I cannot be alone in noticing the huge gulf between the sympathetic coverage given to the Black Lives Matter protests in the mainstream media and the almost universally hostile coverage of the anti-lockdown protests. Celebrities who were encouraging everyone to remain in their homes until last week are now rushing out to join the protests, including Emily Ratajkowski, Jaz Sinclair, Paris Jackson and Billie Eilish. Not only is this virtue-signalling hypocritical – why is Covid likely to be spread at anti-lockdown protests, but not at Black Lives Matter protests? – it’s also irresponsible, given how many of those protests have spiralled out of control into fully-fledged riots in at least 25 cities across America, including Minneapolis, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Louisville, Columbia, Denver, Portland, Milwaukee and Columbus.
Those protests have now crossed the Atlantic, with a march through the streets of Peckham yesterday in which demonstrators held up placards reading “Abolish the Police” and “Riot is the language of the unheard”. That demo did not become violent or lead to rioting, but more protests are planned in London and other British cities over the coming days.
Today, Metro ran an article entitled: “Black Lives Matter: Are protests taking place in the UK and how can you donate?” It included a handy guide to people who want to join those protests, something I don’t recall Metro doing a couple of weeks ago when it wrote about the anti-lockdown protests across the country.
I’m all in favour of the right to protest. I think the suspension of that right is unlawful and it should be reinstated immediately. But the police need to make up their minds. Either it’s now permissible for groups of more than 100 people to stage a protest, or it isn’t.
It can’t be one rule for Black Lives Matter protestors and another for anti-lockdown protestors.
Was the Government Really Following “the Science”?
A few weeks ago I linked to an excellent Newsnight report by Hannah Cohen which asked whether the Government really was following “the science”? Now that the Government has released the minutes of the SAGE meetings in the period leading up to the lockdown announcement on March 23rd – this was on Friday as a direct result of Simon Dolan’s lawsuit – we can get closer to answering this question.
The former barrister Paul Chaplin has gone through the minutes in a lengthy blog post and concluded that placing the entire country under virtual house arrest was a political decision and not “based on the science”. His analysis is compelling.
Chaplin finds plenty of evidence in the minutes that various different containment measures were discussed by SAGE, but at no point before March 23rd did the group recommend the quarantining of the whole population. The measures SAGE considered were home isolation of symptomatic individuals, the isolation of everyone in a symptomatic individual’s household for 14 days and the cocooning of those over 70 and those with underlying health conditions – the three measures introduced by the Government on March 16th. But at no point did SAGE discuss anything resembling a full lockdown. Indeed, SAGE noted at a meeting on March 10th that banning public gatherings would have little effect since most viral transmission occurred in confined spaces, such as within households.
The last SAGE meeting before the lockdown was on March 18th where it was noted that the impact of the social distancing measures introduced thus far would not be known for two or three weeks. The attendees did not at that stage know whether those measures would be sufficient to prevent the NHS’s critical care capacity being overwhelmed and in the absence of more data could not offer any advice on whether additional measures – such as closing bars, restaurants and entertainment centres, and limiting use of indoor workplaces – would be necessary. The only further measure SAGE recommended at that meeting was closing schools.
SAGE advises that the measures already announced should have a significant effect, provided compliance rates are good and in line with the assumptions. Additional measures will be needed if compliance rates are low.
Minutes of the 17th SAGE meeting on COVID-19, March 18th 2020
The attendees discussed locking down London but no conclusion was reached. However, they did say that if additional measures were going to be necessary, it would be better to bring them in sooner rather than later. According to the minutes: “If the interventions are required, it would be better to act early.”
In other words, Boris Johnson and his advisors were not following “the science” when they took the decision to lock down the country on March 23rd – they weren’t acting on any specific recommendations by SAGE. Nor can the Government claim this is one of the options that was discussed at SAGE meetings and it was basing its decision, in part, on SAGE’s analysis of the impact of a full lockdown. That option was not discussed at any of the meetings before March 23rd. In this respect, it was a political decision.
This dovetails with Christopher Snowdon’s analysis of the decision-making in the period leading up to March 23rd published in the Critic last week, although Snowdon only had access to the broad summaries of the SAGE meetings that the Government has released, not the more detailed minutes released on Friday. Snowdon concluded that the Government’s scientific advisors never explicitly recommended a lockdown; on the contrary, at various stages they recommended against it.
Snowdon says that even Neil Ferguson’s March 16th paper, predicting 510,000 Covid deaths if the Government took no measures to stop the spread of the virus and 250,000 if it stuck with its “mitigation” strategy, stopped short of recommending a full lockdown:
Contrary to popular belief, the infamous study did not call for a full lockdown, nor did it model the effects of a full lockdown. It looked at school closures, social distancing and household quarantine for suspected cases and those living with them. It concluded that the greatest benefit would come from a combination of social distancing and household quarantine, with further benefits likely to come from closing schools, although it conceded that school closures would prevent many people from working.
There is no doubt that Ferguson’s model was impactful. It suggested that hundreds of thousands of people would die from COVID-19 if the Government continued to pursue a policy of mitigation. This put containment back on the table and gave legitimacy to more coercive action from Government, but the measures it recommended did not amount to a full lockdown. Its social distancing recommendations were far from trivial and yet they seem modest after nine weeks of genuine lockdown (the authors anticipated most people still going to work, for example). The only time Ferguson and colleagues use the word “lockdown” in the text is when they are making a distinction between their proposals and an actual lockdown. They implicitly dismiss a lockdown as being too extreme for the UK, saying that their favoured policies are “predicted to have the largest impact, short of a complete lockdown which additionally prevents people going to work”.
