One story dominates the news and it isn’t “English Tourism Week“, which started today. The Prime Minister’s efforts to draw a line under the Dominic Cummings’ affair yesterday by declaring he had done nothing wrong and he was standing by him were not successful. If anything, they just emboldened his chief advisor’s critics. If they could now force Boris to do a U-turn they would succeed in weakening him as well as burying Dom. The airwaves this morning were dominated by the same coalition of politicians and commentators that supported the Remain side in the EU Referendum, sniffing an opportunity to take revenge on their two greatest foes.
This afternoon at 4.30pm Cummings took the unusual step of holding a press conference in the Downing Street rose garden, beginning with him reading a lengthy statement explaining why his behaviour was “reasonable” in the circumstances. Turns out, he didn’t make a second visit to his parents’ farm in Durham; rather, he remained there for two weeks while he, his wife and his four year-old son battled with illness. He wasn’t staying in the same household as his parents, or his sister, but a separate cottage on the family farm, and he didn’t come within two metres of any members of the public. His reason for driving to Barnard Castle was to see if he was fit enough to make the longer drive to London; it wasn’t for sightseeing purposes. As far as he was concerned, his behaviour was “reasonable” because he was doing whatever was necessary to protect his child.
Will this be enough to save him?
According to some lockdown zealots, Boris’s refusal to throw Cummings under a bus will “cost lives”. That was what Stephen Reicher, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of St Andrews and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), a sub-group of the Strategic Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), told Sky News. “More people are going to die” because Cummings is still in post, he said.
One Cabinet source told the Telegraph: “The discussion among Cabinet ministers at the moment is that this will cost lives. People will look at this and decide that if Dom can ignore the rules so can they, and the consequence of that will be that people get infected who would have otherwise stayed at home. This has massively undermined the lockdown message.”
For lockdown sceptics, of course, that’s all the more reason to applaud the Prime Minister for standing by Cummings.
“Boris has put his credibility and the Government’s credibility on the line by sticking up for Dom,” a senior Tory source told the Telegraph. “How can we tell people they must abide by the lockdown now? The lockdown is effectively over because this makes it unenforceable.”
We can but hope.
My view is that Cummings’s behaviour complied with the letter, if not the spirit, of the rules. I don’t think he should be punished for this, not least because that will confirm people’s mistaken view that travelling across the country to visit their relatives will “cost lives”. It will embolden the finger-waggers and tell-tales, encouraging them to inform on other miscreants and probably prolong the lockdown – and that is what will cost lives, as we sceptics know only too well. I’m thinking of the recent interview on ABC News with some doctors in Northern California saying the rise in suicides since the state was shutdown on March 19th has killed more people than the virus. The same is true of Tennessee and no doubt other US states too. A report compiled by Just Facts at the beginning of the month estimated that anxiety alone will result in at least seven times the loss of life than can possibly be prevented by the shutdowns. Seven times was the low end. The high end was 90 times.
But in the grander scheme of things, it’s difficult to have much sympathy for Cummings. As more than one reader has pointed out, he was Boris’s chief adviser when the Prime Minister embraced what may well turn out to be the most damaging and costly policy in British history. That was confirmed by Cummings in the Downing Street rose garden this afternoon. “The truth is, I’d argued for lockdowns,” he said. “I did not oppose the policy.”
Perhaps the Government’s initial decision to place the country under lockdown is understandable, given the apocalyptic predictions it was being presented with by Professor Neil Ferguson and others, talking about “the science”. But given the weight of later evidence, strongly implying that that Ferguson’s doomsday predictions were exaggerated, not to have immediately eased the lockdown is unforgivable. Cummings has to accept some of the responsibility for that.
The mastermind of Brexit once talked, very persuasively, of “taking back control” from a centre-left, technocratic elite whose policies (such as the creation of the single currency) have wreaked great damage in Europe. In the UK, the same people have presided over a massive transfer of power from the British Parliament to unelected officials in Brussels and elsewhere, all in the name of “progress”. Cummings gave many people hope, including me, that this trend would be reversed, and the success of the Conservatives at the last General Election seemed to confirm that faith. Yet the lockdown policy has handed these same ham-fisted “experts” and bureaucrats unparalleled power and allowed them to do more harm on a grander scale than ever before. Our civil rights have been suspended, Parliament has effectively been mothballed and freeborn Englishmen have been treated with the same arrogant contempt as always. In short, Cummings has not “taken back control” from the metropolitan, liberal elite. Over the last two months, he has handed back control to them.
Lockdown Blowback in Bangladesh
I got an email this morning from a donor, explaining the catastrophic impact of the lockdown on his business and the knock-on effect for his migrant workers and their families:
I am by no means the first to call attention to the millions who will die in poorer countries because of our lockdown and our obsession with a relatively small death count here at home. I have first-hand knowledge of this knock-on effect. I employ a number of Bangladeshi workers in a fish-trading business in the Maldives. Their salaries sustain large families back home. Dim-witted policies like inbound quarantine have now extended the block on tourist travel to the Maldives, so there is no one to eat our fish.
I am trying to keep the Bangladeshi boys on even with no business coming in, but our cash flow forecast says we will run out of cash at the end of July. The situation is made worse by their relatives back home who work in garment factories having been laid off because big buyers like Top Shop and Next have stopped placing orders. These families will come very close to starvation and disease will start to cull the least strong. The relatively minor risk of getting an illness which most people recover from quite quickly pales into insignificance beside the massive knock-on effects the lockdown policy creates. And I speak as an 80 year-old who is firmly in the so-called high-risk category.
