Abandon Ridiculous Two-Metre Rule
I’ve written a piece in today’s Telegraph entitled: “For the sake of our economy, we need to scrap the absurd two-metre rule.” I point out that this and other over-cautious social-distancing rules will mean our economy is permanently stuck in second gear.
For most shops, the only way to keep customers six feet apart will be to introduce cumbersome one-way systems and force them to queue up outside. All very well when the only retail outlets we’re talking about are supermarkets and newsagents, but how will people observe that rule on the pavement when there are queues outside every shop?
For pubs and restaurants, due to reopen on July 4th, the two-metre rule will mean that many of them can’t resume trading and those that can will be forced to operate at less than 50% capacity.
I also point out that there’s no scientific basis for the rule.
What’s so absurd about this measure, which will decimate the hospitality trade, is that there’s no obvious scientific basis for it and many countries are much more relaxed. In South Korea, for instance, the acceptable distance in 1.4 metres, and in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and France, people are only expected to stay one metre apart.
Indeed, the World Health Organisation says a distance of one metre is more than sufficient. In Sweden, which has had fewer deaths per million than the UK in spite of not locking down formally, there is no hard-and-fast rule. People are just expected to use their common sense.
Boris Johnson is reported to be reconsidering the two-metre rule. Worth reading in full, Prime Minister.
SAGE Member Does U-Turn on Lockdown
No, it’s not what you think. Yesterday, a member of SAGE gave a press conference in which he warned that the Government was easting lockdown too fast. This is how it was reported on the BBC News website:
A scientist on the UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has suggested he does not agree with easing the lockdown at this stage.
In a briefing to health journalists Prof John Edmunds, from the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine, said that 8,000 new infections a day in England, as calculated by the Office for National Statistics, was “a very high incidence” level.
“Many of us would prefer to see incidence down to lower levels before we relax measures,” he said.
He said that with an “untested” test and trace system “we are taking some risk here” and “even if we keep it flat, that’s still quite a level”.
“Lifting the lockdown is a political decision. Lifting it now, means we’re keeping incidence at this level,” he added.
The Labour MP Richard Burgon was so over-excited by this news, he linked to the BBC report and tweeted the following: “So the Government is no longer following the science. It’s a political decision and we can’t trust this Government to make the right decisions with public safety.”
But hang on a second. Is this the same Professor John Edmunds who told Channel 4 News on March 13th that “the only way to stop this epidemic is indeed to achieve herd immunity”?
I guess he’s changed his mind.
Nobel Laureate Skewers Member of Imperial College Modelling Team
A few days ago I linked to a fantastic webinar, organised out of Brazil, in which a group of scientists discussed the reliability of predications generated by epidemiological computer models and whether those predictions should be used as the basis for government responses to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Among the participants were Michael Levitt, Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford and the winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and Samir Bhatt, a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial’s School of Public Health.
One of my concerns as I’ve watched the British Government’s disastrous mishandling of this crisis unfold is that the people behind the Imperial College modelling that informed so much of the Government’s response will never be properly held to account. This webinar, in which Michael Levitt cross-examines Samir Bhatt, may be the closest we ever get.
If you have the time, I urge you to watch the whole thing. But if you don’t, watch it from the two-hour point onwards, in which Levitt begins to lose patience with the dissembling Bhatt. A reader has very kindly made a transcript of this part of the exchange. My favourite part is when Levitt – beginning to get angry – lays the blame for the coming global recession at the door of the Imperial College modelling team, whom he thinks wildly over-estimated the deadliness of the disease. “That is an error that has cost the world many, many trillions of dollars, but it isn’t a joke. I mean an error like that is not a small error,” he says.
Michael Levitt: I’m concerned by, there’s been a massive communications gap here and you know one question that I did raise which Rui didn’t pick up, is I’ve noticed that for example, that epidemiologists and I’m not talking about you guys, don’t think anything wrong about being a factor of 10 too high but are dead scared to be a factor of 10% too low.
I mean the number of deaths caused by lockdown is way higher than anything that will be caused by Covid, unless you assume exponential growth, forever. So, therefore this is a price that the world is paying for this asymmetry. In other words, I don’t know how we handle it, you know.
Sweden is not locked down. You guys are going to have a very hard time when Sweden plateaus at 6,000 deaths, which is 0.06, 0.6 per 100,000, and you can say well they social distance, they’re Scandinavians, they’re cold, there’s high population density. But, you know, the fact remains that the plateau rate of population reached by England, New York City, Lombardy, France is basically around one month of natural death. Ferguson said a year of natural death. That is horrible. That is an error that has cost the world many, many trillions of dollars, but it isn’t a joke. I mean an error like that is not a small error.
Now you could say, oh it’s our intervention, we intervened, Sweden intervened by itself, Italy was a very intervened country. Anyone who believes that Iran intervened is crazy.
Certain countries, there’s no doubt that the one place where there’s beautiful intervention is a part of China I call non-Hubei China…
In Hubei, the Chinese were out of control, but out of Hubei the epidemic is the most beautiful Gompertz function. It was so beautiful that everyone said they must have hacked my computer, except that New Zealand has the same distribution and other countries do as well. So I am trying to understand this.
There’s no doubt that once lockdown has been forced, everyone’s going to believe it was a good thing because otherwise why did we need to do it? But there’s no evidence for it.
Samir Bhatti: It’s not about believing if it’s a good thing. What mechanism do you conjecture for the plateauing of death in the UK that’s not lockdown?
ML: It reached one in a thousand. It’s nothing to do with lockdown. The UK policy led to early saturation. The whole country was infected before lockdown was done. The same thing was true of New York.
SB: No serological data supports this hypothesis.
ML: This is going to saturate at 20% serology. We know that already. You know this assumption that 80% based on R0 is basically nonsense. You guys don’t know what you’re doing to yourselves. You guys are going to end up being responsible for a hundred billion dollar crisis to the world and this is not funny.
