The Guardian leads this morning with the latest woes over the NHS’s contact-tracing app. The message about there being a second version of the app may have got lost in the post on its way to the Ethics Advisory Board (see yesterday’s daily update), but it made it to the Kent-based recruiters tasked with hiring 18,000 trackers and tracers. According to the Guardian, applicants have started to receive the following response:
Thank you for your online application for this role. Unfortunately earlier today the roles were put on hold. This is due to a delay in the launch of the “Track and Trace’”app itself while the Government considers an alternative app.
Assuming the alternative app is the one commissioned for £3.8m from Zulke based on the Apple-Google decentralised approach, this consequence was foreseeable. A centralised approach relies on an army of operators; a decentralised one doesn’t. Does this mean the track-and-tracers hired in England so far will have to be furloughed? Scotland’s Sunday Mail attacked the Scottish Government yesterday for not having hired a single tracer, but that may turn out to be prudent in retrospect. (A stopped clock, etc.) The latest news is that the roll out of the app is going to be delayed until June. The one straw Matt Hancock can clutch at is that the UK Government is not alone in making a complete hash of this. According to Politico, plenty of other European government are struggling with contact-tracing technology. Why didn’t they all just adopt the Apple-Google approach in the first place?
Can the High Street Recover?
The Daily Mail leads with a classic vox pop by Harry Wallop in Southwold, a Suffolk coastal town which is a cipher for small towns across the country. Harry has spoken to various shopkeepers in its once-thriving, now-deserted High Street, to find out how they’re faring. The answers, while unsurprising, are distressing: many shops shut, with turnover down in those still open by up to 90%, and all of them facing huge bills for everything from rent to Perspex screens.
In Southwold, for all its independents, there are 12 empty stores, with many clothes shops and gift shops closing over the past year.
Those surviving still have to pay rent to landlords, even during the lockdown.
Many fear that when they are allowed to reopen, social-distancing restrictions will be so severe it will be impossible to make enough money to pay their bills.
And shopping centres are unlikely to fare much better. See this depressing footage from a shopping centre in Sydney posted on YouTube this morning. Is this what Westfield’s going to look like?
No Regional Variation
The Mail also reports business minister Alok Sharma’s comments from last night’s Downing Street briefing to the effect that the Government will not adapt the coronavirus lockdown regionally, despite the ‘R’ rate varying widely in different parts of the UK. This appears to confirm what many think, that the Government believes the public is too stupid to cope with more nuanced guidance.
No More Holidays in the Sun
The Times says that overseas holidays are likely to be banned this year, with Brits returning from foreign climes being forced into a 14-day self-quarantine which will make leaving the country impractical (and destroy much of what’s left of the country’s travel industry).
There had been a glimmer of hope for Francophiles after Boris suggested that those arriving via the Channel Tunnel or on cross-Channel ferries might be exempt, following a phone call with Macron. But the Times reports that ministers will meet today “to agree what one called ‘a very tight set of exemptions'”, while a Whitehall source says that number of possible exemptions has “been considerably scaled back” on “the advice of the Government’s scientific advisers”.
Lorry drivers are expected to be exempt from the rules, which does at least allow for the possibility of families from Milton Keynes being smuggled back into the country alongside those from Mogadishu and Mosul. In addition, the paper says “scientists researching coronavirus may also be exempt”. Does that include social scientists “researching” the impact of the virus on Italian and Spanish coastal towns? I studied economics at university…
Online, the Times reports the comments of Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary on the Today programme this morning that the 14-day quarantine policy is “idiotic” and “un-implementable”. O’Leary predicts that any such plan will be “dropped within weeks” because people will refuse to abide by it. The Telegraph and the Express also cover O’Leary’s remarks.
Meanwhile, Wales Online says package holidays will cost at least twice as much post-pandemic. Time to invest in a holiday let in Cornwall…
Six Million Fear Losing Their Jobs
In other news, the Guardian reports that six million people fear losing their jobs:
A survey finds 60% of workers are at most three months away from rent or mortgage default.
As many as 6 million people in Britain fear losing their job within six months as the coronavirus outbreak causes the biggest economic shock in living memory, a study has warned.
With much of business and social life at a standstill despite gradual steps to reopen the economy, the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (Class) said workers feared the coronavirus recession would be worse than the 2008 financial crash.
As many as one in five people in a survey of 2,000 workers by Survation for the left-wing thinktank said they were worried about losing their jobs, despite Government efforts to cushion the blow using its wage subsidy scheme.
Academy Bosses Back Schools Reopening
There’s a letter in the Times this morning from the chiefs of 22 academy chains backing the Government’s plans to reopen schools. Together, these chains teach about a third of a million children. In the letter, they say the impact of schools remaining closed will be calamitous and irreparable, particularly for poorer pupils.
Michael Gove, the former Education Secretary, has told teachers to end their opposition to schools in England reopening more widely in a fortnight. He told them to “look to your responsibilities” and said that if teachers really cared about children they would want them to be in schools, because “teaching is a mission and a vocation”.
The Guardian reports on a new survey showing that keeping poor children off school damages their education.
Keeping schools closed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic is almost certain to increase educational inequalities between children from the richest and poorest families, according to a study, as debate intensifies over the Government’s push to reopen schools in England.
Survey data from more than 4,000 families in England analysed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that by the end of this month, children in better-off families will have received a week and half more home learning than children in the poorest households during the closures.
Pity that until now the paper has done its best to give the impression that asking teachers to do what nurses, checkout staff and posties have done all along – i.e. go to work – is tantamount to genocide.
The Telegraph has a summary of a new report by Australia’s National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance which concludes that the risk of coronavirus spreading in schools is “extremely low”:
Speaking to the Telegraph yesterday, a senior member of the SAGE sub-committee on schools… described it as a “very useful and interesting piece of research”.
[It] was conducted by Australia’s National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance. It was cited by the country’s officials when they announced that children should return to the classroom and found schools had a “very limited” role in transmission of the virus.The scientists found that across 15 schools in New South Wales, 10 secondary and five primary, 18 people – nine teachers and nine students – had confirmed coronavirus.
Of the 735 students and 128 staff who were in close contact with the virus carriers, only one secondary school pupil caught it from another student and one primary school pupil caught it from a teacher.
The authors said their findings “do suggest that spread of COVID-19 within NSW schools has been very limited” and transmission “appears considerably less than seen for other respiratory viruses, such as influenza”.
They concluded that the data “suggest that children are not the primary drivers of COVID-19 spread in schools or in the community. This is consistent with data from international studies showing low rates of disease in children and suggesting limited spread among children and from children to adults.”
The Sun has a strong leader saying its time for children to return to the classroom:
Militant unions telling teachers they should refuse to go back to work must also urgently rethink their stance.
Reopening schools is obviously essential if we are to prevent the poorest and most vulnerable children falling behind — new research reveals that better-off children are spending a whopping 30 per cent more time each day on education than those from poorer homes.
But as parents can only go back to work once their kids are in class, it’s also the only way to kickstart the economy.
The Telegraph has a report on what it says are the “first images” to emerge of what life will be like for British children in primary schools. Turns out, this is exactly – and I mean exactly – the same story that I ran on Lockdown Sceptics last week about the now-deleted Facebook post complaining about the new rules in place at Holywell Village First School in Northumberland. I always credit other journalists on this site. Be nice if they reciprocated occasionally.
“Fake News” More Accurate Than “Real” News?
People who dare to tell the truth about the Government’s massive over-reaction to the pandemic, and challenge the propaganda being pumped out daily to justify it, are so often accused of spreading “fake news” and “misinformation” that I’m tempted to create a page on the right-hand side called “Fake News”, but with the word “Fake” crossed out and replaced with the word “Real”. In this regard, it’s worth reading Omar Kahn’s Medium post about the hysterical coverage of the crisis in the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The latest truth-teller to be accused of hawking “conspiracy theories” is the Snooker champion Peter Ebdon. In an interview with BBC Five Live on Saturday, he dared to suggest that self-isolating might be damaging to people’s psychological health: “Is social distancing harmful? Yes, it probably is. People need touch, need to shake hands.”. He also said he thought people might be better off in the long run if they focused on building up herd immunity. “They need to build up their immunity,” he said. Finally, he said the British authorities have been using tried-and-tested psychological techniques to try and get us to observe official guidance. “There’s an awful lot of brainwashing going on at the moment,” he said. “We’re facing the greatest psychological operation in history.”
All sounds pretty reasonable to me, but not to the Independent. The headline in today’s paper reads: ‘Former snooker champion promotes coronavirus conspiracy theory during BBC interview.’ The story begins: “Peter Ebdon has used a BBC interview to a promote a conspiracy theory around the coronavirus pandemic. The former world snooker champion believes that the Government’s social distancing guidelines are harmful.”
I wonder who else the Independent is going to accuse of promoting “coronavirus conspiracy theories”? The Royal College of Psychiatrists? On Saturday, it warned that psychiatrists are in danger of being overwhelmed by “a tsunami of mental illness”. By way of confirmation, the BBC reports that over half a million people have accessed online training courses that aim to prevent suicide in the last three weeks alone.
Actually, we don’t need to speculate about who else the Independent is going to accuse of this thought crime because it lists Ebdon’s co-defendants further down in the piece: “Ebdon is not the first sportsman to come out publicly with conspiracy theories relating to the pandemic. Former Arsenal and England defender Sol Campbell earlier this month claimed that the virus was man-made…”
Note to Ben Burrorws, the journalist who’s written this article: another person guilty of promoting the “conspiracy theory” that SARS-CoV-2 originated in a lab and couldn’t have evolved naturally is Dr Luc Montagnier, joint winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Why Do Lockdown Zealots Behave Like Members of a Cult?
Interesting link in the comments beneath yesterday’s Latest News. It was to a blog post by Hugh Willbourn, longtime collaborator of Paul McKenna. He poses an interesting question, which is why vast swathes of the population, not just here but across the world, continue to believe the worst about coronavirus in spite of the now overwhelming evidence that it will end up killing about the same amount of people as a bad bout of seasonal flu? As he puts it:
In spite of the evidence that COVID-19, whilst tragically fatal for too many, is not the decimating plague that was predicted, governments and populations around the world continue to behave as though it is a plague on a par with the Black Death.
His theory is that those who’ve got hold of this idea, and adjusted their behaviour accordingly, have essentially joined a cult – the Covid cult – and the mounting evidence that their beliefs are mistaken has prompted them to double-down on those beliefs rather than abandon them.
That may sound like an odd reaction, but in fact it’s typical of doomsday cult members throughout history. Willbourn cites the work of Leon Festinger, a mid-century social psychologist, who joined a UFO cult in 1954 in an attempt to understand what drove its members. These cultists believed a wave of catastrophic earthquakes and floods were about to engulf the US, but they would be saved by the “Guardians” who would whisk them to safety in flying saucers. To Festinger’s amazement, when the appointed hour came and went and no earthquakes or floods occurred, his fellow cultists become more convinced that they were right, not less.
Festinger wrote a book called When Prophecy Fails in which he hypothesises that the reason doomsday cultists always double down on their beliefs after they’ve been shown to be nonsense is to avoid the pain of admitting they were wrong and all their sacrifices were for nothing. He sets out five conditions that have to be present for this extreme form of cognitive dissonance to occur:
- There must be conviction
- There must be commitment to this conviction
- The conviction must be amenable to unequivocal disconfirmation
- Such unequivocal disconfirmation must occur
- Social support must be available subsequent to the disconfirmation
Is this starting to sound familiar? As Willbourn points out, the sequence that Festinger wrote about more than 50 years ago is eerily reminiscent of what’s happening today: an apocalyptic prophecy was delivered from on high (“the science”), those who believed it radically altered their behaviour, the prophecy turned out not to be true, but instead of abandoning their doom-mongering the believers have become even more fervent, attacking anyone who points out the gap between fantasy and reality as dangerous heretics (“fake news”, “misinformation”, “conspiracy theories”, etc).
The difference, of course, is that Festinger’s UFO cult had a few dozen members, whereas the Covid cult seems to have infected half the world. If Festinger’s right, the bad news is we won’t be able to persuade people to stop social distancing if we prove that the danger posed by COVID-19 has been dramatically overstated. On the contrary, people’s opposition to returning to normal will intensify rather than diminish as the evidence mounts they were wrong.
You can already see this in the reaction of parents reluctant to send their kids back to school when you point out that the chances of a child aged 14 and under dying from COVID-19 are 5.3 million-to-one. Far from being reassured, they just become hostile and suspicious. It’s like the opposite of red-pilling someone: they’re even less likely to send their child to school once you’ve given them the facts. The solution may well be to give the entire population of the UK a magic potion that persuades them they’re now protected from this killer virus. Which is exactly what Alok Sharma announced yesterday at the Downing Street press briefing: plans are in place to roll out a COVID-19 vaccine to 30 million people by September if trials are successful.
When Prophecy Fails is available on Kindle for just 99p. Worth checking out for people trying to figure out how we ended up in this predicament.
And while we’re on the subject of mass hysteria, Guy de la Bédoyère, long-standing contributor to this site, has written an excellent essay called ‘Climbing Out of the Lobster Pot‘ about the psychological trap our Government has led us into. Well worth a read.
A Critical Care Nurse Writes…
A reader passed on a gripe from a critical care nurse at a large NHS hospital in the East of England. She’s none too happy about the staff who’ve been redeployed to work in critical care at their own request:
This week’s work has been very hard. Wearing full PPE makes me overheat, the visors are cloudy and mine is constantly steamed up. Then staff are arguing. Some nurses, Health Care Assistants and Operating Department Practitioners redeployed to critical care at their own request are complaining the work is too hard; they don’t like being told what to do by a critical care sister. They go on about us being heroes. Makes me so cross, let’s just get on with our jobs, I am doing mainly what I have been doing for years. We often risk catching some horrible illness, we just get on with it, taking the best precautions we can. These new prima donnas need to get a grip.
A Banker Writes…
A banker has been in touch, having waded through the minutes of the Strategic Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meetings. According to him, they prove that COVID-19 is a nosocomial disease, which has long been a suspicion of his:
I am sure you are all over this but it is an absolute treasure trove if you can be bothered to go through it.
But my particular hobby horse is nailed in minutes of meeting 18, items 6 and 7. Basically, it admits that they knew, by March 20th, that the majority of new ICU cases were coming from within the hospitals themselves, from in-patients being infected by medical staff and other patients. They were not coming from outside.
This is almost entirely a nosocomial disease. Nearly all the deaths have arisen from infections passed around in hospitals and care homes; almost none in the general community. All they had to do was protect hospital in-patients and care home inmates and we wouldn’t have had an epidemic. Probably why there are virtually no deaths in Africa and definitely the reason for so few deaths in Japan – they protect their elderly.
Bluntly, this is an almighty fuck-up by PHE and NHS: they allowed the virus to get into hospitals early doors and then panicked and made the situation even worse by sending a whole load of infected patients into care homes. 80-90% of deaths are going to turn out to be people who were already in a hospital or care home, but it is being covered up because NHS/PHE don’t want to admit that they actually caused the problem. They have killed a lot of people.
This is the answer; it explains everything. It explains the different death tolls between countries; it explains why countries with high death tolls have so many who had pre-existing conditions; it explains why there is so little correlation between lock-downs and death tolls; it explains differing fatality rates; it explains Sweden and Germany; it explains why the outbreaks die out relatively quickly regardless. In the general community, like MRSA, it is pretty harmless, but if you get it into hospitals and medical facilities it runs riot and kills people. Did we learn nothing from Florence Nightingale?
What do you do with a disease that only kills really old and ill people? Keep it out of hospitals and care homes…
We have all been imprisoned for no reason at all.
You will also like all the stuff about intentionally frightening us all to ensure compliance. Sick-making.
I’ve had a brief look myself and the minutes he’s referring to aren’t quite the smoking gun he imagines. Items six and seven in the minutes of meeting 18 read as follows:
- The current doubling time may higher than expected in the longer term, if there is appreciable nosocomial transmission resulting in high prevalence in health care workers and a greater risk of transmission to vulnerable patients.
- If the current ICU demand is being driven largely by nosocomial transmission and increased transmission to vulnerable patients and this process is separate from transmission in the general population then it will not be influenced in the short-term by current measures.
It sounds like the boffins on SAGE were discussing the possibility that COVID-19 is “driven largely be nosocomial transmission” rather than stating it as a bald fact. Nonetheless, if that does become the settled consensus about how the virus is passed on – and everything we’re discovering about transmission is trending in that direction – my banker friend is right about the authorities’ response being “an almighty fuck up”. And questions will need to be asked about why this possibility was considered, and apparently rejected, by SAGE.
Incidentally, I wonder if my friend has seen this piece in the Guardian? It says that more than 20% of those patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in hospitals contracted the disease while in hospital being treated for another illness.
Why Have There Been So Many Deaths in Care Homes?
In light of the fact that COVID-19 is almost certainly a predominantly nosocomial disease, I’ve created a new page on the right-hand menu called ‘Why Have There Been So Many Deaths in Care Homes?‘ I’ve had help with this from “Wilfred Thomas”, the pseudonymous academic who wrote ‘COVID-19 and the Infantilisation of Dissent‘ and ‘The Hyper-Rationality of Crowds: COVID-19 and the Cult of Anxiety‘. Please add your comments underneath and suggest links we should flag up at the foot of the page.
How Did We Respond to Previous Pandemics?
A reader has sent me such an interesting bit of historical research he’s done on earlier pandemics I’m going to start a new page on the right-hand side entitled ‘How Did We Respond to Previous Pandemics?’
I’ve already written about the fact that the influenza pandemic of 1968-70 was more deadly than the current pandemic, but didn’t cause any country to start quarantining entire populations and this reader has dug up some interesting facts about it.
For instance, 80,000 people in the UK died from what was known as “Honk Kong Flu”. As a percentage of the UK population back then (55 million), that’s the equivalent of 97,000 in today’s money. And it was a big story at the time – see this Pathé News report. But we didn’t lock people up in the homes or mothball our economy and, as a result, there was no hit to GDP. Whole year growth for 1969 was 1.9%; for 1970 it was 2.7%. More info on this and other pandemics coming soon.
There’s a good article on the blog of the American Institute for Economic Research about how the policy of locking down entire populations in response to a pandemic was first floated in 2006 as a possible response to bird flu. It was rejected then, but resurfaced four years later in a “second wave” of terrible policy responses.
Round-Up
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:
- ‘My fears about the new normal‘ – Excellent essay in the Spectator by Claire Fox about how concern for our safety triumphed over our love of freedom
- ‘Why reassuring the public may not be the best way to end lockdown‘ – Interesting article by a couple of academic psychologists about why reassuring the public they’re unlikely to be infected won’t work after scaring the bejesus out of them
- ‘When will our leaders wake up to reality?‘ – Will Jones in the Conservative Woman wonders when our leaders will admit the lockdown was a terrible mistake. (Prediction: never)
- ‘A Multi-Risk SIR Model with Optimally Targeted Lockdown‘ – Interesting paper from a group of economists at MIT suggesting undifferentiated, whole-population lockdown policies are less effective – and more harmful to the economy – than the targeted quarantining of the elderly and the vulnerable
- ‘Some 42% Of Jobs Lost In Pandemic Are Gone For Good‘ – Forbes reports that the University of Chicago estimates that 42% of the recent layoffs will result in permanent job losses
- ‘Lockdown sceptics are not conspiracy theorists‘ – Robert Jackman in Spiked says the media’s attempt to portray lockdown sceptics as a bunch of crackpots on the fringes of British politics is deeply misleading
- ‘David Starkey: COVID-19 – Britain’s Disastrous Response Will Have Devastating Consequences‘ – Excellent interview with the Tory historian by Petter Whittle of the New Culture Forum
- ‘The US is Dramatically Overcounting Coronavirus Deaths’ – John Lott for Townhall on the likely overestimate of US deaths from Covid
- ‘Doubts over Oxford vaccine as it fails to stop coronavirus in animal trials‘ – Telegraph has some bad news for the vaccine enthusiasts
- ‘After Four Antibody Tests, I’m Still Not Sure I’ve Had COVID-19‘ – Stephanie Baker is none the wiser after four tests
- ‘Computer code for Prof Lockdown’s model which predicted 500,000 would die from Covid-19 and inspired Britain’s “Stay Home” plan is a “mess which would get you fired in private industry” say data experts‘ – The Daily Mail summarises the critiques of Neil Ferguson’s code in yesterday’s Telegraph
- ‘The “lockdown sceptics” want a culture war, with experts as the enemy‘ – Hatchet job on lockdown sceptics in the Guardian, including yours truly, by Peter Geoghegan and Mary Fitzgerald. Says sites like this one are “the precise opposite of journalism”. I’ll leave my readers to be the judges of that. We’ve had nearly a million page views so far
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
Last 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. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have reopened near you. 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. We’re up to 455 now. Keep ’em coming.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. I’ve now got two journalists helping out and I’d like to pay them something, so if you feel like donating please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in tomorrow’s update, email me here.
And Finally…
I love getting emails from lefties who say they share my lockdown scepticism and can’t believe what a bunch of bed-wetters their fellow travellers are. But this is my favourite so far:
Just to say I’ve been a lifelong member of the Marxist revolutionary left and would definitely be on the other side of the barricades from Toby Young (except on Brexit). However, I will be making a donation to Lockdown Sceptics because it is a beacon of sanity in a sea of hysteria. I’ve just finished writing a piece against lockdown, which is even worse where I am (Scotland), and it will hopefully be published next week in a small scale online magazine.
Keep me posted, Comrade. I will link to your article on this site.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
You’ve certainly rattled the Grauniad’s cage, Toby! They even defend Ferguson’s model. Apparently we shouldn’t question the “experts.” With a degree in physiology and Medicine I take exception to that. Probably why I don’t read the Guardian.
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/18/lockdown-sceptics-coronavirus-brexit
Has anyone found a CV for Ferguson? I have looked at his Wiki page and the page at Imperial and all I can see is a PhD in Physics. I don’t see any study in mathematical biology and nothing on epidemiology and yet he is sold as some kind of medical professional and epidemiologist.
I am getting tired of the media picking which expert is the right one to quote instead of giving a balanced report by finding alternate experts with differing opinions. More like propagandists than reporters.
his phd is only in physics according to his linked in page
Spot on Dwayne.
Maybe the physics background of making assumptions like ‘consider the body to be a dimensionless point’ ; ‘the string can be considered to have no mass’ ; ‘consider the particle to be uniformly spherical’ etc etc might hint as to why his model is such a ‘garbage in- garbage out, assumptions riddled, un-peer reviewed pile of (expensive!) shit. !
. points I made to him in an email, which he didn’t deny, just said government does not rely on one model alone….
It’s weird – the media would previously report both sides of an argument, and the left would complain that this is why Brexit happened. The “obviously insane” choice to leave the EU was presented on equal footing with apparently the sensible option of remaining.
And yet there’s mountains of evidence coming out in favour of ending the lockdown, and it’s being completely ignored or mocked by most of the media.
That article seems to be at odds with something. What could that something be? Oh, yes that’s it, proven evidence.
They say that people like me are anti-experts and anti-evidence, No I’m not. I’m all for experts and scientific facts, I just think that some things, such as quality of life, need to be ranked above the mere extension of life for life’s sake. Better a happy life, statistically shortened by a small risk, than a long one being miserable living in poverty under a draconian state.
They say we’ve compared shutting pubs to the work of dictators, if all that had happened was shutting of pubs then I personally would scarcely mind, I don’t use them that often, the trouble was that the government went well beyond shutting pubs and closed down everything and took away our rights, the article steps straight over those details.
They accuse us of social darwinism, the lockdown is hurting the poor far more than the virus ever could. While the virus has, seemingly, had worse health outcomes for poorer patients, it doesn’t discriminate anything like as stringly as the lockdown does. Our posh pompous PM got the virus and came, the media say, close to death, heads of state have been killed by it. The relative protection wealth gives against the virus is a lot less than the relative protection wealth gives against harms exacerbatd by the lockdown. Lockdown will produce famines in africa, in most african countries people work outdoors, covid-19 will only spread if they are trapped at home, does wanting to stop thsoe famines make us murderers?
They say Nadine Dorries is one of us, last time I looked she was saying we mustn’t get our rights back until a vaccine is ready. Waiting in hope and destroying all of modern life’s amenities in the meantime is not what us sceptics are for.