A Thunderer from Brendan O’Neill in Spiked
There’s a humdinger of a column by Brendan O’Neill in Spiked today. He detects a growing disconnect between the fealty people pay to lockdown orthodoxy when asked about it by pollsters or journalists doing vox pops and their actual behaviour, in which they regularly flout the rules.
The disconnect between public backing for the lockdown and (anonymous) public breaking of the lockdown is fascinating. It suggests there is a significant minority of what we might call shy libertines out there – people who have been exercising their freedom in defiance of the strict rules but who are shy about saying so. They live part of their life outside the lockdown, but they tell pollsters the lockdown is great and must continue.
He argues that we need to empower these shy libertines so they feel more confident about challenging Covid orthodoxy:
Covid conformism must be confronted. In their echo chambers, where they’re all trying to outdo each other in their levels of commitment to smashing Covid, the political and media elites have become increasingly blinkered, dogmatic and intolerant on everything related to COVID-19. The lack of relaxed, freely stated opposition to their lockdown mania means they become madder and madder in their commitment to it. The corrosion of freedom of thought in relation to COVID-19 has deadly consequences, because it means the lockdown endures – nine weeks now – when many people know in their heart of hearts that it is wrong and deeply damaging to the future of this country.
Worth reading in full.
A Contrary Point of View
I get surprisingly few emails from defenders of the lockdown. But I do get the occasional one, such as this one from a former epidemiologist who posts as djaustin in the comment threads:
Whether people choose to accept it or not, cases were doubling at the time of lockdown every three days and deaths every two (my comment under Djaustin has the numbers for you). Whilst models might have predicted the four horsemen were soon to arrive, even simple extrapolations showed that we were in a bad place and that healthcare would be swamped within a couple of weeks. Forget the 500k deaths, micro Simulation models etc… Robust decisions are insensitive to assumptions. This point has been lost in the noise. Early in an epidemic all one can know is the rate of doubling.
As for “Does the lockdown work?”, well there is ample evidence on the way DOWN that the harder the lockdown, the shorter the time to halve cases and deaths. Spain is declining faster than Italy and UK, which are in turn declining faster than Sweden. These are the facts. The debate is really what level of infection can reasonably be sustained? How low should cases fall before we adopt the (probably fortuitous) Sweden experience of static population burn (albeit at a much slower rate than they expected). Should eradication of this new pathogen be a goal?
I’m a mathematician, scientist, former epidemiologist, and now work on COVID-19 new treatments. I generally disagree with your political stance and the incumbent Government. However, with regards to the scientific method and scepticism, I agree that one should be sceptical. I believe that when the data is analysed carefully (which I have done since mid-March), there is evidence that lockdown has had some impact, both on peak and rate of decline. The questions regarding cost, ethics, liberties and so on are valid, but the science is clear.
We currently have approximately 60k excess deaths, more than any bad influenza year from 2010-19. These excess deaths are nicely correlated with COVID-19 deaths In timing and magnitude, and will soon be back to weekly baseline. The bigger questions, which I think your site should ask, are why we were not encouraged to act more responsibly and earlier (as in Germany). Clearly this has given Germany more options on the way down.
A Good Reason For Not Sending Your Child Back to School?
I got an email from a grandpa, worried that his granddaughter, who’s in Reception, won’t be returning to school on June 1st:
Had an interesting conversation with my daughter on Zoom last night. She’s not sending her daughter back to school. It’s nothing to do with the risk of catching Covid which she fully accepts is negligible.
No, she doesn’t want her daughter to be taught in an atmosphere of “silly” social distancing which she thinks will stop her daughter playing with her mates properly.
She also doesn’t want her being taught by teachers wearing masks and rubber gloves which she believes will scare the children.
Finally, she doesn’t want her to suffer the indignity of being sent home because she has had an unexpected “accident”.
She says she’s going to wait until September when she hope things have calmed down and got a bit more sensible.
What sort of world are we living in?
It’s Worse in Scotland
I get quite a few emails from readers telling me that as bad as things are in England, they’re worse in Scotland under Kim Sturge-on. This one, from a donor, is typical:
In Scotland, the situation for anyone who is pro-free enterprise is even worse than in England as our First Minister makes unchallenged assertions to UK network journalists who are not well-briefed enough to respond. Meanwhile, our domestic institutions are starting to resemble a one-party state. You will no doubt have seen the story in the Times today about STV publishing videos of children praising our glorious Nicola. Scotland is so poisoned that even a pandemic has constitutional overtones. But the point about the lockdown is the same as for the rest of the UK. It is an irrational and catastrophic reaction that has destroyed lives in ways more insidious than the virus itself.
Some Hope For Parents of Newborns
A reader has got in touch who is friends with a registrar in her county with news of a possible loophole to get your newborn registered (I flagged up this problem yesterday):
It is indeed true that birth registrations have been on hold. But apparently parents can demand registration by a special dispensation. Most people don’t know about this and councils haven’t publicised it.
Usually births, marriages and deaths have to be registered in person. Procedures have been in place to register deaths, but there is now a backlog of births. My friend estimates about 2000 in our county alone.
Postcard From Sri Lanka
A few weeks ago we published a “Poscard From Spain” by a reader and today I’m publishing a “Postcard from Sri Lanka” by another. This one is from Omar Kahn, a global consultant who’s been locked down in the country the the past nine weeks. Here’s a taste of the Sri Lankian authorities’ response:
At the time of the curfew, Lanka had 66 cases of Covid-19, with seven fatalities. One month on, post curfew, there have been 271 cases and… wait for it… seven fatalities! But rather than throwing a success party, the authorities decided to double down, even though it was now clear that the healthcare system wasn’t being overwhelmed and that the fatality needle hadn’t budged. No one is quite sure why the most draconian option was chosen and then manically sustained, except that we all mistakenly thought that this was an “equal opportunity” virus, and it’s not. The fatality numbers testify to that, and some regions are relatively far less scathed than others, which clearly hasn’t always been down to the brilliance of their response. But as per all the model-spinners and prognosticators, it was only a matter of time before things exploded here. As of today, the fatalities up to nine, and we have been curfewed longer than Wuhan was economically shut down.