And you start to use clean terminology. Don’t estimate herd immunity from an R0 value, which is completely meaningless. If the R0 value is 1.3 then I get saturation at 25%. The Diamond Princess, this wonderful experiment, saturated at 25% and you can say, “Oh, it was such good lockdown. We had shared air conditioning, it was an aged population.”
It doesn’t work. In other words, there needs to be sanity checks. Sanity checks come from looking at the data.
SB: OK so we’re going to talk about the data then. So you’re hypothesis is that infection fatality rate is much lower, everyone has been infected, that’s what caused the curve to bend. A massive serological study occurred just now in Spain, suggesting that with the 28,000 deaths, 5% of the population has been infected based on serology.
ML: And I think we’ve seen that the serological studies have serious shortcomings. We’re now seeing signs there may be T cell receptors.
Daily Mail Guide to Having a Socially Distanced BBQ
This illustration is in today’s Daily Mail, based on advice from Professor Patricia Riddell, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Reading.
Prof Riddell recommended asking guests to bring their own cutlery, plates and condiments to reduce the risk of virus transmission through touching the same surfaces, and having only one person using the tongs.
She also endorsed serving food on plates from a distance rather than everyone approaching the grill, setting out seats in advance for people to sit two metres apart, and sitting alongside each other rather than face to face.
Can’t say it looks like a barrel of laughs. Bagsy not sit next to the guy with the guitar.
Brazilian Scientists Challenge Concept of “the Science”, Defend Hydroxychloroquine
A group of more than 25 Brazilian scientists have written an open letter, questioning the idea that indiscriminately locking down whole populations, as well as other responses to the pandemic, is supported by “the science”. In particular, it challenges the idea that “the science” has concluded hydroxychloroquine shouldn’t be used to treat patients with COVID-19.
The letter has been coordinated by Marcos Nogueira Eberlin. He’s a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Campinas. Founder of the Thomson Mass Spectrometry Laboratory and winner of the prestigious Thomson Medal (2016), Eberlin is recognized worldwide as one of the most productive mass spectrometrists ever, having published close to 1,000 scientific articles. He discovered the Eberlin Reaction during his work on gas phase ion chemistry, and he and his research group introduced EASI (Easy Ambient Sonic-spray Ionization), an ionization technique used in mass spectrometry. In other words, a highly-respected, mainstream scientist.
It’s not the usual dry, scholarly dirge, but an angry, impassioned screed. (The caps haven’t been added by me.) I’m going to quote the opening few paragraphs in full because they’re so good.
During this pandemic, the term “science” has been used “ad nauseam”, that is, has been repeated to exhaustion: “Science, science, science”, “I’m pro-science”, “For from the science, through the science and to the science I guide my decisions and acts” and “I am, therefore, fully right to do so”. It is clear that the intention here is to lead all of us to the idea of decisions based on something unquestionable and infallible, as scientific as law, as the law of gravity.
Groups of “science experts” or famous YouTube scientists, many of them still “beginners” in science, some of them with a minimal or no experience in fighting pandemics, are selected by the establishment and the media to give “scientific aura” for the lockdown and the condemnation of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as an ineffective drug; worse, as a deadly poison.
That disastrous apocalyptic simulations from the “Imperial College” – this pompous name that brings us to the idea of a center of excellence of infallible, omnipotent and unquestionable knowledge, an “College of the Empire” – are being used to place everyone at home, and then, to compare data as being the absolute reference of the truth. “We did something and as a result, we reduced those many deaths. Therefore: ‘blessed be the science!’”.
But what kind of “science” is that to which they are appealing? And who, in the name of this “science”, would be allowed to speak? Science (I know that there are controversies, as scientists even debate on its meaning) is “the dispassionate search for the truth about the Universe and life”. But ironically, we seek truths that we don’t even know what those truths would be like, or where they would be found. For this reason, sometimes, ironically, even when scientists find a truth that is indeed true, yet they doubt that they have found it. We literally zigzag in the dark, searching for solutions to our problems. Therefore, we sometimes say that: “eating eggs is bad, it increases cholesterol”; and sometimes: “eggs are good, eat at ease”.
Richard Feynman put it this way: “Science is the culture of doubt”. And I would add, “science is the culture of debate, of divergence of opinions”.
Rarely, there are situations in which we reach consensus in science, even a momentary consensus. Some defend the “Big Bang” and the theory of evolution, others, including myself, are skeptical of them. Some defend with data and papers the central role of men in global warming, others defend, with the same data and papers, that human activity is irrelevant. Scientists are human beings, therefore, skeptics and enquirers who can and should speak for themselves, like all scientists have the right to do, but NEVER A SCIENTIST OR A GROUP OF THEM CAN DECLARE TO BE AUTHORIZED TO SPEAK IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE!
Nobody, absolutely nobody is allowed to speak for science or declare that he is “been guided” by science! In times of pandemic, this impossibility is even greater, as we face an unknown enemy. Data is still being collected and researches are being performed and published by scientists divided by their worldviews, and by their political and party preferences.
Whoever said he acted in the name of science, dishonestly usurped science prestige. For what type of “science” is this, unanimous and consensual, that no one has ever heard of? Could someone give me its address so I can confirm its consent? Its phone, email and WhatsApp?
For defenders of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the next section is manna from heaven, ripping apart the studies that purport to show it’s ineffective or, worse, dangerous.
The Manaus’ study with chloroquine (CQ) performed here in Brazil and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) [1], is emblematic to this discussion of “science”. Scientists there used, the manuscript reveals, lethal doses in debilitated patients, many in severe conditions and with comorbidities. The profiles of the groups do not seem to have been “randomized”, since a clear “preference” in the HIGH DOSE group for risk factors is noted. Chloroquine, which is more toxic than HCQ, was used, and it seems that they even made “childish mistakes” in simple stoichiometric calculations, doubling the dosage with the error. I’m incapable of judging intentions, but justice will do it. The former Brazilian Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta quoted this study, supported it, and based on it, categorically stated: “I do not approve HCQ because I am based on ‘science, science, science’!”.
