Two-Metre Rule Will be Replaced by One-Metre Rule by July 4th
According to the Times, two metres will be replaced by one metre on July 4th so most pubs and restaurants will be able to reopen.
Boris Johnson will announce next week that the two-metre rule will be relaxed from July 4th and that pubs, restaurants, cafés and attractions can reopen as he attempts to revive the economy. Guidance drawn up by the Government and the hospitality industry will also be published as Britain embarks on a “new normal”.
Separately, ministers will publish legislation next week to encourage an “al fresco revolution”. Every pub, bar and restaurant will be automatically entitled to serve alcohol for people to drink on the pavement and in the street.
So that’s the good news. The bad news is, beer gardens and outdoor dining areas will be patrolled by the police to make sure the one-metre rule is being observed.
Let’s hope our brave boys in blue don’t “take the knee” mid-patrol. It will look like they’re proposing to whichever woman happens to be sitting at the nearest table.
A Doctor Writes
One of my readers, a retired NHS Consultant and member of the BAME population, has written a brief review for me of the delayed Public Health England report on why BAME people appear to be more vulnerable to COVID-19 than white people. This report was much ballyhooed when it was published a few days ago, with its conclusions seeming to chime with the claims of the Black Lives Matter protestors. It led to hysterical headlines, such as this one in the Guardian: “Historical racism may be behind England’s higher BAME Covid-19 rate“.
My reader is a little more sceptical.
Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups have a substantially higher risk of developing the COVID-19 syndrome from infection with SARS-CoV-2. Unfortunately, this has got entangled with the Black Lives Matter campaign before the details of why this should be so have been unravelled. So the finding has been overlaid, somewhat hysterically, by the social constructs of cultural deprivation and racism.
The risk increase varies between BAME subgroups. It is highest in people of Bangladeshi origin – much higher than in Black people of African origin. Research is ongoing, but the Government has rushed out this extraordinary report. Initially, its recommendations were redacted. Frankly they would have been better kept that way because we still don’t know enough. At least I would have put in something about the likelihood of a genetic predisposition. Blood group A seems to be important, but why?
The incidence of a great many medical conditions varies between ethnic subgroups. For instance, sickle-cell anaemia occurs entirely in people of African origin. It is genetically determined. So to ignore the possibility that COVID-19 susceptibility might have a genetic component is foolish. And to make socio-cultural analysis the focus of the investigation, as this report does, is bizarre. What anyway is a “culturally competent” assessment? Answers on a postcard, please.
The risk of death from COVID-19 varies by age, pre-existing condition such as diabetes, or ethnicity. Being on immune suppressants may reduce your risk of death (an Italian study showed a lower risk in patients with inflammatory joint disease on cytokine blockers). Risk may be heightened by the level of exposure; being coughed at as you examine a patient closely will be far more dangerous than being breathed at from a metre away. The virus may spread more in close-contact groups; hospitals, care homes, places of worship, clubs.
But there is little evidence that deprivation plays a part. One cannot argue that hospital consultants (I was one) are financially disadvantaged, yet the death toll has been higher among BAME hospital consultants than their white counterparts too. And why are Bangladeshis at greater risk than Black Britons if racism is the cause? Most are Muslim. Yes, they may communicate closely at the mosque or at home, but hygiene standards are very high. Close contact might explain the high level of acquisition, but not the high death toll. So there remain many unknowns. But we should look for a scientific explanation before we start blustering about racism and deprivation. The virus itself is not knowingly racist; it cannot think.
I do think that groups now shown to be most at risk should be shielded from front-line duties in COVID-19 management. That means BAME doctors, nurses and others. The problem is that the NHS is so heavily reliant on them…
A Geneticist Writes
I got an email from a geneticist and data scientist who is an avid reader of Lockdown Sceptics. He is convinced that the daily deaths in England, both in hospitals and care homes, is close to zero, although you wouldn’t know that from the statistics reeled off at the daily briefings, where, as we all know, they’re reporting the total deaths that were registered in the previous 24-hour period, not those that actually occurred in the past 24 hours. He writes:
COVID-19 really has all but disappeared from the UK. The 1% or so positive cases recorded per day from daily screening may well be in the range of false positives for PCR (a method I know VERY well, and developed variations of over the years).
Sign This Free Speech Petition
The Free Speech Union has gone to bat for Stu Peters, the Manx Radio host who’s been suspended by his employer and referred to the Isle of Man’s Communications Commission – the equivalent of Ofcom – because he challenged the concept of “White Privilege”. This is a flagrant violation of Stu Peters’ right to free speech and the FSU has written to the Communications Commission demanding it drop its investigation and exonerate him.
A petition has been started by some Isle of Man locals in support of Stu. It now has over 6,000 signatures. Please sign it to show your support for free speech.
Did Sweden Lock Down After All?
I’ve published a piece by David Crowe today entitled “Sweden Did in Fact Lock Down When it Came to Care Homes“. It argues that, when it comes to care homes, Sweden did lock down in that it imposed a blanket ban on visitors. According to Crowe, it was this attempt to protect the elderly from COVID-19 that accounts for the high number of excess deaths in Sweden’s care homes – and excess care home deaths more generally.
I believe that the isolation of patients in nursing homes has not prevented deaths, but has caused deaths. Elderly, infirm people have nothing to live for any more, and poor care and abuse can no longer be observed, and stopped, by visiting friends and relatives. Underpaid staff, those who have not quit or been put in quarantine, are even more overworked than normal, resulting in poor care, frustration and abuse. Hospitals do not want nursing home patients, and the recommended alternative for the nursing home is to sedate and, if that doesn’t work, sedate some more.
Sweden, like virtually every other country, imposed an absolute ban on nursing home visitors. If this is the most destructive part of the lockdown then it is fair to say that Sweden did actually lock down when they banned visitors to nursing homes on March 31st, and this explains why its death rate is in the middle of the pack. We will never know if Sweden would have had a far lower death rate if the doors of their nursing homes had been left open to the outside world.
It’s an interesting argument and worth reading in full.
Newsnight‘s Deborah Cohen Strikes Again
One of the few BBC reporters to unpack “the science” is Newsnight‘s Health Correspondent Deborah Cohen. Some readers will remember her excellent report at the beginning of May entitled “Is the Government really ‘following the science’?” Last night, she filed another report, this one about a recent meta-study in the Lancet that analysed just over a dozen studies looking at the effects of physical distance, face masks, and eye protection on virus transmission in health-care and non-health-care (e.g. community) settings. The paper concluded that your chances of catching COVID-19 if standing one metre away from an infectious person were twice as high as if standing at two metres away.
Cohen is quite critical of the study. “It was published in the Lancet and at first glance the results look sound,” she said.
Now questions have emerged about whether the evidence for two metres is quite as good as it looked. The paper concluded your chances of catching COVID-19 at one metre was double your chances at two. Scratch a little deeper and the vast majority of the 15 studies analysed don’t mention one or two metres at all. They say things like face-to-face contact and then this is extrapolated to one or two metres. For some, this extrapolation is very troubling.
We then hear from Professor Carl Heneghan at the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. He says the evidence “is of such low quality” that it’s “not sound science”.
Dr Colin Axon of Brunel University agrees: “There’s not really any solid evidence to support two metres and there never has been.”
Unfortunately, Deborah’s report isn’t available on YouTube yet, but you can watch last night’s episode of Newsnight again here. The report is near the beginning.
This report cannot be dismissed lightly. Deborah was an editor at the BMJ for 13 years so knows her stuff.
Will the Lancet be forced to retract yet another paper? Embarrassing.
Postcard From Oregon
A reader called JJ – a professional journalist in a former life – has written a “Postcard From Oregon” for me and it’s one of the best Postcards we’ve published. Here is an extract:
Even now, going out I nearly feel a fugitive, as if a weekly trip to buy food, supplies, and medicines is committing a terrible wrong against society. A wet, live layer of fear and suspicion drips from everything and everyone. Those of us not masked or distanced are given dirty looks, parents clutch their masked children away from us as we pass, and we get rude or even silent customer service in stores. Unkind words, insults and epithets are uttered publicly. Shame is in abundance. Rational discussion has become scarce. It rapidly descends into hostility and arguing. Comments are flagged and blocked, social accounts get banned. Messages to local officials are ignored or disparaged.
Definitely worth reading in full.
Round-Up
And on to the round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘UK-wide infections fall by up to 4% a day‘ – Sky News reports that the R is now well below one everywhere
- ‘Florida’s COVID-19 surge shows the state’s reopening plan is not working‘ – Alarmist piece in the Guardian suggesting Florida is about to be engulfed by a “second wave” following an uptick in infections. In fact, Florida has ramped up testing, which partly explains the higher number of cases, and the death toll still stands at just 3,000, compared with more than 17,000 in New York
- ‘Recovery: The Plot Thickens‘ – Part two of Edmund Fordham’s look at the dubious hydroxychloroquine trials of Peter Horby and Martin Landray in the Conservative Woman. The Spectator has covered the same story
- ‘Did slavery really make Britain rich?‘ – Sam Ashworth-Hayes parses the evidence in the Spectator and concludes it’s a myth that the slave trade made Britain the wealthy country it is today
- ‘Coronavirus recession could kill 12,000 a year for as long as it lasts‘ – The Times reports that a recession could kill as many as 12,000 a year. More evidence that the cure is worse than the disease
- ‘Lies, Damned Lies and COVID-19‘ – Strong piece from Michael Lesher in Off-Guardian
- ‘100,000 coronavirus antibody tests “gathering dust in warehouses”‘ – File this under “Dog Bites Man”
- ‘COVID-19 is far more widespread than we think‘ – Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist at Oxford’s Centre for Science-Based Medicine, tells Spiked he is certain the virus far more widespread than is generally believed
- ‘Woke, Inc‘ – Spiked‘s Fraser Myers asks why BLM, ostensibly an anti-capitalist movement, has the overwhelming backing of the world’s capitalist elites
- ‘Farewell, Uncle Ben‘ – Tom Slater in the Spectator bids goodbye to the racist rice
- ‘Half of Russell Group universities to delay the start of the academic year due to coronavirus‘ – From the “Businesses That Deserve To Go Bust” department
- ‘How to Admire Someone‘ – Omar S Khan, who wrote the Postcard From Sri Lanka for Lockdown Sceptics, has written a Medium post about why you should’t pull down statues of imperfect men
- ‘Pulling down statues won’t end hate‘ – Free Speech Union Director Inaya Folarin Iman with a brilliant piece for the Mail on why we should stop trying to cleanse Britain’s history of sinners
- ‘Historians will look back at us and ask: what on earth were they thinking?‘ – Free Speech Union Director Douglas Murray on the woke Cultural Revolution
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
A few 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. Now that non-essential shops have reopened – or most of them, anyway – we’re now focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. 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. Dont worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Note to the Good Folks Below the Line
I enjoy reading all your comments and I’m glad I’ve created a “safe space” for lockdown sceptics to share their frustrations and try to keep each other’s spirits up. But please don’t copy and paste whole articles from papers that are behind paywalls in the comments. I work for some of those publications and if they don’t charge for premium content they won’t survive.
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 usually takes me several hours to do these daily updates, along with the other work connected with the site, which doesn’t leave much time for other work. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. Alternatively, you can donate to the Free Speech Union’s litigation fund by clicking here or join the Free Speech Union here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. Note: Please don’t email me at any other email addresses.
And Finally…
For those who missed the link to my Spectator column about getting a COVID-19 antibody test on Thursday, here’s your chance to listen to me reading it out. Also includes Laurence Fox on the pitfalls of wrongthink and Lucy Kellaway on the true cost to students of classroom closures.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Theme tune suggestion – Move Closer by Phyllis Nelson
The mortality spikes are back to normal in every country in Europe; we can quantify the mortality excess, and it doesn’t look good at all for the pro-Panic side..
(We warned them.)
Total all-cause mortality data in Europe confirms Wuhan-Coronavirus comparable in magnitude to flu waves of the 2010s; Panic and lockdowns fully discredited
https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/against-the-corona-panic-part-xiv-total-mortality-data-in-europe-now-confirms-the-wuhan-coronavirus-was-comparable-in-magnitude-to-flu-waves-of-the-2010s-the-panic-and-lockdowns-are-fully-discredit/
Mortality spikes are back to normal in every country in Europe. We can quantify it now with final data. It doesn’t look good at all for the pro-Panic side..
(We warned them.)
Total all-cause mortality data in Europe confirms Wuhan-Coronavirus comparable in magnitude to flu waves of the 2010s; Panic and lockdowns fully discredited
https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/against-the-corona-panic-part-xiv-total-mortality-data-in-europe-now-confirms-the-wuhan-coronavirus-was-comparable-in-magnitude-to-flu-waves-of-the-2010s-the-panic-and-lockdowns-are-fully-discredit/
This sounds right, but the problem with the dataset is that Germany had (famously) unusually low death numbers. I still haven’t seen a good explanation as to why. The two theories I’ve heard are 1) that the virus was mostly brought into the country by the young and fit from skiing holidays and so didn’t get very far or 2) greater testing capacity in the early days meant that everyone in hospital for any reason was tested and then managed appropriately, so the virus was better managed in hospital and not sent back to seed care homes. Neither seems to me to tell the whole story.
Regardless, the UK and many other countries have had a definite unusual spike in excess deaths in the last three months. Whether these are because of the virus or because of the response to the virus is probably going to be a matter for debate in the months and years to come.
Other theories I have heard are 1) much more accurate coding of deaths, so that only those that actually died ‘of’ covid are counted, and 2) a higher natural level of pre-existing immunity in the German population.
I can buy 1) except that it’s orders of magnitude – we’re talking roughly 20% of the number of deaths in a country with a population around 30% as large again. I’m not a big fan of HMG at the moment, but I’m not prepared to let the off the hook on 34,000 deaths through misreporting. As for 2) I know that we’re learning about the virus and (to the point made by doctor in today’s post), it seems that there may be a genetic element, but Britain, Netherlands, Belgium… most of Northern Europe is significantly Germanic by heritage. Again, the difference is far too large to make any sense.
Just done a really quick Ferguson-style back of the envelope calculation.
The Italian Ministry of Health, or whatever it’s called over there, has stated that only 12% of their death count was actually directly caused by covid.
12% of our 42,000-odd deaths is just over 5000. Re-calculated to give deaths per million population, we end up with about 76 deaths per million population as compared to Germany’s 107. So in the same ballpark.
Very crude and inaccurate I’m sure, but definitely a possible factor in Germany’s low numbers.
I agree about the immunity, I can’t see how any one single European country can be that different or unique in their genetic make-up.
