Today’s Guardian leads on the care home scandal, which Keir Starmer succeeded in moving to the top of the news agenda by grilling Boris about it in yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions. It didn’t help that Boris fluffed his response. Starmer picked up on the fact that Public Health England (PHE) had advised in March that care home residents were “very unlikely” to become infected by COVID-19. Boris denied PHE had ever said this, only for him to be confronted with irrefutable evidence, at which point he accused Starmer of taking the quote out of context. He is clearly rattled by this attack line because yesterday the Government announced a £600 million cash injection for care homes to help control infection.
How many have died in care homes to date? The latest assessment of fatalities in care settings in England and Wales by academics at the London School of Economics finds that more than half of all “excess deaths” up to 1st May – those above the five-year average for the period from 28th December to 1st May – have happened in care homes. The researchers say that from 13th March to 1st May, care homes accounted for 19,938 excess deaths – a figure corroborated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). According to the ONS’s data, there have been just under 20,000 excess deaths registered in England and Wales up to 1st May in care homes since the pandemic started. “Of those, 8,312 have had COVID-19 mentioned on the death certificate,” a spokesman for the ONS told the Guardian.
At a briefing hosted by the Science Media Centre two days ago, several eminent professors cast doubt on the claim that all the excess care home deaths are due to COVID-19. Sir David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said: “When we look back… this rise in non-Covid extra deaths outside hospitals is something I hope will be given really severe attention.”
So what caused those deaths? In some cases it will be undiagnosed COVID-19, but in others it will be because care home residents with other diseases were either not admitted to hospital or discharged prematurely. David Leon, Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine who was also at the Science Media Centre briefing, said: “Some of these deaths may not have occurred if people had got to hospital. How many is unclear. This issue needs urgent attention, and steps taken to ensure that those who would benefit from hospital treatment and care for other conditions can get it.”
Sounds like David Spiegelhalter and David Leon think the lockdown is causing a greater loss of life than it’s preventing. The BMJ has more.
It looks like we can add UNICEF to the growing ranks of lockdown sceptics. Dr Stefan Peterson, Chief of Health at UNICEF, has given an interview to the Telegraph in which he says that indiscriminate lockdowns in low- and middle-income countries are an ineffective way to suppress infections and the harm they’re likely to do “far outweighs any threat presented by the coronavirus”. And that claim has been corroborated by a team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. According to a preprint in the Lancet, more than one million children under five and 60,000 more mothers could die in the next six months alone as a result of disruptions to health services caused by the pandemic in low- and middle-income countries. Among those things “caused” by the pandemic they include “intentional choices made in responding to the pandemic”, e.g. imprisoning entire populations in their homes. As Dr Peterson puts it: “If you’re asking families to stay at home in one room in a slum, without food or water, that won’t limit virus transmission… We need to lift our eyes and look at the total picture of public health.”
In other news, the Daily Mail reveals the police have no power to enforce the two-metre social distancing rule – just as well, considering how arbitrary it is. In case you need reminding of that, here’s a chart from the excellent presentation by Numis Healthcare that I flagged up yesterday showing the different “safe” distances recommended in different countries:
Another reader has got in touch with more detail on the leaked document from the German Ministry of the Interior that I’ve referred to in the last two updates. The author – “K” – concludes his 80-page analysis by listing the negative consequences of the lockdown:
- In March and April 2.5 million necessary operations were not carried out.
- Between 5000 and 125,000 patients have died or will die as a result. Cancer, stroke and heart patients will have suffered.
- 3,500 additional deaths of care home residents.
- Increase in suicides.
- Psychological effects of the lockdown, especially on elderly persons. Psychoses, Neuroses.
- Increase in domestic violence.
- Ill-effects arising from the wearing of masks.
- Lower life expectancy
There’s good reason to believe all of those things are happening in the UK too. Last night, Channel 4 News broadcast a disturbing report by Jackie Long, the Social Affairs Editor, from inside a women’s refuge about how it’s coping with the surge in demand. According to the news programme: “The first three weeks of lockdown saw the largest number of killings of women over any 21-day period in the last decade.” You can watch the report and read a write-up by Jackie Long here.
My friend Kathrine Jebsen Moore has started a petition on Change.org to reopen all British Schools. You can sign that here. There is also a Twitter account worth following called @Teach4Teaching. It’s been set up by a couple of teachers “who want to get back to teaching and prevent disadvantaged kids from falling further behind”. They’ve started a petition that’s specifically for teachers.
I asked Guy de la Bédoyère, the historian with a working knowledge of statistics who crunched the numbers on health workers for me, to look at whether school staff are dying from COVID-19 in disproportionately large numbers. This is his verdict:
I’ve spent the last couple of hours wading through the data. I’d say that health and education are not that different. It’s hugely muddied by both areas having a large proportion of women which makes comparing them with, say, security guards (the most vulnerable workers) rather difficult. But there are a number of professions where the death rates per 100,000 are far higher than either education or health.
At any rate, it’s striking that the two professions (education and health) that the media have focused on and whipped up fear among, not only belong to a large group of professions which have a similarly low level of risk but also have a huge preponderance of women, a fact we now know dramatically reduces their susceptibility to the disease.
Woes continue to mount for the NHSx contact-tracing app. Wired has got hold of a cache of NHS documents left unsecured on Google Drive. I asked the reader who’s been keeping an eye on this story for us to take a look and this is his verdict:
- Leaving internal docs on publicly accessible Google Drives shows that although NHSx talks the talk on security, it doesn’t walk the walk.
- The author of the documents expresses the concern that I raised about self-diagnosis. This is why I would like to hear from testers to see how this is working in practice. The roadmap shows a “lightweight new process for verifying clinical results” but then we are into storage of special-category personal data, i.e. your very private medical information, and that raises the security stakes.
- They also recognise the risk of mass notifications. Their worst-case example is of an NHS employee seeing hundreds of people, then self-reporting causing messages to go to hundreds of people telling them to self isolate. They think it could lead to public panic. I think it could shut down a hospital. How’s that for unintended consequences? Or would the NHS ignore the advice of its own app?
- The roadmap shows future versions collecting post code, demographic info (usually meaning age, sex, income, employment status, etc.). This is what we mean by mission creep. It is a problem because the design assumptions in the NCSC security paper are based on not holding this kind of data. For example NCSC dismissed the honeypot problem (reindentification as they call it) because “There is insufficient data here to attract any reidentification risk”. But future versions look very likely to hold such data. So perhaps this roadmap is contingent on the Zulke version replacing what is currently being tested in IoW? If so, what will be rolled out is not what has been tested. This is what happened with “smart” motorways where the scheme worked with densely packed refuges but they rolled out with more distantly spaced refuges and that has led to unexpectedly high death rates.
- The same goes for the cryptic statement “enable NHS and strategic leaders to add contact events”. This is even worse. It seems to propose mixing in data not provided by the user. Where is it coming from? Has the user given their permission for it to be used in this way? What conclusions are going to be drawn from it? It’s getting very Big Brother.
He concludes that the NHS’s app has all the signs of being driven by a politician who believes technology is the solution and doesn’t want to hear about the niggling issues of privacy or security. And in case you haven’t had enough scepticism about the contact-tracing app, read this withering assessment by Marc de Gentile-Williams.
President Trump invited World War Two veterans to Washington to commemorate the Allied victory in Europe last week – and the enforcers of Covid orthodoxy in the media went bananas. “Ninety-three-year old veterans will be traveling to visit the White House – they should not be traveling!” harrumphed MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace. The New York Times couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a swipe at the President, printing a photo of him without a mask on and then scolding him for his recklessness in the caption: “President Trump did not wear a mask Friday during a wreath-laying ceremony that was attended by World War Two veterans, who are in their 90s and highly vulnerable.” Needless to say, the veterans didn’t bother with masks either. Long-standing sceptic Heather Mac Donald has written a funny piece about America’s “mask scolds” for Spectator USA.
While we’re on Trump, I know he gives lockdown sceptics a bad name – and many liberals on both sides of the Atlantic only seem to be in favour of lockdowns because Trump has come out against them. But it’s hard not to like the latest initiative of his Reopen America Task Force – DoctorsForOpeningAmerica.com. Launching the website at the White House, the President said: “So many doctors, nurses, and EMTs have personally told me they’re thrilled to support working Americans in reopening our great country. They know getting our country open and getting it open soon is important. And they badly want America to know they’re ready to weather the toll.”
It’s true that the sceptics v zealots divide skews along right-left lines – and Francis Menton tries to figure out why that is in Manhattan Contrarian. But there are exceptions to the rule on both sides. I’m always heartened to get emails from readers beginning, “I don’t usually agree with anything you write, but…” and today I got sent a wonderful essay by a young firebrand in Ireland explaining why it’s the duty of every upstanding member of the left to oppose the lockdown with every fibre of their being. It begins:
I consider myself to be left-wing on virtually every political topic: I am a socially-liberal social democrat who believes in a strong social safety net, high-quality public healthcare for all, robust environmental protections (including shifting to renewable energy sources immediately and protecting half of the globe for nature), restorative justice, legal abortion and reducing inequality and corporate influence over politics. I despise Donald Trump and believe Brexit was a huge mistake. I am firstly presenting my political biases in order to dispel the caricature that has emerged of lockdown sceptics as being all right-wing, Trumpian Brexiteers. I think this labelling has been very unfortunate and misguided, as I too believe that the lockdown policy in response to Covid-19 has been an utter and complete disaster, and that most of the left have gotten this issue completely wrong. I will argue that the position of the lockdown sceptic really should be a more naturally left-wing cause to adopt, and those on the left should not be distracted by the reflexive partisan politics and virtue signalling that has taken over so much of the debate around lockdowns.
The essay is so good that I’ve created a new page on the right-hand menu called ‘The Left-Wing Case Against Lockdowns’. I urge you to read the whole thing by clicking here.
A reader in Bradford has been in touch to flag up an article in his local paper, the Telegraph and Argus. It’s based on an interview with Professor John Baruch, former head of cybernetics at the University of Bradford, who has set up the Bradford Science Collective in response to the coronavirus pandemic. He is adamant that the Government’s easing of the lockdown this week will send infections “through the roof”. Professor Baruch tells the paper: “Our message to the people of Bradford is what Nicola Sturgeon is saying – stay at home. There’s no science to justify what Boris Johnson is saying, it’s wishful thinking.”
Well, actually, Professor Baruch, there’s plenty of scientific evidence to justify easing the lockdown. Try this: a new antibody survey just published in Spain has found that “key workers” who were allowed to leave their homes during Spain’s recent lockdown were less likely to become infected than those who remained in confinement. (Hat tip to Didier Raoult, the dissident French doctor and hydroxychloroquine champion, who flagged this up on Twitter.) If you think that study’s an outlier, here’s one from China which could only find one outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 infection due to outside transmission.
Perhaps the reason Professor Baruch isn’t aware of the tsunami of scientific evidence that contradicts the dominant narrative is because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to share it with people on social media. I flagged this up yesterday, linking to an excellent article in the FT by Izabella Kaminska who has coined the phrase “censortech” to describe the draconian content-moderation policies of companies like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Although there’s no need for Facebook’s AIs to read every post about coronavirus, searching for wrongthink, because group administrators will often do that job themselves. The pandemic has unleashed an army of these petty martinets, scouring everything we write in public forums, ready to leap into action with their red pencils.
A reader got in touch to tell me about an “appalling act of censorship” from the administrator of her local town group page on Facebook. It’s all too typical I’m afraid:
After I had dared to share Dr John Lee’s article in the Spectator about reasons why we should end lockdown, with a brief introduction saying who he was, adding the link to his article and saying that even if you believed in the lockdown process it was worth a read to gain a more balanced perspective and consider the consequences, the administrator publicly posted a comment below it accusing me of spreading “misinformation”. When I explained that it was not misinformation but an opinion of a qualified medical professional, he responded that I did not understand the seriousness of the situation, knew nothing about the disease, did not understand how it spread or how dangerous it was, was guilty of posting “fake news”, and, worse, was inciting the public to break the law and supporting the practice of genocide in the face of this deadly disease! Gasp. I calmly pointed out that I had a degree and also an environmental health qualification and was a former practitioner so out of personal interest had been doing a lot of studying via Science Direct, Elsevier Science and other reputable sources of data, explaining that I disagreed the information was “fake”, or “misinformation”, and adding a list of my sources. I said I simply agreed with many professional experts in their fields, such as Professor Michael Levitt and Johan Giesecke. His response was to publicly inform me (i.e. via the comments) that I was not to post to the group again and repeated his assertion about misinformation and fake news!
In the fullness of time, when it’s the settled consensus that the lockdowns led to a greater loss of life than they prevented, will there be any kind of reckoning for people like this administrator? Given that it’s them, and not us, who are guilty of disseminating misinformation and fake news, we could ask them to ban themselves from social media platforms lest their craven parroting of state propaganda causes any more unnecessary deaths in future.
Good rant in a Reddit thread by a “key worker”. Doesn’t sound like there’s much scope for social distancing if you’re a shelf-stacker at Tesco’s:
I am what you would call an “essential worker”. I am a student who currently works at a supermarket around 4 or five days a week. My brother who I currently live with is also in this category and he works at a different supermarket in the same town. Aside from the odd obedient middle class mum, social distancing is virtually non-existant. I constantly have people coming up close to me asking where to find flour and the isles are too narrow to conceivably practice it anyway. There is no limit on how many people can enter the shop. None of the staff wear masks as wearing one for a prolonged period of time (i.e 6 hours) is extremely uncomfortable and having to readjust them by touching your face completely destroys the purpose of wearing one. The staff room and the toilets are pretty filthy, so much so that I will use hand sanitiser after touching every single appliance. The staff themselves don’t practice any form of social distancing as it makes their job literally impossible, not to mention everyone is working twice as hard to stock the shelves because people still continue to stock pile. My only defence against covids is constant hand sanitising and refraining from ever touching my face, which ironically is probably the best scientific defence againt contracting the virus.
You can read the rest of it here.
There are several protests/mass gatherings taking place this Saturday in different parts of the country to protest against the lockdown, according to the Mail. It says at least eight of them are being organised by the UK Freedom Movement, which it describes as an “anti-vaxxer group”. I’m not an anti-vaxxer myself, but would defend the right of anyone who wants to protest about a Government policy in the public square and regard the current legal prohibition on protests – one of the many civil rights that have been suspended during the lockdown – as an attack on our liberty that may well be unlawful. If anyone is planning to attend these events I would advise them to exercise their common sense when it comes to social distancing, not engage in needlessly provocative behaviour and remain peaceful. The more respectable and sensible you are, the more politically effective the protests will be. Don’t make it easy for the mainstream media to depict you as a bunch of paranoid weirdos with a far-right, anti-scientific agenda.
And if you think I’m engaging in wishful thinking by saying the lockdown restrictions may be unlawful, read this account in the Mail of what happened in Wisconsin when a group of sceptics challenged the Governor’s stay-at-home order in the state Supreme Court. They won, prompting a stampede to local bars from grateful residents. Here’s a picture of Marvin Radtke toasting the opening of the Friends and Neighbors bar in Appleton:
More good news from across the pond: Alameda County health officials have backed down in their conflict with Elon Musk, reversing their shutdown order and granting provisional approval for Tesla’s Fremont, California plant to reopen. Why have they thrown in the towel? The Babylon Bee may know the answer. The satirical online magazine ran a piece entitled: ‘California Police Attempt To Arrest Elon Musk’s Holographic Decoy As Real Musk Escapes On Rocket To Mars.’
And on to the round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘Year of the Bat: Globalisation, China and the Coronavirus‘ – Two academics, Niall McCrae and MLR Smith, call for an investigation into China’s responsibility for the pandemic in a pamphlet for Civitas
- ‘Teaching unions, not Boris, are the reckless ones‘ – Brendan O’Neill puts the teaching unions straight in the Spectator
- ‘The “official Covid story” is one-sided to the point of deceit‘ – Sherelle Jacobs’ continues to bang the sceptics’ drum in the Telegraph
- ‘COVID-19: the bluffer’s guide‘ – Amusing piece by Dominic Green in Spectator USA, although of no use to readers of this site, obviously
- ‘COVID-19 Educational Disruption and Response‘ – Hard-hitting UNESCO report on the damage being done to young people by the closure of schools
- ‘Can we trust the Covid modelling?‘ – Johan Norberg in the Spectator doesn’t think so
- ‘Covid antibody test a “positive development”‘ – The BBC reports Public Health England has approved a “100% accurate” antibody test from Switzerland. Pity we couldn’t make one ourselves’
- ‘A phased approach to unlocking during the COVID‐19 pandemic – Lessons from trend analysis‘ – Priprint based on a study in Manchester which estimates that by the end of April 29% of the UK population had already been infected. Does this mean we’ve already acquired herd immunity?
- ‘If you thought staying in lockdown was hard, wait until you see what trying to get out of it is like. But here’s how Johnson could do it‘ – Paul Goodman sets out a roadmap in ConservativeHome
- ‘Covid Mary 2‘ – Amusing piece in a new satirical online magazine in Ireland called the Bockety Dog
- ‘We cannot let the Left use Covid as an excuse for radical tax hikes‘ – Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath reacts to yesterday’s news that the Government is planning to pay the Covid bill by raising taxes
On Monday, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have reopened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area – all the more urgent in light of the latest forecast of the Federation of Small Businesses, which says that up to a third of small businesses in Britain may close as a result of the lockdown. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those small businesses that have reopened near you. Should be fairly self-explanatory – and the owners of small businesses are welcome to enter their own details. Please visit the page and let us know about those brave folk who are doing their bit to get our country back on its feet.
Some more suggestions for theme songs from readers, with a heavy metal theme today: ‘Hysteria‘ by Def Leppard, ‘Run to the Hills‘ by Iron Maiden, ‘Creeping Death‘ by Metallica and ‘Paranoid‘ by Black Sabbath.
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. It’s a daunting task, let me tell you, although not quite as daunting as I say in my latest Spectator column. In a self-pitying whinge, I say that looking after this blog may be death of me but that will be okay because my death will be one more piece of evidence that the lockdown is killing more people than it’s saving. If you still feel like donating after reading this nonsense, you can do so by clicking here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in tomorrow’s update, email me here.
And finally, a reader has come up with a wizard wheeze if you’re missing having your closest friend round for a drink. Even though socialising inside your home is verboten, you’re now allowed to list your home for sale with an estate agent and the agent is allowed to bring prospective buyers round. So contact your local Foxtons, tell them you want to sell your home and then put them in touch with your best friend, making sure to describe them as a “buyer”. When the Foxtons’ agent turns up at your doorstep with friend in tow, tell them you’re happy to show them round yourself, close the door and uncork a bottle of wine.
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Might I suggest that the name of the ‘Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme’ be changed to ‘Coronavirus Unemployment Postponement Scheme’?