Definitely worth reading in full.
Incidentally, the recent HCQ study in the Lancet that led to the worldwide suspension of clinical trials of the drug and hospitals around the world yanking it from their treatment protocols has been criticised in another open letter signed by a group of scientists, this one addressed to Richard Horton, the Editor of the Lancet. It’s not quite as angry as the Brazilian letter, but almost. Also worth reading in full.
Trump Terminates the WHO
Donald Trump has said he’s “terminating” America’s relationship with the World Health Organisation (WHO), having already said the international body will get no more US funding.
The US president cited the body’s ties to Beijing as he made the announcement yesterday, saying: “China has total control over the World Health Organisation.”
Does this mean we’ll now be able to challenge some of the WHO’s wilder claims about the virus on YouTube? Interestingly, the WHO has just done another U-turn – is this number 657? – recommending against the wearing of masks.
As I’ve said before, if you’re the YouTube employee in charge of removing any content that contradicts the WHO’s recommendations about how to stay safe, keeping up with the organisation’s constant flip flops must be a nightmare.
Church Leaders Threaten Government With Judicial Review if Churches Aren’t Allowed to Reopen
A coalition of church leaders has written to the Government, threatening a Judicial Review if the ban on churches opening isn’t lifted. The pre-action letter supported by Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre argues that blanket ‘lockdown’ restrictions imposed on all churches are both unlawful and unnecessary, and asks the Government to prioritise the re-opening of churches as part of its exit-strategy.
The letter, which you can read here, says the blanket ban is disproportionate, given that lots of churches closed voluntarily and those that remained opened introduced social distancing measures. It also makes the argument that the ban contravenes the separation of church and state:
While the short-term practical difference between state regulation and church self-regulation may be limited in present circumstances, the principle of Church autonomy is extremely important in the broader constitutional context, and must be protected for the benefit of present and future generations.
Among the list of 24 claimants requesting an urgent meeting with the Government to discuss lifting the ban are Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, President, Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue (OXTRAD); Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo, Senior Pastor, Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC); and Revd. Dr David Hathaway, President of the Eurovision Mission to Europe.
Pastor Ade Omooba MBE, Christian Concern’s co-founder and one of the claimants in the letter, says:
It cannot be right that at present it is lawful to go to a bike shop, B&Q, visit a chiropractor or dry cleaner, and not be allowed to receive Holy Communion or engage in silent prayer in a church.
Similar legal challenges have been successful in other countries. Last week, France’s Supreme Court ruled that the French Government’s absolute ban on religious gatherings as part of its lockdown restrictions is unlawful, and ordered the Government to relax restrictions on religious worship.
The Government should lift the ban immediately or face the consequences.
Government Publishes Chart That Inadvertently Discredits its Own Policy
The Cabinet Office Briefing Room issued a chart yesterday (see above) showing that the Government’s first “test” – “We must be confident that we are able to provide sufficient critical care and specialist treatment right across the UK,” in the words of the Prime Minister – has been met. This was part of the rationale for allowing up to six people from different households to meet up from June 1st.
But look closely at the chart and you’ll see that in the small print on the left-hand side is says occupancy of mechanical ventilator beds in the NHS peaked on April 10th at 41%. In other words, the risk of the NHS’s critical care capacity being overwhelmed – something flagged up in Neil Ferguson’s March 16th paper and one of the key reasons for locking down the country on March 23rd – was exaggerated. We didn’t need to remain in our homes to “Protect the NHS” after all.
Another embarrassing implication of that number – only 41% of the NHS’s ventilators used – is that it makes a mockery of the Government’s wartime-style drive to manufacture more ventilators. Just as well, since the entire effort – dubbed the “ventilator challenge” – was a fiasco from start to finish. Not that it would have mattered if there had been a shortage and the “challenge” was a success, since ventilators are almost completely useless when it comes to treating patients with COVID-19.
Six Reasons the Cure is Worse Than the Disease
In the latest anti-lockdown jeremiad by Professor Ramesh Thakur, the former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations lists six reasons why the official response to the pandemic will end up causing more harm that it has prevented:
- Lockdowns will have a negative impact on mental health and lead to more suicides.
- With elective surgeries and routine screenings suspended, many diseases that would be treatable if caught in time will end up killing hundreds of thousands.
- People have been so terrorised by the propaganda unleashed by governments around the world that people requiring crucial care have refused to go to hospital, whether through fear of catching the virus, or because being good citizens they don’t want to trouble a badly over-burdened health system.
- The lockdowns reduced the amount of time people spent in the fresh air and sunshine, with some people being cooped up in high-risk environments like congested living complexes.
- Elderly hospital patients infected with COVID-19 were discharged into care and nursing homes to deadly effect, accounting for more than half of all Covid deaths.
- The deadliest impact of the lockdowns will be on the world’s poorest billion people over the next decade along multiple sub-pathways.
Worth reading in full.
Rioters in Minneapolis Comply With Mayor’s Order to Wear Face Masks in Shopping Malls
I got an email from a reader in Minneapolis yesterday, the American city that was set ablaze by rioters on Tuesday night following the death in police custody of George Floyd, a 46 year-old African-American, and has been burning ever since.
We’ve been a bit busy here in Minneapolis dealing with the city being burned down around us. It was oddly relaxing to think about Chinese viruses. All of the businesses I service – my customers – are either in ashes, boarded up or looted.
Here is the joke: Why did Minneapolis police stand by and watch the looters and arsonists destroy hundreds of businesses? Because the looters were complying with the Mayor’s order to wear a mask inside retail establishments.
