The row over school openings rumbles on. The Mail cites ‘‘evidence from 22 countries on the continent” at an EU briefing which suggests that reopening schools has not been harmful to children and teachers. Millions of pupils in Germany, France, Denmark and Norway are now back at their desks; even hard-hit Belgium has told primary and secondary schools to restart smaller final-year classes:
The decision to reopen schools in 22 EU states, including France where 1.4 million pupils went back to their classrooms, has not caused an increase in coronavirus cases across Europe.
The revelation piles pressure on unions resisting plans to send younger children back from June 1st.
The National Education Union yesterday even claimed it was not safe for teachers to mark workbooks.
The Mail quotes Alan Smithers, Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham: ‘The unions have been asking for evidence, and this is it. So they should start cooperating fully with the Government so that our schools can open again as soon as possible.”
Back in the UK Labour-run Bury Council yesterday became the latest local authority to reject the Government’s timetable for sending children back to class, joining Hartlepool, Liverpool and Stockport. You can watch Julia Hartley-Brewer arguing with a Bury Councillor on her Talk Radio show this morning here.
The Mail‘s online edition adds remarks from Tony Blair on last night’s Newsnight in which he backed calls for pupils to go back to school, saying some children were receiving no education at all.
The Times also has a story about the European education ministers being briefed by the EU at a meeting chaired by Blazenka Divjak, the Croatian Education Minister, who said that social distancing and hygiene measures appeared to be working. The paper points out that many of the UK councils considering delaying reopening are in deprived areas where children are suffering more from school closures.
In the Times‘s Letters pages, Kenneth Baker – Education Secretary for three years under Margaret Thatcher – is one of a number of readers concerned about the effect of ongoing school closures on children’s education.
SIR – The Sutton Trust has shown that 64% of primary school teachers have been giving just three hours of teaching a day during the lockdown. Teachers should go back to working a full day on June 1st.
Already two months of education have been lost; disadvantaged children will find it very challenging to catch up in a year. Hence, the sooner children return to school the better. Other countries are managing to do so safely and so should we.
Former Labour MP Frank Field, writing to the Guardian as chairman of the Frank Field Education Trust, agrees: “To allow this gap to develop unnecessarily, with the closure of schools, will be bordering on the politically criminal.”
Lockdown Isn’t Working
The newspapers are finally starting to take seriously the economic impact of the lockdown.
Today’s Telegraph notes that two million claims for grants, amounting to £6 billion, have been made in the past week under the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme.
The number of workers on the separate employee furlough scheme has gone up to eight million, an increase of 500,000 since last week. That brings to around ten million the total number of people now having their wages funded by Government borrowing, with a third of private sector workers wages currently paid by the state.
At the same time, with shops and businesses forcibly closed, claims for unemployment benefits soared by nearly 70% in April, according to the Guardian. The number of unemployed people claiming benefits has increased by the most since records began to reach almost 2.1 million in April. The Office for National Statistics says about 856,500 people signed up for Universal Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance benefits in April, driving up the overall claimant count by 69% in a single month. It’s the biggest monthly increase since records began, while the overall number of people claiming benefits due to unemployment has risen above two million for the first time since 1996. They may shortly be joined by the 6,000 employees of the high street restaurant chain Bella Italia, which has called in the administrators.
Meanwhile, the number of employees on company payrolls plunged by 450,000 at the start of April. The number of vacancies posted by companies looking for new staff has also halved.
By way of contrast, the pre-lockdown headline measurement of unemployment had fallen to 3.9% in the three months to March, with the percentage of people in work at a joint-record high.
The Times reports that “the amount of work done in Britain crashed by a quarter in the final week of March as lockdown came into effect… The figures provide an early glimpse of the wreckage being caused to people’s lives”.
The Mail quotes Martina Kane, from the Health Foundation charity, on the worrying long-term effects of lockdown, especially on the young:
It is concerning that the current crisis is disproportionately affecting employment opportunities for young people. This could have worrying ramifications for young people’s longer term health outcomes. There is strong evidence that unemployment and poor quality work can have a negative impact on young people’s mental health. Financial insecurity can result in poor health both now and later in life.
We’re Not Going On a Summer Holiday
The summer holiday picture remains confusing. The Sun reports Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’s comments in the Commons yesterday that ministers are looking at “travel bridges” so people can fly to countries with low numbers of Covid infections. But it wasn’t all good news: he also warned that the Government is planning to fine travellers £10,000 if they break whatever quarantine restrictions are put in place.
But if you’re thinking about staying in the UK for your holiday, better not leave your home just yet. The Spectator’s Kate McCann told an alarming story on Twitter yesterday: “Ros Pritchard, Director General of the British Holiday and Home Park Association, says they have had ‘vigilantes’ reporting people staying on holiday home sites. The ‘tourists’ were in fact NHS staff who were being given accommodation to help them do their jobs.”
Trump’s Miracle Cure
The Mail and others report the news that Donald Trump has been taking hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus prophylactic. The paper publishes a letter written by White House physician Dr Sean Conley in which he says, “After numerous discussions, he and I regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from the treatment outweighed the relative risk.”
Common Cold May Provide Immunity
The Times reports on research published in the academic journal Cell which suggests that merely having suffered from the common cold in the past may confer some immunity against the virus:
Scientists have found cells that can fight the new coronavirus in the bloodstream of people who have only been infected with other coronaviruses that cause colds. The finding raises hope that some may have a degree of protection already and could explain the apparent randomness in how severely the virus strikes.
The research looked at ‘T-cells’ which spot other cells that have been infected.
Dan Davis, professor of immunology at the University of Manchester, said: “When a cell is infected with a coronavirus, the virus’s protein molecules are chopped up into very small pieces. And those small pieces are put up at the surface of the cell. When T-cells see these molecules that have never been in the body before they multiply, then they go and respond to those infected cells.”
Nightingale Dead On Arrival
Why is a new Nightingale hospital being built, given that almost none of the ones that have been built so far are being used? According to the Midweek Herald in Devon, work began on transforming a HomeBase in Exeter into a Nightingale on May 6th.
“NHS leaders in Devon say that they hope that Nightingale Exeter will not be needed but if or when it is, it will be ready,” reports the paper.
Lord Gumption Speaks
Watch this YouTube video of Jonathan Sumption setting out the case against lockdown on the BBC. “The current rationale for the lockdown is incoherent,” he says, matter-of-factly.
This appearance, like Sumption’s comment piece in the Sunday Times, led to ignominy being poured on his head. (Welcome to the club, m’Lud.) Read his robust reply to his critics in today’s Spectator.
Tory MP Likens Government Response to Morecambe and Wise Sketch
The Telegraph‘s Camilla Tominey reports on some rumblings of discontent from Conservative MPs at Boris’s first meeting with backbenchers since the lockdown was put in place which took place yesterday. One disgruntled MP came up with a good analogy to describe the Prime Minister’s response to the pandemic:
Summing up the mood on the back benches, one former minister on Monday likened his own party’s handling of the crisis to the famous Morecambe and Wise comedy sketch featuring legendary pianist and composer Andre Previn.
The respected MP told the Telegraph: “It’s like when Previn turns to Eric and says: ‘You’re not playing the right notes’ and Eric grabs him by the lapels and replies: ‘I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.’ Everything has been the wrong way round.”
Citing the newly-introduced 14-day quarantine period, the MP added: “That should have happened at the beginning of the crisis, not at the end.”