Worth reading in full.
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:
- ‘How scared should we be?‘ – Decent piece by the Nick Triggle, the BBC’s Health Correspondent, on the need to balance risk as we emerge from lockdown
- ‘Coronavirus data prove Australia is in Asia‘ – Professor Ramesh Thakur becomes a “graphodisiac” to prove lockdowns don’t work
- ‘A short guide to justifying re-lockdown‘ – Heather Mac Donald in the Spectator USA on how those who forecast doom after Georgia eased its lockdown last month have been proved wrong
- ‘Universities are pressing the self-destruct button‘ – Joanna Williams in Spiked on the perfect storm facing Britain’s universities and their failure to do anything about it
- ‘Rand Paul Confronts Dr. Fauci to His Face, Exposes Truth About Modeling‘ – Clash between the libertarian and the public health panjandrum. Still on YouTube, remarkably
- ‘An Orgy of Plague Death, Deferred‘ – Noah Rothman in Commentary on the fact that the governors of Georgia and Florida got it right – deaths haven’t increased since they eased their lockdowns last month
- ‘Native American casinos roll the dice on reopening‘ – Article in the Times about Native American casinos reopening
- ‘Combat and team sports receive the go-ahead for full-contact training‘ – The Telegraph reveals the Premier League has been given the green light to resume full-contact training. Does this mean we can all abandon the two-metre rule?
- ‘WA Premier Mark McGowan announces school attendance will become compulsory from Monday‘ – The Premier of Western Australia has declared that school attendance is now compulsory. Can Education Secretary Gavin Williamson take a leaf out of his book?
- ‘Covid-19 could hasten rise of the robots as companies seek to cut expensive labour costs‘ – No surprise there
- ‘Lockdown restrictions to be eased, allowing more social contact and shops to reopen‘ – Telegraph reports Boris Johnson is planning to reveal we’re doing well enough to move to “phase two” of the lockdown easing, but those plans may have been derailed by Cummings-gate
- ‘Abe Declares End to Japan Emergency And Seeks to Boost Economy‘ – The Prime Minister of Japan is ending the lockdown, according to Bloomberg
- ‘Dreaming of a Visit to Japan? The Government Might Pay for Half of Your Trip to Jumpstart Tourism‘ – And thanks to the above news, there’s all the more reason to take advantage of this offer
- ‘My plan for reopening Wetherspoon pubs‘ – The redoubtable Tim Martin is champing at the bit to reopen his pubs. More power to his elbow
- ‘Eleven reasons why COVID-19 won’t usher in a socialist Britain‘ – Tim Walsh delivers the
goodbad news in the Telegraph. Will come as a disappointment to my left-wing readers - ‘Closures looming over Pizza Express‘ – Another beloved high street chain about to go to the wall, says the Times
Theme Tune Suggestions
Some more suggestions for theme songs from readers: “Libera Nos (Deliver Us)” by The Sixteen, “Keep Your Distance” by Richard Thompson, and, for Dom, “Where do you go to my Lovely?” by Peter Sarstedt and “Six Days on the Road” by Dave Dudley.
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 opened 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.
And try to avoid getting too irritated by the over-the-top social distancing procedures some retailers are putting in place. One reader has complained about the absurdly elaborate rules her local garden centre has imposed, including:
- Please have a shopping list ready before entry, we cannot allow for prolonged visits and wandering.
- If we suspect any illness, we have the right to refuse entry.
- Do not touch any products that you are not purchasing.
- When at the tills, wait to be called forward by a cashier. Once called, push your trolley into the taped area in front of the till. Then stand in the taped waiting box whilst the cashier stands your items. You will then be called forward to pay once the cashier is safely behind their screen.
- CARD PAYMENTS ONLY!
- Vacate the exit area immediately.
On the plus side, the same reader says other shops in her neighbourhood are being more reasonable:
A local grocer has a simple sign outside his shop saying: ‘Only five people at a time’. (It’s not a big shop – I can’t remember ever seeing more than five people in there at any one time.)
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. It still takes me about nine hours a day, what with doing these updates, moderating your comments and commissioning original material. And my journalist helpers have gone! If you feel like donating, however small, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in tomorrow’s update, email me here.
And Finally…
This meme has been doing the rounds for a while, but I thought it particularly appropriate today after watching the press pack hound Dominic Cummings and whip up public anger against him. I know what it’s like to be pursued by an outrage mob and it aint pretty. Whatever you think of the rights and wrongs of the matter, no one deserves this.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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Just watched this (was on last night)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jjh1/unprecedented-series-1-episode-1
This is the first decent covid related thing to come out of BBC. And the third story is a cracker… could be a documentary!!!
I know the Mail does like to use any pretext available to get sex and scantily clad females onto its site (that nurse in lingerie story from Russia is still lingering on the international front page a week later), but I must admit I found this one funny:
Sex workers offer to limit customers to two positions which ‘minimise the risk of transmitting coronavirus’ to enable brothels to end lockdown in Switzerland
“It comes as Switzerland’s adult industry has been heavily hit by the pandemic, after the government placed a temporary ban on prostitution two months ago to help stop the spread of the virus.