Interestingly, that order took effect Tuesday at 5p.m. When did the rioting start? Tuesday evening….
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:
- ‘YouTube Cancels Another Video for Coronavirus Wrongthink‘ – James Delingpole Ridicules YouTube for censoring my video making the case against lockdowns
- ‘The Delingpod: James Delingpole Interviews Professor Dolores Cahill‘ – A double-helping from James today. In this one he interviews the dissident Irish virologist
- ‘Scots pensioner went for five days without food because she was scared to leave her flat during lockdown‘ – We’ll be hearing a lot more stories like this unfortunately
- ‘The lockdown’s founding myth‘ – Excellent reporting job by Christopher Snowdon in the Critic, thoroughly debunking the narrative that has the Government initially ignoring scientific advice about locking down the country and only reluctantly agreeing to do it once it had paid attention to “the science”
- ‘Two thirds of people contacted through tracing did not fully cooperate, pilot scheme finds‘ – Report in the BMJ about a pilot ‘test-and-trace’ scheme in Sheffield in which two-thirds of the people contacted refused to cooperate. Why then roll it out nationally?
- ‘Monkeys ‘escape with COVID-19 samples’ after attacking lab assistant‘ – No, not the plot line from the next Planet of the Apes sequel. This actually happened yesterday in India. Are these monkeys available to take over from Boris and pals?
- ‘Why most Covid-19 deaths won’t be from the virus‘ – Excellent piece for BBC Future by Zaria Gorvett summarising the case against lockdowns. Welcome to the club, Zaria
- ‘Scientists are intrigued by lack of lockdown looting‘ – The Times reports that the Government’s scientific advisors have expressed surprise over the lack of rioting during the crisis. Let’s hope nothing happens to confirm their fears
Theme Tune Suggestions From Readers
Some more suggestions for theme songs from readers: “Worry” by Blodwyn Pig, “When Will I See You Again?” by the Three Degrees (can’t believe we haven’t had that yet) and “Locked Up In Jail” by John Lee Hooker.
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
A couple of weeks ago, 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.
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. If you feel like donating, however paltry the amount, 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…
A reader made a slight adjustment to this Lord of the Rings meme. Works pretty well…
Discussion
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That “tosspott” was doing it for your own good. Your putting people in danger
For info – I have now heard of three people who have died with covid19 probably being mentioned on their death certificates. First was an 88 year old with failing kidneys and dementia who had been living in a nursing home for 16 years. The second and third were a couple, both of whom had been very ill for several years, who died in a nursing home. They were 88 and 90 years old. Just saying.
Very representative of most covid ‘cases’ I’d say.
Still think a second wave is crazy talk?
Fuck off you twat
Who is this Max Robespierre? Foot soldier in the 77th brigade?
From an unsourced post from a radical Jacobean leader, absolutely it is crazy talk.
Your bed sheets need changing again.
You are a bed wetting pansy pal…wrong website to come on, I think you would get on better on Yahoo or the BBC.
Twat.
Why are you on this site at all? Other than to pass the time in your boring narrow existence? Hopefully a block button will be added soon !
No, don’t block. Out-argue. Ir atleast let him//her/it be exposed to some common sense.
Wow a tweet with undeniable scientific accuracy tweeted by the mastermind of the failed Revolution Francaise. Stinks of troll around here
Well, no evidence I have seen for a second wave, so far, but open to argument if you can find any.
Believe what you want, but don’t expect others to without hard evidence.
Hide under yor bed until the end of time away from the second wave, but please, don’t expect the world to legislate so we all have to.
Look you moron. Get back under your sticky bedsheets and amuse yourself the way you usually do.
No, I don’t think it is crazy talk; I know it is crazy talk!
What is this image supposed to be? Proof of something?
Hello has anyone else noted the very soft touch by the police at today’s London demonstration as compared to their very heavy handed approach to anti lockdown protests? The police are not having a good virus are they.
My local coffee shop has made a number of adjustments including installing perspex screens along the counters – is this actually necessary?
I wonder how many of these adjustments are being forced on establishments by “guidance”, and how much of it is about looking like you are “keeping customers safe”? Some of the changes look permanent.
You’re exemplary and I hope my local businesses behave like you
Fantastic to hear this. We all wish you well.
I enjoy reading your updates!
I wish I had a sane coffee shop here. I could buy a drink without feeling unclean.
So this has to be a send up, and therefore officially, as we all knew, it’s all a hoax https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52848793
That BBC article HAS to be a send up, surely? Nobody could write that sort of stuff and mean it.
I sincerely hope you’re right which is why I posted as above
Xand van Tulleken – another name for the list …
It had us in stitches. I’d love to be at a party he’s hosting. Set your alarm clocks at staggered times so you can wash your hands. Priceless.
Oh my! You CANNOT be serious, as a certain tennis player used to say.
The contaminated toilet paper! Oh lord, the horror of it!
We ‘have to be paranoid’, do we? No problem for this pathetic little
squit.
Who’d want to go to his barbecue?
He is definitely not coming to mine, even if he brings his own food, drink, towels, toilet paper, hand sanitiser, muzzle, and spare nappies.
It’s not a send up, it’s how things are gonna be forever now. I don’t like it too but youd all better start getting used to this. It’s for the best you do
“it’s how things are gonna be forever now”
Maybe in your house, not in mine, or those of any of my friends. Too much of the nation went along with this panic, but many are coming and will come out of it.
Some for economic reasons, some will start to look at evidence from other countries, some will eventually conclude it was all a mistake just by looking at the facts, and some will just follow their instincts to live a normal life.
Human beings are social creatures.
Well that’s gonna have to change, since theres no chance of a vaccine and that’s the only way governments will fully get rid of social distancing. We have to adapt and learn to accept this now
No it’s not going to have to change.My goodness your intellectual acumen is challenged. Viruses burn themselves out like SARS and Hong Kong flu. Others, like AIDS, are contained and nothing much in society changed except possibly a greater awareness of safer sexual practices (probably a good thing).