Snowdon’s conclusion is remarkably similar to Chaplin’s:
The founding myth of the lockdown is almost the opposite of the truth. Science did not triumph over politics on March 23rd. It would be more accurate to say that the strategy which preceded the lockdown, unpopular though it now is, was based on science whereas the decision to go into lockdown was political.
Snowdon’s article – and Chaplin’s analysis – is in some ways helpful to the Prime Minister since it debunks the myth that he was told to lock down the country by SAGE long before March 23rd and failed to act on that advice due to “dither and delay”. That was the story told by the Sunday Times in its May 23rd article entitled: “22 days of dither and delay on coronavirus that cost thousands of British lives.”
But if you’re a sceptic, this analysis isn’t helpful to the Prime Minister since it lays the blame for the lockdown squarely at the door of 10 Downing Street.
Stop Press: I emailed Christopher Snowdon to see if he’d had a chance to look at the SAGE minutes and he got back to me to say he had and they did indeed corroborate his analysis:
The minutes fully support what I wrote in the Critic. The social distancing measures discussed by SAGE – and modelled separately by Neil Ferguson et al. and John Edmunds et al. – are not well described in the documents, but it is clear that they are more moderate than the lockdown that was introduced on March 23rd. Even at the late stage of mid-March, SAGE was never seriously entertaining a full lockdown, nor did the attendees expect their more modest measures to be in place for more than 12 weeks. To claim otherwise is to rewrite history.
Norwegian Prime Minister Admits Lockdown Was Mistake, Says Sorry
Last Wednesday night, Norway’s prime minister Erna Solberg went on television to make a confession: she had panicked at the start of the pandemic. Most of the tough measures imposed in Norway’s lockdown were steps too far, she admitted. “Was it necessary to close schools?” she asked. “Perhaps not.”
She isn’t the first Norwegian official to acknowledge that the lockdown wasn’t necessary. On May 5th, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) published a briefing note reporting that when the lockdown was imposed on March 12th Norway’s R number had already fallen to 1.1. It slipped under 1 on March 19th.
“Our assessment now… is that we could possibly have achieved the same effects and avoided some of the unfortunate impacts by not locking down, but by instead keeping open but with infection control measures,” Camilla Stoltenberg, NIPH’s Director General said in a TV interview earlier this month.
An expert committee charged with carrying out a cost-benefit analysis into the lockdown measures in April estimated they had cost Norway 27 billion kroner (£2.3 billion) every month. The committee concluded last Friday that the country should avoid lockdown if there is a second wave of infections.
“We recommend a much lighter approach,” the committee’s head, Steinar Holden, an Oslo University Economics Professor, told the Sunday Telegraph. “We should start with measures at an individual level – which is what we have now – and if there’s a second wave, we should have measures in the local area where this occurs, and avoid measures at a national level if that is possible.”
“If it’s necessary to have very strict restrictions for a long time, then the costs are higher than letting the infection go through the population,” Holden told the Telegraph. “Because that would be immensely costly.”
In particular, Holden’s committee said schools should not be closed again if there is a second wave. It estimated in April that the measure had cost 6.7 billion kroner (£520 million) a month, while having “little impact” on the spread of infection. The NIPH has gone further and said that school closures may have even increased the spread.
Margrethe Greve-Isdahl, the doctor who is NIPH’s expert on infections in schools, tells the Telegraph that if schools hadn’t been closed they could have played a role in informing people in immigrant communities – which were hit disproportionately hard by the epidemic – of hygiene and social distancing rules.
“They can learn these measures in school and teach their parents and grandparents, so at least for some of these hard-to-reach minorities, there might be a positive effect from keeping kids in school,” she said. “There’s now a lot of information available on how it has impacted negatively on the economy and on vulnerable children.”
What refreshing candour from Norway’s Prime Minister and senior public health officials. I look forward to the press conference in which Boris Johnson, Sir Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty admit the lockdown was a mistake and apologise for it.
Was the Government’s Response Predicated on Coronavirus Behaving Like Influenza?
Guy de la Bédoyère has sent in a short piece based on the interview that Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College, gave on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. Guy’s conclusion is that many of the things the Government got wrong, such as closing schools, were dictated by the “UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy” published in 2011.
It’s easy to carp with the benefit of hindsight, but one theme came across painfully clearly from Professor Openshaw’s comments. Some of the scientists who exerted so much influence over the Government were operating like car mechanics who had no workshop manual for the model they’re trying to fix and instead just used the nearest one to hand, regardless of its relevance: in this case, the Influenza Workshop Manual, which looks as if it may have been the chocolate teapot of ways to deal with COVID-19.
As always, Guy’s piece, which I’ve published as a subpage of “How Have We Responded to Previous Pandemics?“, is worth reading in full.
Apocalypse Not
One overlooked success story in the coronavirus crisis is Vietnam. The country of 97 million people has not reported a single coronavirus-related death and on Saturday had just 328 confirmed cases, despite its long border with China and the millions of Chinese visitors it receives each year. That’s particularly remarkable when you factor in it’s a low-middle income country with only eight doctors for every 10,000 people. So what did Vietnam get right?
