Good story on the Mail‘s front page today. But is it true? According to the paper, Boris has set a 10-day deadline to operationalise the Government’s ‘track-and-trace’, programme. Once it’s in place, he’s promised to dial down the lockdown. On the plus side, the number of people tested yesterday hit a record of 177,216 and the Government has reportedly hired a 25,000-strong army of trackers. But if the NHS’s contact-tracing app is part of the plan, we may be in for a longer wait. According to the front page of the Independent, it won’t be ready by June 1st.
Simon Dolan Serves Papers on the Government
Lawyers acting for Simon Dolan, the aviation entrepreneur mounting a legal challenge against the lockdown, filed over 1,000 pages of legal documents with the High Court this morning. The proceedings are against Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care – whose name is on the lockdown laws – and Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, who has presided over the closure of schools and universities. The aim of the court action is to lift the lockdown, restore our civil liberties, and allow schools, healthcare services and the economy to restart.
Due to its huge potential significance, the Court is being asked to deal with the matter urgently on a speeded-up timetable. Simon says he hopes to have the case heard in the first week of June. In a press release issued earlier, Simon says:
The number of people furloughed or unemployed stands at 10 million, and billions are being wiped off the economy with every passing day.
Those lucky enough to have jobs left at the end of this crisis could see income tax increase by up to 10p in the pound. The Government has spent £13,000 per household on the bailout so far.
A judicial review is the only effective means of challenging what the Government is doing and holding them properly to account. Boris Johnson and his crew have sleepwalked into this mess and are taking the nation over the cliff edge with them.
Our fight begins proper today!
You can read the press release in full here and contribute to Simon’s crowdfunder here. He has already exceeded his fundraising target of £125,000 and increased it to £175,000. Thanks to all those readers who’ve contributed.
Economic News Just Keeps Getting Worse
Under the headline ‘Sunak’s £124bn virus bill‘, the Mail reports findings from the National Audit Office (NAO) showing that Government ministers made more than 500 announcements between January 31st and May 4th in response to the outbreak, amounting to £124.3 billion of spending. It includes £6.6 billion for health and social care measures, £82.2 billion for businesses, £19.5 billion to support individuals – such as via benefits – and £15.8 billion on other public services. It does not include £13.4 billion of NHS debt which has been written off, nor money which the NAO suggests may be lost to “fraud and error”.
So that’ll be another £10 billion.
An updated online version of the same story warns further that “[t]he grim consequences for UK plc of the coronavirus crisis are becoming clearer with every passing day – as GDP goes into free-fall, public debt soars past £2 trillion and millions become unemployed. Apocalyptic predictions from the Bank of England and others show the UK is on track for the worst recession in 300 years, when the Great Frost swept Europe.”
The Guardian reports the Chancellor’s plans to spend yet more borrowed money on extending the mortgage relief scheme beyond the end of June, and adds that the Bank of England may move to negative interest rates, a first in its 325-year history. Is the global economy in such a parlous state that the Bank of England thinks investors will pay the British Government to take their money?
On the heels of yesterday’s news that 9,000 jobs are being lost at Rolls-Royce, the Times reports that current plans for relaxing the lockdown will not be enough to save many businesses.
Two-Metre Social Distancing Rule Unnecessary, According to NERVTAG Member
Downing Street said yesterday that it has no plans to change the “sensible and safe” two-metre social distancing rule, after Robert Dingwall, a member of the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), said the evidence that it is necessary is “fragile”. This is despite the fact that many other countries, and even the the World Health Organisation, recommend just one metre. Britain and Spain are now the only European countries to apply the two-metre rule, says the Mail.
Professor Dingwall said on BBC Radio 4: “The World Health Organization recommends a one-metre distance, Denmark has adopted it since the beginning of last week.
“If you probe around the recommendations of distance in Europe you will find that a lot of countries have also gone for this really on the basis of a better understanding of the scientific evidence around the possible transmission of infection.”
Iain Duncan Smith has also called for the two-metre rule to be scrapped, according to the Sun.
The Times reports that many businesses will go bankrupt if the rule isn’t relaxed. Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, told the paper that “at two metres you’re probably looking at only 20 per cent of pubs being able to operate” but reducing it to one metre “would put the majority of pubs back in play”. Other sectors have also raised concerns:
Richard Walker, boss of Iceland, the supermarket, said: “The reality is that many businesses will not survive if we are too zealous with the two-metre rule. If scientists and experts are comfortable with a way that we can relax it then we absolutely should, because it is critical to so many sectors.”
Edwin Morgan, of the Institute of Directors, said that “maintaining two metres’ distancing will be difficult for many firms, and impossible for some”. He urged the Government to help industry find “innovative ways to adapt”.
Some businesses, facing bankruptcy if they remain closed, “have taken it upon themselves to open up despite lockdown restrictions“, says the Mail. Can we include them here, please?
Salons, butchers, florists and coffee shops are tentatively opening their doors to customers, by coming up with their own interpretations of the Government’s social-distancing rules. In Alresford, Hampshire, eight high street businesses are now open, including a salon – despite the Government insisting hairdressers should not yet be open. And in Thame, Oxfordshire, the chocolatier, hardware store, florist and butcher have thrown open their doors for the first time since the lockdown started in March. Meanwhile in the capital, Broadway Market in Hackney was packed with Londoners lapping up the sunshine and grabbing disposal pints of beer from pubs which have opened up for takeaway refreshments.
The Easy Way to Get Through Lockdown
The Telegraph reports that Liberal Democrat peer Chris Fox is “milking” the taxpayer by furloughing himself from his business but continuing to claim his daily £162 House of Lords allowance for Zoom meetings.
A frontbench peer has furloughed himself despite having a £100,000 cash pot in his company and claiming the daily House of Lords allowance during lockdown, the Telegraph can reveal.
Lord Fox, who owns two homes worth more than £2 million, is the first Parliamentarian known to use the Government’s wage subsidy scheme to pay himself. The 62-year-old Liberal Democrat frontbench spokesman for business is the owner and sole employee of Vulpes Advisory, a ‘strategic communications’ company. His decision to double dip into the taxpayers’ pocket was criticised as “milking the taxpayer” by MPs, who said on Wednesday that he should pay the money back. Asked on Wednesday night whether having his private income paid by the state as well as taking the Lords stipend was “greedy”, Lord Fox said: “I don’t think conflating the two is even logical.”
Accounts filed with Companies House show Lord Fox has access to more than £100,000 cash in his Vulpes bank account. Instead of using the money to tide the business over, he furloughed himself and has already received his first month’s wage subsidy, of about £1,000, from the Government. Asked why he did not first use the £100,000, he said: “I’m hoping to tide the business over, I’m hoping to relaunch it properly when the scheme… when the virus lifts.”
