has been the reaction by the political class. It is now blindingly obvious that all leader’s around the world from Boris to Trump to Jacinta Ardern essentially do “what the public wants”. And not what is right. World leaders are now largely, elitist “managers”. I believe Trump (still my hero) and Boris must have known that lockdowns were an overreaction but did it anyway.
Churchill, my hero, destroyed the French fleet at dock, even though the majority of the public probably did not agree with it. Once again we can see his greatness.
Our bleeding heart liberal PM has destroyed our economy. She is probably too stupid to understand that a lockdown imposed two months after a viral bug hits is actually AGAINST all science. What a shame all leader’s aren’t like Maggie…
Some interesting arguments here. But aren’t most of the care homes private anyway? Also these crazy lockdowns are happening everywhere, regardless of how nationalized the health services are in all those different countries. The government will still shove its oar in. And in principle there are going to be times when you do actually need a coordinated national or even international response to a health issue. My (admittedly rather faint) hope is that the world will learn from their overreaction on this and be better prepared the next time.
Better prepared? Hmm, just about maybe, but the world will also be MUCH poorer and therefore much less able to respond well.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) UK independent regulator of care homes rated 84% of providers ‘good or outstanding’.
A coordinated international response? That would be W.H.O., badly in need of reform/replacement
A coordinated national response, in Sweden? That would be the politically independent Folkhalsomyndigheten or Public Health Agency of Sweden, something Britain would do well to emulate.
The UK NHS administration badly needs an independent public health agency to depoliticise badly needed reforms to, particularly, administration:
‘It seems plausible that poor performance is to some extent connected to relatively low
levels of staffing and equipment. The fact that the UK spends close to an average share
of GDP today on health care underlines that the level of funding in a given year is not the
only measure that matters in determining the resources available in health care. It also
matters whether that funding is sustained and whether it is invested in permanent assets.
The low numbers of professional staff despite near-average spending, and salaries
which do not seem to be uniquely high, suggest a possible constraint on supply.
This is not difficult to reconcile with persistent criticism of NHS workforce planning.’
‘ The reality is that the NHS is not doing as well as its counterparts at saving the lives of patients with many of the most common and lethal illnesses.’
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/research/the-nhs-at-70-how-good-is-the-nhs
A British independent public health agency might very well wish to look at the Japanese health service funding model since the Japanese health service is often rated as the best in the world:
‘…the Japanese health insurance scheme has several options to ensure universal cover is provided: employees of large firms are required to sign up to SHI; employees at smaller firms are given cover through the Japan Health Insurance Association; those who are not covered by either of these are covered by a government scheme’
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/how-health-care-is-funded
Not everywhere. Some far eastern countries like Taiwan had no lock-down. But they didn’t believe China either.
The jury is pretty well in on Professor Ferguson, and it doesn’t look good. Rather than Dr Strangelove, he appears to me as something of a Titus Oates or Dr Faustus. It’s clear that he relished being at the heart of covid policy-making, and being on the media. But it seems he sold his professional and personal soul to do so; now the midnight clock is striking and he’s going to pay a heavy price.
At this point, if I’m honest (and I may be a little soft) I actually feel a bit sorry for him. His story may be at least explained as one of human frailty.
What I find utterly inexplicable is how the Imperial College report of 16 March, which appears to have precipitated the lockdown, gained credence in government. The review by a ‘professional historian’ on this site lays bare many of its problems. Much the same occurred to me when I read it a little while ago. Moreover, it seems less a technical report, which one might expect from an academic modeller, but more a policy recommendation paper – surely not Professor Ferguson’s remit.
I fail to understand how anyone used to reading critically technical and scientific reports could read this one and not have alarm bells ringing all over the place, about its validity, scope, and even bias. So how did it get the ear of government? How did it get past people like Chris Whitty, Patrick Vallance, and the other SAGE members? Was there anyone else involved in pushing its conclusions?
In short, what on earth was going on within government, and SAGE, during that third week of March?
To me, these seem the critical questions now, which we mustn’t lose sight of. The deeply flawed Professor Ferguson is too easy a target now. He should pass from being the centre of attention and the focus move to the role of others, within SAGE and without.
I don’t feel sorry for him at all; he has blood on his hands for all the suffering, grief, and unnecessary deaths that his preposterous figures have, and will continue to cause, for years to come.
He should be prosecuted.
I’m glad I don’t look like him. Wouldn’t want to get mistaken for him in the street.
And I guess he won’t be travelling to the US for a bit, unless he wants to find himself in handcuffs.
I’ve said since late March, if a revolution were to happen he should be first against the wall.
I’m sure that many of us have worked in organisations where policy is formed at meetings where those with the most aggressive approach get noticed and heard. Prof Ferguson seems to be one of those people who frame their arguments in such a way that others are afraid to disagree. The fact that he has such a poor record when he has made big calls in the past doesn’t come into it. He gets his way because his arrogant superiority cowers his peers, and maybe there’s a bit of the “well he has got things wrong in the past but perhaps this time he’s right” in the mix also. Let’s hope that when this is all over and the authorities start handing out ‘gongs’ old ‘Pantsdown’ doesn’t get on the list.
‘I’m sure that many of us have worked in organisations where policy is formed at meetings where those with the most aggressive approach get noticed and heard.’
Yes, I’ve seen that, and I did wonder if that is what has happened here. Did Ferguson, eager to be at the centre of events, go in with such apocalyptic forecasts in order to get his voice heard?
But this wasn’t some tuppenny-ha’ppeny corporate work meeting. Surely Ferguson’s work ought to have been probed to its limits? Clearly, it wasn’t. So what were Whitty, Vallance and SAGE up to? Did their views even hold any sway?
The whole thing reeks to high heaven.
As for gongs, didn’t he get an OBE for his foot and mouth work?
He did, an OBE.
Order of the Bullshit Experts?
He’s still advising them, they’re still using his model output to the letter
Chris Whitty and Neil Ferguson have been mates for a long time. May be relevant!
Because it provided the ‘data’ that supported their plan. Bit like the WoMD scenario with Blair. Look what happened to David Kelly. What I’m suggesting is that Ferguson may have been set-up, so in the future he can be blamed or silenced. That’s what happens when you abandon your professional integrity and get in with slimey politicians and the media.
But they were onboard for herd immunity before that. Maybe they just lost their nerve, and didn’t want the responsibility of holding course.
But every member of SAGE should have known that, with the little knowledge there was about the disease parameters at that time, the Imperial model had no predictive value whatsoever.
Whatever happened, we need to know. Ferguson is now a distraction.
But it would be nice to know who tipped off the Telegraph.
I would *love* to know this.
I hope it was David Davis. (My favourite Tory – though I will never forgive him for resigning when it mattered)
They claimed to be onboard for ‘herd immunity’. They tell lies for a living.
I agree. Ferguson was wrong (again) but it was the government that listened to him.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?
Seeing the like of Piers Morgan on twitter having a panic attack over the Government’s new slogan, I had a mental image of them cartoon people running around with their arms flailing above them screaming “OMG!!” “OMG!!”
I can now understand why the Government felt the need to add a extra metre onto the social distancing rules.
Some indication of the ‘roadmap’ which will be revealed tonight – apparently we’re getting a ‘COVID-19 alert system’ with gradings of 1-5, 5 being red and the highest, and 1 being green and the lowest. We’re apparently moving from level 4 into 3 at the moment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52602635
Not only does this strategy infantilise the public with its childish traffic-light approach, but it is apparently ‘similar to the one used to keep the public informed about the terror threat level’. It’s terrorism rhetoric like this which has scared the public and sustained the lockdown of its own accord, when there’s only very dubious scientific justification for it carrying on as long as it has. It’s definitely become a case of the tail wagging the dog.
The same article states ‘[Boris] is not expected to provide exact dates for when the restrictions – first announced on 23 March – might change.’ This is what I find most heartbreaking, after weeks upon weeks of this now – how much longer can these politicians, experts, and quangos expect the plebs to sustain these draconian restrictions on freedom with no indication of when they will end? Some sort of a deadline is needed to maintain sanity so we’re know what we’re working towards. The indefinite purgatory of this lockdown, and the fact our leaders expect us to be OK with that and not to have some sort of catastrophic mental health/social fallout as a result of perpetual house arrest, is definitely what I’ve found the most difficult thing to deal with.
I guess we’ll just have to see what gets announced tonight, but I think it would be wise to hope for the best and expect the worst.
The BBC ran The Darkest Hour last night. Am I becoming a conspiracy theorist!