According to CNN, the key to Vietnam’s success was ignoring the WHO’s advice that there was “no clear evidence of human to human transmission” and introducing temperature screening for passengers arriving from Wuhan at Hanoi international airport in early January. Travelers found with a fever were isolated and closely monitored. By mid-January, the country had introduced medical quarantining at border gates, airports and seaports and on January 24th it cancelled all flights to and from Wuhan. On February 1st, all flights between Vietnam and China were halted, followed by the suspension of visas to Chinese citizens on February 2nd.
Readers of this site will recall my post on May 9th pointing out that the Newly Emerging Respiratory Virus Advisory Group (NERVTAG) considered screening passengers arriving from Wuhan at a meeting on January 13th chaired by Peter Horby, an Oxford professor with links to the World Health Organisation. This is the same Peter Horby who criticised the Government yesterday for easing the lockdown too soon. At this point, seven other countries had introduced temperature screening at airports for visitors from Wuhan. However, the NERVTAG recommendation was that there would be no point in doing this if exit screening at Wuhan airports was already taking place, although they had no evidence it was.
At the next NERVTAG meeting on January 21st, this one attended by Chris Witty and his deputy Jonathan Van-Tam, as well as Professor Neil Ferguson, the boffins were asked to reconsider the question. But again they passed the buck to the Chinese authorities. By now, human-to-human transmission had been confirmed. Nonetheless, NERVTAG’s response was the same.
Neil Ferguson noted that from the modelling perspective, with exit screening in place in China, effectiveness of port-of-entry screening in the UK would be low and potentially only detect those who were not sick before boarding but became sick during the flight. NERVTAG felt there was a lack of clarity on the exit screening process in Wuhan, although it was thought that this process would be robust, and statements had been released by Chinese authorities about stopping febrile passengers from travelling. However, as noted, there were no data on the implementation of this programme.
Minutes of the NERVTAG Wuhan Novel Coronavirus Second Meeting: January 21st 2020
So rather than recommend port-of-entry screening, the assembled brains at NERVTAG decided to trust to the Chinese authorities to screen people leaving the country. That may count as one of the biggest blunders the British Government and its scientific advisers made. Those countries that started screening airline passengers arriving from Wuhan in early January have some of the lowest Covid death tolls of anywhere in the world – Hong Kong (four deaths), Taiwan (7), Singapore (23), Malaysia (115), Thailand (57) and Vietnam (0).
Annie’s Little List
Annie, one of the wittiest commentators on this site, has composed a ditty based on “I’ve Got A Little List” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado which she posted in the comment thread beneath yesterday’s update. Great stuff, Annie.
When the world regains its senses and the reckoning begins,
I’ve got a little list, I’ve got a little list
Of thugs and wimps and bullies who must answer for their sins,
And they’ll none of ’em be missed, they’ll none of ‘em be missed.
There’s the fornicating expert who despises his own rules,
The SAGES who despise us all and take us all for fools;
The servile politicians, solid wood from ear to ear,
The BBC, dispensing the pornography of fear,
And the morons and bed-wetters who on cowardice insist:
They never would be missed, they never would be missed.
There’s the shutter-off of playgrounds, paths and parks and even trees,
The joyless pessimist, I’ve got him on my list;
The neighbour who reports each normal person that she sees,
She never would be missed, she never would be missed.
There’s the vicious teaching unions who, in cowardice and spite,
Inflict appalling tortures on each hapless little mite;
There’s the spineless crawling bishops whom we’d do well to ignore,
The twit who puts a mask on when he creeps out through his door,
And the silly clapping seals who just don’t know when to desist:
They never would be missed, they never would be missed.
My Sweet Lord
Nick Robinson interviewed Lord Sumption a few days ago for Political Thinking, his weekly politics podcast. Among other things, Sumption says it’s a sad reflection on our democracy that he should be the only major public figure opposing the lockdown.
I think that it would be very much more satisfactory if the sorts of points that I have been making had been made by professional politicians. But the amount of group think and collective hysteria, partly, I have to say, officially generated, has meant that nobody outside the press is actually making these points. Somebody has got to stand up for a sense of proportion, somebody has got to stand up for a measure of balance and somebody has got to stand up for the millions of people who are being propelled into misery and in many cases financial ruin by the lockdown. I’m really sorry that it should be me and I think that it’s a sad reflection on the quality of our democracy that it should be me. But if no one else is going to do it, then I am.
Preach brother. As one reader says,
It is a tragedy that there are so few people like Lord Sumption.
I also think that there is something seriously amiss with a culture that would choose to idolize a sulky child like Greta Thunberg rather than listen to a more traditional “wise old man” like Jonathan Sumption.
Boris: Less Like Churchill, More Like Eden?
A reader has sent me a link to an interesting article in the Oxford Journal of Medicine entitled: “The effect of Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s illness on his decision-making during the Suez crisis.” The article argues that Eden’s illness affected his judgment during the Suez crisis, leading to Britain’s biggest foreign policy blunder since the Second World War.
“I’m wondering whether Boris’s errors of judgement are due partly to his recent illness,” says the reader. “If that’s the case then he more closely resembles Eden than Churchill, and Lockdown will prove his Suez!”
