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.
Discussion
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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.
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
“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.
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.
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
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.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.
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.
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… Read more »
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,… Read more »
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”.
Dying “with” or “previously had” the virus.
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.
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…
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 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.
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.
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?!
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
“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…
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.
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!
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.
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… Read more »
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.
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… Read more »
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
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 !
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 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/
“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 –… Read more »
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.
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…