Lord Fox has a five-bedroom house in Windsor, which he reportedly bought in 1995 for £280,000 and which is now estimated to be worth up to £1.89 million, as well as a second home in east London. He sits on the Lords economic affairs committee, before which Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, appeared as a witness this week. It has held four hearings over the past month, for which Lord Fox will receive £648. He also claims the daily allowance for his work as the Liberal Democrat spokesman for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Conservative MP Robert Halfon said: “It’s incredible that, when my residents in Harlow are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, this peer seems to want to milk the taxpayer at both ends, for every penny – both through the Lords allowance and the furlough scheme. The Chancellor needs to nip this in the bud and make sure this is not allowed. The least he could do is pay the furlough money back.”
The Sun splashes with the story that Labour Party supporter Steve Coogan – creator of Alan Partridge – has furloughed his gardener and housekeeper.
The wealthy comic, 54, has left the taxpayer to stump up 80% of the pair’s wages. His two staff work full-time at his £4 million home in southern England, which boasts a swimming pool and tennis court.
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said last night: “The furlough scheme is to protect businesses that are suspended and can’t operate during the coronavirus pandemic. It’d be difficult to see how Steve Coogan’s earning potential has been diminished.”
TaxPayers’ Alliance chief executive John O’Connell said: “Support should only be sought if it’s really needed.”
Day Trippers Defy Lockdown Orders
All the papers had pictures of people ignoring social distancing rules to enjoy Britain’s hottest day of the year, with temperatures climbing to 82F – although the snappers know their pictures are more likely to be used if they make it look as if people are bunched more closely together than they are. According to the Mail, tens of thousands of sun seekers packed on to beaches up and down the country and traffic wardens ran out of tickets.
Needless to say, some local panjandrums have been harrumphing about the influx of visitors. According to the Telegraph:
When Boris Johnson announced on May 19th that from May 13th English residents would be allowed to drive to enjoy the outdoors for any length of time (as long as they do not stay overnight), local authorities in places like the Lake District were in uproar, telling travellers firmly to stay away.
In recent days the row has rumbled on, with placards and barricades appearing in parts of the Lakes. Messages scribbled onto boards include “no entry”, “please stay away”, and – in one specific case – “Keswick is still closed. Please come back when we are open”. This “informal” lock-out has even included “impromptu” road blocks – with plastic barriers blocking routes to popular sites.
It’s a welcome change then to hear Councillor Seán Woodward, Executive Member for Recreation and Heritage at Hampshire County Council, insisting the all responsible daytrippers are more than welcome.
He told Telegraph Travel: “Our country park car parks operated well over this last weekend and all within the 60% capacity limit imposed following a risk assessment. The vast majority of people behaved both sensibly and in a good humoured fashion, they were pleased to be able to visit, and appreciated the precautions being taken by our staff and the measures in place, which included clear signs and advance communications.”
Case Numbers Keep Falling
Meanwhile, the number of cases keep falling. The Times quotes Stephen Powis, NHS England’s Medical Director, saying there were 9,953 people in hospital with coronavirus on Tuesday, the first time this has been below 10,000 since March 29th:
No cases of coronavirus have been confirmed for Monday across London and eastern England, an area covering 15 million people, and just 79 have been recorded across England. While the number will rise as laboratories report more data, the figures underline the extent to which transmission has been brought under control.
The Telegraph says that new “surveillance data” suggests “those aged 17 to 29 are the most likely group to carry the infection – although they are far less likely than older people to fall seriously ill”.
The sampling by Public Health England, which occurred as the epidemic approached its peak, showed that in early April, around 11% of those aged between 17 and 29 were infected with the virus. Those in their 30s were the age group with the second highest number of infections, at around 10%, with rates closer to 7% among those in their 60s.
Fewer People have Died in 2019-20 than in 2017-18
Interesting post on the COVID-19 In Proportion blog pointing out that the total number of deaths in England and Wales between November 29th and May 8th (275,044) was lower than the total number in the same period in 2017-18 (281,566), when there was an above-average number of deaths from seasonal flu. He also notes that the lockdown on March 23rd doesn’t appear to have made any dent in the number of people dying from non-Covid flu and respiratory diseases in 2019-20: “If lockdown is effective at stopping the spread of infection wouldn’t there be a drop in the rate of non-Covid flu and respiratory deaths?”
Worth reposting this from the same blog last month, comparing the coverage of deaths from COVID-19 with deaths from influenza in 2018 on BBC News. Needless to say, the 2017-18 influenza epidemic which killed more people than Covid got nary a mention.
Stop Press: COVID-19 In Proportion blog has now updated this post. If you add the second week of May, the total number of deaths in 2019-20 does now exceed those in 2017-18.
MPs “Must Go Back”
House of Commons Leader Jacob Rees Mogg says MPs “must physically return to Westminster if they want to participate in debates and vote on new laws”, according to the Mail:
The House of Commons is currently using a ‘hybrid’ system which allows a maximum of 50 MPs to be present in the chamber while up to 150 can take part using Zoom video software. But Mr Rees-Mogg, the Commons Leader, said the current set-up dramatically curtailed the amount of time which could be spent debating legislation as he said all MPs should come back to London on June 2nd after the Whitsun recess which starts tomorrow. However, the decision sparked a furious backlash from some opposition MPs who said the ‘hybrid’ model is working and moving away from it would force them to make ‘non-essential’ journeys.
The Problem With Epidemiological Models
We’ve published a great piece on Lockdown Sceptics today by Hector Drummond entitled ‘The Real Fault with Epidemiological Models‘. Drummond, a former academic with a must-read blog called Hector Drummond Magazine, argues that critics of the computer modelling used by Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial to show that half a million people would die from COVID-19 in the “do nothing” scenario shouldn’t focus on the poor quality of the code because “any number of epidemiological modellers could have come up with similar analyses using impeccable code”. Rather, the fault lies with epidemiological models in general:
Epidemiology seems to be one of those areas, like climate change, where model reliability matters far less than it should. This can happen to areas that become politicised and where the journals are controlled by strong-armed cliques. It can also be a consequence of modern academia, where the emphasis has shifted almost totally to funding success. Funding success in areas like epidemiology can depend on exaggeration to impress people with agendas and money to burn, like Bill Gates. In an objective field you would expect, after all, underestimates to be as prevalent as overestimates. Yet in this field, overestimates are rife. And the reason for this is the same as the reason why alarmism thrives in climate “science”: it’s because all the research money goes to those who sound the alarm bells.