I have this horrble mental image of Mr. Bumble (credit to Peter Hitchens), having suspended his prime ministerial duties for 125 minutes to watch it, standing before his full length mirror, homburg on head and cigar in hand, imagining it is his destiny to save the nation.
For someone who read Classcs at Oxford, he seems to be struggling to differentiate between save and destroy.
Mr. Bumble won’t announce dates to ease restrictions because he can’t. Peter Hitchens is correct it would involve an admission that he was wrong.
What are the odds that the people will announce dates for themselves and ignore this buffoon.
I can’t believe I voted for this man. Boris Johnson’s only interest is Boris Johnson. To hell with the economy and the nation; what matters is the reflection in his full length mirror.
I’m pretty convinced most politicians are psychopathic to some degree.
Very true. Another comment further up said that in Boris’ mind, forcing the public to endure a lockdown for as long as possible is Churchillian in itself because then he can swoop in and free us all. Hand gestures, classical metaphors, calling us ‘folks’, and sitting in front of a Union Jack in a panelled room are not substitutes for strong leadership and competence.
We’re having a coronavirus alert system. Dear god. Will we have When the Wind Blows films to illustrate what will happen? Will we have a 3 minute warning if it’s close? Can we run away when it’s detected or will lying on a downslope help if I can’t find shelter?
I wonder how you stay alert to a virus – can I keep an eye our for it? I’ll need stronger glasses.
The despair created by the government responses is a new emotion for me, its a hysterical comedic despair – HCD. Ferguson could model this outbreak amongst lockdown sceptics.
We need Greta to explain how she ‘sees’ CO2: viruses must be a lot easier!
I think the idea is you install an NHS app that just pings and shows a green traffic light every day and says you’re fine so you feel safe.
I particularly liked this analogy from our great prime minister:
“Mountaineers always say that coming down from the peak is the most dangerous bit. That’s when you’re liable to be over-confident and make mistakes.
“You have very few options on the climb up – but it’s on the descent you have to make sure you don’t run too fast, lose control and stumble.”
Showing his total lack of understanding of how epidemics work. I guess what he means is the first part is easy because you just sit back and watch everyone die. But on the way back down you have to keep thinking of “Churchillian” things to say about it.
We’ll end up wearing special virus tracking goggles, plus masks and body armour if this farce goes on for much longer.
Then we’ll all scare the bejesus out of one another: more panic!
What about special shelters for the terminally deranged?
https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them
Sent to me by a friend as she knows I’m a lockdown sceptic! Any views?
Tell her to stay at home if she’s afraid of what the virus might to do her. People are forgetting that, while the virus may be highly contagious, the symptoms of contagion are either none or very mild.
As you ask, Adele, a load of old pony.
Thanks! Thought so!
This is all theoretical. Given the virus has been circulating the best part of the year so far then if it was that infectious the numbers would be HUGE. I’m also somewhat sceptical of someone who tells a ‘true’ story but ‘his name is fake.’ And then goes on to call the bloke in the ‘true’ story Bob. Even if it was his real name how would we identify him without a surname? Very suspicious. Worth remembering that none of the epidemics of recent years (going back to 1950s) as far as I know had a ‘second wave’ so if this bloke’s theory bears out it just goes to demonstrate that lock down was a bulshit show in the first place. Herd immunity Mein Herr. As most of the experts ignored by MSM have been saying.
Peter Hitchens [ https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ ] is continuing with his attempts to restore sanity to the nation (very difficult when the loons are in charge). I don’t always agree with him but how good it is to have a few sane newspaper columnists around.
Some may know that I already have a petition to “End the COVID-19 lockdown” waiting to be approved by the parliamentary committee for such things. It should have been assessed by now but who knows how long they will drag their feet with this.
Anyhow, I have just submitted a further petition to “End COVID-19 social distancing”. This is in anticipation that the government may claim they have lifted the lockdown at some point soon. This petition just needs 5 supporters and then it will go to the committee (for them to take forever to approve). Unfortunately, they limit these things to just 21 supporters until its approved but, for now, I just need the 5 supporters to get it to that stage before it can be more widely shared. Apologies this sounds so complicated!
If you would like to be one of the “5”, please support my petition here:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/320079/sponsors/new?token=L7lAwwZarnryqsbznS13
For info, below is how the petition reads (the petitions website doesn’t actually show this text yet – it just shows my name):
End COVID-19 social distancing
The government should inform the UK population that all social distancing measures, introduced in response to the COVID-19 virus, should now be lifted.
Lifting of social distancing measures will enable businesses which have found trading difficult, or impossible, to fully resume their activities. For example, pubs, restaurants, sports venues and tourist attractions will be able to fully re-open. This will provide a much-needed boost to livelihoods and job opportunities for the UK public
Hi Adam – I have signed. Let’s hope this one is more successful than the others.
Done
Done; good luck!
Done – hope it gets through the review process quickly!
My new petition has now got over 5 supporters and is off to the parliamentary committee for them to “check it meets the standards”.
Thank you to those who have supported it.
Once either of my petitions is approved and they go live I will be notifying folks, via Toby’s website hopefully.
I have also signed it.
Also done…that’s more than 5 signatures?
Done! with absolute pleasure. ‘2m’ ‘social distancing’ is infantile, dehumanising nonsense. Curtain twitchers, little Stasi-folk, and online hectoring nannies absolutely loving it of course….They need to be challenged.
Help I’m going mad. I’m a married dad of 3. I can’t sit and do nothing I feel powerless. I could sit and enjoy the extra moments I have with my family, but I can’t stop thinking about the bigger picture at large and how this is playing out. This lockdown is wrong and the death toll is by and large not too bad if reported correctly.
What can I do to stay sane as my mental health by sitting and doing nothing is starting to deteriorate.
Look into setting up an e-commerce drop-shipping businesses. There are hundreds of YouTube videos explaining how to do it. It doesn’t cost much to start, free for 14 days, then about £28 a month after that. I’m not suggesting you’ll make loads of money, but it’s a good way to occupy the mind, learn new skills and maybe make a bit of pocket money.
I wrote to my MP when I got to that stage. It might make you feel better, for a while at least.
Until (and IF) you get the condescending reply!
Just go out and see your friends and family. That’s all you have to do.
One unintended consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic is that we don’t hear much from Greta and climate warming zealots. Perhaps best so as it was snowing in Central Park,New York 7th May
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrQspP–Eyw
Ah yes – snow in NY in May: proof-positive that Global Warming is the greatest evil ever to come upon the Earth and will surely destroy us all, even before Covid wipes out the Earth’s population!
Not too surprised. New York takes ages to warm up for summer.
Ok.. thinking this through. Bojo is a neo con, he can’t be believing this shit that he’s spouting. Cycle lanes and ‘social distancing’ forever it seems. We know the media have been fear mongering from day 1.
This has to be a coded message out to the population that this is a pile of shit and if you want your freedom you have got to go and take if for yourselves?? That’s the optimistic part of me. We just have to de-brainwash the the hordes before it’s too late.
Time to step up people. To all that we know who have been cowed by this propaganda.
The comments under the broadcasts are 90% negative and calling it for what it is. Unless all the brainwashed have now switched off their phones. there us no censorship of comments or at least less.
Now is the time. Today. Go out there. They can’t stop you, I am driving down to see my sister.
Let’s see if I am stopped.
Wonder if I can seek asylum in Sweden
Hmm, they may be acting sanely on this, but don’t forget that, amongst their other blessings, they have Greta Thunberg!
Apparently a man in Madrid was handbagged by the hysterical woman who stood behind him in the queue; she thought he’d breached her safe distance island.
Tell ’em it’s their mental health they should be focused on !
Heh. I’ve tried blowing them a kiss, which seems to make them even more upset.
Not really, just too old to care.
Plus there is the added cognitive dissonance peak to observe, when they realise they can’t come and give me a slap, due to ‘social distancing’.
things really got Rick & Morty style: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm5OVg50swY
you could basically replace “personal space” with “social distancing”
this is really like watching an alternate reality pouring into ours
I just wanted to start by saying that this site has been an absolute godsend the last few weeks. I never post on the internet (don’t use any social media) but I felt compelled to write something here.
I just feel like the whole world has gone mad, we’ve descended into media induced (government encouraged) mass fear and hysteria. I’m worried about not just the long term economic damage but also the psychological damage of this whole episode.