Lol I’m gonna use that
Hard Times of Old England’ – Steeleye Span ?
See when i die of boredom make sure they count it as a covid death
Don’t worry : they will!
Tonight at 8:02pm. MASS TWEET
Step One: Tag @BorisJohnson, @DominicRaab and @MattHancock on Twitter.
Step Two: Type, “This lockdown is destroying our lives and our economy. There is no scientific justification or legal authority to allow it to continue. We demand our freedom be returned now.”
Step Three: Add the hashtags #EndLockDown #WeWillBeFree
Step Four: At 8:02pm, thousands Tweet it and it trends on Twitter.
MORE INFO AT twitter.com/WeWillBeFree82 Tonight at 8:02pm. MASS TWEET
Step One: Tag @BorisJohnson, @DominicRaab and @MattHancock on Twitter.
Step Two: Type, “This lockdown is destroying our lives and our economy. There is no scientific justification or legal authority to allow it to continue. We demand our freedom be returned now.”
Step Three: Add the hashtags #EndLockDown #WeWillBeFree
Step Four: At 8:02pm, thousands Tweet it and it trends on Twitter.
MORE INFO AT twitter.com/WeWillBeFree82
Does it sill work if we put our own message in (but include the same hashtags)? I’m a bit vague on the details of Twittering.
I think so yes. A few people have since contacted me to say the wording needs tweaking.
I am going to simplify it (based on feedback) for version two.
Tonight is kind of a test run to see if the idea is viable. Simon Dolan retweeted it and that’s really helped it pick up some speed on Twitter. Thank you for your support.
Preparing now…
My message is: Keep calm and carry on, not Panic and hide
Stranglers Raven on headphones to drown out the bleating from outside
Interestingly, last night (writing this on Friday) there wasn’t a single peep from the NHS clapping morons last night – the previous week was bedlam with air horns, car horns etc etc. Is this a sign of a slow return to sanity?
Not only that, but in other news, a Republican won an election seat in California!!
https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2020-05-13/trump-backed-republican-flips-california-house-seat-in-special-election
I am no great fan of Uncle Donald, but in amongst his usual rants and raves about China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran et al, he has spoken more sense than most other world leaders about this crisis (the death of liberty and the world economy I mean not covid19).
Launched
Done
Sky News and Stuart Ramsay have moved from Italy to Mexico for their next “fear porn” segment.
https://news.sky.com/story/a-city-in-denial-over-coronavirus-mexicos-capital-is-on-the-brink-of-a-covid-19-disaster-11987726
Quick anecdote of covid hysteria I experienced today:
I’m a delivery driver and delivered to a newly re-opened garden centre. When I asked a staff member to sign for the delivery she refused saying that she would catch covid. I said that didn’t make any sense as she would have to touch the boxes I had just touched and delivered, and that every item she comes into contact with would at some point have been touched by someone else. She said she didn’t want to take the risk.
That’s sad – and very worrying
Thanks. I love that one.
Stupidity is everywhere. The government have a lot to answer for!
Mental illness basically. This is what has been done to susceptible members of the population
I agree, and what is more it makes me wonder if the erstwhile Professor F. was not as far out as we believed in his BSE predictions of 2002 – 50,000 dead he said. They didn’t die of course, but a good deal more than that number now have sponges instead of brains so maybe his ‘apocalepsy’ – as I like to call it – was not so misplaced on that occasion??
That doctors for reopening america site is hilarious, just such a classic example of loud USA patriotism to make us in Europe cringe, although of course the anti-lockdown message is ideal regardless of the site’s laughter inducing design. Regrettably hough it looks like zealots have been visitng the site and making some ironic comments on it, not sure if they’re simply Trump haters who despise anything that DT does and want to mock him, or lockdownforeverists who genuinely have failed to see how the harm of lockdowns kills mroe than the virus can. Site also asks gullible americans to enter a “special personal message for Trump”, wonder which advertising consortium that gets forwarded to.
I must say that I am very doubtful about the suggested right/left split vs sceptic/zealot.
You only have to look at comments in the very right wing Guido Fawkes blog to see that there are very many brexit-tory enthusiasts there that are very zealous about the Lockdown. Put up sceptical arguments there and you often get shot down by rabid zealots.
Indeed I personally find it particularly strange that Brexiteers are so often lockdown zealots -Brexit and scrapping the lockdown are both about freedom and independence, BUT if there is a correlation, it seems quite weak.
I’ve been assuming they are either just individuals who are bed-wetters by nature, or they see resistance to the lockdown as a dangerous attack on the Conservative government and the Brexit achievement.
It’s likely to be self-fulfilling I suspect because if we don’t get rid of Johnson, apologise for the lockdown and get someone new and relatively untainted in (not immediately, but not too late, either), the government will surely go down at the next election. It’s only a matter of time before the economic misery created by the lockdown comes to dominate people’s lives.
Bojo vs ex-DPP…. ouch.
Although the latter did let Jimmy Saville wall away Scot-free… so who knows ….
Starmer is brilliant. I wish he was more of an lockdown sceptic.
That’s what Labourites said about Blair, and I don’t think many of them had in mind electing a leader to lie the country into being a US accomplice in a war of aggression. Starmer is another Blair.
Cleverness is not the most important thing in a leader, imo.
He is indeed Blair’s clone. See my comment the other day about interviewing him. He oozes lawyer from every pore. He creeped me out (and answered none of my frigging questions).
Honestly I don’t think that’s true… I don’t think he has the charisma or guile of Blair.
Still, I reckon he’ll prove extremely difficult for Baffled-of-Downing-Street to deal with.
Oh I think he has the guile. Definitely.
The Charisma though….. indeed
I wonder if in a year’s time new evidence will come to light, unemployment is higher, people are poorer and the skeptical case becomes stronger and more popular.
Starmer could legitimately raise questions about how all this has been handled, was the evidence strong enough to justify this reaction?
The hard part is that Boris is very much going for being the saviour of “our NHS” and “our vital public services”. This is traditional Labour territory.
I’m not yet sure how Starmer carves out a new policy platform.
Sources close to me suspect there has been a barrage of CCHQ posting on Guido as soon as a lockdown skeptic post appears. It is seen as a direct attack on Boris and the party. Fear not, most posters remain Brexit-supporting, anti-lockdown, anti-HS2, anti-foreign aid budget!
I hadn’t thought of that!! But this is a leader that uses the likes of Dominic Cummings….
77th Brigade – watch the UK Column podcasts for more info
If I am Lockdown sceptic, euro sceptic and gender critic…can I even call myself a leftie anymore?
Brethren! Yes. You can.
You are an old school leftie. Like Tony Benn. Never forget that.
Thanks
Any current politicians anywhere near this mold? I’m probably not as politically knowledgable as some on here (my skepticism is born out of rationalism and empiricism not conservatism or libertarianism).
No. LOL.
‘Blue Labour’ is the closest we have. But now with Starmer in charge they have about as much hope of forming core policy as Jeremy Corbyn would have.
Basically we need a new party. One that listens to the working classes rather than sneers at them.
I really wish Toby would drop it tbh, it’s putting people off getting on board with the sceptical argument, polling is clear that the vast majority of people support it, they can’t all be left wing. Plus what does it matter who’s left or right in terms of having the common sense to see it’s a disaster, it’s killing our old, decimating business, wrecking children’s futures, and hammering the poor, what’s to disagree about? I just want the darn thing over with. I think there are different motivations for supporting it on left and right, and I do agree that left wing activists have politicked the living daylights out of it, but I’d bet on both sides they are affluent, it seems to be the most cushioned who are most enthusiastic and noisy about it.
I absolutely agree BecJT. I attend a monthly sceptical thinking group (Skeptics in the Pub anyone?) and I doubt there’s ever a Tory in the room. Mostly academic geeky types
It’s divided us again but along different lines. I was a Brexit voting Boris lover now I have a new found respect for Starmer and find Boris irritating because he won’t tell the truth.
Don’t let Boris’s ineptitude warm you up to that snake in the grass.
Over here in the US it’s almost completely a left/right issue. I’m one of the very few on the left who oppose the lockdown. It seems that Trump Derangement Syndrome is more dangerous by far than COVID-19.
Is there ANYTHING in the US that can’t be divided by red v. blue?!
I think some of the guys at Guido’s place see Boris as the messiah, ergo an attack on his policies is an attack on the dear leader – they have placed a lot of faith in him and have had a bit of a go at tory figures against the lockdown. You can guarantee if a Labour government did this, a number of them would go bananas.
‘Guido’ himself has certainly posted some articles and links hinting at a degree of lockdown scepticism…
I can imagine Guido is a massive sceptic and if that means dissing Boris, he’ll diss Boris. Sad that the right wingers seem to be the only people with any integrity these days.
The axis you need is Thick/Not-Thick
That cuts across most political boundaries.
I think that fear and emotion are powerful motivators. Even if someone is pro-freedom, pro-independence, if they are convinced that the lives of their family members, and people in their community are at risk they will trade in their principles.
It is a bit strange about Brexiteers. There was always a contingent of Brexit supporters who liked big-state (but UK big-state not EU big-state). But I think people across the board are scared. As long as their believe Johnson is protecting them they will support him and his extreme policies, and give up their freedoms to save “our NHS”, which would apparently absolutely completely collapse if we risked going to the hairdressers.
(Since the referendum right/left splits haven’t worked and I think David Goodhart’s somewheres/anywheres is closer – although we’ll have to invent new labels after this!)
I half expected some of what remains of the Brexit party to start some new movement. Are they generally pro-lockdown?
I have to state the obvious – we can’t have a fully functioning society and economy, and a 2m social distancing rule. Every TV news programme which now features a section on how 2m social distancing will be carried out in every school, business, train or aircraft over the coming months is not only a waste of time but is drip feeding a section of the population into thinking that this is going to be the new norm for the indefinite future. It isn’t. The country won’t last another three months if it tries to provide education, operate travel or run business under these restrictions.
As we know WHO guidelines and some other countries show a safe distance of 1m. The difference between 2m and 1m makes a huge difference. Given that in the western world we already have a natural 0.5m or so social space constraint on those outside our family and close friends then, the difference between 1m of distancing and 0.5m of social space is small enough for many businesses, particularly in the entertainment and hospitality sectors to sensibly re-open. And when there is no second spike that 1m can be dropped altogether and we’re back to normal.
Agree. Toby’s social distancing chart shows the UK is out of line with other countries.
Relaxing the 2m guidance is the ace up the govt’s sleeve – it has got happen – they are simply waiting for the right moment to play it.
Well I hope it’s very soon!
I think you’re right. Regardless IMO its slowly falling apart – in my area alone more people aren’t really observing the 2m rule and even ignoring the recommendation from TFL to wear face coverings on the underground.
I suspect that’s what the government is counting on.
Agree also – we had our gardener round today, and a builder to quote for some work. We all behaved as we would in ‘normal’ times. I then went to the supermarket – the highlight of my week – only one face mask present this week, down on the four I spotted last week. Perhaps because Wales has, sensibly, not advised people to wear them. None of the supermarket staff were wearing face masks either and all looked cheerful rather than stressed. I had a lovely chat to the lady on the checkout about chocolate biscuits. I’d recommended a certain brand to her a couple of weeks earlier and she’d remembered me, tried them and loved them. Amazing of course that working in the death trap of a supermarket that she was still living and breathing…. must be the chocolate biscuits…
Staff in my local supermarket have stopped wearing gloves as well and won’t be surprised that as the days pass, it will be almost like back to nearly 3 months ago.
Agree. Even the Guardian featured this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/13/what-would-happen-if-londoners-tried-to-go-back-to-normal-on-a-socially-distanced-underground
Basically, during rush hour the queue to enter the station would stretch back two stops along the line! AND that was assuming capacity was somehow rationed with a few people allowed on at each stop, or else it would be “full” at the start of the line already.
I read the Guardian article and laughed. This will last about five minutes contact with reality. Grant Shapps was at in again this evening in the presser – this stuff doesn’t seem to be going down well with a lot of conservative commentators….
Well said Clarence. The difference between 1m and 2m does make as big difference. The area around a person required for 2m is about 12.6 metre squared, for 1m its about 3.1 metre squared. So, in rough terms you can fit four times as many people into a given area if you reduce the social distance to 1m. That obviously makes a huge difference to the viability of many businesses and the effective capacity of school classrooms, public transport etc.
Trouble is it’s going to be difficult to climb down from 2m – howls of protest from Labour, unions, rest of UK, fearful public. They say they’ve been following scientific advice. Has that advice changed? Er, well no – we just made the 2m figure up. Unfortunately, I think we’re going to be stuck with 2m. People might choose to ignore it and use common sense, but businesses, schools and transport can’t. They have/will put arrangements in place for 2m. I don’t think government is going to tell everybody a few weeks down the line to change everything to 1m. People would think the Government didn’t know what it was doing!
I seriously doubt that the 2m rule will be here to stay. More and more people are ignoring it and sectors such as retail and hospitality are flagging up the fact that this will be the death of their businesses. This will be another nail in the coffin of museums and the heritage sector as well, why no-one from that sector such as say the Director of the National Gallery or the head of English Heritage has come out to say that is baffling.
The government IMO is simply counting on quiet civil disobedience given that the police have pretty much admitted that this is unenforceable. Then when the right time comes, they will abolish it.
I quite agree, but the government and a large proportion of citizens don’t seem that bothered about having a fully functioning society and economy. One hopes they will change their minds when the money runs out, but I fear it will be too late. The “new normal” narrative is hardly questioned outside of forums like these. Anything that requires government or commentariat approval to be open or survive will be obliged to put in place costly and unpleasant distancing rules. It will either be a legal condition of being allowed to operate, or expected by the public, or both. Avanti West Coast have told people they must distance, have advance tickets and wear a mask or be refused travel. The government will pick up the tab. Priti Patel went on ITV to say social distancing was here for the long term. Once the number of infections and deaths is right down, probably in another month to six weeks, the government will double down on the need to prevent a dangerous second wave. I have spoken to intelligent colleagues of mine who believe the current state of affairs should continue until we find a vaccine. When I point out that this might never happen and ask them to say how long they think we can last, they refuse to name a figure and go on about how clever medical science is. The country is already “operating”, albeit badly, with this in place. I expect to be working from home for the rest of this year, probably longer. Universities will carry on, online, because making their premises and processes “coronavirus safe” will be hugely difficult. My only hopes are that the love of the pub, and seeing European countries go back to a proper “normal” without experiencing that dangerous second peak will slowly push us back to our senses. But it won’t be easy.
Julian,
In regards to the race to develop a C-19 vaccine, I read an article on Robert F Kennedy’s website containing the following comments from Dr. Jerome H. Kim, Director General of the International Vaccine Institute:
“In early April, Dr. Jerome H. Kim (Director General of the United-Nations-affiliated International Vaccine Institute) called attention to the “unprecedented speed” with which the Phase I trials launched, stating that it will be difficult to know whether a vaccine developed in a scant four, 12 or even 18 months “is really safe” and noting that the vaccine development process ordinarily takes anywhere from five to ten years. Although striving for enthusiasm about the “remarkable” speed-up, Kim warned that even when vaccine makers appropriately begin the process with animal studies, “vaccine development is characterized by a high failure rate of ‘often 93%.’”
SOURCE: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/gates-and-companys-covid-19-vaccine-boosterism-ignores-significant-sars-coronavirus-vaccine-risks-known-for-over-a-decade/
So it looks like your colleagues may be waiting quite some time!
” … colleagues you previously thought were intelligent …”.
Well, in many respects they are intelligent – high IQ, generally on top of their own lives, very together people. Some pretend to be economically illiterate so they can sound virtuous but most of them are very comfortably off and wish to remain so and I think really do know that money doesn’t grow on trees, though I am beginning to wonder. But this thing has got them spooked. I’m not especially keen on catching it, but I couldn’t argue that the whole planet should shut down indefinitely because of it. I guess most of us have certain triggers that make us think and behave irrationally. I also think that they are people who have got to used to everyone they know and the media they access agreeing with most of their views that when they encounter someone who dares to suggest that we may have to get used to a few more people dying of respiratory illnesses they are either outraged or just shut down – they don’t seem to be able to engage rationally. What baffles me is that some of them have kids that they love very deeply but they don’t feel moved to think that we’re on the wrong road. Speaking personally my life is great at present – I’m not unduly affected by the lockdown – but my kids are miserable and the thought of them enduring possibly years of this madness fills me with rage and sadness. I can’t comprehend how any parent could feel any different.
Why the 2m rule? How about this:
Because the new 5G based tracking systems get confused when people are too close. In order to affirm 100 percent accountability for everyone under the system, people have to be forced to have a certain amount of space between each other. Clearly, if someone really has this virus, – with how far it can survive and travel – six feet is not even close to enough and those spewing the social distancing mantra know it. It is for easier tracking purposes only.
I must admit it did cross my mind whether it is to make things easier for those designing ‘driver-less vehicles’.
Changing the goalposts and the narrative
Lockdown was intended two weeks to flatten the curve but then prolonged months to stamp out all infection.
The extremely positive figures with a minimal risk of death in children of Covid-19 was answered with reports of Kawasaki’s syndrome (not all even pos. for Covid-19) in some children in London, New York. In an interview Dr Fauci was concerned that we did not know enough about this virus in children at this stage and, alluding to Kawasaki cases, a return to normal schooling was dangerous
The astonishing figures of Covid-19 deaths with median age in almost all European countries equivalent to life expectancy and Germany having double amount of deaths over 100 years of age compared to all deaths under 40 This was contradicted as pure social Darwinism thinking but they did not answer the real Public Health question how a ruined economy can afford to help the elderly citizen and the NHS at the same time come this winter.
The good news that the NHS coped with the first wave was immediately contradicted that wait only for the second wave like the Spanish flu (where we don’t even know if all waves were caused by flu virus)
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-epidemic-waves/
The good news from Spain with 5% pos antibody tests in the population driving down the IFR to 0.13% was not good news as this indicated lack of herd immunity of 60 % and would mean a massacre at the next wave if we do not continue with the lockdown or semi lockdown.
You can never win in arguments with MSM and BBC.
The second wave in Spanish Flu was likely caused by the fact that soldiers with a stronger dose were sent home. this reverses the natural order of thing as the sick travelled thousands of miles while the healthy remained in post. No such occurrence has taken place with covid19. Also of note against this argument, this is arguably the second wave already with the original outbreak in December as by February cure were higher than new cases. We are in the second season of what looks like a seasonal virus, so it could be the second wave.
History.com (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic) has this to say about Spanish Flu deaths and aspirin poisoning. A sobering example of what happens when “the science” is not actually … er… based on science:
“With no cure for the flu, many doctors prescribed medication that they felt would alleviate symptoms… including aspirin, which had been trademarked by Bayer in 1899—a patent that expired in 1917, meaning new companies were able to produce the drug during the Spanish Flu epidemic.