This is a top notch piece from someone who understands how academia works. Well worth a read.
How Good is the University of Minnesota’s Epidemiological Model?
A reader sent me a long email expressing his doubts abut the epidemiological model that was cobbled together by three grad students overnight at the University of Minnesota in March and then invoked to justify Minnesota’s lockdown. This is the model that was unveiled with great fanfare by state officials last month and was relied upon by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz when deciding how to respond to the pandemic. According to an article on the University’s website, the model was developed by three graduates students who were called by a professor at the University’s School of Public Health on the evening of Friday March 20th and told the model needed to be ready to present to the Governor on Monday morning. “I don’t think a lot of researchers get to work on something over the weekend and have public figures talk about it and make decisions based on it three days later,” said Marina Kirkeide, who was on a gap year when she got the call.
The model predicted that 57,000 Minnesotans would die absent a lockdown and Governor Walz duly issued a stay-at-home order on March 25th, two days after the results of the simulation were presented to him.
So how shonky was the grad students’ model? I asked “Sue Denim”, the ex-Google engineer who reviewed Professor Ferguson’s model for Lockdown Sceptics, to take a look.
I did a quick scan of the code, insufficient to thoroughly check for bugs, but enough to get a feel for the likelihood of their presence. Despite being the work of rushed grad students it’s of a significantly higher quality than the Covid-Sim program from Imperial College – for example, the functions all have extensive comments explaining what they do, variables mostly have meaningful names, there are internal safety checks, and so on. It’s written in R, instead of C. R is a language designed for mathematical and scientific use, so the code is a much closer match for what the developer really means and is thus much easier to read. R manages memory automatically and thus the sort of basic memory errors found in the ICL code aren’t possible in this kind of program.
Model-wise, it explicitly takes into account hospital capacity, whereas Ferguson’s model ignored beds and assumed constant capacity throughout the entire epidemic. It has 36 parameters vs the over 400 parameters found in the ICL code. This is still large, but more reasonable.
Professor Ferguson’s team should sit through some lectures given by these students.
So that’s the good news. Unfortunately, it’s outweighed by the bad news. I agree with your reader’s comments about the dodgy assumptions. It’s obvious these models have severe theoretical flaws as different codebases keep generating predictions that are wrong, and always wrong in the same direction and magnitude. Beyond parametric difficulties and although this team doesn’t seem to have made the same kinds of staggering coding errors found in the ICL codebase, this is still academic code so the critical structural and process problems identified in my first and second analysis of the ICL code are still present.
1. Like before, the history of this program is missing. Taxpayers being able to check the work that was actually used to change policy is seen as unimportant.
2. Although there are no Covid-specific assumptions in the code, it was written fresh for this problem instead of re-using a battle-tested infrastructure. This is something ICL theoretically did better: they re-used a previous codebase from years ago, so it had plenty of time to be thoroughly written and validated. Ferguson’s team didn’t in fact use the time to do this, but could have if they’d cared, whereas in this case the code was written from scratch in a rush. Even with the best intentions and practices it could never have been subjected to proper validation.
3. There are still no unit or regression tests of any kind. Although they were rapidly changing this program under pressure (exactly the situation where mistakes are most likely to occur) ,nobody bothered writing any code to verify sub-functions or that results of e.g. a single time step matched expectations. That’s not surprising – in recent days scientists responding to comments by software engineers have explained that in academic science “if it looks right then it is right”.
Given this attitude, is it any wonder that epidemiological models keep producing estimates that are wrong when compared to real world outcomes, yet this doesn’t seem to bother anyone in the field ? And models appear no more accurate today than they were during the UK foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2001? Given the lack of any really Covid-specific assumptions that we’re seeing here, it would make sense to use generic models that are extensively unit tested against prior-observed outcomes, but we don’t see that.
Imagine if a piece of safety-critical software controlling a car were thrown together in a few days by some interns, sold into the market and then went wrong in some way that caused people to die. People would be incredibly angry. It would end up in court. In fact, we don’t have to imagine, because the case of the Toyota engine control system gives an example of what happens when standard practices aren’t followed. The code for the Toyota ECS looked very much like the code for Covid-Sim: written in C, many global variables, no working peer review process and other problematic practices. Although I think it was never proven that this led to unintended accelerations that killed people, there was also no way to convince a jury it didn’t. Unlike in academia, where so far we’ve seen widespread denial that any problems exist at all, Toyota ended up recalling nearly 10 million cars and dealing with multiple lawsuits. In one of those the court heard testimony about code quality: Toyota settled after they realised the testimony was devastating and they couldn’t win.
Bad code can be found anywhere. Markets and regulations can’t stop bad code being written, but they do ensure that when the systems are working low quality has consequences and gets pushed to the bottom of the barrel. Those consequences can range from losing customers to losing court cases. If there’s any academic equivalent of these outcomes it’s unclear what they are. Students determining the fate of millions of people will continue to occur for as long as policymakers incorrectly believe that academic output is of trustworthy quality.
Note on Yesterday’s Chart Showing UK Infections Peaked Before Lockdown
The chart I published yesterday provoked an interesting discussion in the comments, with several people asking where the author got his figure of a 23-day lag time between infection and death. After all, if the median lag time is significantly less than that, then the graph doesn’t show that infections peaked before the lockdown was imposed. I asked the reader who sent me the graph to respond:
The source is one of the first studies in Wuhan which was widely reported.
I’ve read some of the comments it attracted on your site. It’s a fair challenge that the time to death might be less than 23 days in the UK – for example, if the population is more elderly they might die quicker. But I don’t think that answers why the time gap is different between the UK and London. The lockdown was imposed across the country on the same date, so if that was the cause of infections declining surely it would have happened at the same time in London and the rest of the country?
I’ve dropped an email to Kit Yates, a statistician who features on a BBC Sounds Podcast talking about this specific point (which one of your other readers pointed to), to see if he has an explanation for this – and also why the time gap from lockdown to peak deaths varies so much from country to country. That’s the same point – if lockdowns work, you’d expect a consistent gap between the lockdown being imposed and deaths declining in each country where they’ve been imposed. But you don’t.