Tt will, this is a huge change for all of us. I hate the idea of the new normal where social and physical contact is forbidden but it’s the sacrifice we all have to make to fight this virus especially once again, governments have said they will only get rid of it if a vaccine is found and I’m not expecting one anytime soon, if ever
We could get rid of ‘governments’ instead.
No it’s not. It wasn’t just now when I shared a drink with my neighbours in their garden, drinking from their glasses and – shock horror – using their toilet and hand towel. Oh and saying thanks in a physical way (that’ll keep you guessing) when I left
We’ve truly fallen down the rabbit hole and emerged in the heart of a Monty Python sketch.
I’d like to thank the Doc for his comprehensive guide. One thing he doesn’t cover is the shagging of farm animals which has always been the highlight of any barbecue I’ve ever attended. How can my guests, and of coursethe animals stay safe.
Can anyone comment on the demo in London today at the US embassy?. Was it “social distanced” or are SJWs the latest group to prove lockdown is bollocks.
George Floyd death: Hundreds protest across central London
I’d be willing to bet almost all these virtue signalling idiots are fresh from vindictively hammering away on their keyboards typing lockdown zealotry messages on their social media accounts. But seeing an opportunity to more publicly display their eager adherence to Goodthink, too stupid to understand that protesting against police activity in another country is fatuous, and too self-important to even think of minding their own damned business, they’ve forgotten all their lockdown zealotry in favour of exactly the kind of mob gathering they were doubtless decrying as tantamount to murder a couple of days ago.
The last time I travelled extensively in the US was in the late 1990s, during the President Clinton era. I was struck by a rather unpleasant undercurrent of racism in the country – several BAME taxi drivers, for example, expressed considerable surprise that I spoke to them at all, let alone as ordinary human beings. I would add these were in largely Democrat cities and states (Washington DC, Minneapolis, New Orleans). What happened in Minneapolis was indefensible, however, to blame Mr Trump for it, or indeed to take to the streets to destroy BAME-based businesses in the local area is difficult to understand. There is much suffering in the US, and there is a limited safety net to prevent many families losing both their home and ability to put food on the table. The Democrats do not seem to be particularly minded to do more than emote and widen the divide, and there are many in this country following the same approach.
I don’t believe in interfering in, or getting worked up about, internal politics in foreign countries on principle (except where it relates to getting us involved in wars and confrontations), so it’s not an issue for me. Of course, these protesting t*ssers in this country are merely exploiting the deaths and misery in the US to try to score their own political points here anyway, in reality.
But if we are discussing the issues supposedly at the root of the disorder on a theoretical basis, police violence is almost always a complex topic and almost never the simple one portrayed in the mainstream media. They lie about all political correctness issues at least as much as they lie about coronapanic, and for the same reasons – to impose Goodthink conformity on the masses, for the Greater Good.
The US has an issue with militarised policing (we are following but quite some distance behind), though that is a matter for Americans not foreigners imo. The fact is that a lot more whites are killed by US police than blacks, though proportionately it’s much more frequent for blacks. Imo it’s a result mostly of a tendency towards violent confrontation in… Read more »
It’s just Lockdown insanity springing up over any excuse. Yet another consequence beginning to be revealed.
The Democrats have been stoking the racism divide for years. All they have at the moment is identity politics, to divide and conquer. The far Left, Antifa, have been in a cold civil war since the election, and it may have just gone hot.
I’ve been to both Atlanta and Dallas, and I’m glad to say that I hadn’t noticed any particular undercurrent of racism back then (1990s). Much of this resentment and hatred was deliberately stoked by Obama. He weighed in to every contentious shooting before all the evidence was available, feeding the story that the police were shooting innocent black people, which was rarely the case.
Thanks Mark. Virtue signalling hypoccrites then. What a surprise.
There was no SD going on there! And the crappy wearing of masks?! Why bother at all? It’s a waste of a mask frankly!
My main observation is that there are an ominous amount of masks on display. (Though not by the police. Something they are not telling us?)
I tend to agree with Mark that the internal affairs of other countries are not our concern. We have enough problems of our own.
I think the right for people to protest about what is happening in THIS country is essential to a democracy as long as it is peaceful. I am not especially fond of protests that deliberately seek to inconvenience.
I am less sure about the right of people here to protest about what is happening in other countries should be quite so protected, though there is a long tradition of this and as long as it is peaceful and not deliberately vexatious I suppose it comes with the territory of being a democratic country with a big, international capital city.
What I find disappointing is that the protest against lockdown in Hyde Park saw police arresting people, while I can see NO reports of anyone at the George Floyd demo arrested, despite clear breaches of the Coronavirus Act.
I am not sure we really deserve to survive as a nation and as a civilisation, present company excepted.
For sure, no objection to the right to demonstrate about issues in other countries if people want to. Though for the left “demonstrating” often moves rapidly on to thuggish mob behaviour, as with the right to strike morphing into the right to bully other people who choose not to strike, or the right to “demonstrate” against political speakers whose opinions you don’t like morphing into attempts to intimidate and physically prevent those people from speaking or being heard.
And as I noted, in reality these contemptible people are not just engaged in virtue signalling, they are also exploiting the deaths and violence elsewhere to try to further their own political causes here.
There are interesting parallels between these kinds of virtue signalling issues and the coronapanic, though. For instance, the pretence of deep concern over the death of a particular stranger in a foreign country, when on average over 2000 strangers die violently around the world every singly day, almost every one of them a personal and family tragedy, and those deaths pass unnoticed and uncared about by these hypocrites if they don’t serve their political goals. And the way we suddenly get bombarded with images and accounts… Read more »
I think the right to protest outside other Embassies (against Apartheid for instance) should be inviolable.