Is the Nation Suffering From OCD?
Interesting email from a psychiatric nurse who liked my suggestion yesterday that there’s something cult-like about the behaviour of those who’ve enthusiastically embraced their incarceration:
The citizens of this country are going to have huge problems in the phases of loosening lockdown with OCD and risk assessment.
Some background. I am a retired psychiatric and general nurse, with a sociology degree gained when sociology wasn’t a load of lefty nonsense (1970s). I had an unusual career. I left my job as an NHS Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) in 1996 to become self-employed as the first independent CPN in the country, working as a contractor to the NHS alongside a small private clinical practice. Having previously been a training officer in the NHS, I gradually developed the training side of the business, which became my sole focus for the last few years until my retirement two years ago.
About nine weeks ago, our Government said: “500,000 of us are going to die.” We all experienced terror. If we are told something powerfully and often enough, we will believe it. If we link what we are told to an emotional state, we will believe it more. If we link it to a negative emotion, such as fear, we will believe it so much that we don’t feel the need to question it.
Which brings me to OCD.
People with OCD believe that if they think something it must be true and, as a corollary, what they think is what will happen. On several occasions, I saw new mums with OCD who believed they were going to smother their babies because, crucially, they were thinking how awful it would be to do such a thing (the “obsession”). They thought, “If I’m thinking it, I will do it.” So they tried not to think about it. How? By developing behaviours designed to block such thoughts, or to keep themselves away from their baby (the “compulsion”). In therapy (if they will come, which they usually won’t), we ask them to do what seems crazy: think about smothering their baby more, not less. If they’re brave enough to do this, they find all the reasons why they don’t want to, and won’t, smother their baby. Think it through properly, don’t avoid thinking about it.
In my early career, I made the mistake of arguing with OCD sufferers, trying to convince them that terrible things were not going to happen. This is pointless, as they will always reply: “But it might happen!” I learnt to say, “Yes, it might,” which, of course, freaked people out: “Don’t say that! What kind of a therapist are you? You’re supposed to make me feel better!” I followed up, though, with: “How likely is it? What could stop the terrible thing from happening? What’s the evidence? Rather than others calming you down with pointless reassurances that nothing terrible will happen, how can you calm yourself down?” (People with OCD are far too reliant on others to provide them with reassurance.) And, crucially, “As you can’t be 100% sure that the terrible thing won’t happen, how can you get along with life while living with the remote possibility that it could, like you do with so many other potential dangers?”
We are abysmal at risk assessment. I used to run courses on positive risk management with care and health organisations (why it’s OK to take risks, because they have benefits). The Covid crisis is the ultimate and logical conclusion to our risk-averse culture. How often do we hear the words: “You can’t do that! It’s against health and safety!” And yet, the Health and Safety Executive is about the only Government body I know which has a sense of humour. It used to send out a regular “Health and Safety Myths” email, analysing all the things workers had been told by their bosses they couldn’t do because of “health and safety”, but pointing out that the danger was minor, and, importantly, not doing whatever it was created more danger. Example: teachers at a school were told no longer to use step ladders to access books on a high shelf, in case they fell off the ladder. Results: (a) they stood on chairs instead and fell off; and (b) the children’s education was damaged, because they couldn’t read the interesting books on the high shelf.
On risk management courses I used to talk about fear of flying. Someone in the group would always say they were terrified of planes, but still went abroad for holidays. I would ask how they got to the airport. “Eh? We drove!” I would point out that far more people are killed driving to airports than they are on planes, but this cut no mustard, because, of course, we only read in the news about plane crashes (precisely because they are so rare), not about car crashes (because they are so common). Also, newspapers don’t report safe plane landings. So, as in so many other aspects of life, we end up with completely erroneous notions of how dangerous things are.
As a nation, we are going to need to be taught effective risk assessment and risk management skills if we are to succeed in coming out of lockdown. We keep looking for a “no risk” route out, when in reality reducing one risk almost always creates another. We tend to believe that a hazard in the present is always worse than a hazard in the future; that a physical hazard is worse than a mental or emotional hazard. We rarely ask the key risk assessment questions:
How likely is it?
How soon will it happen?
How serious is it?I used to call these the “PIG Issues”: Probability, Imminence, Gravity.
Pulling this together, it’s as if we’ve suddenly become a nation of OCD sufferers: fuelled by our Government and our awful media, we’ve been taught to be mindful all the time of the terrible things which could happen. We’re presented constantly with images of mass graves, accounts of what happens in Intensive Care Units, etc. and so ruminate on these dangers. The more we think of these things, the more we believe them to be important and true – probable, rather than improbable. And our anxiety reinforces them: “I feel frightened. What is there to be frightened off? Yes: that!” Our anxiety “proves” our belief that we are in danger. Our danger-reduction strategies – like mask-wearing – prove, by temporarily reducing our anxiety, that we are right to feel danger. Then we seek certainty that the feared things won’t happen: “Unless the Government can give me absolute 100% certainty that my child will not get COVID-19 at school, I’m not taking the risk” Boris asked us to do our own risk assessments – “Stay Alert” – but we have become, over the past few years, a nation dependent on others to manage risks for us.
Unless we can undo years of mollycoddling, over-management and disempowerment, we will never go back to work or to take off our masks.
Staying Sane
For those of you beginning to go insane in virtue of being lockdown sceptics, rather than enthusiasts, this website seems to be quite therapeutic. I get several emails like the one below every day. This one is from a wine merchant in New Zealand:
Each morning when I awake (from a night of restless, worried sleep, clutching my pillow tight) the first thing I do is load your website and spend an hour or so, reading your latest daily missive and as many of the links as I have time for. It feeds my soul. It helps my mental state immeasurably to get through the coming day with the correct amount of grim humour at the sheer absurdity of where we find ourselves, and to know that there is also shared common outrage among the global rational and well balanced. Simply put, it is the one of the few thing keeping me sane at the moment – along with my family. My wife and I are libertarians and have been struggling to understand how so many of our fellow citizens can hold their liberty so lightly, and with such great irrationality throw away what looks like it could end up being a generation of progress and burden our children with indulgent profligacy, over something that, while terrible, in the big scheme of things is so innocuous that it is not, or rather it should not be, a threat to our systems of freedom and economy – our way of life.
Chin up, mate. If the worst comes to the worst, you can always drink your stock.
Shopping Aint What It Used To Be
A sad email from a reader who’d just visited his local garden centre:
I’ve just read your piece on the future of our High Streets. Today I visited our local garden centre, which isn’t exactly momentous news. But it got me thinking about what the short term future holds for retail in general. My visit was not pleasant, which I’ll come on to, and that concerns me. Once the lockdown is further lifted we will need to get our economy moving. But the salient point is that, thinking back to happier times, most of the retail places I visited was in part or wholly, for pleasure. For example – coffee. I can make this at home but I go to our local café for the atmosphere, to meet and be with people. And it’s a similar story for restaurants, nik nak shops, you name it.
Coming back to today, my wife and I were faced by a young chap in the car park wearing a surgical mask, even though I understand the risk of infection in the open air is negligible. Inside the garden centre we were greeted by the usual tape on the floor to keep us the required distance apart but again, everyone sported the sinister masks. And this is the truly bizarre part – several also wore plastic visors of the type a groundsman might wear for strimming duties. The reason for this flummoxed me. When it was time to pay there was a single till with a chequerboard area marked out in front. We were instructed, admittedly very politely, to deposit our trolley in this area and move away. The lady on the till then emerged from behind her plastic screen, reached for the trolley at arm’s length and, after drawing it back to safety, totted up our purchases.