Another Chart Showing Lockdowns Don’t Work
This chart formed part of a presentation by JP Morgan to investors yesterday. It shows infections haven’t increased in those US states that have ended their lockdowns. The JP Morgan analyst told investors: “This means that the pandemic and COVID-19 likely have its own dynamics unrelated to often inconsistent lockdown measures that were being implemented.” NBC’s Carl Quintanilla did a Twitter thread on the presentation yesterday.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s Anti-Media Rant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=80&v=LXjQn4eGpi8&feature=emb_logo
This is worth a watch: Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, unleashes on the media for predicting he was conducting an experiment in “human sacrifice” by refusing to order a lockdown sooner than he did, and that Florida would be “the next Italy”. He also faced criticism when he became one of the first Governors to start easing restrictions at the end of April. In fact, Florida has had one of the lowest number of deaths per 100,000 of any state in the union. This probably has nothing to do with the four-week lockdown and more to do with DeSantis making sure elderly people infected with the virus were removed from care homes. You can watch his rant here.
Continuing School Closures are #NotOk
A group of concerned parents called Us For Them have launched a campaign to try and persuade schools to reopen – and without the ludicrously excessive and potentially harmful social distancing measures that nearly all schools are planning. The campaign’s hashtag is #NotOk. You can find out more about the #NotOk campaign, and sign a petition to show your support, here.
One of the people behind the campaign is Christine Brett, the market access consultant who wrote ‘How at Risk Are Your Children From Coronavirus?‘ for Lockdown Sceptics last week. Worth a read if you missed it the first time.
Cambridge Clarification
The University of Cambridge has issued a clarification following yesterday’s news that all lectures are moving online until the end of the next academic year. Turns out, face-to-face contact between students and academic staff will still take place, albeit from behind masks:
The University and the Colleges will welcome as many students as possible to Cambridge for the start of the next academic year, guided always by advice from Public Health England. We are committed to continuing to deliver high quality education to all our students and to delivering a rich student experience, while ensuring that we respond effectively to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Small group teaching – supervisions, seminars or individual tuition – is at the heart of our educational provision and will continue in person as much as possible. Given the likely need for continued social distancing, we have decided to suspend mass lectures in person for the next academic year. Lectures will be available online; this system is already in place in some University Departments. Lectures are only one part of the rich education that Cambridge offers and freeing up space in lecture halls will allow us to concentrate on delivering small group teaching, language classes, lab work and practicals.
Colleges are planning to offer a wide range of activities, and will work hard to build up community life, even in the midst of social distancing.
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:
- ‘Virus Raged at City Jails, Leaving 1,259 Guards Infected and 6 Dead‘ – Alarming story in the New York Times, until you divide 1,259 by six and realise that means an IFR of 0.5%, roughly half that assumed by the Imperial College modellers. And the population concerned probably suffers from below average health
- ‘If you think you understand the current virus you don’t‘ – Ivor Cummings, aka the Fat Emperor, explains why he thinks the lockdowns in the UK have been completely ineffective and our high death rate is connected to our poor diet
- ‘How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global Lockdowns‘ – RealClearPolitics living up to its name with this excellent piece by Yinon Weiss
- ‘No 10 is hiding behind secretive SAGE pseudo-science‘ – Telegraph columnist Sherelle Jacobs on cracking form
- ‘Professor Sunetra Gupta: the epidemic is on its way out‘ – UnHerd‘s Freddie Sayers’ interviews the Oxford epidemiologist who says we’ve probably seen the back of the virus – no ‘second wave’. Watch it before YouTube takes it down
- ‘Niall Ferguson: COVID-19 is China’s Chernobyl moment‘ – Freddie Sayers interviews the other Professor Ferguson. Not to be confused with the one spelt N-E-I-L. “I’ve had enough hate mail from people who can’t spell,” says Niall, the world famous historian
- ‘It’s time to relax London’s lockdown and trust the capital to return to work‘ – Fraser Nelson urges Boris to be a little bolder and free up the capital in his Telegraph column
- ‘Masks required when Easyjet resumes flights in June‘ – An overreaction likely to happen at many more airlines
- ‘Worse than the disease‘ – Psychologist Carlos D’Abrera in the Australian Spectator
- ‘UNHAPPY MEAL Furious McDonald’s fans claim fast food chain “hates the north” as it reopens 39 drive thrus in the south‘ – The Sun reports on unhappiness about McDonald’s not reopening in the north
- ‘Harold’s Chicken Charges 26% “COVID-19 Fee” On Bills, Claiming Spike In Food Supply Prices‘ – Fast food outlet in Chicago puts prices up 26%
- ‘U.S. Cities Seen Losing $360 Billion of Revenue From Economic Rout‘ – More evidence that Bloomberg has woken up and smelt the coffee at last
- ‘The only vaccine humanity needs is a powerful dose of objective, natural reality‘ – Robust blog post from John Ward, an Englishman living in France
- ‘Superdrug accused of “playing on people’s fear” with £69 antibodies test‘ – Do you get your money back if it says you haven’t had it?
- ‘Why is the WHO so worried about Tanzania?‘ – Turns out Tanzania may not be the haven from lockdown lunacy I’d hoped
- ‘Can the EU survive this virus?‘ – Fredrik Erixon in the Spectator on the EU’s mounting woes
- ‘X days to save the economy!‘ – Douglas Murray’s latest Spectator column
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.
Theme Tune Suggestions
Only one suggestion today, but it’s a goodie: ‘Deal Wiv It’ by Slowthia and Mura Masa.
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 now passed one million and it’s averaging 54,000 visitors a day. We’re making a difference!
And Finally…
Have a read of my latest column in the Spectator. Trigger warning: this probably won’t appeal to left-wing readers of this site (and I hope you’ve noticed that I’ve tried to keep the partisan sniping to a minimum). Here are the opening two paragraphs:
It has become a commonplace among social psychologists that one of the characteristics that unites conservatives is our sensitivity to disgust. A succession of experiments carried out over the past ten years seems to show that a person’s political views are linked to how disgusting they find the idea of, say, touching a toilet seat in a public lavatory. The more repulsed you are, the more likely you are to hold conservative positions on issues like gay marriage, immigration and abortion. These findings have been lapped up by liberal social scientists since they confirm their view of conservatives as uptight control freaks whose love of hierarchy and tradition is rooted in an irrational fear of contagion.
But like many findings in psychology, these experiments haven’t always been easy to replicate and a meta – analysis of 24 studies in 2013 found that the relationship between conservative opinions and sensitivity to disgust was fairly modest. Today, I wouldn’t be surprised if people on the left are more easily repulsed than those on the right. It is liberals who seem to be gripped by a horror of contamination, not conservatives. How else to explain the enthusiasm with which they’ve welcomed the quarantining of whole populations as a way of managing the outbreak of coronavirus?
Discussion
Comments
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To the reader who submitted the charts displaying daily death peaks, and who wrote
“and also why the time gap from lockdown to peak deaths varies so much from country to country. That’s the same point – if lockdowns work, you’d expect a consistent gap between the lockdown being imposed and deaths declining in each country where they’ve been imposed. But you don’t.”
