Refusing to wear a mask in public should become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving or not wearing a seatbelt, the President of the Royal Society has said.
Venki Ramakrishnan called for everyone to be required to wear a mask in all indoor public settings, rather than only on public transport, and criticised confused messaging from the Government. This follows the publication of two Royal Society reports, one of which purports to show that wearing masks reduces transmission of the virus, and the other of which documents how far the UK is trailing behind other countries when it comes to face coverings.
Wearing a mask did not bother our Italian, French or Spanish neighbours; none of whom were used to wearing one before the pandemic, yet now do so routinely.
So just treat it as another item of clothing that is part of the new normal and wear it whenever you cannot socially distance safely. It is the right thing to do, and a small price to pay, to help keep infections down and the economy open in the pandemic.
The message has not been clear enough, so perhaps people do not really understand the benefits or are not convinced of them. Whatever the reasons, we need to overcome our reservations and wear face coverings whenever we are around others in public.
It used to be quite normal to have quite a few drinks and drive home, and it also used to be normal to drive without seatbelts. Today, both of those would be considered antisocial, and not wearing face coverings in public should be regarded in the same way.
If all of us wear one, we protect each other and thereby ourselves, reducing transmission. We lower the chances of future surges and lockdowns which are economically and psychologically disruptive, and we increase the chance of eliminating the virus. Not doing so increases the risk for everyone, from NHS workers to your grandmother.
I’ve had a look at the Royal Society paper that supposedly confirms the effectiveness of masks. It’s unimpressive. Note the threadbare evidence on which it bases its sweeping conclusion:
We have found only two randomised control trials in the primary literature on the use of face masks to reduce onward transmission; one was underpowered, and the other showed significant reduction when adjusted for actual mask usage in a posthoc analysis.
Congratulations Venki Ramakrishnan. You win bedwetter-of-the-week
81% of Care Home Residents Asymptomatic
This is pretty extraordinary. According to a UK Government study, 80.9% of residents in care homes for the over-65s in England who tested positive for COVID-19 were asymptomatic.
A reaction to the study in the Science Media Centre contains this gem from Sarah Harper, Clore Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford:
Our early conclusions that younger people were generally asymptomatic, but older adults were less likely to be, has now been questioned. This survey further emphasizes that the disease is complex and its progress and impact still unclear. There has been a general assumption in some media reports that COVID-19 was a death sentence for all older people – this study emphasizes that many older adults as well as younger people can have the disease mildly.
So COVID-19 is not a death sentence for the over-65? Who knew?
Well, Dr Scott Atlas does. The senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center has given an interview to Fox News in which he says that for those under 70, the mortality rate for COVID-19 is lower than it is for seasonal flu.
Meanwhile, Boris has put his foot in it by suggesting care home managers are to blame for the high death toll in the sector. The prime minister said on Monday that “too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures”.
That’s a bit rich, considering the Chief Executive of the NHS ordered hospitals to discharge as many patients as possible in March without checking first to make sure they weren’t carrying COVID-19. Given the number of infectious people flooding into care homes as a result of that diktat, I’m not sure following more rigorous social distancing policies in these settings would have made any difference.
Latest ONS Data Shows Deaths Below Five-Year Average for Second Week in Row
Readers will recall that last Tuesday the ONS data for Week 25 showed that the number of people dying in England and Wales had fallen below the five-year average, suggesting that some of the people who’ve died from coronavirus would have died later in the year anyway. The same is true for the ONS data for Week 26 (June 20th – 26th).
The number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 26 June 2020 (Week 26) was 8,979, this was 360 deaths lower than Week 25.
In Week 26, the number of deaths registered was 3.4% below the five-year average (314 deaths fewer), this is the second consecutive week that deaths have been below the five-year average; the numbers of deaths in care homes and hospitals were also fewer than the five-year average (103 and 815 deaths lower respectively), while the number of deaths in private homes was 745 higher than the five-year average.
Of the deaths registered in Week 26, 606 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, the lowest number of deaths involving COVID-19 in the last 13 weeks, accounting for 6.7% of all deaths in England and Wales.
Another notable feature of the latest ONS data is that the number of deaths involving novel coronavirus is falling in every English region save for the North East, with the total declining for the 10th consecutive week.
Bailout For Luvvies
Quite decent of the Government to put a £1.57 billion bailout package in place for theatres, galleries and museums, considering how few people in those institutions vote Conservative.
Will Gompertz, the BBC’s arts correspondent, had this to say about it:
The rescue package has been warmly welcomed by many arts leaders, some of whom said they thought it to be at the upper end of what had been hoped for. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, who has been under pressure from the arts and heritage sector to deliver a meaningful funding solution to a crisis brought about by COVID-19, feels vindicated that his behind-closed-doors approach to negotiations with the Treasury has paid off.