Government Says Odds of Catching COVID-19 Fall From 1/40 to 1/1000
Boris issued a press release earlier today saying the odds of becoming infected have declined. “As the Government moves to the next phase of its response to the coronavirus crisis, the latest clinical advice shows a much lower incidence rate in the general population,” he said. “This means the average chance of catching the virus is now down from 1/40 to 1/1000…”
But how is he calculating those odds? After all, the latest ONS data suggests that about 8,000 new people are becoming infected every week. 67 million divided by 8,000 is not 1/1000 but 1/8375. And as number-cruncher Alistair Haimes pointed out on Twitter, if only ~0.25 of those who catch it will die, that means your odds of dying from coronavirus on any given day are about 1 in 3.4 million.
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:
- ‘Sunday shows round-up: Sturgeon challenged over care home deaths‘ – Summary of what was said in this morning’s politics talk shows. Includes Sturgeon telling Sophy Ridge that she thinks Covid deaths in English care homes are being under-counted
- ‘Revealed: Test and trace was abandoned because system “could only cope with five coronavirus cases a week”‘ – The comedy gets richer
- ‘Dominic Cummings Must be Sacked‘ – This Change.org petition calling for Cummings to be sacked now has over a million signatures. I’m jealous. The Change.org petition calling for me to be sacked as a Government advisor in 2018 only attracted 220,000 signatures
- ‘Sack Dominic Cummings for his wild midnight ride to Durham? Only if you want a LONGER lockdown‘ – Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday says he won’t be signing the sack-Dominic-Cummings petition (and nor will I)
- ‘James Ferguson: the virus, the lockdown, and what comes next‘ – Merryn Somerset Web interviews the financial guru for the MoneyWeek podcast
- ‘Covid Blinkered Syndrome‘ – Sam Case, an ex-policeman, criticises the response of various emergency services to the crisis in Hector Drummond Magazine
- ‘COVID-19: the ethics of clinical research in quarantine‘ – Interesting article in the BMJ that borders on saying the lockdowns have been unethical. Includes the line: “To be ethically justified, quarantine must be at minimum necessary and effective, a proportionate response to the risk of disease, and the least infringing measure available.”
- ‘UK announces 215 more COVID-19 deaths, the lowest Saturday total since lockdown began‘ – Good point made in Mail headline
- ‘ROBERT DINGWALL: Why are we the only country obsessed with the disastrous two-metre rule?‘ – NERVTAG professor criticises two-metre rule
- ‘Testing of NHS staff at Somerset hospital reportedly reveals “40 per cent as COVID-19 positive” as new admissions urgently halted‘ – More evidence that Covid is primarily a nosocomial disease
- ‘Leaked mails reveal battle over Denmark’s lockdown‘ – Emails reveal that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen steamrollered her own health experts, who counselled against lockdown
- ‘We are sleepwalking from one denial of our liberties into an even more insidious phase‘ – Good Telegraph column by Janet Daley
- ‘Meet the people breaking lockdown rules to have sex‘ – It’s not just Rosie Duffield and Neil Ferguson who broke lockdown rules to have sex
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 takes me about nine hours a day which doesn’t leave much time for other work. 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…
If you thought our own Government’s Covid propaganda was effective, just wait till you see these Japanese posters produced during the Spanish flu epidemic. You can see some of the others here.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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[…] (“Norwegian Prime Minister Admits Lockdown Was Mistake” Lockdown Skeptic) […]
The Locked Prayer
Hail, Lockdown!
Praise be to Science!
Thou hast shown me that thou knowest all things.
Thou art an immutable Truth
to be followed as disciples of old followed the Messiah.
Hail, Lockdown!
Open mine eyes that I may see
As there be many religions upon our Earth,
So may be created many models.
Yet give me the strength
to follow the One Model
And lead me not into the path of Questioning Data.
Hail, Lockdown!
Give us faith to base our decisions on the Model
To bow humbly before our esteemed Professors and Doctors
Who, with Educated Wisdom
Inspired by the Word of Research
Came forth to create the Constructs
and Assumptions
of the Model.
Praise the R-Number
Created by Science
Come to dwell among us
and provide unshakeable foundations for how we live.
Praise the Flattened Curve!
Let it be seen as proof that Lockdown hath been effective,
And look not at the actions of that traitor, Sweden –
Allow not the temptation of Other Ways
to undermine our achievement.
Give us strength not to wander from the path of the Model.
Democracy
Freedom
Outdated concepts of a bygone era,
… Read more »
Sorry if this has already been posted. I’ve just seen that Johnson has put up a graphic telling people that they “should” wear face masks in supermarkets. Just when you thought this shit was beginning to end.
I will not wear one. I have never considered it necessary and I have good science to back that up.
I WILL NOT OBEY.
Is the BBC running out of ‘fear porn’ news to report? No. 5 in their ‘most-read’ stories today is:
Coronavirus: The London hospital hit by a ‘tidal wave’ of patientsThis is a report on the cases coming into Northwick Hospital at the beginning of March (the one that caused Boris to U-turn into lockdown).
Still Sweden bashing:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-lockdown-sweden-death-rate-worst-country-covid-19-a9539206.html
But if we look at deaths/day of when they happened it looks like the virus is almost done:
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa
I’m in Sweden – numbers falling, slowly but surely. About a week and a half ago our intensive care cases dropped under 400 for several days in a row, giving cause for optimism – today it is 310..