I undertook a project to correlate the dates of lockdown of each US State with the peak death date of each, in order to test this theory. I also created a bunch of other visualizations to correlate LENGTHS of lockdowns to other metrics from Johns Hopkins CSSE Repository. See below.
Anyone who is an actual statistician or professional please critique my work, I am merely a Computer Engineer with moderate data analysis and visualization skills.
https://github.com/ifihadastick/State-Lockdown-Correlations
https://app.powerbi.com/reportEmbed?reportId=ee741c56-afc6-4a95-b9ec-a24b5deb6c21&autoAuth=true&ctid=945c199a-83a2-4e80-9f8c-5a91be5752dd&config=eyJjbHVzdGVyVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93YWJpLXVzLW5vcnRoLWNlbnRyYWwtYy1wcmltYXJ5LXJlZGlyZWN0LmFuYWx5c2lzLndpbmRvd3MubmV0LyJ9
Earliness of Lockdown Date vs Time Time Between Lockdown and Peak Deaths: weak(?) positive correlation (earlier is leftward, later is rightward). Does this suggest that the Date of Peak Deaths was defined by something OTHER than “lockdown” dates and that it had NOTHING to do with how quickly we acted? Is it possible that the EARLIER we “locked… Read more »
A monument to the NHS?! I wonder if there are other countries in the world that worship their health service? What about those that regularly beat us in cancer survival rates? (eg Germany, and Australia)
“So even the preferred study of NHS cheerleaders confirms that in terms of outcomes, the NHS is one of the worst systems in the developed world.”
Very controversial.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nhs-overrated-system-private-healthcare-america-inefficient-developing-world-a7683541.html
kh the woman in your shop today is like the a woman in a lifeboat telling other shipwreck survivors to swim. But if she were swimming you can bet she’d have a different attitude. You should have told her that giving her the virus (that then unfortunately kills her) to promote herd immunity was a ‘price worth paying to keep (other) people safe. ‘
‘Independent SAGE’ claims children have more chance of dying of coronavirus than a road traffic accident if they are sent to school on June 1
Look how lucky we are, we have two Sage’s now, we need more experts!
Independent Sage have a website with a contact form. Maybe we should send them some nice messages to say what we think about their ‘science’?
http://www.independentsage.org/
AAAAARRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!
Anyone know if there are anymore demos or mass gatherings this weekend? We HAVE to get out there and make our anger, disgust and distress known to the powers that be!
https://twitter.com/4FreedomsSake/status/1263205754644955145
Platts Field Park, Manchester, tomorrow
I want the football back on the Moto GP, the F1, the pubs open, stop the queuing and the social distancing has to go. If someone says to me you’re not social distancing, as they said to me today, i tell them to shut their f*cking mouth and go home and hide. I owe you nothing and yet here you are demanding i do what you say. How about you do what i say and piss off. I’m adopting this extreme response because i don’t think the corona cowards realise how bad it is and how much we’re suffering and how much we need to get back to normality. I won’t be quiet or respectful i’ll be antagonistic from now on.
Amen, guy… I’m reaching the point of abject apoplexy at the sheer stupidity and destruction being visited upon us.
Anger seems to be my middle name at the moment. Everything I read about this nonsense foisted upon us makes me insanely angry. The good part about that I suppose, is that I’m not just sitting indoors accepting it.
Ikea is reopening, according to the Guardian 45 minutes ago.
Can we expect them to be followed by Volvo dealers, Abba tribute acts, and a resumption of Greta Thunberg’s climate protests?
Ooh, I feel better already…
What’s in a vowel? I feel bitter already!
Greta won’t have to worry about social distancing because her and her parents always look to me like they don’t take a shower of a morning. A wee bit slack on the old personal hygiene probably avoiding deodorant because it’s bad for lama’s or something. You just know that environmental types are that way because they’re lazy and they hate productive people who take responsibility for themselves and provide for their families. That’s why they are trying to turn us all into sack cloth wearing peasants without so much as a plastic bottle to recycle
Ikea, Pioneer of the one way system in shops.
When this is all over and we’re crawling through the debris and we’re being taxed (directly and indirectly, including a wealth tax) into relative poverty can people please remember this is our government stealing our money because they made an inept, even criminal, decision. I lost half my pension pot in 2008 (never recovered) which was there to pay off my mortgage. But, hey wait, was I that careless? Did I lose it or was it stolen from me?
Oh yes…. the point has to be made repeatedly and forcefully.
https://www.effiedeans.com/2020/05/jockdown.html
Good read for all up here who don’t belong to the cult
If I had the words and could write, that’s exactly what I would write today. Why don’t the cult members see through Sturgeon and her coterie? My blood pressure is rising just thinking of these awful people.
The Nat fanatics are like the lockdown zealots. No matter how much evidence is put in front of them about Sturgeon and her government’s incompetence they simply ignore it. Independence transcends all, as Sturgeon once said.
SNP droogs are like Scientologists in that they don’t know what the leaders are doing but worship them anyway. Any time i meet a SNP supporter and i’m Pictish from Fife so have no love for Scots i always tell them i’ll give you fifty quid right now if apart from Independence name one single policy of theirs, so far not a single one of them has ever been able to. The people who vote for them live in a delusion that once Scotland is independent we’ll all get free haggis, whisky and Bag Pipe lessons. I despise them with more than a passion
Quite – and then there’s the global warming fanatics: equally culty!
Ted Nugent summed it up well a few days ago:
“Why do I have to stay home just because you are scared? How about you stay home… you stay in your house indefinitely, you wear a mask, you socially distance yourself from me, you avoid restaurants, you avoid baseball games, you stay off the roads, you avoid malls and beaches and parks, you believe the made up death numbers, you believe the media hype, you get your toxic vaccine while avoiding vitamin C, sunshine and the things God gave us to actually heal, –
I’m done playing your dumb game. We are not “all in this together.” I’m not wearing your dumb tin foil hat anymore. I’m no longer going to be a prisoner of your fear. I’m no longer staying in my house or catering to you because you are scared. I’m not wearing a mask and I’m not staying 6 feet away from you anymore because I’m not afraid of you. You are not my enemy and if I get sick, it’s not because of you, it’s because of me and my system, which not only have I been addressing for quite some time, but I also know… Read more »
For T- shirt : the lockdown kills
That is brilliant.
Wonderful!
That is brilliant! Frankly if it were only possible to segregate the bedwetters from the rest of us what a wonderful world it would be.
Brilliant and well said!!!