The reason I think this rather odd experience is important is that for most of us shopping should be a pleasure. If it isn’t, who will go? Supermarkets and similar will survive as we all need provisions. But what of the others? Will we really be piling in and kick-starting the economy if the experience is anything like mine today?. I suspect many will either do without or shop online. That’s a terrible thought and I hope I’m wrong.
Alternative Daily Briefing
Interesting suggestion from a reader about how sceptics might get their message across more effectively:
As an alternative to the daily Government press briefing have you considered doing a Lockdown Sceptics press conference? Three people to present the case against the lockdown in a similar format to the Government’s daily briefing, but with the opposite message.
It could be led by Jonathan Sumption, Simon Dolan, you, Dan Hannan, Luke Johnson. Lead presenter puts forward an 8-10 min powerpoint setting out the case. We have a scientific expert just like the Government (Dr. Giesecke? Knut Wittkowski?) Then we could have questions… started by Peter Hitchens? Brendan O’Nielll? James Delingpole? then open it up and deal with flak from the MSM.
A dissenting press conference with us acting as the real opposition would bring publicity, offer a direct counterpoint to the Government propaganda, and allow us to present the full case in its entirety rather than piecemeal fragments on Twitter.
Quite a good idea, but doing these daily updates and maintaining this site, not to mention my three other jobs, leaves me with no time for anything else. If someone else wants to organise it, I’d be happy to do one of the presentations.
Has the NHS Stopped Buying Drugs?
A reader writes:
Just on a call with a colleague who mentioned a call she’d been on with senior [major drug company] UK staff who are forecasting an income squeeze till year-end because, quote, “The NHS has stopped buying drugs.” This team is in oncology, so the assumption must be that cancer treatments have taken a huge dent, because elective treatments are being put off, and because new diagnoses are not coming into scope. If the treatment downturn is significant enough that it is already feeding through into pharma sales and orders, it must be huge.
Lends credibility to Professor Karol Sikora’s claim that if the lockdown lasts six months there will be at least 50,000 extra deaths from cancer.
Latest NHS App Woes
In news that will surprise NO ONE, the rollout of the NHS’s tracing app has been delayed. Apparently, the version being tested on the Isle of Wight will not be the version rolled out nationally. They need to wait for the second version to be completed. Didn’t Matt Hancock say it would be launched nationally in mid-May? Looks like that’s one target he’s not going to meet.
A survey by the British Computer Society finds that 75% of IT experts predict the NHSX coronavirus app won’t work.
In any event, it looks like the app is on its way to being sidelined, with Matt Hancock’s announcement in the Commons yesterday that track-and-trace will now rely on people reporting when they’re ill and who they’ve had contact with by… making a telephone call:
Today I can confirm that we have recruited over 21,000 contact tracers in England. This includes 7,500 health care professionals who will provide our call handlers with expert clinical advice. They will help manually trace the contacts of anyone who has had a positive test and advise them on whether they need to isolate.
The work of these 21,000 people will be supported by the NHS-COVID 19 app which we are piloting in the Isle of Wight…
How will the app “support” those workers exactly, given that what is being piloted in Isle of Wight isn’t what will be rolled out nationally?
Meanwhile, the Health Service Journal has a story about an email sent by NHSX’s Chief Executive, Matthew Gould, which suggests he knows who’s going to get the blame for this fiasco. In an email leaked to the Journal with the subject “Launching websites and apps”, Gould writes: “We are losing goodwill and credibility because we keep doing non-compliant builds and launches. We have to do better.”
Time to dust off that CV, Mr Gould.
Did a 14 Year-Old Schoolgirl Invent the Lockdown Policy?
Yesterday, I pointed out that no country locked down its citizens in response to the flu pandemics of 1957-58 or 1968-70 and, as I’ve said before, quarantining whole populations in response to a pandemic has only been tried once before – in Mexico in 2009 in response to the H1N1 scare. And the policy was abandoned after 18 days due to rising social and economic costs. Moreover, numerous public health bodies advised against indiscriminate quarantining to mitigate the impact of a pandemic before 2020, including the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2019. The WHO specifically recommended against whole-population quarantining as a strategy for managing the outbreak of a flu-like virus in a report it published in 2019. The WHO report, which you can read here, even stopped short of recommending the quarantining of exposed individuals.
So why the last-minute change of plan?
I’m clearly going to have to devote a chapter in my book to this mystery – and I suspect the main culprit will be the WHO for praising the Chinese authorities’ better-late-than-never over-reaction, which involved mandatory testing of millions of people, imprisoning those who tested positive in purpose-built “hospitals”, and boarding up those who tested negative in their homes for weeks on end. Because the WHO’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is in thrall to Xi Jinping, he encouraged governments around the world to mimic China’s response. In this way, a totalitarian dictatorship called the tune that the rest of the world danced to. Incidentally, the Chinese authorities have agreed to an “independent” investigation into the origins of coronavirus on the condition that it’s led by the WHO. Isn’t that a bit like getting the monkey to investigate the organ-grinder?
But a post on the blog of the American Institute for Economic Research has drawn attention to another suspect in the investigation into this mystery: a 14 year-old high school girl. Her name is Laura Glass and in 2006 her dad, Robert Glass, was working as a scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories. He and his daughter, then 14, co-authored a 2006 paper entitled ‘Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza‘ and this paper, apparently, was referenced in a proposal about how America should respond to a pandemic drafted by by two doctors working for the US federal government in 2006, along with a team at the Defense Department. The New York Times has more.
So how did a 14 year-old come to co-author an influential academic paper? According to the Albuquerque Journal, she conducted a high school science experiment that leant weight to the idea that quarantining populations, including shutting schools, would suppress the spread of a flu-like virus:
Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact. What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed.
The fact that the lockdown policy was based, in part, on a high school science experiment is symptomatic of how how little real scientific expertise was involved in devising it. The two doctors who took up this cause were a Department of Veterans Affairs physician and an oncologist turned White House adviser, and the Defense Department officials were just garden-variety bureaucrats.
I must try and interview Laura Glass for my book.
YouTube Censors Epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski
YouTube has appointed itself the world’s censor-in-chief during this crisis, but even our own Lord Chamberlain would have hesitated before muzzling Knut Wittkowski, former Head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design at Rockefeller University. (You’ll recall that I linked to his excellent interview in Spiked a couple of days ago.) The New York Post reports that YouTube removed a video of him talking about the virus that had racked up more than 1.3 million views.
The video was produced by the British film company Journeyman Pictures and YouTube hasn’t informed them or Wittkowski why it’s been removed. ”They don’t tell you,” he says. “They just say it violates our community standards. There’s no explanation for what those standards are or what standards it violated.”
Fortunately, the American Institute for Economic Research has put the video back up. You can watch it here.
#IDAHOBIT
Sunday was International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia, or IDAHOBIT. As Douglas Murray relates in his latest Telegraph column, the Metropolitan Police spent part of Sunday broadcasting their support for these causes. “We truly value and respect the unique qualities of everyone in the Met and are proud to celebrate this day”, the Met tweeted, following up with the hashtag #IDAHOBIT.