Given that our sixth forms, universities and adult ed can open from 15th June, it seems likely that other rules may also slowly be relaxed, even though there is still talk of a second wave..
Signed. Thanks for posting!
Protests in Italy calling for lifting of restrictions and return of the Lira. .https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1289454/EU-crisis-Italy-protest-Milan-Rome-Orange-Vests-eurozone-anti-EU-latest-news
Coronavirus ‘no longer clinically exists in Italy’, top doctor says
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-no-longer-clinically-exists-in-italy-top-doctor-says-11998608
If this is the case then so much for the second bloody wave they keep on intimidating us with. But now, here, we want overweight people to slim down to combat Covid19 in the autumn. Hmmmm? Same page thinking.
If you follow Amazing Polly on youtube, she has a document that shows a plan for a second virus release… I wondering if that is planned for the autumn and will be termed a ‘second wave’???
Link would be useful, ta.
Good news. Let’s hope it gets trumpeted by the MSM.
One thing that is coming across loud and clear is that size is a real vulnerability for health institutions.
The countries that have done well, for example Japan and Norway, in protecting their old people have small local care homes.
Many families in Greece, which has also done well, have taken their elderly relatives out of care homes to look after them themselves.
Either the NHS changes radically or it will sink, is sinking, this country, despite, and acknowledging, its many outstanding public servants.
Upon reading the new Big Bro 2020 Sex Crime Law, I’m struck by all the provisions made for ‘elite athletes’.
They seriously think the unemployed masses won’t riot as long as they can watch the football.
Sorry if I’m being a bit thick, Farinaces – which Sex Crime Law ?
The new law that forbids you from sleeping in any place that isn’t your place of residence. Name by moi 😉
See downstream for comment with a link
Ah, thank you.
Did that law go through Parliament properly?
It’s a Statutory Instrument. I don’t fully understand them, but from what I’ve read they’re quick, ‘simple’ laws that the government can enact in times of emergency without the SI being scrutinised by Parliament…
Exactly. Notice how the press don’t seem to have picked it up properly yet either.
Nice way to disguise the curfew.
And done the day before Parliament returns. This is very scary. Let’s hope it kicks off tomorrow – can’t see people like David Davis being very happy.
I think they are not as water-tight as legal statute, so offering the government less protection should there be a challenge. This is hopefully something where we would all benefit from the authority of Lord Sumption. The government is coming very close to being out of control.
The general idea is you have a basic enabling Act that takes a while to go through and gets fully scrutinised, amended if necessary by Parliament, and voted on, and that law specifies areas where the government can make necessary rules and change them quickly and easily by regulations (“statutory instruments”), which are made on the government’s initiative under the authority of the Act in question. For instance, you might pass a law that allows the government draw up regulations to fine people for traffic offences, and have the particular levels of fines for particular offences specified by those regulations, rather than in the Act itself. That way you can change the fines periodically without having to pass a new law or an amendment to the Act every time.
It’s very convenient for the government, in a massively over-governed society like ours.
In this case the authorising Act supposedly is the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, and the SI is the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020.
One avenue of legal challenge would be that the SI is not actually authorised by the powers given in the Act.
Does that not mean all hotels, campsites etc are totally screwed?
What Parliament?
We don’t have a functioning Parliament right now!
What’s Parliament?
We used to have one, once.
Have now read the relevant text.
This is surely certain to get thrown out, if indeed any cases are ever brought, by all that elite athlete bollocks ? Isn’t it ?
One law for good curlers, a different one for everyone else ? Fuck that.
Does that not make Antonia Staats (Ferguson’s girlfriend) prosecutable??
Sadly not. Unless she does it (it=Neil :P) again after today.
When you start making laws that turn the majority of your citizens into likely law breakers you’re asking for trouble.
Are the elite athlete provisions in advance of the Olympics next year…???
I’m surprised we haven’t discovered by now that Covid-19 has electrolytes
I am sick and tired of this. Sick, sick, sick. Sick of having all major life decisions taken away from me. Sick of not being able to plan for the future. Sick of being told that if I hate wearing masks, it’s my own fault and I just need to find one that I like. Sick of bullshit and lies and a media that has gone off the rails for reasons that are lost in the mists of time but that have turned into some bizarro tribal nonsense of virtue signalling and disapproval, in the face of a disease that is no worse than the diseases humanity confronts every single year.
Sorry. I just found out that my fallback plan of moving our (paid-for) July holiday in Switzerland to August (no news yet on whether Europe will ever let U.S. citizens back in….) can’t happen because Swiss hotels can’t take new bookings. Because… safety? Whatever? And somehow, despite all my efforts to put a brave face on this, to show flexibility and resilience, well, I am out of energy.
My children want to know how university will work – will there be classes? Housing? I don’t know. We’ve… Read more »
So am I Mimi – totally sick of the whole nonsense. I just want my proper old life back – something that’s worth living for. I just cannot understand how people have fallen for all this nonsense, even demanded it! I hate what the world has become, loathe it, detest it. I refuse to take part in it. Thankfully I’m nearer 70 than 60 now, and if this nonsense becomes permanent, new viruses mysteriously hyped up to keep the people in fear, I can see me choosing to catch it and hopefully popping my clogs and dying. This is no way to live. But then I’m sure that would be appreciated by the NWO as it would mean I’m not a drain on the state.