“Just done a really quick Ferguson-style back of the envelope calculation.”
Oh,it’ll be wrong then? You do yourself a disservice!
I don’t trust my maths skills one bit!
More seriously. One factor is that they may count the deaths differently. We know our figures are inflated. I don’t know how the Germans count their covid19 dead.
I wish I’d done that before posting (it’s Saturday, I’ve had a few beers. Sue me).
The 12% number from Italy really bothers me, because of the scale of misreporting it suggests (well, obviously – 88% misreported).
I find it hard to imagine anybody bothering to go through that exercise here and harder to imagine what the story will be to be spun.
“Folks, I have to level with you… most of your grannies didn’t die from this awful virus after all.”
You can bet it would never, ever be reported even if someone did do any sort of recount here…
I can easily see the MSM agenda shifting from “lockdown is the best, but the government didn’t do it well enough” to “lockdown was stupid and we all said so all along” within the next 6 months.
And nobody will even remember that they’ve done it.
It wouldn’t be the first time the media have executed a 180 degree turn without admitting it.
The media has a get out of jail free card…’we were just reporting what the government told us what was happening’ then they’ll go after Boris with both barrels….
We will remember.
Was this the story you are referring to?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says
True, but the UK did see a significant increase in deaths as against the average for the last 5 years. Some of these may well have been caused by the lockdown in various ways, but it seems unlikely that all of them were. The same is true of France, Belgium, Spain, Italy.
Better shielding of the vulnerable, different susceptibility maybe (we have more overweight people, more people from certain ethnic groups who were more affected, the Italians and Spanish have more people with lung problems?) and better management of treatment.
But still quite a difference.
I think they’re on about 1/3 our deaths per capita which isn’t orders of magnitude, but it is a lot.
The relative geographical evenness throughout Germany of PCR positive test ratios and the serology results from Heinsberg make me think their level of prevalence in the population is similar to the UK, which is pretty much fully cooked and I don’t think either country will have a second wave.
I believe they are counting the deaths basically the same way (with not of).
So I put it down to their better-prepared and less overloaded health services which meant they could isolate people better and had much less of a nosocomial outbreak. The number of ICU beds they have per person has since long before Covid been the highest in Europe by some margin.
Germany’s at 8,900(ish) deaths, with a population of around 80M, the UK is at about 42,000 deaths, with a population of around 60M.
So, you’re right – it’s not orders of magnitude, but the difference in deaths per million is very significant.
I accept that your explanation seems the most likely, except that – the UK never, not even for a day overtopped the ICU capacity. Quality of health service may be a factor, but ICU capacity never was.
Yes I think everyone in the UK got some sort of treatment who needed it (so they could tick that box). But if you have more space and capacity you have more options and can sort out “Covid-free zones” and all that kind of thing with more chance of it actually working.
This is why we see much lower IFRs in countries where the overall infection rate is low– if a hospital only has a few Covid cases to deal with they can isolate them better and not get an outbreak of infections acquired inside the hospital.
I think something like this is more likely than German “immunological dark matter”. Germany is not very far away. If they had cross-immunity from some other coronavirus, we would probably have it to. Our diets and lifestyles are pretty much the same.
One thing I forgot about is that about 9% of the UK population are from BAME ethnic groups that are at 3 or 4 times higher risk of Covid death. In Germany it’s more like 1%. I hesitate to call this “dark” matter. Perhaps “matter of colour” is a better term? This accounts for some of the difference but not all.
I’m not sure everyone got treatment who needed it. One friends husband is a cancer specialist at a large hospital. He was at home most of lockdown as they suspended most treatment at the hospital he worked at.
Also my other half waited 4 months for a scan for potential cancer. Only managed to get it done a week ago.
I do hope that these people that were prevented from getting healthcare notify their MPs (speak to the media) why they are outraged. Sadly for some the delay in getting medical treatment is an unjust death sentence.
Yes, they have a better run health system. Also they made less use of hospitals – they used “Corona taxis”, for example, to send doctors to patients. This was something that Italians have been urging the rest of the world to do, but the UK is still hospital-centric. I also have the impression that German hospitals have used mechanical ventilation less.
Yes, I think they actually got a doctor to see people with Covid symptoms in Germany, whereas here they made you phone 111 who told you to stay at home until you were too breathless to talk…
I understand that Belgium also has a well-funded health service and plenty of ICU beds, yet their death rate is worse than Britain’s. Why would that be?
Agree can’t let the government off the hook.
The main reason the uk would have had a bad year was the 50% of the “CV” deaths were from care homes. Anyone falling sick basically was not allowed access to a GP refusing to see them “ coz it’s not safe” and then not getting treatment in hospital because they had all stopped treatment for any normal illnesses.
1) is wrong: in Germany all test-positive deaths, irrespective of the actual cause of death, are counted as “coronavirus deaths”.
https://swprs.org/rki-relativiert-corona-todesfaelle/
Thanks. I think it was you who pointed this out to me before.
Thanks. Do you know if they counted care home deaths and deaths in the community too?
The blog Hail’s post links to covers 24 countries, including the UK. Interesting stuff…
Yes. Sorry. Should read the link, not the post – very interesting stuff.
So many factors! I think there are some things that would have favoured Germany: a low Chinese-origin population, far fewer illegal Chinese work gangs (found in Northern Italy and much of Spain, as well as parts of the UK), and a much lower South Asian/African migrant population. The other thing I would say is that Germans have a much stronger hygiene culture. Perhaps they are far more likely to be washing their hands, far less likely to be picking their noses and more inclined to stay at home if they feel a bit unwell than other Europeans.
Maybe the Germans gave their people different vaccines over the years compared to ours and benefited from some cross-immunity effect, or suffered less vaccine-induced enhancement.
Maybe they have had a particular variation of a cold virus that circulated in their population centres providing some immunity to Covid that we didn’t see to the same extent.
Maybe they don’t keep old people alive so keenly as us, meaning that the disruption to their health service doesn’t cause a massive spike in deaths compared to ours.
Maybe they have a different diet that on average includes more Zinc or Vitamin D or whatever.
A lot more people smoke in Germany than the UK (32% versus 20%).
It’s a multidimensional ‘experiment’, and fixating on only one thing – the virus – is likely to produce apparent mysteries. What I am taking away from this event is that the immune system is a weird and wonderful thing, and that it has evolved to produce optimal results on average, based on the way diseases have circulated for millions of years. But this means that it is not necessarily optimised for modern life, nor for every individual in every case.
Luckily the NHS did this for you.
95% of deaths in hospitals had one or more pre existing conditions. Similar to Italy.
Posting images here seem to have disappeared so I can’t post the graph???
I’m not sure that makes a big difference. Just because there were other causes of death on the certificate doesn’t mean it wasn’t the virus that actually finished them off. The ‘flu is similarly far more likely to kill people with pre-existing conditions – that doesn’t mean that people don’t die from the ‘flu.
If someone has a heart attack, cancer, renal failure etc then they didn’t die if CV.
Also there have been numerous articles in papers that excess deaths have spiked due to people Either to afraid to go to the hospital or simply couldn’t get treatment anymore.
Even the ONS figures are showing huge increases in Non covid deaths now.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/analysisofdeathregistrationsnotinvolvingcoronaviruscovid19englandandwales28december2019to1may2020/technicalannex
Thanks for this. Somewhat damning!
Yes, I know that. Just because someone had Covid doesn’t mean that Covid killed them. But by exactly the same logic, just because someone had something else as well as Covid, doesn’t mean it was that that killed them rather than Covid.
The real number of deaths caused by Covid is neither the number of death certificates which mention Covid, nor the much smaller number of death certificates that _only_ mention Covid.the real answer is somewhere in between. It doesn’t do the sceptic argument any good to pretend that virtually nobody at all has actually died, because it just makes us look like fantasists. Even the over reported numbers are not in themselves huge and the real number is somewhat smaller than that, but it’s not _nothing_
Got a bone to pick with you. I came here for a quick look at the comments before bed. Here I am, hours later, still reading that article, with others on the same blog to read. It’s your fault I’m still up you [insert your least favourite insult here].
Ruddy interesting though…
I apologize for my earlier snap-post. This stuff is brilliant. You have my vote for a Nobel prize.
Awesome amount of detail – keep digging!
I look forward to your book when this is all over! It will go on my shelf next to Toby’s
Just read through this in the last hour. Excellent post. Good, solid evidence & facts. Well done. Keep it up.
Arguably the finest post ever on this site, and there have been so many outstanding ones. Many congratulations and many thanks for this.
Regarding the fine performance of Germany’s health service, it is decentralised (when will we learn?) so states acted unilaterally, consequently swiftly, testing widely, particularly the young. Initial infections were mainly amongst youngsters who were urged early on to stay away from their elderly relatives. Also Germany does not have the same tradition of extended family living together as in Italy, for example. Consequently the level of infection of the elderly and of nosocomial infection in health institutions was much lower than elsewhere.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1395
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/coronavirus-less-deadly-in-germany-because-of-youthful-patients
In Britain, our clearance of hospital beds for covid 19 patients who never turned up both exacerbated nosocomial infections by spreading covid 19 from hospitals into care homes and also had the effect of drastically reducing the life expectancy of those elderly and infirm discharged from hospital with other life threatening conditions.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1931
(Moderator, first attempt to post didn’t work, please delete: https://dailysceptic.org/2020/06/20/latest-news-61/#comment-32069). Sorry, and Thanks
Maurice de Hond is a Dutch pollster, who has been doing political/voting research for decades. Because he likes to work with data and also because he has a good feeling for what’s happening he became very sceptic very early on. Now he has done research into how Dutch people are feeling, after having been terrorised (as Professors Thakur and Dingwall have called that type of propagandising) by the Dutch government for months that things would be terrible. Oh, and something about a “possible second wave” of course.
Well, here is the graph he showed on his own website. Part of the text reads:
What the doctors, administrators and editors of TV programs such as Op1 (=daily Dutch TV “talk program”) apparently do not recognize is that this keeps many people unnecessarily in stress. That is bad for their condition, it is bad for our society, it is bad for public health and it is bad for the economy. People are therefore too much under stress to do a number of things that would be good for their health and also good for the economy. But certainly also for public health.
To show the experts, the administrators and certainly also the media what disastrous effects their actions have, I determined via Peil.nl last weekend at 3,600 people how big they think they are – if they become infected – the virus will die. And I have listed that by age table. In addition, it is stated what is the estimate of the actual mortality probabilities if you become infected, based on the actual figures at this time.
A brief explanation of the columns:
[note: I insert my own extra explanations as well, he didn’t explain everything because the readers are Dutch.]
Leeftijdsklasse: age groups
Werkelijke stervenskans / “Real chance of dying”: that is the chance that someone of that age dies if he / she becomes infected.
Denkt dat kans hoger is dan 5%: “Thinks chance (= of dying) is higher than 5%”
Denkt dat kans minder is dan 0,1%: “Thinks chance (= of dying) is lower than 0,1%”
Gem. ingesch. stervenskans: “Average estimated chance of dying”: all respondents of that age have estimated their probability of death if they become infected. This is the average of all those answers.
Mate van overschatting sterftekans: “Degree of overestimation of mortality probability”: the estimated chances of dying divided by the actual mortality probability. The value 500 therefore means that the estimation is 500 times too great.
You can see here how much higher the Dutch estimate their risk of dying from an infection than it actually is (Apart from the chance of being infected at all.)
Dutch people under the age of 45 are estimated to be more than 425 times as likely. For people aged between 55 and 64, this is a factor of 65. And for Dutch people between 65 and 80, this is 15.
How big do you think the damage is (in all kinds of areas) when Dutch people estimate their risks so badly?
Isn’t it about time that all those involved (ie doctors, administrators and media) give the Dutch a realistic idea of the danger of this virus? Instead of constantly stirring up fear. Which causes a lot of unnecessary damage.
See https://www.maurice.nl/2020/06/17/wanneer-komen-we-weer-bij-zinnen/ for complete article.
Also on the page he explains (as an answer to comments) how he got to his numbers, you can use Google Translate to translate the rest. What this however shows is that the less real chance of dying do to COVID-19 the higher the over-estimation. You might say that those age groups who on average “consume” more media are probably hit much harder by the endless negative news with regards to COVID-19.
My two-cents? A generation primed by for instance a Swedish girl of school age (who however didn’t even finish her school!) to believe that the world is going to end in 10 years from now was bombarded with the same type of message implying that pretty much all their grandparents could die within a few months if they refused give up their own future and stay indoors.
To end on a positive note: maybe, just maybe, some of those young people might realized sometime later this year that the same type of models which predicted ridiculous numbers of deaths due to COVID-19 are also used to terrorise them into believing the world is going to end…?
Exellent analysis.
It would have been even better if he’d split up the ’65-80′ age range. I reckon the chances of dying at 65 are exponentially lower than the chances of dying at 80 – lumping these (the only high risk group apart from the 80+) all together probably weakens his case a little.
I had also noticed that, the 65-80 is quite a large grouping yet per for instance 5 years would have been much more interesting. Not sure why he did this, perhaps he didn’t have enough reactions from within that group and therefore had to group them together? But still, the point is there.
And we, the Dutch, used to think we were so stoic, individualistic and rational… It seems only the Swedes managed to keep a cool head.
I’m sure that the sane people in every locked-down country feel the same disillusionment and betrayal.
Anti-zombies of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your zombies.
Thought we Brits were too. Maybe some of us still are. Perhaps the level heads are in the wrong jobs?
This virus and how it was and is being hyped up is not going to stop many people, especially not the school-indoctrinated young, from believing in the climate change hoax. It’s too deeply imbedded in the teaching of the far left ‘educators’, the bbc and MSM generally. Even the debacle of that idiot’s pathetic ‘modelling’ won’t help most of the zombies make the connection with climate hoax modelling when all this virus rubbish is proved to be rubbish come the inquiry (even if we do get such a thing and it’s honest). No, the climate hoax is here to stay. Watch taxes on all types of fuel increase and increase, and bans of such things like log burners introduced. God knows what they will think up to cause even more misery in the near future.
The 1m thing is good,that to me is your normal personal space,but it had to be tempered by something negative didn’t it ?,how enjoyable will a pub or restaurant visit be if we are expecting the fuzz to appear at anytime and treat us like infants who can’t look after themselves ? and if the all sanitiser nonsense,one way systems,perspex screens,staff in masks etc,etc is in place it will still be a dystopian nightmare and I will not be going along with it.For god’s sake all we want is what we had before,I just want to go out with our friends and enjoy ourselves,like we did for decades until this March.Stop this slow drip,drip of easing things,it isn’t going to help the economy,grow a pair Johnson and just let everything return to normal now.