Peter Hitchens on good form, dryly ripping the government a new one, with casual derision:
Sophy Ridge Sky News 21st May 2020 – Press Preview with Peter Hitchens and Alison Morris, 10.30pm
I watched it last night. He was very good – even the other reviewer couldn’t help smiling at times. What amazed me, was why he was invited, as I do not recall seeing him on there before. With the exception of Brendan O’Neill, Claire Fox and Carole Malone, it is usually a Progressives love-in.
Yes, the other reviewer seemed like a pretty vacuous cookie-cutter mainstreamer, but Hitchens managed to avoid alienating her at least in this section. I’ve not watched the show before so I’ll take your word for Hitchens being an outlier on the show. Hopefully they’ll have him back.
There have been some classics over the years: Julia Hartley-Brewer vs Owen Jones, Milo vs Jenny Kleeman, and Brendan vs Christina Patterson. I should get out more!
Just noticed this on Mail online. From memory, ZeroHedge trailed it last week, so apologies if someone posted the original coverage. Author of the report at JP Morgan is a ‘quant’ strategist and very highly regarded. Interesting that it has made the mainstream papers. My gut feel is there has been something of a shift in the MSM over the last 24-48 hours – hope I am right:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8347635/Lockdowns-failed-alter-course-pandemic-JP-Morgan-study-claims.html
I’d always assumed that the Tory Party and the Tory Press did whatever rich people told them to. Not sure how that explains the current situation. There must be a lot of rich people – traditional Tory bankrollers – who’ve lost shedloads of money because of the lockdown. Not sure why their voices haven’t been heard so far. Maybe this JP Morgan study is the first salvo?
Agree – that’s what I would have thought too. Kolanovic is NY-based though, so he is playing to a different base.
The problem with that viewpoint is that we currently have a socialist-lite (or not-so-lite, much of the time) government. Oh, for another Maggie: our country needs her back!
If you look at the Comments to the Daily Mail article and put them in order by “highest rated first”, the highly rated comments are overwhelmingly that the lockdown has done nothing but damage the economy…hugely. The Mail, and other MSM, will be anxiously watching the flow of public opinion. Mail still hedging their bets, though. They will come round.
It reassuring to know that, in all this, some things don’t change.
Just got my regular update from TV Licensing on all the ways they plan to try screwing me for not having a licence.
I wonder if Capita’s tellytax simians are deemed an essential service. Actually… I don’t think I need wonder.
Looks like I’m gonna have to start watching those TV licence goon videos next year when they finally realise I’ve sacked them off
#Ustoo. A lot of people think it’s the government but it’s Crapita on contract to carry out harrassment of anyone exercising their right not to purchase something. Can anyone think of anything else where this applies? Don’t hold your breath, the Track and Trace contracts will already have been drawn up. . . .
The monthly letters hike up the threat level until finally they say they have opened a court case (they haven’t). A vulnerable person would find them very frightening. The cycle then begins again. We haven’t had a TV for 15 years but still the amusing letters keep coming. We once tried letting them know we didn’t have a telly but after about 2 years the letters just start up again. We now ignore them as we reckon we only need to contact them in the unlikely event of us buying a new TV.
They have only been round once and my husband said, ‘Just go away’ (commendable control of his language 🙂 ) – and they did!
Looks as though Chief Constable Livingstone has put Sturgeon back in her box about enforcing her “rules”. In response to a question, he said Police would not be checking to see if citizens stuck to Sturgeon’s “rule” to travel no more than 5 miles. I suspect the CC is well aware that the Nuremberg defence will not work when it comes to the public enquiry.
Do you have a link for that?
Sturgeon has confirmed that’s the case. Top story on Scotsman online. The CC answered the Daily Mail question at today’s briefing. An edited transcript in on the BBC website.
Good news
It is always heartening to hear the Police talking some sense occasionally. They did in England too when they firmly said they couldn’t enforce the distancing rules because they are ministerial guidelines, not laws. I guess the same applies in this case.
I’ve been following the daily videos of this gutsy and fearless US woman for several weeks, even before finding this website. Keeps me sane.
https://youtu.be/HeAl4Bedlks
Does anyone use https://bookshlf.com/? I was thinking of compiling a lasting list of relevant articles, videos, podcasts etc. as one point of reference and to look back on whichever way this unfolds. Just wondering if anyone has any comments on the service.
Does it store a copy of the content in case the original gets moved or taken down? If so I will use it.
From near disaster to success story: how Japan has tackled coronavirus
“A little over a month ago, health experts were saying Japan risked becoming one of the world’s coronavirus “disaster zones”.”
Hmm. A country which didn’t lockdown and the usual bedwetting suspects hysterically warned there would be a calamity if they didn’t follow us over the cliff of lockdown.
And they didn’t.
And there wasn’t.
Where have we seen that before?
Of course, no sign of the slightest trace of shame or honesty in the Guardian coverage.
How are we ever going to hold these people to account for what they have inflicted on our country?
No suprise theGuardian display no shameor honesty. When the truth comes out the shameless frauds willprobably claim they were always lockdown sceptics.
Having a bad day today. A serious case of anti-lockdown rage. I just can’tget my head round the continued narrative of impending doom that flies in the face of the actual data is just insanity and the lack of outrage against the continued trashing of the economy and freedom.
I think I know how you feel. How can this go on – I don’t wish to be a part of this world but I have children so no choice but to try and make it better.
Whats the plan here? Sounds very random…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-23/gates-foundation-trust-ups-stake-in-u-k-private-prison-company
Think this Foundation is run as a non profit organisation. Why would a non profit with all the tax advantages invest in a private organisation?
UK borrowing at record high as virus cost soars in April
Of course, the cost is overwhelmingly the cost of the chosen lockdown response, not of the virus.
https://figshare.com/articles/NHS_England_compared_with_Sweden_Covid19_epidemic/12357305
Apologies for serial posting. I inadvertently put the same link below! I’ve added a plot that compares NHS England data with Swedish mortality data during the progress of the epidemic. Data for both countries follows a Gompertz function distribution and with essentially the same dynamics with regard to the growth and decay of the epidemic as evidenced by the gradient plot (the upper of the three graphs in the panel).
Wow that is a very close match!
Hi all,
Just had a 27 minute conversation with my local MP, Munira Wilson. I have to say, I felt it was very productive and she did listen to my views. She had clearly read both my letters, and arguments put forward.
Though we were not able to agree on the efficacy of lockdowns (she feels we should have tracked and traced very early on, as did some Asian countries such as South Korea, and potentially locked down much earlier), she did concede the huge plethora of problems the lockdown is doing to our country – economic, social, educational and mental health consequences. She also said that as a liberal, she was not comfortable with many of the laws and restrictions that were being imposed on us by the government.