Yes, good point, especially outside embassies.
Just 200 sardines!
as song for these times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=girnJH7tvpM
I’m pleased to see that, in Scotland, most people have given two fingers to Sturgeon’s rules. The half wits who decided to keep car parks and toilets closed are now paying the price. In Loch Lomond national park people are parking where they please and the cops are struggling to do anything about it. There’s no going back now – not unless the politicians want something similar to what’s happening in the USA.
I said the same thing to my better half last night as we sat in her garden and listened to the sounds of families in the neighbouring gardens having BBQs. And before I arrived at her house, a BBQ was taking place in a garden behind my flat where they had a paddling pool set up and there were around 12 people from it looked like 3 generations of the same family all gathered together.
And good for them!
Fun’s all very well as long as they observe safe toileting protocols.
Hence the ‘paddling’ pool perhaps!?
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/nicola-sturgeon-warns-restrictions-could-18339430
Seriously? Unbelievable.
It’s for the safety of the people. But I remember everyone here is self centerd
You don’t know anyone here, ‘Anoymous’
Lol….you talk shit. It’s just a common flu virus Anonymous.
We know you’re 77th Brigade. What’s your name, rank and number?
Why don’t you declare who you are? If you think it’s for the safety of the people you have clearly been badly brainwashed. Do you know the common cold can kill the frail? How about the safety of the people then?
Well, you know thing about me, other than what I have posted. I would think you ought to mind your manners.
What is for the safety of what people?
“[T]he First Minister warned that the virus could “run out of control again”
What is the FM’s definition of the virus being “out of control” and when was it so before?
How does travelling more than five miles put someone else at risk but not four and three quarters? How mind mindbogglingly stupid is she?
Be careful or she’ll be bringing out the naughty step if she needs to tighten restrictions again.
I remember being on a CAMRA pubcrawl way back BC (before kids). We hired a coach and went to a nearby town with a wonderful selection of beers. One of our number took a leak up an alley, some do-gooder reported him and he was arrested.
The coach stopped at the holding police station and all the men got off and peed up the police station wall. Thanks to the delay however, it was a trial for the women on the way home. I think that’s the only time I’ve ever had penis envy.
Nowadays, because of the festival culture, various items are available that make things much easier for women. As Tom Lehrer taught us: “Be prepared!”
Where’s your shop? We may all have to come over!
Print off the logo at the top of the page?
When all this is over, we should all make a trip to your shop and have a coffee 😊 And cake. There has to be cake?
I used to live in N. W. Essex- Saffron Walden. They had nice cake there, I remember.
Good to see that protestors in central London today are also not giving a toss about social distancing.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/05/29/german-official-leaks-report-denouncing-corona-as-global-false-alarm/
If the news didn’t give a daily roll call of death like a poem by Homer I doubt many would have even noticed that a few more people than usual were dying.
I’d like to have a little word with the a**ehole that ratted on you !.Glad to hear that you are busy and the fact everyone is acting normally !.
You know someone could die because of that !,a grandma or a little kiddie !
How can you live with yourself? 🙂 If I lived near you I’d be there like a shot! Only 1 cafe open in our area and she’s only allowing 1 in at a time for take-away and wearing a horrible black mask. Nice woman, just bought-in.
I am sure that’s exactly the right attitude. Acting normall must be far more reassuring to most people than posing as a bank-robber or a surgeon. ‘Step away from the ice, cream; step away!’
The black masks make them look like sinister chimps!
Ha, ha. All together now – “YOU’RE KILLING PEOPLE”
You could be like Amsterdam and ask people to bring their own pot.
I’m sure everyone here would gladly order a flat white from you if we could. Good luck with the re-opening! Perhaps some snarky signage using the quote you mention would help get it into peoples’ heads that snitches get stitches.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/declassified-uk/
“It has only been leaks which have allowed the public to know the membership of the important SAGE group of scientific advisers addressing coronavirus and the report of a simulated influenza pandemic exercise in the National Health Service in 2016.”
If Norton-Taylor is right we may not have to worry our heads about information we are not supposed to have for much longer… I don’t know how the new laws might affect the rules about disclosures for judicial reviews but I imagine embarrassing revelations such as have just appeared courtesy of Simon Dolan may soon be things of the past.
Oh dear!
After reading the Telegraph and deciding most of the commentators are barmy I have come to one of just a couple of websites that seem relatively sane. There is only so much of “we’re all going to die” I can take!
The trade talks continue tomorrow and I’ve heard Boris is to take charge, God help us! Barnier is threatening to walk away Ha! fat chance of that happening!
I hope he des.
Does. 🙄 Then they’ve only got themselves to blame. Or rather the member states will blame him not us.
I think its all theatrics, the closer we get to the end date the more hot air. I reckon Boris is firmly against going WTO and would do anything to get a deal, I’m not expecting anything great from Boris so I won’t be disappointed when he messes up, I’m fully expecting him to.
Yes, he has never yet failed – to disappoint!
I’m with you about Boris. But Frost is a beast. There is hope I think.
I was wondering if that was a missing ‘o’ or a missing ‘i’!
Fun cartoon: As it happens, my partner and I kind-of went to the pub last night. It was an informal gathering in the open air, somewhere off the beaten track in the Wild North West which we’d happen to notice in passing a few days ago. Everyone was gathered round the ‘bar’ – a derelict farm trailer. Everyone took their own booze and from time-to-time passers-by either joined in or called out ‘Good idea!”.
It was just like a proper pub in that there was a variety of opinions on lock-down, all 60+, plenty of local gossip, quick-witted ‘bantz’, dogs and even (surreally) a short appearance from a local pub landlord who clearly did not approve and is sceptical about re-opening upon 4 July because ‘people are not behaving themselves’. He’s a miserable git, unlike everyone else there and it was a life-enhancing experience!