Well, I agree. And I wonder how good people might be at “social distancing” once they have had a few bevies?
“I f***ing love you, I do. Virtual hug!”
lol, thanks. matt you can get a “free hugs” tee shirt on Amazon. My #nolockdown tee shirt is also waiting for a public airing. Pub opening day might be a good time.
Quickly followed by “I’m starving…I need some chips. Or a kebab. Or a curry.”
lol, or a wee.
Quite. It would be a brave plod coming round our local at 10pm on a Friday or Saturday night, reminding people not to sit too close together. Brave to withstand the verbal banter/abuse that is, no flying chairs hopefully.
Well I can assure from my outing today that there is no social distancing taking place on one of London’s many commons. The Police aren’t intervening and the rules are so confusing in any case they can’t be enforced. So people are just mixing as normal now, from many different households, clearly.
There has never been a law about distancing, at least not in England. The only laws we have had regarded who you could mix with, and how many. The 2 metres is a guideline, presented by government and media as a rule.
I don’t know what force of law there will be behind the 1 metre thing, on premises. I expect the government lawyers are working on the wording now. They will probably be able to threaten premises with closure if there is not compliance.
There’s been a lot of conflicting advice on this one and I’ve been meaning to look for the official wording recently but haven’t yet (and it may not apply to the new rules).
We know for a fact that outside in public 2m is a recommendation and not enforceable by law, but is it the same within businesses? Many comments have said that it’s just guidance but it’s observed so militantly (queueing outside a supermarket behind a taped line in the soaking rain etc) that I’m wondering.
Now it’s likely businesses cannot avoid following it as they could be sued etc, so either way are effectively forced into making it a rule.
If it is/was only guidance, is this being changed? The police surveying beer gardens will cause a lot of unnecessary friction either way, but will they have the power to fine??
Well, first, the queues have been policed by the queuers (not a word, autocorrect? It is now!) in my experience. I remember one instance, in the very early days, back in March, of a police horse going by while I was waiting to get into the green grocer and shouting at the queue “2 metres!” But that’s it. Otherwise, surliness but no instruction from the bouncer whose job it is to let you into the shop and nasty looks and exaggerated flinching from people around you in the queue.
But as to the power to fine – gawd knows. 1m is so close to being normal personal space when it comes to anyone you’re not related to or sleeping with that I doubt there’ll be any risk if you’re a punter. I suppose the problem comes from either badly spaced tables or pubs allowing people to congregate at the bar.
As soon as they open, I’m going back to my local, because I want them to keep existing. If they’ve become fascists, I’ve give them a miss for a while till things calm down.
Will the zombies go to pubs and restaurants? After all, they do have to buy food, but they don’t have to do anything that a human being would enjoy.
Or will they stay under the bed, and let us humans get on with living?
Some people I know still think it’s too dangerous go for a walk, so probably not.
I’m hoping the under the bed thing
I’m pretty sure that 2m was only ever guidance, not that you’d know it by the way some people behave. The police therefore had no legal basis to enforce it, unless we now live in a police state. Unless the govt change the law (which seems to be no barrier these days, it can apparently be changed in 10 seconds flat with no scrutiny) then I can’t see how they can have any power to fine.
I’m not so sure. I think it went something like legislation passed empowering Ministers to issue legally binding guidance…guidance says 2 metre distance but will have a general qualification “where practical” and more specific dispensations for hospitals etc. So for ordinary people, if it’s practical for them to observe the 2 metre distance, then it’s a legal obligation. That would be my guess from all the bits of info I’ve picked up. So if the Police have evidence you are deliberately flouting the rule they can arrest and charge you.
Cool. Will be trying to add one of these to our existing FPN.
In Wales it was and is a law. In the early days it was law that you could only leave your house once a day. And by law that footpaths were closed.
Anybody in Wales now who is not technically a criminal has to be a zombie, by definition.
I think it probably depends where you live, I’m in rural Cheshire and we haven’t seen a police car here for years, the pub will be open as normal in July. Social distancing will be forgotten on about the third pint. It’s happening anyway. People are moving on.
What is the risk to a healthy individual under the age of 60 from Covid-19 at 5cms let alone I metre? Virtually zero. They’ve probably had it anyway. If they haven’t they’ll get the sniffles for a few days.
All the government needs to do is to advise the vulnerable to shop online and avoid busy places.
What the police need to be doing is catching actual criminals
Please keep up Nel…there are no criminals. There are only people you bend your knee to as required.
Of course, silly me!
1 metre is better than 2, to save at least some of the hospitality industry from destruction, and it helps our cause for the government to be seen as making it up as it goes along, undermining their “deadly virus” narrative.
But any mandated measure of distancing, or indeed any other restriction, cannot be accepted as normal, ever. We cannot rest until every vestige of the damaging, ineffective measures taken is removed and admitted to be a blunder.
“as we all know, they’re reporting the total deaths that were registered in the previous 24-hour period”
Yes, this may be true, but a reality check is needed here.
An undertaker will not bury or cremate a corpse without a death certificate. (For what I would hope are obvious reasons). Generally people’s corpses are not left for very long before being disposed of. So the delay between death and registration cannot be very long.
The figures are inflated as we all by now know. Covid19 is a notifiable disease and goes on a death certificate if present in the deceased. Whether they died simply “with” or “of” covid19 is therefore not known. However (correct me if I am wrong) around 95% of these also have other causes of death recorded on certificates.
In the UK it can go on the death certificate without the deceased ever being tested…
Yes, I forgot to mention that !
The majority of care homes deaths will not have been tested, in fact it wasn’t until April 10th when they changed the online form for a death that COVID-19 started to be seen a a cause of death in care home.
For PHE deaths in hospitals there is over 1,000 deaths that are classed as COVID-19 but there was not a positive test.
I should say the PHE website does say that the feaths without positive test will be removed once the final figures are known.
Nonetheless, the actual date of death of every individual death reported in the daily announced deaths is available (I think on the NHS data website. It may be the ONS). It’s quite striking how far these deaths can go back in date – far longer than the length of time you would expect between death and cremation/burial. Many weeks, often.
Not many weeks unless you are putting a body in storage.
Did you not read my comment matt?
I did, but given that there are effectively no autopsies happening (also dubious practice) I’m not sure why we would see significant numbers of bodies in storage. There have been more deaths (a bit) than average and funerals are more logistically difficult than they should be, but I can’t imagine the queue is that long.
Is the implication you’re making, that bodies are being kept in cold storage deliberately to continue to inflate the death numbers? Well.. ok. And I concede that the death numbers are being inflated. But then, why publish the actual date of death on an official and publicly available website?
Just on this, a friend of my family died on the 4th January and because of a backlog in funerals and cremations at the time, he had to wait until the 27th February until he was cremated.
So there was a huge backlog even before this COVID-19 started.
Odd – since excess deaths were in the negative in that period…but might be local differences.
Indeed. I had a family death in late February, just before the lockdown and around the time when they kicked out the elderly from hospitals to help propogate CV in care homes. It took 7 weeks for the funeral. The delay was inexplicable, no explanation even attempted. I suspected at the time the local authorities were delaying funerals because they wanted to give the impression that so many were dying that they couldn’t cope – to try and imitate Lombardy. I saw ICU in late February in one of the countries largest and best equipped hospitals – the ward was huge and it had only two beds occupied out of at least a hundred. Scandalous – and people then clapped for this every Thursday.
This does not make any sense at all to me.
This requires proper investigation and explanation not just unsourced anecdotes.
That’s a long waiting list pre-“crisis”!
Any idea what caused it?
Thank you. That’s what I was looking for. An explanation. However, I don’t believe what you are saying. Can you provide some evidence to back this up?
Two months wait for a cremation? You must be joking. I’m not buying into that without evidence!
Does anyone else know if there has been such a backlog?
And if it is true, why was there a backlog of that length in January?
That is very definitely not normal !
90.4% had more than one other illness listed on them according to the ONS
Thank you.
The tide is turning for Scotlands Führer Sturgeon. Even her brave hearts are getting sick of it. She’s become the person who’s stopping us getting back to normal despite us going days without anyone dying and only like 15 new cases a day. What she is doing is insane and even her numbskull supporters are beginning to see this. It’s maybe worth her doubling down just to pump a few more nails into her coffin.
Keep us informed, Biker. Want to watch you dance on her grave (metaphorically, that is, of course),
I hope and believe that Comrade Stalin Drakeford is staring into the same abyss.
Like the old danse macabre.
If the Meadows in Edinburgh is anything to go by the public have stopped listening to them. My friend and i went busking there last night and it was mobbed. There were thousands of people drinking, sitting around ignoring distancing, people playing cricket, frisbee, football using BBQ’s. There was us busking with people standing around listening and dancing. It was a great night. The police were noticeable by their absence. The media might think they speak for the people and you might have doubts in your mind when you see the odd arsehole in a mask but i’ve been all over on my motorcycle and been busking in a few places and most people are out and about again and they know how they are being abused by the Government. Führer Sturgeon thinks she’s played a blinder but she’s so out of touch it’s laughable. Fuck the lot of them and roll on Alex Salmond and his book exposing the feminists in the SNP lying about him to get him sent to jail. My only worry being if Sturgeon gets locked up for a couple of years she’ll write the Scottish Mein Kampf while in there.
That description is cheering indeed.
Can the Sturgeon actually read a and write?
Obviously. Her nose is so buried in her rules and regs that she never looks up to see what’s actually going on in her country.
Here’s hoping. Surely untenable for her to insist on 2m if England drops to 1. Although the longer she spins out the illusion that we’re in the middle of a dire emergency, the longer she can put off the evil day when she has to get on with her actual job instead of preaching pointlessly on the telly every day.
If this leads to Wee Crankie’s downfall, it will have been almost worth it. Almost, I dare say…
Have you seen some of her children (not her real children i might add because she’s none so in reality doesn’t have a stake in the future) they’re some of the dumbest fuckers ever to leave school? I shudder with acute embarrassment when one of them pops up in Westminster or on the telly. These people have set Scotland back 300 years. We look like a joke. I really despair at what a piss poor bunch of wankers they really are.
A video of a Police Scotland PC in Holyrood park, Edinburgh claiming that Nicola Sturgeon’s Office instructed Police Scotland to allow the breaching of lockdown by anti-racist protestors.
https://mobile.twitter.com/craigy33?lang=en
PC making things up to stoke tensions?
Police Scotland following decree from a politician?
Niether is a good look.
No comment to date From Nicola Sturgeon’s office, as in ignored.
Police Scotland dealth with my email of concern by losing it, as you do. Now back on track with no response to date.
Further.
The Edinburgh Evening News published location, date and times for the anti racist protests. Treatment distinctly different for the earlier lockdown protests where the Ed Eve News made hay out of telling folk to stay away and how the Ed Eve News was censoring the location, date and time of lockdown protests.
Interesting that the Five Eyes Alliance (UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) have imposed some of the most over-zealous lockdowns. They are also extremely pro “woke” and “cancel culture”. I really don’t like the way we are heading. The great irony being that these countries, which have always been highly critical of eastern regimes and communist culture, are now pushing agendas which are EXACTLY the same. So much for the so-called “free” way of Western living. Spying, censorship, government control, tracking and tracing, state sponsored propaganda (BBC). Welcome to the new Western World of 2020!
I don’t think the UK’s lockdown was overzealous compared to other countries. In other countries you needed to carry a piece of paper with you, declaring why you’re outside, where you’re going, and where you’re coming back. The US was dumping milk down the drain cause the supply chain was completely shut down. The UK’s lockdown was a walk in the park in comparison to other places.
Fair point. But I still feel the West is drifting closer to communism and state control every day. Woke culture and censoring something because it goes against the grain of social opinion, is de facto fascism. This is why it’s so important to protect free speech.
At the height of our restrictions, the lockdown was very similar to Italy and France in severity. You didn’t need a piece of paper, like you did in France and the British police weren’t quite as violently enthusiastic about enforcement as they were in Italy, but the rules were fairly similar. We dumped milk down the drain here. I’m sure they did in France and Italy too. If you shut down your hospitality sector, people who make food have fewer places to sell it.
Italy had regional lockdowns of varying severity. I don’t think Neagu is really aware of the true situation. Either that or they are and support lockdowns.
Here in the far South West there was a great deal of police intimidation going on. We didn’t need pieces of paper to go out, but our boys and gals in blue made very, very sure we got the message – until just after the Easter weekend when I’m guessing their overtime budget ran out.
Having said this, I sort of miss it all as it was quite good fun dodging them as we got on with going out pretty well as normal anyway.
Sadly, we were dumping milk in the U.K. as well. Just one example of the collateral damage from the insane ‘lockdown’ policy.
https://www.farminguk.com/news/coronavirus-farmers-forced-to-dump-thousands-of-litres-of-milk_55377.html
Nonsense. The Netherlands and Germany both had a lighter touch lockdown. Belgium with the worst death rate in the world has operational hairdressers.
The US lockdown extent has varied hugely depending on which State is being referenced.
I don’t know why you are trying to minimise the UK lockdown. We haven’t got any functioning schools yet for crying out loud! Our lockdown has been appallingly tight.
Oh yes. I forgot What I was actually going to say, which was that we’ve been far, far slower at coming out. I got as far as saying that Italy and France were actually no more as draconian as us and then forgot the main point.
It’s not about the depth of the original measures (it is, but that’s a different argument), it’s about the glacial exit.
Honestly, I’m going to bed. Probably should have done that some time ago.
You’re right – Belgium was lifting its lockdown even as its deaths rose at a staggering rate to take it to the top of the death charts.
Good for Belgium. The right decision.
I never said the UK had the lightest lockdown. I said it didn’t have the tightest one.
A lot of milk was dumped down UK drains too, just may not have been reported.
Did they drag on as long though?
Lockdown should never have been considered as an option. I refuse to accept that the UK is an open air prison. There was never any credible evidence to support such measures regardless. Overzealous is an understatement. Crime against humanity is closer to the truth and those responsible for imposing this on the British people need to be prosecuted. I don’t actually care what any other country did that is a problem for their populations.
I take your last point, but other countries’ responses do matter because of the copycat effect. If only China had imposed a lockdown, I’m sure we wouldn’t have: it’s the sort of thing you only see in brutal dictatorships, like crushing demonstrators under tanks. But because other ‘democracies’ did it, we had to as well.
Turning democracies into nasty little China clones.
I will have to respectfully disagree with the assertion that we had to because other ‘democracies’ did it.