I just wanted to share a few short anecdotal stories about how I feel this whole situation is totally messed up:
I run a small business (we employ 30 people). We’ve actually done OK in this. We had to lay off 4 people mid-March and put 1 other on furlough in mid-April. I speak to lots of suppliers and customers / prospects on a daily basis (I run a marketing company). 4 furlough stories stand out for me:
1. Supplier – they run an HR consultancy company (they’ve never been busier!). Our Account Manager is starting maternity leave on 1st of July, they’ve decided it would be easier if they just furloughed her i.e. 2 months extra maternity leave
2. I spoke to one of my prospects. Told me they had to furlough one of their sales staff. I asked why. He asked me to as he was “finding it difficult to work from home”
3. Customer – large company (I won’t go into details), lots of cash in the bank, customer base very strong during this period. Spoke to the CEO. “I shouldn’t really be talking to you, I’ve furloughed myself as I don’t have much to do with the day to day operations”. I thought to myself, “Why aren’t you working your ass off to try and keep as many of your workforce in a job as possible?
4. Saw a good friend of mine recently (he’s a mechanic). He’s loving life, getting paid, sitting in the back garden drinking cider. What about your kids’ education? “They’ll be OK”. I can’t really blame him, this situation is not of his making, it’s the government’s making
Am I missing something but I thought the furlough scheme was setup as an absolute last resort to avoid a redundancy?
I’ve got a tonne of stories like these I could mention (as I’m sure you all have). I popped into our empty office the other day to check on a few things. Saw the communal cleaner there (the landlord (through the service charge!) is still paying her to clean an empty office). She said she was in such a panic from “all these germs” that when she got back from the office, she chucked her clothes in the wash with her mobile phone in the pocket. The office has been empty since the 17th of March!
The only hope I have is that so much evidence is starting to pile up that that lockdowns have been completely ineffective (and actually cause more damage than good) that the government will have to capitulate. I just worry this is becoming a face saving exercise now.
I shouldn’t feel as angry as I do. I run my own company (we’ve been hit but we’ll come out of this), we own our own home, our family finances are secure. I just can’t understand why other people who are being hit now and will be hit even worse when this unsustainable furlough scheme comes to an end, aren’t up in arms about this.
I just want the opportunity to be sensible. i.e. I’m remaining socially distant from my 73 year old mother who as 2 stents fitted, has high blood pressure and is on blood thinning meds. I have 1 employee who is immunodeficient and another who has diabetes. when the rest of us go back to the ofifce, I’ll get them to work from home until this is all over.
I just can’t believe there’s a load of fit and healthy under 65s running around (actually sitting at home) being scared of something that has negligible risk to our age group.
Anyway stay strong everyone!
Apologies for replying to my own post but it’s been bugging me for days what this all reminds me of. Oh how we all laughed (in hindsight) at all these fools:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/infamous-war-worlds-radio-broadcast-was-magnificent-fluke-180955180/
Like you, I am doing fine (retired with house in a rural village, large garden, comfortable pension income and some savings. BUT, I truly hate the “You’re alright Jack, why worry” constantly thrown at me when I point out how many awful consequences are arising, and will continue to arise, for our society, our country, and very many in the younger generations from the insane, appallingly thought-through Lockdown!
Another relevant classic is James Thurber’s “The Day The Dam Broke”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FjqSSWGVeE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhyHKVkFNLI
It seems that the government agencies will be busy when going into Phase 1 trace all contacts.From AP
“Seoul shut down nightclubs, hostess bars and discos after dozens of infections were linked to people who went out last weekend as the country relaxed social distancing. Many of the infections were connected to a 29-year-old man who visited three nightclubs before testing positive.
Mayor Park Won-soon said health workers were trying to contact some 1,940 people who had been at the three clubs and other places nearby. The mayor said gains made against the virus are now threatened “because of a few careless people.”
I wonder if the man was exhibiting symptoms. If so, he shouldn’t have been going to nightclubs!
We never had any contact tracing for influenza as it is futile for such a widespread virus.It’s the same with Covid-19. Thousands of asymtomatic carriers and in the end a hopeless task. What are they going to do with detected asymptomatic cases? Contact tracing them? South Korea probably hopes that the virus dies out this summer as the SARS virus hence the effort but if it is not going away all this is a hopeless task with no meaning.
Re the “14-day quarantine for inward flights” plan. Rishi Sunak will surely be fighting this tooth and nail – tourism accounts for almost 10% of GDP and employment in the UK:
https://www.visitbritain.org/visitor-economy-facts
and the biggest spenders per head are the Chinese!
My guess is that this is only a temporary ‘stick’ requirement until such time as the carrot of vaccination will be offered as our gateway to the world.
“Temporary” for 18 months plus, if we’re waiting for the vaccine! That’s an awful lot of jobs lost in the meantime.
Yes, but my point was less to do with the timing and more to do with nudging us towards the ‘vaccine’.
“The vaccine….the vaccine…….the vaccine…”
“Yea, verily I say unto you, thou shalt endure trial and tribulation until the clouds doth part and the Holy Vaccine descendeth to anoint thee with the benison of Salvation from evil! Ask not when it cometh, but hold thou steadfast to the faith……”
That’s about the size of it. We are possessed by the Covid demon, and it can only be exorcised by St. Bill Gates wielding his Golden Syringe.
Apparently, humanity’s ability to acquire NATURAL herd immunity doesn’t exist any more. Since about 2 months ago.
PLEASE! SOMEBODY! ANYBODY! IN THE SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL COMMUNITY – GET OFF YOUR ARSES AND SPEAK OUT! The silence of the people who should be naysaying all this nonsense is beginning to grind me down.
Remember we only need 3.5% of the population to be united, in order to bring about change? Is that too much to ask in today’s Britain?
Many scientists and doctors are speaking out but are ignored by newspapers and banned by social media players (massive Censorship). It is up to us to help them spread their message so people can be informed (pros and cons) and then make up their minds. https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/05/10/is-there-a-vaccine-for-coronavirus.aspx
Don’t subscribe to the myth that YouTube etc is censoring all dissenters, it’s not true. And no, I’m not a defender of corporations, but if we don’t tell the truth it’s just propaganda. Just two of the vids alleged to have been taken down by YouTube and they haven’t: i) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Q4naYOYDw&list=WL&index=5&t=1594s ii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f0VRtY9oTs&t=1824s
Knut Wittkowski is very vocal on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Q4naYOYDw&list=WL&index=5&t=1594s
I think you’ll find Doctors have been speaking out. Dr John Lee has had 3 excellent articles published in The Spectator magazine. It is an uphill battle though. I and several Doctor friends have sent sceptical letter to The Telegraph and The Times but none have been published. Here was my latest letter the other day:
Sir, Now we are on the verge of being at least partially released from lockdown, it is time to have a preliminary look on how we got here. On 17th March the Government advised us to start social distancing and stricter measures were advised on 21st March. But the Imperial College team led by Prof Ferguson announced that these measures could still lead to 250,000 deaths in the UK and the NHS being overwhelmed. Understandably the Government reacted to this with the lockdown on the evening of 23rd March. But if we are following the science, we should look at the evidence. Sweden has pursued a different course, similar to the one the UK was following from 17th March. The Imperial model predicted that the deaths in Sweden could be as high as 183,000 if the Government there did not lock down the country. The latest figure is 2,941 of which about half were in nursing homes (which we were told lockdown would help to prevent). So we have good evidence (from Sweden) that the Imperial model is completely wrong, not to mention their projections from previous epidemics, Avian flu (up to 200 million deaths, actual number 400) BSE (up to 50,000, actual 200)
There is general agreement that UK deaths peaked on 8th April. Given that the time between being infected and dying from Covid-19 is around 18-21 days, this means that the peak occurred before the lockdown could have had any effect and it is likely that the social distancing measures, not the lockdown were responsible for controlling the disease.
Then we come to the dire predictions of a second wave of infection if we ease restrictions and the reliance on the R number to help us to avoid this. The R number is simply the number of others to whom each infected person transmits the virus. But we know neither the number of people who have the virus and have no means of knowing who becomes infected, particularly as so many have no symptoms. In any case Germany has not had a resurgence of cases after easing restrictions. The second wave theory is based on modelling of influenza epidemics and until proved otherwise has no relevance to coronaviruses.
I have to conclude that we have been led by the nose by bad science and like John Maynard Keynes said, “when the facts change I change my mind, what do you do , Sir?”
As to the vaccine, as others have pointed out a vaccine has never been developed against any coronavirus and I suspect that Corvid-19 will join that list.
Perhaps a JOINT letter from a group of medics, (as large a group as possible) especially if there was a “heavy hitter” or two amongst them – eg a professor of immunology or virology or microbiology or pathology – might carry more weight than letters from individual doctors.
Then again, it might still be ignored. Thanks for trying though – please, will you and your colleagues keep up the pressure? The country needs you!