The plan to reopen the industry, prepared by the organisation ProKoRe, suggests that sex positions which allow for a safe distance between faces, such as ‘doggy style’ and ‘reverse cowgirl’, are advisable. “
Somebody posted on one of the Newspaper comments sections that NHS staff can sign up for overtime then call in sick with suspected CV and still get paid the OT.
Anyone linked to NHS able/willing to confirm this?
Today’s little victory. In Sains weighing my loose fruit and veg some blue mask wearing young numpty (male) attempted to engage me in conversation from approx 3m – presumably to be on the safe side. Initially I ignored him but after his 2nd attempt I couldn’t resist. So I told him – “take off the mask, move closer then we can talk”. He declined my offer and fled. It felt good!
As I’m slightly hard of hearing, I have trouble understanding what is being said if the speaker is wearing a mask anyway. It comes out muffled, and as I have to lip read quite often, it can be a real problem. This is genuine by the way, not just me being awkward – for once! LOL
Here you go, Carrie. BBC’s got you covered:
Coronavirus: Call for clear face masks to be ‘the norm’
Just listened to the daily briefing, first time since early April. The plan for track & trace lockdown sound terrifying, If you are in contact with someone who tests positive you will be contacted and told to isolate, but you will not be told who you have been in contact with.
That just sounds like it is designed to make life, and especially work life nigh on impossible.
Isolate for two weeks, go back to work, rub shoulders with someone else who is positive, off work again.
What about people who are in high risk groups, diabetics, people with hear disease, etc. Are they going to be able to do work where they mix with others?
How are employers going to be able to afford to do this?
Mad, mad, mad world.
Did they say if you had to download the app? I’m not doing it unless they make me!
Ditto.
They did not say, but I think they said T&T would be active from 1st June.
I will resist, like most on here I would have thought, masks, vaccines & apps.
You do not have to download the app whatever anyone says.
Not yet anyway!
They would have to give me a smart-phone first anyway. My PAYG Nokia is about 20 years old, used perhaps 30 times and quite incapable of anything smarter than actually phoning someone. Just as I like it!
Me too Ian. My trusty Nokia is only 10 years old though.
Everyone will realise it’s ridiculous before they even start. And not d/l the app. Hopefully.
Plus like have they said how they are gonna enforce this BS? Are they gonna send a few police round to your house every few days to check you’re there? Or could you just leave your phone at home and go put anyway?
— They know it’s complete lunacy. They’re just having to set all this crap up to make people feel ‘safe’. But trist me convenience will soon tump safety once people start having to lock themselves up again every two weeks.
Has the data protection side of it been sorted yet?
Forgive me, I don’t watch the briefings because I get shouty and throw things . . . so how does this track and trace work? How do they actually find you? Is it still via a mobile phone app or have they given up on that? I can see me starting to leave my mobile phone at home very soon . . .
Is Track and Trace going to be compulsory? Ie that by law everyone must download the app?
I don’t think the app is, but the army of contract tracers will be coming for you by phone….. and how do they get your phone number, pray tell?
Good luck getting hold of me, I don’t answer unknown numbers. And I sure as shit aren’t returning their call if they leave a message.
Nope, mad, mad, mad politicians. It really is the lunatics in charge.
And all for a virus that’s on it’s last legs.
Well…..My furlough time officially ended today, & I returned to my work (which closed on the 24th of March) & I need to say, this Covid 19 business policy is utter nonsense. I work in a manufacturing plant (it makes non essential things) & it’s utter bollocks now.
Before my shift started, I was given a little digital thermometer, which I have to place under my tongue (every morning before I start my shift & after I have clocked in) to get my temperature. This is then noted down by someone (it was 34.8) then I also now need to wear one of those stupid blue face masks that you see some people wearing when out shopping etc.
It’s truly horrible, & to be expected to wear one for 8 hours every day is utter nonsense. & due to the stupid Covid 19 business policy, my work has done away with the vending machine & kettle in the canteen & also the water vending machines in the factory now have NO paper cups, you need to now bring your own bottle or cup to have a drink of water!!
Oh & only 3 people at a time are allowed in… Read more »
Not sure they can force you to wear a mask if you have existing breathing issues !
If anyone tries to make me wear one in a warehouse I tell them I can’t breathe cause of my hayfever 😆
Again, I don’t have hay fever, but…I might develop that…or Asthma 🤔
Hay fever can indeed come on later in life, for people who’ve never had it before.
Ideal…duly noted. Thank you John
Yup. I didn’t have any symptoms until my mid20s
Really? See…I don’t have any known health issues, but when I spoke with my sister about it today, she said tell my work that I suffer from Asthma & I won’t need to wear it. But my work has my medical form that I filled in when I started & I never mentioned anything about having Asthma (because I don’t have it) would that actually work? Because I genuinely don’t want to wear one, today was horrible.
work really slow telling them you can’t get a good breath and you feel a bit lightheaded. Take plenty of breaks for twenty minutes at a time to clear your head. Do everything and anything to mess their nonsense up.
Good idea also Biker, I will actually consider doing that.
I would certainly record all the symptoms you’ve experienced this evening – shortness of breath, coughing up phlegm, soreness around the mouth and nose, etc.
How do you get on with your GP – would he/she be sympathetic ?
I’d just say “No thanks, asthma.”. And see where it goes from there. Got any colleagues with allergies/ asthma/hay fever/ bronchitis ?
I don’t really see my doctor often, infact, I cannot remember the last time I did. Long time ago though. I might actually try the hay fever one, as it’s seriously not good wearing a mask. Cheers for the suggestion John.
So they’ve stopped cups of tea because of Covid?? It just seems to be a cover-all excuse for any random shittiness these days.