“Before the spike in deaths attributed to the Spanish Flu in 1918, the U.S. Surgeon General, Navy and the Journal of the American Medical Association had all recommended the use of aspirin. Medical professionals advised patients to take up to 30 grams per day, a dose now known to be toxic. (For comparison’s sake, the medical consensus today is that doses above four grams are unsafe.) Symptoms of aspirin poisoning include hyperventilation and pulmonary edema, or the buildup of fluid in the lungs, and it’s now believed that many of the October deaths were actually caused or hastened by aspirin poisoning.”
Unfortunately, I think you have the decimal point in the IFR wrong… Spain’s population is about 47M, 5% would mean that 2.35M are infected, and therefore 27100 deaths / 2.35 M is about 1.3% IFR.
Look at the data by age group:
https://twitter.com/gummibear737/status/1260995868032974849
It shows what every set of data from every country has always shown: the virus is only a threat to the elderly.
And please remember that Spain, like so many other countries, is including as Covid-19 deaths people who merely died with the infection as distinct from those who actually died from it.
You are correct, of course, that the fatality data is probably overstated. In Portugal, for instance, the government proudly says that anyone who dies Covid-19 positive is counted as a Covid-19 fatality, even if they were run over by a truck. Also, they will also perform antibody tests, but will exclude from them anyone who has been diagnosed with Covid-19 or who has been in contact with someone who had Covid-19, which will inflate the estimated IFR. I don’t know whether Spain also did this.
Sorry made a mistake. But 1.3% must of course be subdivided into age groups and then I am sure under 60 would be in that better range but over 60 substantially higher.That has been the typical death rates everywhere and really have one death rate below 65 and one over 65 would be the only sensible to base public health decision.Thanks for the correction .
Now that the NHS has been saved, can we have our country back?
What Country would that be?
This lump of rock is now just a Health Service with a funding mechanism attached.
You mean an ill-health service?
That made me laugh out loud. Spot on.
Hospital one, part of the glorious Oceenia superstate.
I’m Winston Smith!
That’s a coincidence meeting you here because recently I have been questioning whether I might actually be Julia.
The NHS may have been saved but at what cost. Many elderly and /or infirm people who regularly trip between hospital and home / care home may have not received the treatment they would have received before this farce.
NHS saved. People still dying.
Eh?
The Chris Whitty video, part of the briefing earlier this week with Boris, where he basically admits that Covid is not really that big a deal – has been removed by YouTube. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9romNO55yo
This is is really jackboot stuff…..
I am increasingly worried by the way this is going.
Careful Bill…. you wouldn’t want anyone accusing you of being a “conspiracy theorist”!
My rule of thumb with conspiracy theories is that if the official version of events is more outlandish and unbelievable than the conspiracy theory then I’ll go with the conspiracy. As a result it turns out that I believe pretty much every conspiracy theory going!
I’m still not sold on the whole lizard thing though….
It’s available here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IbiUE_2Sv0g for the time being. I have downloaded it and will re-upload to Bitshute. I suggest we treat the powers that be as hostile until proven otherwise and do the same for every piece of information. Don’t just share links, back up the content and get it onto a censorship free platform. Otherwise anything that contradicts the official narrative risks being memory holed.
I am quite clear that there has been a coup of the Western nations and we’d be better off trying to deal with that, rather than trying to talk sense into a government which is hostile. You cannot, with reason, move a person from a position which reason did not get them into. And facts will not shift this policy only a direct challenge to the legitimacy of their power will do so.
full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BdPKpWbxTg
Replying to myself – sad I know.
If you need it, the footage of Chris Whitty is still available on iPlayer (Though not easily thru the BBC search system )
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jh2f/briefings-downing-street-coronavirus-news-conference-11052020
Around 45 minutes in.
He basically says this is an epidemic, it’s not that deadly, and that’s what Patrick Vallance and I have been saying all along……
Getting ducks in a row for the inevitable post-mortem ?
Not sad at all! Thanks Bill
I want to share it but I’m scared about a backlash…
I couldn’t bear to watch any more of the daily whitewashes (even at double playback speed) but I did notice Chris Whitty was sneaking in bits of common sense a couple of weeks ago. Notice he remembers to add the party line afterwards. One dead giveaway was when he mentioned the NHS, then hastily corrected it to the fantastic NHS.
I read somewhere online recently that Chris Whitty is shortly to take up a post with the WHO – anyone else heard this and know if it is true?
Yes, he’s the only one who has consistently mentioned need to look at the wider picture- the indirect deaths caused by lockdown.
Thanks Bill. Are you saying that a video in which this country’s Chief Medical Officer answers a question from a journalist, in a Government press briefing, has been taken down by You Tube because it violates You Tube’s Community Guidelines? Shurely shome mishtake.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/14/government-considering-health-certificates-proof-immunity-established/
I really thought we’d done away with this dystopian idea of immunity certificates. They make my blood run utterly, utterly cold. Not only are they something that Huxley could have dreamt up, but they are counter-intuitive as people will just try to catch the disease in order to live a normal life.
I also find it funny how the MSM/mainstream scientific figures constantly doom-monger about immunity, how ‘it doesn’t last that long’ or ‘it doesn’t protect you from getting it again soon afterwards’. So if immunity is supposedly so dubious and unreliable, then why the hell is the government still touting the idea of these horrifically oppressive certificates? You can’t have it both ways.
It’s reading stories like this which really make me despair and feel hopeless for the future. They just kill any optimism I have about ever getting back to normal – the ‘old’ normal, not the horrendously sterile, culturally and socially desolate, ‘new’ normal.
‘People who test positive for coronavirus antibodies will not be given an “immunity passport” because there is no proof they could not get the disease again.
Instead, ministers are discussing giving people a “health certificate” to confirm they have had coronavirus, so that they will be able to enjoy greater freedom if and when proof of immunity has been established.’
‘Greater freedom’ – this really is Gattaca-level stuff. I can’t see how this won’t create an underclass of those who were (un)lucky enough not to catch the disease.
I can’t see it happening – too easily ignored, faked, gamed, forged, bought/sold. I’m fairly sure my dog is going to eat mine.
“Digital” research ID2020 to see what this is about
Yeah, heard of ID2020. My dog’ll eat anything to do with it.
Not if the vaccine is combined with a dye that stays under the skin and can be scanned to confirm you’ve had the vaccine:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/invisible-ink-could-reveal-whether-kids-have-been-vaccinated/
Invisible Ink Could Reveal whether Kids Have Been Vaccinated
The technology embeds immunization records into a child’s skin
And the name of the enzyme used in the dye? Luciferase
We’re getting into ‘Are they prepared to risk death in order to inject me ?” territory here.
Precisely. Do I spend time off work being tested (and vaccinated, if a vaccine becomes available and proof of vaccination becomes a travel requirement) or do I buy the necessary paperwork from a dodgy doc for £50?
I can do you a set for £45, Digger …
Health certificates, the new currency. What has happened to this nation in a few short weeks. I was brought up in the Cold War era, expecting the three minute warning at any time. This is far far worst, in my opinion.
Furthermore – such a certificate penalises those who have obeyed the lockdown, stayed inside and not caught the disease! Who the hell is advising these loons?
(Oh for an edit button… last post, I promise)
Funny how so many of the people who usually spend their time obsessing about “discrimination” in various forms are suddenly so keen on it.
And I wonder how it would stand up to the various discrimination laws we are saddled with.
I think in the event of certificates being used in such a way it won’t just be court cases saying that this sort of sh*t is illegal, it will every decent minded person everywhere in the country violating by whatever means are feasible the orders of any high-vis Hitler who decides to discriminate on such a basis. We will break every rule undrpinning such a system and ensure it turns out worse than useless. We will fake such “certificates”, disrupt the work of the people responsible for managing and producing the certificates, ensure that certificates from all manner of people with good and bad statuses on them go missing and get mixed up… On the other hand if they want to simply track immunity on an anonymised basis that’s OK, I don’t dispute the idea of letting tested people ring up a Gov office every so often to say “X months and I still haven’t caught it again”. But if they try to push us around in any way based on status of a certificate or whether one is willing to carry such a ocument/phone-app at all then the social contract is over and nothing will stop us taking for ourselves the rights that an undoubleplusgood certificate denies us.
The spirit of Clarence Henry Wilcock !
Immunity Certificates – what’s not to like?
This:
”Immunes to the Front of the Bus, Others to the Rear”
“This Entrance: Immunes only”
“Priority Queue: NHS workers and Immunes Only”
“No Non-immunes Allowed In This Establishment”
“We only hire Immunes”
Would make the perfect plot for a horror/drama.
I suspect a lot of people will want to get an antibody test to satisfy their own curiosity about whether they’ve had it or not.
I’m 85% sure I came down with it the first weekend of Jan – GP said it was “just a virus” and “not to worry as they’d been seeing loads of it”.
My boss put me under a lot of pressure to come to work and even threatened me with a warning if I didn’t – the irony now!
Kinda want a certificate just to go and shove it in both of their faces.
The best certificate to shove in faces is the UN declaration of human rights, the one they wrote in response to the holocaust. Any little Eichmann who thinks his orders to “not allow non-immunes into this bulding” over-ride that declaration is in for a very nasty shock.
They laugh their socks off at any declaration of rights that omits the right to bear arms.
Your username deserves clapping next Thursday
Surely the fact that everyone has been told to get to work if they can, past infection or not, makes immunity passports useless.
Are we also to punish those who the government have lied so hard to keep safe – us – for not catching it?
Will we have a world where restaurants, pubs, cinema can only be attended with confimed antibody carriers? Can only they ever go on holiday again, play sport? Considering the do called disease prevalence is do low, a fast majority of us can expect a more than shit life if thix happened.
Sadly, i think it will happen, bases on government ideology. If it does, its mass genocide, not discrimination
I’m worried about a Bill Gates vaccine being compulsory – with no work or travel unless you have it…
I’m not sure what is going on with our government. I suspect there is no-one in cabinet (I’m not in the mood to go through their bios at the minute) or in their advisory teams that has any science or technology qualifications, ergo they take at face value suggestions crazy scientists come up with (and I am one and know what some can be like) and latch onto things that sound good, but are completely unworkable. One can presume that auf Deutschland, Mutti ist all over this being a PhD qualified scientist.
This madness will mainly lead to idiots trying to infect themselves .
What’s really funny is our own bodies are 90% bacteria! I’m sure that would freak a lot of people out right now https://bigthink.com/amped/humans-10-human-and-90-bacterial
I assume that the “immunity passports” are predicated on either a positive antibody test to confirm you’ve had it, or a vaccine, thereby making the latter compulsory if you want to get on with your life.
But as you say, at the same time some scientists are saying that having antibodies because you’ve had CV19 doesn’t mean you can’t catch it again, then how is a vaccine supposed to protect anyone from catching it?
There’ll be plenty lining up to get the vaccine because they’ve been terrified into it, but there’ll be plenty of others who won’t.
Well we just fight it. When Blair and Blunkett were trying to deliver i.d. cards and people felt it was oppressive they got massive oppositions – and they lost. We can do it again.
There will hopefully be a booming black market in forged immunity certificates, too many forgers to be policed. Or maybe even templates you can do yourself will be knocking around on the internet. The irony is many pro-lockdowners will be trying to get their hands on one.
“There’s good reason to believe all of those things are happening in the UK too, although the number of people affected will almost certainly be greater because our population is larger.”
Well that’s just not true, Toby. Germany has 80+ million people, the UK 66+ million. Not fact unchecked
Was just going to say the same thing. Germany is a much larger country than the UK. I’ve travelled around and across both nations quite extensively. Britain just feels more crowded as we are squashed into a smaller space.
Exactly. They have 20 million more people yes…..
But their land mass is MASSIVE.
I’d like to attend the peaceful mass gathering but I am wary of the sort of demographic it may attract. The same as a football match does. I think I’ll walk along and assess when I get there.
Footie matches nowadays are nearly always tens of thousands of good-natured piss heads. (Possibly excepting Glasgow).
Aye non good-natured piss heads.
By demographic they may attract I image you mean heavy handed police? Don’t think they have parties these days?
Martin Armstrong makes valid criticisms, though blaming Ferguson on the basis that he “never ran by any economist what the cost of shutting down the entire economy would be” is unfair. It wasn’t Ferguson’s job to consider the economic costs of a health policy that he as a health “expert” might propose.
It is the job of government to consider the views of reputable experts (including dissenting voices) in all the fields relevant to a situation, and then to apply their judgement as leaders to making the decision. Contrary to a delusion that seems to be commonplace, it is not their job to be led like sheep by any particular set of experts – that would be outright negligence on the part of any leader.
Faced with a set of experts proposing a major policy change in response to a set of circumstances within their area of expertise, this is what a government should do. If they don’t do all this, they are negligent.
1 Make sure the experts’ consensus is real (ie consult alternative experts).
2 Apply their own judgement to determine if the proposed course of action is morally acceptable. In the case of the lockdown the policy would have fallen at that hurdle if I were the decision-maker, but clearly I am in a small minority on that.
3 Carry out a cost/benefit analysis to determine if the proposed policy makes sense, bringing in experts in other areas involved in the proposed policy. In particular, a proper assessment of the economic, legal, social and health administration effects of the lockdown should have been made, to the extent that was possible in the time available.
4 Apply their own judgement as elected decision-makers to the advice of all the relevant experts, and decide whether or not the policy is a sensible one.
If all four of these steps are not carried out properly, then the government is acting negligently. I have seen no evidence whatsoever that there was any realistic attempt to properly assess the costs of this lockdown, and indeed it seems most likely there was no such attempt. We were told explicitly that there was no advice given on how lockdown would work in practice by the health experts.
On the face of it, there’s no conceivable way the policy could have passed any cost/benefit examination. The information we already had about the disease, even taking the Imperial College figures at face value, made it absolutely clear that the cost of any lives saved would be dwarfed by the costs of the lockdown, and there would be no realistic chance of coming within an order of magnitude of the NICE criteria for spending on life-saving measures.
And so it has proved. We are now beginning to have to face up to the immense costs we have incurred, and continue to incur, in both money (ie lives, indirectly) and lives directly, not as a result of this disease but as a result of this policy choice by our government.
Without any attempt to properly weigh costs against benefits, this was the epitome of a panic measure.
Why didn’t they ask him to model the lives lost due to a lockdown. I’m sure his magical number box could have done it.
“… apply their judgement as leaders ….” We wish!
or a coup.
I believe there was a cost-benefit analysis:
“So what’s the benefit?
Well, it’ll look we’re doing something decisive – like other countries”
“So what’s the cost?
Dunno, but when did anyone ever lose votes by spending taxpayers’ money?”
Motion carried.
Pretty sure you are right, there.
Dr. Kendrick did a good piece on the cost/benefit thing a few weeks ago
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/03/29/a-health-economic-perspective-on-covid-19/
And as he pointed out, the numbers mean that there was little prospect of getting within an order of magnitude of the kind of figures we regard as justified to spend on saving a life.
Today in the countryside I encountered an elderly man on a fairly narrow footpath. A pair of seriously good binoculars was round his neck and I assumed that he, like me, is interested in bird-watching. Stopping well short of him, I asked whether he had seen anything of note and we had a brief conversation, during which I could see that he was fearful that I would venture any closer. (I observe the social distancing rules, not because I believe in them but because my failure to do so might cause distress to others.)
As our talk went on, I could see that he was not just fearful but absolutely terrified. This gentle, mildly spoken octogenarian has been terrorised by an establishment to which he may well have contributed handsomely for his entire working life.
Our conversation was soon over. As we parted I became almost incandescently angry and for the first time understood the term ‘beside myself’. It was almost as if it were someone else vowing never, ever to forgive Boris Johnson, his government and advisers for what they have done to the social fabric of this country – never mind the catastrophic material damage.
For my sins, I voted Conservative at the last election. That will be the last time my shadow ever falls across the threshold of a polling station. I am done with politics; I am done with politicians. It is not just the social fabric that Johnson has wrecked but, in my case at least, the suspension of cynicism and distrust that enables one to believe in a candidate sufficiently make a cross on a ballot paper.
I’m coming to the conclusion that anger is the only appropriate response to this ridiculous situation and hopefully it will create enough momentum to trigger positive action.
Social distancing is to get us conditioned that “humans are biohazards, machines are not”
This is dystopia
https://theintercept.com/2020/05/08/andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-tech-shock-doctrine/
Worth paying attention to this and the use of the word biosecurity. I foresee it will become an act of terrorism to refuse a vaccine or digital identity
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/former-counter-terror-official-tom-hurd-put-in-charge-new-uk-biosecurity-centre-coronavirus
On that note – Trump has just announced there will be a military roll out of the vaccine
https://www.activistpost.com/2020/05/breaking-president-trump-says-he-will-mobilize-military-to-distribute-covid-19-vaccine.html
Totalitarian steps in Australia
https://amp.smh.com.au/national/new-asio-law-one-more-step-towards-a-totalitarian-state-20200513-p54smi.html
And New Zealand
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12331547
They’re not so bad here, I’ve been regularly bumping into people I know and people I don’t while out walking. We remain a distance apart but still talk. Some of them are as cynical as me.
Tuesday there were two policemen in the park, I don’t know what they were doing except marching macho style far less than 2m apart.
Wednesday I walked on the common where someone’s car had been stickered telling her to go home and stay indoors. There were a number of walkers, not many under seventy. Which is good.
Crikey, which common, Chris ?
The sheer terror that the government and especially all branches of the media has created in a large proportion of the population,especially the elderly,is startling and to have created this psychological damage knowingly is utterly unforgivable,it is going to take hell of a lot to help a lot of people to get through it,Over the past few weeks I have gone through various emotions regarding all of this but I too am moving into a deeper and deeper anger.
I don’t observe any social distancing rules.
Would be better to observe the minor and not unreasonable ones, then our breaking of the intrusive ones seems a clear protest against their intrusiveness rather than being totally apathetic to the virus. Observe the subtle ones to let folks see you’re reasonable, violate the draconian ones to show them what is right.
Simon,
I feel exactly the same way. For the first time ever in the December 2019 general election, I put a very shaky cross next to the Conservative candidate for my constituency (a complete arsehole by the way, but essentially a proxy vote for BoJo). I’ve regretted casting that vote more and more each passing day. I’ll never votAmye again. I’m officially a political atheist.
Missed the clap for people doing the job they’re paid for because I was reading this.
As a fan of the band Soft Machine is suggest Hope For Happiness and Why Are We Sleeping.
Just got back from taking an embarassing number of bottles to the glass bank. Passed four people waving at me as if I had a dodgy tyre. Stopped and wound down my window. “Honk your horn!” said the one who had been most energetically trying to get my attention. “Get a life!” was my reply. Hence followed some rude words from the saintly silvertops but I was on my way.
Not a single clapper out on my street!
I actually went outside to try and talk to the clappers. I am convinced they thought I was insane and I am half expecting a visit from plod actually.