Ah, the assumption that we will have a vaccine any time soon, if ever. No vaccine has ever been developed for any coronavirus. My wife reminded me the other day that research to find a vaccine to the common cold (another coronavirus) has been going on for donkeys’ years.
But..but.. those salesmen were such earnest and honest looking chaps. They promised they’ll have the vaccine ready in a few months. It’s all but a done deal, they said. And it’ll be perfectly safe.
Wait…are you suggesting we should be sceptical of such promises!!?
I am convinced that Boris is on our side, he giving people a chance to end this bollocks on our own.
He is culpable of course but we have to do this for ourselves. Right now
Otherwise he bloody must deliver a climb down today.
I think if he’d had a milder version of the virus, we’d be in a different place right now. I don’t envy the government. Back in early / mid March I thought I was going to lose my business, we thought food supplies were going to run out and we all had a 1% chance of dying (although even the latter was starting to be disproven). We’ve all had 2 months to gather all the facts and make more informed decisions. Surely the government is the same? Why can’t we get a u-turn when we want one?
Why was even a 1% chance of dying (and that assumes you even catch it in the first place) a reason to change everything and take a massive gamble with the entire economy?
Honest question. I’ve never understood why we have to be terrified of such small risks. (Yes, I know the numbers of seriously ill might have crept up to where there was pressure on healthcare resources, but even in the worst conceivable cases that would just have added a few more deaths).
Why would there be food shortages and economic disasters, just from a disease like this one?
Why were people so scared of so little substance? I honestly can say that I looked at the numbers coming from China in January and February and I thought “it’s basically a bad flu, no big deal in terms of direct danger”. I was right, but I never dreamed we would panic in the way we did and inflict this needless catastrophe on the world. Though I did expect some over-reaction. I said from the start that the costs of the response would be far higher than anything the disease itself could inflict, and that’s certainly been born out, already.
Once again, the stupidity of humanity managed to exceed even my expectations, and I think of my self as a misanthropic old cynic who doesn’t expect much of people generally.
I’m a head-cynic but deep down, a heart-believer that people are fundamentally good. Even as I get older and more cynical that kernel of belief in people refuses to die.
This shitshow is truly testing me though. Truly.
Fundamentally good, perhaps. Also, it seems, fundamentally cowardly, weak-minded, ignorant and easily panicked.
Yep, good. But stupid.
Two old friends from medical school (he the ex Medical Director of a large bio-tech company, me a GP for 35 years) had lunch in Cambridge just before the lockdown. The place was deserted as the population had already been cowed by the scare stories. We both thought that the infection fatality rates of 1% or higher being bandied around were ridiculous and agreed that we would be very surprised if the true figure were much different from seasonal flu. At the risk of being branded dangerous by Prof Ferguson I am still convinced we will be proven right!
I think the facts are gradually proving the three of us to have been broadly correct on that. And the comparison with flu is a very apt and entirely legitimate one (see my list of expert quotes to that effect in a comment near the bottom of this page, if you ever need discussion ammunition in that regard).
And I think now that people are starting to actually quantify the costs of the response to this disease, as opposed to the disease itself, it becomes clearer and clearer that it is the likes of Ferguson who were always the dangerous ones.
And regarding lockdowns: since when did China become a model for how all states should act towards their citizens?
This level of lockstep would not be possible without smart phones. Info war ?
Yes, I definitely think Boris’s balls shrunk back inside his body when he caught Covid. And they have yet to reappear.
I used to be a fan of Boris.
I now fear that, to his mind, he is demonstrating Churchillian leadership by forcing us to endure the lockdown for as long as possible “in the interests of our own safety”. He will be driving his cabinet in the same direction, facts or no facts.
I suspect he has his VC* Day speech already planned, along with Buckingham House balcony appearance.
*Victory over Corona
Yep – could have been Winston Churchill, but has become Greta Chamberlain.
If this virus us so contagious how come just two (as far as I know) of the Cabinet got it?
I am convinced that Boris is on his side – it’s just that he doesn’t know what that comprehends (else he would not have kept the HS2 and Huawei decisions)!
The Mail headline today is “Final UK death toll from coronavirus could be worse than the second World War with almost 700,000 dying over five years”, over a story that actually points out that the costs of the lockdown response even just in lives lost will be immensely higher than the death toll of the virus itself.
Small wonder we have such a deluded, frightened population.
Where did they get that from? Are they talking domestically only cause surely way more soldiers than that died??
I can’t believe they’re still pushing the bloody WW2 comparison. It’s so cynical, clearly bollocks and I can’t believe people can’t see through it.
But I suppose it was inevitable once they started using the familiar personifying/anthropomorphic language about a virus. Covid isn’t just a virus it’s a baddy from a Marvel movie. It’s been given a face and a personality.
My dad made a very astute statement the other day (as a cancer ‘survivor’ – another term he despises even though it’s true) —
“They’ve replaced cancer with Covid. The number one enemy in health terms – the one that ‘doesn’t discriminate’, the one that’s a ‘war’ or a ‘battle’, The Big Bad Foe. Now people have forgotten about cancer- screw them, let them die – and Covid has taken on its persona of Public Enemy No 1′
Anyway I’m pretty sure he’s thanking his lucky stars he had that ‘battle’ over and done with a few years ago and didn’t have to ‘fight’ it now and during all this.
It’s just an irresistible comparison for the headline writers and for scaremongers.
Your dad would probably have died if his cancer had come up now rather than before this crisis. I sympathise, because I have a bit of lung missing due to cancer myself).
I don’t mind how they write it up, as long as they begin by stating that every year, on a 5 year average, over 520,000 people in the UK die – so that’s 10,000 per week folks. Every week. Every year.
So that would be 2,600,000 people over 5 years.
Just check https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
And also include a bit of teaching about numerators and denominators to help them work something out for themselves…
Whatever happened to context ?
My mother has just turned 92. Thanks to an active and healthy lifestyle and good fortune, she is still in amazingly robust physical health but has started to have memory problems and has been diagnosed with early dementia. She now lives with me (for last 18 months) but previously lived alone and was very independent. She still enjoys life immensely. Her main pleasures until lockdown were:- a weekly visit to her hairdresser, a weekly lunch at her golf club (where she is remains a social member) with her old golfing buddies, visits to garden centres with me, pottering about the garden, visits with me to local coffee shops, a weekly dinner out with me at the local Italian eaterie, visits by her 21 year old student granddaughter and occasional trips out for shopping and coffee etc with said granddaughter. All of this has come to a halt with the lockdown. She now enjoys a daily walk with me around the village and that’s it. The rest of her time is spent indoors. I don’t know how long my mum has left of her long and fulfilling life but realistically it won’t be many years. I am distraught at the prospect of her remaining life being restricted because she is “vulnerable”. My current thinking is that, once lockdown is lifted, she will resume her previous activities and she will just take her chance. Quality of life at her age is more important than length. She is not mentally in the right place to make an “informed” decision about this and it will be very much up to me to decide what to do. It will be difficult!
My mum’s in a very similar position, Gillian. Early 90s, healthy, but memory going down the tube. She is in sheltered housing, with my brother visiting nearly every day. The highlight of her week was definitely the visit to the hairdresser ! They have been popping out for illicit picnics (eaten in the car) and takeaway fish & chips. Such criminality !
I would chose quality of life – grandchildren, great grandchildren, family, friends, chapel, meals out, walks, etc, over any perceived greater safety by staying alone indoors. A very personal choice though. All the best.
This new study highlights some of the things that people should have been taking into account from the start (I was, obviously, but the vast majority weren’t, I’ve seen no evidence the government did, and those who tried to were mostly howled down as selfish, heartless people putting money ahead of lives). I haven’t seen the study itself so it will be interesting to see the details, but it clearly demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of all the accusations that were used to suppress dissent as being “heartless”, and the basically moronic idea that this was ever just a choice between lives and money.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1280164/uk-coronavirus-news-death-toll-latest-r-infection-rate-uk-economy-coronavirus-study
He suggests 150,000 deaths over 5 years, so basically a heavy flu-like toll of 30k per year. I don’t know what assumptions he’s made, but if we assume something like 0.1-0.2% overall fatality and maybe 50% catching the disease (a lot more than catch flu in a typical flu season) in even an uncontrolled epidemic, that would give something like only 30-60,000 excess deaths from the disease, so clearly he’s using fairly generous assumptions. His suggestion of 150,000 deaths is probably basically the full toll to something like herd immunity levels, just dragged out over 5 years by the suppression policy, as the Swedes and others pointed out is the inevitable consequence of such a policy.