Apparently they are a source of contracting coronavirus, that’s what I was told…it’s utter bollocks though, my kettle in my house has never been a source of infection, like ever. As for the vending machine in my house….I’m kidding, but I agree with you guy153, it’s disguised as coronavirus policy, but is more than likely random shittyness by the company, but they are just going with the Covid 19 business guidance apparently….
34.8 deg C – that is low, better see a doctor as it’s a couple of degrees below normal. new coronavirus symptom?
It might have been 36.8, I feel fine…I will pay more attention to it tomorrow 😂 maybe the thermometer was broken?…or I do have a new coronavirus symptom…🤔😂😂 me bad.
I was stunned at having to do it in the first place.
Infact tomorrow, I might just jog to work (I don’t normally do any jogging) & go in all sweating & out of breath…🤔😂
34.8 is technically hypothermia (core body temperature), in my day you had to be trained to take and record temperatures, clearly a life-threatening Killer Virus means that good medical practice goes out the window 😉
These idiot journalists are at it again. Nothing but Cummings questions. Good for Matt Hancock, he’s just swatting the clowns down one by one. His dismissal of Peston was classic.
So now defending Cummings has got you on the side of the people who imposed the lockdown, on this issue at least.
Personally I’m wallowing in absolute hatred for Cummings and the press and Matt Handjob and pretty much everyone atm. There are no heroes. Handjob beating the press down out of self interest is nothing to be admired even if they are hack scumbags.
I have to share this immediately. It is not new so apologies if you have already seen it:
‘What is notable is that these patterns of difference in response to COVID-19 seem to directly mirror differences in late life expectancy, in general. After the age of sixty five, men have shorter life expectancies, African Americans have shorter life expectancies and people with co-morbidity have shorter life expectancies. It seems a reasonable hypothesis to suggest that COVID-19 is like a magnifying glass, amplifying but not fundamentally altering the chronology of life and death nor the impact of social divisions.’
http://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2020/05/20/covid-19-amplifies-but-doesnt-alter-the-chronology-of-life-and-death/
So Covid 19 mortality is just like normal mortality by age, only bigger?
If you then take out collateral damage from health systems with too little surge capacity overwhelmed by panic; aggressive, inappropriate treatments doing more harm than good to the elderly and infirm; the effects of discharging large numbers of the elderly and infirm from hospitals to make way for covid 19 patients that never turn up; what you are left with may very well turn out to be…….you got there before me.
Any public enquiry (now required sooner rather than later) should be given the title:
‘Oh For Heaven’s Sake!’
It has occurred to me before that if SARS-Cov-2 was simply a harmless ‘marker virus’, we might well see exactly what we have seen.
The problem with any public enquiry is that it will probably start with the assumption that a lock-down was necessary and conclude that it should have started sooner.
I’d be amazed if any enquiry actually looked into the question of whether lock-downs work or if they do more harm than good.
I’m not so sure about that. Once the death toll from collateral damage starts mounting up there will be a lot of angry families demanding answers.
I’m hoping that people like David Davis won’t let go of it.
i think i dislike the Hairy Bikers more than the lockdown
I don’t know about anyone else, but this afternoon I officially lost it.
I had to go around a maze in the tiny village shop to find a condolence card for a friend who died last week of the Wuhan virus. There were no such cards that I could see. Ok. On to Tesco to return a couple of items, luckily with no queuing as there weren’t many shoppers there, which is unusual for that store. But there’s still the maze to get through to get to the self-checkouts, half of which weren’t working, and the rest had screens between them to stop the virus spread. Presumably.
Then on to B&Q to return some wallpaper. There was a small queue, but I was already getting extremely irritated at all the queuing, arrows, tape, obstructions, etc etc etc, so when I was told that I had to take a trolley in with me, despite the fact that I didn’t want one, which meant I had to touch something I didn’t need or want to, I was told I couldn’t go in the store without a trolley, “for social distancing” and it was “company policy”.
That was the last straw and… Read more »
This will only ever change if we can convince the companies involved that they will lose more business by imposing this nonsense than by not being seen to take the panic seriously.
It will only change if there are enough of us to convince them. I don’t think there is. The people of this country are far too soft and accomodating. They’ll grumble and complain when the weather turns horrible, assuming all these measures stay in place that long. I worry that people will just get used to it.
I’m certainly not going back to that store in a hurry, that’s for sure, but now have to figure out what to do with a spare roll of wallpaper that I don’t need….
We can chip away at it by telling staff in the shops as we leave that we are leaving because of their coronapanic measures and will be shopping elsewhere. It might eventually get passed on. And we can write letters saying the same.
You’re right that at the moment there are too few of us and too many coronahysterics, But we have to start somewhere. If nothing else, at least it starts to get across that there are actually costs in terms of customer relations as well as benefits, in all the coronapanic theatre stuff.
Put it on freecycle! Then you will be doing someone a favour if they need wallpaper.
Our Tesco has all the tape and crap but actually lets people in continuously so there’s little or no queue and it’s often quite busy in there. So this has become the first choice of shop. Probably also why it’s quite crowded. Other shops can cater for people who would rather queue up all day. It’s a free market.
As long as there’s flexibility allowed by the local government enforcers, people will eventually vote with their feet and the companies will have to respond.
Send child/teenager to return it for you ? Suitable bribe, or a percentage !
I am seriously wondering now if all this nonsense in shops is really necessary for health reasons, or whether it is simply the government trying to reassure the numpties who are still hiding behind their sofas, that it is safe to come out? Trying to reassure them? If so, let’s hope the whole idea gets put into the newest dustbin as soon as possible.
It’s definitely not necessary for health. Whether the government thinks it is or not is another question.