Only 106 as of writing this post., There has to be more who come to this site https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/320079
Have signed and shared on a couple of Facebook groups.
Just signed.
Signed and tweeted.
https://twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013/status/1267450315131019264/photo/1
This is interesting. New Zealand. Small outbreak 1500 cases. Full lockdown 25th March school-closures 23rd March. One of the countries lauded having a perfect lockdown, effective and an outstanding Prime Minister according to MSM. The same curve. The cases go quickly to the top then exponential decline. There is a 7 days incubation time so with this in mind an effect would be around 2nd April but the exponential curve is already going down 21st March.
Worth 5 % BNB drop and expected 10% unemployment and 250000 jobless in the future?
And if second wave do the same thing?
It’s still weird because cross immunity or asymptomatic non-spreaders etc will reduce R0 but in theory growth should still be exponential right at the beginning (just with a lower number getting exponentiated).
I think the reason must be that below a certain R0 it just doesn’t mix through the population fast enough. The lower R0 is the less accurate it is to model the population as homogeneously mixed the way a SIR model does. Basically you run out of friends long before New Zealand is anywhere close to running out of fresh hosts.
Are they still quarantining visitors? Surely it must have come in that way? They have brought in track and trace so you cannot shop without the app, so they should in theory be able to find the source very quickly…
New Zealand have a lot to answer for as they’re now looked at as the benchmark for success. Because of them, people think success is measured by how close to zero deaths a country gets.
The more I read about government regulations the more I am convinced they are looking for the public to ignore them. According to The Telegraph: Police in England have been told they cannot go into homes or gardens to check if coronavirus lockdown rules are being breached, according to new guidance.
Officers can tell people to leave someone’s home if they are breaking new lockdown rules – but cannot make them leave.
Gatherings of up to six people can now take place outdoors, for example in open spaces or in private gardens.
But laws which came into force on Monday banned people from staying overnight anywhere other than the place where they are living.
The staying overnight aka ban on sex law is to make policing ‘track and trace’ easier. Not that it’s policeable anyway, but….
If they’re gonna be telling people they have to lock themselves away for 14 days, they have to make sure they can’t go and sleep anywhere else.
I think you might be right – it’s always been in the government guidance that people aren’t supposed to meet up in private spaces, so why enshrine it in law now, when things are actually meant to be easing? Give me strength, it makes it feel as if this nightmare will never end and like they’re clamping down rather than easing up.
It feels like a more intensive clamping down to me as well,not realistically enforceable though except through people’s fear of the local Stasi snitches ratting on them.
Where it says “laws which came into force on Monday banned people from staying overnight anywhere other than the place where they are living”, is there actually laws or are these rules/guidelines which they would like us to follow?
This appears to be law – a change to the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/2020-06-01
Whether the basis of these regs themselves can be challenged is another question. They are enacted under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, and I think their applicability is under question.
From what I’ve read it will be an actual law.
Which is what leads me to believe it’s meant to serve an actual purpose AKA making people more trackable simply by virtue of making them return home at night.
It’s a curfew in all but name, basically
All but name, and the ability to have even the teensiest chance of being able to enforce it.
That’s the only way back to sanity. Break the law.
Why they made it actual law rather than guidance is what’s disturbing to me — they really do value this track and trace thing more than I thought they did.
Outrageous!
In England, it’s a law:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/558/regulation/2/made
I really hope you are right! That they are simply producing the guidelines to try to make the people hiding behind the sofas feel safer, and that they really want us to lead the way and ignore the guidelines. But then the other part of me says, why on earth should we be the ones having to shine the torch for the way forward, and meanwhile suffering the unsocial distancing and all the other nonsense that goes with it? I’ve just had an email from easyJet reassuring me that when they start to fly they will be looking after my safety by insisting both cabin crew and passengers all wear face masks (for 4 hours?!) and that there won’t be any refreshments served on board at all. Oh and even if you’ve paid for a specific seat, they will be reallocating seats to space people apart so that we all feel safer. It’s utter tripe. I’d rather they just “looked after my safety” by ensuring the planes are well serviced and the crew know what they are doing.
We never realised did we ?,all along all of these companies only ever cared about our safety,it wasn’t about extracting as much money from as possible for as little service as possible,it’s so touching.
Should say ‘ from us ‘,why no edit button ?
It’s not a forum, which is why there is no edit. Just comments.
If that’s the case why have they been so meticulous with this troubling document?
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/558/regulation/2/made
Another completely unenforceable piece of rat vomit.
According to this ridiculous piece of legislation, you can stay at somebody else’s house if you are providing “Emergency assistance” which is vague and open to interpretation. Stay wherever you want and just make up something that you thought was an emergency if somehow you get asked why.
Dominic Cummings should be lynched (figuratively) because it is now clear that SAGE never recommended lockdown but Cummings attended their meetings and pushed for it. (See a Bloomberg article from April 29 here).
I am not a British citizen, but an unelected politician acting so bizarrely and brazenly is very disturbing (although common everywhere, I suppose).
Do you not ask yourselves, who in the heck is this guy and what is he doing?