As always, the devil will be in the detail. The Government has not specified how the money will be divided between competing art forms or regions, nor how the application process will work. There will be winners and losers.
And then there’s the elephant in the auditorium: when will the rules around social distancing in performing arts venues be relaxed to allow the show to go on?
Many theatre producers are baffled by what they see as “one rule for them, and one rule for us”, approach by Government, particularly when it comes to travel. Why is it OK for people to sit side-by-side on a train or plane for hours but not in a theatre, which they argue is a much more controllable environment? As far as they are concerned, that is the billion dollar question.
That last point is a good one. Rather than handing out taxpayers money to these folks, wouldn’t it be better to just let theatres, galleries and museums re-open?
Simon Dolan Loses First Round
Disappointing news: Simon Dolan’s attempt to have the Government’s draconian coronavirus restrictions declared unlawful by the High Court has not been successful. Sky News has the story.
In his ruling, Mr Justice Lewis said that the rules in force on 2 July – the day of the hearing in the case – “did involve a restriction on the freedom of assembly and association”.
But he added: “The context in which the restrictions were imposed, however, was of a global pandemic where a novel, highly infectious disease capable of causing death was spreading and was transmissible between humans. There was no known cure and no vaccine.
“There was a legal duty to review the restrictions periodically and to end the restrictions if they were no longer necessary to achieve the aim of reducing the spread and the incidence of coronavirus. The regulations would end after six months in any event.
“In those, possible unique, circumstances, there is no realistic prospect that a court would find that regulations adopted to reduce the opportunity for transmission by limiting contact between individuals was disproportionate.”
Sounds like Mr Justice Lewis has drunk the Covid Kool-Aid.
Simon is considering an appeal. In the meantime, you can visit his Keep Britain Free website here.
National Geographic Says Covid 50 to 100 Times More Deadly Than Flu
There’s an extraordinary piece in the National Geographic – wildly alarmist, even by the standards of the mainstream media. It includes this incredible statement:
Using a more sophisticated calculation called the infection-fatality rate, paired with the past few months’ worth of data, the latest best estimates show that COVID-19 is around 50 to 100 times more lethal than the seasonal flu, on average.
So what exactly is this “more sophisticated” way of calculating the IFR? Apparently, they’re the ones made by University of Wollongong epidemiologist and self-described “health nerd” Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz.
Scientists can use two strategies to estimate the infection-fatality rate, explains Meyerowitz-Katz. They can estimate the number of infections using serology studies, which test people for antibodies against the coronavirus. These tests can reveal whether a person has been infected even if they don’t show symptoms. Or, researchers can use statistical methods to infer the total number of infections based on what’s known about the number of confirmed cases and the estimates for asymptomatic infections.
“Serology studies generally produce lower estimates of infection-fatality rates, and statistical models tend to be higher,” Meyerowitz-Katz says.
Meyerowitz-Katz’s has shown his workings-out in a blog post for Medium.
For my part, I’ll stick with the CDC’s estimate of 0.26%, about 2.5 times higher than the IFR of the average seasonal flu. Here’s how the CDC reached that figure, as summarised in USA Today:
In May, the CDC published a document titled “Pandemic Planning Scenarios,” with estimates about the virus to help modelers and public health officials. It included estimates of the death rate for infected people who show symptoms and of the percentage of people who were infected but asymptomatic.
The CDC document stressed the values are estimates, not predictions of the effects of the virus, and don’t reflect the impact of changes in behavior or social distancing.
“New data on COVID-19 is available daily,” the document said. “Information about its biological and epidemiological characteristics remain limited, and uncertainty remains around nearly all parameter values.”
The document includes five scenarios. The first four are varying estimates of the disease’s severity, from low to high, while the fifth represents the “current best estimate.”
The range of estimates put the fatality rate for those showing symptoms between 0.2%-1%, with a “best estimate” of 0.4%.
It also places the number of asymptomatic cases between 20%-50%, with a “best estimate” of 35%.
By combining the two estimates, the estimated overall fatality rate of those infected with the virus – with and without symptoms – would be 0.26%.
Laura Dodsworth’s Art Project
Artist and photographer Laura Dodsworth has started documenting the impact of the lockdown through a variety of different mediums. She’s written about the project in Spiked:
A choir of lockdown luvvies bemoan the demise of the arts, while arguing that lockdown didn’t start early enough, wasn’t strict enough, and shouldn’t be ending now. Of course lockdown was going to kill the arts, along with many other industries and livelihoods. In the end, if we want to resurrect the arts world, the only hope is to depart the Theatre of Death, staggering, blinking, into the daylight. It was quite a show, but it’s almost over – daily deaths are now in the double figures in the UK.