They say we’re nearly all brexiteers, as a remaienr myself i’m offended by that. And from the somments on this site and on the internet in general I’d say we’re split somewhere between 50-50 leave-remain to maybe 66L-33R, a broad church in agreement over our essential liberties quite irrelevant of R-L voting in 2016.
They state that this weekends protests were organised by the far right, despite the press having all admitted on Sunday that Sat’s protests were mostly hippies and while there was some police brutality most of the crowds were, in their own wors, good natured.
They treat us like we approve of privacy violating apps as a “solution” to covid-19, no-one on here has been sympathetic to transferring our most intimate details of life to governments and corporations for some notional “protection” from the virus, we’ve been saying quite a lot about hos that is the same shade of wrong as the lockdowns. The article insists we are ignoring tis hazard.
They then try to put words in the mouth of Carl Sagan (R.I.P) who isn’t around to defend himself. This despite him being recorded in print as standing against arguments from authroity, for freedom to publish work as a scientist, and arguments on the importance of education to ensure people know the danegrs of freedoms being suppressed. He said in his “Demon Haunted world” book that “Part of the duty of citizenship is not to be intimidated into conformity”. I couldn’t dare to assume from this that he’d back our cause, but the article’s authors have no right to assume he’d oppose it either.
The far right thing is my favourite.
How do they explain Piers Corbyn? Did they even mention him in that article?
Besides, whoever wrote that clearly has never actually read anything on this site.
Honestly, the editor just wanted a hit piece.
And that part about lockdown scepticism being a “minority sport”. Why bother writing about it then.
Yeah, love that. We’re so mental and ridiculous that they have to write daily scathing articles about us.
That part about Sagan really annoyed me. He was called a sceptic’s sceptic for a reason. Anyone familiar with his books, especially ”the varieties of scientific experience” knows that he had a very inquisitive mind and wasn’t afraid to challenge established conventions and ask difficult questions.
Looking forward to not buying Geoghegan’s book.
“I couldn’t dare to assume from this that he’d back our cause, but the article’s authors have no right to assume he’d oppose it either.”
Quite, it’s complete fantasy to speculate about what his views would be on the substantive issue. But it’s pretty reasonable to assume he’d have absolutely condemned the attempt to shut down sceptical questioning on the issue in the way that article does.
Well said! I read the guardian article and was extremely annoyed. Notice how with such articles one can’t post a comment. They know many readers on this site would tear their “argument” – if you could call it that – apart. Cowards. Then I read Climbing out of the Lobster Pot. Compare the two and I think it’s obvious where the intelligent discussion resides. Exellent work Guy! An absolute pleasure to read.
The people who wrote that article in the Guardian are from openDemocracy, an “independent media platform” funded by the the usual NGO suspects including Avaaz, the Open Society, Rockefeller, Ford, and NED among others.
*bangs gavel down*
Of coooooooooooooooooouuuurrrse
He who pays the piper calls the tune
Yep, a little bit of digging always turns up these are names over and over.
i said I wouldn’t look at The Grauniad ever again, but I couldnt’ resist a quick look at their latest nonsense. An article that critises sceptics for ignoring scientists has not one word to say about the numerous scientists who have criiticised this disasterous imprisonment sinc day 1. what science does this article cite? Well, Imperial College whose modelling has been consistently wrong for decades.Pathetic..
The Guardian never met a consensus it didn’t like (not the case in the past).
The trouble is, science is NOTHING to do with consensus. You make observations, evolve a theory and test it. If you fail to break it enough times it starts to become believable.
In Guardianworld The Anointed come up with a Great Plan which must not be questioned: anyone who dares question it is either stupid or evil
Tom Naughton helps explain it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=GDlF-z_x7vc
Exactly Chris . Those who talk about scientific consensus and settled science demonstrate that they have no idea what real science is.
Citizen Smith maybe ?
Hard,y. Citizen Smith wanted – ostensibly at least – to give power to the people. Ferguson’s mad panic took away power, human rights, and sanity from everybody.
“Power to the People”
Oh the irony!
Can i borrow a quid?
Citizen [Toby] Young, in this case…
Yep – that’s what the loud whoooshing noise must have been …
I have just has a freedom of information request rejected as it would take too much time and expense to supply the information. However, most of the questions could have been answered by looking at minutes of the meetings. No surprise, of course, as transparency is anathema to this lot.
1. Please supply the figures and formulas in the computer model used to persuade the government that lockdown was the only way of curtailing the corona virus outbreak and who supplied them with these figures?
2. Please advise if any virologists or epidemiologists were consulted, who were they and what advice did they supply?
3. Where there any other suggestions put forward other than lockdown and, if so, why was the lockdown option chosen as the only way to counteract the virus?
4. Where any economists consulted as to the economic impact? If so, who were they and what was their advice?
5. Where there any mental health experts consulted? If so, who were they and what was their advice?
6. Where any experts on suicide prevention consulted. If so, who were they and what was their advice?
7. Where there any experts on the physical and mental health effects of unemployment on people consulted? If so, who where they and what was their advice?
8. Was an Equality Impact Assessment carried out before issuing the lockdown order?
9. When a number of international experts came forward on the offguardian website and various other platforms to state that covid 19 was not as dangerous as initially presumed and questioning the wisdom of lockdown measures, did the government consult with them to find what their expert opinion was and, if not, why not?
10. When the advice on the probable estimated fatalities was given, did it take into account the fact that all deaths are being reported as covid 19 deaths if a patient tests positive even if there was no evidence that the virus was a causative factor?
11. When the advice on the probable estimated fatalities was given, did it take into account the fact the well-known problem of PCR tests showing false positives due to contamination?
12. When the advice on the probable estimated fatalities was given, did it take into account the fact that the PCR tests on many occasions cannot differentiate between covid 19 and other corona viruses and other respiratory viruses?
13. When the advice on the probable estimated fatalities was given, did it take into account the fact a lot of the Chinese patients that were diagnosed positive for covid 19 were not tested but the diagnosis was based solely on clinical symptoms which would greatly overestimate the number of people that actually had the virus?
Maybe try submitting each of the 13 points again as a single request? So they can’t try to claim “oh no, wall of text, this is too much work”.
I’m a bit of an FOI pro (local authority battle), you need to really hone your questions, they can refuse if it’s too much work (that’s a big list). What’t the burning question you want to know, and can you nest any of the others under it as related, keep it really simple. You can only submit one every 60 days I think, so other way to do it is share them out and get other people do them on your behalf.
I hope all these questions will be pursued fully when there is a full inquiry.
Ha ha ha.
Oh, you’re serious ? Let me laugh harder.
How do we get the full enquiry going then? Only through public pressure…lawsuits…petitions…citizen journalists and brave outlets who won’t take BS for an answer… what other chances do we have at this point?
Simon Dolan’s lawsuit is hopefully doing just this. You can still donate on the crowdjustice website.
You can bet the groundwork for the whitewash is already being laid.
Or at the criminal trial..
Sort out your weres from your wheres. Once or twice is acceptable but five times!
Aside from that, some good questions.
Pilkunnussija.
Too long a list, you will need to ask a lot less at a time.
Let me know what question to ask to what department and I’ll put one in.
The Guardian (and many other MSM news outlets) have peddled pure fiction for many many years.
Keep it up Toby. You’re a journalistic breath of fresh air.
The Guardian really has turned into a pseudo-intellectual Buzzfeed for avocado-inhaling, champaign-sipping, ‘injustice’-fighting Islingtoners. The rag has been full of clickbait for years but the content they’re releasing at the moment is rapidly killing my few remaining brain cells. Toby, please keep it up. I’m beginning to lose my marbles…
The Guardian used to be sensible, but since this lockdown began they’ve completedy turned their back on the importance of liberty when applied to whole populations. Somehow they think injustices are a tragedy when faced by the few but some kind of deluded duty when imposed upon all. Right and wrong does not work like that!
Indeed we used to have it in our household! Can’t believe it now!
The reality is that the Guardian has always been run by and for a bunch of authority worshiping, reality denying elitists. For many lockdown sceptical former Guardian readers here, it’s just that it’s the first time they’ve found a cause they sympathise with on the receiving end of its poisonous abuse and dishonesty
Agree, on women’s rights and transgender they have been vicious, and extremely disingenuous, you could read the same story reported in the Times and the Guardian (male sex offender put in women’s prison for e.g.) and get two entirely differing reports. It was very illuminating watching it play out.
A website was set up by left-libertarian dissidents who were banned from the Guardian comments because they didn’t toe the authority line on Russia. An absolute disgrace to the whole basis of what the Guardian supposedly stood for (but never did, in reality).
https://off-guardian.org/
Yes the Off-Guardian is what The Guardian used to be decades ago.
In view of the ongoing censorship of Wikipedia by editors with an agenda, interesting to note that Jimmy Wales is (was?) on the board of the Guardian
I once made a donation to Wikipedia, but the wokeness and nastiness means I never will again.
I did the same once, but the barrage of beg letters i received afterwards as a ‘supporter’ put me right off ever bothering again, not to mention the horrendous bias that prevails there now. Wish i had bought a proper encyclopedia from a charity shop instead.
It was a great idea – still is – but when you have “editors” banning everyone from editing “their” subjects, especially when they are right, just because the editor is vegan and hates low carbers, and they remove people they don’t like, such as the estimable Malcolm Kendrick . . . the most unbelievable story I heard was when someone corrected a minor error in the description of a BUS, and the editor removed the correct information and reverted to the incorrect version. You Just Couldn’t Make This Up.
The Guardian always liked to bring up Lord Rothmere’s (Daily Mail) cheerleading of Hitler until 1938 but they keep quiet about their own support for eugenics.
How far back are you going to find a time when the G was sensible? I remember it being a hysterical menopausal laughing stock more than 15 years ago.
I’m going back to the seventies or so.
When John Brunner was writing his dystopias back in the sixties and seventies he used to read The Guardian and New Scientist, and project what he read into the neat future.
I haven’t read it recently but I was told the New Scientists isn’t what it was either.
Depends whether you like your science news smothered in a deep layer of political correctness or not.
Oh come on – stop it. Islington’s where my home is. I like avocados and champagne, but I’m also a Lockdown Sceptic
Hoi, us Islingtonians require a year-round supply of avocados, this virus has hit us the worst, it’s really not on. I just can’t call it a proper breakfast without a smashed avocado on my sourdough toast. Our housemaid can’t find any in Waitrose, neither Holloway Rd nor the Angel, and the local shops in Evesham where i’ve come to escape… i mean rest, are no better.
Oi, I live in Islington too, and I’m the original lockdown sceptic. I strongly disapprove of avocados.
The Guardian is pretty much finished. It’s completely lost its way.
It’s always had a bad element within it’s writers but now it’s exclusively a mouth piece for victims of Dunning Kruger to write echo chamber pieces for an ever decreasing pool of other victims of Dunning Kruger.
They’ve sniped away at bait (ppe, testing figures) whilst completely missing the enormous catch (lockdown was pointless, long term ramifications for people locked down for no good reason is huge).
A complete failure from editor to staff writers.
Very disheartening.
What I found entertaining (OK I’m easily pleased) was the ranting from the Guardian readers. Compare and contrast, the Daily Mail has crap journalism but much more sensible replies. Now the Telegraph seems to be the most questioning of the mainstream media, who would have thunk? The world has been turned upside down.
Yes, poor Southwold. I was there on Sunday and I have never seen it so empty (even on cold winter days). On the upside, I didn’t see a single mask and didn’t sense any terror as I passed by people on the pavements (even quite closely). I guess that those of us who are brave enough souls to venture outside must have a good sense of risk levels!
…and dear old Southwold is flanked by miles and miles of empty beach swept by healthy, if chilly, sea air. Possibly the most Covid-unfriendly place in Britain.
Ah, the “lazy wind” which can’t be bothered to go round and just cuts through you, and blasts all known pathogens out of your nostrils.
I’m thinking T shirts declaring you don’t social distance and this lockdown is a farce would be a hit. Toby food for thought?
Advice for us Lockdown Sceptics:Walk on the inside of the pavement and let the anxious members of the public do the distancing if they’re that way inclined. We shouldn’t have to move out the way (usually into the road). This prevents us from giving them the opportunity of looking at us as though we are something that has just been scraped off their shoes.
This what I do. If they’d rather get run over, let them.
Where can we buy one?
Thought: the Zombies may throw an occasional stone, but they sure as hell won’t be beating us up because you can’t do that from a sicial distance.
Southwold’s problem is that it has become a second home hotspot and people aren’t allowed to visit their second homes (not sure why). On the upside, I have been to 4 garden centres/nurseries in Dorset since Wednesday and they are rammed, long queues, every trolley stacked with plants. Hopefully it will be the same when other businesses open.
Haven’t been there for a while but I live not far away. I had some thoughts: I don’t know anyone who had coronavirus and nor do most of the people I talk to. Well there was one girl in the supermarket but she wan’t tested so it could have been a cold or flu.
What I DO know is a considerable number of people, self included, who had some varying degree of lurgy back in December or January.
Was that covid doing the rounds in a non-immune-compromised population, or was there some other virus doing the rounds just before this one? We’ll never know
I was very ill from 25th December for 3 weeks – cough, breathless, high temp and exhaustion – turned to pneumonia – North Yorkshire – my husband, and 2 close friends also had it.
Elaine. Strongly suspect my nephew had it just after Christmas. He comes with his parents to stay at his grandmother’s house every year to pass the extended Spanish festive season. He displayed all the symptoms you describe and visited ER 3 times. Was ill for about 3 weeks. If indeed he did have it, the rest of the family came through it unscathed including his 74 year old grandmother and myself who suffers from heart disease.
My mother and mother in law had exactly the same in December and it lasted for 3-4 weeks. We’re also North Yorkshire – loads of people reported the’100 day cough’ after Christmas.
Mine wasn’t that bad, but since I haven’t had the flu and only about two colds in the last fifteen years, it caught my attention. I coughed a bit, felt a bit off for a few days, and choked at night. Oh and I had pink eye, but only in one eye, and it was gone by lunchtime. Don’t recall losing my sense of smell or taste though.
Most people had it worse but it was around the same time. No-one got so bad they were hospitalised though.
Test and trace isn’t really about the App. The app is an assist, but not much more. Even if a proportion p of people have the app, it will only ping a proportion p squared of the contacts, because *both* sides need to have the app downloaded, switched on and running for it to register a contact. So if even as many as 50% of people were running the app, it would only ping 25% of the contacts. And in Singapore it’s been a lot less than 50%.
So the technology isn’t the key here. (And if the government think that it is, we’re on course for yet another round of blundering).
What test’n’trace stands or falls by is the quality of its people, how good they are at talking to people, and how much local knowledge and common sense they can bring to bear. (And how fast the tests can be turned round).
It’s going to need the building of a decent team on the ground for there to be a chance to make this work, not just a shiny app.
We’d do better asking people to keep a little diary of who they’ve encountered, and leaving it up to them to, should they develop symptoms and get a positive antigen test, contact any acquantainces who they met and might have infected in the last few days. Also no privacy risk here, everyone keeps logs of what they’ve done and can destroy them (after 3 weeks or sooner if they think some crooked snooper might want to try poking their nose between the bookcovers) by ripping up a page. I encouraged my workplace that people should be encouraged to do simple things like this, before they went insane and fully closed for lockdown instead.
To be fair your idea sounds a bit much as well. I certainly wouldn’t do it.
Perhaps a bit much, but hey, it’s unenforcable so it makea a great proposal. The scared can write one, the fearless can say they’ve done it and just let the dog have eaten it should anyone ask. Unenforcable ways of pandemic control are pretty good overall, massively reduces fear among the cowardly, sometimes provides some genuine help if the initiative is a good one because at least some people will do it, and doesn’t threaten civil liberties.
It’s far too late in the epidemic for anything like this to be of any use. But there is a potential psychological benefit in giving people an app that shows a green traffic light and says “you’re safe!”, with perhaps a nice cartoon graphic of a Nurse from our NHS.
Please don’t encourage them!
I for one will not be downloading the app or having the vaccine. I do not comply!
I will say it again… The app is already there I suspect. Bluetooth scanning is auto set to on within my android phone, even though I do not switch Bluetooth on unless I need it. Most people won’t check
We already have an army of testers and tracers, they are called Environmental Health Officers, and they are sitting on their arses wondering why the government feels it needs to train a whole new army of testers. More should be made of this.
Good point!
I just read the guardian article about sceptics. Gosh, it is so disingenuous and ill informed, with child like name calling. Pretty pathetic journalism.
Never mind, brothers and sisters. If the Grauniad is after our blood we must be doing something right.
Pretty standard Guardian stuff, then.
Absolutely Kevin. Accusing others of the things they themselves are guilty of.
‘ the reason doomsday cultists always double down on their beliefs after they’ve been shown to be nonsense is to avoid the pain of admitting they were wrong and all their sacrifices were for nothing’
Now who is reminded of our government by that line?! (Except, of course, the ‘sacrifices’ were of us).
The Telegraph mainly has good stuff about the situation thesedays, but they’ve allowed a disgusting article in today:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/18/not-romanticise-swedens-ill-prepared-adrift-coronavirus-response/
Article totally misses how Sweden’s sane and relaxed response, whether it was due to deliberate planning or to the paralysis of decision making that they implausibly accuse, has saved civil liberties and the local economy. At no point does the article recognise how an unfree life dogged by crippling poverty is worse than a small risk of death while going about normal life in a mostly functional world. And the article also utterly ignores how lockdowns, draconian policing and economic slumps lead to serious physical and mental health tsunamis in future years and how lockdowns therefore produce surges of delayed deaths far in excess of the little “lets get the suffering over with ASAP” type peaks that Sweden has seen. Furthermore the article uses the good sense of Swedes in taking subtle infection control measures for themselves (hand washing,masks, gloves, avoidance of truly huge gatherings…) as arguments against the Swedish way, these are Sweden’s strengths in that they’ve shown non-intrusive measures can do the job without catastrophic lockdowns, but yo wouldn’t guess that from this awful article.
Yes, there was another article by Brolin a few days earlier with the same overall analysis. Pathetic!
Brolin has clearly chosen the wrong response to having been caught on the wrong side of the truth/falsehood divide: double down and lie harder. He was responsible for this reprehensible piece of black propaganda a month ago, just as the tide began to turn incontrovertibly in favour of the Swedish approach:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/16/sweden-has-shown-not-tackle-coronavirus-fights-now-save-face/
Does Brolin have personal beef with Giesecke or Tegnell or something? I couldn’t believe how poor this article was in terms of completely missing the point.
See his previous article I linked below.
I think Brolin just has an uncontrolled personal emotional over-reaction against anything that threatens an authority line that he is personally invested in. I’m pretty sure I remember him writing this sort of stuff to try to attack criticism of some of our stupid foreign policy positions a few years back.
I have just ordered a Swedish flag. I saw one flying from a house in a nearby village among the rainbows and mawkish tributes to the NHS and immediately thought that I must do the same. Flying the Swedish flag is a good way to show one’s dissent.
I like this. Nice.
I may be planning a midnight excursion to my local town centre. There’s a huge spray painted ‘NHS *rainbow*’ monstrosity on someone’s shuttered up shop front (the irony). I might have to go change the ‘H’ to a ‘C’.
Someone on here (IanP I think) has acquired a Belorussian footie shirt. Dire, but a nice way to show support.
I’ve just bought a Swedish flag badge to wear
Yep…! Not arrived yet.. international shipping. Priority order! 1 more week… fuck importing food supplies, this is far more important.
Not sure what I will look like in such a garment and it better not be compression fit or anything…
Order a Gadsden flag too, that’ll really get the authoritarian bed-wetters’ knickers in a major twist. After all, in their world view freedom = slavery.
First paragraph sets the scene. Sweden can only meaningfully be compared to it’s neighbours. Except it can’t because they took different approaches. Sweden let the virus spread and the others chose to suppress it. Comparing them is as useful as comparing the UK to a country that never even had the virus.
There is one thing I will say against the Swedish approach. That is if the virus does naturally disappear then they will be judged on their death rate relative to the other countries that suppressed the virus.
However their overall circumstances probably meant that lockdown was never an option for them.
Sweden will be able to hold it’s head high as a beacon of liberty and common sense while we, snivelling, subdugated nations will forever bear the shame.
Fool Britannia!!!
I’ve mentioned it before, but with regards to schools, I fail to understand why teachers in the UK maintain it is not safe. Sweden’s schools have stayed open and we have had one child death (they will not say the age, only that it was a child between 0 and 9 years of age – so may not even be a school-aged child). Not only that, but they are not yet sure whether or not the child even died of the virus!
Sweden also has a much bigger population than Norway and Denmark, and has had much higher levels of immigration than Norway. I mention the immigration due to statistics saying dark-skinned people are much more likely to succumb to the virus – here in Sweden we have a lot of people from countries such as Somalia and Eritrea, as well as the Middle East. So comparing Scandinavian countries is not really meaningful.
What’s really nasty is that these people clearly want lots of Swedes to die so as to prove their point.
Effective non-vaccine treatment here:
https://covid19criticalcare.com/
Will almost certainly be dismissed as “quackery” by those awaiting their windfall from Bill Gates’ Final Solution® vaccine, so we’ll have to stay locked down and socially distanced until that joyous day dawns in September…or next year….or 2025….or 2030….or never.
Professor Karol Sikora, one of UK’s leading oncologists, lends his weight to the anti-lockdown cause:
https://youtu.be/uk2YZfnsOPg
Takeaway comment:
“We should be getting back to the “old normal”, not the “new normal”.
I won’t be party to any ‘tracing’ app, regardless if it’s developed by the NHS or Google/Apple. Probably more so the latter as an NHS app will likely be broken. The Google one will doubtless track us with pinpoint precision. Yes I know they already are etc.
I agree – but you know exactly what the next step will be.
This ‘voluntary’ app will be required at your workplace or before you enter a shop or a pub. Public transport won’t let you on without your tracing app turned on.
It will always be ‘voluntary’ but you can be sure that the powers that be will ensure that your life will be a day to day misery without it.
It’s already happening in some places. Thailand opened up their shopping centres yesterday. You have to log yourself going into the centre, and also at every shop inside.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1919612/shoppers-tracked-as-they-return-to-malls
Just to add – Thailand: 51 covid deaths. 30k road deaths a year.
And over 60,000 deaths from flu and pneumonia in 2017. My son is there at the moment, but according to him it was not full lockdown, only curfew, and the shopping centres were open, but you needed to wear a mask and have your temperature checked at the door. He travelled to Cambodia in February with friends at the height of the panic in Wuhan – no problem at all. There is no way the virus can’t already have been circulating in Thailand at that time, but nobody worried about it. A month later, on the basis of no evidence at all, it’s been transformed into the worst health crisis the Thais have ever seen.
To be fair if they are on only 51 Covid deaths it’s worth them trying to do a bit of tracking and tracing. I still believe it should always be voluntary but that’s another matter. In the UK it’s academic because it’s too late anyway.
That’s a strong case for online shopping!
We need a plan for how to work together against the coming of such a world. What proportion of people would have to disobey to make it utterly impractical to run such a totalitarian society?
Another point – since when has it been mandatory for people to a) own a smartphone b) carry it on them at all times for the purposes of being traceable? When was that law passed? Is there going to be a fixed penalty if a person does not buy a smartphone or leaves it at home/switches off bluetooth? Or allows the battery to run out while not at home? What happens if a person cannot afford a smartphone and/or or is elderly/disabled and does not know how to use one? Will they have to stay at home forever? To the best of my knowledge, there has been no Parliamentary discussion or legislation passed regarding this..
Not sure that sort of bollocks will wash, in particular with those awakening from their support of the lockup. They’ll be twice as angry as we are, and in no mood to risk looking like muppets once again.
If this ever becomes the case then turn it on and once you have gained access turn it off again
Re tracing apps, this reply seen on another blog gives rise to many concerns as to potential abuses and misuses:
‘I wonder how you would feel if (say) you were all set to attend your daughter’s wedding (or perhaps embark on the trip of a lifetime that you had been planning for over a year) and you carefully haven’t allowed yourself to venture outside for 21 days, and then you get (erroneously, in your opinion) a demand via your smart phone that you stay indoors for 14 days because you may have come into contact with someone who has reportedly been displaying symptoms similar to Covid-19?
Or how would you feel if a protest group, perhaps intent on bringing down the economy as we know it, starts making fictitious reports that they have all been displaying Covid-19 symptoms – in a deliberate attempt to inconvenience hundreds or even thousands of other people who may have travelled on the same public transport?