I just did my usual act of going outside and waving happily to my neighbours, and talking to people walking by with frightened dogs who don’t like the clapping. I’m not sure if they’ve noticed yet that I never clap . . . !
We could start boo-ing? Boo hiss, you killed the oldies, and nicked all the care homes’ PPE.
That dates you (and me!)
It begins with a blessing, it ends with a curse
Making life easy by making it worse
“My mask is my master”, the trumpeter weeps
But his voice is so weak, as he speaks from his sleep
Predicted by Kevin Ayers
How about Grateful Dead “Look Out Of Any Window”
Good choice, but that is the first line of ‘Box of Rain’.
Another thing to hold at Boris’ account – some of the remnants of the Dead were going to play the south of England last month. Over the moon. Bought ticket. Cancelled.
T.B.Sheets Van Morrison
I missed it because I was fixing computers.
People looked at me wrong because I refused to clap. Clap for myself? Or the magic healing warriors of the NHS?
Piss off. If I don’t fix this your luxury food hamper doesn’t get delivered.
Boris is a dead man walking. Starmer might not have charisma, but his mind is sharp as all hell.
The Tories are gonna have to get rid when the parliament has run half its course.
Said this to the wife before Easter but I gave him until Xmas.
I’m sceptical the gov will go because any sort of resignation will basically be an admission that they messed up big time, which they’re trying to avoid at any cost by doubling down on the most expensive and harmful policy mistake in history.
I think the best we can hope for is that big Tory donors dictate, in no uncertain terms, what is going to happen. These voices will get louder and louder as Europe starts to open up.
It pains me a bit to write that!!!!
I think Hancock and Sunak will go when the full economic idiocy hits. Hancock for being too eager in his advice. Raab will probably stay.
Rishi is the only one I have the slightest pity for. He’s being dumb right now but I honestly think the poor lad is trying his best.
Everyone else – especially Matt Handjob – incompetence on a staggering level.
I strongly recommend watching this before taking any comfort in thoughts of ministerial resignations or consequences at the election. Very large wheels are turning behind the scenes.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/ukcolumn-news/uk-column-news-13th-may-2020
Who cares? Makes zero difference as to the course of events. This whole thing is evidence of that.
Something I’ve not understood in the above piece — perhaps readers could help me ?
Why is the cancellation/deferral of NHS treatment of non-COVID conditions (which I agree is serious and concerning, especially in respect of the most vulnerable) being blamed on “lockdown” ?
Surely if lockdown was lifted, adding (at least in the short to medium term) to the number of COVID cases for the NHS to deal with, that would mean even *less* capacity for non-COVID work, not more ?
What is it that I have missed ?
There are loads of reports coming in suggesting that NHS wasn’t underwhelmed and it would have capacity to deal with both: COVID and non-COVID cases.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/04/one-nightingale-hospital-use-london-centre-mothballed/
Someone posted this on youtube in comments under Chris Witty’s video
“Doctors & Nurses Overwhelmed???”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87ir5e5_yl8&feature=youtu.be
I wonder if the Nightingale hospitals would’ve had the capacity to take all COVID patients? Any of the number crunchers on here want to take it on?!
It’s certainly where they should have put the old people they discharged back into care homes……
Sorry, I obviously meant to say that NHS wasn’t OVERWHELMED but can’t edit my post.
Lockdown and the policy of clearing the NHS decks to prepare for the Imperial projected tsunami of covid deaths meant that NHS care was directly removed from probably hundreds of thousands of people who needed it.
Without lockdown, those people might have got the care they need. In some places they might not, if there was pressure on facilities, but we will never really know.
Because a predictive model which massively and erroneously over estimated the risk of both contagion and death sent the NHS and the whole country into a panic the result being that my hospital has 500 empty beds as we speak and never less than 400 from the start. Out ITU capacity was increased massively yet was never needed, between 5 and 9 covid patients in it at any one time and they were bought in from other regions that had run out of PPE. We achieved this by cancelling everything and discharging everyone including the most vulnerable into the community to die. Most patients suffering with covid won’t need ITU, it doesn’t improve their chances, even more people won’t need an admission to hospital at all when they do get it. The sad truth is we’ve reacted incorrectly fuled by misinformation and failed science the result of which is a complete abandonment of our responsibilities as health care providers to those in need. We never needed to respond with such extreme measures and in doing so have smashed the NHS into the dust. We have convinced ill people to stay away from hospital when they need us and shrugged our shoulders at the consequence blaming the virus. Being complicit in this act of abandonment and sabotage has made me deeply sad. We must get back to work and restore peoples faith in the service and try to mitigate the dreadful fallout from this mistake.
The first part of this video seems like a good one to point sheeple at. It takes a logical approach, later on it goes into Agenta 21, which may be too much for some.
I may contact the author and ask if I can edit the video to remove the later part off and start emailing the short video to colleuges.
https://youtu.be/j33O-USISz0
D
Thanks to everyone who Tweeted at 8:02pm. This is just the beginning…
Never ever stop fighting.
And huge thanks to Toby for dedicating his life to this blog. We are indebted to you.
R Dawg
A quick tutorial on Twitter etiquette and methods might be useful if you get time. As in, what do we do after sending our tweet, do we look for others? Where? Like? Retweet?
Hi Mark,
Good point. I’m still learning myself! I never used social media until this lockdown.
A learning process. Probably good for us to learn about it, anyway…
Thanks for taking the time to try to do something.
Things I’ll miss when lockdown’s over: 1. Toby’s “Lockdown Sceptics”.
Er….that’s it!
The fallout of this will be around forever, There’ll be plenty of fodder for this site should it choose to continue.
It will be interesting to see if the government has an official policy of promoting ” terror ” in the population. The BBC which is the de facto state broadcaster seems to always give publicity to the 21 year old with Corona in hospital to emphasise we are all susceptable .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-52572794
I have seen scientific papers which advocate a policy of terror as a way of maintaining lockdown and social distancing but I imagine any documents which show it was agreed to by the top leadership will be in the top secret draw for the next 70 years.
In the 1980s any of you around then will remember the AIDS horror movies from the government ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SqRNUUOk7s
Upping the terror has been used by most unsavoury regimes in history from Robespierre to Germany during the war.
The downside of terror as official policy is the exacerbation of mental health problems in the population. The government and media are keeping the figures on suicide very quiet , ? is there a D notice. Working in the health service I can tell you there is much less trivial ” self harm ” often by teenage girls and a lot more actual suicides.
Like this policy of terror you mean?
https://twitter.com/WillowWyse/status/1260841702828408833?s=20
“The downside of terror as official policy is the exacerbation of mental health problems in the population.”
And the difficulty of walking it back once you’ve whipped it up.
“I have seen scientific papers which advocate a policy of terror as a way of maintaining lockdown and social distancing”
The Sage paper that was floating about recently?
Sadly, I have just read two suicide stories in The Mail online – a young woman who could not travel to her grandmother’s funeral due to the lockdown, and a 17 year-old student worried about his A levels. More young people have committed suicide as a result of the lockdown measures than have died from CV. The government needs to reflect on that and put itself in the shoes of those parents – this could and should have been foreseen.
And they never found a vaccine for HIV. Looking for one has kept a lot of people in gainful employment though.
Apologies if this had been posted anywhere else but this is going around on Facebook – allegedly written by a Doctor at Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool. If anyone can confirm the Source it might be useful
“To all the people on here threatening to unfriend people, or wishing a second wave of COVID on people, for daring to go out in the sun yesterday, you really need to think about what you are writing, and a lot of you are health professionals as well.
What was the aim of lock down? What did every single health “expert” say was the reason to justify a lockdown? And why do we have a Flu season at all? And why have we continued to have a steady incidence rate despite being in lockdown? And why are thousands of elderly people dying in nursing homes?
The reason we had lockdown was to “flatten the curve” or buy time to increase ITU/crit care beds. Well with 4 nightingale hospitals mothballed and 50% of hospital beds lying empty, I think we have achieved that.
Not one “expert” worth his salt will tell you that we can stop a respiratory virus, and if they did they would be lying or I am deluded and we have no common cold or Flu cases every winter. So with a fifth of the country likely to have already had the virus and a health service with a massive amount of level 2 and level 3 beds, we are more than ready for a second spike, as it stands. Remember we cannot lock down forever and we need to come out, which brings me on to the Flu season.
Why do we have a flu season? The main reason we have a Flu season is because as it gets cooler people coop up and spend more time in close proximity, the population becomes denser and therefor it’s easier for a virus to travel, also people tend to eat less fruit and veg and see less sunlight and our natural defences are slightly depleted, sound familiar?
The longer we stay locked down, the closer we will be to the next Flu season, so essentially you will be hitting a second spike as people begin to mix, late summer early Autumn which will be just as the next Flu seasons hits, so a second spike will lead nicely into a third and if you want to overwhelm the NHS then this is the exact way to do it.
Lastly why are so many elderly people dying of COVID, well it’s largely down to the paranoia that people are displaying on platforms like facebook. GP’s are not assessing elderly patients face to face, they are not being taken to hospital or they are terrified to go to hospital incase they get COVID, so they stay at home until it’s too late.
Strokes are down up to 70%, where have these patient gone? MI’s down 50%, Hospital attendances down 90%, where are all the falls?? But why do they all have COVID signs?
Well anyone who has worked with elderly patients, and I suspect lots of you have, will know there are multiple reasons an elderly person can develop a pneumonia (COVID symptoms). They might fall and be in pain therefore not fully expand their lungs and develop atelectasis and then pneumonia.
They may have reduced mobility, due to quarantine, and become constipated and this may push up on the diaphragm and cause atelectasis or cause them to vomit and aspirate leading to pneumonia.They may develop urinary retention and UTI, secondary to constipation, and become bed bound, causing more time in a prone position and develop a basal collapse of the lungs and again atelectasis and pneumonia. The fact that they have reduced mobility may even mean they spend more time in bed or just sitting, which again is enough to cause chest infection/pneumonia.
Strokes may not present (they aren’t) and develop swallow issues and aspirate leading to pneumonia, MIs may present late and develop pulmonary oedema with a secondary infection again leading to pneumonia, and many may have a cold or a Flu (which is down 95%) and go on to develop a pneumonia.
All of the above reasons would cause a patient to have COVID symptoms and will kill elderly patients if not treated, and all of them are enough to be classed as a COVID death currently. And this is why so many nursing homes are being decimated, it’s as much through fear as it is through COVID.
Before you campaign and sign petitions to lock yourselves and your family away, remember also that lock down has consequences.
The first 2 reasons are clear above, the elderly will become frail, not be treated and die in their thousands, and thousands of people will not attend A&E at all, or until it’s too late and again will die. This is before you factor in the 60 thousand cancer patients that will lose their lives because of missed screening or delayed operations. And then there is the burden on mental health services and the deaths caused by domestic abuse or suicide. And that’s before the biggest killer by far which will be austerity.
We are heading for the biggest recession in 300 years, the last one has cost an estimated 500000 lives, why will this one be any different? And even with the lock down measures prolonged, will we have saved any lives any way, as our frail residents face a second and third spike in quick succession.
I understand that you my be scared and its overwhelming being constantly bombarded with negativity and fear, but before you completely isolate yourselves and fall out with loved ones and friends, ask yourself is lockdown still working, and what are the potential benefits of staying locked down versus, carrying on with some semblance of a normal life?”
Excellent post. (I was born in Broadgreen Hospital.
).
My wife worked at Broadgreen as doctor another lifetime ago.
I can’t verify this, will keep looking, it’s a very good coherent post.
jesus bro i was reading your post and then you hit me with a list of things that happen to you if you get old. It sounds horrific, that’s why i choose to believe that i can live forever as long as i can keep riding motorcycles so you’ll see why this lockdown is a serious threat to my immortality
Not if, but when and how. If we make it to real old age, we just have to hope the “old man’s friend” gets us out quickly:
https://pneumonia.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41479-018-0052-7
THIS is the person we should be applauding each Thursday !!
Thanks so much Toby for taking your time to share everyday. Reading your articles daily has kept me sane.
Fell down a rabbit hole via YouTube and found this, an Italian MP challenging the stats and questioning why even deaths from cancer, heart disease, etc has been listed as Corona virus. Apologies if this has already been posted on this website:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1-_1yQMT1A&feature=youtu.be
I recently checked what the uptake was for the flu vaccine in the UK – off the top of my head 70% of older folks and just 48% of vulnerable people. My GP surgery actually calls people up to tell them to come in.
If people who need this can’t be bothered then why would they get the CV vaccine? I think this is why the media is suddenly touting that it would have to be mandatory because you can lead a horse to water…
I think I read somewhere that one of the lowest uptakes for the flu jab is among healthcare workers, including doctors and nurses
They’ve probably noticed that they still get the flu anyway, if not more than others. It’s a curious practice but like any time-honoured habit will take a while to go away.
I know three mums who all work in different wards in our local hospital. All three have never had the flu vaccine, one doesn’t even let her two daughters get it at school.
Personally I’d take the flu vaccine if they went to a skin patch microneedle delivry method rather than those horrid syringes, I’m not eligible to get the flu vaccine free and I’d be willing to pay if only they’d give up on nasty metal needles and go to a pain free delivery method.
What happened with Simon Dolan’s legal challenge? I thought the Gov had to respond by the 12th? Given I’ve lost all concept of time, and don’t know what day of the week it is, I’ve just noticed it’s the 14th. I also think it’s Wednesday, but I might be wrong.
They asked for a week’s delay. Probably getting the Sage papers in order…
Yes I know, and Simon’s team refused, just checked his twitter, tomorrow latest for a response.
Great can’t wait to hear. According to James Delingpole’s podcast with him he got hold of the Sage docs that showed the media were complicit in ‘persuading’ the public to get scared. Certainly worked.
I donated a small amount and so get updates by e-mail. Just received an update that says the government has replied with a 13 page response which will take his legal team a day or so to read and respond to. However, the government has refused to release the minutes of the SAGE meetings.
I’m not surprised. All that stuff about using psychological persuasion etc…playing with our mental health…
Fairly sure someone posted SAGE minutes here a few days ago. From March, they were.
We need just ONE prominent publication to publish those papers. Just ONE.
This is nonsense. I can’t tell if it was meant as a joke or not, but I can’t wait to see equally stupid ideas in this country.
German cafe created social distancing hats for customers:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/world/german-cafe-social-distancing-hats-a4440946.html%3Famp
That’s almost as bad as them hats they made them kids wear in China. I suppose at least adults can give some informed consent to this rubbish but if it comes to this in the UK I will simply not bother and the business will lose my custom. This is what worries me most about this rubbish – people just won’t bother with the hassle.
That’s actually very funny!
That is just ridiculous..
Surely, this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen… Now, say you shared that on that bastion of reasonable thought like facebook (arf!!) without any comment, or merely ‘Good idea for UK?’ … so as to not give away what side you would be on, I just wonder how many of the sheep will bite and reveal themselves and how many would not be able to resist a ‘ROFL’, ‘PMSL’ or similar emoji.
As far as I understood, they did that as a joke. And got slammed for it by some people on FB and / or Twitter (I am not sure) for making inappropriate jokes of such a serious situation…
There is a big difference between a vaccine which is *available* for those who want to have it and a vaccine that is pretty much compulsory, ie there is a penalty of not being able to work, travel or socialise if you should ‘choose’ to refuse. We are not currently forced to have a flu vaccination and the latest research suggests Covid-19 is not so dangerous as to warrant making vaccination against it being mandatory.
But the travel ban will make it difficult for many. I used to travel long haul twice a year but I’m now looking at moving to another country and staying put. People like Djokovic may no longer come to Wimbledon unless they do some kind of deal (he could probably arrange it.). Plus why is there any guarantee of immunity? The flu vax doesn’t have it (around 29% last year) and they’ve never found an effective vaccine for the common cold and that’s a coronavirus. The whole thing just doesn’t sound right.
Toby, please write that book about this. The world need to know how it was in real.
Vaccines are generally pretty safe, and have typically been the best public health measure in history after proper sewerage systems. And if a covid-19 vaccine is ever developed I’ll probably get it, eventually, the virus is typically mild so no real rush. I’ll probably get it, unless they make it mandatory. Then i won’t. I’m strongly pro-vaccine but the infrastructure of state control necessary to run a mandatory vaccination programme is too damaging to ever be allowed. If governments want us to take sensible steps to get this virus eradicated then they can damn well make them our choice.
Interesting. Do you check the ingredients, the side effects and the success rate of the vaccine before getting it? The success rate of the flu vaccine last year was 17%.
I was having a think last night before I went to bed about these Spanish serology results that have appeared in the media (they were discussed here a bit on the previous page). There was a little bit of excitement from lockdown lovers on Twitter who went and calculated their own IFR statistics that were suitably apocalyptic. I did some further research on this today and from the look of it, it seems these crude IFR’s don’t account for demographics or time of collection. If you try and do this, the IFR comes right down to something more sensible. It did set me thinking as to why serology results might be so low from a country so badly affected. The only things I can think of, is either the infection fatality rate assumed by Ferguson et al is completely wrong, or there is something about the R0 or susceptibility of the general population that is poorly understood. A few on here correctly point out that antibodies might be poorly expressed or the T-cells may sort the virus out. I was curious about this to the point I asked a colleague during a webcall who is an expert on antibodies. She pointed out that if the immune response is poor, many of these antibody titrations might not pick them up, especially if this is being done in some mass analysis pipeline…
Interesting, thanks. Clearly things don’t add up yet, and it’s hard to know where the gaps are to complete the puzzle.
The one thing I’m pretty confident about is that the (relatively) apocalyptic scenarios used to justify lockdown simply aren’t plausible, because if the virus worked that way, somewhere around the world we’d have seen a nation genuinely overwhelmed by now, rather than the odd city or region presumably with particular vulnerabilities getting into moderate difficulties, like New York.
The opportunity to see you and others here discussing these issues and possible interpretations etc is great for helping us tease out the possibilities.
Do you have any links for the research you mention re adjustments to the crude IFRs?
I’m hoping that this is the type of language that will appeal to the common sense of some of the corona panickers.
https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/there-is-no-rulebook-for-a-pandemic-we-must-adapt-our-habits-a4440656.html
”Meanwhile, the rest of us must break out of our defensive crouch and rediscover the sense of personal responsibility that is the best regulator of human behaviour. There aren’t any laws that require us to say “please” and “thank you”, to give up our seats to older people and pregnant mothers, or to wait patiently in line. We do it because it’s customary, because our parents told us to do it when we were children, and because, when we look around, we see that almost everyone else does it too.”
I have come to realise that the only person who can get us out of this situation is the man who got us into it.
I have therefore drafted a letter for him to call and end to the lockdown. (below)
I sincerely hope he can find time in between his ‘extra curricular activities’ to sign and forward it.