Most likely, it appears, the government are the numpties on this…
Regarding the Cummings incident:
“When the people giving us these orders do not follow them themselves, they are not showing themselves to be “hypocrites”. They are showing themselves to be liars. They are admitting they don’t really believe what they’re saying….
If I tell you you shouldn’t eat chocolate, because it will make your head explode, then I take your chocolate off you and eat it – you wouldn’t think “You hypocrite! You fool! That could make your head explode!”, would you?
You’d be far more likely to think “Hey, he lied to me so he could steal my chocolate.”
(To fully complete the metaphor there needs to be a third person there, saying “but chocolate never made our heads explode before”, and being roundly insulted by the other two as a “Chocolate Denier”, who “just wants people’s heads to explode!”)”
From https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/26/the-real-meaning-behind-dominic-cummings-breaking-lockdown/
It’s a fair point. I maintain the real issue though should be that Cummings was one of the Guilty Men who imposed lockdown on all of us.
Shouldn’t everyone here just want him out of government, by any means and on whatever pretext, if only so we can move on to the next target? I certainly do, and I’m generally in sympathy with his wider politics.
I think the above article is saying that Cummings is one of the architects of the policy.
If he is removed now, it won’t be for the right reasons, and the public will lose the resentment for the lockdown that they are currently feeling because of him. Keeping him in his position will encourage more people to begin to ignore the lockdown – not simply ‘break’ the lockdown; but fundamentally stop believing in it. So I am happy if he stays, for now.
I don’t think so. Certainly it doesn’t explicitly use the “distraction” as a pretext to argue for him staying in place, as some here seem to be doing. As far as I can tell it’s just saying that the issues themselves (did he obey the lockdown or not) are a distraction from what him breaking the lockdown means – he didn’t believe in it.
Which is true in a sense, but again the article’s point itself is a distraction from what surely should be the real point here, which is the absolutely fundamental one I made just now – he is one of the Guilty Men. Don’t we want him out, ffs?
Yes, it would be great if we could have him removed for the “right reasons” – that lockdown was a catastrophic piece of governmental incompetence on a historic scale. When exactly are you expecting that to happen, if he survives this issue?
Seems to me to be a classic case of making the perfect the enemy of the good to me (though I think some of the people making these arguments are just trying to protect a mate or an ally, because that’s actually more… Read more »
Agree. What DC has done in effect is to shout (on behalf of the government) “hey look, you can’t trust anything we say to you”.
Now some lockdown sceptics may take this as a victory, showing that “look, we couldn’t trust them to tell us the truth about lockdown, so it’s all null and void”.
The problem with that is, the lockdown believe can just say “we cannot trust you to tell us when it’s safe”, and we end up with stalemate instead of people moving forward together.
I can see the argument that says that if he is the main motivator for the whole thing, then if he is removed then that motivation goes too. And also that the resentment will fade anyway by next week and DC will be forgotten again. So best to get rid of the source of the lockdown poison.
But in this case, I think that the lockdown mindset is endemic throughout the whole lot of them. You just had to hear that government advisor called Reicher immediately saying that “People will die” because of Cummings remaining in post to understand that it’s best to leave him in place. Not so that people will die, of course, but because we know they won’t die, and we need that to be seen.
So start picking them off, one by one. I mean, if you are going to let one you’ve got in your sights go because “he’s not all of them”, what possible plan is there for making the Guilty Me pay a real price ever, at all?
Or do we just let them all “move on” and “look forwards” and “be constructive”?
If Cummings remains, he can only do so because most people (other than the usual suspects) get bored of the story. And once most people are bored of the story there’s no more of the kind of damage you are claiming as the purpose of keeping him on, by definition.
Maybe. But as the article linked to above is saying, if you claim the scalp of a ‘hypocrite’ it is not the same as saying that the whole lockdown is a charade. You’ve just removed an individual scalp and not cast any doubt on the lockdown as a policy. Alternatively, if you can show the people that the reason for the lockdown is a lie and maybe you’re in business.
Removing the Guilty Men from power one by one is surely better than nothing, which is the alternative on offer. It’s the only meaningful political victory that’s available at the moment to people who genuinely mean what they say about the importance of lockdown.
Getting them sacked for perpetrating the lockdown itself, or to admit error, simply is not on the table atm and likely won’t be for some time.
Either do something concrete now when you have the opportunity, or decline the opportunity because some of the target’s mates want to protect him. That’s what’s really at issue here.
“<i>Alternatively, if you can show the people that the reason for the lockdown is a lie and maybe you’re in business.</i>”
That’s in the bag already as far as it can be achieved from the Cummings business. If Cummings survives, as I said above, it can only be because people get bored and move on.
No. I disagree.
He may have been part of the government who imposed this lockdown, but that wasn’t his first instinct. Don’t forget that everyone was freaking out of the first policy of allowing “herd immunity” to take place, and not a Chines Communist Party-style lockdown. The government ministers were panicked into it by the apocalyptic predictions of Ferguson.
Plus: a friend of ours died from this virus last week, which he acquired whilst in hospital being treated for a bad bronchial infection a few weeks earlier. During his first admission he was tested negative for the Wuhan virus, but when he was readmitted the second time, he was positive. The only place he could have caught it, according to his wife who is a retired NHS nurse, is in the hospital.
It’s a nasty viral disease, which clearly is fatal to those who are vulnerable.
With Boris and Cummings having both contracted it, they will have seen its effects up close and very personal. Boris ended up in hospital. They’re going to view it differently from those of us who haven’t been affected.
If you take Cummings out of the picture, they will go after Boris next, and… Read more »
“He may have been part of the government who imposed this lockdown, but that wasn’t his first instinct. “
Oh come on! “Protect the holy NHS at all costs” has Cummings’ political management fingerprints all over it. He’s even openly admitted supporting the lockdown, as I understand it.