BBC News marked the occasion with a piece by Ben Hunte, the corporation’s LGBT correspondent, entitled: ‘I’m scared of being buried as the wrong gender.’ Here’s an extract:
Lucy, 21, from the north-east of England, is transgender and has severe heart issues. After years spent living as a woman, she says she has “no doubt” her parents would bury her as a man if she was to die from coronavirus.
“They’ll shave my long hair, put me in a suit, use my birth name and call me ‘he’ all the way through the funeral. The thought of my family doing it makes me feel so sick, but I know they will.”
Someone should tell Lucy to stop worrying – her chances of dying from coronavirus are less than one in a million.
A Military Fast Jet Pilot Writes…
Bullish email from a former military fast-jet pilot. He thinks he could have made a better decision about how to respond to the pandemic than the British Prime Minister:
I have spent most of my life in aviation as a military fast jet pilot and then as a captain for Thomas Cook until I was forced into redundancy last year. As aviators we have many skills including decision making in difficult situations. We have many tricks of the trade and most processes involve some sort of pneumonic. The latest one in Thomas Cook was FORDEC. It all starts with FACTS – you must must must start with as many facts from as many different sources as possible. Next comes OPTIONS – scope out how you can play the scenario out whilst considering the RISKS and BENEFITS of each option. Finally DECIDE, EXECUTE and then CHECK constantly to see if stuff has changed – the FACTS, for instance.
I’m guessing you know where my story fits into the current situation? This is not rocket science (ha). If required, a fast jet pilot can run through this in about five seconds!
I was also a CRMI crew resource management instructor and we had a whole history over 110 years of past accidents and incidents to learn from.
My common thread is that we have simply lost sight of the big picture. There is no voice of reason breaking through in the MSM. Where is Nigel Farage when you need him?
At the end of the day, as my father used to say, “Life Is A Near Death Experience”. Enjoy it as much as you can and let’s get on with the show.
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:
- ‘Sorrento IDs Antibody Against COVID-19 That Appears 100% Effective‘ – US-based pharmaceutical company says it’s found an antibody that blocks Covid
- ‘Putting a value on life seems wrong but it’s the only way out of this crisis‘ – IEA Director Mark Littlewood in the Times on why there’s nothing wrong with placing a value on human life
- ‘Professor Karol Sikora: fear is more deadly than the virus‘ – The NHS oncologist interviewed by Freddie Sayers for UnHerd
- ‘The warped thinking behind the world’s lockdowns‘ – Dan Hannan with another excellent column in the Washington Examiner
- ‘As the world battles a pandemic, the UN fights “gendered language”‘ – Libby Emmons and Barrett Wilson skewer the UN’s obsession with identity politics in the Post-Millennial
- ‘New Yorkers are throwing “corona potlucks” and visiting “speakeasies”‘ – Report of shockingly outrageous behaviour in the New York Post. Alas, flights to New York are less frequent than they were
- ‘Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s‘ – Three Swedish academics explain why their country’s strategy is going global in Foreign Affairs
- ‘Vaccine hopes send airline and travel stocks soaring‘ – News of a successful human trial of a vaccine developed by US biotech company Moderna prompted investors to buy shares in airlines and travel companies
- ‘Should UK abandon two metre social distancing? Iain Duncan Smith urges Boris Johnson to relax rule to “get economy moving” as Britain is “only country in Europe” using measure‘ – The quiet man turns up the volume on the ludicrous two metre rule
- ‘Now we see that Covid lockdowns aren’t the only solution‘ – Fox News host Tucker Carlson, now a fully-fledged sceptic, reminds us that the predicted armageddon that would befall the state of Georgia for not locking down hasn’t occurred
- ‘We shut down the economy to make progress against COVID-19 – and then made no progress‘ – Depressing column by Michael Hiltzik in the LA Times
- ‘The growing evidence on vitamin D and Covid‘ – Matt Ridley’s latest in the Spectator
- ‘Africa and the pandemic panic: Facts not fear‘ – New comment piece by Professor Ramesh Thakur, leading Australian sceptic
- ‘We have been lied to: 6 facts that change everything we know about SARS-CoV-2‘ – Daniel Horowitz doesn’t pull his punches in the Conservative Review
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
Last week, 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 500 now – keep ’em coming. And if you want a laugh about what to look forward to when the lockdown us over, check out this video.
Theme Tune Suggestions
Just one today, but what a corker: ‘Throw the R Away‘ by the Proclaimers.
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. The site’s total page views have passed one million and it’s averaging 54,000 visitors a day. We’re having an impact…
And Finally…
Listen to James Delingpole telling me about being threatened with arrest at Sunday’s Hyde Park rally in our latest London Calling podcast. And watch this spoof of the daily Downing Street press briefing by comedy due Larry and Paul. Wait for the Peston question…
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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Why she got that dumpy tho
I wish there’s a shop like yours in my area 🙁
There was a discuss earlier on in this thread about corporate manslaughter charges against the likes of Ferguson.
I would also include whoever it was that made it public health policy to clear NHS hospital wards/beds by discharging elderly patients with CV19 symptoms, or positive CV19 test results into care homes. I would include anyone from hospitals or local councils who coerced the care home managers by threatening to withdraw funding unless they admitted the patients into their care homes.
This policy wasn’t merely unbelievably stupid and short sighted. Considering that multiple Democrat governors in the U.S. mandated the same policy, makes me start to think something more sinister was at play.
If it had just been the UK, or Andrew Cuomo in New York, you’d think it was just grossly irresponsible. But with so many instances, it looks more deliberate.
Someone tell me I’m wrong….
I don’t know what level of immunity the government have to prosecution (I’m sure setting a war footing affords more) but instinctively I would think there could be justification for class action from groups adversely and directly affected by government actions. If not the government directly then move down the hierarchy to department or organisation level.
Crown immunity ‘shields’ a wide range of what-would-otherwise-be-criminal behaviour.
The government shouldn’t have listened to Ferguson, so it would be unfair to make him the fall guy.
Bloody great, kh.
That sounds a more positive day for you than yesterday,keep up the good fight !.The people diving out of the way syndrome has encouraged me to see how many a day I can get to do it,only one today disappointingly.
I had a couple of road-crossers on my walk this morning. 4 points for a crosser, 3 for a hedge diver, 2 for a road pedestrian, 1 for an awkward and slightly scared “good morning”
The thing is I tend to give people their 2m and sometimes wait on a narrow path, as I’m always afraid they may be a COVID puritan. I got shouted at a couple of weeks back so slightly afraid of my fellow citizens.
If they are masked, at least I know they are to be avoided.
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-19th-may/
COVID-19: Death Data in England – Update 19th May
May 19, 2020
Today’s reported figure is 174 deaths in hospitals in England.
For comparison: the reported deaths in hospitals in England on the same weekday were:
12th May: 350 deaths
5th May: 366 deaths
28th of April: 546 deaths.
21st April: 778 deaths
14th April: 744 deaths
Consistent with previous analyses, the peak day of deaths was the 8th of April.
Deaths in Care home peaked later than hospitals on the 17th of April.
The reporting of deaths by NHS England underestimate those reported by the Office for National Statistics – One reason for this is NHS England’s data does not include deaths reported outside hospitals.
Well what a day, I have a problem which needs to be properly diagnosed by either GP or NHS. Called my GP practice to ask for an appointment, was told GP will call me back for a telephone diagnosis. Reception called back a couple of hours later to say from what I had told receptionist, GP says I need a face to face appointment.