Fellow Countrymen,
I come before you humbly and honestly in the hope that I may clear my soul of the errors that I have made, remedy my mistakes and save my country.
I write to sincerely apologise for presenting my research document regarding this present Coronavirus outbreak to the Prime Minister and his team which alarmed them and caused unnecceasry panic which has led to this lockdown of your goodselves with the associated very serious long term negative effects on your future wellbeing , the economy, your education, and the knock on effects, not just in the UK, but in many other parts of this beautiful planet we inhabit where many millions now find themselves in abject poverty.
I admit that I used an outdated and unverified computer model which I wrote myself some 15 years ago and I fully believed the model to be accurate. Recently though, I have allowed my peers to review it and they have found that there are many flaws in the code. I also freely admit that I not only estimated but actually guessed some of the inputs I fed into my model. The net result of this is that my report overestimated the potential death toll from this virus 10X, (or in my language, a full order of magnitude).
II have also encouraged our esteemed leadership to ‘follow the science’ but I do now realise that I was not being a Scientist. I was not using my skills in Physics, which is a real science, where an error in calculation of an order of magnitude would make me a laughing stock. Instead I was playing at being a bit of a statistician with a bit of crystal ball gazing thrown in.
I also need to declare honestly that my projects at Imperial along with some of my own research has been heavily funded by the Pharmacetical Industry and their wealthy investors which of course creates a possible conflict of interest for me which I should have identified earlier and therefore recused myself from this project altogether.
Having seen the errors of my ways and the catastrophic effects it is having I now humbly retract my report and its contents.
I beg forgiveness of you and our Prime Minister and hereby request that he immediately end the lockdown along with any and all social distancing, mask wearing, and other silly personal restrictions.
Prime Minister, I beg you to give back the freedoms which our countrymen have fought for over the centuries and have now been deprived of in these short few weeks.
Yours Sincerely,
Absolutely right about “following the science”.
“Follow the science” would actually mean publishing and sharing. Sharing your work and having other people critique and improve it. Other scientists try to test your methods, and ensure that conclusions follow from observations and prior knowledge. It seems that we still don’t have the original evidence/code from the 500K deaths model.
Boris Canute Johnson will continue to use the 500K figure again and again, unless it is discredited. He will try to show that although we’ve been driven over a cliff, we should be thankful as the cliff could a been a bit higher!
This site makes me feel a bit better, as it can feel like I’m the only one in the world with these views.
Never should a PM have confined ALL British people in their homes, instructing police offers to enforce the most dystopian restrictions seen in modern history. Never should people have had their freedom to worship, protest, work removed on the nod of a narrow group of scientists. Never should families have been separated for weeks on end, not even being told for how long. Never should a PM have frightened and panicked the public into cowering in their homes, afraid to live their lives, over an illness from which most recover from within 1-2 weeks. Never should a PM have told us the NHS would collapse, only to leave wards empty. Never should the police have harassed the homeless, mothers with children, people wanting to sit on their common land. Never should children have been scared to go to schools, and their teachers unwilling to teach them.
Boris King Canute has damaged our country trying to hold back the tide. His government has made us less safe, less free, more afraid, more indebted.
This is a total failure. It must not be forgotten.
Your words are succinct and powerful, thanks.
Wish there was a recommend twice or thrice button.
King Canute is a great comparison.
I voted for this lot.
I was scared that Corbyn was an extreme leader, obsessed with the NHS, who would trash civil liberties and wreck the economy. I thought he was the kind of person to start randomly banning things for political favour, like petrol cars and straws.
Johnson on the hand – far more sensible. He would standup to China- really check out Huawei, he would question HS2 and make sure lots of money would be spent – but properly.
The only thing Johnson has accomplished – is that he’s given us something other than Brexit to stress about!
This is from today’s Telegraph:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/14/london-has-just-24-new-coronavirus-cases-day/
“Fewer than 24 people are catching coronavirus each day in London, new modelling suggests, with forecasts predicting the virus could be wiped out in the capital within a fortnight.
Analysis by Public Health England and Cambridge University calculates that the “R” reproduction rate has fallen to 0.4 in London, with the number of new cases halving every 3.5 days.
If cases continue to decrease at the current rate, the virus will be virtually eliminated in the capital by the end of the month, raising questions about whether the strict lockdown measures would need to continue.
On March 23, at the peak of contagion when lockdown was announced, 213,000 people a day caught the virus in London, according to the research.”
Glad to see Cambridge finally wading in there.
Please be a bastion of sense Cam. Please. Don’t let Oxford take all the credit.
((But how the hell do they KNOW? Seriously? How can they possibly know who is getting infected and who isn’t?!)
They obviously don’t know that, but needed to figure out a way to get everyone back to work, right?
Farinances: “new modelling suggests”
They don’t know, but then neither did Neil Ferguson, and everyone went into complete panic over his modelling, so it’ll be interesting to see if anyone takes any notice of this announcement.
Maybe this shouldn’t be surprising, given the graph for “Daily number of lab-confirmed cases in England by specimen date” at https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ . Perhaps England will follow Prof Ben-Isreal’s 70-day theory for the duration of the outbreak. Maybe someone could look at the numbers in more detail (I don’t have time with 2 toddlers to look after!)
I wonder what ‚distraction’ the government will come up with to get us out of this mess?
Toby, you write “Even though socialising inside your home is verboten”, why is this?
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) states:
‘During the emergency period, no person may participate in a gathering in a public place of more than two people’
So no problem socialising at home (though they might have to justify the journey)
The police seem to have had no difficulty breaking up parties at people’s homes, so it seems they are prepared to do this anyway. Either they are playing fast and loose with the “public place” definition or they are using the argument that the visitors are outside their own homes without “reasonable excuse”, or there’s some other regulation available to them.
“As the Home Office starts to share the government’s new messages, the College of Policing has issued new guidance [PDF] for officers on the latest changes to the lockdown regulations starting today in England (similar guidance for Wales [PDF] was issued on Monday). The guidelines urge officers to only enforce what is written in the law, adding that “Government guidance is not enforceable; for example, two-metre distancing, avoiding public transport, or the wearing of face coverings in enclosed spaces”. However, both Scotland and Wales continue to enforce social distancing in businesses.
In an interview for Sky News, the chair of the National Police Chiefs Council Martin Hewitt reiterated that “it is not a policing role to enforce the 2m social distancing.” There has been widespread coverage of how the new rules mean the police’s “hands are tied” over lockdown fines, as if restricting the ability of the police to arbitrarily issue fixed penalty notices whenever they want is anything other than a positive development.”
College have a Supreme Court challenge over their hate crime guidelines in the offing, see up thread. The judge upheld the complaint against the force that enthusiastically implemented the guidelines, reprimanding them saying they were like the ‘gestapo and the stasi’ but denied the challenge of the guidelines itself, but did grant an appeal in the supreme court (ie he kicked it up the food chain). I think the college are a bit twitchy and know lockdown is damaging community relations, and are preparing to lose on the hate crime stuff. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/miller-v-college-of-police-judgment.pdf
The regulations still say that you cannot “leave or be outside” your home without “reasonable excuse”, so it’s absolutely open to the police to arrest any visitors to someone’s house on that basis.
6.—(1) During the emergency period, no person may leave [F8or be outside of] the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350
Since socialising is not one of the itemised reasonable excuses, as far as I can tell it’s up to a court to decide in a particular case if the person in question had a “reasonable excuse”. I suspect in the current climate most magistrates would not accept “visiting friends” as such (though that might change). So in practice you’d have to make up some excuse that might persuade the court.
Of course, all this is no great benefit if you’ve already had your friend’s house trashed by the police in the course of the arresting process and had to go through the unpleasant business of challenging your fines in court.
This kind of uncertainty is, of course, exactly why no government should be passing laws of this kind.
This is true but I think these people cooperated too much.
The police can’t enter your property without a search warrant – unless the offence they suspect is being commited can be tried in a crown court. So, if I were in that situation, I would simply refuse entry.
It would then be for THEM to prove there was no reasonable excuse if they chose to talk to people leaving a property who would be under no obligation to speak to the police.
I’m with you all the way, sean.
But only fair to point out that consequences can include a smashed door frame, assorted bruises and scratches, and a totally fabricated ‘crown court charge’ as well.
This is true – but this is another unfairness in how the police go about their business. I saw, like everyone else, the heavy handed, aggressive approach they persued in parks full of BAME people.
I was in Battersea park and the police were trying to move people on but, confronted with white middle class people who knew their rights, could do nothing and were politely told to piss off.
Sorry officer I can’t speak to you without my lawyer etc
Not disagreeing but it takes some confidence in the law as well as knowledge to stand up to the police in these situations, quite apart from the fact that they would easily get a warrant atm if there were an obvious big party going on. Less likely if it’s just a couple of friends round for a cup of tea, obviously…
Does it specify about members of your own household and another household? This is important because the college of policing have issued new guidelines (they have a role like the EHRC does with equality law, in that they issue guidance to forces on how to interpret and apply the law) telling them only to enforce what the law actually says (ie most of lockdown in unenforceable and cannot be policed).
No it specifically states the regulations only apply to public places…
Personally I’m not taking any vaccine for any seasonal disease ever again.
Never benefitted me- in fact I’m almost convinced it probably helped make me ill.
I’m all for one time only vaccines for the likes of smallpox, TB, diptheria etc. because lifetime immunity is grand.
Yearly injections that don’t seem to work aren’t.
I used to be pro vaccine until a family member was injured, then I looked beyond the bullshit to the actual studies. The damage can take a long time to appear. Neurological damage in children has skyrocketed over the past 20-30 years and dementia is going through the roof. But that could also be caused by other toxins and pollutants, so nobody knows for sure. Interestingly, the Hamish population which does not vaccinate does not have the same illnesses in their community. Has anywone researched this? Of course not.
Amish. I now have a happy meme in my head of unvaccinated Scots everywhere.
Oops sorry! Good for a laugh though…!:)
“As the Home Office starts to share the government’s new messages, the College of Policing has issued new guidance [PDF] for officers on the latest changes to the lockdown regulations starting today in England (similar guidance for Wales [PDF] was issued on Monday). The guidelines urge officers to only enforce what is written in the law, adding that “Government guidance is not enforceable; for example, two-metre distancing, avoiding public transport, or the wearing of face coverings in enclosed spaces”. However, both Scotland and Wales continue to enforce social distancing in businesses.
In an interview for Sky News, the chair of the National Police Chiefs Council Martin Hewitt reiterated that “it is not a policing role to enforce the 2m social distancing.” There has been widespread coverage of how the new rules mean the police’s “hands are tied” over lockdown fines, as if restricting the ability of the police to arbitrarily issue fixed penalty notices whenever they want is anything other than a positive development.”
VICTORY!
https://policing-the-corona-state.blog/2020/05/14/13-14-may-update/
(sorry guys I’m actually obsessed with this blog. Can you tell I’m not a fan of the police?)
New guidance PDF (I’m genning up before the protest): https://policingthecoronastate.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/health-protection-regulations-amendments-england-changes-130520.pdf
I *DESPISE* the use of the phrase ‘reasonable excuse’. It implies guilt from the off and straight away criminalises the private citizen for existing in….space.
College of policing had a warning over Hate Crime policing (and the insanity of lumping genuine, awful racists threats and abuse, in with hurting the feelings of cross dressers, or knowing where babies come from) by Harry Miller at JR. It was the College’s guidelines that caused the issue. Harry won his case against the police force, but the Judge upheld the College’s guidelines, Harry is appealing, and the judge granted him permission to go straight to the Supreme Court. They got a hammering in the press, I suspect they are a bit twitchy.
“The judge has granted Mr Miller permission to appeal against his ruling on the lawfulness of the College of Police’s guidance.
Ian Wise QC, representing Mr Miller, asked the court to grant a “leapfrog” certificate to allow the case to go straight to the Supreme Court.
Jonathan Auburn, for the College of Police, agreed that the case was suitable to go directly to the UK’s highest court.
Mr Justice Knowles granted permission for the case to “leapfrog” to the Supreme Court, subject to that court’s permission.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/14/police-compared-stasi-gestapo-judge-rules-interfered-freedom/
I’m glad there are some brave people pushing back. It takes a lot of courage.
Me too, Hate Crime legislation came about due to the disgusting racism of the police in the Stephen Lawrence case, and the fact they were clearly incapable of being trusted to police themselves. It’s turned into a travesty, which is a shame, as with lots of things the intentions were good (to protect people from the police’s own prejudice and corruption). The Miller case was very significant legally, and the college will be very aware of the words the judge used, ‘gestapo’ and ‘stasi’, when reprimanding the force that enthusiastically followed their guidelines.
The whole concept of “hate crime” is a disgusting discriminatory abuse, and the concept of “hate speech” is likewise a crime against the whole notion of free expression. It’s ironic that particular failings of parts of the police was used to give the police in general massive new powers to interfere in everyone’s lives. Which, surprise surprise, were promptly abused.
If you abuse, threaten or assault someone it should be left to the judge in the particular case to assess your motivation if and when you have been convicted as a potential aggravating factor, and it certainly should not vary based on whether motive is politically incorrect or your target is a member of a specially protected “minority”. And “hate speech” is just free speech that powerful people don’t want to be allowed. It might well be very unpleasant but that’s true of plenty of opinions that don’t get lumped in with “hate speech”.
These ideas are poisons that have crept in from the politically correct left to promote particular agendas and protect them from effective criticism, and they have been very effective at delegitimising many perfectly legitimate political opinions, and making it difficult and dangerous to argue for them in practice.
The laws need to be struck off wholesale.
The “anti- vaxxers” appear to be emerging in the media as the most dangerous threat to society. For those planning to attend this weekend’s lockdown protests, prepare to labelled as deranged anti- vaxxers, with serious hygiene issues. There was a laughable article in the New York Times the other day, titled “Get Ready for a Vaccine Information War.”
It stated “ The coming Covid-19 vaccine is likely to be fast-tracked through the testing and approval process. It may not go through years of clinical trials and careful studies of possible long-term side effects, the way other drugs do. That could create an opening for anti-vaccine activists to claim that it is untested and dangerous, and to spin reasonable concerns about the vaccine into widespread, unfounded fears about its safety.
They are savvy media manipulators, effective communicators and …I’m worried that they will be unusually effective in sowing doubts about a Covid-19 vaccine”.
I commented that yes, they are persuasive because so many of them are doctors, scientists and lawyers.
In other words: “We’re rushing through an unproven vaccine, we don’t know if it will be effective or have serious side effects, but anyone who objects to receiving it is a nutcase.”
Spot on. Heaven forbid anyone should be able to make up their own mind.
They are so sneaky sometimes –
“It may not go through years of clinical trials and careful studies of possible long-term side effects, the way other drugs do.”.
Yep, other drugs do. Vaccines not so much !
Vaccines do have side effects that can disable or kill. The International Memorial for Vaccine Victims allows you to search records on multiple fields, including by Vaccine, by Vaccine Reaction, by U.S. State, by Country, or by Last Name of the vaccine victim (if the last name is included on the posting). https://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Memorial/Search-Memorial.aspx
Always check the ingredients and side effects of any vaccine/drug before you take it.
Staff at the local pharmacy are all wearing masks, have a plastic counter barrier in place and queueing markers on the floor for customers.
One person only to enter.
When I asked the duty pharmacist about the need for masks, he explained that when dispensing, the staff were unable too serve the 2m rule.
Surely the masks caused discomfort, especially for those like him, who wear glasses.
Yes, he said, they cause soreness, heat, build up of moisture which obscures specs and ability to see properly.
What a farce this is; an entirely arbitrary rule which has had a drastic effect on working conditions for essential professionals like pharmacists and their assistants.
Added to this, the significant extra costs: masks, glass barrier, floor markings etc.
A friend of mine in Grenoble tells me that since we have been let out of our houses again she always wears a mask when she goes shopping. She isn’t afraid for herself, but she believes that if her mask can save even one life then it is worth it. She seems to think her very breath might be poisonous. She is originally from Alsace which was one of the “hot-spots” in France after a whole lot of people were infected at an evangelical meeting and about seventeen died. I don’t know how I would find out how many evangelicals die of respiratory diseases each year. Those who turn to faith-healing often have chronic illness such as diabetes. I also know for a fact that while pictures of hospitals submerged by patients on ventilators were being shown in the news, private hospitals down the road, which had made beds available, were not being asked to help. I asked my friend if she knew how many people had died in France from respiratory illness in 2017. She had no idea – maybe 5000? No, 40,000. It’s because it doesn’t occur to most people to look up statistics that governments can get away with this farce.
I think the “if it saves one life its worth it” view has to be one of the most if not THE most damaging phrase over the last 25-30 years. Not only has it led to putting off men from entering the teaching profession or volunteering with organisations such as the Scouts among others but now it is being used to attempt to control us and take our freedoms away.
And yes, masks not only result in soreness, heat and build up of moisture but can also cause breathing problems as well as the possibility of inhaling the fibres shed by the mask that could be harmful.
I’ve just seen one of the elderly regulars at the supermarket, swathed as usual , in his grubby scarf.
Neurotic behaviour will last long after this madness has finally disssipated.
Headline from the Telegraph Online this morning:
“London has just 24 new Coronavirus cases a day – capital’s lockdown questioned as Public Health England models suggest virus will be wiped out in June”
So – pretty much what many epidemiologists have been saying anyway then? I am smelling more huge rats here.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/14/london-has-just-24-new-coronavirus-cases-day/
Also from the same article:
Dr Adrian Heald, of Manchester university, said: “This gives us all a glimmer of hope that there may be light at the end of the tunnel. The more people exposed to this or any virus, the less easy it is for further transmission.”
End the lockdown then! Precisely what Professor Giesecke in Sweden has said all along.
If you recall Professor Gupta (Oxford) was the one high-profile standout who was criticising the Imperial model, implying that we were well on our way to herd immunity. It did not take long for her views to be shut down by the governing elite, including other ‘scientists’ and former scientific advisers with links to the funding bandwagon, effectively trashing her reputation (again – if you read the back story). It is more than smelly rats. It is that dreadful combination of arrogance and ignorance – and on steroids.
Unfortunately and inevitably, Theresa Villiers (Ex cabinet minister) claimed this as evidence that the lockdown worked.
Former cabinet member says it shows ‘lockdown measures have been working.’ Knut Wittowski would say this was **&%%**. The peak was around April 8th so no need to lockdown. Disingenuous methinks.
Great article, all governments should be forced to comment on it.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/we-could-open-up-again-and-forget-the-whole-thing/
“What I am talking about is not hindsight. The epidemics in Wuhan and South Korea were over in mid-March. In March, I submitted a paper to medRxiv, summarising all of that.”
The switched-on people knew this was a “spook” – to use Sucharit Bhakdi’s word – from the outset.
It should be obvious to everyone by now, including the Corona Cowards, that Johnson and governments all over the world are desperately trying to dig themselves out of a hole without admitting that they got it wrong. In less enlightened times they would have met a traditional traitor’s end – now they must be removed from public office, never to return.