Ar you really going to try to pretend Cummings and Johnson were somehow innocent of the lockdown crime!?
“If you take Cummings out of the picture, they will go after Boris next“
Good. What part of “he imposed lockdown on us” don’t you understand?
Find another “Conservative” Party MP who’s sound on Brexit to lead the government, ffs! Make these f****rs pay a real price for lockdown.
I have to agree. Maybe Boris is intelligent on one level, but I do believe that his listening to Ferguson et al. shows him to be very stupid on another. And that combined with his general shiftiness and untrustworthiness (that I previously forgave because he was funny) means that he is dead to me now…
His old chums at university, Tobes and Delingpole, have a far better understanding of how science works – and fails – than he does.
Someone posted this on Brendan O’Neill’s Facebook page:
A great T-shirt!
It would make a great poster or sticker as well
Just knocked up the graphic below for sharing on social media. Any appetite for more of these?
That’s very good.
Sorry to rain on your parade but where are you getting those figures from? According to the ONS website there have been 4581 covid19 deaths of people under 65 in the UK so far. On the other hand thetotal road traffic deaths for 2019 were 1870. So you are 3 times more likely to die from Covid19.
It’s good to spread information promoting the cause, but not misinformation.
But how many had underlying health issues? (the commenter stipulates that)
Yes that did cross my mind but in that case you would need a figure for RTA deaths with no underlying health issues as well, otherwise you are comparing apples and pears.
Note also that the RTA figures were also for a full year, so the figure to June would be likely half of that (making the covid19 ratio worse).
No, health issues most likely isn’t relevant for RTAs, it’s legitimate just to give a general population risk, as a rough guide. As you say, the comparison should be half the annual RTA toll against the deaths (ideally) due to covid not with covid, to people with no underlying serious conditions (ie the group targeted by the comment).
Well… OK. But @PaulParanoia may be using monthly figures – it is you who is quoting yearly. Maybe PP has a calculator and has divided by 12!
Great points Max.
I started with 4,267 from Week 19 of the ONS figures.
You have to dig deeper into the ONS website to find the data related to pre-existing conditions. You can see this information broken down by age by downloading the data for figure 11 here … https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19englandandwales/deathsoccurringinapril2020. Elsewhere the ONS says pre-existing conditions were present in 90.6% of moralities.
That left me with 401 deaths under 65 with no pre-existing conditions.
It does look like I messed up the road traffic figures though. You are correct about the 1870 figure giving us 4.7 times the risk. I also didn’t account for the traffic figures being a whole year. So we really end up with just over twice the risk. I’ll update the graphic and re-post here.
Updated graphic.
Nice one, Paul.
Just to be absolutely accurate though you need to check the 90.6% applies to the under 65’s and is not skewed by the oldies.
Also you need to multiply the RTA figure by the % of healthy (no underlying conditions) people in the general population – otherwise you are not comparing the same cohort (if we’d said “children” instead of “no underlying conditions” you will see why that makes sense).
That said, I think your “more than twice” statement probably stands up, so good to go with that.
Looking at the ONS data again it appears their numbers don’t add up. They show 6,471 people under 70 dying of Covid to the end of week 19. While for the months of March and April they show a total of 6,697 under 70s died with pre-existing conditions. So 103% of deaths had pre-existing conditions!
Maybe some of the April / May pre-existing condition deaths were wrongly classed as Covid-19 and were later removed from the weekly figures.
If the ONS can’t get their numbers to line up, what hope do we have.
That’s very good, thank you!
Updated graphic to correct the mistake pointed out by Max.
Just read a forum post that suggests based on a UCLA paper that found for unemployment reduced life expectancy by 1.5 years. This could mean 3.5 million premature deaths due to the lockdown, and the 5.25 million lost life years equates to 64,496 people dying based on the life expectancy in the UK for 2020:
https://lockdownsceptics.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=21&p=31#p31
Heard the latest?
RNLI are not bothering to safeguard beaches.
Two people drown because RNLI does not save them.
RNLI tells government to ban everybody from beaches.
Will that include illegal migrants coming across the Channel? will the RNLI go out to save them if they get into trouble, and if the beaches are closed, will the migrants also be banned?
Who the fuck do the RNLI they think they are? They’ll be expecting Police powers next. If people want to swim in the sea and take a chance of drowning, let them.
How about they just do their fucking jobs. — Members of the public donate millions per year to the RNLI. Absolute disgrace.
Perhaps it’s time to stop donating. They’ve been taken over by the Social Justice Warriors anyway, who are more concerned about “sexist” cups used by the guys who man (!) the boats.
Pretty soon more teenagers will have been killed by cowardly lifeguards than the coronavirus.
I’m willing to bet there will be people out there saying they deserved it and making some dumb comment about Darwin Awards.
That will be the same people who claim these measures are necessary in order to save lives.
This website has now got so many comments and commenters on it that my browser is struggling to return all the HTML… 🙂
Upgrade time again (already!)… or at least some lazy loading would be good
More Lockdown Lunacy:
Kurt Geiger will “quarantine” shoes that are tried on by customers for 24 hours
https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/05/kurt-geiger-to-quarantine-shoes-for-24hrs-as-it-gradually-reopens-stores-in-june/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020200526%20%20Facebook%20%20JO+CID_24e9a9f1c6b798532865b5a58f3a948a
Well that’s another shop I won’t be going to – never had done anyway as many of their shoes are impractical and overpriced.
Worth popping in just to try on a half-dozen pairs ? 🙂
And then walk out not buying anything? Might do that to take the mickey.
It does make you wonder … have the morons who set these rules ever actually been inside a shop?