How would you feel if the government seeks to extend the number of reasons it can use the tracking facility for – initially perhaps to combat terrorism?
Or to track a parent who has absconded with their child?
Or to track someone who has been diagnosed with a completely different but highly infectious communicable disease?
Or someone who has not been paying their child maintenance?
Likewise the Ancestry websites. What better way to build a DNA database than to have people voluntarily send in their samples (AND pay for it to be done!) ? If the security forces haven’t yet thought of sequestering those data, they soon will!’
‘“Contact Tracing” is Orwellian doublespeak for “tracking you at all times”. One more way the globalists are using the virus to push their long planned for agenda’
Oh god, those ancestry websites! What kind of a dumbarse voluntarily sends their DNA to a random company
I read via Malcolm Kendrick that the UK Biobank, which seemed like a good idea at the time, is being run by Rory Collins and is now making its information available to the government and probably other companies
They have been using sites like Ancestry for years to match DNA. The below story “DNA from genealogy site used to catch suspected Golden State Killer” is from 2018:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/dna-from-genealogy-site-used-to-catch-suspected-golden-state-killer-1.4637726
Attempts to temper a zealot’s covid hysteria with a quick rundown of the numbers, and how relatively small they are in relation to other infectious diseases are not going well. Usual responses are that the numbers are only small because of lockdown, and half a million would be dead otherwise; and the government wouldn’t be doing this if the risk is as small as I suggest.
Acting early is the biggest determinant in stopping a virus from spreading. People attribute it to lockdown but it’s not. Take the simplest possible example, 1 infected person. If you isolate them it’s job done. You could lock down an entire country, isolate that 1 person and claim it was thanks to the lock down but it wasn’t. Hence why New Zealand with lockdown got the same result as South Korea with no lockdown but a much bigger bill for the privilege.
A lockdown may help to slow the spread of a virus but there will be a point where there is no net benefit to imposing one compared to regular social distancing.
The stats seem to show that there isn’t such a “point where there is no net benefit”, rather in ALL cases there is no advantage for lockdowns over much milder less intrusive distancing methods.
Yes great comment. Our bill is about $150 billion for next three years in a country of 5 million people. Our PM is claiming she saved 80,000 lives….And everyone believes her….It is madness. But at least we do not have an evil tracing app.
Yes I agree.
What would be the argument against “numbers are only small because of the lockdown”?
That’s the old ‘elephant powder’ argument. A man scattered powder on the streets of New York. He explained that it was to keep the elephants away. ‘But there aren’t any elephants in New York,’ he was told. ‘Just shows how well the powder works!’ he replied.
Yep, like when I was working in india.
We had a pooja religious blessing before starting the operations. They were a total disaster as the pre-job planning was a joke and it was all dumped onto us operational guys at the last minute.
next time before starting the next contract out comes the same priests and he does the pooka again. He recognised me and came to say hello. During chatting I asked him why do the ceremony again as it didn’t work the last time.
His answer – it did work, just think how much worse it would have been if we hadn’t done it.
Reminds me of the government now.
Hahahaha excellent analogy!
You have to laugh at lockdown happy clappers keep referring to the R rate but I’ll be ready for them at their Thursday 8pm prayers when I open my windows with this little ditty
https://youtu.be/5Tffp64Lu10
No clapping for the NHS here. They are a disgrace and have collectively broken their oath to first do wrong.
The mental and physical fall out from this will be colossal.
The Guardian has always been an awful rag so I expected nothing less. Making generalisations about all lockdown sceptics being Brexiteers (I’m a Remainer) and cherry-picking citations like the Matt Ridley one, even though Ferguson’s code has been debunked by other actual computer scientists like our very own ‘Sue Denim’ – gutter journalism. Simplifying the issue into a simple binary ‘like Brexit’ is part of the problem. Both Brexit and the lockdown are complex issues that do not lend themselves to tribalism. But of course, the proliferation of the internet and social media has drastically cut attention spans and people just do not have the capacity for nuanced debate or discussion, only soundbites and simple binaries.
Also the implication that questioning the lockdown is akin to ‘social Darwinism’ – really?! Surely this ludicrous experiment to which we are currently subjecting our poor school children, which disadvantages those from poorer backgrounds, is social Darwinism!
On a lighter note, I saw a lovely comment on a MSM news outlet that reckons the next few years will be like the roaring 20s again, especially for the young. If the government lift these ridiculous social distancing measures, admit they were wrong to scare everyone senseless and allow the economy to open up again, we could see a true renaissance as people release pent-up demand. Frankly, if everything opened up tomorrow I’d be the first one in a restaurant, bar, cinema, or shop. I miss all those simple pleasures terribly and I refuse to self-flagellate for being a ‘shameless consumer’.
I really am trying to see brighter days ahead.
I reckon I’d beat you to it, Poppy. If I didn’t, it wouldn’t be for want of trying.
While no doubt many remainers are lock-down sceptics, I have met some remoaners who are lock-down fanatics.
Rather ironic that these people who think Brexit will damage the economy don’t mind flushing the economy down the loo with this lock-down!
[quote=Poppy]…Frankly, if everything opened up tomorrow I’d be the first one in a restaurant, bar, cinema, or shop. I miss all those simple pleasures terribly…[/quote]
I totally agree with you Poppy. I would attempt to squeeze all of those activities into a single day again. Despite having socially distanced for years – it was a pleasure to have had the choice – I miss people watching through my local Costa’s windows, sharing the emotions of the cinema and not having to use a microwave for the majority of meals.
We should all try and see better days ahead. Without hope, what do we have?
PS Excellent article by Lionel Schriver in The Spectator (16th May) and Toby gets a mention too. :>D
Apologies to Lionel Shriver for incorrect spelling. Duh!
Most interesting today from Toby’s update was the comment that this was really a gigantic nosocomial pandemic. Perhaps most of the cases were contracted in care homes and in hospitals. This would explain many unique features in this pandemic i.e the extreme high rate of infected health care workers(HCV),( 15 % of all cases in Spain and Italy if I remember correctly).You never saw that amount of influenza infected HCW. Also the striking feature in the world statistics, the more advanced health care system in the bigger countries the higher death rate and the less advanced health care system the lower death rate. The original SARS virus was mostly a nosocomial infection.
The most interesting figures would be how many cases contracted the infection in hospitals and care homes versus really contracted the virus in the community. Doubt that the politicians would like that information but will be difficult to hide if this was true. Our hospitals and care homes killing fields for the elderly?
“ the more advanced health care system in the bigger countries the higher death rate and the less advanced health care system the lower death rate”
Germany had a super low death rate, and their health care system is advanced and definitely better than here in the UK
Germany seems to be an exception perhaps a decentralised health system functions better. But neigbouring Netherlands and Belgium and even Switzerland high death rates.
This is very interesting. I have been doing some reading online about the original SARS outbreak from 2002/03, about which I know very little, but I haven’t come upon any information suggesting that it was mainly a nosocomial infection. Can you point me to any source about this? I’m not disputing your statement, just wanting to read further. Thanks.
I remember they had a big problem in some selected hospitals in Toronto and it was mirrored in some other countries I think in Singapore and HongKong.
Here is the reference https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12925421 about the big Toronto outbreak.As a curiosity in this chart
https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/1262213838621102086/photo/1
this person has outlined the current Covid-19 in the world and below he has put the SARS epidemic as he is thinking that as SARS fizzled out in August the same thing could happen for Covid-19.Optimist.
Another thing about the hotspots (NYC, Spain, Italy) – all have high rates of antibiotic resistant bacteria. So you have a decent chance of catching something nasty on the best of days.
One way to try to get a feel for this is to compare Covid deaths and all cause deaths in the different UTLAs per unit of population using the ONS data. In most places the Covid mortality is about 25% of the all cause but does not seem highly correlated. If the Covid infections arose outside the hospital you might expect them to be added to the all cause, so places with more Covid deaths would also have more total deaths in a consistent pattern.
I had a look for this and it’s hard to see much correlation but this is also because the all cause deaths are so variable. In fact the mean Covid death rate is only a fraction above the standard deviation in the all cause. (I know right, and the UK is one of the worst hit countries).
We can also look at the geographical distribution of the Covid death rate. If it’s higher in more built-up areas then that looks like a correlation between the Covid deaths and the environment outside the hospital, in other words not dominated by nosocomial. If there are anomalies it might imply particular issues on particular hospitals.
The highest Covid PFRs are all in NW London inside the M25 between Ealing and Enfield. The only anomaly seemed to be Hertsmere, which is in that zone but had a much higher Covid and All Cause death rate than the other places making me suspect one or two hospital outbreaks there.
I didn’t see a smoking gun for nosocomial infections in hospitals. Care home deaths however are nosocomial by definition.
“This appears to confirm what many think, that the Government believes the public is too stupid to cope with more nuanced guidance.”
Doubtless. But in fairness, I think it’s pretty clear the Government are collectively too stupid to grasp reality.
Is your MP Conservative?
While resistance here comes from all sides of the political divide I do think this lock-down is a more fundamental betrayal of conservatism than it is of socialism (I use that term here because Labourism isn’t a word). The idea of big brother government telling us what to do in petty detail for the (supposed) Greater Good of socialised healthcare is, or ought to be, anathema to any conservative.
“Conservative” Party MPs need to understand that those who voted for them did not vote for this kind of thing and absolutely have a right to be disillusioned.
I should have added there: so too should trashing the economy, and the small businesses that represent the fruit of often years of blood, sweat and toil on the part of their owners. [be anathema to any conservative, that is]
I have never abstained from voting in an election before. There doesnt seem to be a lot of choice at the moment.
The Conservative government (and possibly the party) seems only to care about power and popularity. Many of it’s members and some MPs may be highly principled and do a lot of good, but this government is hollow.
I always vote – normally by spoiling my ballot paper by writing “none of these” across it.
At least spoilt papers get counted.
I agree that it is more of a betrayal of Conservatism than of socialism. Some on the left who are classical marxists like Brendon O’Neil and Claire Fox are strong allies. I was surprised about Rod Liddle.
The election winning machine that is the Conservative Party want to be absolutely all over the NHS. They also want Boris to be like a 1st term prime minister, so very different to Torys who have gone before, by the next election it wont feel like they’ve been in power for however many years it’s been.
NHS always used to be their weak spot, and every election the same old boring arguments about how the Torys would cut it, and Labour would spend more.
When presented with a scenario of a Northern Italy type situation here, they completely panicked. They wanted people to be afraid, so that they could look like saviours and protectors.
That is certainly a pretty plausible case, but the real shame of it is that if they were ever going to take a temporary popularity hit in order to stay on the side of reality, a year into a five year term was exactly that time! Johnson had a once in a lifetime opportunity to actually be a Great Leader (“Churchillian”, even – precisely Johnson’s dream), and he comprehensively blew it.
Exactly right!
Churchill stood in the wilderness for sometime with his unpopular views. He did not lead for popularity. He lead people through dark times because he thought it was the right thing to do.
Boris isn’t Churchill.
Yes, Boris clearly failed to grasp that one of the essential elements of courage in a leader is actually standing up to something dangerous to him (ie unpopularity), when it is right and necessary to do so.
He’s like the kid who desperately wants a medal but isn’t willing to take any risks.
My MP said that lots of people dont feel safe and we need to make sure that they are. Safety is very important and gentle lockdown easing is the way.
Also bear in mind that this is a “multi-phase” plan, which means that it has definitely been thought through. Also note that it is “science based” which means very very clever people are involved. Also did you know the government has 5 tests – and any time a politician has 5 tests (eg Labour on the brexit deal or Blair/Brown on the Euro) it means they definitely know what they’re doing.
Yes. It was obvious which bits were template as there were abrupt changes in tone. A standard bit at the beginning, a couple of sentences related to where I was pro/con – which had the tone of voice of a letter, and then official tect relating to the key phases, key tests and links to the government webpages.
“My MP said that lots of people dont feel safe”
Hmmm:
UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), dated 22nd March:
“Persuasion
2. Perceived threat: A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened; it could be that they are reassured by the low death rate in their demographic group (8), although levels of concern may be rising (9). Having a good understanding of the risk has been found to be positively associated with adoption of COVID-19 social distancing measures in Hong Kong (10). The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging. To be effective this must also empower people by making clear the actions they can take to reduce the threat (11).”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/882722/25-options-for-increasing-adherence-to-social-distancing-measures-22032020.pdf
And the suggestion later in the paper for how to achieve that objective of increasing popular fear:
“Use media to increase sense of personal threat”
Terrorism pure and simple.
Here is an idea for the teachers. If the concern is having all children back at once how about only opening the schools to those who qualify for free school meals for the remainder of this academic year.
Last week in LS the complete stopping of the dental service in March and the return to 18 th century dentistry was publicised . The media have been really quiet on this. Interestingly Germany has kept its dentists working with stronger hygiene measures . Can we get a mini bus trip to Germany so that people from the UK with tooth problems can be treated ?
The government has got its priorities right, estate agents are open but not dentists. My dentist is eager to go back to work (always working with gloves and mask) but all work with fillings and drilling etc is prohibited so only medieval dentistry allowed, pull the tooth. The Chief Dental Officer for England is still shell shocked and has not decided yet about the protection against this common cold virus. The options will probably be PCR testing each patient, serology and change of spacesuit for the dentist between each patient. I think the cost will be out of reach for most so probably we all need to go to the barber and have the tooth pulled out, at least a progress from medieval dentistry to 18th century dentistry
The UK dental thing is beyond horrid! Pulling teeth! I ask you! Is it 1820? Can’t dentists do better than that? Even British ones?
(I mentioned this to my daughter, and she said “Isn’t dentistry always like that in the UK?” Sassy American children….)
Over my dead body will I be having any fast tracked vaccine for this.
Have these idiots never heard of thalidomide!
It should not be used until every MP vaccinates themselves and the whole family first then wait 6 months.
Amen.
Can someone please start a petition for that…!?
A vaccine in September… 6 months after Covid-19 appears for the the time? Nigh impossible.
And the propaganda press and their families.
There has never been a vaccine developed for a coronavirus so probably more money down the drain.
Surely no ‘coincidence’ that the key players like Boris, Chris Whitty and Neil Ferguson have supposedly had the virus and will therefore not be obliged to have any vaccine. In public they may bleat on about there being no certainty that having had the virus means you are now immune, but note that Ferguson claimed he was now immune as his excuse for having his girlfriend over…
A more worrying example than Thalidomide (not a vaccine) is Pandemrix, which caused an elevated rate of narcolepsy in children:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix
This specific vaccine was developed in a hurry to fight … (wait for it) … swine flu. Licensed only for use during a flu pandemic as declared by the WHO. Too bad the WHO changed their own definition of pandemic to remove the need for actual deaths, so the swine flu would qualify:
https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-swine-flu-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html#31e52ed948e8
In all seriousness, in the bit about cults, how are we going to jolt people out of it? We can’t slay them with facts (that’s my own experience, facts just make them angry), is there some way to deprogramme someone? Cult deprogrammers exist (seen a documentary about it), so how are we going to nudge the populace to relax their vigilance and calm the hell down?
The real believers are largely immune to criticism. Facts questioning their dogmas are just “conspiracy theories”.
Don’t worry, they will soon be shocked out of it when the money stops and they get their P45s. Far too many public sector are enjoying the free cash while the self employed and essential workers just have to get on with it. While there are a few nutters around the vast majority are just treating this as an extended holiday.
More accurately, they treat it as an extended holiday for themselves, whilst reporting any neighbour who has the same idea. There was a poll about the PM’s latest “stay alert” slogans, 90% thought they could handle that themselves but only half thought the rest of the public could be trusted to use common sense.
I have seen, everywhere, but particularly on the Times comments, ‘the public cannot be trusted to ….’ a) who the hell do these people think they are? and b) it’s snobbish contempt, someone might be a plumber (see poor Ryan on Channel 4 news!) but who the hell are these people to say that the Ryans of this world don’t care, or can’t exercise sensible, common sense? Ryan did make me chuckle, he was interviewed on LBC on Monday, after a weekend of being under siege, his company’s house listings put online, sleepless with anxiety, he was mocked for being a ‘right wing brexiteer’ (I feel his pain as a dithering left of centre sofite), and he said ‘I voted Remain’. Posh corbynistas’ heads around the country exploded! But I’m so sick of the contempt. It’s just naked snobbery.
Hopefully that would be their reality check. But what about those who are cushioned by their wealth and don’t have to worry about P45s? That’s the question as many of our prominent lockdown zealots are in that category
Those people I know who are furloughed would rather not be furloughed.
By admitting it was a complete cock up. But I think the public would still say “There’s something they’re not telling us.” as I have heard this from the start.
All of us with BS detectors knew it was rubbish the day it started!
Perhaps, they have to find themselves a scapegoat – the media and/or the government. So they could say “I’ve been perfectly rational the whole time, I couldn’t possibly have known that THEY were shamelessly lying to us”
The BBC is not gonna survive this when the truth permeates.
And it will, eventually.
This explains why dear old Aunty is so hellbent on Gloom&Dooming it every day, no matter the real news (the real, good news). They’re arse-covering as determinedly as the government. It may appear that they’re being all adversarial and shizz but we all know they’re not actually questioning the policy at all (neither is the wider media but they’re not taxpayer funded) on any meaningful level.
I absolutely agree that the media are not doing a great job questioning the policy but blaming journalists or the government is I think is just an easy cop out.
The Treasury is racking up debt at possibly one of the fastest rates in history, the government is imposing literally unprecedented restrictions on the whole population and taking away you freedom to go out and see your friends and family and it’s not like it’s difficult to find data, such as mortality rates by age, that clearly show that this is unnecessary. So if after 2 months of this you still never stop to question the official narrative I think you are just as guilty as the most rabidly pro-lockdown Guardian columnist. Not that any of this will stop millions from blaming the media and government for their own gullibility when this is all over.
Incidentally, the media/government aren’t, of course, lying. I am pretty sure they all genuinely believe what the say/base their policies on (I am not that cynical yet). It’s just that what they believe is based on very little to no critical thinking at all.
Good point 4096. A lot of zealots will try to belatedly get on the right side of this when the truth starts to come out.
“Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me”
Initially there may have been some justification for the lockdown, but no-one as looking at the downsides.
By now it’s blatantly obvious that the downsides far outweigh any benefits. There’s an increasing amount of evidence which is getting harder to dismiss as conspiracy theories but they are still trying.
France’s all-cause mortality rate has slightly dipped below the 2018 and 2019 figures (graph 2/3rds of the way down the page):
https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2020/05/05/coronavirus-age-mortalite-departements-pays-suivez-l-evolution-de-l-epidemie-en-cartes-et-graphiques_6038751_4355770.html
Just read this in the daily Mail. The Oxford vaccine that is supposed to be the panacea – all the monkeys injected with it got covid 19. Really- a dangerous vaccine – who would have guessed!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8331709/Oxford-coronavirus-vaccine-does-not-stop-infection-experts-warn.html
Yeah but they got it less badly. What’s more worrying is the same design of vaccine but for SARS1 caused “enhancement” (when it makes the actual disease much worse if you catch it) on 6 out of the 8 monkeys they tried it on.
This one was OK on the 6 monkeys they tried it on. But Covid-19 is generally a much less severe disease than what you get from SARS1, so maybe you need a bigger sample.
The enhancement issue seems to be caused by an unbalancing of the immune response, which is exactly the sort of thing that’s involved with Covid-19 deaths. So I’m not sure how easy it is to extrapolate from a few monkeys (none of whom were obese, elderly, vitamin D deficient or BAME).
They’re going ahead with human trials but I’m not going to volunteer.
Vaccines are great and everything but when the disease is only Covid-19 it’s going to need a big sample size to prove the vaccine isn’t making things worse.
I know intelligent people who would race to vaccinate their children as soon as possible. I just do not understand it when the risk from the virus appears to be negligible and the alternative is poorly tested.
As someone who lives with an ‘imbalanced immune system’, I also cannot understand why people do not realise that our immune health will not be improved by this lockdown and distancing from others. I worry that the effect on the young will be worse.
There is absolutely no reason for children to be vaccinated when the risk to them is virtually zero. Let’s vaccinate everyone so a virus that doesn’t do much to them is stopped from spreading to a minority of the population? It’s as ridiculous as locking down a whole country to try and do the same thing. Vaccination is a complete red herring.
Yes, it would be completely crazy to vaccinate anyone for this except the “high risk groups”.
The vaccine is a red herring anyway. It’s not essential because most people don’t need it. There are only 2 reasons for a vaccine:
1. Create “herd immunity” which is needed to suppress the spread of a virus. Herd immunity is not necessary when the vast majority of people are relatively unnaffected
2. Vaccinate the people at highest risk to give them some protection against the virus. For this virus, this is the only reason for a vaccine
Now why does this sound familiar? Because it’s the exact situation we have with flu every year.
To put my tinfoil hat on, it makes complete sense from a vaccine industry POV. They need another cash cow to make trillions from every year- a parent they don’t make enough with millions of flue vaccine doses per year, so they need another seasonal disease to vaccinate us all against. Every twelve months until eternity.
Despite it being a coronavirus I actually think they might crack it (but in years not months). But only in the sense they’ve cracked the flu vaccine – I. E. completely new vaccine every twelve months, made from cobbling together a guesstimate of which strains will be most active etc.
— = MO’ MONEY! !!
The game plan is to make vaccinations mandatory. If you can do it with this one, why not all the others such as annual flu vaccine.
Here is a link (below) to the Centre for Disease Control’s own list of vaccine ingredients. Note aluminium which causes muscle weakness, Alzheimer’s and autoimmune disease, thimerosal (mercury) one of the most toxic elements on the planet, formaldehyde, which is carcinogenic, polysorbate 80 which causes infertility, MSG, an excitotoxin, gelatine, egg protein and casein – all of which can cause allergies, numerous potent antibiotics, squalene from sharks which when injected into a person causes automimmunity by the immune system attacking the human squalene in our bodies, quillaja saponoria which is so toxic it is not supposed to be in human vaccines, potent antibiotics, cow blood, canine kidney cells, monkey tissue, chicken cells, human diploid cells (aborted foetus). The idea that all this being injected into a child’s body is safe when their immune system hasn’t fully developed is ludicrous. Hardly good for adults either!
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf.
Apart from these ‘ingredients’ which are normally in vaccines they are regularly contaminated with all sorts of bacteria, viruses and heavy metals. An Italian study found 100% of 44 vaccines tested had contaminants in them.
http://medcraveonline.com/IJVV/IJVV-04-00072.pdfetc.
The number and type of toxic ingredients are truly shocking. Imagine the damage it would do to people short, medium and long term. People that are more susceptible to certain health issues could incur much more extensive damage.
I’d like to discuss the piece of this sordid puzzle regarding the elderly who reside in nursing homes/care centers/LTCF’s- this too, like all else Covid, is a complete lie. To tell half-truths to purposefully de-contextualize a situation of this magnitude is to knowingly manipulate the facts- it is to lie.
Based on watching interviews and reading reports there seems to be a consistent pattern of how the situation with those in care centers has been handled in Madrid, London, Milan, Brussels and NYC.
How it works in the best of times is that when one is placed into an LTCF this does not mean that that person will remain in that facility for every single day for the remainder of their lives. What it does mean is that that person is most always in a situation where their health has deteriorated significantly, there are complex health problems where constant care is required. So where else will that person spend time, at least during “normal” times, when they are not directly in that care facility? In the hospital.
It is important to understand that care centers are not set up for most medical emergencies and do not have extensive, or even minimal, health professionals on staff to attend to such complex medical issues that are omnipresent with these chronically ill elderly patients.
Many of these individuals who now reside in LTCF’s, most of them, live out their lives shuttling back and forth from care facility to hospital. They go from the care facility to the hospital when they have a dramatic downturn in their health status with life-saving medical treatment being required to keep them alive at this point. At the hospital they will undergo treatments which serve to stabilize the elderly patient and in a matter of 3-7 days, on average, they become stabilized and are sent back to the care center. Most of these individuals yo-yo back and forth between care facility and hospital until the day that they die.
It’s important to understand, that while it varies some from country to country and from care center to care center, on average once one enters a care facility that person will be deceased in around 6-12 months. Here is a report from 2010 which speaks to this:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945440/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6143238/
Once the patient is stabilized in the hospital they then go back to the care center. If they were not to have been stabilized at the hospital, during this medical crisis, that elderly patient would descend very rapidly while in the care center and be dead within a week- possibly sooner. Again keep in mind we are talking about individuals who are already in severe health crisis with very complex health issues.