Someone just phoned into the Eddie Mair show on LBC (16:40, Monday) to explain that their child had not gone back to school as they want their child to go back to ordinary school not this socially distanced school.
Eddie was at a loss to respond.
Hip hip hurrah.
Was it anyone on here, I do hope so.
Although my child has not gone back yet, I am objecting to the return to school on this basis. I have sent a letter to the school regarding what risk assessments for the children’s mental health and what support is in place for children now that they are working in an abnormal (or new normal) environment.
https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnsons-new-role-weight-watcher-in-chief-obesity-healthy-living-uk-post-coronavirus/
Before Boris wages war on our eating habits he should take a look in the mirror and lead by example.
When he gets down to 11-12 stone, I might listen to a word he says. Possibly. If I’ve been drinking.
Yes, Carrie must get rather squashed at times!
This is worrying. Bill Gates is one of the plant-based diet pushers – mega bucks to be made from nutritionally deficient frankenfoods. Don’t be surprised if a meat tax is next on the agenda.
My petition to end social distancing has finally been approved and is now live at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/320079
My petition calls for an end to all social distancing measures, so goes much further than the petition to end the lockdown.
Please everybody sign this!
Kh posted about it here about an hour ago – a few have signed it already.
Signed
Signed
I’ve signed it and forwarded it to a friend. Thanks for doing this. Someone I know was guilt tripped by the social distancing police recently and I was very cross.
Signed
Only 4 signed in Scotland so far.
Signed, and sent to everyone I know with half a brain. Please also forward it, folks.
Well done. I’ve signed it, I’ll promote it. Thanks!
Signed
Signed
How can they publish this drivel? No basis on fact, no sources and pure scaremongering. Infection rate has also never been exponential:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-uk-deaths-lockdown-eased-second-spike-wave-nhs-a9541821.html
I suggest Mr O’Grady stays locked up although that too may bring about his premature demise.
The article ought to have stopped at ‘I’m no epidemiologist’!
Definitely. It’s full of subjunctives and probablys. This isn’t journalism. Does he get paid for producing this garbage?
I read it and didn’t see the point in it. Just somebody saying they think there will be a second wave. I see plenty of these in the comments sections every day.
“I’m scared, so subliminally I’m trying to say you should be scared too”. That’s basically what he was trying to say by writing it.
Just glanced at the Church Times.
Shouldn’t have.
They are saying children should not go back to school, because the situation is analogous to that in care homes.
Jesus wept. That’s a statement, not an oath.
As we said to our Minister, who to be fair had SC2 badly but is now fine, we find it hard to understand the attitude of the churches, given the attitude of the founder of the faith to the authorities. I agree it is very dispiriting, Annie but at least we LS have some way to share our experiences and views with each other! Thanks again, Toby. If this is a safety valve, it’s a bloody good ‘un!
The Church (the institution I mean) isn’t exactly rushing to reassure frighted parishioners. There are a number of contemporary phrases I find a little depressing. One is “doing church differently”, which in the current context means “pretending that we have not closed”.
I mean no disrespect to all the people working really hard to keep things going, but the buildings are shut, meetings are banned, vicars are not meeting parishioners, schools are only just opening. Hasn’t church always been a communion of believers? For me church currently consists of sitting on my own, watching a pre-recorded video. I may be a minority, but the various video conferencing and social media do not really work for me. They can supliment social contact, but not replace it.
I dont blame any church workers, but it would be nice if the senior clergy were asking whether all this was proportionate, and worked to end it asap.
Hope Christian Concern’s legal case succeeds!
The institutional church should be ashamed. Its bishops, e.g. Nick Baines, can spout off about Cummings and the people being lied to and taken for mugs yet stay silent about the lying and mug taking & loss of life and livelihoods because of being in lockdown. BTW I’m saying all this as a Christian. The silence of the church in all this is not good.
Agree Kevin,
Felt sad to get an email the other day to say that someone had died and I wasnt allowed to attend their funeral, but “be with the family in prayer”. An equivocation on the word “with” doesnt really help.
Latest news, SAGE committee members advise on the doctrine of the Trinity. .. .
You mean they can count up to three?
Three? Imperial College would forecast 3000
Hmm, I wonder if they counted the loaves and fishes!?
Signed
Signed
Another Peter Hitchens interview. Good, as always. Same stuff, usual clarity and strength of exposition.
Found this a good point:
42:30 “I don’t know where the courts have been. I know that Simon Dolan has been trying for some time to get the courts to look at it, but it’s taken him an awful lot of time to get not anywhere very far. When you compare that with what happened with Gina Miller and with the other great Supreme Court case over the proroguing of Parliament it’s an interesting contrast, where you could see that the Supreme Court in that case was itching to get involved. Now the courts seem to me to have stayed out.”
Have you seen Triggernometry’s latest video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiefgMN9S-M
Yup. This interview is being shadowbanned.
I noticed it yesterday – because I watched half of it on the premier livestream, ducked out, then tried to find it again on my subs feed. Nowhere to be found.
I wonder why……
I have now – nice catch! They did speculate in the video as to whether i would be suppressed.
Really is shameless these days.
Now I’m enjoying their compilation of the old buffer’s humour – takes me back.
Just realised that’s not theirs – just a link that was pushed at me when I watched their video….