Or a mass trial at the Hague, social distanced of course.
Excellent summary of what has gone on. Will governments listen to this – No – they have too much to lose.
Sums it all up beautifully. I will be sending this article to everyone I know, even if I do get a lot of flack for it!
Me too, the people I know will discount it because it’s Spiked (and I understand why), I just wish there were more mainstream outlets talking to people like Prof W.
Get the T-shirts printed: “It was not a model”
The pun would be better if the t shirt just said ‘not a model’
Brilliant. I hope the politicos at Westminster, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast read this, reflect and finally have the courage and maturity to admit that errors have been made.
“The UK and Belarus are latecomers”
Uh oh…
My boyfriend is a card-carrying member of the Conservative party. He has never been a fan of the Johnson administration (he voted for Hunt in the leadership election), even before this debacle. He disliked how moderates/Remain-supporting MPs were purged from the party in order to make it ideologically pure. Despite this, he always said that he’d vote Conservative as a matter of principle and he wanted to keep voting for the party to ensure it kept its broad church of supporters.
Last night he told me that unless there’s a leadership change in the Tory party, or they somehow manage to miraculously fix the economy after this massive act of self-harm, he probably won’t vote in the next election. He said he couldn’t ever bring himself to vote Labour, and that a vote for any other party is a wasted vote, but he has been bitterly disappointed with the Tories’ response to this crisis.
He is currently at university, hard-working and wanting a career in the legal profession and the way he sees it is that the party he trusted to be fiscally responsible has pissed his future up the wall.
What a waste this is Poppy; I worry more about the effect all this is having on the lives of young people like you and your boyfriend than the endless shrieking about fatalities and the need for continued house arrests.
Your future prospects are being compromised by this idiocy.
Herd immunity or herd idiocy.
Indeed, every day I hold out hope and try and be optimistic that we might see a big economic bounceback in 2021. If the governments dialled back the fear and left everyone to their own devices, I have no doubt that people would soon come round, go out spending money, and embrace (the old) normality once again. However, these ludicrous social distancing measures and the snail’s pace at which the government is lifting lockdown will stifle any potential economic recovery.
Many businesses get the bulk of their trade during certain times of the year while other periods are quiet. What makes the lockdown damaging for businesses is being unable to operate during what would normally be their busiest periods and if they are allowed to re-open, they may be in their quieter periods. My part of the country is heavily dependent on tourism and the bulk of the visitors come in the summer months and businesses such as hotels, campsites and restaurants depend on the summer trade as not many visitors come in the winter. If business can’t open until after summer, they will have missed the crucial summer trade to compensate for the quieter winter months. I suspect this will kill a lot of tourist dependent businesses.
A major factor which will kill businesses is people not going back to old habits. For instance, people used to drinking at home will not use pubs again.
Going to the pub is now a patriotic duty.
Totally agree Poppy & Wendy. I’ve voted Tory for 30 years and frankly would have voted for a badger if it was dressed in blue. No more. Just had a quick look at the comments on AOL about the possible protests this weekend and it is proper scary stuff. I am horrified at the media and the government for stirring the public up into a terrified frenzy and thank god for Toby and this website to keep me vaguely sane!
Panic is manic, and still in the ascendant, unfortunately.
I share his pain. As a small “l” libertarian since 1983 I’ve always voted Tory as the least worst option. Unless and until we have a properly constituted “Leave Me the F*** Alone” party I can’t ever see me setting foot in a polling station again.
Has he written to his MP to say that? On another contentious matter that put my MP in a jam he said to me once, ‘heavy post bag means I can do something’.
Imagine being told after the GE in December that just 4 months later hard core lifelong Labour voters would be sharing Tory Government slogans and propaganda on their social media pages. I’m Labour but there’s no speaking to them- they’re arguably the most unreasonable of the lot.
I’m finding the same thing, they all have one thing in common, they’re posh. They’re now arguing against the opening of schools as there’s no evidence that children don’t infect adults. Elf and Safety at work etc etc.
I have tried asking what they think’s happening with low income single mums stacking their shelves in Waitrose, whose kids have been in school from the beginning. Nothing.
I ask them about the impact of lockdown on vulnerable children, as only 5% of kids on the child protection register are being checked, domestic violence (of which 90% is witness by kids) has tripled, ditto reports of child sex abuse, and child food poverty has quadrupled. Nothing.
I’ve asked them about the attainment gap between rich kids and poor kids, which is now a gulf, and pretty much accurately predicts the trajectory of your entire life, including health and economic outcomes. Nothing.
I ask them about the impact of lockdown, job losses, poverty, mental health, suicide, violence, health outcomes. Nothing.
I ask why they are clapping the NHS, since we’re at about 50% capacity and some staff are on short time working due to lack of patients. They say they are clapping all those working class women who clean, and care, and do the grunt jobs.
I’d have a more intelligent, nuanced, discussion with a grip on material analysis with a Jehovah’s Witness.
I get a bit irritated. I get told to ‘go and vote Tory’.
This is exactly what happened to those of us who ‘came out’ as Leave supporters back in the day.
No more on that, but this is another class signifier in many areas, although somewhat different up here ,as the divide lies mainly between SNP supporters and others: we others are a mixed group of social classes, educational standards, support for the union etc, but defying the SNP can be hazardous!
Best to do it cautiously.
I’ve questioned the wisdom of wearing masks a couple of times, but haven’t managed yet, to receive any support for going maskless.
However, none of the cheerful and hard working staff in our supermarket are wearing them.
I was passionately remain (I was living in the EU at the time of the vote, I saw how much the country I was in loved the British and didn’t want us to leave) but I completely agree that the way that Remain activists spoke to and about Leave voters was absolutely disgusting, and in the end is why I am now agnostic on Brexit, there’s some lines you don’t cross, calling working class people ‘Sun Addled Serfs’ and ‘Gammon’, instead of winning the argument, is my line.
As for posh lefties, I don’t think I’ve been so angry in my life. I’ve worked in the voluntary sector for twenty years, I’m now quite a senior consultant, my niche is the social and health outcomes of economic deprivation. Poverty affects everything from how long you live, your chance of getting cancer, how likely your baby is to die, it means you are 10 times more likely to be mentally ill, end up in prison, get excluded from school (50% of young offenders were excluded from school, and your life goes down the toilet from there), poverty is the biggest risk factor for about every single shitty outcome you can think of. They don’t care.
Bec I’d just like to say I’m glad I found this site if only for your comments. You give me hope that the left- the GENUINE left- Still exists and that there are good people – GENUINELY good people- who can see what is going on with the fake left (I call them the fake left because…. Well You know what I think). Anyway thanks for restoring some faith in me. Hopefully there are loads more people like you.
Thanks! I dunno, Brexit aftermath, Corbyn, the gender wars, the election blow up, and now this has left me feeling politically homeless. I know I CARE, and I know want people to have a shot at a decent life, and there are so many things wrong that we could fix, quite easily. I am now in serious doubt about who can and how we do that. Lockdown is now identity politics, and it’ll be our undoing. God knows how we fix it. It’s the moral dishonesty and lack of integrity that is eating me up, I am so angry.
But thank you. I’m glad I found this site too, and I am trying to be receptive to listening to differing perspectives.
Yes to fake left, they’re tourists, it’s a game, they’re enjoying themselves.
I absolutely agree with you BecJT: Leave supporters like me viewed with increasing disgust and resentment ,the patronising tropes of the chattering classes, and now we see them once more,hiding behind virtue signalling and pious posturing and concern for the ‘vulnerable’ -( this word is being deployed all too frequently).
My declared support for Leave was met ,variously, with embarassed silence, disdain and hostility but I’ve indulged in my share of questioning assumed opinions in return.
Volunteering at the food bank revealed some stark facts: people doing the sort of work ‘favoured’ by the chatterati: care assistants, security guards, shop workers, and many others who suddenly found themselves adrift without means of subsistence.
Some of the stories were heart breaking and unforgettable.
Poverty is endemic in my small town,as in many others. There are few opportunities for young people, unless,as you rightly point out, they come from affluent families with the associated connections and influence.
So, beliefs and commitments now make left/right largely irrelevant as we face this descent into craven compliance matched by conspicuous compassion-part of the emotathon into which are leaders wish to trap us-and irrational pack behaviour.
Apparently, under the Blair Brown years, the Labour party commissioned a load of research from the red wall now tory / brexit seats. It was so terrifying, they put it in a drawer and decided to never speak of it again. I totally accept and respect you have cogent argument for wanting to leave, for me I’m not sure we’ve quite untangled what went on there, I personally don’t trust a bunch of Etonian neoliberal no deal wingnuts to do what’s best for those communities, but what is clear is there is a massive amount of anger, alienation, frustration and yearning for things to get better. If we don’t start listening, I think woe betide us. When ex coal miners queue in the rain to vote Tory, something very big is happening. I watched in despair as those people were then mocked by posh people as ‘class traitors’.
I agree also that what we need is solutions, many people have absolutely no idea how people actually live. My cousin stuck it out as an NQ teacher (career change in mid life) in a really rough, deprived corner of the W Mids for two years before she couldn’t take it any more. Her department (not the school, the department) had a washing machine and tumble drier, bought with the staff’s own money, ditto spare uniforms, PE kit and underwear. On the quiet poor kids used to bring the wash in, staff would wash and dry it before the kids went home. They often fed them as well. These kids used to cry when it was the holidays, cos they had to sit in the dark, with no gas and no leccy, and the only place they were safe, warm and fed was in school. Lisa Nandy spent most of her air time when trying to get elected Lab leader arguing biological sex is not real, whilst in the next breath arguing for money for domestic violence shelters (although following her ‘logic’ he has no analysis for who is hitting who and why).
Not sure if I’m making any sense, but you don’t need to be left or right to know that poverty is dreadful, there’s nothing noble about it, and you don’t need a left or right analysis to know that when four million people (that’s the latest lockdown numbers) can’t feed their kids, in one of the richest countries in the world, something has gone dreadfully wrong.
But my biggest worry with lockdown is what gets sucked into this political and moral vacuum once it’s over. History would suggest it’s not good.
This is a bit off topic but it’s right up my alley interest-wise so I’m afraid I struggle not to chip in on these discussions.
I watched what you describe happening over five decades from the outside, as a right winger. This is how I interpreted what I saw. In its early existence the Labour Party succeeded by forging an alliance between hard-headed native working class interests and more doctrinaire leftist concerns (feminism, internationalism, minority interest of all sorts).
After the 1970s and the miners’ strikes there was a clear triumph of the doctrinaire issues over the native working class concerns, together with of course the decline of the old labour-heavy industries that the movement was born in. That’s why the Labour party promoted mass immigration, which diluted the bargaining power of indigenous workers, feminism which was only of real concern to half of the working class and not the ones generally who ran the trade unions, multiculturalism and homosexual issues that were generally of no particular concern to the working classes or even alienating to them, and EU internationalism that again was of no interest and often directly harmful to them.
I’m not here saying that these latter causes are necessarily not worthy in themselves (that’s a matter for other discussions elsewhere). Just that the Labour Party chose to abandon its old core working class interest support base and replace it with an expansion of the much more diverse and doctrinaire support base among “minority” interest groups.
The loss of the red wall over the particular issue of Brexit was just the culmination of a long process.
I’d concur with most of that, where I’m in doubt is whether Brexit in the hands of this current shower will make those lives any better, how we arrived at it, totally agree. And the misogyny on the left lately would truly take your breath away, they’ve never really had any use for women, other than to make the sandwiches for the revolution (or as they saying goes, we still all know who wipes arses and cleans floors).
I’m currently reading Dominic Sandbrook’s 900 page tome on the first two years of Thatcher, very illuminating, particularly what led into it.
Well we both know that being a lip-service doctrinaire feminist in no way prevents the grossest misogyny. Just look at how the Soviet Union was run.
“the first two years of Thatcher, very illuminating, particularly what led into it”
My formative years. I voted for her, on the back of growing up in candle-lit winter evenings with no power, the three day week, and gross abuses of power by trade union leaders.
Noticeable that for all their touted feminism, the Labour Party hasn’t been anywhere near putting a woman in Downing St, forty years after the Tories just went ahead and did it because she was the best man for the job (sic).
I’ve just realised, despite today’s update, we can still comment on ‘yesterday’, so you may never see this. Once again I agree. I went to school with Dominic Sandbrook, when he talks about the 80s, I was there, with him. I knew about the Unions and Thatcher, what I didn’t know, until I read this book is their ‘push it to the limit’ demands on pay, lost hundreds of thousands their jobs. Which clearly has parallels with what is happening now, ‘in order to win this argument we had to crash the economy’.
As for feminism, there is a famous saying in actual feminism, ‘men on the right think women are private property, men on the left think they are public property’ – I’ve not really tangled with men on the right, but on the left, that is definitely true, as evidenced by their whole ‘sex work is work’ with no conception that if it really was, we’d now be discussing perspex screens and PPE for prostitutes, not train drivers.
I think people who work in supermarkets must have realised that if this virus were as dangerous as we’re being told then they would already be either seriously ill or dead. They’ve been going to work every day for the past two months of lockdown, they come across lots of people, they handle money passed between from bare hands, they scan through goods that have been picked up by bare hands and breathed on. They must be asking questions.
I agree, but when arguing with posh ‘left wing’ activists, these are non people, they don’t exist, the ‘help’ are invisible and do not factor into the discussion at all (mainly because they don’t work for the NHS, therefore it doesn’t advance the ‘underfunding’ and ‘it’s a Tory plot to cull the poor’ argument).
Supermarket workers have to deal with more customers than normal as other shops are closed. I would like to know are there any instances of supermarket workers contracting coronavirus.
None here
None here.
They all seem fit as a fiddle to me and the vast majority of them don’t even wear masks and gloves!!!
The ladies at checkout in Waitrose I’ve spoken to are all very cynical. I think there are a lot more dissenters out there than we think and I’m starting to question the Yougov polls. If they’ve rigged everything else, why not that too?
Just read in the El Pais newspaper that several studies point to 99% of those infected with the coronavirus generate antibodies, and a lasting immunity. What’s more there is no possibility of reinfection. Why on earth are governments contining with this lockdown fiasco. Following the science indeed.
The amount of self inflicted damage they’ve caused, no government will ever admit they made a mistake. If they do then the floodgates will open for court action which I suspect may happen anyway once the real effects of their actions start materialising.
They’ve committed crimes against humanity. They mustn’t be allowed to just slink away from all this.
I saw this ‘Covid Hoax’ sticker on a bus stop in Highgate, London yesterday:
This gave me some hope! It’s nice to see there are people independantly organising sticker printing like this, it’s a shame it doesnt have a link to the maker’s own contact details.
“There are no viruses”
Oh dear. Much as I love that this exists I’m starting to have BoneyKnee cringe when I know every time someone sees it they are associating us with these people.
Still going to the protest/picnic though.
Yes I agree, i think that is the inevitable nature of this covid ‘counter-narrative’; it is very divided, different people independantly making different claims about how the prevailing panic/danger/lockdown narrative is false.
Some variations of the counter-narrative are more plausible and believable than others. This extreme claim that ‘there are no viruses’ does seem to stretch credulity.
But to be fair, I thought Kaufman was impressively eloquent when he explained on David Icke’s show that viruses don’t exist (as they are conventionally understood to exist)
If you want a more plausible mini “conspiracy theory”, how about this one. One of the good ways to discredit dissidents has always been to set up false front activities that make it look like they are all nutters, or “haters”, or terrorists, or other persona non grata types.
Hmm. I wonder if there’s anybody operating in this country who might be involved in that kind of thing?
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-77th-brigade-britains-information-warfare-military
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/77-brigade-is-countering-covid-misinformation/
Very true. This is something I’m on board with — there are more than enough instances in history of the authorities using ‘fringe’ groups and terrorists to tar the reputations of their legitimate critics. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the government/police are intentionally focusing enforcement of covid non-law on these difficult customers to make all lockdown critics look mental.
The press are already doing the job of PR for them it would seem. Great job there, adversarial journalists
On a perverse way, it would be great if the 70- 80%+ of the population who are pro-lockdown continue to cower away in their homes once restaurants and the rest of the hospitality sector has reopened and are forced to limit customers. It will mean those of us who want to enjoy life can get tables, get served etc. I used to despair of people on social media sharing photos of their meal and night out at the pub or restaurant, but when they reopen I’d actively encourage it! Let the scaredy cats know what they’re missing!
I’ve been saying this all along. Open up cafes, hairdressers, shops. Those people that want to stay inside let them. Means we will easy get a haircut or a table at our favourite restaurant. I am wanting to see pictures from Spain of people sitting enjoying a glass of wine in the sunshine. I’m in Scotland so I’m wanting pictures of you lucky English playing golf, going fishing etc.(Never played golf or gone fishing ever).Make people realise life is worth living, not stuck at home scared every time the door bell rings.
Sheltielass, if you see updates of English friends posting photos of enjoying their liberty then please leave supportive comments as I will do for pub and restaurant goers. The zealots and cowards need to know it is not okay to express disapproval for doing things perfectly safe and legal. If people choose to dine out they shouldn’t be tut tutted so the more support the better. The zealots will soon get the message….well maybe.
I hope so Albie. I have noticed around here more cars going about during the day now. Burger King opened up a few miles away to other day and the queue was so bad on the main road the police had to close them down. I think people think they have to publicly say lockdown is good, but secretly are as fed up with it as we are. Ach well Friday night is Chinese night in our house tonight. My partner said he feels liberated when goes out to pick it up. They happily accept cash. And never mind 2 metres. The place is that busy your crammed in shoulder to shoulder.
Congratulations!
What do you do and where are you?
Good on you. Hope trade picks up soon.
Pubs, Sheltielass, the crucial sector is the pubs !
All the best and hope business picks up over the next few days and weeks!!!
President Trump Mobilizing US Military To Vaccinate Most Of The US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=81&v=l6pNm9OCaMs&feature=emb_logo
Unfortunately Toby your cunning plan about using the sale of your house to get friends around won’t work.
The guidance states you cannot be in your house when the viewers arrive, they can only view for 15 minutes and everyone must be wearing PPE.
I Shiite you not.
No-one’s going to buy a house on a 15 minute view surely? Mind boggling.
The clapping seals are reducing in number, trust me. I never thought there were that many anyway round me. So, I deliberately did my usual bike ride to get back in to my area just before 8 just so I could see how many there were.
Tiny numbers.
It only sounds like more because they have been encouraged to bang pots and bloody pans so anyone cowering in their house thinks it’s a cacophony.
I reckon I got a few confused looks as I sped in, given that at least one of them knows that my partner works in NHS and tested positive for the virus…
So, pretty simple really, go out and speak to people. They might not be alert enough to know what’s going on, but they will know that something is fishy and will be desperate to get out of their cocoons
It was only late last night that the wife and I realised that we hadn’t heard the joyful sound of the community communing via the medium of mindless percussion, so I think you’re right.