I expect they have…but they want to be alone…all alone…and bankrupt….
The WHO says a second wave is increasingly unlikely. Meantime, the imbeciles in the media focus on Cummings: https://twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1265232235705270272
That’s it. Know the real bigger enemy here, and hold them to account!
I think we all know a few of these ‘Blue Pill People’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC_lZLzCrOI&feature=youtu.be
Excellent, Offlands, thanks.
Now I have to work out which of my family/friends/neighbours won’t take it too personally if I forward it to them. 🙂
My dad just came round!! 🥰 First time I’ve seen him in over two months…
What has become of the world when just going about a normal life is now a threat to society?
Good on him/you.
He was so chuffed to be able to come round! AND his bowls club is open again!
Good on your dad!!!!
Good.
Even Trip Advisor is fed up:
If shops implement all this anti-social distancing rubbish I won’t bother going into them!
The government must end this farce now and re-open everything.
I loathe going to the supermarket , and with social distancing I won’t be visiting the high street anytime soon.
https://www.thelocal.no/20200522/norway-could-have-controlled-infection-without-lockdown-health-chief
There seem to be real epidemiologists not far from the UK
“The head of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health believes Norway could have brought the coronavirus pandemic under control without a lockdown, and called for the country to avoid such far-reaching measures if hit by a second wave.”
Apparently a leaked letter/email showed that Norway decided to go into lockdown against the recommendations of the health experts. I’ve seen similar reports on Denmark too.
The evidence is mounting that lockdowns were politically motivated decisions.
Ooh have you got a link, where did you see that?
I’m sure there was a link in the comments thread here in previous days. I’m sorry I didn’t save the link.
I don’t think it was as positive as that. Rather:
You have plenty of loo paper.
But everybody else is buying loo paper.
So you buy loo paper.
And there is a panic.
Similarly:
You do not need a l.d.
But everybody else is imposing a l.d. …
Need I go on?
I think the decisions were political. Something along these lines:
“No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are No. 1 and No. 2. Whatever is No. 3 is far behind”.
Thomas Sowell, Economist
This is what happened in Germany too. The emergency planners recommended no lockdown – they were ignored in favour of the RKI’s forecast models. Sound familiar?
Sweden’s arse was saved by the fact they have a system that locks out central government aka politicians as soon as a state of emergency is declared. So the actual government DEPARTMENTS took over, what they recommended had to be implemented. Hence- no politics and no lockdown.
Somebody else posted the link further down the comments… But absolutely note that is is NO social distancing in the media witch hunt press pack after Cummings, and no social distancing when it comes to police either. They know it’s shote
This to me is the killer.
We can think what we like about Cummings, but know your greater enemy.
Found another way of correlating coronavirus to fatalities on the twatter feed coronabollocks:
https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1264223201955102727
Makes as much sense as the ring finger thing in the Daily Wail.
Again, I’ll defend the target from ridicule. I think that that graphic comes from a Tony Heller video, “Guilty – of breathing”, where he argues that Democrat governors, like the NHS, sent infected COVID cases to nursing homes, while Republicans did not. (I haven’t checked to see if he cherry-picked his data.) Cuomo actually issued an executive order in New York that a nursing home would be closed down if it refused transfers from hospitals, explicitly saying that infection status was not an acceptable reason for refusal.
So it is possible that that would have been clear if the tweet was in its original context. Candace Owen is a typical target for the Woke Left (being a prominent Young Black Female Trump supporter), so maybe the context was deliberately removed.
So cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel? To quote Blackadder.
Just sent the following query to the 3 local councils in my area that I frequent:
To the Chief Environmental Health Officer,
Self-isolation being forced on individuals. It is not law. Is it just a way of avoiding having to follow due process in the legislation regarding isolation of infected individuals and having the local authority being liable for paying compensation as stated in the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984? It certainly seems so. All the authorities have to say is “they did it voluntarily” and they are off the hook for getting tests performed to confirm the exact infection as stated in the legislation (which is not possible as there is not one yet), having a proper person of the local authority write a notice as per the standards specified by the Secretary of Health, get a Justice of the Peace to sign the notice then it be served on the individual, the individual taken to hospital until well again and to pay the individual compensation.
Why are shops, takeaways etc bringing in social-distancing, one way systems, plastic screens etc when there is no law about this? Is it an attempt to sidestep… Read more »
Great questions!
Interestingly I see that Boris’s net approval rating has just gone negative (down almost 50% over the last 5 or 6 weeks!).
https://order-order.com/2020/05/26/boris-net-approval-goes-negative-government-approval-drops-16-points/
Yes, Toby twists and turns remarkably at times!
No lockdown Japan, what’s going on?:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-22/did-japan-just-beat-the-virus-without-lockdowns-or-mass-testing
This may be a little simplistic:
Japan & South Korea, no lockdown = hardly any deaths
NZ & Oz, lockdown = Similar result to Japan & SK but with lots of collateral damage
Sweden, no lockdown but with modest social distancing = relatively high death toll
UK, Spain, Italy, lockdown (fairly strict relative to Sweden) = Higher death toll and lots of collateral damage
What’s the case for lockdown again?
Japan is basically going back to life as before. Surely if they can do it then it’s possible elsewhere.
That’s interesting. Spanish TV quoted Abe yesterday as saying “we’ll have to get used to new ways of thinking, a new way of life”. More media lying then.
I think there will always be an element paranoia in case there’s a resurgence of the virus. Everyone will need to be ready to act relatively quickly. There will be some changes no doubt but they don’t have to be as drastic as what’s being proposed here and in other countries.
Thanks. Makes sense given what Toby and others have been saying about Japan.
Any idea what the Japanese media are saying?