Democracy is meant to give the people representation. We don’t get to vote in the elections of other countries therefore the actions of their governments should not dictate the actions of ours. If other ‘democracies’ adopt policies that are going to improvise their nation and kill very many of their people we do not have to copy those policies what we have to do is recognise that they are criminally stupid policies and not copy them.
improvise should have been impoverish above
Yes indeed, but don’t tell me, tell our criminally stupid government.
OK looks like I misunderstood your explanation of why it happened for your opinion of what should happen. My apologies.
It’s true we were at least allowed outdoors, which was a relief, but in every other respect the measures and their effects were more or less identical. As was the damage done.
When outside of wartime has a UK government passed national legislation saying where we could go and who we could meet, both outside and inside our homes?
“A walk in the park”. We could indeed walk in the park, but hundreds of billions of pounds of our money have been poured down the drain, millions are unemployed or soon will be, life and health for a generation have been wrecked for many, schools, leisure centres, churches, bars, pubs etc remain closed, other premises open but with unpleasant rules, we still can’t meet others in our own homes, no gatherings, sport suspended, millions working from home, protest illegal, muzzles on trains, police roadblocks in Wales and Scotland, quarantine, hospitals closed unless you have covid, dentists closed…
You used the word “comparison”, but other than the ability to take exercise outdoors without a piece of paper, please explain how what we have had and continue to have, is a “walk in the park”.
A walk in the park… compared to other places. That last bit is pretty important.
Interesting that Macron, international banker background, seemed to lead the lockdown mania, which occurred nearly exclusively in Europe and English speaking countries. No country in the Far East imposed a total national lockdown. The media would like you to believe otherwise. I think there has definitely been some political motivation behind this. These guys – Macron, Blair, EU robots, Clinton, Obama, Soros, Merkel, Trudeau – talk to each other all the time.
Not supporting lockdowns but on a point of information, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore did have national lockdowns far stricter than ours
Hi Toby
I don’t want to be a “sceptic” but perhaps Deborah Cohen’s otherwise admirable scepticism is just a part of Bojo’s new priority of reversing the fear propaganda that was such a success.
Perhaps the new one metre rule will lead to compulsory mask wearing at all times – going by today’s BBC story here.
I used to be pretty dismissive of Deborah Cohen’s Newsnight items – she often seemed to be making media mountains out of medical molehills. But I must say that she is about the only MSM TV journo I’ve had any respect for during the Corona-crisis. Her reports have shed light on areas the main news was avoiding and have been non-hysterical, properly science-based in most cases. So no doubt she will be for the chop now like that Newsnight journalist who was too good at investigating Savile, Liz someone… (sadly died soon after being booted off).
Liz MacKean.
Thanks John. I did want to honour her memory by giving her name. She was
a brave journalist. Exactly the sort of person that the BBC don’t like. They just want repeaters not reporters. “BLM, blah blah, coronarisk, blah, climate change sinking islands, blah blah”.
I was asking about her a couple of weeks ago as, to my knowledge, she hadn’t been seen on the beeb since questioning the Ferguson model at the beginning of May – the first on MSM to do so.
Yes she had a bit of break…whether enforced or not I don’t know. But as you recall the fact she was challenging the Ferguson model while the rest of the BBC were worshipping it as a totem tells you a lot!
Yes, news headline on radio this morning reported Matt Hancock saying that a condition of relaxing the 2m rule will be the wearing of masks. As I refuse to wear one, this will mean life will be even more restricted for me as the lockdown is “eased”. As for the “opening up” of “non-essential” shops, cafés, etc, nothing would persuade me to patronise them under the conditions being enforced. Who wants to be subjected to a non-stop sanitising regime, or served by something in a mask ? Where pubs and cafés are concerned, maybe it’s time for enterprising people thrown out of their jobs to start introducing something along the lines of speak-easies, where people can go underground, behave like human beings, and actually look at each other’s faces.
I’d rather try to stay 2m apart than wear a mask.
Cautiously agree, so long as 6foot becomes a dead letter, as it’s starting to do here.
Lack of muzzle is harder to fudge.
Isn’t it amazing how, when it comes to Climate Change. BLM and Coronavirus, the UK MSM – BBC, Sky and ITV in particular – are only too happy to report in the most lurid and emotive terms, in ways that are designed to anger, outrage, frighten, cow and co-opt the audience?
Oh, but when it comes to British people dying in a horrible terrorist incident, how softly-softly their approach becomes…not so much a change of gear…more like coming to a dead halt.
Apparently, according to Sky just now, these perpetrators are often on a “journey” (just like X Factor contestants, eh? – nice), with their destination being “extremism”…of course the extremism of the reported Libyan suspect remains undefined and will likely remain undefined permanently if our media cabal gets its way. If he cried out anything at the scene, we won’t be told. And if he crossed the channel on his “journey”, that too will be censored or said sotto voce, buried under a mountain of irrelevant detail.
Well, you have to look at what their motives are. Making money is one motivation. Stories eliciting strong feelings of anger, outrage and fear are perhaps more likely to grab the attention of the grazing masses.
There also seems to be a suggestion that some MSM journalists have strong links to the security services and government. It’s very hard to get at the truth sometimes.
They could make a lot of money by ramping up their emotive response to terrorist attacks. But they do the exact opposite. They stifle people’s natural responses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/77th_Brigade_(United_Kingdom)
Contingency planning and crisis management. It’s two sides of the same coin:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/mind-control-secret-british-government-blueprints-shaping-post-terror-planning
There is a wider agenda being pushed, and it’s most certainly ramping up in intensity of late. Think about the US elections in 3 months or so. Will be interesting to see where this all leads.
Well, it has to be said the last time BLM were to the fore, it was in the run up to the 2016 Presidential election. All the “police atrocities” were actually happening under Obama, but it seemed the purpose of the BLM campaign was to put pressure on the Trump campaign by making him appear a divisive figure, so the public would vote for someone (Hillary!!) who would be portrayed as a healer. Once Trump got elected the whole BLM thing subsided, even though of course African Americans in the USA continued to be killed by Police.
Bingo.
Strangely, in its reporting on its website tonight the BBC is admitting that there are “Black Lives Matters organisers”. Suddenly, when it’s imperative to apply the political distancing rule these “organisers” pop up. But normally you’d be hard pressed to find any reference to them from the BBC. Normally they like to pretend BLM is a spontaneous movement from within the “Black” community in the UK. I put “Black” in inverted commas because the BBC never define what they mean by it…remembering many of our African migrants (from countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Somalia) will have been from slave owning families.
Quite… Who exactly would qualify for the reparations they are demanding?
Even within the African-Caribbean population it’s well known that there were lots of mixed race people who were actually on the side of the slave owners and later took up privileged, exploitative positions within their societies – often ending up running government and political parties (to this day I might add). The idea we are going to pay reparations while they are sitting by the pool in their hillside mansions (paid for by corruption) is truly grotesque.
I did note that in the early reports about the Reading stabbings BBC on line specifically stated that there were no links to the earlier BLM protest. – why? Did they think that readers are all racist and would assume that it was. Note that the report stated the man arrested was Libyan, One assumes muslim but BBC would not say that.
If some islamist wants to blow up kids, or rape them behind their corner shop you’re a fucking bigot to object
“The virus itself is not knowingly racist; it cannot think.”
That’s exactly what a racist would say. Check your privilege.
That actually made me laugh out loud.
“Check your privilege.”
Yep, they’re fine thanks. Still dangling.
I think if some of these BLM activists were less insular in their thinking and more ready to embrace diversity, they might understand that out in the suburbs it’s more important to check your privet hedge this time of year. They really can get out of control if you don’t trim them regularly.
Privet is not black.
White people have privet hedges.
Hire a BLM mob to root them all out.
The first sentence applies equally to BLM protesters!
Maybe the BLM activists could answer these questions.
* If black people in the UK suffer such horrific oppression why do the authorities in the UK tolerate illegal protests by BLM supporters without arresting the participants?
* Why do BLM activists only concentrate on white on black oppression and totally ignore black on black oppression. BLM are outraged when police kill blacks but are totally silent about black on black murder in the united states and the appalling human rights records of black governments in Africa?
* If blacks are so opressed in the UK how do you explain the success of black celebrities such as Lenny Henry and Trevor Macdonald?
* If the UK authorities are so hell bent on oppressing blacks, why are there laws outlawing racial discrimination?
If the BLM argument and the Woke argument in general are so self-evidently right and solid, why does everyone disagreeing with it in the slightest have to be silenced and debate shut down?
Other questions for BLM supporters in the UK
* If blacks face such racism in the UK, how do you explain the level of support for BLM from whites?
* If Britain is such a racist country, how do you explain that if a public figure made racist views, he or she would be ostracized and could loose their jobs?
* If blacks face oppression in the UK, why don’t we have similar segregation laws which existed in the American south and apartheid South Africa?
* If there is so much racist hostility towards blacks, why are people who question the BLM narrative silenced?
it is not just BLM. Muslim activists are the same blaming the west for all the woes of islam yet keeping remarkably quiet about muslims killing muslims in vast numbers
Here, we criticise the government and the sheeple for the silly rules that make it difficult for small businesses to reopen and function properly again.
However, maybe the people interviewed here are more representative than we think.
Yes it’s the Grad and will be as negatively emotional as possible. However, the last interviewee (significant positioning) brings a ray of hope:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/20/how-englands-shop-staff-feel-about-reopening-for-trade-after-covid-19
Maybe, instead of refusing to show up and play the scaredycat game, we need to make a point of attending and acting normally. Set a good example?
Perhaps you could put a lock icon on those articles to which you put links and are behind pay walls. Would save many of us the bother of clicking and seeing it’s pay for view. Perhaps a new site called Locked Out Sceptics? Thanks goodness for archive.com
Visited Sainsbury’s at 8.15pm tonight. Went late because I can’t be doing with the ridiculous queuing palaver now commonplace during the day. Was actually enjoying my shop until I reached the checkout. Admit to being taken aback at the sight of two adults bedecked in masks and gloves. The ppe is bad enough, however, what really struck me was how nervous they both were. Their tentative movements, constant checking to see if I’d got too close then scurrying to the “safety” of their car, served to leave me feeling dismayed. Dismayed that, after 12 weeks of this farce some people have made no progress whatsoever. They will no doubt be first in line for Matt Hancock’s wonder vaccine, (as announced last week re Oxford and Astrazeneca production deal before the deadly cocktail has gotten approval. How’s that for confidence/set-up.) Where’s the push-back from businesses. I’m sick of sanitiser, decals, one-way systems, social distancing champions…wtf. Police should be upholding the law re demonstrations, not patrolling folks having a pint. Come on Mr Sedwell pack it in, game over.
I give anyone in a mask a wide berth…they are often visibly vulnerable (terribly obese) or may have a less obvious health condition. So for me mask = higher chance of being infected = I’d rather keep my distance just in case they have a strong mutant strain that I can’t deal with.
i don’t, i walk right up to them and laugh in their face. Fuck them. I know it’s not much but to me the mask wearer is a threat to me and my liberty and i won’t be silent no matter what happens.
Think what miserable lives they are leading, their own jailers in their own house, slaves inside their own horrible heads.
You are free.
You are a tonic, and I’m sure you did your elderly lady more good in two minutes than the foul NHS have done to all the elderly in twelve weeks.
I always challenge shop staff as to whether they think all the precautions are necessary. So far, only one (zombie) has insisted that they are.
Don’t think Plod is going to be all that assiduous in sniffing out normality speakeasies, or at least, not for long.
BTW, rained like hell here last night and blew a gale. How nice for the al-fresco experience.
I feared the worst a few weeks ago when the local shopping centre introduced the dreaded one way arrows and 2m stickers on the floor. I’ve only ventured into the supermarket part, but these atrocities seem to be largely for show. The other day, there wasn’t even a member of staff at the entrance enforcing the use of hand gel.
Everyday weather for west Wales, surely ?
I’ve been going to my local Morrisons and M&S at 10am now because you get less of the zombies out and about. Both shops don’t really have queues even at the beginning of this madness and have only paid lip service to the antisocial distancing madness.
As I’ve said before the the people in my area who I’ve been seeing wearing masks unfortunately don’t really practice basic hygiene which negates its supposed effectiveness. Another thing I’ve been noticing as well is most of them are morbidly obese and I suspect they already have some hidden health difficulties which the mask can’t really help them. Not to mention they also tend to be on the lower socio economic spectrum – the sort who would buy gallons of bottled water rather than just boiling the water from the tap if they wanted to be sure. I don’t think they realise that they’re just wasting money on those muzzles and hand sanitiser when they could spend less than a pound for several bars of soap to make sure that they wash their hands and carry tissues with them.
With regards the pubs, I can imagine that this is a Christmas gift to actual criminals because our police would be too busy harassing pub owners and customers while the criminals get away with their deeds.
Ah yes, the new wonder vaccine – probably just as world-beating and essential as his track-and-trace App: anyone know how that has worked out? ;-}
I agree challenging some especially the insane ‘chin hammocks’ clearly brave enough to overcome their fear but not brave enough to throw off the jack boot.
For the others some thoughts.
Out to shops and about the streets. People moving about each with their own version of panicked superstious wear. Rags flutter under chins too uncomfortable to wear stretched across their face. Clinical masks hooked on ears with gaps around noses blowing breaths back into eyes. Winter woolie gloves pick up cans of soup in the supermarkets with sweating fingers inside. Its as though a great tide has washed through the city leaving behind it high tide marks. Where the depth of how far individual fear reached is shown by the number of seaweed-like rags hanging from their person.
Many more smiling broad faces look on with concern and pity for the turbulence of the fearing. How these minds have drowned in the depths of the tide. Now the freshness of simple air will lure back into vigour those once choked.
Got into a quiet Tesco late last night and encountered a big burly bloke, covered in tattoos wearing an actual gas mask!
Do you think he was a Hitchens’ fan, making a point?
The cabinet
Brilliant. So true
Best cartoon I’ve seen for a while. Less is more, and all that.
Went to our local farmers’ market today, the first day of its reopening.
Hugely pleased to hear the lady on the raw milk & dairy stall using even more f-words than me to describe the current state of affairs !
I think in future, shen sanity returns (WHICH IT WILL), ‘lockdown’ and ‘socially distanced’ will become the strongest expletives in the English language.
was it Hook & son? I`d like to support a sceptic raw milk seller..
Yep, it was !
My wife says their raw milk greek-style yogurt is the best she’s ever tasted.
Tut tut. Always cook your milk.
You know what I mean, Annie.
I read loads of stuff a while back about how pasteurisation kills off good things. Would have been around the time of the guy who made blue cheese in Scotland from raw milk.