In conclusion, I felt I was able to put my arguments forward as succinctly and rationally as possible. I have made my point, with science-based evidence, and I feel that at the very least a seed has been sown in her mind. Political opinions aside, I will always respect her for giving me a good chunk of her time, listening to me properly, and for allowing me to openly express… Read more »
Well done!
Good for you man. I’m still plugging away at the emails but it’s not happening. Maybe a few phone calls would be better
Good on you. Am just putting the finishing touches to my email to my MP (which is based on yours).
Coronavirus does not spread easily on surfaces, say US experts.
This is the sort of contradictory statements we now hear. Originally coronavirus could remain on surfaces for up to 3 days and now this. How can we believe anything the experts say?
Just the word “expert” or “scientist” has me running screaming in the opposite direction now.
https://figshare.com/articles/NHS_England_compared_with_Sweden_Covid19_epidemic/12357305
I’ve included an updated plot that compares England and Sweden mortality data during the progress of the epidemic. Data for both countries follow a classic Gompertz function with essentially the same dynamics with respect to the rate of growth and decay of the virus as witnessed by the upper plot.
Typical coid zombie “Doesn’t spread on surfaces you say. This means I must start wearing gloves”.
So healthy people with no symptoms will have to isolate for 14 days from 1st June in case they are a carrier according to Matt Hancock 🤷♀️😳
Someone should stop this clown from talking to the press. Every time he opens his mouth it’s just compete bollocks.
🤣👍
Well I won’t be doing that as my livestock would starve. The man is a complete idiot. And why does he always wear the same tie? Does he sleep in it?!
Someone should tell him how long coronaviruses can survive on a tie for.
I would wager none of them get much sleep.
He really needs to go and as a bonus should be punished alongside Neil Ferguson and the MSM for the damaged he has inflicted on this country and its people.
and be banned for life from any work in public service
What abou these ‘game changer’ tests, maybe we could just use some of these instead of quaranting healthy people!
Yeah not happening. I’ll go about my business unless I’m ill thanks.
Suck my dick Matt – I don’t have one and it’s still bigger than yours.
I dont understand. Haven’t we already been self isolating for several weeks?
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Being as fair as possible to him, he just isn’t clever enough, aware enough, politically savvy, have any common sense, to be anywhere near politics, let alone health secretary.
He simply doesn’t know how society, for the 99% of us works. You could sit him down and go over the details of all his mentally impaired plans and even if he tried his best, the flaws still wouldn’t sink in. He is of the ilk of a 1st world war commander who has never been in battle but sends countless men to pointless deaths because he thinks he knows best.
There is a historical belief that so called elite classes should govern over us mere worthless runts. This man though, out of all of them, is the very last person you’d want in any position of power. He is, without doubt, further up his own arse than the worlds longest colonoscope could ever reach.
In Eurpoe’s most locked down country (Scotland) our magnanimous leader has told us that we are not allowed to drive for more than 5 miles from our home. How generous! Has she ever looked at a map of Scotland and noticed that most of it is very rural, with the nearest shop often well over 5 miles away? she is of course an MSP for a Glasgow constituency with apparently little recognotion of the physical reality of the country she supposedly leads.
This does raise the interesting question of whether the 5 mile rule is legally enforceable or is it just a recomendation. Does anyone know?
If nothing else what Covid has done is to allow people like Sturgeon and Hancock demonstrate how bonkers they are.
Not to mention divorced from reality and living in La-La Land.
I’ve just been speaking to a friend in Scotland who really does go out and clap for the NHS every Thursday. Then everybody in the street brings out a bottle of wine and all the neighbours have their own garden party. She’s a bit like Polyanna, my friend, and thinks it’s great to meet so many new people. Did she know that in the flu season from December 2014 – March 2015 there were 22,011 registered deaths in Scotland which works out at 5,503 per month? “What, over 5000 deaths a month?” says she in disbelief. So far 3,546 people have died from (with?) covid in Scotland between mid March and mid May which works out at 1,773 per month, three quarters of them over the age of 75. . My friend was going out for a walk when I rang. I hope she ponders that 5000 a month figure and I hope it spoils her walk.
Which is more or less what I said to my lockdown loving friend Jane; see below somewhere
Have emailed my MSP asking precisely this, and pointing out that the lack of clarity is really unacceptable given we’re all being deprived of basic liberties. My sense is it will be a recommendation since at present it’s not unlawful to drive longer than that for any reasonable purposes for which one is permitted out the house. But, as usual, even if unenforceable, will be presented by government and much of media as a question of what we are “allowed” to do, instead of as guidance which we are all quite free to ignore.
Last night I stumbled across an interview with Anders Tegnell, state epidemiologist for Sweden, on BBC Hard Talk.
I say “interview” but the BBC journalist Steven Sackur basically attacked and attacked him with his naive, arrogant and pre-conceived ideas that Dr Tegnell was some sort of mass murderer who did not care about the people in his country.
This is the problem with the mainstream media. It’s no longer about open, unbiased discussion (as we have with Freddie Sayers on UnHerd, a breath of fresh air) but instead it’s about choosing an ignorant narrative and then running with it, despite the plethora of evidence to the contrary.
I abhor so-called journalists like this. They interrupt, don’t let their interviewees speak, and ask leading, tainted questions. They do not give people a chance to speak openly. To think this rubbish is paid for by licence payers’ money. 🤦🏻♂️
We’re a long, long way from a society in which reporters and editors thought their job was to convey information in a neutral manner and leave their viewers and readers to make up their own minds.
That went out the window decades ago, as supposedly not morally interventionist or revolutionary enough. As one small illustration, consider the BBC/mainstream approach of referring to governments of disapproved forms not as “governments” but as “regimes”. It’s important, you see, to convey an approved moral judgement along with the information.
Robin Aitken’s book The Noble Liar about the BBC is pretty good https://tinyurl.com/y8e5h52d
Reading it was the final push I needed to ignore the MSM, and the BBC in particular, a couple of years ago.
The BBC will hopefully die and not because older folk like me refuse to watch their activist drivel. Its because the younger generation simply doesn’t watch any MSM.
I suspect though that being on message with the outrage ‘safety at all costs’ herd and the Gov during this will have sadly bought them a (temporary) stay of execution.
Thanks I’ll pick that one up – says released on 28th, presumably you had a pre-release copy.
I always check out the negative reviews before buying anything, and I see one that’s headed: “Right-wing anti-BBC propaganda from a Conservative, now there’s a surprise”. That sold it to me.