All well so far, then they drop the bomb, I will need to wear something over my face whilst at the practice, I say would rather not they say it is the law, I say it is not the law, they say it is guidance, quite a bit different to “the Law” I would rather not restrict my breathing with something over my face and nose.
No face covering, no treatment. Spoke to practice manager, same story. I asked several times, and they ultimate reply was not face covering, no treatment. Tried NHS 111 to see if I could get a diagnose elsewhere, they refer me back to my GP.
Lost for words, I am not displaying any of the symptoms of CV19, I was not asked if I was showing any symptoms, just told that… Read more »
The madness is becoming beyond control now,I’m with you,I’m not wearing anything that restricts my breathing,I’m sick of people resorting to the ‘it’s the law’ defence for every stupid bit of guidance they are trying to inflict on us.You are right,society cannot function like this,we are rapidly reaching the point of no return,I pray I’m wrong but there doesn’t seem much hope left for us at this rate.
No one should be denied treatment because of what they wear or dont wear. This is insane! How can this be legal?
I’d go with the underpants, if only to demonstrate how ridiculous it all is. Or an old tea towel with a couple of holes cut out for your eyes. They haven’t specified the type of face covering required.
Then mumble incoherently at the staff until they ask you to remove the “face covering” so that they can understand you.
I’ve had a text message from my local surgery saying much the same, i.e. masks are necessary for face to face consultations.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51205344 > this is the BBC (read: UK state propaganda page) outlining who should and shouldn’t wear a mask…
Note: anyone with trouble breathing should never a mask. I, for example, get lightheaded and dizzy after 10mins of breathing behind a mask, so I need to take it off otherwise I’ll get nauseous. Can you not claim the same?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/11/what-is-the-uk-advice-on-coronavirus-and-face-masks
The ever so woke and proper Guardian with a recent write up on this…
https://www.businessinsider.com/face-masks-wont-help-avoid-illness-so-why-wear-them-mental-health?op=1&r=US&IR=T#we-overcompensate-when-safeguards-are-in-place-3
This article outlines there is no point to wearing masks other than the psychological effect (especially on others, the lockdown zealots)
https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-dont-need-masks-pence-says-as-demand-increases-2020-2?op=1&r=US&IR=T
Interesting article back from March US Surgeon General not recommending face masks…
Oh and the UK sticks to 2 meters social distancing whereas everyone else has less – in varying degrees, and WHO actually only recommends 3 feet. Neither WHO and CDC recommended face masks until very recently – and not because the science changed, no solely for psychological purposes (see second article)
But most importantly – they can’t refuse treatment if you say you are having problems with wearing masks (pollen maybe? hay fever?)… and basically I’d threaten to sue them. I doubt patients being admitted to hospital are getting masks… Read more »
Hi everyone
Thanks for your replies, especially Pebbles who has gone above & beyond.
Absolutely nothing on the NHS England website about the need for face covering, only on gov.uk seems places can make up the rules as they see fit. Interesting when I was talking to the receptionist & practice manager earlier, neither of than seemed to be mumbling through a face covering. One rule etc.
I have to take the appointment tomorrow so I will go prepared with some sort of face covering, not happy or really willing to do it but I need this GP appointment
Simon Dolan may be the best direct of travel going forward.
Thanks
D.
Well I went for my appointment and it seems PPE (muzzles) are optional for staff, but not for patients. Only one nurse was wearing her face mask whilst I was waiting to see GP, receptionist who booked me in wasn’t wearing a mask until she came to unlock the door. Only other member of staff wearing a mask was the GP I saw. If it is optional, let it be optional for all not just employees.
The practice manager walked within about two feet of me so I asked why she was not wearing a mask, the response was I don’t come in to contact with patients and I practice social distancing. I am a patient and she was about two feet from me, who is kidding who here?
I simply used a microfibre cloth in front of my mouth & nose, I was going to tie a 1970s tea cloth with a map of Cornwall across my face but backed down. When they asked me to sanitise my hands the cloth dropped onto the floor. What a farce, but it was so lovely and quiet, no other patient in a practice which has six GPs, two or three practice… Read more »
Piers Morgan wetting himself and banging on about 1918 because people went to the beach. Sorry for my French but the sooner he f*cks off the better.
The twat is indeed one of the fear-mongers in chief.
Had the joy of going to Brighton beach yesterday. Bars are serving takeaway beers. Fish and chips and ice creams on sale. Not much social distancing going on and mask wearing , hedge jumping, body swerving lockdown zealots were very much in the minority. 5 ice cold takeaway Amstels was probably overdoing but who cares.
Sounds like heaven!
This nearly made me cry. So refreshing and kind hearted. Truly kind hearted, not just pretending to be at face value.
Amazing how out of date and desperate the covebola panickers are starting to look, both the experts and the media propaganda outlets.
Europe should brace for second wave, says EU coronavirus chief
“It has been the unenviable task of scientists to tell it as it is through the coronavirus pandemic. “
Neil Ferguson, anybody?
“While politicians have been caught offering empty reassurances, the epidemiologists, a job title new to many, have emerged as the straight shooters of the crisis, sometimes to their detriment.”
Oh really, Guardian? Here are a couple of epidemiologists who have actually been telling it as it is, but with precious little promotion by the likes of the Guardian: Anders Tegnell, Johan Giesecke.
“[Dr Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)] speaks frankly in her first interview with a UK newspaper since the crisis began.
“Looking at the characteristics of the virus, looking at what now emerges from the different countries in terms of population immunity – which isn’t all that exciting, between 2% and 14%, that leaves still 85% to 90% of the population susceptible”
So let’s get this straight – the director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention… Read more »
Sacked and prosecuted.
Add Knut Wittkowski to your list of the honourable Mark. What I don’t get is this thing would have been at its most contagious before the lockdown so why didn’t those 85-90% get it then?
See my posts earlier. But to repeat: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v1 This is a paper by Dr John Ionannidis of Stanford University who took IFR rates from many peer reviewed articles which looked at sero-prevalence. He found IFRs of between 0.02 and 0.4%. Also it seems that many peoples’ immune systems deal with Covid without producing antibodies. I saw a study for La Jolla, California where they found around 50% of people who had never had Covid-19 had in their blood T-lymphocytes (cells which kill viruses) which reacted against Covid. It seems there is cross-reactivity due to previous exposure to other coronaviruses (e.g. the common cold)
The latter study by Sean Crotty is referred to in this tweet; https://twitter.com/profshanecrotty/status/1261052353773363200
So if 50% don’t produce antibodies (because they have T-lymphocytes which get rid of the virus), then bingo! you get to herd immunity with lower percentages of the population with positive Covid-19 antibodies. I’m pretty sure we are there already. But how to persuade our Dear Leaders who have paddled us to the upper reaches of Shit Creek that they should admit they were mistaken but the science has now changed (hardly surprising with a novel coronavirus!).
Sounds like you have become a haven for the psychologically battered.
Wish there was somewhere like that round here 😭
Yes me too. Oh for normality and social interaction!
Had a visit from a customer/collaborator at my business today. Afterwards, I realised how weird it felt to be talking to someone different. For almost 3 months I’ve only spoken to my kids, my partner and the 2 people I work with.
You should be chatting to people in the shops, at least, Mark ?