Yea, I geddit!
A doctor once described pasteurised milk as ‘dead germs and stewed muck’.
Disgusting how the BBC’s lazy and underperforming US chief correspondent Jon Sopel poses in a face mask on his biased, Trump-hating twitter account:
https://twitter.com/BBCJonSopel?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
There’s no need to. It’s the passive-aggressive tactic of the anti-Trump media pack in the US to try and undercut Trump’s optimism. They only wear the masks for the camera. When they socialise with each other, the masks come off.
Time to defund the BBC.
The BBC needs to be defunded and abolished as it is stealing all taxpayers money for leftwing causes.
Academia also needs root and branch reform. Universities are pumping out journalists and professionals with left wing bias and no interest in the truth. It appears from the recent US Supreme Court decision not permitting Trump’s DACA strike down that many 70’s educated lawyers are biased, left wing morons.
IMHO left wing academia is another root cause of this C19 lockdown stupidity. Journalists, scientists and possibly judges have revealed themselves to be hopelessly biased and unprofessional.
I was mildly surprised by Roberts’ vote in the DACA case, but only mildly. He is continually referred to as being part of the Court’s 5-4 conservative majority, but if you look at recent decisions calling him conservative is a stretch. That seems to be something of a trend among Republican-appointed Justices – Kennedy was appointed by Reagan and ended up voting to make it illegal to forbid gay marriage (btw I think gay marriage should be legal but it seems like utter madness to pretend that there’s any constitutional basis for it being a protected right). Probably Roberts hates Trump, or finds him embarrassing. Thomas and Scalia don’t care what people think of them.
I paid for it 1 year, early in my adult life, I slipped and I will be forever sorry! At the time I didn’t cancel for political reasons, it was the audacity of charging me for the right to be advertised to from all of the other channels – already pay for Sky, tough, cough up peon! Get bent, that’s the biggest offence in all of this, you have to sit through hours of adverts on ITV but still pay the BBC for the privilege even if you do not watch their content. Also it’s fun telling their goons to jog on.
I was happy to pay the beeb so I didn’t have to sit through the ads. However, I’ve been so disgusted with the blatant propaganda of late that I’ve refused to renew my licence this year.
Unfortunately, you don’t get a polite “sorry to see you go please tell us why you’re leaving” message, just threats that you’ll get a home visit to check you’re not a liar.
i can’t bare that fucker. He lies and lies in every clip i’ve ever seen him in. He must think we are fools to not see through him because he’s as transparent as lefty racist in a BLM t shirt
Yes, amongst a bunch of vile, sanctimonious lefties, Sopel is quite the vilest!
Hi Toby.
You have been doing a fantastic job and have my gratitude.
One thing that surprises me about this whole covid thing is that no journalist, even one as courageous as you, is willing to ask in public the right questions about “our NHS”.
The concept of “The NHS” has been fetishised to such an extent that it is beyond question. This is a very unhealthy place to be for any organisation.
Nobody is asking how our survival rates for hospital admissions sorted by age, presence of comorbidiities, etc. compare with other countries. Why not?
Is it possible that people presenting with coronavirus in the UK habreceoved less efficacious treatment on average than elsewhere? Of course it is possible but nobody is asking th e question whether it is the case.
Have the NHS had so much smoke blown up their backsides that they actually believe the hype and don’t approach the practice of medicine with sufficient humility and learning mindset?
In what way has an organisation gone wrong when it believes it can build an app better than Apple or Google?
It would be so great if you felt able to challenge the heterodoxies around the NHS.
According to DT, two ‘scientific advisers’ (we know all about those) are calling for the public to be trained in the correct use of muzzles.
Folks, take the Annie Course, it’s cheaper, quicker and better.
My plan is if I’m asked to wear a mask, and the person asking doesn’t have one himself, I say, “I’m wearing one. It’s the same make and model as your’s”. If they do have a mask I tell them I can’t make out what they’re saying to me.
can i suggest to the government that i don’t give two fucks about their rules, thanks.
I was already someone who didn’t comply best i could but now i’m so very pissed off that i’ve given up the pretence of caring what they say.
Even the Sun is now saying we should end this lunacy:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11909438/life-must-return-normal-permanent-damage/
Important voice in our favour, though a shame they use the term near-normal (not sure what they mean) and don’t call for the PM and others to admit their mistakes and resign. Hopefully that will come.
Agree. But its a start, the more there’s a push back, the government will have to listen at some point and admit that they’ve screwed this up.
I don’t agree, unless there is significant points to be scored the general rule now is don’t mention the screw up, keep moving down the checklist, claim victory and state that it went perfectly to plan
We will have to ensure that they will never get away with this.
Oh that’s good.
And we’ll conveniently overlook the fact the utter shitshow we’ve experienced over the last couple of months was partly thanks to the likes of them.
When will you people ever learn lol
Exactly. Such is the hypocrisy of the MSM that yes they have to be also held into account like the government and the civil service.
Re the removal of Uncle Ben merely for being black; is the white Aunt Bessie going to be removed too? Ask that of a woke, should he or she raise the issue of Uncle Ben.
I think we should stop wearing cotton clothes.
They’ll be coming for Levi Roots next.
I have just been looking through the ONS figure for “Death rates per 100,000 by religion”. What is interesting is that the lowest deaths rates combined for Males and Females is those with “No Religion”. All the major religions have significantly higher death rates apart from Christians, but you are looking at multiples of 1.5 to 2.5 for the others.
Buddhist Male 113.46
Buddhist Female 57.42
Christian Male 92.64
Christian Female 54.60
Hindu Male 154.81
Hindu Female 93.33
Jewish Male 187.93
Jewish Female 94.31
Muslim Male 198.90
Muslim Female 98.18
No religion Male 80.74
No religion Female 47.86
Sikh Male 128.60
Sikh Female 69.37
So, is this indicative of collective worship being a significant spreader, and also continuing when it was meant to have stopped?
I would imagine it’s more an indicator of the likely state of health and age of people in those groups, on average, and the possible genetic susceptibility of their ethnic group to covid-19.
Maybe it’s God’s ranking of the various faiths …
Muslim Male 198.90
Jewish Male 187.93
Hindu Male 154.81
Sikh Male 128.60
Buddhist Male 113.46
Muslim Female 98.18
Jewish Female 94.31
Hindu Female 93.33
Christian Male 92.64
No religion Male 80.74
Sikh Female 69.30
Buddhist Female 57.42
Christian Female 54.60
No religion Female 47.86
Another doctor explains why masks don’t work:
https://twitter.com/Ian56789/status/1274121951569678336
lie were are being told is that COVID-19 is affecting poor ethnic communities but the stats shows that it is households that are “Not deprived” are more affected, and also those who are more qualified e.g. have a Degree or above. Below is the hazard ratio for each group [snipped]
is this todays scotland lockdown rules?
And, again, we see the lack of a delete or edit function.
Well I found it more interesting than listening to Handycock who was waffling on the telly this morning
Mr Young refers to the report on what is termed the “BAME community” and the effect of the virus on them. Interesting that his correspondent is him/herself from that community. That may or may not be coincidence, but it made me think how, often when dealing with “BAME” issues, the government and others like to have the speaker be from that community. No such strictures are imposed on non-“BAME” issues. For a while I thought we might have been heading for a post-racial world – not any more.
I put “BAME” in inverted commas as I really don’t like the term. I think it used to stand for Black And Minority Ethnic and the A got changed to Asian because it was clearly indefensible to exclude them. But even then, if I were from some other “minority ethnic” group, I’d dislike this term. Whatever group you’re from, you get lumped in with people possibly don’t have much in common with, in any way at all. It just seems utterly disrespectful, and meaningless, to make up categories like this.
Also I think it is basically meant to mean “non-White” but writing “non-White” in reports and stories and statements sounds too in-your-face possibly. Do people think this includes the UK Chinese community? What about the Japanese? Turks? Arabs? People of Jewish origin? I think the term is just awful and wish it would disappear, and that people would be honest about what they meant.
“For a while I thought we might have been heading for a post-racial world “
It did happen for a few years around the turn of the millennium. That’s why blamelessly-woke comedians thought it would be soft racism not to do impersonations of well-known people from other races.
I would be classified as part of “BAME” but I hate that term. Every time I have to fill out one of these ludricous diversity monitoring forms, I would always tick “prefer not to say”
Me too, and I’m ‘white’ if anybody is, which means a sort of pinky brown at the moment, after a sunny soringtime.
‘Mind your own bloody business’ would be my preferred tick bix.
I wish they had that as a choice. I remember having to fill out a form that didn’t have the “prefer not to say” option so I basically handed back the form blank and didn’t answer any of the questions.
I have too many things to do today to describe it in full, but my father’s (headmaster in inner city school in Liverpool) discussion with the local authority’s diversity advisor was very good. As a proud Welshman, he saw himself as an ethnic minority (even in Liverpool
). The poor (Asian descent) advisor really couldn’t get his head around this. Seems he didn’t know about Wales at all.
There’s an interesting story about a cucumber farm in the Midlands that uses Welsh water. Given that cucumbers are about 94% water and humans only about 60%,it follows that these cucumbers are more Welsh than the Welsh. So from now on, my nationality and ethnicity are both Cucumber..
Maybe all over our internal mechanics are a little bit different and those born of more than one ethnicity benefit from from more than one world. Am I aloud to say that….
…all of…
Off-topic for most of this post, but it seems to me that one reason the masses are so cowed by CoVID-19 is the liberal use of hyperbolic adjectives in the report. Some WHO guy was on TV the other night talking about the supposed second phase (which I think to many of us means “no more virus, of so little it’s not worth considering any more”) and talked about “this *deadly* virus”. Priti Patel a couple of weeks ago talked on the daily BS show about “controlling this *terrible* virus and avoiding a *devastating* second wave”. I know there’s audio signal-processing software available that will bring voices to the foreground and lower the volume during TV adverts – I’d like some that blanks out all tendentious adjectives (although listening might then be like following an episode of Rick and Morty, but I think I’d like the idea that our politicos and journos are swearing mightily – “This <blank> virus, our <blank> Prime Minister, the <blank> NHS).
I’m off to buy a black marker (sorry, a marker of colour) to edit my daily newspaper with.
I’ve thought this from the beginning – that the language used repeatedly has scared and cowed people. Virus is scarier than ‘germ’ or ‘bug’. Pandemic is an even scarier word, visions of bodies piling up on our streets.
Does this virus in fact qualify as a pandemic?
I’m not sure which one of the slight coughs I’v had since September was covid19
All of them. You’re lucky to be alive.
It qualifies the WHO definition but perhaps not the correct definition:
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-deaths-compared-with-swine-flu/
Great link – thanks.
The site is excellent with daily deaths data and articles.
No, but the demonstration if the power if words is graphic in the extreme. But not novel.
Final solution, special treatment, resettlement, transit camp, Einsatzkommando…
It’s all part of the plan to put the fear of God into us, as recommended in the SAGE minutes from back in March. They thought people weren’t worried enough, and told them to make us more scared.
I think Rick and Morty would still sound much more understandable and rational.
So the government is releasing 1m plus. Sounds like a cleaning product. You can apparently go within 2m of people as long as you’re outside or taking other mitigating measures, such as wearing a mask. Therefore, 1m plus hasn’t changed a thing and won’t help anyone, hospitality industries are still utterly doomed. And where did this plan come from? SAGE modellers, yet again. Jesus fucking Christ.
1m plus gives a positive spin on it. Makes it sound like an upgrade on 1m. More psychological trickery.
it is 1 m plus… the plus means hand sanatiser, temperature checks and FACE MASKS in public places . ur no thanks Boris you can stuff that .
So it’s still outdoors only for pubs and restaurants? Unless, perhaps we all wear these:
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/coronavirus/inventors-develop-mask-to-let-you-eat-and-stay-safe/2372046/
Exactly. It’s not really helping is it?
Will still boycott shops, pubs, restaurants, museums and other areas that implement this.
A 1m-plus rule would be so typical of the government response so far:
Step 1: Think up an arbitrary, non-evidence based rule.
Step 2: If the rule generated in Step 1 is easy to understand (keep 1m away from other people), add a raft of conditions and exceptions to said rule (indoors but not outdoors, wear a mask if it’s a Tuesday, sanitise your hands after you’ve washed them three times but not before, exemptions for people aged between 34 and 67 but only if you’re a key worker and need to travel for work. That sort of thing).
Step 3: Turn it into an idiotic slogan or phrase.
Step 4: Fail to make it clear if the rule is advice, a suggestion, guidance, or an actual law.
Step 5: Regardless of Step 3, get the police to enforce it.
Sorry, should be Step 5: Regardless of Step 4, get the police to enforce it.
My own confusing regulations are confusing me!
I’m not sure that’s what’s happened. I think it is a case of having an already-stupid, economy-wrecking ‘rule’ (“the two metre rule”) and coming under pressure to drop it to the one metre that everyone else in the world uses. However, in doing so, it will attract criticism that it isn’t “keeping everyone safe” and will be an admission that a mistake has been made by hanging on for this long. So the ploy is to drop to “one metre” but to add the “plus” thus making everyone happy. Except that it makes no one happy. The Guardian will still moan about it, and pubs and restaurants will still continue to go out of business, and free-born Englishmen will continue to be humiliated by a fat blond clown.
and Englishwomen.
And Englishpersons who don’t know which is which?
No, they are slave-born. Sorry.
And persons of colour who were born overseas, but who now identify as English men and women (and children) of colour. And trans English women who are now English men and Englishmen and trans English men who are now English women and Engliswomen and … did I miss anyone?
No need to virtue signal. I was quoting our great leader:
https://www.boris-johnson.com/2004/11/25/id-cards/
I hopefully don’t do virtue signalling, Barney. I do try jokes occasionally. Maybe I should use smiley faces …
Yep. It’s basically no change at all. I wouldn’t queue up to go anywhere with a 2m rule in place, and I still won’t go to said anywhere with a 1m-plus-masks-plus-other-associated-wazzockery in place.
‘wazzockery’
I have to make a train journey in a few days time so with the greatest of reluctance bought a mask yesterday. Tried it on; very unpleasant as it clearly negatively affects breathing and the hot moist breath exhaled must surely create a wonderful breeding ground for all sorts of nasties. However for me the biggest problem is that my glasses immediately steamed up rendering the whole thing a serious safety hazard! Is this a known problem and since I have a medical need to wear spectacles; is this a valid reason to be exempt from mask wearing? On discussing this with others we realised that the masked fearful that we see generally don’t wear glasses.