Your tinyurl link didn’t work for me, though.
Lol I read anything and everything that is lambasted as ‘right wing polemic’ by today’s squealing ‘left’.
It’s usually a mark of good sense.
I must have gone out of print/stock as I read it, which says something in itself!
Robin Aitken interview here for a taster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aucDmK5E4bU
Yes, Freddie Sayers has been a hero of the lockdown – not because of his anti-lockdown views (if any), but because of his eagerness to get at the truth and let interviewees speak for themselves. A proper journalist.
He has put out some great interviews – both good choice of interview subjects and, as you say, a very good, respectful and intelligent interview technique.
Lets hope the BBC don’t snap him up. Not that they’d want him I guess.
I still don’t know what his views actually are.
Because he’s a journalist not an activist.
(Not that journalists can’t have opinions. They just have to be clear about what is an opinion and what isn’t and stop treating their own opinions as if they’re the story. And more importantly SHUT UP- Their opinion is not more important than what any interviewee has to say for themselves)
“I still don’t know what his views actually are.”
As you suggest – a very good sign.
Have you read either of the two books about the BBC by David Sedgwick? He shows in detail, in case after case, how bad they are. Worse than I had realised.
BBC: Brainwashing Britain? and The Fake News Factory.
No, it’s a few years since I looked at this issue. Let’s try the negative review test for the latest one, The Fake News Factory:
MR. IMRANUL HAQ
1.0 out of 5 stars Utter tosh
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 May 2020
More fake news from Segdewick, Trump, Putin and the Telegraph. UTTER TOSH.
That’s good enough for me. Bought, for Kindle.
Thanks for the heads up.
Excellent system!
That’s why it was so good to see Sumption demolishing that silly woman from the BBC.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/covid19-what-we-all-wrong-thomas-wilckens-%E6%89%98%E9%A6%AC%E6%96%AF-/
An interesting very long discussion about almost everything controversial in the pandemic.
A slightly surreal telephone conversation with an old friend: her ear is blocked-all syringing cancelled; she has a probable gum infection at the base of a dental implant and a minor eye infection, all of which are causing discomfort, anxiety and affecting her confidence when she goes for her daily walk.
Despite all this, she was adamant that lives must be saved, so we must continue to follow the rules, incoherent and ill thought out as they are.
I pointed out that lives were being put on hold, destroyed, impoverished by the house arrests and that suicides, depression, hardship, unemployment, lack of education, general insecurity and loss of hope, combined with the removal of essential services like dentistry, cancer screening, opticians’ appointments etc are having a devastating effect on our society and that of many others and that this cannot go on.
No she said, lives must be saved and we need the vaccine.
We had to agree to differ but this is a reflection of prevailing attitudes,even amongst well educated people.
It really is liking talking to a brick wall, isn’t it, some of the time?
Then again there are the few cases you get a thoughtful response, or read here about one someone else got, and that gives you renewed hope.
Each time I put the consequences of all this to her, together with some of the truly troubling accounts which have appeared here-anonymised of course- she just kept repeating that it was killing people and that lives must be saved.
The hopeful response was that related in my earlier comment, when Mr Concerned Citizen calmed down and entered into a polite discussion.
She sounds utterly brainwashed!
One positive and one negative experience this morning.
Went to our local Asda, saw the big queue and announced to my husband that I was not prepared to join it and would go somewhere else instead. A man in a nearby car heard me and shouted that he had been waiting for his wife for nearly an hour. We got talking. It seems he is desperate to get back to work (not sure what he does but it was a job that required someone to assist him sometimes) can’t visit his mother in sheltered accommodation and said he could understand the situation if we were dealing with Ebola but not for the equivalent of a bad “flu “ . I pointed him in the direction of this website.
Next stop, a huge Tesco with masses of space and wide aisles. I found myself committing the cardinal sin of going “up” a “down” aisle. An oldish bloke pointed out the error of my ways to me and said that the arrows had been there for ages. I thanked him as profusely as I could for pointing this out to me (not sure he got the sarcasm). Had I been quicker… Read more »
I wear big headphones in the supermarket and pretend that I don’t hear anyone trying to instruct me – most of the time I can’t actually hear them because I have Spotify on full blast. It works 100% of the time and keeps me sane. What are they gonna do when you don’t comply with their stupid rules and don’t follow arrows?
I also pretend not to hear complains coming from people wearing masks when I come very close to them. I’m not gonna be dancing around them to keep the 2m – they can stay at home if they don’t like it.
Don’t follow rules that don’t make any sense.
Exactly thus is what I do, I only remove them when I want to say something.
If they wanted to challenge you, they would have to physically grab you or get right up in your face – and that’s not social distancing! 😆
They have those arrows too my local M&S and no-one follows them. That said I shake my head when I see the masked zombies – today one of them glared at me and I glared back to the point that she quickly looked away.
wendyk – what you describe is, in many ways, the most terrifying thing of all. Even when people’s own lives are being blighted by this insane policy, they will insist it is the right thing to do. Is it because the very notion that it might all have been in vain, and that the politicians whose role is to serve us are nothing but a bunch of dangerous morons, is just too unbearable for them to contemplate?
This is why people so often dismiss minority or more sinister theories as ‘conspiracy’. To have to admit that you were actually conned is too much to bear for most. No one wants to think they were naive enough to be scammed.
I think it’s the ‘ostrich syndrome’ Goassamer: head in sand, especially if relatively protected by pension income, decent hoem, own garden etc.
Try as I might to emphasise the wasted lives and hopes of the young, I could not persuade her to accept the untold damage that this lunacy is causing.
typo-decent home…..
Unfortunately talking to people like your friend is like trying to get blood out of a stone. I’ve come across people I know who are like that as well and no amount of reason and logic seems to sway them.
Reason has flown away, to be replaced by confected compliance, emotional incontinence and conspicuous compassion.
Independent thought, critical enquiry and disputation are written off as unacceptable callous obstinacy.
Baa….. is that a sheep noise I hear?
Guys, don’t try to help an old lady across the road with her bags.
If looks could kill!
How could you! The moral thing to do is to entirely ignore old ladies, preferably cross the road to avoid them.
Age is also no barrier to sheephood I might add…
Found this quote from Jung, sums it up really:
It is becoming more and more obvious that it is not starvation, it is not microbes, it is not cancer, but man himself who is his greatest danger: because he has no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are are infinitely more devastating in their effect than the greatest natural catastrophes.
Jung was wise and an exemplar of the educational standards of his day-I’ve read several of his works-qualities sadly lacking today.