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/menthol-cigarettes-ban-2020-may-banned-uk-filters-law-why-new-when-date-1353678
Hello… What did I say about a health agenda?. From may 20th. Coincidence? I bet there is more sneaking through under the ‘corona’ camouflage. Keep alert to this, as is the tip of a very big iceberg heading our way
This is the beginning of a large scale nanny state.
I mean, on my recent visits to the supermarket, I have noticed that so called ‘bad for you’ foods and drink have begun to dwindle whilst there has never been a shortage of fruit, veg etc.
Now I eat quite sensibly, balanced diet, pretty healthy overall, and have a few vices like everyone… But this is leading down a true big nanny state nazi path
In Prof Michael Levitt’s second video about the pandemic curve was mentioned the Gompertz curve. The interesting with this curve is that, contrary to the Bell curve you have a longer tail and about 2/3 rd of cases on the right part of the Bell curve. This would be interesting to fit both of Covid-19 cases and especially more relevant Covid-19 deaths implying that this pandemic curve has its own path whatever we do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw2ZTaiN97k
Now in his twitter account this post
https://twitter.com/plaforscience/status/1263065671673446400/photo/1
The Covid-19 deaths in Spain seems to follow that curve
“we have made the log scaled redraw of Spain’s official data, and shows that clear straight line, nonchalant to any human measure. No change in tendency when imposed, no single hair move when released”.
Not good news for the lockdown zealots.
Unfortunately the zealots have built up herd immunity to logic and reason
The reason for a Gompertz curve would be that we have an enormous expansion in the beginning and then we hit a roof which is substantially lower than 60 % herd immunity probably in the region of 15%.This is most likely immunity to the specific infection and much more a latent immunity in the population due to other coronaviruses we already have been exposed to. I am not a mathematician but to me both the UK and the Swedish Covid-19 death curve looks a bit like Spain’s
I haven’t watched the second Levitt video yet but I thought the long tails on the death curves might be because we missed the start and only started classifying deaths as “Covid” after it became a thing and we started testing. They would be more symmetrical if we had begun recording earlier.
OK having watched the video he’s finding this Gompertz growth right at the start of outbreaks so it’s not to do with missing the beginning. We have to wait until the next video to see what the theory is of why it’s Gompertz growth.
I am by no means an expert, but I took the numbers for UK cases by specimen date available here https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ and used the Gompertz model as described here https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2003/2003.05447.pdf, and by tweaking the parameters (a=617500, c=0.068) was able to get what looks like a good match.
This suggests that number of daily cases should fall to about 1000 by the beginning of June, and for it to have largely disappeared by the end of June. But it would be better if Prof. Levitt could look at it himself!
PS I would post a pic of the resulting plot but don’t know how!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/19/uk-to-test-hydroxychloroqine-as-coronavirus-treatment
UK buying hydroxychloroquine.
Don’t give a shit what it is…. I am going to be as far back in the queue as humanly possible
Well that’s hilarious
My MP says the Government have been quite “transparent” and “clear” in outlining the evidence for their policy response. I must admit I restrict the amount of news I take in. This site has become a key source of information for me, I feel like I get the main-stream news by osmosis (conversations with my mother!) It’s completely possible I haven’t seen it.
What have I missed? Do you know which documents are being referred to? I know there is a lot of information out there about the 250-500k deaths prediction but is there a comprehensive summary of all the modelling conclusions, lock-down risk factors, options analysis etc… Or would this be asking too much?
This is a reasonable place to start: https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2020/04/29/against-the-corona-panic-pt-vii-swedens-vindication-is-complete-graphing-the-actual-coronavirus-epidemic-in-sweden-against-the-pro-panic-sides-wild-projections/
Now the virus is on the decline ramp up the fear message https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/19/keep-distance-new-coronavirus-slogan-quietly-pushed-replace/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020200520%20%20Facebook%20%20SM+CID_51a26dfb9f542831020c1f75fd33e4e8
Someone earlier brought up about the 13 year old boy that died not being in the ONS statistics. I asked Nick Stripe of the ONS about this on twitter and he has replied:
Hi. A very tragic case. Yes, Ismail’s death was referred to the coroner. Full death registration does not take place until any coroner’s inquest is complete. This can take weeks, months or even longer in a few cases.
Interested to know what people make of the Spainish serology study ( https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/study-5-of-spanish-population-has-had-coronavirus/1839965 ).
It seems to show an Infection Fatality Rate of 1.1% It was quite a large survey – 60,000 randomly slected subjects.
Nil desprandum!! https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v1 This is a paper by Dr John Ionannidis of Stanford University who took IFR rates from many peer reviewed articles which looked at sero-prevalence. He found IFRs of between 0.02 and 0.4%. Also it seems that many peoples’ immune systems deal with Covid without producing antibodies. I saw a study for La Jolla, California where they found around 50% of people who had never had Covid-19 had in their blood T-lymphocytes (cells which kill viruses) which reacted against Covid. It seems there is cross-reactivity due to previous exposure to other coronaviruses (e.g. the common cold)
Good news Doc. But will anybody pay the slightest bit of attention?
If there is cross- reactivity, wouldn’t this imply that most healthy folks won’t be at risk, since we nearly all catch colds?Especially in the cooler latitudes.
So immunity is already wide spread, but difficult to confirm?
Here is a link to the tweet by Prof Shane Crotty whose Dept did the study.https://twitter.com/profshanecrotty/status/1261052353773363200. I did read the actual paper. I’m not an immunologist but it’s pretty clear that this could well be the reason we are getting so many people with no or very mild symptoms to a so-called novel coronavirus. Also it would also mean that the herd immunity level would be much lower than the 60% they used to talk about.
That’s incredibly interesting – it could explain why the Swedish seroprevalence study whose results where presented by Tegnell earlier today found that only about 7% of people in Stockholm had antibodies despite their modelling showing that it should be at least 15% -something that the media lockdown zealots will surely very soon use for they condemnations of the Swedish approach.
Oh, sorry – “In our study, 100% of COVID-19 cases made antibodies” but at least, as you say, herd immunity level could be much lower
God, that constant roller-caster of news makes it difficultly to think straight – of course if there is significant cross-reactivity then the immune systems of these
exposed to some other coronaviruses would be quicker and more effective in destroying Sars-CoV-2 making those people less infectious than some models might predict, and even if 100% covid patients develop antibodies it doesn’t change any of the above so my first comment is correct -hope I got this right this time
You have to look at the details: “We specifically chose to study people who had an average COVID19 disease course—non-hospitalized—to provide a solid benchmark for what a normal immune response to SARS2 looks like.”
“Disease severity was defined as mild, moderate, severe or critical… Mild disease was defined as an uncomplicated upper respiratory tract infection (URI) with potential non-specific symptoms (e.g. fatigue, fever, cough with or without sputum production, anorexia, malaise, myalgia, sore throat, dyspnea, nasal congestion, headache; rarely diarrhea, nausea and vomiting) that did not require hospitalization.”
So it looks as though there were no asymptomatic patients, or those with symptoms so mild they hadn’t been tested. Nor do they know about people who were never ‘infected’ as such but are nevertheless were resistant to the disease up to a certain level of exposure.
Someone here yesterday (guy perhaps, or DocRC?) posted the following extract from the Stanford study mentioned above:
“An interesting observation is 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%. Similarly, at a wider population level, values ~33% are the maximum values
documented to-date. “
I was just going to post a similar comment.