I was at work where everyone stopped to clap (and gave me daggers for not doing so….. Even though I was fixing their computer at the time! Do I not count as a ‘key worker’
)
However I spike to my parents who said they ‘forgot’ to clap because they couldn’t hear anyone else doing it. (A perfect demo of why everyone was doing it in the first place). Progress.
I live in a fairly residential area of St Albans, there were still fireworks and the Cathedral bells tolling last night, but more of a ripple than a bang from the houses around me.
I waited for 8:05 for the dog walk and it’s clear, from the people still chatting afterwards that this is as much an excuse for residents to catch up with neighbours on the streets afterwards.
Why are the media so confident we are going to get a second wave ? Isn’t it just as possible this could go the same way as its cousin (SARs) and burn out ? Or if there is going to be a second wave, wouldn’t that be around the same time as this next year, because aren’t Coronaviruses seasonal ?
spiked: Should we worry about a second spike?
Wittkowski: This is an invention to justify a policy that politicians are afraid of reversing.
I guess they know something we don’t
Hi,
Luke Johnson was on BBC Question Time last night pointing out the collateral damage of lockdown:
https://www.facebook.com/BBCQuestionTime/
There is a glimmer of hope!
Quite. Such that she didn’t challenge any of the ‘facts’ stated by Professor Sridhar – that China informed the WHO about human-human transmission on 31 December (it was Taiwan, and it was promptly ignored), that Sir Patrick Vallance had said 20k deaths over 2 years would be a good result (when did he say over 2 years?) and that we are only 10% of the way through this pandemic (a number plucked out of the air). But then it’s not Fiona’s fault her background is in modern languages!
Giona isn’t dumb or misinformed.
Well. Maybe she’s *intentionally misinformed
But it’s more likely she’s just a shill with an agenda to follow
Agree with that – but then 4 of the 5 panel members had an agenda to follow too, and as Luke Johnson pointed out, they, like Fiona, are all funded at 100% salary during this ridiculous lockdown.
“what comfort does that give to families who have lost loved ones” anyone else fed up with the emotional bullying when they have no answer?
Appeal to emotion is always the last refuge of someone with no argument
Spiked have interviewed Knut Wittkowski, who for 20 years was the head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at The Rockefeller University’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science. Extracts as follows:
Spiked: Should we worry about a second spike?
Wittkowski: This is an invention to justify a policy that politicians are afraid of reversing.
Spiked: Should people practice social distancing?
Wittkowski: No.
Full interview: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/we-could-open-up-again-and-forget-the-whole-thing/
I love this guy. He’s so blunt and to the point. Completely unforgiving.
Yes, I adore his style too. The way he dealt with the haters that claimed he never held the title of a Professor was very classy.
Hello Herman. Still with us. Good man. And, of course, the good Dr Wittowski is a fellow German.
Ooosh – this is massive news if I’m reading it correctly. It would suggest susceptibility of c. 50% and maybe herd immunity at 10%:
“Additionally, any potential for crossreactive immunity from other coronaviruses has been predicted by epidemiologists to have significant implications for the pandemic going forwards. We detected SARS-CoV-2-reactive CD4+ T cells in ~50% of unexposed individuals.”
https://twitter.com/profshanecrotty/status/1261053318882705408?s=20
Even Whitty mentioned 10% as being the herd immunity figure on Monday. He quietly slipped that in! They used to say at least 50%.
It does seem to fit with the vast majority of the data. Most large populations maxing out at around 10% antibody positive.
Good grief!!! Makes me think that they’re hell bent on committing financial hara-kiri (found this on Facebook which was shared by someone I know):
The Ambler – Amble’s Community NewspaperLike Page
13 May at 09:18 ·
Northumberland Tourism have asked visitors to stay away from visiting the region, despite government advice that it is now acceptable to visit the English countryside.
In a statement, David Hall, Chair of Northumberland Tourism said: “Following the Government’s revised guidance, we are working closely with local and national partners on our plans for the future.
Whilst we welcome the Government’s move towards recovery, the pandemic is far from over, and we need to understand what the revised guidelines mean for Northumberland and the tourism industry.
We have a responsibility to make sure that Northumberland is a safe place to live, work and visit, and until the virus is under control, we ask visitors to stay away to protect our communities.
We stand poised and ready to promote our world-class destination when the time is right, when our businesses are safe and ready to reopen, and when we can start to welcome people back to our beautiful county and enjoy everything it has to offer.
For now however, we ask everyone to act responsibly, to respect the virus, and return only when it’s safe to do so.”
Good luck having a tourism industry in your area ever again.
Exactly what I thought. Why would I go to an area where I would not be welcome? I’ll happily take my custom elsewhere.
It’s crazy. Blackpool Tourist Board has actually rebranded to ‘Do Not Visit Blackpool’!
I live in a picturesque corner of rural England, 34% of jobs and the economy rely on hospitality. My town’s facebook group (22k members) if full of photos of people naming and shaming lockdown breakers and calling them ‘scum’ (my attempts to point out you might disagree, but could we stop using dehumanising language about people didn’t go down well). Many of the teashops, nick nack shops, B&Bs and gastro pubs will never come back. That’s before we think about supply chain – laundries, catering cash and carry, taxi services, cleaners, florists, little cheese makers.
Greece, 20% of the country’s GDP is tourism. This is the same in many places in the world (some Caribbean islands, having got out from under the jackboot of colonialism now entirely rely on it). Oh and wildlife poaching in Africa is now off the charts, because wildlife tourism paid for wildlife conservation.
Same here, and I read this morning that persecution of our beautiful raptors has soared since the lockdown was started.
Greece hopes to reopen for tourism by 1st June.
Must find passport and swimming trunks !
Closed to Brits alas.
Last I heard the Tourist Minister for Greece was hoping to open for British visitors to the islands in July. June for domestic visitors. But that may have changed. They may possibly require temperature checks and maybe even a blood test before you fly though – I don’t think that has been decided yet. I will go, because I have a home out there and I need to get some maintenance done on it plus update my residency papers and tax. Whether easyJet or TUI will be flying tourists in though is anyone’s guess at the moment. Fingers crossed! They need us.
Hopefully fly from Bournemouth (socially distant from Gatwick?) but might be on my own as wife still afflicted with Coronaphophia and Thursday Clap
They claim they’re doing this because it’s a matter of life or death, but you can be damned sure they wouldn’t be doing it if they had to pay for it themselves.
They might change their tune once the B&Bs, cafes, pubs, restaurants and shops start closing down and the owners blame them for the loss of revenue
The problem is they’re all on government support atm. When that finishes….
Can I translate for those not familiar with the area. Having spent decades eradicating the stigma of the tourists from north of the border who used to invade every year during Scots Fortnight, we will not be open to day trippers from south of the Tyne, aka Mackems!
That’s very sad and confirms what I heard on the radio where several shelters have reported an increased in people wanting to seek help and helplines being inundated with calls.
I realise that this a pretty selfish reaction, but we were supposed to be going to a cottage in Northumberland in June, just to get away from it all, and we’d hoped against hope to be able to go but this is the nail in the coffin for that, so feeling particularly depressed about this farcical lockdown to-day. I feel so sorry for all the people involved in the tourist industry who could see their life’s work be destroyed because people are too frightened to go outside.
Hello Edna. You’re not being selfish at all. We should all be boiling with rage that our lives have been taken over by a gang of criminals and the braindead who enable them..
Hi Edna,
I work in the museums and heritage sector and while I’m lucky that my workplace has built up a war chest over the years to tide us through the bad times, I am angry on behalf of those working in tourism because its going to be hammered over the next few months and years with cuts, possible closures and redundancies. Not to mention that permanent contracts, already difficult to get even in the good times will be replaced with more temporary and/or zero hours contracts.
Edna, not remotely selfish! We all have the right to live our lives as we wish, or at least we did. What is selfish is forcing all people to sacrifice all things for the sake of one very narrow concern that doesn’t even have good evidence to support it.
Wonder if any of the covid walking dead will feel any shame for enabling this lunacy
I’ve seen this “heart warming” clip being spread on social media today and I had to come and share it here as it chilled me to the core: https://youtu.be/DuVQFr-wINA
In short, a woman hangs some plastic sheeting from her washing line so that her and her young children can “hug” her mother through it.
I kinda applaud her ingenuity and respect that she is shielding a potentially vulnerable person. But at the same time it depresses the hell out of me that we need to wear the equivalent of full PPE to hug our own families.
My mind boggles every day at why more people aren’t rebelling against this crap yet
The great national lobotomy is succeeding
Yes,I just can’t understand it either,if anything people around here are getting even more hysterical and are losing the plot more rapidly everyday.An elderly friend of mine went out and about yesterday feeling more confident with the apparent easing of exercise restrictions,because it was a nice day he took his camera with him to get a few shots,he was accosted three times by members of the public who told him photography was not allowed under the ‘regulations’,one person in a car even stopped to have a go at him.What a bunch of arseholes,who the hell do they think they are ?.it has upset my friend an he is now very nervous of going too far from his house.This isn’t my country anymore,I don’t know what the hell it is now.
This might well become a niche pursuit amongst the rubber/ latex fetish folks…S&M safe with PPE!
Nick Stripe from the ONS has tweeted some data.
Out of the 34k deaths, covid was the underlying cause of death in 95% of cases (32k) 95% died from covid not just with covid.
In 90% of covid deaths, the deceased had at least 1 pre-existing condition. On av they had 2.3 conditions.
Main conditions incl – Dementia & Alzheimer; Ischaemic heart disease; flu & pneumonia; chronic lower respiratory; diabetes; hypertensive diseases.
How can they say covid was the ‘underlying’ cause when surely that is the pre-existing condition? Covid pushed them over the mortality edge, it didn’t put them on it.
The ONS is bullshitting us and it’s sad to see.
I thought the same. Was the 95% (32k) all positive tests too
And funnily enough deaths from all those conditions are running hugely below averages…
“Good science …….. is all about how you evaluate evidence from objective observation, measurement and experimentation to better understand the world around us. That science can then be applied in many different ways. Sometimes that might be to help businesses reap just rewards for the goods and services they provide. But when it comes to science around Covid, I think most of us would expect the science to be used to maximise benefits – not for special interests – but for the public.
During this Covid pandemic – we’re seeing many examples of decisions being made ostensibly on the basis of science that don’t appear to be in the public interest. That also don’t appear either objective or independent of vested interests.
When the decision to go into near complete global lockdown was made in March, the best science looking at the effect of lockdowns for infections caused by respiratory viruses already showed us they don’t really work.
The biggest review of studies trying to understand the effects of social distancing on interrupting or reducing the spread of respiratory viruses – by Cochrane – including 67 randomised controlled trials or observational studies – all the available, relevant evidence – said there’s not much benefit. Yet we rushed ahead – the public believing it was the right thing – and our only option.”
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/never-have-so-few-controlled-the-lives-of-so-many/
Here’s some science. Sounding Board’s podcast yesterday said there is a higher chance of dying from ‘trousering’ ie putting on your trousers than dying of Covid 19 if you are under I think the age of 40? Here’s an article called ‘pants can kill’ https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2000/may/30/healthandwellbeing.health2
Paul Weston has gone mainstream !!
Pyjamas could be lethal!
Victoria this Alliance of Natural Health video is brilliant! The drive to fast track vaccines makes total sense now – because SARS and Zika died out so quickly that vaccine manufacturers lost money on it. According to Luc Montagnier nature abhors these unnatural viruses and that’s why they don’t survive for long. Let’s hope they fail this time as well.
“The fact that cannot be denied is that there is a small cluster of people and organisations – most being funded by the Gates Foundation – that are making very important decisions that not only affect us and our future – but likely also our children’s futures. That shouldn’t sit easily with any of us – and you don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to be concerned about this. Being a historian or just someone concerned with social justice is enough.”
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/never-have-so-few-controlled-the-lives-of-so-many/
From El Mundo today- Health Ministry advises against testing in workplaces. Many companies want to test employees to enable a return to work. The reasons offered by the government are that only they can test. The comments section under this story was a joy to behold. Every single one was scathing about the government’s handling of the Corona flu. Many implied that the government just want to hide the real figures and implied that that official figures have been manipulated by said government. I believe these readers are spot on.
The world continues to get madder at an exponential rate. How did so many people lose their ability to show some individual agency and evaluate risk for themselves? Or rather, why do so many people with a microphone think that they need to think for us. I’m an ex climber and thought that if one community should know how to do that then its that one.
UKClimbing.com (outdoor news, forum type site for climbers and alike) have posted the following:
Climbing & Walking in England: Proceed with Caution
There remains a risk of viral transmission to fellow climbers, local communities and mountain rescue and health workers….. Lake District police forces, the National Park authority and local MP Tim Farron have all appealed to potential visitors to stay away…. It’s important to remember that a journey to and from the crag – especially those of the longer variety – could include food and fuel stops as well as parking in close proximity to others in honeypot areas. ‘Pinch points’ on busy trails should also be accounted for if possible.
Full piece of Orwellian doublespeak here https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2020/05/climbing+walking_in_england_proceed_with_caution-72308
Good grief! What a bunch of pussies!
I know. I was jeffing speachless when I saw that last night.
Stop insulting pussies! They evaluate risk for themselves every time they jump off a fence or bite into a mouse. And they’re still free to travel from house to house so they could be our only way to herd immunity.
Er, ok. I’m a labrador man myself, but I’ve no great problem with cats. Good for exercising the dogs…
Good point, well made!
Most of the sporting governing bodies are like this. Instead of celebrating the new freedoms (they are a good public health measure) these halfwits seems to think it is their place to scare people off. If you belong to one of these cancel your membership.
Oh man! And apparently the FA is recommending that players don’t tackle during training!
Until the government actually acknowledges that the virus is not quite as deadly as they first persuaded everyone to think, these organisations don’t have too much choice. If they parrot government advice they are unlikely to be held liable for it. On the other hand they could just remain silent.
I’m also a regular visitor to UKC and have been completely surprised by how on message the majority of forum users have been with regard to #lockdownlife !
Can Vitamin D help fight Coronavirus?
“Data from several countries around the globe have turned up a “strong correlation” between serious vitamin D deficiency and mortality from the virus as well as severity of the disease. What research showed was a correlation between D deficiency and a cytokine storm. A cytokine storm is when the immune system goes into overdrive and can’t shut down and is what leads to the acute respiratory distress and ultimately death.
This is where vitamin D3 may be able to help. D enhances our immunity but it also plays a role in keeping it in check, or preventing it from over-reacting. “This means that having healthy levels of vitamin D could protect patients against severe complications, including death, from COVID-19.”
Of note is the fact that people with autoimmune diseases tend to use up stores of vitamin D quickly, and are always on the deficient side. And people with autoimmunity tend to be more suspect to getting the virus in the first place. But this research does not point to its usefulness in avoiding the virus, but the serious complications. Clearly, adding some form of vitamin D at the moment is a good suggestion!”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-vitamin-d-role-covid-mortality.amp
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/vitamin-d-a-rapid-review-of-the-evidence-for-treatment-or-prevention-in-covid-19/
This is the best article I could find Victoria
If coronavirus has such a high fatality rate and is so dangerous, why are there numerous problems with this notion :-
1) In the links below it is shown the coronavirus act 2020 means the safeguards in place to ensure deaths are recorded properly have been removed which opens the way for deaths to be recorded as coronavirus deaths when they may have died of something else. Why would this be necessary if coronavirus was so deadly?
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/22/coronavirus-bill-slashes-safeguards-in-death-registration/
https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/05/covid-19-is-a-statistical-nonsense/
2) When the government releases figures for daily coronavirus deaths, we are told a certain number of people have died. If the figures are high in the hundreds, this can give the impression of deadly disease killing large numbers in a single day. The links below shows that the daily death totals are misleading because these deaths happened over a longer period of time and didn’t actually die on the same day. If the coronavirus is so deadly, why do the authorities have to resort to dishonesty when it comes to presenting daily death figures?
https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/23/why-you-cant-trust-the-uks-daily-covid19-updates/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKECaoNhyjg
3) The link below shows an article from the BBC. It shows that many of victims were elderly and had pre existing health conditions and tested positive for coronavirus. It is not certain if their pre existing conditions or coronavirus was the cause of their deaths. If the coronavirus is so deadly, why do the authorities have to resort to including people in death statistics where it is uncertain to what extent coronavirus caused their deaths?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654
4) In one of the links from off-guardian there are two examples where relatives have expressed concern that deaths were classed as coronavirus deaths when there were no reasons to think they had coronavirus. This raises the question are there other instances when deaths have been classed as coronavirus deaths without justification eg not being tested, showing no symptoms. If coronavirus is so deadly, why is it necessary to resort to forgery by including people who didn’t die of coronavirus in death statistics? I would like to know on what basis have coronavirus deaths been classed as such.
5) If the coronavirus is so deadly, why are there many leading scientists who argue against this?
How can a draconian lockdown with disastrous social and economic consequences be justified over a disease where death statistics need to be fiddled?
Bit by bit the tide is turning:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/15/europe-emerges-lockdown-question-hangs-was-sweden-right
Hello Tony. I’ll take your word for this. I can’t look at the Guardian anymore. It turns my stomach.
Yes, even the mainstream guardian are now agreeing that sweden was a more sensible approach than a full lockdown, clearly with other lessons to learn for us all.
Fair do’s to Simon Jenkins:
Britain now faces a challenge. I believe early criticism of Boris Johnson was unfair. He had a respectable case for proceeding on an evidence-based approach, had he only concentrated his attention on the high-risk health and care sectors. In his U-turn he opted for the politics of fear. He now has workers terrified of working, and parents terrified of school. He has frightened his economy into inertia.
Hi everybody. I know, you guys will probably kick me out for reading The Independent ;o) But there is a story about a study at the University of Manchester that says “most likely 19 Mio. Britons already have / had the virus. That would put your deaths in perspective (massively…).
What do you guys think?
Every little helps Herman, and if the Independent is coming on board, that’s good news.
I can’t look at the Independent – the adverts lock my PC up.
But it gets reported on the U of M web site here:
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/over-25-of-the-uk-likely-to-have-had-covid-19-already/
“The Consultant Physician in Diabetes and Endocrinology at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group, added: “We also demonstrate that like any virus, COVID-19 has taken its natural course and infected a significant percentage of the UK population.
“The more people that are exposed to this – or any – virus, the less easy it is for further transmission to occur.”
“Only extensive antibody testing could give us a more accurate picture – but as that is only just becoming available, we believe this form of modelling is important in informing the best approach to unlocking the population.”
And therein lies the rub if, you ask me. If their study is based on PCR testing i.e. recording who was infected at the time, it may exceed the number of those who have antibodies – because ‘infection’ may not be a binary thing that always results in production of antibodies, particularly in young people. However, I think his study is the more likely to be correct in establishing the true spread of Covid-19.