In reality it’s unlikely we will have to incur those costs, even if people are stupid enough to want to, but only because the disease probably isn’t nearly as dangerous as the lockdown scaremongers are claiming, so we will be able in practice to lift the lockdown quicker than we could if it were really the terror it is pretended to be.
Does that mean they’ll try to impose lockdown on us again every spring for the next five years?
Looks that way.
And if you were as deluded as them, acting as though we are facing a fantasy disease that’s as infectious as flu and as deadly as ebola, you might sympathise with them.
But since we probably both prefer to live in the real world we can stick to laughing at them derisively.
There are various shades of scepticism ranging from black (we should have gone on with life as normal) to light grey (eg voluntary social distancing would have been enough). I tend towards the black end of the spectrum. As Dr Wolfgang Wodarg says, people were travelling back and forth between Wuhan and other parts of China at least until January 24th when lockdown there began. It would have been impossible to avoid transmission of covid19 outside one specific region. If the virus had been as dangerous as claimed then people would have been dropping like flies all over China and no amount of state censorship could have concealed that. Only people in Wuhan were tested. This means that if you fell ill with an upper respiratory infection in Wuhan, you had covid19; if you fell ill with such an infection anywhere else, you had flu or pneumonia. If no fuss had been made about covid19 would we ever have noticed anything unusual was going on? Dr Ionnadis thinks we would, a bit, Dr Wodarg thinks we wouldn’t. Maybe that’s where the argument should be refocussed.
I agree that’s where we should be looking, and I tend to go with Ioannidis rather than Wodarg on this, because it would have been a particularly bad “flu season”. but life would have gone on for the vast majority, as it has during past bad flu seasons,
That’s the path not taken, and all the costs we are facing now, over and above what that bad flu season would have cost, are costs of the response and not of the disease itself.
It’s legitimate to blame our politicians, our media, and all the scaremongering experts and commentators for these additional costs. They are the costs of allowing fear to overwhelm reason, of panic.
Another thing I find strange is that as early as January 4th, five days before the first confirmed covid19 death, the South China Morning Post was already in Wuhan, doubtless with the permission of the PRC, making a video to drive home the message of a “mystery illness.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LtA0-qoHOg It was like the opening scene from a horror film: everything outwardly calm, people standing about in masks, creepy music. The SCMP put out a whole series of such sinister videos. To me it seems that far from trying to cover up this mystery illness the PRC, for reasons I can’t fathom, was trying to set the scene for the whole panic scenario that has subsequently swept the world.
I’m sort of….. Dark grey.
I think if we didn’t know about it, life would certainly have gone on as normal (with a noticeable extended slightly worse than normal ‘flu’ season)
However if we do know about it, we may as take sensible precautions. These are shielded care homes and hospitals, voluntary self shielding of vulnerable people (with state backed financial support to back them up), and some sensible Sweden style ‘social distancing’ measures (most notably no mass gatherings – but only in the short term). In fact that’s as far as I think mandated social distancing should have gone – no mass gatherings in the short term. Everything else re: distancing behaviour should have been voluntary and focused on protecting the vulnerable whilst maintaining normal life.
We had a particularly bad strain of flu in 2015 when over 28,000 people died. I didn’t notice, but then I work from home. So, if we’d not had the media piranha-like frenzy this time would people who were not infected really have noticed? Genuine query, not trying to make a point.
Only medical professionals may have noticed. And even than as per my chat with the nurse the other day, they would prob have written it off as a ‘bad year’.
Heres a good article from the spectator
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-know-everything-and-nothing-about-covid
Yes, the author Matt Ridley has also co-written an article in The Telegraph with David Davis about Imperial’s little local difficulty with their coding! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/10/chilling-truth-decision-impose-lockdown-based-crude-mathematical/
The BBC’s running headline on the website this morning are all about ramping up the fear again, from South Korea and Germany’s warning of a second wave, to Labour and Sturgeon’s condemnation of the “stay alert” message. There’s even a headline about some police commissioner wanting even more stringent powers over us.
It’s beyond disheartening. Who’s controlling the narrative now?
Exactly how I feel now; it’s getting scary
The news from S.Korea and Germany are surely to be expected outcomes of relaxing restrictions. No? This won’t go away quickly but the risk for the elderly and vulnerable remains. So in both S.Korea and Germany as long as the vulnerable are protected then just carry on. Too many expect certainty, since when has anything been certain?
S Korea was 19 cases, they’ve worked out main route of transmission is hostess bars and nightclubs, closed those, hey presto, no problem!
PS Germany has a massive (disgusting) sex industry, I’d bet all I own that’s what’s done it.
“Germany has a massive (disgusting) sex industry,” Correct, but no ‘second spike’…Another myth being peddled to justify the dumb decisions being made by this dumb Government
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/2020-05-03-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
I wonder the same thing – how is the media is benefiting from this? Ad revenue is down across news outlets – it’s not like they’re making money hyping the fear.
All of this information is fantastic to have but still Johnson will stand up later today to tell us nothing about how he intends to lift the lockdown. Even his little strap line has been changed to “Stay alert (what the hell does that mean!?), Control the virus Save lives.
What is going on?
“Stay Alert”
“Control the Virus”
LOL
Yep – it’s mind over matter, just as long as we focus!
The reaction from the Government you would think this was the next Spanish flu. I’ve seen nothing to suggest that it is, no fit and healthy 20-40 year olds dropping dead in the streets etc in fact we’ve been told constantly by our own CMO Whitty that “the vast majority will get this mildly” and I’m sure he said some won’t even know they had it at all.
I’m literally questioning myself every other day asking if I’ve missed something and it is the “black death” hence why things won’t return to normal etc.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/10/coronavirus-risk-young-staggeringly-low-says-uks-top-statistician/
“Let’s look at the young group. People are anxious about children, and there’s 10 million under 15s in England and Wales, how many of those have died? Had Covid on their deaths out of these 30,000 have died? Two out of 10 million.”
Acknowledging such cases were “very tragic” he said, “this is the tiniest risk you could ever think of”.
Although children and young people may pass on Covid-19, their personal risk was “staggeringly low” he continued.
“If we look at under 25s, there’re 17 million of them in the country where we have 26 deaths recorded,” he said, suggesting a similar risk would be seen in “a couple of days” in general accidents and sudden deaths.
I have mentioned this before, but when the media started their hysterical scaremongering about “the CHILDREN, OMG! OMG! The CHILDREN!” –
– I decided to see how many kids died in each UK flu season, on average. A quick trawl of abstracts on PubMed yielded the answer: around a dozen child deaths annually.
Of course any childhood death is a dreadful tragedy, but it appears that Covid19 is around 6 times LESS likely to cause a child’s death, than is your average seasonal flu bug.
Others could easily check these abstracts and reach the same conclusions. At least SOME of the Fear Porn is now being challenged.
As Gracie Knoll was having a hissy fit re doctors not speaking out… and the magical carrot stick of the vaccine. You might find the following interesting / terrifying / nauseating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUYZgIF6fVM&feature=youtu.be
Dr Sherry Tenpenny – so she has spoken out. An experimental mandatory mRNA vaccine coming our way. Who is listening…? Share share share before it disappears. Download and save for the future. And send it to NHS hospitals, the British Medical Associations and MAYBE British doctors will pull their heads out of the place where the sun doesn’t shine. Or maybe send it to the BBC, Deborah what’s her name, so maybe she can finally do a solid piece of investigative journalism on this. Doctors have got off their arses in the US, Germany, Austria, Italy and elsewhere, taking to You Tube and alt media to circumnavigate the massive censorship happening, except apparently… Britain. British medical doctors do not seem to have an opinion on this or they don’t give a remote f*u*c*k, in which case, no surprise we have the highest death rate in Europe if the political ineptitude mirrors the medical ineptitude in this country.
And most importantly…ask yourself… where, FOR YOU, is the red line?
There is a massive push for a vaccine. However, according to Dr Robin Futoran, viruses go through Mutation trying to survive the effects of the human immune system. Vaccines are often too late to be effective on the new version of a virus they created the vaccine for.
There is No Vaccine for SARS (a coronavirus). They’ve been working on it since 2003.
There is no Spanish Flu vaccine (since 1918) and the vaccine that was rush tested at that time, ended up causing 450 deaths and neurological damage to others. This was the beginning of people fearing vaccines.
There is no Vaccine for the Avian Flu, since 1997.
There is no Vaccine for the Hong Kong Flu, since 1968, considered to still be active each flu season though with “herd immunity.”
There is No Aids Vaccine. They’ve been working on that one since 1982.
The Flu Vaccine has Not Controlled the Seasonal Influenza Virus. Almost 50,000 people have died this flu season from Influenza in the US between October and Mid-February.