Somehow, it seems that we at Lockdown Sceptics are more in touch with the latest research than, for example, the director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/top-eu-doctor-europe-should-brace-itself-for-second-wave-of-coronavirus
She is still working to the standard SIR model, yet we now know recent research shows that:
– immunity and resistance don’t necessarily require the production of antibodies;
– some people may already resistant/immune due to previous exposure/infection to colds;
– the commonly accepted SARS-Cov-2 R0 values may be wrong (for example biased towards hospitals, care homes rather than the outside world);
– given a value of R0, differences in susceptibility between individuals results in a reduction in the herd immunity threshold, even if we accept the basic SIR model.
It’s amazing that governments are prepared to ruin their own economies based on ridiculously basic assumptions rather than studying the latest findings!
One thing that has struck me is that when I know a lot about something (experienced Doctor with degree in physiology) I realise that our Dear Leaders have got it completely wrong. It’s a scary thought that they probably also get it wrong on things I know little about!
Especially useful to remember that whenever they are concocting some bollocks to justify another war…
What’s even more scary is that they are never likely to admit to any mistakes.
It’s another (deliberately?) misleading article which doesn’t mention how skewed the overall IFR is by age.
From 0-49 years old, the IFR ranges from 0.002% – 0.042%
From 50-59 years old the IFR is 0.137% – comparable to seasonal flu.
Thereafter it’s:
60-69. 0.486%
70-79. 1.661%
80-89. 5.789%
90+. 10.337%
I think this is going to turn out to be less than seasonal flu.
Which is why of course you will get rather different figures for ifr according to the age breakdown in the population in question.
I made a more detailed comment about it a few days ago when it came out.
Long story short I would estimate they are pretty close to herd immunity in Madrid and surrounding areas, Valencia and Catalonia look like they’re a bit behind.
There is quite a bit of uncertainty around estimating IFR from this because deaths were changing rapidly at the time the study was done. But it does look high.
We often see high IFRs in places that had a lot of cases. The most likely reason is not so much lack of hospital resources or bad treatments but a high level of nosocomial infection. The virus burns through the hospitals killing the vulnerable people there and infecting a much greater proportion of them than is found in the society outside where the antibody tests were done.
A short article about the Neil Ferguson phenomenon:
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/05/20/thaddeus-michaels-my-criticisms-of-ferguson/
There’s this comment after the article:
“After the world has calmed down, there might be grounds for a corporate manslaughter charge against some advisors and politicians for the unnecessary deaths their panic has caused.”
And this is how it looks to me. Neil Ferguson must surely worry about his future. Even if he is protected from prosecution as I imagine he could be, his name is known everywhere, and he is blamed (or acclaimed depending on your point of view) for having created the lockdown. He’s going to have a lot of explaining to do in select committees and the like.
And regardless of his legal position, at some point in the future it may become apparent that Joe Bloggs’s granny died as a direct result of his recommendations. Or someone’s son committed suicide. He really is in the frame for having caused some serious sh*t. If I were him, I would certainly be seeing dark clouds ahead. However, I just don’t think he will be bothered. He seems to be immune to self-doubt – probably the reason he seemed so persuasive to Boris and Dominic and why he was so… Read more »
The same should apply to the clowns that proposed 50 days on, 30 days off lockdown running until 2022! They should be banned from any academic work for life and live on universal credit.
I would also suggest that all those ‘scientists’ should be going outside at 8 pm every Thursday night and shout “sorry”.
– universal credit
+ dog food
Ok, someone downthread mentioned snowflakes, which is not a term I’m in the habit of using, but I was just accused of speaking to someone in a way in which it is unacceptable to speak to a human! I think this was because I suggested that if he/she didn’t understand the costs of the lockdown then he/she is ignorant of economics. I’ve reread my comment a couple of times, because I genuinely was baffled by the response.
I mean, I am very used to very robust online exchanges, far more robust than is the norm here, for certain. I thought I was being very civil and controlled. Am I just desensitised? Have I become a brute without realising it?
https://dailysceptic.org/the-reaction-to-a-petition-to-reopen-schools/#comment-10577
Please, someone with time on his or her hands, reassure me….
Reading the exchange I don’t think there was anything wrong with your tone and how you put your argument forward.
You mean – I’m not a monster…?
Phew! 🙂
A robust and frank exchange of views Mark. Keep calm and carry on.
Cheers, wendyk.
Nothing wrong at all. Depressing thread though. Perhaps if all those posters trying to bash the author spent an equivalent amount of time trying to educate themselves on actual data and real harms being done to children as a result of the lockdown we wouldn’t be in quite such a mess.
Pretty clear the piece must have been posted to the original forum, with a call for members to come here and defend the forum.
I thought the exchange was perfectly acceptable. Nothing remotely offensive. I suggest Alex goes on YouTube and makes a comment if he/she wants to experience real offense.
First time commenting, just wanted to say, having read it, I didn’t find your words, in any way, brutish. It is easy to second-guess oneself after an exchange with the delicate flowers of the world 😊
They’re “just because I care about people” line made me want to vomit. Vacuous shite.
Nothing wrong at all with what you said,the person is definitely a ‘snowflake’ and a virtue signaller of the highest order,unsurprisingly resorting to the cliched ‘you don’t care about anyone else’ argument.
Jut read more than your comment and am horrified and terrified in equal measure. How have we managed to get so many snowflakes in our teaching profession? Where are these people getting their information? and whilst I’m very sorry for Leila having suffered so badly with Covid, sorry but that does not mean the economy and lives have to be ended.
Am so fed up.
“I was just accused of speaking to someone in a way in which it is unacceptable to speak to a human!”.
You always come across as polite and rational to me, Mark.
(But then, I am from Alpha-Centauri …).
Where have the Gov’t hired these 20k track & tracers from ? I’ve been looking on jobsites including the Gov’t civil service job website since the middle of April and haven’t seen one ad for a job.
Excellent read, made my day, share widely https://thecritic.co.uk/were-all-in-the-big-numbers-now/
Agreed! Should wing its way to Westminster and devolved administrations
Says exactly what needs to be said, except that I’d add one to his “Next time” list:
5 Coercive lockdown should be absolutely excluded from consideration in response to any future disease short of something plausibly on the level of the 1918 flu, and preferably much worse. Probably safest just to flat rule it out, and worry about rehabilitating it if and when such an unlikely emergency actually appears.
Thanks for sharing this. Exactly what I needed today after reading all the latest nonsense coming from scientists and other experts. It made my day too!
Thanks BecJT. This is going straight to my MP.
Excellent find, 29th April deaths below 5 year average! Nobody has said anything about that….
Went looking for a replacement bike tyre this morning. What a miserable experience. Halfords have a manned sentry post where you have to give your instructions to a hi-viz bedecked staff member who then ambles off to see if what you want is in stock. Evans Cycles allow 1 person in – but you have to stand in a 1m sq box while they do the same. Then went to a small High St store who allowed me in as far as the till and enacted the same pantomime. I came away empty handed. So back online where I got what I wanted in 2 clicks. OK I’m going to have to wait a week or so but after today’s depressing and dispiriting outing to businesses who seem to think they’re doing us a favour by being open at all – surliness and apathy were predominant- I’m unlikely to bother going to shop in person anytime soon.
Surely going to be the end for most high street shops? I mean, they were under pressure from online as it was.
A friend said recently that she would do most of her shopping online from now on.
My small town had many empty shops before the panic started; no doubt there will now be many more.