I am quite touched by his naivety in thinking that there is a possibility of “unlocking the population” but I think it is becoming readily apparent that the aim is to trash the economy and keep us in the ‘new normal’ until we are begging for 24/7 surveillance and vaccines. I see that there is a campaign to rubbish this report already.
Boris will go down in history Hopefully very soon.
The Silly Season is alive and well,even though the economy is in free fall and the livelihoods of thousands are going down the tube: my decidedly creepy neighbours,whose main hobby is parading slowly past my living room window,appeared today fully clad in masks.
The son looked like a bank robber: baseball cap pulled right down, lower face swathed in large black mask, while his mother disported the standard and equally useless white mask.
This odd couple never open their windows, hardly ever venture out, but don’t seem to realise that airing the home regularly would undoubtedly do far more good than wearing masks.
Such behaviour is going to be difficult to overcome I think.
The other day I had an idea- if masks, or ‘face coverings’ become compulsory- I’m gonna start wearing a full blown black balaclava/ski mask with only my eyes visible. This might be jarring enough for people to make them realise how sinister face covering really is. Would they be comfortable getting on the train with a group of burglars?
I just don’t get the masks thing. We are not used to wearing them. Every fifth person you see is itching around, or adjusting them constantly, and therefore completely forfeiting any purpose they are apparently used for.
Exactly, and this is what the pharmacist hinted at yesterday. They have to be adjusted or removed regularly, to prevent the discomfort becoming unbearable. so, doubly useless!
The irony with those who wear masks are they’re the worst offenders when it comes to not observing basic hygiene practices which doctors have said are far more effective than masks. Recently I saw a woman wearing a mask not bother to wash her hands after using the toilet while a few weeks’ back I was standing behind a masked man who was picking his nose. It was tempting to tell him off for that.
I think we all want to know what you were doing in the ladies toilets.
Funniest comment today!
I’m a woman actually although my username says otherwise
anyone can use the woman’s toilet these days haven’t you heard?
I thought they’d been banned by the diversity rainbow cops, and revamped as gender neutral!
Well said! My niece suggested the plague doctor’s beak mask-terrifyingly effective I think!
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/CreepyParty-Plague-Steampunk-Halloween-Costume/dp/B07ZVMBMZY/ref=sr_1_22?crid=2E5G83B0YZ9DR&dchild=1&keywords=plague+doctors+mask&qid=1589545561&sprefix=plague+%2Caps%2C269&sr=8-22
In the contest to find a way to signal to fellow sceptics, we have a winner. Brilliant.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/fear-kills/
The press should never, ever be forgiven for what they have done and are doing. Journalistic integrity went straight down the toilet during this lockdown. You’d think these people don’t have kids, families, bills, etc. They are, in my opinion, worse than the government for the fear they have spread, incessantly. They close down any positive lockdown story or development and counter it with anything negative they can find. The do not research anything they publish to determine its validity, they do not think of the dire consequences of anything they have published.
Lo and behold, they cry foul of care homes deaths, yet its them who have terrorised the entire population to exacerbate the issues.
There is some good in the press, but its very difficult to find. Its only in places like this, Spiked, the Spectator and some others that you can find any kind of sanity and truth. I hope that every last one of them, especially the BBC, suffer the consequences of their actions.
Rant over.
When this is revealed for the sham that it is, and it will be (it’s jjust beginning now), peoole will very quickly remember who was banging the covid drum and will vote with their feet accordingly. Will they be ashamed ebugh to also blame themselves for swallowing it unquestioningly? Prob not- but they will want a scapegoat.
Amusing comment there. I mean, ‘journalistic integrity’ – best oxymoron I’ve encountered this year!
My son was supposed to be going walking about in the highlands of Scotland for three weeks this summer with an organisation called the Outward Bound Trust. He has already been on one week courses, sea kayaking between islands, pitching a tent in the heather, swimming in icy lochs, scrambling up rocks. Outward Bound aims to make young people confident, self-reliant, get them away from their computer screens, give them a love of the outdoors, that sort of thing. They have just let me know that all summer courses are cancelled. Social distancing rules would have been impossible to enforce. These kids are doing dangerous things – I mean, out on the sea, sleeping in a bog, climbing rocks, you could get killed. You could even catch a cold. And now a wee virus sends them scuttling back to the safety of their screens. Instead of trying to fight back, saying “These social distancing rules are ridiculous,” they accept it. Their head office isn’t even on Crankie’s side of the border. The song “American Pie” keeps going through my head, the bid about “the day the music died.”
What a stupid waste of young people’s opportunities. The young are going to bear the costs of this nonsense in more ways than one.
It really is shocking.
I’m involved in voluntary youth work. Our leaders are saying we will need to get used to the “new normal”. This will mean kids not getting outdoor activities, contact sports etc. Well, as far as I’m concerned, they can stick their new normal where the sun don’t shine. If that’s what parents want for their kids they can get on with it themselves.
This morning on the BBC news we had a reporter from an empty Porthcawl beach who actually said – “the safest place to view this beach for now is through your TV screen!”
And then their sports chap was at Rotherham United’s ground putting it to the chairman that “playing matches behind closed doors could last for another year!” These BBC reporters are now officially bonkers – do they have any idea what they are actually saying?
No wonder some of the public are lapping up this crazy social distancing thinking. Normal life just can’t be done at 2 metres apart. Kill this rule now, before it kills us.
I happened to see that as well whilst visiting my parents this morning,it made my dad quite angry and he switched the tv off !.If it was so dangerous on the beach why were the reporter,his camera operator and the people being interviewed there ?,they don’t have any idea how insane the things they are saying really are.
But what can we do when nearly everybody seems to believe in it?
This is very sad. It seems to say: ‘Life is far too dangerous for you young people to get involved in it’. We are becoming very fragile and conformist. It is breathtaking how organizations across the country have fallen in line.
“Yes I know we’ve driven the country off a 500ft cliff. But a particular team of scientists said there might possibly exist a 1000ft cliff. What we did was take the much safer and more cautious option. ”
“Yes we know stabbing yourself with a pin is bad, but if you stop doing it, all the misery would have been in vain, you might as well have not done it at all.”
“It’s just like when you were shouted at school for doing something stupid, your best argument was that other children did it first and it wasn’t all you. Lots of other countries locked down, if we didnt we’d look stupid”
“Yes I know you normally need to provide reason and evidence that a sacrifice is worth making. But if you want to show how much you love something you have to make sacrifices. We love the NHS, let’s sacrifice everything else”
NOT quotes from Johnson’s speech last week. Apologies for the sarcasm and cynicism. Grumpy.
Legitimately grumpy.
Especially as it’s the other way around with the cliff heights. They drove us off a 1000 ft cliff because they were afraid we might hit a 500 ft cliff otherwise.That’s how genuinely irrational this policy was…
I noticed this reply to Nick Stripe of the ONS and wondered if anyone here knows what this means ?
“Perhaps you could also shed some light as to how so many people have died due to COVID-19 despite only 4,022 statutory notifications of the disease having been recorded.”
This person also brought this up which I found interesting.
“Yes. Obviously. What’s your point? In 2018 5.9% of all deaths registered in that year occurred in previous years. I’m asking how many deaths from previous years are being used to inflate the figures for this “pandemic”.
I’ll share a link to his first reply where he actually got a reply from Nick Stripe about codes being used on death certificates (I assume), some of you might find it interesting.
https://twitter.com/JamesRosenfeld8/status/1261248725596454912?s=19
Here comes dystopia and plastic doesn’t seem to be a problem any more….
Good for you,I hope a lot more businesses take a stand against this madness,I’m worried not many will though,I spoke to the owner of a business I have dealt with very regularly for about ten years yesterday and they have already implemented a lot of these ridiculous measures already and I had to say to them that I would like to stay loyal because of the excellent service they have always given me but they have several competitors who still treat customers in a normal human way so I will be dealing with them in the future.I just cannot understand why some business owners are prepared to cut their own throats because of this hysteria.
Good kh1485, can I come and shop at your place?!
My god that’s depressing,those at the BID sound like a lot of fun,it seems like they are really enjoying all of this a bit too much.I will no longer be using any business in my area that implements any of this nonsense,I am sick of being treated like a brainwashed drone,especially when I spending money I have worked hard to get.Every day the madness rises to a new level.
So 4,022 Covid-19 disease deaths have been recorded, Sars-cov-2 is the virus that causes the disease so people are conflating the two.
Coronavirus: 14,000 lockdown-breach fines imposed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52674192
Well that’s £840k extra revenue, and only a few thousand people having their eyes opened to what a bunch of tossers the police can be, given the opportunity.
“one person who has been fined nine times. ”
Find him/her! That person deserves a medal, and a few free beers as soon as a pub can be found…
So it’s gonna cost the taxpayer even more money when the CPS claws back all the unlawful fines and we have to also pay legal costs/compensation
So it seems that some African countries swear by an herbal extract from Madagascar, called Corona Organics, to prevent and cure Covid. The WHO will do tests now in order to find out wether it has any effect.
I mean, do I believe that it does? No, certainly not.
Would I laugh my head off if an organic African medicine would save our highly “advanced” Western world? And would I personally go to Berlin to stuff it down Dr. Drosten´s throat? Certainly YES.
I can dream…
On my walk this morning I observed the empty cardboard boxes awaiting pick up by the council. I spotted a good selection of necessities – games consoles, barbecues, a paddling pool and loads and loads of empty booze cans and bottles. And I’m told one of the neighbours has just taken delivery of a hot tub. No wonder the sheep support the lockdown.
Our glass bins are also overflowing and discarded masks and gloves are proliferating. And the local dog emptiers are busy.
Dying “with” or “previously had” the virus.
Can some of you smart people allay my fears about where this is all going politically please?
Fears being, depression + inflation + recrimination + Europe on the buffers = ????
Added to total dearth of critical thinking skills, identity politics, the culture wars, massive widening gap between rich and poor, a terrifying acceptance of (and enthusiasm for?) authoritarianism, a media that is so poorly read, ignorant of history, and unaware of what perilously shaky ground it’s on, tech giant censorship, the internet flooded with misinformation, and what feels to me a loss of empathy, replaced instead with shallow virtue signalling on social media. Oh and a really quite worrying amassing on fringe loonies on both left right extremes.
Is this the fall of the Roman Empire 2.0, or am I just having a bad day?
Thanks
Sorry we’re run by paid off useful idiots but at least reading this website and others like it put you in the right direction and help you realise you are not alone out there, there are a ,to more of use who feel the same way you do.
Yes the fall is coming but if enough of us free thinkers and questioners can push in the right direction the fall may be the way of freedom and not permanent serfdom.
Keep questioning, never give up, have fun winding up the sheeple and have faith (in yourself and generally if you re not religious) and remember “fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke”.
Thanks, I am definitely having a crap day, precipitated in the main by my elderly dad researching motion activated night vision security cameras and I realised I couldn’t argue with him and say it was a bad idea! I can’t say my earnest religious friends telling me to read the Book of Reveltations is tamping down my anxiety right now, but yes faith is important. I keep telling myself, most people are good. And they are, seen enough of that to know that’s true, I just get the feeling that vast forces are colliding and there’s not much we can do about it.
And yes thank God (or Shiva or Buddha or take your pick) for free thinkers!
PS love your handle!
Best thing to do is to stop watching television, totally. There have been some really good studies over the years on what it does to the brain, almost immediately turns off the critical thinking part and leaves the touch-feely part open to suggestion. If you search hard enough you can still find them, eventually. Why do you think it is called programming and they are now called news stories instead of reports? I got thrown out of bible school for asking awkward questions as nothing made sense. especially the Book of genesis as it all seemed arse about tit. As I grew older I read the Biggest Secret (David Icke) and the first half is about the history of religion then moved on to Zacharia Sitchin and others, Sumerian legends and the secret/forbidden history of the Earth and then it became clearer with “God” as he is in the bible being the bad guy as he wanted man to remain a slave and satan was is actually the good guy as he was trying to free man from slavery and give him knowledge which is why he was thrown out of heaven. Read it as a history written by an illiterate ignorant population trying to understand something they know nothing about to keep their tribal history alive and not as anything with religious overtones.
Hope the camera’s are not wifi, if they are and you Dad has put in wifi in every room and high power as well watch out for his health – check on the radiation dangers.com website and look at the microwave illnesses action and dig deeper. My wife has electromagnetic hypersensitivity and yes it does really exist.
At one level I’m thinking this is quite liberating. If I die now in my fifties I know that I’ve had most of a lifetime, and I probably lived one of the best lives in history – in material terms at least. I now know that civilisation is about to fall, and even if total disaster can be avoided I’m not sure I want to hang around in such a pathetic, stupid, virtue-signalling society. If I die relatively quickly and painlessly, I know I’ve not done too badly.
On the other hand, I’m desperate to know what happens. In one sense I’m quite enjoying seeing all those dystopian sci-fi novels coming true. There’s a grim satisfaction in spotting which book each humiliating new directive comes from.
I never thought it could really happen – Western civilisation seemed so solid. But in fact it was just paper thin, and it was the people themselves who just threw it away. We in Britain could never understand what happened in grim episodes in certain other countries’ recent pasts, but it’s obvious, now, that it could have happened here. There’s nothing special about the British at all, it turns out. They’ll believe anything, and go along with anything, even if it means the obliteration of their entire way of life.
I remember the quote from a long time ago – civilisation is only 3 meals away from collapse.
The chinese have a saying, wealth is lost in three generations, I now understand what they mean.
Yes, but I suppose the actual losing of the wealth will only take a matter of months. Six months of social distancing and I should think we will be living in a Soviet-style economy. But with less freedom.
Yep, I was thinking more of the generation that strived for it, the generation the protected it and bequeathed it, and the spoiled brats who threw it away thinking there’d be plenty more where that came from.
I hear you, I’ve started feeling the same. I hope I’m just being gloomy, but I’m extremely disappointed in my fellow Brits right now. When I was at school our Eng Lit set texts were 1984, Brave New World, Z for Zachariah, Animal Farm, and Macbeth, maybe it was just me who was paying attention.
I remember reading an essay a few years ago about the collapse of empires. haven’t been able to find it recently as it seems to have disappeared to the end of the internet somewhere but basically the author describe that last 100/200 years of an empire and then asked “which empire?”. Automatically you would think – western civilisation a sit is now. Wrong, it wa step fall of the Roman empire but the similarities were very striking.
If i find it again I will post it on one of these pages.
We seriously need some industrial scale piss taking. A foreign friend who works in a tourist resort said to me once, we can always tell who the Brits are, you are always laughing. We need a bit more of that right now.
I generally say “stay safe” but I do/did work in the oilfield (34 years now) on the drilling rigs in 3rd world countries and people do die very suddenly when things go wrong and not as the “coronavirus” stay safe.
All planned from along time ago – look for Khazarian mafia, Albert Pike 1870 – how did he know the scenarios for the 20th century wars back then?
I despair but like taking the piss out of the numpties and nuggets, keeps me sane(ish) and they are that stupid they don’t seem to know how stupid they are.
Watch out for the new one as stated by Bill Gates: “dark winter”.
So Spain’s large scale antibody testing shows 5% of the population have antibodies. And the predictable, wrong conclusion is:
“…we know that only 5% of the population has some degree of immunity against the virus. That means that 95% don’t.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/may/15/coronavirus-live-news-trump-says-he-could-cut-china-ties-as-global-deaths-pass-300000-latest-updates?page=with:block-5ebe8f7b8f08898ae68913a9#block-5ebe8f7b8f08898ae68913a9
Showing my age – Hugh, Pugh, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb to join the protest soon.
https://www.college.police.uk/What-we-do/Support/Health-safety/Pages/Coronavirus-Act-2020.aspx
It seems the police have no authority to enforce 2mtr social distancing afterall.
I would feel much “safer and confident to shop” if they just opened the shop as normal and did away with all the nonsense queuing, marks on the floor, and signage telling everyone how to queue and avoid each other. In fact I won’t go into a shop that has all that nonsense, sorry. It’s very offputting and frightens me. I’ll accept a shop with a bottle of sanitizer, but that’s all.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52662119
When is it hypocritical to clap for NHS?
I’d suggest, when you’re doing it on a packed Westminster Bridge with the Met Chief, before going home and wagging your finger at your neighbour who went out for a jog in the middle of nowhere instead.
I did enjoy this explanation of the Westminster Bridge incident.
Just a heads-up this contains some very bad language.
https://youtu.be/nk1PcEr1-HQ
So SAGE say the R number has gone up, contradicting what PHE said this morning. Don’t these collections of pricks speak talk to eachother or work with eachother in some capacity? You would have thought so considering they appear at the same roll a twat out update every evening.
PHE have now also”modelled” that children are more infected than anyone. How this can be modelled, considering children on the whole are utterly asymptomatic and rarely tested, i don’t know. Tomorrow’s headline will be that all kids should be shielded or exterminated. Why don’t these people, please, please, please, just fuck off.
“Chief of Health at UNICEF… indiscriminate lockdowns in low- and middle-income countries are an ineffective way to suppress infections and the harm they’re likely to do “far outweighs any threat presented by the coronavirus”. Johns Hopkins School of Public Health… Lancet… more than one million children under five and 60,000 more mothers could die in the next six months alone…”
When India announced its lockdown, that was when I woke up. Telling a billion poor people to stop working for a couple of months is murder. And the lockdown in the Western countries is killing more in the third world. For example, the British clothing industry suddenly cancelled its orders for Bangladesh. Millions were laid off.
WHO paper says exactly the same:
https://www.who.int/influenza/publications/public_health_measures/publication/en/
Very interesting reading especially table 1.
Another team at Stanford report their very significant findings as a result of antibody testing across 20+ American cities.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2020/05/14/dr-bhattacharya-stanford-antibody-studies-indicate-no-safe-option-n390630
Here is another example of nannying: watching STV player to forget about covid for a while, when up popped an NHS ad, fronted by Scotland’s Chief Nursing Officer, who is markedly , seriously overweight.
An animated guide to isolation, video calls to granny and exercise for the house arrestees then followed, just in case we hadn’t got it.
Finished up with ‘Stay home, protect the NHS, Save lives’.
Will this never end?
And this has just been followed up with how to the bins out safely, observing the 2m rule at all times when out and about and writing notes- suitably sanitised!-to neighbours.
I’ll have to get a new ad blocker
I keep trying to find a radio channel that doesn’t get interrupted every half hour with government announcements or the news on the hour, without much success. I’m living my life, I don’t want government announcements every half hour to remind me of what is going on, I’ve got the message now thanks. And nor do I want to be reminded how much we need to coddle the NHS – they treated both my mother and my sister appallingly badly before they died, so I’m not a big fan I’m afraid. Sorry. They made the ends of their lives a nightmare.