Use a scarf
I have so far avoided wearing a Covid-compliance mask, but I know from wearing a Gortex-type outdoors jacket that has ‘half-face hood’ arrangement that it will make my glasses steam up. Not very safe for bike riding.
Just self identify as suffering from anxiety. You could even jazz it up and say wearing a mask would cause a panic attack.
Just don’t wear one. Say you have a medical condition that excludes you from having to wear one as per the legislation. You do not have to tell them what your condition is. There is nothing in the legislation that says you need to produce anything to validate your medical condition.
Best answer.
hay fever
If you feel you have to wear a mask – wear it under the nose, at least you can breath properly. You don’t cough or talk through your nose, I don’t think.
As I haven’t been trained properly I shall be wearing mine like a hat
Mine is a chin warmer. I’ve noticed several others using it the same way.
Don;t wear them on your chin, that gives people a reason to take your photo and try to publicly shame you for being able to but choosing to flaunt the rules. Just do not wear one, if anyone asks you state you are exempt.
Point taken, but round my way – West London – I’ve found that most I speak to are reluctantly compliant and quite a few defiant. I’ve never encountered a shamer. On board trains I’d say 10-20% are unmasked.
If you can’t see your way, you surely have a cast-iron reason not to wear a mask. How can you see to soc-dis?
Talking to the masses about lockdown:
To paraphrase a quote in one of the Carry On films – trying to debate with a lockdownista is like trying to get blood out of a stone, a bleeding mystery.
Spain has stopped quarantine for visiting Brits….
Start the anti-UK quarantine bollocks revolution, get your short breaks booked…
https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en
But do you still have to wear mask and gloves?
In a Mediterranean summer?
Yes – stay safe
David Crowe’s article about how isolation and neglect of old people in Sweden, rather than C19 itself, might have caused the country’s relatively high number of deaths, makes for interesting reading. Nearly 4,500 of Sweden’s slighly more than 5000 C19 deaths are among people over seventy years old. (Most are among people over eighty.) These elderly Swedes were presumably not going out to Sweden’s open restaurants every evening. It is obviously not in the Swedish government’s interests to exaggerate the numbers. It might be in someone else’s interests, though, to do so – care home owners, for example. How are C19 deaths actually determined in Sweden? Is mere suspicion enough as in Britain? Might it turn out in Sweden as in Italy that only about 12 per cent of those put down as dying of C19 actually did die of it? In which case Sweden would have the same questions to answer as other countries which implemented full-on lockdown.
The bbc is still reeling out the second wave lie I see from the website this morning. They are so irresponsible.
Hancock, being interviewed by Nick Robinson (standing I for Marr) talked about a second wave “as we’ve seen in other countries”
That’s the second time I’ve heard him say that. Where? Which other countries?
He means either countries that locked down immediately, and were “lucky” not to have had significant spread before that point (e.g. New Zealand, other parts of China) and are therefore still trying to prevent their first wave from happening; or small isolated clusters of new infections in reopened countries or parts of countries (e.g. China, Florida) which the media delight in calling a second wave.
He’s a fear-mongering idiot.
We must try to challenge, in person and online, every mention of a second wave, everywhere. Ask them where the evidence is, and ask them to quote figures and sources. Mention that Europe has been reopening for some time and there is no sign of one. Isolated outbreaks or “I read somewhere” do not count.
Remember the second wave in Weston-Super-Mare? Which was so bad that they had to close the local A&E? Supposedly because some people sat on the beach on a sunny day. Turns out a handful of doctors at the hopsital had tested positive, so they closed to avoid spreading it to patients. Most “second wave” reports will turn out to be something ridiculous like this.
Same batch of testers?
https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2020-06-10/healthy-patients-wrongly-put-in-coronavirus-wards-after-musgrove-park-hospital-records-false-positive-tests/
I also remember reading somewhere that no so-called “second wave” has occurred anywhere that has reached a certain number of cases per million as a result of the “first wave”. Not checked to see if it’s actually true.
fear-mongering useful idiot. I never watch the BBC, but I assume it all went unchallenged.
The Chief statistician from ONS on Marr saying that the IFR a fortnight ago was 0.24% this week 0.06%. But he still says be careful! 0.06%!! It’s lower than flu!
yes, but stay alert
Britain needs lerts…
Are you sure this is the IFR? I thought that was the % of the population currently estimated to have the infection?
Yes, my mistake. Thought it looked wrong when I pressed the send button!
It’s still a very low figure!!
Yes – he was talking about infection rates, not IFR. You are never going to get a member of SAGE talking about IFR in public, because it will make them look stupid.
Lots of talk about the “problem” of infection rates having plateaued at about this rate. It strikes me that it is completely unreasonable to expect that any endemic virus will ever be infecting much less than 0.06% of the population at any given time. More back an envelope stuff, but if you assume that that percentage is a constant and that everyone who has it, has it for around a month and that the IFR is 0.25%, I work that out as a little over 1,000 deaths a year.
I reckon we can live with that.
The problem is, they look at countries like New Zealand where it’s been more or less eradicated (because it never really took hold in the first place), and seem to think that it’s possible for every country in the world to get to that point regardless of how rife the infection has been.
Anyway, it seems obvious that continuing lockdown isn’t pushing infection rates down much further, so we’re now getting no benefits, only harm.
Well, yes. But, however stupid the decisions that have been made, the government does have actual scientists giving them actual scientific advice and it’s hard to believe that they’ve managed to find a scientist stupid enough to advise them that the virus can actually be eradicated in a country like this one.
Totally agree. What’s going on is so far beyond my comprehension that I just can’t imagine what advice they’re now getting.
A scientist advising something that is obviously stupid ? I though that was what they did for a living …
What defines a scientist? Do you just have to look like one?
I think you have be be receiving funding from Bill Gates philanthropy directly or via big pharma.
Well, the Imperial model, presumably accepted by the consensus on SAGE and the government, assumed an IFR of 1%. I am not aware they’ve ever backtracked from that. But of course they don’t talk about it. And no journalist has ever thought to ask or press them on it. It’s surely one of THE crucial pieces of information on which to base your policy decisions.
I think US CDC is estimating 0.35% based on testing falling to 0.26% based on some assumptions about people exposed who do not develop antibodies.
Bet Marr didn’t question it either…useless!
To take a quote from The Prisoner
“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.”
“I am not a number, i am a free man!”
“Brainwashed imbeciles,” he sneers at his fellow citizens. “Can you laugh? Can you cry? Can you think?”
I love The Prisoner. But how many other people who profess to like it will have unquestioningly accepted the Covid ’emergency’, New Normal, etc.? My guess is that there’s a large chunk of society who know about 1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451 and so on, but who would stare blankly at you from over their mandatory mask, if you suggested that we are busily engaged in creating such a dystopia for ourselves right now.
Interesting e-mail regarding the dissapearance of the virus. I’m not convinced that the PCR test would have such a high false pos rate and, if it did, wouldn’t this also manifest itself in the testing of the deceased? Such an affect would mean that we could never get to zero deaths per day due to the lack of test specificity. As some places have reached zero deaths for multiple consecutive days (assuming they’re still testing) then this suggests a very very low number of false positives.
Lingering positivity in the population, even after we reach zero deaths per day, could mean that the virus has become less virulent, the testing is based on antibody results (previous infection) or the virus is now just circulating amongst the fit and healthy (or a combination of all 3)
Some pillock on the telly suggested the lockdown might end on the 4th of July.
I thought it already had ended??!!
I need to stop watching these clowns.
We’ve just got the antisocial distancing dilemma to resolve now
Oh, and the upcoming economic depression might need some fetteling
“new normal” and “social distancing” are the continuation of lockdown by any other means.
Register to go to the pub? Is it April 1st today https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8444181/Drinkers-register-online-visiting-pubs-says-Matt-Hancock.html
Register that you’ve been to a pub, I think. It’s to work with track and trace.
Mind you – hard to see how a pub can operate without at least partial reservations expected, with any kind of distancing in place.
All the pubs near me have my picture on the wall anyway so I’m not overly fussed by this
Unfortunately, the article is peppered with Wankock’s new mantra: “if it’s safe to do so ….if it’s safe to do so ….if it’s safe to do so…..
I love the picture of a normal-looking Notting Hill, taken yesterday. Shows how increasingly sinister HMG’s foot-dragging is becoming.
Hancock must win prize for lockdown’s biggest wazzock. He is a prize plum. I wish I could think of a way of turning the heat up on this chump
Burning at the stake is generally quite effective.
I’d like to see Boris toasted medium rare, and Hancock well done.
Nothing about Hancock could ever be well done.
Rotten meat. Bin.
Literally couldn’t agree more.
Wow, I have just had a really scary exchange with someone in a supermarket. A young woman, and black muzzle wearer, I dared to challenge her for wearing it as I passed her in the aisle. A few moments later she approached me in the queue eye blazing hatefully and threatened me, saying if I said that again then she would report me and I would be thrown out of the shop! As it was, it was not a shop I would go into very often. I denied all knowledge of saying anything to her.
I then paid for my items on the self service till and as I was finishing the woman approached the counter assistant. She maybe couldn’t see that I was still stood next to her as there was a screen dividing me from her.
She broke her promise. Despite the fact that I did not repeat what I said, she did indeed report me. It was absolutely extraordinary. I didn’t tell her to take it off or anything, just challenged her for wearing it. I’m not sure what she expected to gain from this “selfless” act of denunciation, but it was scary.
The irony that the woman on the checkout was not herself mussled seemed lost on her,
I do still think that it’s really really important to engage with these people, but I think next time I will try a different tac – maybe just politely ask why they are wearing them. (Not that I was rude!) Unless on public transport where thye have to wear them. I had no evil intent towards her in saying what I did, but I felt really intimidated. She clearly took it very personally.
Well done. Does not matter if she reports you or not. You are right, always be constructive. Maybe ask if they are very sick.
Thank you!
I tend to assume that people who are wearing muzzles in places where they don’t have to, are so far gone down the rabbit hole of fear and self-righteous virtue signalling that they’re not worth engaging with.
Re banning you from the shop – I wasn’t aware that “querying the necessity of wearing a mask” was currently illegal?
matt you may well be right. Still, I think we have to engage them somehow. As I said, I think I may have to be direct, but very polite.
The shop assistant I had just spoken to myself to ask about father’s day cards. (The only reason I was there, really). I really nice young woman, I had seen her working there before. She was listening kindly to the mask wearer, but not taking sides from what I could make out.
The self righteous seem to presume that their own sense of goodness qualifies them to be judge, jury and executioner. I doubt I would be “thrown out” of the shop or banned, but clearly the mask wearer seemed to think that this was an appropriate response.
Have to say I disagree about engaging with people. If people are so afraid they feel they have to wear a mask then no amount of engaging with them in the street or in a shop will change their minds. They are already behaving irrationally and it will only entrench their fear deeper if a stranger comes up to them and tells them masks are pointless. Better to go about your business unmasked, relaxed and unafraid – I’m sure this will work far better to convince people that masks are unnecessary. Only engage if you yourself are approached.
Three weeks or so ago I was putting my shopping in the boot of my car. Parked next to me a woman got out, adorned with mask and shopping bags. She asked me what it was like in the shop. It was her first venture out since lockdown began and she was very obviously quite scared. You could dismiss her as being a sheeple and that it’s her own fault but the reality is that the media have done such an affective job of terrifying the majority of the British public that can you really blame people like her for being so scared? If I’d replied to her that she was being stupid, that there was zero risk going in the supermarket and that the mask just made her look like a moron she wouldn’t have gone, ‘oh yes, of course you’re right, I’ll listen to you rather than the media/press and throw my mask away immediately’. She’d have scuttled away even more scared knowing that there were nutters around like me pretending the virus doesn’t exist. Instead I smiled, said it’s absolutely fine and relaxed in the shop (which it is – minimal change to the normal shopping experience), that I’d been going in every week since the beginning of lockdown with no problem (implying – look I’m still alive despite wandering round plague infested supermarkets week in week out), and told her that she’d be absolutely fine. Perhaps on her next visit, after seeing no one else in face masks (only a tiny handful of people have been using them where I live – saw none at all on this week’s supermarket outing), she abandoned the mask? Who knows – but stopping people and informing them of the error of their ways is not going to change their behaviour.
“if a stranger comes up to them and tells them masks are pointless.”
I didn’t say it was pointless, I asked her why she was wearing it.
And I certainly do not have any idea of the emotional state of someone whose face is half covered in a mask!
Yes you do, John. Brainwashed, frightened, and quite probably feeling like a muppet.
As others have said, the mask wearers are the most damaged by all this, and should initially, imho, be handled with kid gloves. Or proper PPE gloves, depending on taste …
Well, brainwashed I will accept, but frightened, not necessarily.
I mean, she could have answered, “because I’m scared”, and that might have been the truth, but that would be an admission of weakness and might account for her overly aggressive reaction to what I said.
Overheard while standing in the local farm shop queue – elderly woman who had done her shopping stopped to chat with a friend just ahead of me in the queue: ‘I brought my mask but as no one else is wearing one I didn’t put it on.’
Made me feel quite hopeful.
I hate to say this John but weren’t you being self-righteous too?
I make a point of looking at mask-wearers as if they’ve sprouted huge green antennae but I wouldn’t challenge them. Surely it’s their choice?
I believe all people should be free to do whatever they choose, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
She should be free to wear a ridiculous contraption that’s harmful to her health, just as you should remain free not to.
Besdies, if the mask-wearers venture out into the community and find lots of people behaving normally, they might be tempted to try leaving the mask behind next time.
Again, I didn’t tell her to take it off. That is indeed her choice.
I simply asked her why she was wearing it.
I accept that. But she didn’t and took it as a challenge – which it was.
I’m not sure you do.
She didn’t what?
I asked her why she was wearing it.
PS: I didn’t demand an answer. You ask someone a question. There is no law which says you have to answer. It was rhetorical as much as anything.
I think they mean that in asking why it was implicit that there is no reason to be wearing one, otherwise why ask.
Just leave the lambs to the slaughter, you literally cannot start a conversation now with a stranger, what have we done to society…
Paul. This is getting too complicated.
My fear is that if these people are not addressed (let me put it that way) then not only will they continue to wear then, but they will insist that everyone else does too.
I simply think that I need to be more careful next time, but self censorship is out I’m afraid.
Agree 100% with your aims, John. But would you ask a strange woman why she is wearing that pink blouse ?
Er no, but until a couple of months ago I wouldn’t have asked a strange man or woman why they were wearing a black muzzle.
I have addressed a man before. He said it was for my protection and told me to go away.