What is happening now with the care center to hospital rotational is radically different then the normal back and forth. It is this difference which has created the conditions for what we now are witnessing as a “bulk” rate of deceased elderly. It has little to do with Covid per se (though many are listed under the now catch-all Covid category) and instead points to a social problem not a viral problem.
The changes are such that now we are seeing that once an individual is sent to the hospital for whatever cause they may have (“Covid” or otherwise) and then stabilized they go back to the nursing home just as before. Some are being dismissed prematurely (due to fear of overcrowding which never happened) and are being sent back to care facilities, which as mentioned earlier do not have the medical capabilities to care for these severe and complicated health problems.
Unlike the previous back and forth that defined these patients lives, once the patient is identified as a Covid patient (often with no testing or diagnosis) and returned to the care center they will no longer be in a position to return back to the hospital when the next (and certain) downturn occurs.
Once this chain is broken, not being allowed to be sent back to the hospital for stabilization, it is essentially a death sentence- a form of negligent euthanasia. This also means that oncd they return to the nursing home may infect others individuals in the care center- with whatever infection they may have-workers included. A climate of neglect and fear prevails.
Compounding all of this is the fact that with that climate of fear and hysteria workers are withdrawing from care centers, calling in sick, skipping shifts etc creating worker shortages and an even more stressful situation in every aspect of the care centers- a perfect storm.
https://www.politico.eu/article/the-silent-coronavirus-covid19-massacre-in-italy-milan-lombardy-nursing-care-homes-elderly/
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-britain-elderly/
And through all of this let’s keep in mind that those that these nursing home deaths (deaths caused as much by neglect and abandonment) represented about 50% of the “Covid deaths” in Europe- even though it was admitted that many were never tested.
And let’s also keep in mind that these pumped up numbers of “Covid deaths”, of those that government officials neglected, were used to justify all manner of draconian measures by those same governments. It’s a sick and twisted game being played here.
Excellent stuff – it’s quite likely that this ‘disaster’ is largely of our own making.
You are absolutely right. In Sweden people are sent to care homes if nurse/HCW visits at their home is required more than 4 – 6 times per day. The elderly at care homes have an average 6-12 mths to live.
These are the people dying in the care homes ,mainly Stockholm, because of several blunders by the Swedish government including stopping visits very late 1st April, inadequately trained staff many with language problems. This never happened in Norway and Finland hence the low death rate in those countries. US has exactly the same problem see this map
https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1262403188096892929/photo/1
The only state with astonishing low figures is New York due to the fraudulent Governor falsifying the figures.
Also in Sweden there are lots of staff who work at more than one care home, because they are on part time contracts and they need to work more hours to make ends meet. So they could potentially have spread the virus from one care home to another.
Same here I imagine. (UK)
BEIJING, February 2020
President is having breakfast. His head of intelligence (HI) walks in excitedly.
Pres: What do you want?
HI: Boss, I have come up with a brilliant idea
Pres: Yes..and?
HI: You know about this virus outbreak in Wuhan….
Pres: Oh yes, we did a brilliant job controlling that, shut down a whole city, scared the shit out of my loyal followers, nobody complained or argued. In fact if I remember right we did not execute many detractors and we only had to imprison a few. One of my better moments don’t you think?
HI: Yes, yes Sir, of course but listen, the virus is spreading, not here of course, but around the world.
Pres: Thats a shame. I hope they can control it like we did.
HI: But, Boss we see an advantage here to help us expand our power worldwide.
Pres: Oh yes, I like that idea! Tell me, tell me more.
HI: Listen carefully, this is the plan. We eggagerate the danger of this virus and claim it kills, lets say, 10 or 15% of everyone who catches it and publicise that in the western world’s press. Then, you may remember that we invested a whole ton of money in Ethiopia, secured most of their minerals, only had to bribe a few of their politicians……
Pres: Yes, good move that. But what’s this got to do with the virus?
HI: Sorry Sir, but one of their politicians is now head of the World Health Organisation and he owes us a favour. We will ask him to to declare this virus a global pandemic. Not only that but we have invested a lot into Imperial College London and about half their students are Chinese so we will ask them a favour too. They can make up some wildly exaggerated predicted numbers of deaths and put them in a professional looking document and present it to their Government to scare them.
Pres: OK, OK but get on with it……the world domination bit.
HI: Bear with me Sir. You know the western press can publish anything they like, the scarier the better, and they cannot even execute or imprison their journalists.
Pres: Yes, I always thought that was strange, ha ha ha.
HI: Yes, funny that. So they will definitely publish the exaggerated figures from ICL along with their recommendations to lockdown their whole economies. The WHO pandemic announcement will be music to their ears. Think of the sales, think of the advertising revenue for them! They will terrify their people. But this is the best bit……The western leaders are terrified of being criticised by their press so they will follow what the press say. They will lockdown all their businesses, put their citizens under house arrest and impose drastic restrictions on their freedoms.
Pres. Just like us, ha ha. I bet they will go against their own silly human rights laws they bang on about too.
HI: And voila! We have destroyed their economies.
Pres: I get it, I get it now. We go in and buy up all their broken businesses for a song. We put their workers on 7 day working weeks for half their present pay……we clean up……at no cost to us ….and not a shot fired! Your plan is beyond brilliant. You must execute it immediately. I will recommend you for a State Honour and your pay will be doubled to 20 dollars a month.
HI: Thank you, thank you, you are the greatest Dear Leader. (lots of bowing and adoration).
I’ve pointed this out before, but another thing I find strange is that as early as January 4th, five days before the first confirmed covid19 death, and just one day after the whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang was arrested, the South China Morning Post was already in Wuhan, doubtless with the permission of the PRC, making a video to drive home the message of a “mystery illness.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LtA0-qoHOg It was like the opening scene from a horror film: everything outwardly calm, people standing about in masks, creepy music. The Wuhan Virology Lab wasn’t mentioned; instead they tried to direct suspicion toward the market. The SCMP put out a whole series of such sinister videos. To me it seems that far from trying to cover up this mystery illness the PRC was almost trying to set the scene for the whole panic scenario that has subsequently swept the world.
I kinda agree. But they wanted everyone to panic when they *wanted them to panic – because they knew they couldn’t cover up their own outbreak any more.
It was about timing not intention.
i agree with that too. Sort of damage limitation.
I’ve said this before. The Wuhan lockdown was theatre imo. They were already past peak infections when they imposed it. It’s not very good optics either that Bill Gates lobbed Xi Jinping $100million straight after and it’s not good optics that Imperial College have just accepted sponsorship from Huawei. China is making aggressive moves in HK and, aiui, in the Philippines too. Whether China’s wish to expand control and the vaccine and tech interests of a billionaire happened to align coincidentally, who can tell. Incidentally, the phrase “new normal” that all the Western governments simultaneously started using? Came from WHO during Gates pandemic dry run event 201. Odd.
Steve Bannon’s podcast on Saturdays focuses on China. Chinese dissidents phone in anonymously from China. Some of the stories they tell are terrifying.
Just listen to any of the ones with ‘Descent into hell’ in the title.
https://pandemic.warroom.org/podcast/
I don’t think I can. China has always terrified me. My dad always told me that they would bid for world power one day and I believe him
Sadly, having read a lot on the subject recently, I think your Dad may have been correct.
Problem about sending our children back to schools though Toby and I’m a lockdown sceptic and would be happy to take my children back to school tomorrow if schools returned to normal but I received the new measures from our Primary school today and the measures are ridiculous if the schools are “safe”. Social Distancing is enforced, cluster classes of 15 max in separate classrooms. Children cannot mix with other classroom clusters so separated from their friends, curriculum is reduced due to these measures, toys and games are locked away for reception. If we accept these measures it’s almost a concession to the government that these ridiculous measures are widely accepted of the new normal. These measures will never be normal for 4 to 11 year olds and schools are either safe to return to normal or they are not. The mixed messaging from the govt to say schools are completely safe but reception, year 1 and 6 will be the guniea pigs with such strict measures in place does not scream to me schools are safe. I do not want my 5 year old to be told he cannot go near his friend he cannot play with this he cannot do completely harmless things. If parents push back on these measures then that will force the govt hand to reopen schools fully and back to how they were.
Get together with other mums and dads in your area and do it yourself! It’s abusive to do this to kids. I’m so sad about it.
It fills with me so much despair. The only way out of this is if the govt admit the pandemic is not as serious as first feared and schools and workplaces will return to the “old normal”. How long do we have to endure of these measures everywhere we go? Most of the parents I have spoken to wont send their children back out of fear of covid not the measures. I almost get the impression the measures are not stringent enough for some parents!
The doctor who commented here a few days ago and referred to the teaching unions as “the covid equivalent of flat earthers” was absolutely spot on with that. Applies to a fair few of the parents as well, clearly. See the piece published here by a journalist who tried to get up a petition to get schools going again.
In your shoes, if you have the spare parent time to do it, just get your kids out with other kids, go and play, go for walks, go to parks, all pile in the living room and watch movies, make things, get messy, but whatever you do, do not inflict this on your kids! It is not the job of children to contain or assuage the feelings of adults! It really isn’t. There’s no risk. Adults co-opting the compliance of children like this, for another agenda, co-opting their compassion and worry is what sex offenders do, it’s so damaging. Children should navigate the world, clear in the understanding ‘don’t worry about that, that’s grown up stuff’ (which is what I say, verbatim to my nephews and nieces all the time, the latest was ‘if mum and dad died would we come and live with you aunty?, my answer, yes but that is not going to happen and you really, really never need to worry about that, that’s our job’), and that should be the END. Children’s job is to be children. This sh”t makes me FURIOUS.
What are your thoughts on gender unicorns in infant classrooms, Bec ?
(Just teasing, in full agreement with what you say.).
LOL, those opinions would have me ‘cancelled’ as a bigot!
PS thanks!
That’s cruel and I wonder if the people who draft these guidelines really have a clue what they’re doing to children.
I have 3 school age children and have been a school governor for over a decade. Mine are not in the years going back but I am readying myself for a legal fight if social distancing is in place in September given the absolute lack of scientific basis. I wonder if protecting the rights of our children would gather as much crowd funding support?
I’d contribute, children should not be pawns in a fight, either a divorce or a political battle.
I’d contribute even though I’ve never been a parent
Good for you. I hate children, but not as much as teachers do apparently so I’d def chip in a quid or two
“Children’s rights don’t end where adult Covid cultists fears begin”.
I’ll chip in…I’ll be chipping in for any lawsuit / petition / etc that will help to bring us back to sanity and call this coup d’état out for what it is.
I’d definitely chip in. The two metre thing is one of the most chilling and worst aspects of this whole pantomime. It’s pointless and unworkable, and applying it to children is cruel and insane.
There are many of us in the same boat. My daughter is 3, so not school age, but her nursery are talking about the ‘measures’ they are thinking of putting in place and it is horrifying. A society that would think it acceptable to do this to children, just to make adults feel better, is a truly sick one.
I wonder if this website could be used as a way to get parents of young children connected with others in their local area in order to try to circumvent some of this nonsense?
Good to see the Pistols cover (originally banned) in today’s newsletter.
Reminds me of a couple of quotes from Mr Lydon, which I’ve been thinking of in recent weeks:
‘Blind acceptance is a sign of stupid/f*****g fools that stand in line’.
‘Ah ha ha. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?’
OMG so I made a flippant MRSA comment yesterday which could have been spot on.
(I was just noting that to me, the way it moves through communities of vulnerable people sounds very much like MRSA. Even that though is often a case of ‘with’ rather than ‘of’ – my own grandad went into hospital for a cancer operation fifteen years back, caught MRSA and died. So pushed over the cliff edge rather than taken to it by MRSA).
Same with my granddad, my mum watched him die through a window, it haunts her still. She cries, frequently, ‘nobody held his hand’. I’m so angry I could combust.
Really? They let my dad and his sister go to see my grandad but nobody else
I was pretty angry at the time
My mother had to go into hospital for an emergency operation. The operation was a success BUT she developed a serious infection in both legs which required loads on antibiotics. They were careful not to mention MRSA but it couldn’t have been much else.
In later years I used to monitor her closely when I’d taken her to the hospital to see what she’d caught this time. Hospitals being full of ill people and poorly paid overworked staff and privatised cleaners, it’s a wonder anyone gets out alive. I can quite believe they are a hotbed of covid also.
Sympathies by the way.
Guardian just reported that it will not be safe for teachers to mark books. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/18/marking-books-not-safe-suggests-new-coronavirus-guidance-for-teachers
“Fresh guidance for teachers from the country’s biggest teaching union suggests it will not be safe to mark children’s books and renews calls for PPE in schools.”
This is so nonsensical that I am simply lost for words.
The covebola cultists descend into self-parody…
I’m not usually a betting man, but would happily venture a few quid that it will get (much) worse before it’s over.
Oh come on.
How are people still taking this seriously now? ! HOW?!?
The terrorism has worked.
Do you guys remember what Reagan did in 1981 when Air Traffic Controllers went on strike? He fired 11,345 of them on the grounds that they were threatening the country’s safety. I am, of course, not suggesting such drastic actions, but do these people (teacher’s unions) realise how much harm they are doing to children by denying them access to education?
Personally I think the teachers need to fire the unions…..
That would be great, if there could be some dramatic action like that, but even if it had public support (clearly it wouldn’t atm) I think it’s safe to say the man who caved in to lockdown out of fear of a glorified flu (or perhaps fear just of getting blamed) is not a man with the bottle to take on a massive, entrenched public employee trade union.
Yes, and they know they have him on the run. Unlike Maggie, who was armed and ready for battle to face down the miners, Boris has shown he is predisposed to running away!
It’s not just education, it’s this massive burden of looking after grown-ups emotions (which is what child sex offenders do, it’s what grooming is!), it’s so abusive, I can barely be coherent!
A13. I fear that they know exactly the harm they’re doing but they couldn’t give a monkeys, as long as the poor dears feel “safe” or they can use the kids as hostagess to squeeze more money from the govenment.
Is this for real?? I’m amazed at how adults who are responsible for children chickening out of their responsibilities!
Are they really afraid or they are merely using this as an excuse to push their agenda?
That’s what I’m trying to understand. No one can be stupid enough to believe that marking a book is a high-risk activity that can result in serious illness!
Good question. As I told a friend if people seriously believe that they can catch a virus just because someone walked past them or they’re marking someone’s exam paper, we should have been extinct millions of years ago.Humanity would have stopped at the austrolapithecus africanus!
Maybe they should look for a job in a safer working environment like a suparmarket.
Worth remembering that the overwhelming majority of those supporting the lockup went through the UK state education system.
I imagine so did the majority of lockdown sceptics simply through sheer force of non-loaded numbers
Typical self-destructive union behaviour. But this is going to align the public (and their loyal follower Boris Johnson) against the lockdown.
Well the Guardian’s writers are all off their trolley so it’s not surprising. What a useless rag!
I personally wouldn’t blame the unions but the govt. For 8 weeks they incessantly looked down the barrel of the camera at the daily press briefings telling the whole country to stay home and save lives! The state would fine you for so much as sunbathing or sitting on a park bench. I cannot blame the parents or unions for being petrified of this wholly over exaggerated virus. The govt got the country into this mess and it falls on them to admit they panicked and mistakes were made at overstating the seriousness of this virus not the unions or the public.
We can blame both.
Let’s just record it as a decision made _with_ covinsanity and not get bogged down in the details of whose massive incompetence and stupidity is the _main_ cause.
Funny how those famous people who are against the lockdown and are raising the alarm over the side effects of it all are being dismissed as “conspiracy theorists”. Makes you wonder why the mainstream media are keen to shut down the debate and keep the populace in fear.
Because it’s a coup, and not ultimately about the virus at all ?
Yep
Just like the very mention of hydroxychloroquine, which US & UK ‘big pharma’ have no profit motive in as it’s cheaply produced in the developing world and has been in common use in India and vast swathes of Africa for decades without any of the highlighted side effects to date. Tw*tter, Utube, Fakebook et al come down on it like a ton of bricks at its very mention. Don’t suppose it’s because of the advertiser contracts being dangled, is it?
It’s part of the plan, divide and conquer. Then bring in the new overlords in the open.
It’s a coup against the people.
How does it feel to be targeted by the British Army? They are at war with those who do not believe and are questioning.
The 77th Brigade is on active service at the moment so they will be monitoring this website among lots of others so we are all in the frontline.
As to the MSM, follow the money. Who ultimately owns the companies that publish the newspapers, broadcast the TV news? Find out then follow the links.
“The 77th Brigade is on active service at the moment so they will be monitoring this website among lots of others so we are all in the frontline.”.
Oddly the web-savvy of our squaddies doesn’t worry me that much.
Grenades, automatic weapons, tanks, helicopters in the night – yes. Even I would succumb.
Nuanced rationale debate – not so much.
Who knows though, we might make a few converts.
Curiously I have noticed an increase in military jets and helicopters in recent days. I wonder if they are spraying the virus.
More seriously when there’s an increase in military activity it usually precedes an invasion somewhere. That would take our minds off the virus. Or maybe they are invading here. USAF have some pretty mean kit.
Protests in Spain have come to my city. One person started them in a city centre street and they are attracting more people. The house arrest has been eased slightly but there are still restrictions on movement. Me and the missus are going to try to get to the next one.
On this topic, saw an interview on national televisión with the president of the autonomous government. He was asked his opinión about the protests and gave the usual politicians answer but interestingly, refused to condemn them. Another interesting comment was that “the best vaccine is us” which I took to be an endorsement of the herd immunity strategy. Disappointingly he wants compulsory use of masks everywhere but I wonder if he thinks this is a way to coax the bedwetters out of their Covid comas. After Reading the article from the Kings College doctors in Toby’s post this could be his thinking, however misguided. Tomorrow’s vote on extending house arrest should be interesting.
Can’t resist summarising a story from yesterday’s Telegraph:
People are allowed to visit the seaside.
People go to the Dorset coast.
The local council closes all its car parks.
A private landowner opens his car park.
People pay to park in it.
The council accuses the landowner of profiteering.
It’s not only “the science” that some people need to have explained to them in smaller words.
Let’s get the big oxymoron out of the way first: by definition “distancing” is antisocial. Social or gregarious* animals group together.
(* adj. Seeking and enjoying the company of others; sociable. synonym: social.)
Humans require social contact for both physical and mental health. One significant aspect of this physical health is the exchange of pathogens that stimulate immune responses. One assumes most readers here know what happened to the natives of the new world when they encountered Europeans carrying diseases that were previously unknown to them. (Had the Europeans themselves experienced deaths and diseases in the long process of acquiring relatively high immunity to these diseases? Yes, of course. But we were not decimated by them.)
If we analogise our civilisation to the individual, one can also ask the question; what happens next winter flu season, when corona viruses typically enjoy their greatest effects on humans, and we’ve severely weakened our food and energy distribution systems by the knee-jerk lock-down over-reaction to the first contact?
Is an immuno-compromised society as vulnerable as an immuno-compromised individual? (We should pray not but I wouldn’t bet on it.)
I like to ask the Karens this question, and I like to do it in the style and tone of the infamous Channel 4 interviewer, Cathy Newman:
“So, what you’re saying is … Divided we Stand, United we Fall?”
I won’t even start on the perfidious abuses of our political class tonight. I won’t explore in this comment the oldest and most pertinent question in legal investigations: “cui bono?” (Who profits?)
You know already the answer to that question, and it’s not you or I.
Well, OK, I will make just one point about our great and good governments. As Britain and France negotiate over the proposed 14 day quarantine period for anyone crossing borders in future, what do you think the chances are that the same political / bureaucratic class who formulates these agreements will be themselves subjected to them?
Yeah, me too.
Scientists researching covid may be exempted.
In their villas on the Med, maybe ?
Probably lots of MPs with holiday homes in France…
The first thing that popped into my head when I read about the cultists doubling down…
“Let’s not let the sacrifices we’ve already made go to waste”
Sadly, it is aligned to the sunk cost fallacy in Economics, something Boris seems to be particularly vulnerable to falling into (HS2)
There must be something about the care of the elderly which is different in Western Europe compared to other countries. Look at the difference between Greece and Spain. They have both roughly the same life expectancy. Spain’s population about 5 times bigger than Greece but has an astonishing 100 times more Covid-19 cases than Greece and almost 170 times more Covid-19 deaths.They both were infected at the same time from Italy. There must be something different in the care of the elderly in Greece and most likely similar in the Middle East, which explains their lower death rates. The league of death of Covid-19 is mostly determined how we care for our elderly.
There seems to be very little care home capacity in Greece, and a trend to take the elderly and infirm out of care homes to look after them at home.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/154505/article/ekathimerini/community/care-homes-see-mass-exodus
Infection in hospitals and care homes, where the most susceptible are concentrated, plus very loose attribution of cause of mortality, seems to explain a lot of the variations in mortality between different countries.
Sweden seems to have been the most open about the virus having got into their care homes causing their proportional mortality rate to exceed that of some of their near neighbours.
I concur. You’d think this may contribute to higher death rates (multigenerational households infecting one another), which may actually have been a factor in Italy/Spain, but if this is indeed a co…… that words which means it’s a contact-spread infection
it actually makes way more sense for large groups of vulnerable and their carers to be spreading it around more in their environments and into other similar environments (AKA care homes, and the larger the care homes the worse it will be) than family members who will enjoy a degree of personal space, even in a home.
So yeah. This is what links the more naturally ‘socially distant’ and smaller household cultures of Scandinavia (and the UK) to the more socially gregarious, large multi-generational household cultures of Southerm Europe.
— Basically there is no link. It’s down to the care home system, not the family structure.
Enough is enough. Now looking for work abroad.
Where you looking? Been thinking about this also, but where is sane? I was living in Greece until this last October, thank god I came home when I did, they are trashed!
Singapore and UAE. It’s not just the lock-down, it’s the dwindling finances!
I did, have been for 34 years but still had UK tax liabilities so still paying tax and NI here.
Laid off with 1 day’s notice when they local government said they were introducing 2 weeks quarantine. All contract cancelled. People at home told not to come back. Others at work told to pack up and go ASAP.
I was in the oilfield – it’s basically shutting down. Friends worked on the cruise ships – basically shut down. Others I know worked for the airlines – shutdown.
There is a lot more unemployed than they official numbers – if they don’t qualify for a scheme they are not on the numbers. I have seen an estimate from the US saying that there may be up to 50% more unemployed than officially shown as they have had the applications for the various assistance schemes rejected so do not count. Here I do not qualify and neither does my son or his girlfriend so that is 3 not on the numbers. Add in all my friends who were laid off at the same time the hidden numbers are mounting.
Every country in the same dilemma.
There’s many small businesses like mine which are entitled to NOTHING. We are a new business meaning we don’t have enough regular income to put ourselves on PAYE so . . . sorry!! Nothing for you!!! I think the Furlough has been a dreadful ‘mistake’ (I am not able to consistently ascribe stupidity like some). It’s sheltered those who ‘really really care’ about others at home, so they can worry and call all of us out who are dipping into savings.
A Circus school I used to go to has now resorted to begging on Facebook as they didn’t qualify for the £10k Grant. Does anyone know if any business has received this? I suspect it’s all puff.
I knew I didn’t want to stay in the UK, but this has been the nail in the coffin. I don’t know what the future holds and can’t picture it, but in my lifetime the quality of life has diminished. There’s nothing to live for and to build here.
I was too young to remember the 80s, but it was hardly joyful for those people surviving on air. I wonder if that is the delayed fate of the furloughed.
My informative years were in the 80s so now getting into “oldie” territory and the big difference between then and now, especially during the Thatcher years, was that if you wanted to and had the ability you could make a go of it.
Coming from the bottom of the heap and leaving school at 16 it was not easy but you could sit on your arse on the dole and survive.
I put in the effort, done crappy jobs, and a few lucky breaks and made a success of things but lots of 16-20 hour days, away from home 11 months a year, sometimes away a month, home for 2 days, away a month, days on end without sleep sorting out problems. Very hard but was worth it but for the 2nd time I may lose everything due to a government’s stupidity and that gets me mad along with handouts to those who do not try nor ever have done and are milking the system.
Now with all the training, insurances, HSE issues etc required to even qualify for a new job/career it’s very, very hard to start or change the direction you want to go in.
Example getting a HGV licence – when I took mine it was get to 21, get provisional HGV entitlement, quick medical, take test in big truck and trailer, job done, cost about £200 if that as companies were willing to train you up.