You can visit her website here.
Why Aren’t More People Going to the Pub?
According to a poll, only 5% of Britons have visited a pub since they re-opened. Why so few? Presumably because the above Times cartoon sums up how many Britons are feeling, having been subjected to months of unrelenting ‘death porn’ by The BBC.
But this email from a reader also contains a clue. Going to the pub is actually a miserable experience, given all the pointless rules that have put been in place.
Just back from a very unpleasant experience this evening, meeting old friends at my local pub in Kingston, the Druid’s Head. As I entered the pub, a young girl aged about 20 insisted I “scan the QR code” or text my details to their mobile number for “NHS track and trace”. It was farcical! When I explained I was joining a group of friends, she took ages looking on her iPad to confirm the booking before I was allowed entry.
As I joined my old friends (sadly all of them are hugely pro-lockdown), they would not shake my hand and my mate’s gf would not do a usual hug to greet me. She was paranoid I might touch her beer and infect it
I was allowed to order drinks at the bar, but could not carry them to our table. Only bar staff were authorised to do this. As if in some way, this increases the risk of spreading Covid. Of course, they had the obligatory Perspex screens on the bar (with massive gaps to pay through).
As you can imagine conversation was riveting. My friends blamed Boris for not locking down earlier. My mate’s gf said very defiantly, “We are going to be living like this for a VERY LONG TIME!” Almost as if she wanted to live this way forever.
My mate and his gf had a bottle of antibacterial spray on the table. I’m not exaggerating when I say they must have used this about ten times in the space of an hour. Constantly, obsessively spraying and rubbing their hands with it. I joked and said, “Careful, you‘ll run out in an hour!” They weren’t amused.
As we left the pub, they would not touch any door handles and only used their elbows to open doors. As we said our goodbyes outside, they offered me some of their hand spray. When I said no, they looked shocked. “But you’ve touched things!” they exclaimed. Then they tried to forcibly spray my hands! WTF! The look of horror on their faces because I refused their spray. They could not believe I would dare refuse it. It was neurotic behaviour to the nth degree. I despair.
Feeling thoroughly depressed now. My mental health has taken a battering for what should have been a fun catch up. I won’t be seeing them again in a hurry. Please tell me this is just a nightmare and not real.
Meanwhile, the poor residents of Leicester are being grassed up by the locals when they sneak out to pubs in neighbouring areas. Apparently, the giveaway is when they cheer Jamie Vardy scoring a goal.
The Barrel of a Gun
On Saturday night, when I’d had a few too many, I produced a slightly unhinged Twitter thread about the Cultural Revolution. Here it is for those who missed it.
1/ Thought I’d do a thread about reasons to be cheerful about the Cultural Revolution. All of these are variations on the same theme: the Red Guards have seized cultural power, but not political power.
2/ It’s a coup in which the revolutionaries have secured the public broadcaster, but not the military. They don’t have a monopoly over the legitimate use of force – they can’t murder or imprison counter-revolutionaries, just cancel them – and that means the coup will fail.
3/ Take universities, art schools, dance schools, drama schools, colleges of further education, etc. The coup has been 100% successful in those institutions. There’s literally zero tolerance for any dissent from Woke orthodoxy across the HE sector.
4/ But the timing of the revolutionaries isn’t great. >50% of those institutions will shortly be facing an existential crisis because of Covid. Travel restrictions will mean fewer non-British students, exacerbated by the fact that EU nationals will no longer get the fee break.
5/ And a lot of students who’ve accepted places will defer for a year, what with lectures and tutorials delivered online, campus social life hampered by stupid social distancing rules, nightlife in university cities non-existent. So most universities are facing a perfect storm.
6/ >50% won’t survive unless they can attract more students in 2021 and persuade the Govt to bail them out. So what do they do? They make it crystal clear that if you’re not a member of a victim group you’ll be demonised from day one. Make a pass at a girl? You’re a rapist.
7/ Voice the mildest dissent from the BLM policy agenda – you think it might not be a great idea to defund the police, for instance – and you’re a racist. Say you think JK Rowling might have a point and you’re a transphobe.
8/ At a time when the sector needs to attract as many new students as it can – and persuade a Conservative Government to bail it out! – it has doubled down on hard Left anti-capitalist gobbledegook and created an aggressively hostile environment for anyone to the right of Corbyn.
9/ So the good news is at least half of these Woke-us Dei religious seminaries will go bankrupt (assuming the Govt holds it nerve). The pipeline the cult has been using to pump lobotomised activists into the workforce is about to be bombed.