The advantage of shops is being served by someone, being able to browse and look at the products. Instead you go into a shop feeling like a huge inconvenience to all the staff 🙁 like you’re putting people in danger by being there. If this continues much longer retail is finished.
This is what I said yesterday in response to that article about Waterstone’s planing to “quarantine” books touched by customers. At the rate we are going, shops will go in the way of the dodo and the high street will be decimated even more.
A bit like the children’s toy library that disinfects returned toys and then quarantines them for a week.
I’m determined to find joy in my life every day, even if it’s just sitting on a park bench in the sun or opening a cold beer at night. They can’t kill the spirit and we shouldn’t even let them try. As the women of Greenham Common used to sing ‘You can’t kill the Spirit, She is like a mountain,
Old and strong’.
Curious what the covid-correct response will be toward shop lifters … 🙂
Main dealers are usually bad news anyway.
Well, so my small independent garage tell me.
https://www.ft.com/content/2b62c3fb-7e52-45c1-a5c0-8970fa3f6a5b?shareType=nongift
Cannot copy the exact quote due to FT’s IP rights but this article talks of any future wealth tax that might be needed to pay for this total abdication of government responsibility being rebranded as an ‘NHS surcharge’ in order to win popular support.
Jesus wept, we’re in Orwellian doublespeak territory now. ‘NHS surcharge’?! I am honestly lost for words. You mean the same NHS that barely anyone used due to the lockdown out of either fear or cancellation of consultations/appointments? The same NHS which dumped elderly Covid patients into care homes to make space for imaginary Covid patients that never materialised? Why the hell should we pay for something which actually contributed to this disgraceful state of affairs and broke the first pledge of ‘Do mo harm’?
Once again, the numinous beacon of the Church of the NHS and its immunity from any criticism is being weaponised to brainwash the lazy public who cannot and will not inform itself of the facts. The UK has so much more to be proud of than its pretty average health service – but the way the country is going, there will soon be very little to take pride in.
Sorry, typo above, should be “Do no harm” – but perhaps “Do mo’ harm” would be more appropriate here anyway…!
Well put Poppy, and I fear that ‘ NHS surcharge’ will be a get-out-of-gaol-free means of imposing another dose of austerity, all dressed up, as you say, in double speak.
This will have to be paid for eventually, but why should the NHS be ring fenced again?
Tax revenues will probably be well below the level needed to maintain public spending for a very long time and this will compound the costs arising from the increase in benefit and other payments.
How will mass unemployment,especially amongst the young, be addressed?
How on earth did our so called leaders and experts get us into this mess so precipitately? Why did they rely so heavily on Prof Strangelove’s disastrous modelling?
We will need a Martin Luther at this rate and its long overdue. Unfortunately anyone who even remotely dares to suggest that the Church of the NHS should be reformed is denounced as a heretic and in league with the Devil (i.e. privatization or wanting healthcare like America)
I think David Starkey has nailed his colours to the hospital door on this, pretty much.
I’m inclined to stand outside on Thursday evenings and yell derision, but I’ll probably get lynched. (That’ll make a comeback soon, like pulling your own teeth.)
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-snp-s-media-war-conceals-their-covid-failures
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/beware-scotland-s-hate-crime-bill
And this; dystopia beckons, brought to us ,all wrapped up in pious double speak by the Holy Holyrooders.
Latest post from Brendan O’Neill on Facebook:
Brendan O’Neill
13 mins ·
I see the left-wingers who agitated for the shutdown of the economy are now shocked that people are losing their jobs. This is what happens when everything is just a pose or a tweet or a virtue-signal — you never think through the consequences of what you are calling for. The instant hit of taking a position, the cheap thrill of putting pressure on the Tories, the adrenaline rush of tweeting ‘Let’s close down society!’ — these are all that matter in our flimsy political culture. So now the pro-lockdown left looks at the unemployment figures and wonders what went wrong, like a bull in a china shop asking what happened to all the plates.
👌👍✊👌👍✊ He’s a good one that Brendan. Always had a bit of a crush on him actually. Wonder if he’s married. #lockdownthirst
Love him when he does the Sky paper review – especially with Christina Patterson, who he as an amazing ability to wind up before he even mutters a word! He is such a gentleman too – I would find it very difficult not to ‘chin her’ (to mis-quote a great Tynesider, Lawrie McMenamy)!
But every unavoidable death is one too many. You can’t put a price on life. Even if it takes 7Billion people to save 1 life it’s worth it.
Isn’t it? Let’s just clap and damn consequences.
He’s not wrong. Even before the lockdown I was telling people the response to the disease would quite possibly cost more than the disease could ever inflict on it’s own, and when panic overtook the government and the lockdown was imposed I was telling people this would be a huge economic disaster that we would be paying for for years to come. Response? Blank looks and disinterest, mostly. Even from intelligent, educated people. They just thought it wasn’t important because all that mattered was “saving lives”, and they assumed any problems would be sorted out by the government dumping money on it.
They’re gradually starting to realise, as the double whammy of the disease’s true, relatively minor, nature and the sheer size of the looming costs start to sink in.
Now the squabbles over who pays begin. Do we go full managed economy with a universal basic income and make “the rich” pay (while destroying the economy completely in the long run), or do we try to deal with it in a more traditional manner with a long period of general misery and constant fights over how much in tax increases and confiscations, how much in spending cuts, how much… Read more »
Exactly and you still get that from some people. One of my colleagues is afraid when we go back to work because of “infection”, I just groaned inwardly because I cannot believe how someone who is so well educated and multi-lingual behave like this. We live with the possibility of infection all day every day why should this be any different? This why we have an immune system.
Two days ago Japan announced that the country is officially in recession. It will be interesting if and when our government officially announce that we have joined Japan if there will be a U turn meaning that we reopen and go back to normal as it was before 23 March or continue along the path of financial hara-kiri aided and abetted by the lockdown zealots.
Bart. The US Democats do the same. They hammered Trump for not imprisoning everybody sooner, and then blame him for the mass unemplyment their insistence on imprisonment caused. I’m no fan of Trump, but the hypocrisy of American liberals is quite astonishing.
The hypocrisy of most of the current crop of liberals is astonishing
“Daycare, kindergartens, and primary schools should be reopened ASAP with no restrictions,” said – German Society for Hospital Hygiene /
Pediatric Infectiology –
Academy for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine –
Professional Association of Pediatrician
https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/corona-krise-mediziner-fordern-komplette-schul-und-kita-oeffnung-a-4d1a0336-680d-4259-818e-7a263732f811
No discussion about the R
WOW!
Cambridge are moving all lectures online until next summer (2021).
https://twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1263028585113280517
🙄🙄🙄🙄
Oh dear. I wouldn’t be payin dem fees
Prof Sikora, who tweeted this, said that Oxford university remained open even during WW2.
Some of the lockdown zealots who responded to his tweet said things like ” without going into whether it’s a good decision or not, do you really think a comparison with WW2 makes sense? A virus is a bit different to a war”
And one of them accused some of the commenters of wanting him to die.
Jesus wept.
Mind you …
According to this calculated relative risk of dying of influensa pneumonia versus Covid-19 in the US calculated on pandemic death total 150000
https://twitter.com/Avik/status/1262485481532637186/photo/1
1-4 years old 20 times more likely to die of flu or pneumonia than Covid-19
15-24 years 1.26 more likely to die of pneumonia or influenza than Covid-19
As we have influenza each year should we close Cambridge University permanently and go on line?