Now you need to do theory and hazard perception tests, C1 test, maybe more theory and hazard perception tests if the dates ran out, Cat C test, maybe more theory and hazard perception tests if the dates ran out, Cat C+E test, then unless you get lucky a couple of years odd jobbing as agency before a permanent job offer comes in as very few take on new passes or trainee drivers. Cost £5000 – 10000 plus years on unreliable money.
I also remember that if you saw a nice car (normal a Jag of Rolls) you thought “I’ll work hard and one day I’ll have one of those”. Now the thought seems to be “he’s got that, I want one too or take that one away from them, why should he have one and I don’t?”. Lots of sour grapes around now that wasn’t back then. And epopelw ere willing to fight back against the power that be and tried to push us around.
Vaccination passport for EU citizens planned for 2022. Here we go…
https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/vaccination/docs/2019-2022_roadmap_en.pdf
Thank fuck we’ll be well clear of that garbage fire by then.
Damn this means I have to wait for Italexit/Grexit/Spexit/Dexit/maybe even Gexit now (!wow!) before I can move lol
They make me prouder and prouder to have voted leave every single day.
As far as I recall, and I’m very happy to be proven wrong, in my hippy hitchhiking days of the 1970s (I got as far east as Ankara with thumb only) you had to have vaccination certificates to enter certain countries. I’m sure I remember frantically searching for my BCG one for TB (a little white card) at some long forgotten border. But memory is a very fickle companion.
That’s correct, Nigel.
(Perhaps we met in some dubious back-street hut in Kabul ?
).
Oh happy days. Do you remember the gate to the east in Istanbul? What was it called? Lahla’s Coffee Shop? Where everyone posted for lifts to all points in Asia . I remember hitchhiking through Greece when the Colonels were still in power. I visited three fascist states (Greece, Spain and Portugal) one communist (Yugoslavia) and no restrictions in any with a British Passport (though my South African companion was forbidden to go through Yugoslavia, can’t remember what happened to her). But this is the pertinent point (since I responded to vaccination issues): it is 1970, one summer after the HK flu killed 80,000 people in UK. No-one gave travelling abroad a second thought.
We took a Mohan Meakin coach from Istanbul to Tehran.
Luxury !
For me it was The Magic Bus. Scary!
I just went to Amazon and got this. Bit of nostalgia for less than a price of a pint – and the pubs are closed anyway. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magic-Bus-Hippie-Trail-Istanbul/dp/0141015950
Yes indeed but these aren’t tourists.
They’re citizens. Having to prove they’re vaccinated AT HOME in order to satisfy the free movement utopia world desires of an undemocratic political union.
As a remainer I recognise that free movement carries risks, viral transmission is frnakly the most severe of them. But I think we can tolerate these risks for the sake of freedo within our countries and freedom to go between them. In a utopia we don’t need to prove anything, everyone just gets on with life and if a disease occasionally flares up then so what. The people around the flare-up location can choose vaccination, and should be offered one for £0 if they wish so, or choose not. Vaccines tne dot be pretty effective, side effects are remarkably rare, It is up to the individual to choose which risks to be exposed to. They say the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, I’m starting to think the price is actually eternally accepting risks as unavoidable.
See this: https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/vaccination/docs/2019-2022_roadmap_en.pdf Dated 2019, and on page 9 of it, this: Joint procurement of pandemic influenza vaccine Framework contracts signed in March 2019 https://europa. eu/rapid/midday- express-28-03-2019. htm#8
Wow. Wow. Wow.
This whole pandemic is awfully conveniently timed, no?
I wish I believed Trump was really draining the swamp… Are there any decent honest governments anywhere who don’t just want to flog off their citizens to the highest bidder?
Guy de la Bédoyète: fabulous essay!
I agree with you. I think it’s one of the best and most elegant pieces of writing about the current situation I’ve seen so far and one we’re going to share as widely as possible.
BTW, we’ve just had a long chat in our front garden with an elderly lady who is taking chemo. tablets and has, like a number of other sane elderly people locally, continued to walk her 2 dogs throughout the lock-up and has even done a few other sensible things against ‘lockdown rules.’ She despairs of the madness so we’ve passed on the link to ‘Lockdown Sceptics’ to her as we’re sure she’ll enjoy it.
We continue to find as many opportunities to discuss the situation with people as we can. As that well-known right-wing libertarian (:-)) Naom Chomsky said: ‘First of all, you don’t have to speak truth to power, because they know it already. … What you do is join with people and try to find the truth, so you listen to them and tell them what you think and so on, and you try to encourage people to think for themselves’. Hard work at the moment, as ever, but it seems to be the only hope we’ve got.
Right, you’re going to the top of my list, first against the wall when the revolution comes. How do you spell lockdown? Oh, i’ve broken my pencil…
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1013854/3816263-alistair-haimes
This guy demolishes the whole Covid ‘data’ debacle
(Escape From Lockdown podcast – thanks to whoever posted this podcast the other day, I’ve been enjoying all the guests immensely. Dr. John Lee’s was an eye-opener – the presenter was gasping all the way through in disbelief)
He lost me when he said that had he been making the decisions he would have done the initial lockdown; he just wouldn’t have renewed it. The researchers who assessed the idea of lockdown when it was first proposed got it right when they concluded that “this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration” (https://www.aier.org/article/the-2006-origins-of-the-lockdown-idea/). Now that it’s been tried it should be returned to the dustbin of terrible ideas.
I have sympathy with that assessment though. I’ve said it before – I think lockdown was the wrong policy, 100%. But I can forgive a government for panicking under the Damoclean Sword of Fergy’s model. For three weeks. Not for three months.
As soon as proper data started coming in – and basically as soon as those death figures were revised down, which they were pretty promptly – they should have lifted the lockdown completely. No caveats. Maybe keep the ban on huge mass gatherings (festivals, massive raves etc.) but hey even that they say is pointless so….
I think we all could have lived with being out of pocket for a three week holiday. Plus surely, if they’d have backpeddled after three weeks, the public would have been forgiving.
Obviously I disagree that there was ever justification for such a policy. And on my part there can be no forgiveness unless there is public admission that grave errors were made. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for that porcine squadron.
I never said it was justified. I said it was understandable. Governments are humans – the way they reacted was…. well…. like most other humans in the country apparently.
I’m totally with you on the public admission. Never gonna happen though.
For me it’s not the imposition of the policy that is unforgiveable. It’s the double-down. The arse-cover – the COVER-UP, which is what we should call it because that’s what it is. The vile psychological abuse, fear-mongering, encouragement of groupthink, suppression of dissent – etc. etc. and all of that. That’s what makes me angry. That’s what’s actually cost and is costing the most lives AND doing the most damage at the moment – the fact that someone having a heart attack is too afraid to go to an empty hospital to be treated by idle staff and the fact that we are paying those staff, and indeed most of the country, to be idle and slowly bankrupt the country.
So… yeah. They were wrong. I can forgive them for being wrong, initially. I can forgive them for taking bad advice. I can forgive them for believing stupid things out of fear.
I can’t forgive the ensuing deception, manipulation and cowardice.
“They were wrong. I can forgive them for being wrong, initially. I can forgive them for taking bad advice. I can forgive them for believing stupid things out of fear.”
Maybe, if they are running the village footie team. Or organising menu options for a family dinner at a restaurant.
But not if they’re running a country of 70 million people in the 21st century. Ffs.
Sadly no government is perfect. And I’m pretty certain no other British government would have handled this any better in the initial stages (see the rest of the world bar a few standout examples).
A different government however, could very well have handled the ‘climbdown’ differently. We will never know.
Can you really see the Duke of Wellington, for example, panicking, shilly-shallying, and then following other people’s advice ?
You’re much too kind to these utter incompetents.
No I can’t. But not every PM is the Duke of Wellington sadly.
Kind? It’s not kindness, it’s realism. I expect better but aren’t particularly disappointed when people aren’t
Nor am I, in ordinary life.
We all make mistakes. Civilised people apologise as soon as they realise it.
But when inhabiting 10 Downing Street ? They don’t like the heat (because it made their tiny brains implode), they should fuck off out of the kitchen.
( I am reminded of Solzhenitsyn’s book on the soviet tyranny – “We never make mistakes”.).
Fuck it, have just bought a copy on Amazon. Will send to Boris.
I don’t know if you have this over on Netflix in the UK, but one of the shows that has been popular during the lockdown in the US is the mini-series Waco. It’s amazing the parallels between how the Branch Davidians behaved and how the lockdown zealots behave. They don’t want to accept reason and logic. These more you push back against them, the more it confirms their beliefs. The only difference is that this time, they’re taking everyone else down with them.
Burn their children alive ! The utter bastards !!
There’s a BBC documentary about the Jonestown cult on iplayer at present. Shows how cults use both oppression of their masses by the few, but also general conformity in the masses, to exercise power. And the importance of a charismatic leader for such attrocities to begin, hint look at Boris. Very close parallels to the examples raised by the opinion article “On viral entrancement” posted on this site which compares lockdown to a religious indoctrination.
Thanks for the reminder of the Sex Pistols
“Holidays in the Sun”
Great song
John Peel used to say he thought it was their best track. I tend to agree.
“Why didn’t they all just adopt the Apple-Google approach in the first place?”
If two of the three insanely-greatest technology companies ever (the third is Amazon, not Microsoft) cooperate to help combat a virus, bureaucrats should listen to them. Not to academics.
Hopefully our upper-level bureaucrats are less naive, and don’t accept large corporations stated reasons for doing something as the truth.
No, our upper level bureaucrats choose an even more sinister (centralised) approach to surveilling and oppressing the population.
Great piece Toby, salient points especially around the covid cult that this is all just one big psychological war. You truly, utterly, cannot reason with some of them. At all. But i really don’t think there are THAT many of them. My own experience tells me that. There’s a load of people really pissed off though… And some still on the sidelines doing as they are told… What will break them I wonder? Because this death rate ain’t going higher anytime soon.
Being properly grumpy and evil today, the silver lining will be that the hysterical cultists will be the first in line to get themselves injected with ‘the blue pill vaccine’, as I assume govt won’t be drawing lots or anything for this first 30 million.
That will them culled in the ‘2nd wave’ then. Ho ho
Interesting discussion
Toby, of course your banker friend is going to be right, isn’t he?
Having read it a second time, I think those minutes *are* the smoking gun he says they are – as I’m sure you do too. The fact that they even acknowledge the possibility of nosocomial transmission changing things means that they already knew of one reason why Ferguson’s model could be way off – but chose even last Sunday to allow the bombshell half million figure to still be used against the public.
What will turn out to have happened is that R0 never was as high as 2.5, except in special circumstances like in hospitals and care homes; and that those special circumstances are where the original R0 value was calculated from. And that misleading R0 being applied to the whole population in the super-simplistic Ferguson model prompted the government to act in such a way that it created the mini-epidemic that fitted that level of R0! But it was never going to continue working that way out in the real world.
Maybe R0 in the general community was 1.5 to start with, dropping to 1.2 once the social distancing started. Or maybe 1.2 dropping to 1.0. All of this could be very nonlinear, with symptoms, degree of infection and infectiousness being related to viral load; so just a small shift in behaviour could produce a huge change in the severity of the disease as well as its spread; while the ‘leaky’ lockdown produced little further change or made the disease worse by forcing people together for long periods compounded by stress, poor diet, lack of exercise, lack of sunlight. Maybe the local shop acted as a great place to spread the disease.
Infections indicated by PCR tests may not translate into persistent antibodies, further confusing the people who try to understand the world through data but not ideas. Most likely, some people already had a degree of immunity from previous exposure to cold viruses. And some people were developing low level immunity from repeated low level exposure to the virus. All of it adding to the general dampening down of the spread of the disease, but with the potential for localised outbreaks (especially in care homes and hospitals) to confuse things.
The upshot is what your friend says: huge apparent disparities between countries and populations due to the policies their governments enacted – the more drastic (or calculating, cowardly, PR-driven, corrupt) the worse the results. If we’d never known to be worried about the virus, we would probably have never noticed it, but by responding to it in the way we did we produced a worse epidemic and a much, much worse economic disaster.
Lockdown sceptics’ instincts were right to start with, but we were naive, attempting to interpret a highly complex situation starting from an assumption that the experts ‘had got this’. We knew virtually nothing about epidemiology before this started.
We assumed they knew how to measure and model viruses spreading through a population – it’s pretty fundamental, right? Wrong.
We assumed they must at least have a reason for thinking that a single R0 figure was (a) useful (b) correct. We were wrong on both counts.
We assumed they had a plan regarding ‘flattening the curve’ and then getting back to normal. Wrong.
We assumed they knew how herd immunity works. Wrong. (It seems that it was only on April 27th that someone published the idea that more variable susceptibility around a constant R0 can produce a lower threshold for herd immunity).
We will look back at the clusterf*** that produced this disaster with grim humour, so at least we will have that to sustain us in the dystopian future that awaits. The details are exquisite: nurses so bored they spent their time making tik tok videos; the keystone cops stopping people from getting out in the sun when we know that would have helped them fight off the disease; the children slumped in chalk squares in the playground. The list of ironies is endless.
The transmission rate of a virus that only affects a relatively small proportion of the populous is almost irrelevant. If you can keep it away from the highest risk groups then it doesn’t matter if everyone else gets it. Shielding the vulnerable and letting everyone else get on their business would have cost a lot less than a blanket lockdown for everyone.
“Lockdown sceptics’ instincts were right to start with”
They were.
” … but we were naive, …”
We were ?
” … attempting to interpret a highly complex situation …”
There is nothing ‘highly complex’ about house arrest and knowingly trashing the economy.
” … starting from an assumption that the experts ‘had got this’.”
Deeply offended you think such a belief would ever cross my mind.
What field do you work in, Barney ?
Hi JohnB. I’m in engineering.
Perhaps you were ahead of me on the epidemiology thing, but it took me quite a while to understand just how ‘open’ this field is. My guess is that while many individuals know a lot, this knowledge doesn’t necessarily make it as far as the modellers (who are epidemiologists? mathematicians?).
My other guess is that it attracts a lot of people who try to interpret the world through scientific ‘data’. And that’s different from being an ideas person. The confirmed cases data doesn’t tell you that the lovely rising curve is largely a reflection of the number of tests being carried out; the deaths data doesn’t tell you that the criteria for recording C19 deaths has been loosened over time, almost as if the intention was to keep the figure as high as possible. Etc. If you try to derive the R0 or CFR figure or whatever (how familiar to us these numbers are now!) from this data, everything you do from then on will be wrong. An ideas person holds that fact at the front of their mind and tries to understand the implications. A ‘data’ person doesn’t.
‘Data’ people have been advising the government.
It was the ‘experts’ bit I took exception to, not epidemiologists in particular.
In engineering, your experts are probably just that – falling bridges/collapsing tunnels/etc. would make people take notice.
You’d be surprised maybe, in how many other fields experts can just be opportunistic psychos with the gift of the gab though. The responsibility is the governments for believing them. Or at least pretending to.
A physics professor pretending to know things about disease is a pretty flaky ‘expert’.
I mean I know they say physics is just maths but…… it really isn’t otherwise I wouldn’t find it at all interesting. But yeah from the sounds of it Fergy is about as much of a mathmetician as I am. TBH I dabbled in C++ as a kid (which his ridicuous code is based in I think), I had a look at that code and even I could tell it was a mess. I was a hobby programmer when I was a kid, but even I looked at it and new something was bad – couldn’t tell what was bad, mind, just that it wasn’t right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO4ynmC_zkM
Lock down song ‘-Gonna Dig Myself A Hole’ by the late, great and sadly underrated Arthur Crudup
Just perused the Guardian’s opinion piece: yet another hissy fit from the Graun.
So, we’re all ‘far right’ conspiracy theorists ; presumably this also includes the many doctors ,scientists and well informed members of the public -including avowed supporters of Remain/Labour -who comment here, without rancour.
We’re debating, questioning, making one another laugh,exchanging brief life experiences,agreeing to disagree, all in good humour,with no insults or mud slinging: Guardian take note, you who have shut down most comments, lest they infringe the ‘rules’.
Why is it that well paid, well connected liberal types consider that the arguments in favour of lifting the house arrests, restoring people’s livelihoods and weaning the economy off life support are so, so vulgar-little more than baloney, as the writers opine?
And doing a quick Brexiteer-bash as well; what’s not to like for the superior affluent ubermensch, securely cocooned in his/her luxury pad, income safely guaranteed?
Why does the thinking person’s broadsheet support craven compliance, abject fear, widespread neurotic behaviour and blind acceptance?
I suspect that out of earshot, they gleefully write us all off as swivel eyed gammons.
Doesn’t surprise me the as the Guardian has always had the Fabianesque contempt for the poor but they kept it well hidden from the general public. It was under New Labour that this pretense started to crumble.
And of course its in their interest to keep people poor and discourage them from bettering their lot in life. Being supposedly left wing you would have thought that they would have take on those various studies from the UN, WFP and even our own agencies such as the Royal College of Paediatricians but nooo…..in their eyes that’s putting profit above people. Obviously this lot have no idea how the economy works and that the Magic Money Tree (TM) exists in perpetuity.
Quite so; they remind me of that awful bunch in the USA’s House of Representatives- the so called ‘squad’. They’re avid proponents of MMT and Open Borders.
“the thinking person’s broadsheet ”
No such thing, imo, in the internet age. No truly thinking person would confine his sources of general information and discussion to one outlet.
But the Guardian isn’t even the best option if you really were forced to do so these days. With its strong exclusionary groupthink, its active censorship and opinion management policies (see the formation of off-Guardian), its embracing of anti-liberal and anti-rational “hate speech” and “no platforming” concepts, it is the opposite of a freethinker’s haven.
There is no broadsheet that represents anything close to a freethinker’s haven, and the ones on the left that you might expect to tend that way (Guardian and Independent) are the worst for excluding dissent, reflecting the fact that in the age of “no platform” and cancel culture, the left has become the most restrictive and controlling of opinion these days. The least worst nowadays is probably the Telegraph, remarkably enough. They have their own bias, obviously, but in general they seem less hidebound in their censorship and more wiling to consider more open discussion, than any of the other broadsheets. Though admittedly not by much.
It was meant to be ironic Mark, as I’ve got no time for it. I should have put the phrase in inverted commas: silly me!
I seek most of my news from a variety of online sites, for breadth of coverage, foreign views, etc.
I’m surprised they are open to the idea of people returning to work, with the e-bike article top left corner. I would have though “Beds you can cower under to avoid this plague” would’ve been more suitable an article for their readership.
Provided ,of course, that the bed in question is sustainably produced, carbon neutral, costs at least 4 figures plus-anything else is sooo gammony don’t you know?-and custom made by an aristocratic collective somewhere( And advertised in Vogue magazine.)
The bed in question should also be WHO approved Covid proof.
Yes indeed! Good one!
Irony’s always hard to spot in print….
I appreciate the excuse for the rant, anyway
Not “hard to spot”. Rather “hard to be sure about”.
Good! Ranting is almost obligatory in these maddened and maddening times
Hear, hear, wendyk. Nailed it.
Thanks Paulito; I think we need an angry club
Whoever said that this is already a psychological war is spot on. The Covid Derangement Syndrome is not only confined to the UK but even overseas. I found this on Facebook shared by someone I know from my home country:
𝗜’𝗺 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝘆 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗖𝗤 𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝟱, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬, 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗢𝗩𝗜𝗗𝟭𝟵 𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝘃𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲. 𝗜𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆.
𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗕𝗘𝗔𝗥 𝗜𝗡 𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗪𝗘 𝗛𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗞𝗜𝗗𝗦!!!
𝗨𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱, 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗢𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟, 𝗩𝗢𝗟𝗨𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗬, 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗲, 𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝘆𝗻𝗼𝗻𝘆𝗺𝘀!
𝗪𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝘄𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗴𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘂𝗻𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗿𝘆. 𝗜 𝘄𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂, 𝗜 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝘂𝘀 𝗲𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿. 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂, 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘂𝘀, 𝘁𝗼𝗼! 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂
𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗬 𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘!!!
𝗖𝗼𝗽𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲, 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
I did wonder if she (the person who shared this) was being serious, I find the bit “because we care for you” offensive and patronising and what happens then if the vaccine is never found? Will they just be in isolation forever?
This friend of mine has children and I feel sorry for them.
Good grief!!!!
Part of me kind of wants these flaming idiots to stay locked in their homes forever (and not breed any more — which presumably they can’t do or they’ll have to emerge 9 months later to pop the sprog….. OR WILL THEY?) so me and Biker can have their jobs.
Wow those poor children! What a life – or non life – they are going to have for goodness knows how long. Governments responsible for these psychological breakdowns really do need to be held responsible.
That’s why I’m guessing a placebo ‘vaccine’ will be developed. Our government is suggesting they can have it ready to deploy in September.
That’s an interesting thought re: placebo vaccine, it may well be unintentionally applicable to the Oxford one, unless this is what the government is planning? Conspiratorial, but would not put it past the likes of Dominic Cummings…
Probably use homeopathic tablets and market them as Covid medicine?
Usually I’d be for arresting every homeopathic “healer” but right now a placebo vaccine would be excellent. I’m just a little worried that our government is too foolish to see the sense in a placebo vaccine (well its a placebo for the pandemic but it is a real cure for the panicdemic), and if they were working for a placebo vacine they wouldn’t have let the “seems the vaccine hasn’t had any useful effect in monkeys” study come out, or would have quickly jumped after it and said “but we’ve got another vaccine and we barely scratched a monkey with it, 30 seconds later sent it into an ICU fullof aerosol generating monkeys. Left it there a week and it still didn’t have covid when it came out”.
Ha ha, a raving lunatic
Employers who don’t have a working from home option for staff may as well rip up their absence policies. Good luck to staff covering for malingering colleagues who are on their fifth 14 day quarantine in four months. It’s going to be a “no questions asked ” two week holiday free for all from here on in. At least it might make pro-lockdown Joe Bloggs research further when he has his annual leave cancelled because his employer can’t afford him to be off due to his semipermanently quarantined colleague’s absence.
I can tell you now that I can foresee myself having to cover for malingering colleagues when we do reopen. While I sympathise with those with legitimate health problems and concerns it will be interesting to see how management will react to those who simply take the biscuit.
I agree, in my organisation there is a worry that all these ‘social distancing’ and quarantine rules will be a troublemakers charter!
To be honest, I can’t wait for that.
I’m a freelance designer and haven’t been able to find any work since lockdown. No furlough pay (thanks Rishi).
I’ll happily work in place of someone who decided that it’s unsafe to do so.
Hello Albie. At the start of the Spanish governments house arrest strategy, allegedly for 2 weeks, they made clear that any hours lostdue to their mental policies would have to be made up for later.
If this is true then another long standing business bites the dust (apologies to Freddie Mercury):
https://www.timeout.com/news/venice-landmark-harrys-bar-says-it-will-not-reopen-after-lockdown-051820?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&cid=%7Elondon%7Enatsoc%7Efacebook%7Eechobox&fbclid=IwAR2Ui1pgc1ObmS3OBzEHA0tJhvilDe9XQyVV_ogUmJ04bhAz4lYOcaYOvNU#Echobox=1589802896
With announcements like this they shouldn’t be surprised if more and more people just buy their books online. This will be another nail in the coffin of bookshops.
I don’t think the supermarkets will be daft enough to do that but who knows…..
I’ve no idea how clothes and charity shops are going to operate if they limit customers. Will people want to queue outside for what is predominantly a browsing experience? Purchases at those tend to be spontaneous.
Not only that but if you’re buying something like an investment wear (coats, clothes for work) or for an occasion like a wedding you would go to loads of shops and try on lots of styles. The social distancing and limiting customers won’t work.
Clothing retailers are already struggling in a very cutthroat and over saturated sector, this will only hasten their demise.
They did think about ‘No Touching’ initially – but people have a legitimate reason to handle to read the ingredients.
Sorry, just seen the comments below saying exactly this.
I think they tried. Asda and Aldi introduced ’no-touch policy’ – you’re meant only to touch the products that you are intending to buy. Complete nonsense. One of the reasons to buy in-store rather than online is the ability to touch things.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/coronavirus-asda-aldi-no-touch-new-policy-food-packaging-trolleys-hygiene-a9477396.html%3Famp
Agree. Also important to read the ingredient list.
Could people stop providing amp (accelerated mobile platform) project links to stories and go for website links directly. The amp project has the potential to cause severe censorship based around tweaking what page features are considered “compatible” and choosing to exclude some news sources on such a basis.