The Asian Flu in 1957/58 killed as many as 116,000 Americans.
That’s all correct. But none of the above events was accompanied by a global lockdown trying to ‘eradicate the virus’, make us forget about natural immunity, and impair our lives in a way so that many in the end might gladly take the experimental vaccine in order to be allowed to return to ‘normal life’… that’s what’s really scary. And since our lovely media isn’t exactly forthcoming on the dangers of experimental vaccines, how many people will be aware of what they are being injected with? If the US goes mandatory on this, be rest assured the UK will too, given we are negotiating a trade deal for Brexit in this very moment…
The red line is the app. Won’t do it.
The red button is mandatory vaccination. I will be on the streets burming shit if necessary.
If anyone cares to learn more about vaccines and their lack of safety testing (among many other problems), here is a long-form interview with Robert F. Kennedy. It is over 2 hours long but an excellent summary of where we stand at the moment. If they are going to force everyone to take a vaccine, you might as well understand the history. A few memorable takeaways for those who may be new to this topic:
– In 1985, due to side affects of their vaccines, pharmaceutical companies approached the American congress and asked for blanket immunity from lawsuits saying something like (I paraphrase) ‘for every $1 we make, we pay out $20 in damages’. A law was passed granting them this immunity, among other things. Suddenly, vaccine manufacturing became very profitable and we went from 3 vaccines given to children to 72 (with more in the works of course).
– Vaccines do not undergo the same safety testing that other drugs
– There are hundreds of studies linking the mercury in vaccines to autism and various other epidemics plaguing us today. Here is a helpful link to 240+ studies: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/known-culprits/mercury/mercury-facts/mercury-research/
Link to interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLi6ZrFp6vQ&feature=emb_title
Glad people are waking up the vaccine hazards. I usually get pummelled into pulp when I say I am suspicious of vaccines. I am not anti-vaccines per se, nor anti the theory (which ironically is almost homeopathic in principle) but anti blanket vaccination when the vaccines haven’t been demonstrated safe. Back before 1989 I think American kids had three vaccines as a matter of course, now it’s sixteen delivered in something like 72 jabs. Can’t remember the exact figures but I’ve seen that Kennedy interview and I was struck by the fact that when Kennedy was a child 1 in 10,000 kids were autistic, now it’s about 1 in 40. And the collateral damage doesn’t stop there: food allergies (peanuts anyone? Anyone hear of that before about 1980s?), asthma, epilepsy and other ailments increasing exponentially.
Big Pharma has complete indemnity for any damage caused by vaccines (unless a lawsuit is rolled out), indemnity for a medical procedure that isn’t proven to be effective in the first place, and on the contrary can backfire on someone’s immunity system spectacularly. It’s a blank check for rampant abuse. The idea of a vaccine is noble, the reality is grisly. A Scottish doctor named Dr Malcolm Kendrick has been one of the few in this country brave enough to tackle the evidence and questions surrounding vaccines, he writes about it in his blog.
Here is the good Doctor’s blog which contains some very interesting research on Vitamin D for example https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/
And I don’t think there has ever been a study about long term damage to cell structure. Is there, for example, a link between vaccine enthusiasm in, say, the sixties to an increased incidence of cancer in older age.? Doubt it, would cost too much.
A couple of days ago Mimi mentioned looking at a comparison of Case-Fatality Ratios for American “Red States” vs. “Blue States.”
I am neither a professional data-scientist, nor a statistician, nor a professional programmer, but I have put my amateurish stab at this comparison online, as Scala code in a Jupyter Notebook you can run. Please forgive the state of the code… this is my “while drinking morning coffee” work, so it is certainly not elegant, and it may be wrong. But you can see it, at least, unlike some computer code we might recall to mind.
https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/Eumaeus/covid-data/master?filepath=politics.ipynb
If you follow the link, “binder” might take a while to spin up a virtual machine, but after that you’ll see the Notebook. In its menu bar, choose Cell > Run All. It will churn through the code and generate some graphs. Scroll down until you see the graphs.
Some things to note. The Red/Blue divide is defined by the party of the state’s governor. I’ve manually flipped Massachusetts to “blue” and Arkansas to “red”. Also, by default, New York and New Jersey are excluded from the calculation, because they would overwhelm any finding. If you know what you are doing, you can add them back in (around the middle of the page).
If any of this is right, then indeed, the virus is more deadly in Blue States than in Red States. The CFRs were close to equal 50 days ago, but have diverged steadily since then. Of course there are a million uncontrolled variables there, and I won’t presume to suggest an explanation.
Thank you to everyone who posts here. It is so important for us all to realise that we are not alone.
If this were a sci-fi tale, the situation would be one in which a brain virus has effectively lobotomised the world. A small number of people remain immune, with their minds intact, but are screaming into the void as the infected cannot hear them.
Another sci-fi scenario is one in which the fear has generated such momentum that it remains long after everyone has forgotten what the original threat was. In such a scenario, the measures taken to counter the threat have become ritualistic and deeply embedded into daily life. But while nobody remembers their purpose, neither does anyone question their necessity.
Speculative fiction analogies aside, the reality is enough of a horror story in itself.
Future historians are likely to look back on this episode with a sense of abhorrence and bewilderment. People’s lives, entire economies, and liberal democracy itself have been trashed: all based on a toxic mix of spectacularly bad science, a 24-hour media that does not have our best interests at heart, and mob hysteria.
This absurd, counterproductive and frankly homicidal response must never be allowed to occur again. And those responsible for perpetrating and enforcing such policies must be held to account. That is: if the mechanisms for keeping governmental power in check are ever restored. For freedoms, once surrendered, are not easily won back.
All those who are treating lockdown as one big holiday, happily posting up cocktail o’clock photos on social media from their sun-drenched patios, might do well to consider this.
Apologies for the lack of clear paragraphing: I wrote it in my Word app and pasted it in, which sent the formatting awry…
Totally agree. Mass hysteria, a joke of a media ( social media clearly also doesn’t help) and a government willing to kowtow to public opinion have all contributed.
Yup, we have “herd immunity” haha.
Herd stupidity
Got to laugh at Boris wheeling out the 70’s graffiti gags – as a schoolboy the whole “Be alert, Britain needs Lerts” was everywhere.
Get ready for “Humpty Dumpty was pushed” and Oedipus, call your mother” gags in his speech tonight.
Simply pathetic.
Can someone explain please, or direct me to the reasoning behind the 14 days quarantine for visitors or returning holiday makers. If the 14 days is applicable to travellers by air into the UK the logic must follow that all people including long distance lorry drivers travelling to and from Europe must quarantine for 14 days every time they bring goods in/out of the UK, I assume all airline staff once landed must quarantine for 14 days. Surely the same applies by anyone docking in a uk port on the container ships, etc. How will this be managed where are the ready supply of trained qualified hauliers, airline staff, merchant seaman who are sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Or is this 14 days rule just another excuse that the majority of brainwashed public will swallow to keep us in lockdown for longer. If the Government really means to put the quarantine regs in then it has to apply to everyone in every industry returning from every country regardless of the reason for travel.
They have to explain the logic, why are the media not challenging
It’s yet another placebo. Stupid as they are, I think the government does realise that if they cancel all restrictions and encourage everything to get back to normal ASAP, there will be some very awkward questions to answer as soon as it becomes evident that we aren’t suddenly dying of Covid en masse. The public may start suspecting that the threat was overstated all along. By stringing things out over much of the year, the “cautious” approach will conceal the true extent of governmental incompetence. And the moral vacuum that is the PM will be lauded for his “careful” handling of the crisis.
It’s not a second wave that he fears – that is just a smokescreen.
Excellent points, Tracy.
If the 14 days only applies to air travellers, I foresee many families going to the Med in large artics !
Perhaps we have just come up with a new holiday scheme
“Puppy-buying motorist gets two fines in 10 minutes
Duncan Leatherdale
BBC News
A driver travelling from Edinburgh to Wigan to buy a puppy was given two fixed penalty notices in 10 minutes for beaching coronavirus lockdown rules.
Cumbria Police said they stopped the motorist at Junction 36 of the M6 near Kendal and issued him with a £60 notice and ordered him to head home.
But 10 minutes later “they ignored the instruction to return back home and was issued a second fine before being escorted back up north”, a force spokesman said.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-52534519
A heartwarming story of sensible and efficient use of policing resources to address a real menace to the well being of the honest citizenry who pay for all this. If that puppy had been taken back to Edinburgh, the consequences would surely have been mass slaughter.
Basically, all they’ve achieved is to waste their own time, make themselves look stupid and heavy handed, provide ammunition for future criticism of policing attitudes and efficiency, and make at least one probably otherwise perfectly decent and respectable ordinary citizen hate and despise them.