On the way home we passed a local worthy on the way up to enjoy the sunset from a local hilltop with a mate, complete with bottle of wine. There is a little bit of hope!
heppen=happened. Drat!
Sounds like fun! There’s no chance of anything like that happening here they have really bought into the virus paranoia! One lady we just passed on our walk tried to walk into a hedge to avoid us!
Miserable git has already put himself out of business.
Apparently in Southern Ireland, restaurants will be allowed to reopen earlier than pubs – hence many pubs are intending to redesignate as restaurants!
A peanut and a pint of Guiness, please.
Back in the 1970s we used to frequent a pub that was able to stay open long after pub-closing time because it served food – pie and peas!
I’m very surprised at the attitude of the pub landlord,all the pubs where I live are desperate to open.There’s certainly some very funny folks about just lately !.
If you met this bugger, you’d understand! 🙂
James Delingpole talking to Professor Dolores Cahill is excellent if exhausting. The (not very) sinister black cat that appeared at the window when JD started discussing “tin foil hattery” was a wonderful bonus.
Its a pity Boris didn’t ask her advice instead of Neil Ferguson.
Remember what it said in WHO 2019 guidance:
Not recommended in any circumstances
UV light
Modifying humidity
Contact tracing – my highlighting
Quarantine of exposed individuals
Entry and exit screening
Border closure
Can’t put a price on life they said:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/people-are-going-to-go-hungry-pandemic-effects-could-leave-54m-americans-without-food
And this is in a first world country. The greatest act of self harm the world has ever seen.
Its not really self harm, its harm imposed on many by a few.
And hundreds of millions will be very close to, and in many cases actually at, starvation in the 3rd world. Politicians around the world should hang their heads in shame (and there is a good case for us doing it for them!).
They should hang their heads in shame…but they won’t.
6% of the population are psychopaths, a too many of them are in positions of power.
I’m glad someone pointed that out. When it comes to seeking power psychopaths are at the front of the queue.
That’s a bit rich coming from The Guardian who support the effing lockdown
“Interestingly, the WHO has just done another U-turn – is this number 657? – recommending against the wearing of masks.”
Seems like this is one of the more profound developments in this entire saga, yet you don’t provide a link and I haven’t been able to find any references to it anywhere online. I’m assuming this is not true until I see a story that corroborates the claim.
This took me 2 minutes to find:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks
“If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19.
Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing.
Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.
If you wear a mask, then you must know how to use it and dispose of it properly.”
Seems sensible – but Under The Bridge, how did you read this as recommendation against?
I would describe it as not necessary unless certain conditions apply, and if you do wear one, do it properly.
Thanks Andy. The reason why I read it as recommending against is because that’s how it’s written by Toby in today’s news: “Interestingly, the WHO has just done another U-turn . . . recommending against the wearing of masks.”
This reads as something that has changed within the last day or two, so I limited my search to only recent news items.
I’m also not convinced by the WHO’s rationale for wearing masks as written in the quotes. Even if certain conditions apply, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence to support masks, particularly the types of masks that are seen in public or even healthcare settings.
Indeed – and practically every mask wearer I’ve seen fiddles with it or wears it around their neck and pulls it up when in a train or shop, so they are probably worse than useless for these folk.
I carry a clean pair of underpants in my back pack so if any jobsworth demands I wear a mask I’ll pull these over my head.
I suffer from hayfever although its not too bad at the moment, am I expected to wear a mask then?
Of course. Don’t you realise that somebody’s grandhay could die because of you?
At least a mask will stop them photofitting you.
No. Well. It’s the excuse I give not to wear one in warehouses and it always works.
Well it appears one of the prime architects of the imposition of the catastrophic lockdown policy on this country has had his position at the heart of government preserved, ironically in part due to the misguided efforts of many opponents of lockdown. For the moment, Cummings’ attackers have run out of new material to throw at him, and his most dangerous opponent, the Daily Mail, looks to have admitted defeat and turned its guns on the most noxious of his accusers. The Johnson government has paid a huge price for it, but they have kept him in government.
Well done. Now the man who was so dramatically incompetent or deluded that he thought putting the entire country into lockdown was a sensible response to a jumped up flu, remains in his position of power and influence, able to inflict more such idiocies on the country (as it is suggested he did with the poisonous quarantine plans). What’s more, he’s in prime position to continue with preparations for covering up the truth before any inquiry, and for influencing the formation of any such inquiry to ensure it is a harmless whitewash.
Short of somehow forcing Johnson himself to step… Read more »
He has agreed to step down after Brexit. I think you will be pleasantly surprised how quickly attention turns to the economic and medical catastrophe of the lockdown once things have been open a few weeks and there has been no rise in infections. The centre left are already becoming very lockdown sceptic.
I don’t see any comfort in that. “After Brexit” might as well be in a hundred years as far as lockdown scepticism is concerned. As I said, the precedent is being set that imposing a lockdown is politically survivable. Most future politicians, faced with another decision like the one faced by the Guilty Men in March, are likely to conclude again that the risks to them are far greater from inaction than from action. That’s the default position for men in office anyway. And changing that for this kind of issue must surely be the primary long term goal for sceptics. Never again.
My experience of the Iraq War leads me to presume that the government will be easily able to obfuscate, confuse and divert criticism on this issue so that any real costs to the perpetrators are indirect and delayed.
Make no mistake, this was a defeat, and a costly one.
I hope you’re wrong in the amount of importance you attach to Cummings surviving this. I’m not sure it makes much difference either way – I doubt any enquiry or post-mortem would ever go far enough to provide a real break with the madness of the past.
It’s decline and fall stuff.
Certainly assessing the scale of the cost is inherently speculative. We shall see.
What I think is beyond doubt is that this was a huge missed opportunity. I think a lot of sceptics simply don’t understand just how rare an opportunity like that is, to actually make a guilty senior government operator pay a direct political price.