According to the Daily Mail, millions are wondering if the pandemic means they won’t get their holiday in the sun. So, they are scared shitless to go back to work or get their kids educated but are happy to spend a few hours in one of O’Leary’s cattle trucks. The sooner Sunak cuts their money, the better. These people ar3 taking the piss.
I admit I am one of those waiting to get back to my summer home in Greece, and praying that either easyJet or Aegean will start to fly again soon, but I have family out there and miss them a lot. However I agree with you about the fact that many folk appear to be saying how frightened they are to go back to work, and yet are perfectly happy to go and sit on easyJet and find some sunshine. I’m retired by the way so not receiving any furlough money.
Interesting contrast – comment from Ron Paul:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ron-paul-rages-listening-virus-experts-has-led-death-despair
This from Sara Tor (sorry, behind paywall, but likens teachers going back to school with men being sent over the top in WWI:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/sending-teachers-back-into-classrooms-now-would-be-inhumane-bjv0gwx2h
So, do we listen to Ron Paul, a highly experienced (of life) former doctor, or Ms Tor, a twenty something graduate in modern languages? That the Times’ editor seems to think her article is worthy of printing in a national newspaper means we have a serious problem in this country.
It’s why I cancelled my times subscription!
I took a Telegraph subscription recently, largely to escape the ‘woke’ women on The Times, many of whom display that dreadful metropolitan ‘look down the nose’ attitude, especially to working class women. Times subscription still has a few months to run. Just when you thought it couldn’t delve any lower up pops today’s copy from Sara Tor. She is getting a roasting in the comments section – as is the usually sensible Melanie Phillips, who seems to be showing early signs of Corona Derangement Syndrome from her bunker in Jerusalem!
I love you and your comments but please stop dissing ‘modern languages’ graduates.
We’re not all braindead amoebae.
I am so sorry – I should have focused more on her age/lack of experience, although even then, I might fall quickly into a reverse Ronald Reagan quip! For what it’s worth, although both me and my other half are scientists by background, both our children are modern linguists (Spanish and Italian) – with our express support, both intellectual and financial.
What are clothes retailers going to do? Surely they can’t have people trying on clothes and then hanging them back up for other people to touch. I’ve seen social media posts complaining about people touching fruit and veg and putting it back in supermarkets.
We’ve fallen down the crazy path and it’s going to be very hard to get back out of it.
Surely this can’t be true!
There are theories doing the rounds that big corporations and online giants like Amazon have a plan to close down all independent businesses and that this insanity is a deliberate plan to make everyone unemployed. I don’t buy that, but it makes more sense than what is actually happening.
Even Henry Ford knew he had to pay his workers enough that they could buy his products. Jeff Bezos, not so much.
My daughter who had a bone marrow transplant has a child has just received a “shielding letter.”
#horse
#stable door
#bolted
This is some of the advise:
DO STRICTLY AVOID contact with anyone who is displaying symptoms of coronavirus – You don’t say?
Don’t leave your home.
Don’t attend any gatherings.
Don’t go out for shopping leisure or travel.
Do regularly wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds – Why if you don’t do any of the above?
Minimise the time you spend with others in shared spaces.
Aim to keep 2 metres away from others.
Use a separate bathroom from the rest of the household – We only have one.
Take your meals back to your room.
Try spending time with the windows open to let in fresh air, arranging space to sit and see a nice view (if possible) and get some natural sunlight – Ye gods!!!
Just go ahead and shoot yourself!!!
We want to reassure you that you will still get the usual medical care you need.
Demand for all health services is very high – Bollocks!!!
Right from the start of this coronamadness my daughter and I have have tried as best we can to keep our lives as normal as possible. We were some of the last ones in the pubs and restaurants on that fateful shut down night.
I go to work and also am sole carer for my mum who is 88 and very frail physically and mentally. We all have lots of hugs.
My daughter who has some learning disabilites due to radiation to the brain was just getting some independence volunteering at a cafe and attending drama groups and now that is all in limbo althrough the drama group are holding some Zoom classes.
We will continue to live our lives as we choose adhering to basic hygiene standards ie wash hands, use hankie when necessary and to display the Blitz spirit of my mother’s childhood not the Shits spirit of today.
Of course the letter will be sent back with a few comments added.
The sportiest guy at my high school died a few years after we had all left. It wasn’t till he died that I learned he had a congenital heart defect. He could have died at any moment but chose to not let it control his life. There will be some who would disapprove of how he lived his life, maybe even say he deserved to die for being reckless. I respect him for living his life. Just being alive is not living.
If the poor man’s heart defect had killed him at anytime during the last few weeks, he’d have been set down as a Covid victim.
Well done and I hope you send a very pithy reply back. I don’t have any existing health problems and am not overweight although my age puts me in a so called higher risk category despite being fitter than many people half my age. I’ve carried on working in frontline social care as I’m on a zero hours contract so don’t have the luxury or privilege of staying at home. I’ve ignored most if the lockdown rules as I’d rather have a life than be under house arrest. In the days leading up to lockdown I spent most of my spare time going from shop to shop trying to get basic supplies thanks to all the selfish twats and lockdown zealots who thought it acceptable to pillage everything. I really won’t forget this whole debacle in a hurry and particularly people’s attitudes.
Good for you. The healthy (no matter what age) should never have been locked up
How utterly ridiculous. The country has gone completely bonkers.
This has been a really helpful site just to try and work out what has been going on.
The virus was identified as likely to be a coronavirus severe cold by Professor John Nicholls, a coronavirus expert from Hong Kong University as early as 06 Feb
Prof Peter Forster of Cambridge University indicated that it could have crossed over to humans outside Wuhan as early as mid September 2019
Studies as far back as 2017 indicated that severe cold viruses could be a great deal more deadly than influenza amongst the elderly and infirm within health institutions
The extent of the excess death figures for April came as a shock, until it became clear that they were no worse than a severe influenza year, particularly given the 14% increase in the population of England over the last twenty years.
It then became apparent that mortality rates for Covid 19 had been inflated by loose registration and the discharge of large numbers of the elderly long term sick from hospital to make way for Covid 19 patients who never turned up.
Sweden admitted that its own excess mortality compared to its neighbours was largely due to transmission of the virus within health institutions, particularly care homes. The effect of nosocomial transmission was exacerbated by the size of those care homes.
Germany appears to have been able to protect care homes at an early stage. Other countries in Europe such as Greece have a small number of care homes with low occupancy. Norway’s care homes are small in size.
So the lessons appear to be:
Drink plenty of freshly brewed coffee for its low dosage quinine, eat a boiled egg every day for vitamin D, wash your hands regularly and maintain old fashioned, more formal, social practice with regard to others. That will make catching a cold a great deal less likely….but we kind of knew that anyway.
For the health service, innovations in Germany in local health and community care, an independent national health authority modelled on that of Sweden, smaller, more local, health services, appears to be the way forward for health reform in this country.
The matter is now political, no longer medical, and the government retreat is going to take some time.
Please feel free to add further lessons learned.
Dangerous to have schools open? Look at the infection of Covid-19 and deaths in children of Covid-19 and compare lockdown countries to non lockdown countries. School dangerous?
https://twitter.com/aginnt/status/1262552673859108864/photo/1
Sweden had open schools.The only death, unconfimed rumours, was a leukemia patient.
So this is because another customer may have touched the item shortly before? Does this equally apply to delivered post, leaflets, forms etc..? Is there a danger to handling a ticket which may have been touched by box office staff? (Just remembering the days when we could go to cinemas)
Maybe we will see a wave of new Covid superstitions around what we can touch and what we cant.
Heroes of the Pandemic.
I don’t know if this has been done here already, but here are a few of my heroes from the last two months.
Mr Young, of course. Among other journalists: Peter Hitchens (who called out this nonsense very early); Ms Shriver; Ms Jacobs; Ms Pearson; Ross Clark; Brendan O’Neill; Fraser Nelson (as Spectator editor); and Tucker Carlson (who I confess makes me laugh). There are several others whose names elude me for now.
John Kirby, and his excellent ‘Perspectives on the Pandemic’ series. Dr John Lee; Dr John Ioannidis; Dr Li Wenliang; Drs Johan Giesecke and Anders Tegnell, and Sweden; Lord Sumption; Simon Dolan; that US nurse on YouTube who called out the practices of NY doctors in treating CV patients. Andrew Mather (who I hope hasn’t been bumped off yet) whose data analysis of early April was, as far as I recall, the first mathematical study to expose the scandal unfolding before our eyes.
Doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, especially for their first video, which indirectly brought to our attention the value YouTube places on free speech and scientific debate.
Of course, supermarket and shop workers – not well paid, and whose well-being seems little regarded in all this.
Marie Dinou (arrested for ‘loitering between platforms’ at a railway station). The un-named YouTube lady taken away by police for sitting on a bench ‘exercising my mind’. The guy/lady who accumulated six CV fines. Me, of course, for swimming in the sea during lockdown. That surfer in Cornwall who early on took to the waves wearing a face-mask.
My favourite comment piece through this tragi-comedy remains that by Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph, way back on 26 March: ‘The PM was panicked into abandoning a sensible Covid-19 strategy, and has plunged society into crisis’. Insightful and prescient I think. Time will tell.
But my personal pick is Dr Knut Wittkowski. His early April first interview on ‘Perspectives on the Pandemic’ (episode 2) was an eye-opener, confirming what had been my gut reaction all along. It’s since been taken down, by those who know what is best for us. But a transcript is available online, and his second interview (episode 5) is still there. The man’s intellectual courage, clarity of thought, and sheer humanity shine through as an example to us all.
Sadly, I can’t think of one UK national or local politician to list here, or even one authority figure. A possible exception is Dr Jenny Harries, who seems to want to talk sense, but who apparently feels constrained by her position, such as it is, and thus unable to do so. As for the rest, shame on the lot of them.
Steve Baker MP and David Davis MP have been calling out the nonsense. Also I’m pretty sure most of the 1922 Committee members are anti lockdown as well.
Just think…in eight weeks we’ve managed to rack up more public debt than six years of an international war in 1939-1945. Say that out loud and it makes you want to cry.
This is madness. It needs to end.
I know the likes of Steve Baker, David Davis and other largely un-named Tory MPs are making noises now – but it’s easy toady, when it has become clear to all who care to look that the lockdown has been a disaster. But where were they back in late March, when the going was tough? And they are not exactly making much fuss even now. The principles now are the same as they were in March. For me the heroes are the ones who stood out when it went against the grain to do so, not anyone who jumps on a bandwagon.
Hello TJN. No respect for the bandwagon jumpers either but it’s progress that there’s a bandwagon to jump on.
Yes, massive progress that we now have a bandwagon. In fact, I’d. say that since about the end of the first week of May Lockdown scepticism has turned the corner into mainstream; at least it appears to have the intellectual momentum.
I guess like many other people on here, I was anti lockdown from the minute I heard about it – but it was all a bit lonely back then. I have massive respect for the journalists, doctors, and individuals who spoke up in those early days. But speaking out now is easy, when people like that have done the spade work. Hence why, for me, Mr Baker and Mr Davis didn’t make it onto my list.
The good folk at off-guardian.org deserve high praise also.
Only you know your reason for not including David Icke (and Brian Rose) …
I did think about David Icke – certainly he’s talked more sense than most, but that isn’t saying much. I don’t know Brian Rose?
Brian runs the londonreal.tv outfit – over 1.3 million listeners for his (3rd) chat/discussion/interview with David.
Yes, ok! Mrs TJN used to say about him – I depended on her for the Icke material.
I second Off-Guardian and would also like a shout out for UKColumn.
Joe Rogan is doing a great job on his podcast. I wish we had someone like that in the UK.
Hector Drummond and WM Briggs.
Freddie Sayers for all those interviews.
Please add Dr Malcolm Kendrick. Not a bedwetter in any way and definitely a fellow lockdown sceptic deplorable.
He’s just posted this:
‘…what is the science that is leading them. Mathematical models? Models that change and swirl and have little basis in reality. Models used to create predictions. As a friend has remarked to me many times: “there are two types of prediction – lucky and lousy”.
Our lives, our economy, our health service, all those people no longer getting treatment for other conditions, the heart attack patients not turning up at hospital, the cancelled cancer treatments, thousands of small businesses sacrificed at the altar of a mathematical model created by the mad modellers of the lockdown. Our lives, in their hands.’
from
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/05/19/the-mad-modellers-of-lockdown/
And let’s not forget Sergeant Detective Constable Officer Peter Pisspot of Twat Valley Police who has often brightened up my day
He came to my mind as well. He’s out there catching scumbags sitting on benches and having picnics. Doing an important service to out community by smacking cyclists into bushes and taser-gunning joggers
What’s that guys name again? Need to sub on YT
Andrew Lawrence
Andrew Lawrence.
Plenty of bad language btw.
https://youtu.be/nk1PcEr1-HQ
Thanks. And good
Dr Karol Sikora, Prof Michael Levitt, and Prof Carl Heneghan. Prof Robert Dingwall of NERVTAG for revealing that the government “terrorised the population into believing that this is a disease that is going to kill you. And mostly it isn’t”, and that public health officials had conjured the 2 metre rule out of the air – “they knew it should be one metre, but thought the British public wouldn’t understand that, so doubled it.”
Not Sikora, whatever he might have started saying once it was too late to matter much:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wOU0GiQWog&t=102s
Forgot the impressive Swiss Policy Research site, previously called Swiss Propaganda Research.
And huzzah to Dr Vernon Coleman too.
E-mail sent to Cheif Medical Advisor, Scotland
My daughter who had a bone marrow transplant has a child has just received a “shielding letter.”
#horse
#stable door
#bolted
Some comments on your advice
DO STRICTLY AVOID contact with anyone who is displaying symptoms of coronavirus – You don’t say?
Don’t attend any gatherings.
Don’t go out for shopping leisure or travel.
Do regularly wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds – Why if you don’t do any of the above?
Minimise the time you spend with others in shared spaces.
Aim to keep 2 metres away from others – Where is the scientific evidence for this?
Use a separate bathroom from the rest of the household – We only have one.
Take your meals back to your room.
Try spending time with the windows open to let in fresh air, arranging space to sit and see a nice view (if possible) and get some natural sunlight – Ye gods!!!
Just go ahead and shoot yourself!!!
We want to reassure you that you will still get the usual medical care you need.
Demand for all health services is very high – People are not seeking health advice as they have been terrorised by the government’s advert advising that this virus is dangerous for people of all ages, which they have known from the start it is not.
The NHS is a national disgrace. FIRST DO NO HARM – don’t make me laugh!!! I can’t comprehend why you, and other health professionals have been complicit in the perpetuation of the lie that this virus is anything different than a very bad case of flu, which would have run it’s course as any other virus does. Of course many people will die mostly old and those with co-morbidities who may have died soon anyway.
Right from the start of this coronamadness my daughter and I have tried as best we can to keep our lives as normal as possible. We were some of the last ones in the pubs and restaurants on that fateful shut down night.
I go to work and also am sole carer for my mum who is 88 and very frail physically and mentally. We all have lots of hugs.
My daughter who has some learning disabilities due to radiation to the brain was just getting some independence volunteering at a cafe and attending drama groups and now that is all in limbo.
Public services, and I work in one are all a disgrace and not fit for purpose.
The things that make life living have been put in suspension. Many people will not live to see the light again due to dying of illness that is not being treated at this time and also the very high numbers of suicides.
We will continue to live our lives as we choose adhering to basic hygiene standards (wash hands, use hankie when necessary) and to display the Blitz spirit of my mother’s childhood not the Shits spirit of today.
Fabulous letter Hugs.
The Guardian aren’t happy with our host are they!! They are obviously a bit afraid and the fact they are not allowing comments speaks volumes. I think I’ve said before there are a number of reasons lockdown isn’t left wing – the worried hypochondriac middle classes huddled at home whilst working class people, including many in the genuinely vulnerable groups, continue in work to keep said middle classes in the style to which they are accustomed being the main one…
On the subject of quarantine, this has Dominic Cummings and ‘government by facebook’ all over it. A sop and dog whistle to a certain fringe of voter to shut them up. When other countries are starting to re-activate their borders this measure makes no sense, as well as spooking business and being another irritating facet of lockdown they seem to want to keep going.
The news on the Oxford vaccine is a bit troubling. My biologically minded colleagues tapped that one as being the most likely to actually, er, work…..
A ‘working’ vaccine could be a possibility what what are the long term side effects that is impossible to determine when rushed through? Drug companies have full protection from claims arising from people that were damaged or killed by said vaccine.
Always read the ingredients list and side-effects of any vaccine or drug before taking it.
Well if I’m brutally honest, I’m not sure I’d be first in the queue for a rushed vaccine (and one of my postdocs spent a bit of time explaining to me the mechanism of the Oxford version) and a lot of my colleagues feel the same way. I think we’ve all assumed there will be plenty of volunteers from the strong lockdown supporters!
It’s going to be interesting seeing all these lockdown lovers volunteering their bare arms as soon as a vaccine is available.
I for one think there’ll be minI mum vountary take up. They’ll be a lot of -I’m not getting vaccinated until the rest of you plebs have been.
Which is precisely what we’ve been saying all along without the snobbery and hypocrisy. We admit freely we don’t want an experimental vaccine. These people loved the idea until they actually had to take it themselves.
Honestly that’s what’s gonna happen if they succeed with it. They’ll spend billions on millions of doses and hardly anyone will go get it.
“Young people are most likely to have lost work or seen their income drop because of Covid-19, a report suggests.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52717942
This kind of reporting really rattles my cage. It’s not the virus which is destroying jobs, it’s the lock down in response to the virus.
My pal who is a retired primary school teacher is currently giving lessons and entertainment to her two grand daughters, while her daughter, a single mother who runs her own business, tries to keep work commitments going from home and attempts to keep her practice afloat.
Both are exhausted, but my pal did make a very salient point: will the children who have been properly taught and kept up to scratch at home, be held back, through no fault of their own, when the schools do eventually open again?
How will this affect future teaching arrangements and class allocation?
Held back ? Of course they will be. Standard operating procedure.
Will affect future arrangements/allocation ? Minimally, if at all.
Question: Does anyone know where Luke Johnson got his ‘only 350 people without underlying conditions under the age of 60 have died from Covid’ figure on Question Time?
The ONS, possibly via the website Covid-19 in proportion
He got them from here https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
click on the daily announced deaths and there will be sub sections etc
Thank you Oaks79.
I was called out quoting this statistic and wanted to be sure before repeating it.
I downloaded the spreadsheet and as it turns out that the death statistic is even lower – perhaps because it is just for England.
Quite incredible really and in my opinion casts a stark light on the media coverage and the current lockdown for those who are fit and well. Of course the government will claim that the lockdown has achieved this. So why have Sweden had similar mortality rates amongst those under 60 (or even 70) who are healthy and well?
According to NHS England 253 people under the age of 60 without a pre-existing health condition have died of Covid. 33 people in the same bracket have died under the age of 40. Circa 400 people died of drowning last year.
I don’t mean to belittle deaths and they are all personal and terribly sad for each family but perspective in life is essential not least because the impact of the lockdown will result in the loss of far more life years of the currently fit and well.
Finally got a response from my MP. Here it is in full:
Dear Mr Karter
Thank you for your email regarding the lockdown.
I understand the frustrations many residents are feeling regarding lockdown, despite the small changes in restrictions introduced over the last week. It is an enormous infringement on our liberties and is putting great strain on our mental and physical wellbeing, as well as having a significant detrimental impact on the economy. For those living alone and those with no outside space, lockdown has been especially challenging, though we can now enjoy outdoor spaces more as a household since the new guidance was issued. As a country, we have all been asked to make a huge sacrifice for our collective protection, yet the falling number of coronavirus cases suggests to me this action was absolutely necessary. Indeed, it arguably should have been implemented sooner.
As a liberal, I do not support such measures lightly. I and the Liberal Democrats pressed Government to limit its emergency legislation – which allowed many of these sweeping measures – to three months, requesting a vote in Parliament for any further extensions. Government had original proposed this legislation should be in place for two years! It eventually compromised on six months.
Every step of the way, I have requested full transparency from government regarding their decision-making and the evidence behind why they have or have not taken certain actions. Equally, protecting citizens’ health and safety is the absolute priority when faced with a pandemic, and I therefore believe the lockdown was the right thing to do. I support this course of action until such time as scientists advise we can carefully and gradually take further actions to lift it, without causing a further spike in cases and deaths. In particular, we need a robust test, trace and isolate strategy and infrastructure in place – something the government has been very slow to put in place. Testing is still patchy and can take too long and contact tracers are now being recruited but many of these will not have any clinical background and will have inadequate training.
For several weeks, I have been calling on government to share its thinking with the British public regarding potential options being considered and trade-offs being made on continuing or lifting lockdown. I believe transparency, scrutiny and accountability on both current measures and those that may be planned is absolutely critical. The proposed “test, trace, isolate” approach that I have been advocating, in line with WHO guidance, will also see a significant infringement on our liberties and entail widespread surveillance of individuals. Whilst necessary, I have many concerns about this approach. This is why I and my party are calling for rigorous legislative safeguards to be put in place, with an opt-in only approach, where data is only held for a minimal amount of time and not shared with any other government departments.
Regards
MUNIRA WILSON MP
Thoughts…?
Firstly, it’s a good thing that you finally received a response and, whilst I’d disagree with their thought process, they do at least seem to have thought it through, i.e. they’ve considered mental and economic health, for example.
Secondly, people just can’t see the wood for the trees, it’s an assumption that fewer cases means that the lockdown was necessary and should’ve been implemented sooner, it’s not evidence based.
Thirdly, it’s good that they’ve asked for evidence with respect to decision making. The question is – have they received any? Probably not!
Fourthly, it might be worth pointing out that we’re not really in a pandemic if you compare it to previous ones (and I think there’s a recent Oxford study suggesting it’s not even an epidemic) so implementing tracking and tracing is pretty unnecessary. It might be worth asking why they think it’s necessary given that Professor Whitty said on 11.05 (I think – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adj8MCsZKlg&feature=youtu.be) that this disease only seriously affects a small minority of people (in fact he was going to say ‘most’ but quickly adjusted that since he probably realises that this isn’t as bad as is being made out), which seriously calls into question why we’ve had lockdowns for so long (initially it could be questionably justified to get the NHS up to speed, but not for 9 weeks or whatever it is now).
Finally, it might be worth asking what they think about Waterstones quarantining books or tourist boards saying ‘don’t visit us’. How does this square with rational thinking and how is it going to get things back to normal?
Sadly, this is the kind of mentality that we’re dealing with. It is totally illogical and is clouded by fear and anxiety that has suppressed any notion of clear thinking.
Totally agree with “can’t see the wood for the trees”. Did the lockdown work as they want us to believe? There is an old anecdote. A man spends his time in Paris walking the streets while clapping all the time. One day a passerby asks him: why do you clap all the time? I am keeping the elephants out of Paris, responds the clapper. But there aren’t any Elephants in Paris remarks the passerby. See how well it works? responds the clapper….
“the frustrations many residents are feeling regarding lockdown”
There’s that infantilisation again!
“As a country, we have all been asked to make a huge sacrifice for our collective protection, yet the falling number of coronavirus cases suggests to me this action was absolutely necessary. Indeed, it arguably should have been implemented sooner.”
Then how did the countries who did not impose these coercive lockdown measures all escape any kind of catastrophic death toll? The most she could try to claim (as she will if you put this point to her) is that countries like Sweden have suffered a few more deaths than they might have. Is this how lightly she actually views the imposition of the catastrophic costs, in lives and in economic, social and civil liberties terms, of the coercive lockdown?
“As a liberal, I do not support such measures lightly”
Clearly she takes them far more lightly than liberals of the past, who never proposed measures as draconian as these in response to far worse diseases.
“Every step of the way, I have requested full transparency from government regarding their decision-making and the evidence behind why they have or have not taken certain actions. ”
What is her view then on the revelation that government advisers suggested using the media to increase fear of this disease? Has she looked into the extent to which this was done, and insisted on a full public inquiry?
“Equally, protecting citizens’ health and safety is the absolute priority when faced with a pandemic”
How can protecting health and safety be an “absolute priority” if it is in conflict with protecting liberty, which must for a liberal be an “absolute priority”?
How is it giving health and safety “absolute priority” to impose measures that will themselves cost lives?
“Whilst necessary”
Why are these measures “necessary” when we have never resorted to them before, despite facing far worse diseases?