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Triggernometry before (followed a link to the Hitchens interview from Peter’s blog), but now I’m tempted by their preview of their David Starkey interview, which seems quite relevant in the context of the evil BLM nonsense discussed on today’s Sceptics:
David Starkey: The Self-Hatred of the English Intellectual
They have some great guests, you’ll like their channel.
Also they let people SPEAK!
Yes, good interviewers, it appears.
I like their last question to each interviewee, ‘What’s the one thing we (ie society) are not talking about, that we should be talking about?’
I guess the esteemed judges et al don’t fancy being in the nwo crosshairs.
Nicola Sturgeon response to increased vehicle use over the weekend shows that absolute power does indeed corrupt:
“Let me be very blunt here – it’s very hard to see how all of that could have been caused by local residents or by people travelling a reasonable distance to meet loved ones,” Ms Sturgeon said.
She added: “It’s worth being clear, in fact I have a duty to be clear with you, that if there is continued evidence of even a minority not abiding by these guidelines and travelling unnecessarily, if people meet up in larger groups or if they’re making journeys which risk spreading this virus, we will have to put these restrictions on group size and travel distance into law.
Poor woman, she sounds as though she is close to a breakdown.
Honestly I felt like I was back at school again. I’m surprised she didn’t cone out with a big red pen and write must try harder.
Good grief!!!
Done!
‘Rosie Duffield and Neil Ferguson who broke lockdown rules to have sex’
A lovelier couple you could never hope to meet.
If I may steal from Jerome K. Jerome with his abbreviated Romeo and Juliet (But equally applicable here) ;
Lass and lad, loved like mad.
Silly muddle, very sad!
Funnily enough, a few weeks ago when you were only allowed exercise once a day, I was taking the dogs out for a walk and there was a couple having sex in the woods! It wasn’t only me that spotted them either, there was loads commenting on it on the Facebook page for the town.
As it just seems to be public figures indulging in these activities, then it could well have been my local MP participating in bit of lockdown fun!
First day back for some
Truly vile.
What’s she doing to that child? 🤨
Chloroform?
🤣 although it’s not funny.
What is sort of amusing is the expectation that a skin temperature is going to tell you anything other than the temperature of the skin, certainly not whether a pyrexia is present, incompetent fools.
That child could have rip-roaring infection and the school would let him attend. 🤣
a doctor writes… ” The no contact infrared thermometers are actually accurate for body temperature ” .
In all cases? With no training? In all circumstances? Is the doctor employed by the manufacturer?
Was is Dr Shipman, Dr Mengler?
Joking a aside, many years ago I was past a RTA involving a pedestrian. I stopped and saw that it was a child, as I was, at the time, leading the local district general hospital peadiatric HDU and it wouldn’t been churlish to not get in involved.
I introduced myself to the person who seemed to be in charge, ‘I’m a doctor!’, he said. “Of what and where?’ was my response. In a quite voice, ‘I’m a psychiatrist’. After a quick primary survey of the child and knowing that the ambulance was on it’s way, he was possibly more able to deal with the needs of the child and the mother.
Nothing is as it seems and first blush and nothing is black and white.
It’s one of those no contact temperature takers
Looks like a gun and goes ‘pop’
I know, completely useless and pointless.
If you were serious, a tympanic thermometer is more accurate.
its a captive bolt gun (as used on livestock) .. more chance of a child dying from that than from covid!!!
Heavens, I think that would have scarred me for life!
Luxury! Matron used to note our bowel movements in her book every morning. “Yes Matron”, “Yes Matron”, “Not yet Matron” (strangled cry from WC stall) … Not quite recovered after 59 years.
I have obviously lived a sheltered life!
Please please tell me this isn’t real.
Bloody madness.
How can they do this to little children? How? HOW??
The head teachers all have to have the ‘injection’ otherwise they would not be in the position they hold i.e. they follow the rules without question and they will simply not be able to see what they’re doing to the children. It is truly chilling but I have seen this attitude for myself before I got out of the ‘profession’.
Our daughter and our next-door neighbour are both keeping their children out of school because they don’t want their heads to be messed with for life. Our village school looks like the gulag.
A rather bright pupil says to teaching assistant “can I also have a spray for cars as statistically speaking this is a far more deadly killer for me”.
Appalling,looks like a screenshot from some sci-fi horror film,these poor little souls are going to be deeply psychologically damaged by this crap,I wonder how well calibrated these thermometers are ?,my dad has one he is quite fond of but if you believe some of the readings it often gives he shouldn’t actually be here !.
Ridiculous
Fake news! Only PPE and temp taking if undertaking first aid. Other than the two metre rule we are back to as normal as we can be. We don’t like it but it’s what we have to do.
Interesting.
Can you appraise us of the general measures your school is taking?
I’m very interested to see if the meeja are hyping up the sorts of ‘regimes’ that most schools will be following.
Good spot Adele Bull 👍🏻
Regular vocal opposition from loads of teachers would not be a bad thing, Adele.
Fortunately our preschool do allow a dedicated contact person to assist with a toileting accident, full PPE must be worn!
Son was a bit confused by the new procedures, and the lack of cars, soft toys, sand etc…. and spent a lot of the time sitting in a corner in his own world. Thank God he’s back though. Hope this rules wear off by September.
This reminds me of a picture I saw last week (apparently genuine) of a priest ‘baptising’ a child from a distance using a water pistol! Totally crazy…