Well done, Cumbria Police. [slow hand clap]
There is a HUGE animal welfare crisis brewing too, people can’t keep and feed an litter of pups for ever, dogs homes going broke etc etc.
Yes, just another cost of this plague of fear, that will be quietly ignored by those pushing the fear and the panic lockdown response.
No… I hope they will be eviscerated forever. More and more people are waking up.
This could be a Boris master plan….fingers crossed !
Can’t help thinking that Peter Hitchens is right (again) on this when he suggests this has all been a massive own goal by the police. As usual, it’s largely the fault of the government for making ridiculous laws that the police then have to try to enforce, but if they’d had any sense they’d have just given lip-service to enforcing these literally stupid laws. They’ve clearly jumped at the opportunity to parade around in para-military thug-style, bossing people around.
Fortunately this kind of violent response is pretty rare in Britain:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52599855
“But the Police Federation, which represents 98% of all officers, called for anyone accused of such attacks automatically to be held in custody before appearing in court. ”
Mind you, you would think that even the police union would have had the common sense and basic honesty not to make that kind of suggestion less than a month after one of their members was actually filmed threatening to “make something up. Who are they going to believe, me or you?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-52338058
” Lancashire Police say they plan to apologise to a man after an officer was filmed threatening to “make something up” in order to arrest him.
The clip, shared widely on social media, shows a man in Accrington being spoken to by police on Friday.
The man tells the officer: “You’re arresting me? What for? I’ve done nothing wrong.”
The officer responds: “I’ll lock you up…. We’ll make something up… who are they going to believe, me or you?””
Hi … Just an update on a 50 mile drive down to South coast to see my sister. Not a police car in sight. At all.
What’s going on???
They’re all busy linking our accounts, e-mail scanning and checking in on social media platforms to see what we’re all plotting.
Always hated plodders, and if it were possible to have negative respect I would have that now.
First in line for the revolution, even ahead of Rees-Mogg and his hedge-funded cronies.
Two great pieces in the Telegraph today, one jointly penned by David Davis MP (I can’t believe I’ve started reading the Telegraph, but there we are!)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/10/coronavirus-risk-young-staggeringly-low-says-uks-top-statistician
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/10/chilling-truth-decision-impose-lockdown-based-crude-mathematical/
Check out Prof Spiegelhalter on BBC iPlayer on today’s Andrew Marr show. You will need to zip forward to 46m45s to get the start – am in dropped jaw mode to hear him point out on the BBC what we have all been calculating / saying for weeks…
Finally I have hope that the mood is turning.
Could Tobys influential journalist reader be Andrew, I wonder?
Really? I just read somewhere that Johnson is going to ‘advise’ people to wear masks if going into shops. That’s a step backwards and a bit late ffs
What about Johnson going to ‘advise’ people to wear face masks in shops (I’ve just heard on the grapevine) ? That’s not the mood turning that’s going backwards. Does that mean they won’t let me in Tesco to buy bread unless I look like some deranged Frankenstein?
Wearing masks could make you more susceptible to get sick
I agree Victoria https://www.drbrownstein.com/we-must-wear-face-masks-show-me-the-science-behind-that/
Coronavirus doctor’s diary: The strange case of the choir that coughed in January
“Jane Hall is a member of two choirs – the Voices of Yorkshire choir and the All Together Now Community Choir – and she says that Covid-like symptoms affected members of both, starting in early January.
Among the first singers to get ill was the partner of a man who returned from a business trip to Wuhan on 17 or 18 December and developed a hacking cough.
“My friend from the choir became ill mid-January. Then my best friend, Christine, became ill, and then I became ill in the first weekend of February,” Jane said.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52589449
More grist to the early onset arguments.
This site’s information has made it crystal clear to me that this ‘lockdown’ BS is a massive waste of time, money and lives/livelihoods. Thank you for creating it.
It’s now obvious that the Government has dug itself a deep hole and now sits paralysed at the bottom of it. For fear of losing votes on either side of the debate, it is choosing to do nothing.
Just like the decision to leave the EU, it is now down to us to end this madness:
Time to do what you want.
There can be honest disagreement on the EU issue.
Not on this issue, I think. The fear-mongering side were simply wrong from the start, because they tried to present this disease as something it is not. They have argued from a position that this is some sort of fantasy “covebola” disease, that is as infectious as flu but as deadly to those who catch it as ebola.
And only now is some of the information coming out that would have had to be taken into account for any rational decision to lockdown to have been justified. You can’t have a rational policy decision if you don’t make an honest attempt at cost/benefit analysis, and you can’t have a rational analysis of that kind if one side is shrieking at the other that any attempt to do so is “dangerous”, “heartless” etc. Juvenile stuff, really, but that’s the dominant zeitgeist among our rather pathetic media, social and political elites.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1280164/uk-coronavirus-news-death-toll-latest-r-infection-rate-uk-economy-coronavirus-study
Quotes of the day from Prof Spiegelhalter:
“this is not a trustworthy communication of statistics……
…they’re (the public) hungry for details, for facts, for genuine information and yet they get fed this, what I call, number theatre which seems to be co-ordinated much more by a No.10 communications team rather than genuinely trying to inform people about what’s going on. I just wish that the data was being brought together and presented by people who really knew its strengths and limitations, and could treat the audience with some respect.
I am so sparked by this – finally a position of influence speaks out against the machine. It should be re-broadcast before Boris attempts his Churchillian soliloquy this evening in an attempt to educate the fearful.
https://www.facebook.com/dhushykumar/videos/10219981748706813/
Recent post from a Dr at our local hospital.
Am I reading this right? He seems to be saying that lockdown is a good thing as everyone is now going out in the sunshine and infecting everyone else. Am I missing some very subtle satire? I’m searching the name for a pun but don’y get anything.
He is normally very sensible. He seems worried that the bell has come down too soon and we will therefore see more deaths after lockdown but that the NHS is in a better place to deal with them. His posts on FB are interesting.
Yeah, but I thought the point was the open air was the least likely conduit for spreading a virus and more likely to spread in confined spaces. Also the bell curve is virtually identical to everywhere else. And surely the reason there have more infections is because there has been more testing.
I am not understanding his mumbling at all. Is he being sarcastic or serious? Is he voicing concern we are ending lockdown too soon? What is his way forward then? And isn’t there a big hoohah about Vit D (sunshine!) being very useful…? And has anyone quizzed him just which coronaviruses out of the many we carry the tests are picking up? Indeed cases of Covid-19 or sth from the big flu/coronavirus family? Are people actually being tested or just admitted due to potential Covid-19 symptoms such as coughing and a bit of a fever? At what point did the tests become 100% reliable when they haven’t been in weeks and months? Just curious…
Seems a little like he’s talking shite. If 18000 a day are getting it, and if the deadliness the government claims is true, he’d be seeing his ITU utterly swamped. He wouldn’t be supping a nice cuppa, he’d be crying his eyes out.
If 18000 is true, and he’s not seeing ITU’s swamped as he claims then the disease clearly isn’t very dangerous as suspected. If it’s airborne, we all be getting it whether we stayed in or not. Also, what do we need 4000 a day for? Bizarre as that’s not a cutoff for easing lockdowns.
This pretty hard to watch, but if you thought the police behaviour was light touch….
https://youtu.be/bmOl78FNmXo
Sending to Policing the Corona State and Police Abusing Powers. Wow.
Not sure if anyone else has posted this here, but it’s worth a look:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tfWOUgHSq24&feature=youtu.be
What an absolute disgrace. ….This is the result of the power grab by the state and enforcement by its uniformed handmaidens. Must be resisted strongly.
Well, so far, I haven’t posted any humour on this site, but as I look forward to watching Boris this evening I think I might change that habit.
I will start by stating the obvious – if this lockdown nonsense was not so serious, it would all be very funny.
My plan for this evening is to start with a few drinks to loosen up prior to the main event. I can’t wait to hear Boris tell the British public how good they have all been. By locking themselves up at home, the public will have saved the nation from a “certain” catastrophe. At this point, he will obviously not be talking about those 30 people I saw queuing outside B&Q the other day (oops, I was one of them). Anyhow, the government will laud the lockdown as a huge success. Boris will avoid the obvious pitfalls of stating how much money they have added to our national debt or any of the other grim realities of the lockdown. I’m not sure if there will be a Q & A session at the end but if there is, I hope those clever journalists get to grill Boris on where he is getting his hair cut at the moment. Mine could do with a trim. Following the Boris extravaganza, I will probably descend into further drinking while I contemplate how-on-earth the country has got into this mess.