As a supposed liberal, she should surely take the view that liberty is hugely important and, in principle, more important than life itself. but it appears she rates it well below even relatively minor risks mostly to small groups better protected by specific protective measures.
Liberal, my arse!
“Ms. Wilson, I can’t feed my kids! I need to send them back to school so I can work!”
“Sorry for your frustration”
It’s not frustration. IT’S GENUINE HARDSHIP
It’s not a bad letter by MP standards, it shows some understanding of how extreme the policy is, and some attempt to limit it. (Incredible to me that 2 years was the original proposal).
It’s a bit odd to argue that falling infections show that the policy was justified. It’s rather like amputating a foot and then showing that the fungal infection on it- is no longer and issue, so we ought to be pleased about that. Furthermore, an expert told us the the fungal infection would cause death, and so although the patient has one foot, the ought to be thankful they didn’t die.
I don’t think the analogy is extreme. This policy has been devastating.
She is a moron.
Either a naive muppet, or a political liar.
Correlation = causation, ffs.
2 metres is a corrosive piece of garbage, unsubtantiated as a vector pathway for Covid and guaranteed to destroy jobs everywhere and a real boon for the all the little Stasi and curtain twitchers. May I suggest two more breeds of species in the the genus ‘Covidius hystericalis’ : the ‘hedge diver’ ; you’re walking along and two hundred yards away someone dives into a hedge presumable to avoid being ravaged by viruses from your good self, and ‘footpath flakes’ similar to hedge divers but in absence of hedges (;-)) will step aside in a theatrical way , cover their mouths and, if they feel that you have breached the ‘limit’ tut just about audibly….
Any other species folks?
The masked mannikins : seen in supermarket queues and elsewhere: glare disapprovingly from behind their grubby/useless/ sweaty face coverings at all those of us who show our faces.
A couple more: the saintly sanitisers:personal bottle of sanitiser ostentatiously produced in shop and vigorously applied to put us grubby heretics to shame;
the glove puppets: dodgy plastic gloves worn in public places then chucked away ,but never in a waste bin; this species is a litter lout;
the happy clappys_nuff said; we all know who they are
I’m an antilockdowner but might class as a “glove puppet”, it does make sense not to touch communal surfaces in shops too much, precautions like that work where the lockdown fails. The same reason I insist on cash, not card, card terminals are touched by everyone, any given coin or note is handled only by a small chain of people on any given day. I only wear gloves near shops, not in parks and countryside. I do not however toss my gloves away, giving them a good wash with soap and water, like you would to your hands, makes them perfectly suitable to use again. We have a planet to protect, and while nuclear and renewable emergies are the best solution not wasting plastic can help too.
As it isn’t possible to comment directly on the piece, I wanted to say here how perfect I found ‘Climbing out of the Lobster Pot’. Very well done Mr. de la Bédoyère! If only it could be required reading for everyone; it might even manage to penetrate the terror that seems to have taken over those citizens who are most in favour of a continued (or even harsher) lockdown and help them to see that the world outside really hasn’t changed so much since they were last in it, back in March. And that it remains as safe (or as risky) as it ever was.
The Guardian piece is basically a rant length argumentum ad hominem, which isn’t surprising for that rag. It’s hilarious that they describe journalists as sceptics, but engage in no analytical thinking and imply that just because experts are experts their work is beyond criticism.
What’s more they implicitly assume that only the experts they agree with are beyond criticism. Experts saying things they don’t like to hear are clearly politically motivated liars whose views are to be dismissed out of hand.
Contemptible.
It’s funny that they bring up Carl Sagan because I found this quote from his baloney detector:
“Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.”
Yet the authors of that piece are complaining about people daring to criticise an expert’s work as though said experts cannot be wrong, and ironically an expert with a poor track record of predictions.
The authors also exemplify the worst of what passes for scepticism in modern times: dismissing an opinion or argument simply because the proponent supports something or someone you disagree with: Brexit, the EU, Trump, Tories, Socialism, Corbyn etc. It’s not scepticism or thinking. Viewing the world only through a partisan lens is stupid and lazy.
Yes, the attempt to call Sagan to support dismissing sceptical questioning of authority was truly, egregiously stupid!
Which is what they are Mark :quod erat demonstrandum
Hello everyone, first comment after lurking for a while trying to find some sanity, I am British but live and work in Romania, obviously I am keeping an eye on the situation in the UK because I would like the opportunity to see my family some time in the near future, I was introduced to this site while listening to the London Calling podcast that Toby does with James Delingpole
Today while online I noticed an old school colleague of mine posting extremely pro-lockdown and anti-lockdown posts on Facebook, now I have not seen this guy for 30 years but I was interested to see that he had around 20 likes and positive comments on his posts so I decided to do a quick bit of research to see who was liking his posts.
With no exception, all of the people who liked his posts (who had enough visible information) worked for some branch of national or local government, all of them, based on recent posts seemed to be “working” from home, probably on full pay or in non-frontline positions in “our” NHS.
It struck me that lockdown sceptics are up against a large client population of people employed in the public sector who have not been affected financially by the lockdown and have an interest to keep it going as long as possible.
On top of that you have another large group who are quite happy on the their 80% wages because there is nothing to spend the money on so will have no problem with sitting at home until October and will make excuse after excuse about safety to put off the day they need to go back to work
The only way to accelerate the opening up of the country is for the people to demand it and to me it seems that people who are willing to do that are in the minority.
“posting extremely pro-lockdown and anti-lockdown posts on Facebook”
“Anti-lockdown-sceptic” I assume, based on context.
Agreed, this is why the extension of the furlough scheme, while certainly helping to address some immediate problems, was actually a disastrous error in governance terms (though perhaps not a political error, in the short run at least)..
Yes, that is what I mean’t
I can understand the extension being extended a few more weeks because the UK has not opened anything up but to state now that it will be in place until October is ridiculous
I’m jealous. Romania is stunning and by accounts way saner than here. It was on my to do list before ‘The Crisis’.
How are things going there?
And yes I agree. Rishi’s dripping cash nipple is proving way too attractive for the majority of people.
Romania is stunning and it is getting a little saner, the Romanians have had a strange relationship with the virus, generally Romanians are a little hypochondriac all the time so when the virus started to spread there was a lot fear and people were staying at home before any restrictions were introduced
The government then introduced a very tight lockdown early, schools closed, all non essential shops and you needed to carry a paper to go to work or go to buy food which the police could demand if they caught you out of the house
Then, the economic realities started to bite, most people were furloughed on 75% but in Romania people are generally closer to the breadline so 75% is not enough in most cases and the sentiment quickly swung towards opening up again, the fears seems to have gone, everyone wants to get back to normal
We have an average of around 200 cases per day on average and active cases going down due to higher recovery rates
Shops can now open and we don’t need papers to move about, bars and restaurants are going to be able to open outdoor seating on June 1st and indoor seating on June 15th unless there is a big spike, that is when they will also open the resorts on the Black Sea.
There a few prominent MPs here who have connections to the hospitality industry so there is a big push to get hotels open especially in the sea and mountain resorts
I am of the same opinion.
Numerous people in my neighbourhood fit your description. Some would normally live away during the week, which is a bit of a pain, to say the least, but they are now happily ‘working from home’, Others (mostly public sector on 100% pay) are equally content. An awful lot of decorating and gardening has got done round here in recent weeks and golf courses re-opening has been an added bonus. It is easy to see why such people have become lockdown zealots, keen to prolong the status quo,
I am not sure the massive rise in unemployment announced today will even bother them – ‘it won’t happen to me’ still seems to be the prevailing mindset across much of the country.
Perhaps attitudes will begin changing in a month or two, when bankruptcies, unemployment & govt borrowing go thro’ the roof.
Worryingly, I am not sure Rishi Sunak even realises what is going on.
Had this exchange with the Police Commisoner’s office.
Perhaps Lord Sumption could advise on this?
6:52 AM (3 hours ago)
I would like to make a charge against her majesty’s government of an act of terrorism on the British population.
They ran an advert constantly on televison in April advising people to stay at home as the Covid-19 was dangerous for people of all ages when they knew that this was not the case.
This has terrorised the nation and we are now in a position where people are even frightful of sending their children to school.
This must be investigated.
I include a link to the corecion tactics employed from SAGE.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/covid-coercion-boris-johnsons-psychological-attack-uk-public
DCC7Mailbox-.CommissionersPrivateOffice@met.police.uk
8:12 AM (2 hours ago)
Good morning,
Thank you for your email.
The issues you raise do not constitute criminal offences and as such are not matters for the Police. If you have an issue with the messaging used by the government during the course of the current COVID pandemic, you should write to your local MP in the first instance in order to raise the matter to the appropriate level.
I hope this information assists you.
Kind regards,
9:44 AM (1 hour ago)
So you are saying that the government deliberately lying to the people and leaving them in a state of terror is not a criminal act?
Terrorism is an action or threat designed to influence the government or intimidate the public.
I would contend that the government have intimidated the public with the exaggerated threat of the dangerousness of this virus.
The ramnifications of this act will be widespread. Expect police budgets to be cut and to have to deal with the civil unrest that ensues.
DCC7Mailbox-.CommissionersPrivateOffice@met.police.uk
10:02 AM (47 minutes ago)
to me, DCC7Mailbox-.CommissionersPrivateOffice
Good morning,
Thank you for your email.
I stand by my comments. Your issues are best placed with your MP.
Thank you for reaching out to the Commissioner’s Private office.
It’s hard to think of a bigger political scandal that this.
Any examples from the history of the United Kingdom? Has there ever been a more extreme public policy?
Not a surprising response at all, but still your communication was the necessary first step.
Whether this kind of thing can be established as an offence, against the government, is always a tricky question and requires sophisticated legal consideration. Even so, the actual outcome of a case is always uncertain.
Common sense does not work. Consider that most people would have assumed that waging a war of aggression, something we convicted German leaders for after WW2 and that our leaders routinely pontificate about being “evil” and “a war crime”, and that indeed is popularly assumed to be a war crime, must be a crime in this country. It turned out waging a war of aggression was not after all a criminal offence in UK law. Apparently our political elites somehow “forgot” to incorporate it into our own law, in all those decades after 1945. (it was a clear breach of international law, but that resulted in no practical remedies).
Fortuitously very useful for them, as it turned out.
Anyway, I believe it would be very useful for the point you have raised to be tested by a serious legal push, but such a thing requires heavy and long term commitment, with the raising of substantial amounts of money and high level legal involvement.
I also agree that an initial opinion from Lord Sumption would be fascinating.
Well done, Hugs.
You probably already know, but the police commissioner is a political role/function, and has nowt to do with day to day policing.
To make a charge, you need direct contact with a serving officer. Probably a police station is the best bet. They have to record it, is my understanding.
Didn’t know that John.
Is there someone in London who would be prepared to report this to a police station as I am in Scotland and we have a different police force?
My crystal ball is showing a class action lawsuit in your future. Our future.
Spot on Hugs. This is terrorism. And to cap off their patronising response they use that awful phrase “reaching out” when they mean contact.
YouTube have taken the Prof Delores Cahill video down another one bites the dust
Many of these censored interviews are available on http://www.brighteon.com
Find Prof Dolores Cahill’s interview here https://www.brighteon.com/94e3005f-7c32-4795-8feb-55f7d50ee722
Often on Bitchute too… here it is:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/TWwWR6x25bMg/
If the public ever properly wakes up, it would be good to think that the likes of YouTube and Facebook will lose their customers and that other platforms that haven’t been censoring get used instead.
You know when you’re over the target and the flak starts! I’m sharing stuff about her to my friends and family.
What a delight shopping’s going to be when they open.
Jesus H Chronavius (see what I did there?) the thing is past it’s peak! Stable doors come to mind. What do you do if mail comes through the letter box? Leave it for 72 hours? Or pick it up with gloved hands and incinerate after reading? I was in a bar when this bloody lockdown was imposed and when the virus would have been at its most contagious. Everyone I know is fine, even the one bloke who got a touch of it and was self-isolating and he works in ICU and is 99% sure he got it there. People need to get a grip.
Seriously, there have been grave discussions in the press as to how you should sanitise your mail.
Sanitising diseased zombie minds is going to be harder and take longer.
I have (or should say had) friends who disinfect every piece of post and wait 2 days before opening. For food deliveries, they do the same and have a ‘quarantine’ fridge and freezer for holding the contaminated produce before transferring to one for use. For anything linked to China, they will not open it for 9 days. They sterilise all utensils and cutlery daily and change toothbrush every 3 days – god save their immune systems.
Lol I use one of those anti bac wipes on my phone like once a week.
Even if it actually was useful, life’s too short for this shit
What’s an anti bac wipe ?
A wacky baccy whiff remover
Thanks Wendy, didn’t know they had that attribute !
That’s verging on OCD!!!!! God save their immune systems indeed and the changing toothbrush every 3 days is just bonkers!
A sterile environment will be totally counter productive –> immune system down
Quite a few years ago I watched a presentation on gamefication of social platforms. At the time there was a company called SCVNGR (Scavenger) who were using “games” to build a loyal audience. We take these for granted a lot of the time – rewards, bonuses, unlocking of new functions on a web app.
The point made was that in the early days of Facebook, we had Farmville. One month there was a glitch in Farmville where people were being notified to water their crops more often. The point made was that it was possible to find an optimal watering period where people would be distracted permanently from other activities and be obsessed or compelled to keep watering their crops.
It could destroy civilisation if pushed too far. The combination of regular and social media linked with reward reinforcement could produce amazing herd behaviour.
Haha I’d honestly forgotten about Farmville until now.
But you’re right, I have no doubt that social media and the internet play a massive part in how societies operate, interact, and respond to external events. We’re all so used to the internet’s ubiquity in our lives now, interacting through Facebook, email, Skype, text, that I don’t think we actually realise the full extent of its impact on human civilisation in the 21st century. I would argue that the internet perhaps is the most significant, liberating, and dangerous modern invention since the automobile.
Once this is all over, I would really love for there to be more public discourse about the impact of the internet and social media in our lives, our economy, our consumption, our relationships, and as we have seen in the past few months – in policy. I’d love for there to be a proper in-depth study rather than just some lip-service articles on the news. It is all too easy for herds to form online, given that the internet is also the most democratic invention we have seen – it makes it significantly easier for the man on the street to be seen and heard by the world. It also makes it far easier to target and attack those who dissent, because they are lone figures on an enormous world stage in front of millions – hence the rise of the destructive ‘cancel’ culture we see today, which is also a side effect of ‘safe spaces’ and refusing to engage in anything that is outside one’s own echo chamber.
I have no doubt that the ‘reward’ system you talk about in the context of social media games is in operation whenever someone virtue signals on social media about the NHS, or staying at home, or shutting down those who dare venture out of their front door or question the lockdown. Those sorts of views get lots of little ‘like’ buttons, creating a nice dopamine rush from the validation. However, I am convinced by what’s happening outside my window that more and more people silently think that the lockdown has been a total disaster, but do not want to say it outright online because it is so easy to silence and bring down those who question the orthodoxy.
Social media is cancer.
Having said that I still spend lots of time on forums and on discord. Reddit is ok. Places where longform interaction is still possible, like here. It’s the closest I can get to the internet of the 90s – a fantastical Wild West paradise that I mourn the loss of today. I grew up with the internet – just- – but it was such a different world to how it is now. Personal responsibility was the thing, as it is in the real world. Now kids can’t cope with the fact their online friend could be a paedophile, or not very nice to them. It’s an extension of their ‘safe space’ world rather than what it should be. A tool.
Anyway. Soz. /90s nostalgia
This is pretty vicious https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/05/19/the-mad-modellers-of-lockdown
Just read it. Dr kendrick is great.
Yes! More from Dr. Kendrick!
Tanzanian President orders Covid testing kits to be tested: pawpaw, car oil, goats etc come back as positive https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-05-03/president-questions-tanzania-coronavirus-kits-after-goat-test
Interesting paper on MedRxiv. “Predictors of COVID-19 incidence, mortality, and epidemic growth rate at the country level”
From findings: “The results of this ecologic analysis demonstrate that global COVID-19 burden and timing of country-level epidemic growth can be predicted by weather and population factors. In particular, we find that cool, dry, and higher altitude environments, as well as more urban and obese populations, may be conducive to more rapid epidemic spread. ”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.15.20101097v1
They said the same about Marks and Spencer I think. Clothes that have been tried on will be ‘isolated’ for a while.
Remember that these places never have enough items in one’s particular size at the best of times, and with “just in time” logistics they’ve all been built without store rooms round the back. Lets hope they just SAY they’ll quarantine the items, but that they won’t actually.
Yet another piece written with trademark elegance and clarity by Lord Sumption:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/jonathan-sumption-a-response-to-my-critics-on-lockdown
(Paywall, but with 3 free articles/month after a free registration)
He’s a hero. The MPs he mentions are cowards and complicit.
Interesting that the page on lockdownsceptics for the article about the experience of posting an anti-lockdown petition on social media seems to have been publicised somewhere pro-lockdown, probably the original forum, to judge by the massive upvoting of a post criticising the author and effectively defending the “cancelling”.
I Was Cancelled For Starting A Petition Urging the Government to Reopen Schools
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/18/uk-can-learn-europes-easing-lockdown/
”Italians will once again be allowed to visit museums and restaurants, while some shops will finally reopen. In Spain, officials announced similar restrictions would be lifted in some areas.
The news might raise hopes, therefore, that the UK government is poised to do the same, perhaps in two or three weeks’ time. Not so, according to leading scientists, who say this country’s trajectory has fallen further behind our Mediterranean neighbours. Instead, the British public will likely be waiting “much longer” for normal life to return.
The reasons are many and complicated, of course. But the main obstacle is this country’s stubbornly-high infection rate, compared to our European neighbours.”
For the love of God. How much longer are they going to imprison us for?!
This just goes to show the complete arbitrariness of the lockdown time period. Why? Where is the evidence that the actual epidemic curve of the disease in the UK has fallen behind Italy? Also, if we assume the MSM propaganda argument that lockdowns slow the spread and push back the peak, I would have thought that because our lockdown was less strict, surely the virus would have moved more quickly through our population and we would have caught up with Italy, as opposed to fallen behind it? We also now know that the ‘stubbornly-high infection rate’ is due to masses of infections in hospitals and care homes, rather than in the general community, due to the complete policy failure by the NHS/PHE.
Why on earth aren’t these facts being made more significant at the daily briefings? Why are we being kept in the dark and kept in fear? It actually makes me viscerally angry to see the government being so dishonest and destroying so many lives in the process, just to save itself embarrassment. If there’s one thing that would make all these months of pain of being separated from my partner, losing my job, having my independence drastically curtailed and my future employment prospects going up in smoke, it would be for the government to have an almighty reckoning – or just an simple APOLOGY, just an admission of guilt, of acknowledgement that in hindsight, the government got it dreadfully wrong and are going to fix it.
Yes you’re right, it’s completely incoherent for all the reasons you gave. If there’s ever a “right” time to start a lockdown then the later you start the sooner you can lift it. The data is pretty clear that one of the biggest reasons why it had almost no effect in the UK is it was too late– we certainly could have lifted it after the initial 3 weeks.
But it isn’t actually the government saying all this. It’s “Professor Azeem Majeed, head of public health at Imperial College” and then “Experts” followed by “Some leading scientists”. Then “Dr Bharat Pankhania”. So it’s just typical bad journalism. Most of these people aren’t even on the side of the government.
Just sent the following response back to my MP. Not sure how much difference it will make, but I had to at least write and send it. I have asked her to call me ASAP, so I can discuss on the telephone. I will give her both barrels!
Dear Munira,
Thank you for your response. I feel there are a number of vital points, you have disregarded in your reply, which I will now attempt to outline:
1. The Case for Lockdown
There is a plethora of scientists, epidemiologists and virologists who do not support lockdown and argue they have minimal if any effect on reducing infections. To name but a few these are:
– Johan Giesecke – You can see his interview here: https://youtu.be/bfN2JWifLCY
– Professor Knut Wittkowski – You can see his interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Q4naYOYDw
– Professor Michael Levitt – https://youtu.be/bl-sZdfLcEk
– John Ioadinnis – https://youtu.be/cwPqmLoZA4s
A research paper “Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza”
published in 2006 by Ingleby et al, advised never imposing lockdown as a measure for containing a pandemic due to the consequences being so severe. Their paper concludes:
“There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods in order to slow the spread of influenza. … It is difficult to identify circumstances in the past half-century when large-scale quarantine has been effectively used in the control of any disease. The negative consequences of large-scale quarantine are so extreme (forced confinement of sick people with the well; complete restriction of movement of large populations; difficulty in getting critical supplies, medicines, and food to people inside the quarantine zone) that this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration…
Home quarantine also raises ethical questions. Implementation of home quarantine could result in healthy, uninfected people being placed at risk of infection from sick household members. Practices to reduce the chance of transmission (hand-washing, maintaining a distance of 3 feet from infected people, etc.) could be recommended, but a policy imposing home quarantine would preclude, for example, sending healthy children to stay with relatives when a family member becomes ill. Such a policy would also be particularly hard on and dangerous to people living in close quarters, where the risk of infection would be heightened….
Travel restrictions, such as closing airports and screening travelers at borders, have historically been ineffective. The World Health Organization Writing Group concluded that “screening and quarantining entering travelers at international borders did not substantially delay virus introduction in past pandemics . . . and will likely be even less effective in the modern era.”… It is reasonable to assume that the economic costs of shutting down air or train travel would be very high, and the societal costs involved in interrupting all air or train travel would be extreme.”
You can read the entire paper here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.552.1109&rep=rep1&type=pdf
2. The Economy
We have now committed to policies which have accumulated more public debt in eight weeks, than we accumulated in the six years of WW2 between 1939-1945. This is an eye-watering level of debt, which will take decades to pay off. How will this be achieved? I expect through tax raises, austerity, inflation which will lead to a significantly poorer standard of living, and therefore poorer healthcare for all. Multiple businesses will fail. Millions will fall into long term unemployment.
3. Mental Health
As a direct consequence of lockdown, the number of suicides have significantly increased. There is a huge wave of depression, anxiety and psychosis as these unprecedented measures continue to permanently scar people’s mental wellbeing and re becoming traumatised by what the government is doing. Here are four examples of suicides which have occurred as a direct response to lockdown. How many suicides have we not read about:
https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/25/teenager-19-kills-fears-will-stuck-inside-coronavirus-12453434/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8280901/Student-22-kills-mentally-overwhelmed-coronavirus-lockdown.html
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boy-15-takes-life-after-21827680
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/30/pick-up-the-phone-to-loved-ones-urges-man-after-grandfathers-suicide
4. Statistical Fraud
The numbers of Covid-19 related deaths being recorded by the ONS are nothing short of statistical fraud. Due to emergency legislation measures put in place by this Government, this will now be the first known disease humans can die from without being formally tested. The numbers of Covid-related deaths have been greatly exaggerated and Covid-19 is being added to death certificates without any testing or evidence it was a contributory factor in the patient’s death.
Here is Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Adviser openly admitting this in the daily press briefing:
https://twitter.com/mizibak/status/1259132622397231104?s=21
The same situation happened in Italy where it was found that only 12% of the number of deaths reported, were directly related to Covid-19.
5. Proportion and Common Sense
Where is the sense of proportion to all of this? The Government has now become so narrow-minded and focused entirely on Covid-19 deaths, that it has forgotten people are dying from all other causes. Patients are having cancer screenings and treatment suspended (around 60,000 deaths predicted by Prof. Karol Sikora as a consequence of this), 2 million operations cancelled, urgent referrals from GPs not actioned and then of course those too scared to attend A&E due to eight weeks of fear-mongering propaganda by the Government, that people are dying at home from heart attacks, strokes and other very serious illnesses. I cannot articulate the hugely disproportionate response better than Lord Jonathan Sumption, who explains this in his article in The Sunday Times here:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/set-us-free-from-lockdown-ministers-and-stop-covering-your-backs-kvwrnk9ww
This lockdown needs to end NOW! As your constituent, I implore you to challenge the government based on my reasons outlined above.
Regards
Good effort RDawg, but I haven’t go time to read it, never mind a supposedly busier MP.
Well, I have read it and it’s excellent.
I’m sure it is – but excess length (their own definition, of course) just allows them to salve their consciences when binning it.
Cheers. I have to do something. I need to know, for my own conscience, that I fought as hard as I could against this.
It’s great, can I borrow it? I’ll use it to write to my mp and Keir Starmer again.
This is really well written. Thanks for putting it together.
Thanks. Feel free to share and re-use. I wrote it in haste, so it probably needs tweaking a little.