If you don’t ask then you don’t know. It’s not something I do every time I go out. I just happened to do it this morning.
I was really shocked by how she took it.
Ahh being able to strike up a conversation with a stranger, I vaguely remember the days before they started to point and shout ‘heretic’ at you for trying, vaguely…
oddly enough, I was never in the habit of it.
As a woman if a strange man approaches me in a shop I’m automatically a little wary anyway – that’s just the nature of society – and if their opening remark was ‘why are you doing….’ then my response is doing to be defensive especially if I believe what I’m doing is right and supported by the government and scientists.
I didn’t actually approach her. I just said it as I passed by in the aisle.
Don’t make ANY assumptions.
And. PS: you are making assumptions about this woman’s motives and her feelings. None of which you can know.
If you think speaking to someone in a public space is an act of aggression then with respect you have a very twisted view of society.
How do you get to know anyone? Someone has to speak first.
Maybe that’s why I have reached middle age and am still single.
Women assume that men are monsters.
“The bad news is, beer gardens and outdoor dining areas will be patrolled by the police to make sure the one-metre rule is being observed.”
And the other bad news is you will now be forced into a face muzzle in return for this “generous concession”.
It’s high time these restrictions were all just dropped.
How can you eat and drink with a muzzle on?
I guess it will be like the dentist, where they make you wear one for the 30 seconds it takes to walk from reception into the treatment room, whereupon you promptly have to take it off on account of the dentist needing to see inside your mouth.
How about a plague doctor mask with a builtin straw? Made of a non-plastic material of course (although we seem to have forgotten about all that). Then you could dip your beak into your pint and slurp it up as if you had been in a teleporter accident involving a mosquito. This could be the new normal!
Well, tbh I’m not much of a pub-goer these days. And I gave up alcohol a year ago. I would generally only go for family birthdays and the like.
I’ll just not bother with them if they are going to continue with this charade.
Looks like you’ll have to make an appointment to attend the pub anyway, which kind of takes away the whole point.
lol, yes, I daresay it takes away the whole pint, too!
Current rule in Germany is that you have to wear the muzzle walking into the establishment, while you’re moving around inside (to go to the loo, for example), but not while you’re sat at your table. Because obviously you don’t breathe out while you’re sitting down.
The whole thing is farcical, but my guess is it’s where we’re going.
I’m not sure I can honestly take much more of this kind of stupidity!
UK Travel Quarantine ‘Completely Useless’, Says World Leading Epidemiologist
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/uk-travel-quarantine-completely-useless-says-world-leading-epidemiologist/ar-BB15MsR3
and so says everyone else.
I’m trying to apply some common sense/logic to the argument for wearing face masks (which I have no doubt will become mandatory in indoor public spaces in the UK when the 2 metre rule is scrapped).
So the argument for face masks is that if you are asymptomatic then wearing a face mask will help prevent you spreading the virus around i.e. if you speak, laugh, cough or sneeze water droplets from your mouth containing particles of the virus will be stopped or slowed down by the mask, reducing spread. Science does not agree on this (due to size of the coronavirus particles) but you can see why, in simplistic terms this message seems logical to many people. Hence the 51% public support for face masks in public areas.
However the pro face mask argument goes on to say that whilst face masks will stop/reduce you spreading the virus they will not stop you catching it. That’s where logic hits a big brick wall. If a face mask reduces the chances of you expelling the virus from your mouth/nose – which will be exiting your mouth/nose at a relatively high velocity – then why do they not prevent you breathing in virus contaminated droplets encountered at a much lower velocity? If face masks work to reduce the amount of virus particulates you breath out they should work equally well, if not better, to reduce the amount you breath in.
The reality is, which is the true common sense, is that they are a psychological sticking plaster which in terms of virus spread or infection make little or no difference, but they make people feel safer, which allows people to creep out of their lockdown havens and get economies moving again.
There is no medical justification for mass muzzling. There is only political justification. IMO.
In the opinion of a lot of doctors and scientists as well.
That’s exactly the thinking, yes, I believe. It was introduced on public transport to try to make people feel more confident about using public transport. Perversely, I think it’s probably actually _raised_ the fear level, because sharing a tube train with people who are all masked must be so obviously abnormal that it can only possibly make you feel subconsciously uncomfortable.
I agree, i find them deeply disturbing and intimidating.
Me too. It suggests that the danger level is now so high (much higher than it was back in March) that the government have no choice but to enforce them.
Whilst the idea that wearing masks will make people feel safer may be intuitive, it is doubtless false, and will actually increase the level of fear: and given the SAGE has a whole sub-committee devoted to the behavioural science, it is obvious that the government knows this; but that is the same sub-committee and government that, as a matter of policy, decided to deliberately use fear to ensure compliance with lockdown rules.
Germ-collecting, fear-spreading and backed by Khan. All good reasons to go maskless. People wouldn’t wear them if they thought of them as pathogen inhalers.
I agree for the most part, but they seem to be totally unaware of the absurdity of their own behaviour.
(childish downvote)
Before all this started, back in the land of normal, this kind of over-the-top precautionary fear was labelled as a disorder – OCD. One of the key principles of treatment was to drop all crutches, like carrying hand sanitiser or not touching door handles etc, because they maintain the belief that the danger is real. Mask-wearing in public places must surely be having the same effect?
The doctor they have on ITV’s Good Morning Britain some weeks ago stated that we all have to behave like we have OCD now.
Great solution, well done that man.
Maybe time to work on that tendency towards negative self-programming, Spingy ?
Perhaps its just being realistic.
Realism surely deals with real things, not future possibilities ?
Here is the definition from Oxford Languages via Google:
realistic
1.having or showing a sensible and practical idea of what can be achieved or expected.
“I thought we had a realistic chance of winning”
2.
representing things in a way that is accurate and true to life.
“a realistic human drama”
Fair enough. Now try to convince me its sensible and practical …
Wearing face masks is not sensible or practical. It is sensible and practical to expect this government is going to try and impose further unnecessary and harmful restrictions on our liberty otherwise we would have to live in a state of self delusion that will ultimately lead to disappointment or ever greater levels of self delusion. As difficult and horrifying as it may be to accept where we are it is healthier then to pretend we are not living under totalitarianism.
We can only begin to fix a problem once we accept fully that it exists. I think that is being sensible and practical.
Ever the pessimist….
Masks are a pschological tool to instill fear and compliance. The risks outweigh the benefits even when there is a risk of catching CV19. Now there isn’t. The virus is over. Nobody should be wearing a muzzle for the sake of their own health. The Govt knows this.
It seems possible to me, that if you are actually infected and symptomatic, then wearing a mask would reduce the distance that the splatter from a cough or sneeze would travel. In this case of course, good common sense would suggest that you should stay at home, mask or no mask. If asymptomatic, I can’t see any real evidence for justifying mandatory mask wearing at this point. I genuinely don’t think there is any. The WHO position up until recently has been that you only need to wear one if you have symptoms or are caring for someone with symptoms. As far as I am aware, there has been no new evidence to change this recommendation.
Interestingly, the WHO official statement on face masks seems to be that, while they conclude that there is little to no benefit to healthy people wearing one, they’ve decided anyway that governments should recommend them for reasons they haven’t explained. Note the word recommend, NOT enforce.
Also, if you’re symptomatic, you don’t need to wear a mask, because you have a physical illness and a respiratory problem. Both of which exempt you from having to wear a mask.
Laurence Fox on the pitfalls of wrongthink (above) is brilliant
Yes, he is.
Do any of our Dutch participants have news of the protests planned, then banned, in the Netherlands yet?
So the much trumpeted ‘second wave’ after people visited beaches and parks 2/3 weeks ago has also turned out to be a damp squib. It’s just a pity these damp squibs have cost the country billions of pounds and ruined our childerns’ education. Suggest you take the opportunity to tell Witless Whitty, Neil the Mudeller and Jon ‘Dangerous Moment’ Van Dam exactly what you think of their efforts….I will be.
So much for the “spike” in infections following demonstrations on the 6th and 13th June.
Spikes that the media assured us would happen, but have not materialised so far:
Easter weekend
First May Bank holiday (sunny)
Second May Bank holiday (sunny)
In fact most of April and May (sunny)
VE Day (street parties)
BLM protests (multiple, non-socially distanced)
Easing of lockdown to allow unlimited outdoor exercise
Easing of lockdown to allow meeting one other person outdoors
Easing of lockdown to allow a gathering of up to 6 outdoors
Have I missed any?!
Yet I have a friend convinced we’ll be back in full lockdown by the end of June…
I’m sure there will be people still on self imposed lockdown in 10 years time, like those Japanese WWII soldiers on that island who still thought they were at war when they were found years later
COVID-19 Evidence is lacking for 2 meter distancingThere is no scientific evidence to support the disastrous two-metre rule. Poor quality research is being used to justify a policy with enormous consequences for us all
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-evidence-is-lacking-for-2-meter-distancing/
If this despotic government starts introducing compulsory mask wearing, I will either go into shops not wearing one or order online.
I will never wear a mask.
NO ME. NEVER. NEVER.
Have a look at this section…No, I will never wear a mask either
On the effectiveness of masks
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
Whilst I completely agree, I will be wearing a mask over my mouth on the plane because I want to get to where I am going. But, for health and safety reasons, I will not be wearing a mask at other times. Well accept on Spanish public transport where it is mandatory – but definitely no other times!!
Me too. I WILL NOT WEAR ONE>
Never.
# usneither!
We’re told to wear masks,
Note told, but not asked.
They’ll help to protect us
Say those who direct us
But then we’ll refuse to wear masks.
I was at the supermarket earlier, we don’t have many mask wearers around here, but we do have a few. They are handy in one respect – the stupid have never previously been labelled
Ha Ha
When the Chinese take away I deliver for re-opened about 6 weeks ago I was asked to wear PPE stuff. I accepted the gloves to protect my hands from sanitiser (we are cash only) but I refused the mask. The father and son were happy with this but the mother was insistent. I do respect their irrational fear, although I am sure we have all had the cv thingy already. Anyway, I was banished to the customer side of the OTT CV19 exclusion screens. But that’s fine – makes it easier to interact with the customers. I don’t bother with the gloves anymore, they keep ripping and make my hands sweaty – my hands are permanently pissed nowadays.
The local Chinese takeaway here is no problem. Just go in as normal and order at the counter. No masks, gloves, sanitizer or anything.
The little Asian corner shop I nip into to get monster munchies has wrapped some cling film round two bits of wood as a screen. I need to take a photo of it. But I usually pay him on the way out the shop as he’s usually at the door smoking a fag – great guy – fearless!
Seasalt are flogging them under the name ‘handybands’.
Handy for strangling politicians and zombies, maybe.
Will the 2 metre rule be withdrawn up here as well, or shall we, as I fear, have to wait another couple of weeks so that She Who Must Be Obeyed can make yet another pointless point about Saving Scottish Lives while diverging from wicked Westminster?
My very funny Glaswegian neighbour suspects that Wee Birnie sees herself as a female incarnation of Braveheart.
i do hope that she doesnt lift her kilt and show her arse.
With different measures being used in England, Scotland, Wales and NI, which is following ‘the science’. Why is no one asking that obvious question?
Wee Birnie follows Scottish science-(at leat,that’s my opinion, judging by the Holyrood emissions).
lol, science is different in Scotland, is it. I see.
I know what my mother would say, “Do you think I came up the Clyde in a banana skin, Nicola?
Quite right! She would like us to believe that it is…
Because no one in any of the pathetic little governments knows anything whatsoever about science.
Or economics, or common sense, or elementary humanity.
You’ll probably get the face masks everywhere but keep the two meter rule. Nothing like being extra safe!
Hi wendyk – glad to see you’re still commenting. You might be interested in these latest statistics from the National Records of Scotland. The latest statistics show that there have been 4,878 excess deaths in Scotland between weeks 12-24 compared to the five year average. Covid19 accounts for 3,810 distributed among care homes : 1,831, hospitals : 1,736 and home : 236. So 1,068 extra deaths seem to have nothing to do with covid19. I took a closer look at the excel table. 2,451 excess deaths occurred in care homes. There were only 14 more respiratory deaths than usual and since the symptoms of covid19 are very similar to the symptoms of pneumonia in many cases, there is probably a good deal of overlap. Deaths from cancer were actually lower than usual, by 101, and deaths from dementia 394 higher! (I wonder why.) In hospitals there were no more than 216 excess all-cause deaths while hospital deaths from cancer, dementia, heart disease, respiratory disease (apart from covid19) and other causes were substantially lower than the five year average. Respiratory disease usually sees off an average of 1,062 Scots in hospital during weeks 12-24. This year 1,736 have died in hospital from covid19 and 663 from respiratory disease in the course of these same twelve weeks. So if you add covid19 to “normal” respiratory disease there are more people dying than usual, but it’s hardly the apocalypse, and hospitals are obviously coping. Non-institutional/home deaths on the other hand were up by 2,215. Of these covid19 accounted for 236. Cancer deaths at home were up by a shocking 730, deaths from heart disease by 504 and deaths from other causes 513. If we add excess care home deaths to excess non-institutional deaths we obtain a total of 4,666, just a little over 200 short of the total number of excess deaths. I’m sure that must be significant. To me these figures suggest firstly that care homes are not a good place to be while a virus is going about, secondly, that hospitals are being under-used and thirdly that many people are dying at home who could have been saved if they hadn’t been afraid to go to hospital. I really think that someone should point out to the First Minister that people are still dying of many things and putting them under house arrest for evermore is not going to keep them alive.
Thanks for this Jane, and I quite agree. A friend has finally been given an appointment tomorrow for her yearly mammogram, having waited anxiously for several weeks. She has also developed a nasty eye infection, which her optician has reviewed by Zoom or similar and prescribed antibiotics accordingly.
This extended house arrest is futile and even loyal Nicola supporters are starting to question the need for it.
The Ombudsman for Police Scotland is called The Scottish Police Authority (SPA). They are currently conducting a so called ‘indenpendent’ public inquiry into the policing of the covid19 measures following the passing of the emergency powers.
The SPA are asking for public opinion, evidence and so on for their inquiry to review.
Go to http://www.spa.police.uk/performancepages/618379/618466/
The website isnt clear but submissions by public are requested.
With policy appearing to have caused death in care homes and away from clinical settings – it would appear there is an opportunity serious and damning questions/evidence to reach one corner of the establishment.