I share your despair that this has become an acceptable political response. However, I think things will change very quickly and we are only at the beginning of the fallout. I am not sure the final verdict will accept this should ever happen again. As for the Conservatives, when they are viewed as weak on the economy they are screwed, like after Black Wednesday.
Regardless of Cummings, those waiting for the outcome of any public enquiry as politically sensitive as this one (where all sides of the political fence are implicated), will have a long wait. As a precedent:
Still, at least by the time the Covid-19 Enquiry report is released, Poppy is likely to be Prime Minister 🙂
I don’t think it is politically survivable because the economic knock on effects won’t allow it to happen again
We shall see. Hopefully you are right.
The risk is that the bedwetters and the Guilty Men manage to obscure and confuse the truth sufficiently to have enough people believing the problems might have been caused by errors in implementation (“we locked down too late”), or that it would have been worse if we hadn’t locked down, or that subsequent problems are because we didn’t spend enough money in the right ways to address the problems, that there is no clear consensus about it.
That’s pretty much what the advocates of the war in Iraq did after 2003, and the issues there were less complex and more clear-cut than the coronapanic issues.
It’s easy to come on this site and feel confident the truth must surely come out in the end, but out there in the rest of the world there’s more than enough delusion to allow politicians to do it again.
“The centre left are already becoming very lockdown sceptic.”
Well I’d welcome that, if true, but I’ve not seen any evidence of it.
Simon Jenkins’ latest column. John Rentoul’s tweets. Even Hodges is inching towards it. Blairites coming out for schools to go back. Starmer has kept his powder dry.
I’ll check them out, thanks
I’d endorse your sentiments, but I haven’t either
Yes there may be a quick shift of opinion, but that will not reduce the appalling severity of what is hurtling down the tracks.
No. We will have to try to comfort our selves with revenge, hopefully in the courts, and preventing this ever happening again.
I agree. Over on The Telegraph people don’t seem to be able to distinguish between the wrongs of lockdown in concept, and the wrongs of breaking it, not once, but three times. Even if we allow him the 250 mile drive to Durham and the subsequent drive to collect his wife and child from hospital on the ‘he was doing what any other dad would do’ defence, the third event – the drive to Barnard Castle – cannot be explained away as a child safety, or caring matter. What many do not seem to grasp, and I say this as a Tory and Brexiter, is that the ‘Barnard Castle Defence’ is so egregious, it adds salt to the wound of lockdown. It has been seen as such, particularly in the northern heartland that Mr Cummings, according to The Mail, understands so well such. Perhaps Boris is counting on people’s memories being short, but I think that is similarly insulting to the British public.
The one question I keep expecting to be asked, but haven’t seen it anywhere, is “does your wife have a valid driving licence?”
‘The Mail on Sunday can today reveal that a retired teacher who reported the No 10 adviser to police broke lockdown rules himself – while a supposed ‘witness’ who claimed Mr Cummings had made a second trip to the region admitted he made his statement up as a joke.’
A couple of links for Anonymous as they are new here but they have been posted on this site before plus a new link showing what happened last time a rushed vaccine was pushed through for mass-inoculation:
If vaccines are so safe why these schemes and immunity from prosecution for the manufacturers:
https://www.gov.uk/vaccine-damage-payment
https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I0hIC6GqMc&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop
My wife almost died after the flu shot one year, NHS not interested and she took a long, long time recovering so I have research things in depth over the years.
At least back then journalists investigated things.
You should watch the Delingpole and Cahill video especially the bit about the flu vaccine.
I was so, so ill two years in a row after flu jabs that my boss gave us at work. Never worse. And I’m hard – I have some common allergies (tree pollen and a weird aversion to shea butter) – but I’m never ill.
Something is up with the flu vaccine and I’m not having it again.
I would never have a flu vaccine for two reasons, firstly I don’t suffer from flu and secondly, a friend who used to work in laboratories where they made vaccines said you would never have the vaccine if you knew what went into them!
Update on the barriers around the exercise area in my local park. In the past people have climbed over the barriers to use the equipment and bars now they don’t have to as one of the barriers has been breached and people just use them as a door to come in and out the exercise area.
2nd wave planned already? Important bit starts about 5:10:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=176&v=BYPPY4IXgSA&feature=emb_logo
Will try and find the other interview where it says “wave after wave” and the threat is there that it will be continued until we are scared enough to take the vaccine, seems to have disappeared, not just deleted due to breaking community guidelines.
This has been the strategy from day one, as guided – in part – by MIT. This article was published on 17th March:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/17/905264/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/
Predicts wave after wave, on-going social distancing, contact tracing apps, health apps, air travel becoming a thing of the past and that lockdown would run every 2 months, with 1 month off, until a vaccine is available. Everything is based around protecting the health care system. It was written fairly early in the pandemic before it was known who dies etc. But still.
I read it the day after it was published. Nothing that I’ve seen proposed in the MSM since then has come as a surprise.
Bill Gates has his grubby money all over MIT:
https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-connections-jeffrey-epstein-mit-donations-ronan-farrow-2019-9?r=US&IR=T
I would suggest that if it weren’t for the healthcare system, there might not be so many dead.
They’re centres of infection, and sent it into care homes.
Based on the ICL model though
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/asia/japan-coronavirus.html?auth=login-facebook&searchResultPosition=2
(Paywall but you can get limited free access signing up with your Google account then again with a Facebook account)
Could controlling the virus really be as simple as the Japanese 3 Cs principle, avoid:
Closed spaces with poor ventilation
Crowded places
Close contact
‘Closed spaces with poor ventilation’ – sadly that includes most doctor’s waiting rooms and most hospital spaces!
Prophecy of foreknowledge, an interview from 1997:
http://stateofthenation.co/?p=12035