Good effort. Thought about writing one myself but to be honest I’ve given up on any politicians. You have more chance of firing if this new flu than finding an MP who gives a flying fck about the “people”
Agreed.
I’m going to borrow this for my MP if you don’t mind, very good letter! I’ve been brewing a reply, he had the temerity to compare Covid to ‘civilian casualties in the second world war’.
I forgot to add in evidence about the IFR being between 0.1 to 0.4% (citations needed) and also the devastating effect the developed world lockdowns (including ours) will have on developing world countries – their economies are highly dependent on tourism and exports. As a consequence millions will starve from poverty and poorer healthcare.
122 million unemployed Indians
Thanks, added all that in, plus stuff about DV, child abuse and child food poverty. I said about the IFR: Infection Fatality Rate IFR
All of the above would be understandable if Covid 19 were as lethal as were first led to believe. However, the largest study in the world conducted by Ben Goldacre’s team at Oxford, with a cohort of 17.4m people, tracked by their NHS number, clearly shows that for those who are healthy, and under 60, the risk is zero. There is no justification for quarantining the well, and it is extremely unfortunate that the concept of herd immunity was weaponised by the media and the opposition in the way that it was, when resources could have been diverted to shielding the vulnerable, whilst the rest of us sensibly got on with it. The Study is here https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.06.20092999v1
Carl Heneghan’s team at the CEBM have also done good work via their excellent Covid 19 evidence service. As they say about the IFR, “We could make a simple estimation of the IFR as 0.38%, based on halving the lowest boundary of the CFR prediction interval. However, the considerable uncertainty over how many people have the disease, the proportion asymptomatic (and the demographics of those affected) means this IFR is likely an overestimate
In Swine flu, the IFR ended up as 0.02%, fivefold less than the lowest estimate during the outbreak (the lowest estimate was 0.1% in the 1st ten weeks of the outbreak). In Iceland, where the most testing per capita has occurred, the IFR lies somewhere between 0.03% and 0.28%.
Taking account of historical experience, trends in the data, increased number of infections in the population at largest, and potential impact of misclassification of deaths gives a presumed estimate for the COVID-19 IFR somewhere between 0.1% and 0.41%.*” See here: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/
Hi Bec,
Please forward the above studies to Toby. I’m not sure he has time to read all the comments on here. This is really important stuff!
Also might be worth bringing it to Simon Dolan and Francis Hoar’s attention. Both can be contacted on Twitter.
Hiya, I’ve sent to Toby but afraid I’m not on twitter, could you copy and paste for me? Ta.
Impressive. If only we had a class of MP who would dare to take this on board!
Well done. May I borrow this as well?
Just seen a total hit piece on BBC news about Sweden. The implication being that there are high numbers of deaths and that Swedish people are petrified because they didn’t lockdown.
Its stuff like that which made me stop using the BBC a few years ago. The sooner the BBC dies the better. I suspect though that they will have bought themselves a stay of execution having been chief government propagandists during this.
Does anyone know the suicide figures since the shut down?
Bet it’s higher than the 33 healthy under 40s that have died of Covid
Well, I know one already. And that’s just me.
The only one that I have so far seen was in a local Cornish paper (sorry I don’t have the link) – where the suicide rate in April was just over double that of last year.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/jonathan-sumption-a-response-to-my-critics-on-lockdown
‘Personally, I would have preferred the argument against coercion to be advanced by MPs.But they have not dared to speak out, although a fair number have told me privately that they agree with me’.
Are they afraid of being slated in the media and missing out of career progression? It is easy to be silent in a climate of fear and panic.
Another top-notch piece from Sumption.
Yes, what a dreadful group of MPs we now have to ‘represent’ us.
So we finally have it. MPs will discuss their concerns in private, but won’t communicate them to their constituents, communicate WITH their consituents about THEIR concerns, or many any effort whatsoever to focus these concerns into some sort of positive action.
They are completely useless. I’m never voting again. Or rather I’m never spoiling my vote again. Lol.
Anyone seen the story in the Mail today that having had a cold in the past may give you immunity to Covid? They say that while not proven it bodes well for vaccine development. Maybe Barney was onto something with his placebo theory. Expect shortages of Lemsip and Night Nurse.
Just come back from the local Blue Diamond owned garden centre.
A few unbelievers would chat and laugh at the restrictions; we found quite amusing that you had to pick up the hand sanitiser with dirty hands then sanitise and pass it on. My wife enjoyed giving it a wipe and clean then trying o and it over to a believer couple who was looking on it horror at what we were joking about.
the other 90% of sheeple were just terrified but would all look and earwig when I was talking about the real facts and would then look away when I looked at them and they could not look me in the eye.
Had a good laugh with the staff. I pointed out to them that it states on their cheap, flimsy, totally useless face shields that they have to wear raised or they steam up and they cannot see “for liquid and dust use only” and asked them how this would protect them from a microscopic virus you cannot see and gets blown around by the wind. They said they have no idea but said they had to wear them or get the sack.
I pointed out to a manager that the guidance was not enforceable and the face shields were not fit for purpose against viruses and his answer: “just following orders”.
We all agreed HSE could not think their way out of a wet paper bag.
Kept me amused for an hour though and got a bargain, till rang through a price else than half on the tag so I went and got a 2nd plant as the cashiers ays she wasn’t going to query the wrong price given by the till, a computer problem not hers.
Right, I’m going to my nearest Waterstones when it finally opens and I’m going to handle all of the books!!!
I’m gonna leave some ‘dissenting’ notes in them. Also leave copies of 1984/Brave New World etc. in prominent random locations
Until yesterday, I did not know of anyone from within our reasonably wide circle of family and friends who had caught, or died with, covid19. Then I heard about two cases – one fatal and one recovering.
The first was from a friend of mine whose his mother had died at the weekend. She was 88 years old with failing kidneys and dementia, and lived in a nursing home. The doctor said they had not tested her for covid (the tests were not reliable, according to him) but it seemed likely she had contracted it it because of the way she had died – sudden onset of extreme fatigue, followed by loss of appetite and then quickly fading away.
Second case is a physiotherapist friend of ours in his late 30’s who is recovering from covid19. His wife, who is also a physiotherapist, works in a nearby hospital helping patients who are recovering from covid19. She, is perfectly ok, health wise.
Sort of backs up the comments about care homes, hospitals, and covid19 ….
I’d be interested to know how many people know of somebody who’s died of flu over the years. I personally can’t think of anybody and I’m in my 40s.
If we weren’t bombarded with a daily death count I wonder how many people would actually notice there were 50k extra deaths in the last few months.
I was thinking the same thing this morning. Plus I expect the death rate will go down below what it normally is around September, and by February next year the number of deaths for the whole year will be around normal. All the virus has done is bring forward the passing of some vulnerable people by a few weeks. Which is incredibly sad but hardly a reason to shut down the country.
True, but govt are doubling down and prolonging the nonsense. Insanity rules!
I think one will also need to start including the fallout from undiagnosed and untreated cancers plus many other serious illnesses currently being ignored, as well as a big surge in suicide rates following loss of businesses, livelihoods, inter-personal relationships, jobs and prospects.
No one would notice. That’s part of the problem, most of us were blissfully ignorant of what happens fairly regularly, namely high excess deaths for one reason or another. Part of the alarm in people is they never knew this and so when they’re told so many people are dying they think it’s not right and it must be stopped and the whole hunger games daily death count just made matters worse. Yet when you tell them this you’re somehow heartless! This is what has happened to most of the population, certainly to politicians and MSM, since March:
https://youtu.be/alEofeHRWLw
Yes, I think this hits the nail on the head. No context is ever given to the stark numbers of covid cases and deaths, and very little has so far been said about all the collateral damage which is already beginning to be felt and which will grow starkly throughout the next year or two.
I am increasingly thinking that the only thing that will end this current madness is a severe economic depression, with huge numbers of bankruptcies and 20% unemployment.
MSM attention can then concentrate on that, rather than covid19.
Yep, that’s where I am sadly.
Seems like it has already started with DT headlines – 8million now on govt funded schemes and Sunak warning of an unprecedented recession.
The problem is if you tell people of the aftershocks to follow such as those you mentioned they dismiss you as a “granny killer” or wanting more people to die.
That said was just chatting to a colleagues and she’s worried as well about the fallout from this. So at least another person I know is a lockdown sceptic too.
Can someone in Gov’t please just say they cocked up, just throw Public Health England under the bus or something. Tell us lockdown is being lifted and we won’t hear this nonsense of “new normal” anymore.
PLEASE !!!
Agree. It is so easy to do. Will also save their skins as they are digging a very deep hole for themselves.
The trouble is that Boris believes that, when in a big hole, the only thing to do is keep digging. His classical studies don’t seem to have helped his understanding of the real world.
I wish! If they had the honesty to admit they over reacted I may even forgive them. May.
Hmm, you are obviously a generous soul. I don’t think I could ever forgive what Boris & co (and most other governments) have done so glibly to this potentially Great Britain. I am in my later years and shouldn’t be too directly affected, but I feel so sad that when I pass on I shall be leaving behind such a badly debased country.
p.s. I of course include in that debasement the lot of so many younger Brits.
LOL I did say “may”. I probably wouldn’t . . . But I would at least give three resounding cheers if they did. However I’m 100 per cent certain I won’t be cheering anybody or anything, sadly.
Hello Oaks 79. According to the Mail they may be trying to do just that. Therese Coffey offered up this gem ” if the science advice at the tme was wrong I’m not surprised people think we made the wrong decisión”.
Fingers crossed we are starting to see movement this way then
My initial reaction was ‘she is going to be in trouble for saying that’ – a cabinet minister suggesting the govt may have made a wrong decision – a def no no.
Hope I am wrong, however.
Anyway, ‘a spoonful of contrition helps the medicine go down’ etc,etc….
David Starkey’s suggestion:
“If I were Johnson I would do a mea culpa speech. I would say we got it wrong…. I would say that what happened was we were captured by – not the carers, not the nurses, not the doctors – we were captured by this dire self-regarding bureaucratic machine, the big governmental aspect of the NHS and it’s been disastrous”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S8Js-tEmlg&feature=youtu.be
This, he points out, would allow them to retake control of the crisis and use it for something constructive.
It would also allow them to bury an admission of fault over the whole lockdown principle under a mountain of action and resulting controversy. And they have four years to recover any drop in popularity.
Mind you, Starkey does concede that Jonson post-covid is probably not up to the job, and I agree with him on that.
Good suggestion. However, I fear the ‘religious cult’ aspects of covipanic will take skill, effort, compassion, and dosh to completely heal.
Now I know I’m going mad. Just read this codswallop:
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2020/when-its-great-to-be-british/
Am I living in a parallel universe to this bloke? Apparently the rest of the world is envious of the way we’re handling this crisis! This is the finest display of Britishness, apparently.
He ends with this flourish:
“when the pandemic comes to an end… success will belong to all of us. We should not make too much of this. It would be unBritish to do so.”
Surely this is an article of platinumy ( much more emphatic than irony ). The author must be laughing at the degradation of much of the British character – otherwise, Frost is just a twit?!
What a lot of tosh! How on earth did he manage to convince himself to produce this stuff?
Is he just a twerp, or an out-to-lunch fantasist?
Oh man, I just skim read it but saw this:
. ‘It could fracture through major ministerial incompetence, lies or bad leadership, none of which are presently evident.’
I’ll just let that sink in! I think perhaps we are in a parallel universe, it’s a bit like the ‘upside down’ in stranger things except the monster is inept ministers!
In one of the early daily punch and judy shows, one ex-journalist posed the question as to whether the UK were sharing info etc with other governments. One of The Scientists (forget which one) said in response said that of course they were. Said Scientist deity also added that many other countries were very grateful for the world class modelling that the UK had shared with them.
If I could be bothered, I’d try and find the clip as its priceless. But I’m not bothered.
FFS, well I’m planting a veggie garden, have taken on 8 hens, am applying for a shotgun licence, seeking to rehome two savage looking Rottweilers, and plans afoot to install motion activated night vision security system. When the car jackings and being stabbed for your hot cross buns in Sainsbury’s carpark start, I intend to be well, well away from it. Rule Britannia!
I thought ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was fiction not prediction
I had a look thinking it has to be satire. Nope. But he’s obviously out to lunch, he called Polly Toynbee left wing.
Hopefully things will pick up, despite the government’s and the bedwetters’ best efforts. Good luck!
And from me!
+1
+2
I am now starting to get very scared. When a comment on a Times article with several dozen likes from other members of the reading base, answering the rather suspect analysis and ‘irrational emotion’ of a young journalist with facts and figures taken from the ONS database and comments made by Professor Graham Medley, is wiped under the guise of ‘your post violates our policy’, we are in very dangerous times.
Nothing unusual these days, sadly. But I try to get into the heads of the editors and the clerks responsible for devising these policies and making these censorship decisions, and I really struggle. It requires such distortions of reality and of reason.
These people are precisely the censoring and opinion managing, unrepresentative “elites” that brexiteers were complaining about, and that the Guardian insists any reference to is right wing conspiracy theorising without any basis in fact. Anyone who tried to talk any sense about any subject that fell foul of their self-serving limits to acceptable discourse, from brexit to sexual politics, and to immigration and race, found their points censored and their representatives and spokesmen demonised and “no platformed”.
It really isn’t anything new to this covebola panic. It’s just that for many lockdown sceptics it’s the first time they’ve been on the wrong side of it.
‘violates our policy’ is coding for ‘violates our fascist agenda’. Neil Ferguson wrote it.
Seems like contact tracing in order to be able to go shopping has started in New Zealand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUC2PRxDzyI
is this a national policy or just the company deciding to do it?
Wow. Time to invent an alter ego and learn an imaginary phone number off the top of my head.
I have been lurking on the site since late March, but felt the time was right to sign up and express my gratitude for the oasis of calm and sanity it offers in the chaos that currently passes for the UK(world).
I am doing what I can, emailed Raab and today sent a copy of RDawg’s excellent wording to my local MP (thanks RDawg), conversations where possible with potential like minded or un-decided individuals.
Be good to have a code word or sign maybe!
Just sickened and gutted by all that is going on.
Welcome.
I guess they are coming to stiffen his resolve and give him the next set of orders:
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-19/boris-johnson-bill-gates-melinda-gates/
Bill Gates couldn’t even make decent computer software, never mind a complicated vaccine. What on earth makes him think he understands medicine all of a sudden?
All the sycophants hanging on his every word – same problem Prince Charles has!
There’s many a true word …
Visited a local re-opened Garden Centre today. A remarkable experience. For some unknown reason they have “improved” their car park access to make it more difficult; closed of half of their car park; seemed to operating a form of one-in, one-out despite the vast open spaces that they have. All open air seating made inaccessible (might we infect the seat?). Surprising the number of mask-wearers despite common sense suggesting that avoiding others in a large garden centre is fairly easy even in normal times.
Oops, forgot – common sense is rarely common.
The only reason I can thinks of is that they (most retail operators) use the most junior employee to design the ‘new’ system. It boggles the mind.
Lockdown song – We Rise by Rihannan Giddens
Living in Scotland I’ve been taking great comfort in the suggestion that, if we’re all good little girls and boys for the next week or so, Big Sister is going to allow us to sit on a park bench.
The BBC’s round-up of local headlines mentioned the front page of the Courier newspaper and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry:
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/1322775/dundee-medical-expert-thinks-uk-lockdown-has-saved-almost-one-million-lives/
I guess there had to be somebody somewhere who looked at the Imperial prediction of half a million dead and decided it was far too optimistic. I’ve marked undergrad essays for a living and while I have, unfortunately, encountered this combination of conjecture (without lockdown almost 100% of the UK population would have been infected within a few weeks); poor reasoning (I’m not sure how the proposed IFR of just under 1% can entail 900k deaths unless the author thinks the UK’s population is approximately 90 million); and simply atrocious English all too often it was usually produced by students just a few months out of secondary school.
According to my research the so-called medical expert is cardio and not an epidemiologist and he works for the university of Dundee so has a HUGE vested interest in a lockdown so he can sit at home and get paid for doing nothing,
I found the comment by the Banker extremely interesting because that was the conclusion I had reached. The main centre for the contagion was the NHS, who in turn infected care homes where our most vulnerable resided.
Yes, and the BBC were earlier today criticising Sweden for not protecting their care homes!
Even Johnson called them the “twin epidemics” (care homes and the NHS) apparently in an unguarded moment in Parliament. As reported here by the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/17/hospital-patients-england-coronavirus-covid-19
Exactly right. Why do they behave like cult members? Because it is a cult.
I have had thoughts to this effect since early April. I have increasingly realized that to solve this puzzle we need to draw on the long expertise in anthropology and even archaeology, which I tried to do here:
An anthropological study into the “Corona Cult.” Pro-Panic hardliners and the media succeeded in erecting a virus-centered apocalypse cult as state religion and inducing a mass-conversion event to it, in March 2020 (May 17-18).
I hadn’t seen a full, serious take on Corona as a Cult (the COVID Cult) so I wrote one myself. It is more investigative, less a polemic. Calling something a “cult” sounds inevitably polemical, but in anthropology it is a neutral term.
Drawing on anthropology’s understanding of cults, the surprising finding is that Corona aligns with all the indicators of religious cults. If you’re interested in what these are, I invite you to see a href=”https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2020/05/18/against-the-corona-panic-part-xii-an-anthropological-study-into-the-corona-cult-pro-panic-hardliners-and-the-media-succeeded-in-erecting-a-virus-centered-apocalypse-cult-as-state-religion-and-in/” rel=”nofollow”>the post I wrote on the matter, which goes point by point, applying the anthroplogist’s lens to Corona.
My surprising conclusion is that Corona is a religious cult in the very literal sense, and if not understood in that way, simply cannot be understood. I started off thinking “cult” was a good metaphor. Slowly I realized it is not metaphorical at all.
(Please delete this post as it has a code error, the corrected one is above. Thanks)
Exactly right. Why do they behave like cult members? Because it is a cult.
I have had thoughts to this effect since early April. I have increasingly realized that to solve this puzzle we need to draw on the long expertise in anthropology and even archaeology, which I tried to do here:
An anthropological study into the “Corona Cult.” Pro-Panic hardliners and the media succeeded in erecting a virus-centered apocalypse cult as state religion and inducing a mass-conversion event to it, in March 2020 (May 17-18).
I hadn’t seen a full, serious take on Corona as a Cult (the COVID Cult) so I wrote one myself. It is more investigative, less a polemic. Calling something a “cult” sounds inevitably polemical, but in anthropology it is a neutral term.
Drawing on anthropology’s understanding of cults, the surprising finding is that Corona aligns with all the indicators of religious cults. If you’re interested in what these are, I invite you to see the post I wrote on the matter, which goes point by point, applying the anthroplogist’s lens to Corona.
My surprising conclusion is that Corona is a religious cult in the very literal sense, and if not understood in that way, simply cannot be understood. I started off thinking “cult” was a good metaphor. Slowly I realized it is not metaphorical at all.
Surprise, surprise. The Government says there’s going to be a severe recession. In other news, scientists have discovered that water is wet.
The water is wet thing. Has that been confirmed by Fergusons’s modelling yet? Are we allowed to believe it? ;-
Ferguson has indeed modelled it and found that water is several times wetter than previously thought.
So they established that now but still refuse to stop this tyrannical lockdown.
I read that we have accumulated more debt in the last few weeks than we did during the whole of Second World War. Is this true?
And, yup, on we go with the thing.
Maybe debt. Not debt:gdp ratio. Clutching at straws?
Precisely. It’s the fact that a) the recession was caused by government policy and b) they won’t even acknowledge it’s their fault and fix the bloody issue which really rattles my cage.
I cannot listen to any government announcements, as any of the following phrases may be damaging to my fragile mental health:
“We are all in this together”
“We will do whatever it takes”
“Standing by ordinary people”
“Protecting livelihoods”
“Difficult times ahead”
“Above all, protecting our fantastic NHS”
“All standing behind the brave doctors and nurses”
etc….
Breaking! Stanford Prof. John Ioannidis is out with a pre-print paper assessing IFR of #COVID19 from serology studies: Bottom line: IFR between 0.02% to 0.40%.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v1
“Infection fatality rates ranged from 0.03% to 0.50% and corrected values ranged from 0.02% to 0.40%”
Lots of interesting things in there, but two that stand out are that “even under congested circumstances, like cruise ships, aircraft carriers or homeless shelter, the proportion of people infected does not get to exceed 20-45%”.
This lends weight to the idea that exposure doesn’t necessarily equal testing antibody-positive. He also makes the point that test kits are validated for sensitivity against samples that were more likely to belong to symptomatic patients so may have lower sensitivity against the asymptomatic cases.
The second very interesting thing is the study in Geneva which did three samples spread over three weeks. In the course of that time prevalence went up from 3% to 9.7%.
I keep pointing out how the susceptible ratio drops off a cliff once you get past about 5%. If the measured prevalence is about half the actual exposure, 3% to 9.7% would be 6% to 20% which puts you right in that region of rapid growth. The Geneva tests started on April 6th which makes them a fairly good snapshot of the epidemic as it was unfolding in Switzerland. I wish they had carried on for a few more weeks and we could have seen where it got to. Maybe they are and will publish that later.
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete, when everything the American public believes is false”
— William Casey CIA Director 1981
Change to BBC/Govenment UK
I really hope things pick up for you Kh,you are at the forefront of the resistance !,I wish some of our local businesses would grow a bit of backbone and take a stand.The fact you got 4 dirty looks,obviously lockdown cultists,shows you are doing the right thing !.
Me too. Hopefully as word gets round, and people see you’re open, things will pick up.
Contract Tracing is nothing less than a declaration of war on the people. I’m all for it because i’ve always dreamed of a dystopian society where i’m on the outside leading the fight for freedom on my motorcycle. I’m gonna dress up like Snake Plisskin and roam from town to town having adventures and small victories against the Obergruppenführer and his traitorous Contract Tracing Volunteers. Social distancing, tracing apps, forced drugs, no pubs, no contact with friends and family, restricted travel, restricted food and curfews, does this not sound like a fascist state to you? When the fightback starts it’s gonna be brilliant for all us violent psychopaths hell bent of destruction. Plus while i’m doing this i’m gonna be playing Breaking the Law by the mighty Judas Priest on my iPod, Maybe a little bit of Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction Back Seat Education for the ladies, society will still have to consider gender, after all, I’m not a savage.
Hope things pick up and people start going out again. Are you allowed to have people come and sit at tables to eat and drink?
E-mail received from the Chief Medical Officer’s Office and my reply:
Thank you for your email to the Chief Medical Officer, I have been asked to reply on his behalf.
Shielding is for your daughter’s personal protection, it’s entirely her choice whether or not she follows this advice.
The recommendation for shielding the highest risk group is just that. We appreciate some patients may decide, on weighing up the risks, that they would prefer not to follow the restrictive, stringent measures however it is important she understands the risks and should discuss those risks with her GP.
She may decide, having weighed up the risks and the implications of shielding, that she does not want to follow the guidance. Before deciding, we would ask her to discuss the matter with her GP or hospital specialist and those that may provide care for her. Government advice is that she talks to somebody before she decides what to do.
If, having discussed the matter with her GP or hospital specialist, she decides not to follow the ‘shielding’ guidance, we would ask her to follow the same physical distancing measures and hygiene measures as everybody else, i.e.
• wash your hands more often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, or use a hand sanitiser
• wash your hand when you get home or into work, when you blow your nose, sneeze or cough, eat or handle food
• avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands
• avoid close contact with people who have symptoms
• cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in a bin and wash your hands
• clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces in your home
I appreciate your continued support during this difficult time, by staying home as much as possible you are protecting yourselves, your loved ones and those working for the NHS. Thank you.
I hope this is helpful
Kind regards,
Thank you for your swift reply.
If this was so necessary then why are we only being advised of it now when the virus has peaked and is all but over?
We will of course follow the basic hygiene measures we have done for all our lives, nothing more nothing less.
We will continue to hug. A HUG IS HEALTH!!!!!!
There is no scientific evidence to for the physical distancing measures you are recommending unless you can provide it for me.
Obviously if I developed any symptoms I would stay home and protect my loved ones but it is not my job to protect NHS workers, it is theirs to protect me and the thousands of other people who, to the shame of the NHS are being neglected at this time.
It is a national disgrace.
Yours sincerely
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/covid-19-update-how-many-furloughed-jobs-will-come-back-