The tone of the SPA inquiry discussion heard in one of their public online debate seemed to be looking at the policing of the public during the declared and accepted by them public health emergency rather than investigating the causes of the lockdown, the created panic and its effects. Has it been assumed there is no crime in the deliberate increasing of threat in individuals? See SAGE group behavioural scientists section SPI-B leaked documentation to see this was a goal advised by SAGE to UK Government. Sturgeon is on pulic record saying SAGE has been the advisory group for the Scottish Government with local Scottish elements ala the Great Calderwood who give interpretation Scottish systems and environment.
The point of my post is the SPA are holding an inquiry and some of the excellent refutable evidence dicussed here ought to be submitted to them.
Repeat. Limerick for a Jobs Killer:
There once was a two metre rule
Dreamt up out the blue by some fool
‘Stay right in your place
with your mask on your face’
Makes authoritarians drool
The next mass wave needs to be of resignations from politicians,the public health mafia and hysterical media, for being such a bunch of hopeless, ruinous fuckwits
Pretty good!
conservativefreedomparty.com
It’s March 2021 – a novel pathogen originating in China is on the loose killing thousands across the planet…
Would we really go through another lockdown, to lop off another 10% of our GDP, stop our children being educated for another six months and place ourselves under house arrest yet again?
I think the answer is no. Of course sensible measures might be taken with theatres closing again for instance. But a total national lockdown? No.
Of course we would. We’d just all be muzzled instantly rather than waiting for three months until it’s all well and truly over before making them mandatory.
Sadly, we now know that’s true!
We will have already been muzzled for half a year. You cant beat the foresight of our dear leaders!
Of course this will be a new super strain that had adapted to our muzzles making it clearly so dangerous that will have to have a much harsher lockdown then before and because it has proven so able to adapt that lockdown will never be lifted. Its whats best for you.
What theatres? At this rate there will be very few left to close down again.
If we’re out from this lockdown by then. Never-ending-lock.
On the BAME issue, I’m not totally sure about the suggested genetic predisposition to Covid-19 in the Bangladeshi population. If this is the sole explanation why does Bangladesh itself have relatively few Covid-19 deaths. Even if we allow for under-reporting, a deprived country like Bangladesh would have difficulty hiding a hugely mounting death toll. On a per capita comparison with the UK, Bangladesh ought to have 70 times the number of reported deaths.
I still think Vitamin D is likely to be a key factor.
I’d eat in a normally operating restaurant tomorrow and go to the pub. I won’t be going to either though if I have to wear a muzzle and perform ridiculous rituals to maintain spurious and scientifically unproven social distancing guidelines and which are patrolled by the police. We all know this is purely to make the worried well who are at no risk feel a teeny bit safer (ie all those yummy mummies in their 30s prancing round M&S Food in face masks made from Cath Kidston fabric!)
I don’t think it has anything to do with making people feel safer. This is totalitarianism. It is all about making people obey. Each stage of obedience paves the way for the next set of demands.
If they wished to make people feel safer they would need to admit to the systematic lies of the MSM and that the government has been deliberately terrorising the people to make them unnecessarily fearful and that the virus threat this year was not significantly different to what it has been in previous years.
Yes, this has no basis in ‘making people feel safe’ but it’s about pushing us into greater obedience and ignorance as the great power and wealth transfer continues.
People are welcome to think all those governments panicked 3+ months ago and all copied each other: that they don’t know how to undo it. Frankly, it won’t wash now as our govt messes with our heads and lies at every turn.
We can still say no. We have more power than we realise and ‘they’ are terrified of us waking up to that fact. I think more people actually are doing now – I hope I’m right – bon courage!
“Yes, this has no basis in ‘making people feel safe’ but it’s about pushing us into greater obedience and ignorance as the great power and wealth transfer continues.”
With respect, I disagree. You give these people too much credit. They don’t know what they are doing half the time. It’s the blind leading the blind – talentless self serving politicians covering their backsides.
What is “power”? And what is “wealth”?
It sounds grand to use these words, but is your concept of these things the same as everyone elses?
You may be right about the politicians themselves that does not mean that they are not being manipulated into taking these actions.
Well okay, that’s fine, a diversity of viewpoints is important, but as I said, I myself don’t happen to believe that there are shady figures behind the scenes pulling the strings.
(Perhaps with creepy Gates being a notable exception …)
I’m half joking about Gates. There are lobby groups that may have too much influence, but ultimate responsibility for decision making rests with the government.
Gates is richer than God and his retirement hobby is funding scientific research and health programmes. He has a specific interest (infectious diseases and vaccines). It is absolutely no surprise that the greater part of all of the institutions and specific research programmes in this area should be partly funded by, or at least have connections to, Gates’ foundation. I would be surprised if you could find me one outside China that didn’t have any connection. It is also no surprise that he heavily lobbies governments – his wealth and name open the doors and he has a specific soapbox and he doesn’t have much else to do anymore. It is also no surprise that offers of funding will form part of this lobbying.
It’s all a bit dodgy, sure, but it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a Machiavellian supervillain.
God isn’t rich. In His supreme essence He is above all human attributes. In his human incarnation, he owned nothing.
I accept I don’t know for sure but all the research I have done since this lockdown began makes me lean overwhelmingly towards the shady figures behind the scenes theory.
To begin with why did we have to have a secretive SAGE committee engaged in secret meetings(minutes only revealed after court action) deciding public policy in response to a so called public health emergency. Surely that’s already a little shady and that’s just the last drop of water at the tip of the iceberg.
The government should always be taking advice from people who purport to be experts on any subject where they are in the process of making public policy. I’d far rather there were medics, epidemiologists, virologists and yes – even behavioural psychologists involved in advising the government, than that you had Johnson, Hancock and Raab sitting round in the cabinet room going “so, an epidemic, eh? Well. What d’you reckon we should do about that then?” To each other. I might have issues with the choice of advisors and indeed with a lot of the policy that’s been churned out, but surely it is better that there’s expert advice being sought?
As to whether it was shady and secretive – governments don’t normally feel any particular need to tell the public who is advising them on any given issue, unless they think that the name of the advisor is going to lend the policy more credibility. The only reason we were told about SAGE (cool name, huh? Sounds like it must be full of really clever people) at all is that Johnson et al wanted us to know that they were being led by “the science” and thus, we were in safe hands.
If you look for schemes, agendas and nefarious motives everywhere, you will find them everywhere. It doesn’t mean that they are in fact the reason these things are happening. And actually, I think that the fact that the decisions being made don’t seem to make any logical sense – to us, who are in the minority in that we have looked more deeply than the BBC headlines and the front page of the guardian – probably makes it easier to believe that there must be a grand scheme involved. The apparent facts don’t make any logical sense, so there must be another explanation. But I do still think that panic, poor decision making, weakness in the face of public opinion and lack of political courage in leadership are a far more likely explanation.
I didn’t set out to look for ‘schemes, agendas and nefarious motives everywhere’ I set out to learn about a deadly virus.
Well, then I fall back on my point that if you are even a little bit educated on this subject, then what passes for policy at the moment makes so little sense, that it’s incredibly easy to start believing that there must be something else going on. I know this, because I’ve started out down that road several times myself during this whole thing.
Look, at the end of the day, one of us is going to look pretty silly in 12 month’s time and I mean no disrespect at all when I say that I really hope it’s you and not me. If it is you, then I will buy you a beer (and if it’s me, then it probably won’t be possible to buy beer anymore).
I really hope its me too I think we can agree on that.
While I agree with using experts, I disagree with using theorists or those whose whole existence relies on derived data and relationships. Because we don’t rely on such people when making phones, cars, food and water safe. We use real engineers, technicians and auditors. We use validation and verification methods.
From very early on you can see that believing models and modellers just because they are academic leads to all sorts of problems. And as I’ve stated on this site before, it’s not surprising as we have had policies been made by listening to climate change scientists for well over a decade and have seen so much money spent on useless renewable schemes. Or as in the case in Northern Ireland, a direct money making rip off scheme.
Yes, you’re absolutely right, and I might wish that they had used _different_ experts, or that the experts they used had been more genuinely expert. If you want to predict the future, you either go to someone who uses computer models, or you go to a fortune teller. Either way, you probably end up with about the same level of accuracy, but if you go to the bloke with the computer, you probably sound more credible.
Anyway, the quality of the people on SAGE wasn’t really my point.
Agree. Governments and their allies in the media are still insisting on the lies they’ve been feeding people for months. They won’t come out of this unless we make them.
My reply to Saved, Paulito, Matt, John Pretty: It seems clear to me that there are 2 main points of view on this thread about this issue. It’s the usual cock-up or conspiracy argument and we may all need to agree to disagree.
However, to those who think it’s a cock-up and ideas of weath and power are ‘grand’, I would say, just look at the billions paid over in QE so far and ask who will be footing the bill. Ask yourself why the UK Govt is the 2nd biggest funder of Gates’ WHO and why Johnson has pledged £1.65bn to GAVI. Why has big business been prioritised world-wide over SMEs who are still being crippled by the disastrous ‘lockdown’ measures and with more to come (the ‘easing’ is a sick joke.)
As for Gates, he is a long way from being a philanthropist. His main project appears to be eugenics and all the funding of academic institutions, media organisations and Big Pharma appear to be to further that end.
I hope the cock-up theorists are right but, in the end, we’re all in the shit anyway!
As you say, we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I don’t even really know why I keep getting drawn into these kinds of threads – I don’t have any particular axe to grind. I suppose I just find it difficult to stop arguing!
I think that we can all at least agree that the results of the decisions made are going to be pretty disastrous in the future, however you look at it.
Well, guys it’s really healthy to be able to agree to disagree these days!
There is a relatively new free speech concept called “viewpoint diversity” which I think may have been coined by Jonathan Haidt.
It’s something I have been thinking about a lot lately while trying to communicate more effectively on discussion boards like this one. I’m far from being an expert practitioner.
I am still inclined to get defensive about my own view on issues at times, but I am learning to be more open and respectful of the views of others.
Sorry, just to add – it’s depressing to live in a world where what’s going on can only be explained by either “cock-up theory” or “conspiracy theory”.
There’s no question that the situation is awful, the only question remains, is whether it happened by mistake, based on decisions made by appalling incompetence, or on purpose because of the malign forces that have planned this carefully.
I can assure you that the decision to go into lockdown belongs firmly in the “cockup” camp, and the decision to stay in it belongs in the “conspiracy” camp. As to the rest: who knows?
Neatly put, Nick. Panic was definitely in there but was it real or a smokescreen? Thanks for a good discussion everyone. Over and out from me as I see Toby has put up a new post now.
I am in agreement with you in case that is not clear.
Cath Kidston has gone bust. Lockdownitis.
If anyone here remembers ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ and its catchy theme song-(age giveaway!), here is an adaptation:
Those Imperial teams with their science machines
The Covid deaths up
And the crazy lockdown
They excite all the media and steal all the scenes
With the Covid deaths up
And the crazy lockdown
They’re all frightfully keen
Those Imperial teams and their science machines
Anyone know what’s happened to Sweden’s reporting for the last 2 days? They haven’t reported any cases, or any deaths, since 18th June.
I had the same question although media trying to ramp Sweden’s approach up as a ‘big mistake’
I’d say their deaths are running out, and also, in the last few weeks they haven’t reported any deaths on Sunday. They usually report most of the deaths on Tuesday – Thursday.
I could believe that they’ve had no deaths, but suddenly to have no cases for 2 days running seems odd.
Reading articles like Rod Liddle’s in the Times today ( https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/a-government-that-helps-people-in-a-crisis-doesnt-sound-so-bad-now-does-it-p3x8px2ts ) make me despair over whether this sort of pro-lockdown narrative – and in particular the idea of society being divided into virtuous, caring communitarians vs. irresponsible right-wing libertarians who only care about the economy – is ever going to be seriously challenged. (and “let the vulnerable die” seems to have happened widely here anyway, and in many other places like Belgium and NYC, thanks to care home and hospital infection. The term “protect and survive” also doesn’t really inspire much confidence if you think of its Cold War origins)
I do agree with Rod Liddle’s comments about the left and self-flagellating identity politics, though – I considered myself more or less a leftie until the recent media response to the BLM protests has made me unsure what, if any, side I’m on – but I don’t really want to talk about that here! (except in the context of the virus spreading – or not – as a result of non-distanced protests)
The BBC’s latest “second wave” article (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53113785), hasn’t helped my mood today either. (I mean the article’s scaremongering attitude based on the surely now discredited Spanish Flu comparison, and the fact that it will be taken as gospel by most readers – not the possibility or otherwise of a second wave!)
Another thing that kind of disturbs me is how the dexamethasone breakthrough is heralded as the first good news in the fight against Covid-19. It’s certainly great that severely affected people have a better chance of survival, but it seems like basically none of the last few month’s findings relating to lower IFR, low infectiousness of asymptomatic cases, high proportion of the latter, etc. seem to have even got through to the wider public consciousness, let alone regarded as good news.
The lack of any noticeable uptick due to the BLM protests also doesn’t seem to have been reported much, except by generally sceptical sources like the Spectactor.
It makes me sceptical that even if the recent research into T-cell immune responses giving a large percentage of the population some degree of immunity (see here for example: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/covid-19-t-cells/ ) were conclusively proven to be true, and reported in national news sources – would people still carry on regarding Covid-19 as an unprecedented existential threat? When I first read about the T-cell thing a couple of weeks ago, I really thought this – if the science turns out to be correct – could be the breakthrough that persuades people to get back to normal. But now I’m not so sure!
(Apologies for the long post BTW but this is the first time I’ve actually posted here,,, I’ve been following the Lockdown Sceptics blog for over a month and have found it a genuine lifeline knowing at least some other people feel the same way I do)
Welcome to the family Drawde. Like you, this site has been a sanity pill for me and many others I believe.
The determination to find a second wave is relentless. My MIL is a firm covidinsta and I asked her tonight ‘have you stopped for one moment and thought maybe there won’t be a second wave’? She hadn’t but actually started to question it – small victories!
Have you seen this???
That’s quite a damning headline!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/21/releasing-english-hospital-patients-into-care-homes-not-illegal
The Guardian writes at the end:
With those in power failing us …… at this historic moment, we demand better. From the covid pandemic and police brutality to the marginalisation of minority communities around the world, leadership is broken. Lacking sensitivity to the real lives of their people, leaders are gambling with public health, safety, community cohesion and the future of younger generations. Divisive and poor at crisis management, they sometimes appear more interested in serving themselves over the people they were elected to serve. We have to make them raise their game.
On a similar note in USA:
“Nursing homes across the country are kicking out old and disabled residents and sending them to homeless shelters and rundown motels”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/business/nursing-homes-evictions-discharges-coronavirus.html
Nothing since last Saturday. Is Lockdownskeptics on hold? Is Toby Young OK?
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