You could turn it into a drinking game. Each player chooses a word likely to be repeated by HRH and assigns it to someone else. Each time it’s stated he or she drinks. Object is to get your friends hammered to take care of the inevitable headache and emotional outrage caused by further lockdown.
Sample words/phrases:
“Clear”
“Our NHS”
“Fantastic job”
“Tragedy/Tragic”
“Safe”
“social distancing “
“Follow the guidelines”
Bonus everyone drinks: “defeat this virus”
I got told by my work (Manufacturing sector, But classed as non essential) on the 24th of March to go home, & at the time, it was said to be for 3 weeks. I
Was then furloughed on 30th of March.
At first I thought fair enough, I didn’t know then what I know now about this extremely exaggerated virus.
My work keeps us all updated by email every couple of weeks & it has been grim.
My work lost 80% of its income that first week of lockdown, due to the companies that it supplies shutting down because of this.
The emails have been stating that it’s a very tough time for businesses including the company I work for.
However, on Thursday, I received another email from my work & this one doesn’t read well,
It mentioned some of its customers are returning to work but on a very very limited staff basis & then they said this,
“It seems likely that we will not return to normal levels overall for a significant period”
Now, I am genuinely a-bit worried about that statement, & I feel that the longer this goes on, I doubt that I will have a job to go back to once this nonsense is eventually over.
Thanks Boris & all the rest of the lockdown lovers.
It’s a very well paid job also, well above the National living wage & because of this nonsense it’s not looking good at all for the future.
I’m sure there are many many others in the same boat, including my wife and son who have no idea if they will still have a job in a month or two. They can’t just pause the economy for weeks and then expect it to magically restart without massive damage.
What an utter shambles. The Conservatives are about to lose their reputation for being (relatively) competent handling the economy.
The main thing giving me hope at the minute – it seems the Tory party has woken up a bit and the general narkiness level is rising, even amongst cabinet depending on your favoured news outlet. No doubt the penny has finally dropped that a country heavily reliant on service industries and being internationally open is going to take quite a hit under long-term ‘social distancing’. I have no doubt the quarantine policy is nothing to do with any science – it’s probably a Cummings inspired ‘dog whistle’ to some of the loonier fringes of the right.
Last nights presser was atrocious – who on earth thinks putting characters like Shapps in a time of national crisis, to tell us all to get on our bikes, is a good idea? Trains and buses at 10% capacity, have I entered some parallel universe of talking rot?? This gets to the heart of the cowardice and disgrace of lockdown – many essential workers have been crowding onto tube trains during this crisis to keep the Champaign socialist lockdown lovers of the upper middle classes in their favoured lifestyle.
On my ‘exercise’ yesterday I encountered several work colleagues. The tone of these conversations and the work WhatsApp is very anti-lockdown, people are very fed up. Worryingly, the child brigade are all reporting behavioural problems with their kids….
I’ve been pondering an interesting theme which I have yet to see pursued in the media, but many of those changes which we small ‘c ‘ conservatives have instinctively suspected to be foolhardy over the last 30 years are now revealed to have been grounded in acquired common sense all along: whither hot desking, open plan offices, open national borders, global supply chains, just in time logistics, hermetically sealed office blocks? There will be many more examples. Or am I simply revealing my age and confirmation biases?
Alright… I am getting this a bit more properly now. With the new ‘advice’. I see this or at least most of it.
Feeling a bit better have to admit. More optimistic.
I feel the government and Boris have played an absolute blinder in the grand scheme of things considering the unbelievable amount of pressure he has been under from the media and other governments.
I know this is probably against what I have previously posted. Project FEAR has of course been a deliberate strategy from the start when he realised that the sensible strategy of normal herd immunity was shouted down by the press. But, and trust me on this, I feel that the UK has been put on a short sharp super high death curve from the beginning to achieve the goal of herd immunity. Probably as a plan B.
Project FEAR was always twofold – you have the sheep who were always going to be fearful of the virus , those who never were fearful (us). But then part 2 was to make the likes of us FEAR the dystopian future presented. I was taken in by the ‘new normal’ and police state horror so was determined to take to the comments boards, have always been out every day in the fresh air, in full view of folk who may have been cowering or maybe those not afraid but not wanting to be seen.
Our actions have given other people the courage to push back and get outside and will continue to do so in the coming weeks and months as the traumatized have to be guided from their fear tree.
We will have this role to play, and this was always our role.
It will be painful for a lot of them. Especially some of the millennials. Remember – no mask, no fear! Look at the mandatory masks in europe, they will be the ones who prolong the agony. And this hilarious social distancing rubbish.
But… And I am sure of this, the UK has probably achieved herd immunity (always the end game here) far quicker than any the country in Europe, except for Sweden and the heroic Belarus.
Hence the 2 week quarantine for people coming IN right now… In case they bring it to us. That will be lifted soon I hope, because, y’know, we have herd immunity anyway.
Unfortunately, we have had to sacrifice those who were vulnerable and too frightened to go to the hospital due to ‘covid’ , deaths at home, but the numbers will prove that a lockdown and being fearful was never the way to address this. And will not be ever again
There will be a recession, no idea how deep, but ours will be shorter I hope. Note the horrific green city cycle paths not mentioned today but there will be some element of that to come I am sure as a transition to electric.
He couldn’t be Churchill, there was too much pressure from the media nitwits to do that. And telling people to ‘wake up’ would have given them a heart attack. What else is to come out there I haven’t quite worked out yet but I now get what was done, when plan A went out of the window, it was the ‘burn as much of the sickly field’ plan B. A bit agenda 2030 (?) for sure so keep an eye out for clues on that. I hope Gates and any of his mega vaccine plans get totally shredded, that would be to give into fear.
In the long run, he’s done the best he could have done and probably in the process dealt a death blow to the left wing media while he’s at it. And Europe.
Expect to see those fucking cringey iPhone filmed ads disappear fairly soon, as will the odious ‘social distancing’ phrase too when the fearless (us) go out there and ignore it.
This won’t be as quick as we hope.. cos we are switched on and a lot of the country is deeply traumatized ( as am I from being FEAR part 2 victim)
It will get there. Not quickly enough for the likes of us, but I think we can help the sheep by just going about our daily lives.
So… I do wonder when ‘The Matrix’ will be on telly instead of fackin outbreak or contagion.
What a mindfuck
I am definitely more optimistic today
Watching videos of police behaviour today has made me anything but optimistic.
Dying embers… Don’t worry
And only the Met. They’ve always been somewhat challenged.
Why are you so optimistic? I couldn’t stand to watch it but from what I heard this was just a sketch of a map towards the first glimmer of a hint of the light at end of the tunnel or some such, plus increased fines for people who break ‘lockdown rules’. He still sounds like someone who doesn’t care about the cost, the suicides, the unprecedented loss of civil liberties – or not enough to overcome his love for international joke Neil Ferguson at any rate. He doesn’t sound like someone who would physically eat his ID card “in the presence of whatever emanation of the state demanded he produce it”.
Actually look at the ‘rules’ though… It effectively only bans gatherings of people around the street doesn’t it? Got to drive to work? Go ahead. At somebody’s door? The only person you are visiting today officer.. and unless there are still snitches around, then go in pretty much! I don’t think he could have told the bedwetters to just get up and on with it given how he’s been backed into a corner. Their brainwashing will take a while to undo.
He wanted Sweden’s herd immunity model didn’t he? I don’t think he was pretending on that was he? Until media backlash. UK lockdown was by far the loosest we could have wasn’t it. The aim of the game is always the herd.
The narrative will change and some proper facts will suddenly start to appear, you watch.
And also… No masks. Striking how different that’s been in UK compared to Europe right? Masks simply means either subservience or fear, cos they don’t provide any meaningful medical benefit
I hope you’re right!
I note a headline in the Spectator today in its Covid-19 Update that:
“Antibody tests suggest that 10% of London and 4% of the UK have antibodies for Covid-19 as of 5 weeks ago.” Coincidentally the peak of virus in the UK.
This is interesting and if correct, more data showing the absurdity of Lockdown.
Let’s assume a population in UK of 66 million. If, as the Govt claim Ro is 0.8 then by today at least half of the population is now immune. Yes, I know that is less than the implied number but there would inevitably be a decay in the spread profile as the number recipients declined.
For London, by today more the whole population would have been immune by last week.
If these numbers are even in the same ball park as reality then this virus has gone exactly the way of all previous ones and been extinguished in the same time scale, much as predicted by Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel in early April.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-end-of-exponential-growth-the-decline-in-the-spread-of-coronavirus/