10/ The Professor of Whiteness Studies at the University of Central Bedfordshire will lose his £120,000-a-year, taxpayer-subsidised job and end up driving an Uber, where his ability to make converts will be confined to drunk couples snogging on the back seat.
11/ What about schools? The coup has been 100% successful in schools, too. Private and state. So many people have sent me documentary evidence that their children’s schools are now teaching the BLM Gospel, with heretics being burnt at the stake, I’ve stopped collecting it.
12/ So children will be bombarded with anti-British, Neo-Marxist propaganda from 9am to 3.30pm five days a week. They’ll be taught that British history is an unbroken litany of oppression, exploitation and self-deception. The message will be: “Hate your country and yourself.”
13/ But with everyone singing from the same hymn sheet – teachers, comedians, the BBC, the Premier League, Hollywood, etc. – most teenagers are bound to reject this dogma. Counter-cultural revolutionaries like Jordan Peterson will have the added glamour of being outcasts.
14/ And the more Woke the metropolitan elite becomes, the more likely right-wing populists are to win elections. Working class voters see this puritanical self-flagellation (we’re such sinners!) for what it is – a way for high-caste whites to differentiate themselves from them.
15/ It’s an expression of snobbish contempt dressed up as a self-righteous crusade. And the more left-wing parties embrace this nonsense, the more they alienate traditional working class voters. I think Trump will win in November.
16/ So absent an actual coup, the High Priests of the Intersectionality Cult will never obtain political power. And even though the process will be slow, right-wing politicians will gradually turn off the financial faucets that are funding this religious movement.
17/ Another asset for the counter-revolutionary side is that the people the Red Guards go after are often the smartest people in their fields/professions. Brilliant academics, teachers, actors, community organisers, comedians, etc., are being cancelled every day.
18/ And the upshot is that they become highly-motivated Generals in the counter-revolution. In the Soviet Union, picking off the Communist Party’s most gifted opponents worked because they were imprisoned or murdered. But just cancelling people isn’t nearly as effective.
19/ So this Maoist moment in which the Red Guards seem to be sweeping all before them could be a last hurrah. They’ve seized an important bridgehead, but haven’t secured their supply lines. It’s the French Revolution without the guillotine.
20/ I don’t mean to sound glib. I know 100s of good people are being blacklisted every day at the behest of rage mobs. It’s McCarthyism on steroids. But take heart. Join the resistance. Our opponents have immersed themselves in Foucault, but not Machiavelli. We will win.
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:
- ‘We need a cholera-style investigation to fully understand spread of COVID-19‘ – Excellent piece by Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson at Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine arguing that we need a more forensic, on-the-ground investigation of how the virus is transmitted, using John Snow’s investigation of the London cholera outbreak in 1854 as a model
- ‘Coronavirus could cause 35,000 extra UK cancer deaths, experts warn‘ – The BBC reports on the findings of DATA-CAN, the Health Care Research Hub (HDR UK) for Cancer, but the headline is misleading. It should say “Lockdown could cause 35,000 extra Uk Cancer deaths”
- ‘The New Truth‘ – Great piece in the Tablet about why it’s impossible to debunk the claims of Woke activists with science and reason
- ‘The major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neanderthals‘ – Interesting preprint suggesting a genetic explanation for why BME people are more susceptible to coronavirus. You don’t mean… it can’t be… that it is has nothing to do with ‘systemic racism’?!?
- ‘England & Wales 2020 Mortality Statistics in Context‘ – Excellent analysis of the 2020 excess deaths data for Weeks 1- 25 by Robert Wilson for Hector Drummond Magazine. He finds that of the 54,365 total, 9,463 were not due to COVID-19, but due to the effective closure of the NHS to non-Covid patients
- ‘Three pubs are forced to close because customers test positive for coronavirus‘ – The Mail reports that three pubs have had to close after customers tested positive for the virus
- ‘Pupils shun extra wellbeing lessons‘ – Quite right, too. They get enough touchy-feely gobbledegook on the BBC
- ‘Cash crisis leaves 13 universities on brink of collapse‘ – Story in the Times based on a report by the IFS. Only 13? I think it’ll be closer to half the total (see my Twitter thread above)
- ‘Revealed: the high-risk COVID-19 cities where going out is on the rise‘ – Handy guide to those cities where it’s still possible to have fun, based on requests to iPhones for walking directions. Top of the list is Bradford, followed by Portsmouth, Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester
- ‘The tyranny of cancel culture‘ – Good piece by Brendan O’Neill in Spiked saying Trump is right about the “political weapon” of “cancel culture” – the totalitarian thirst for “driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees”.
- ‘Predicting the Trajectory of Any COVID-19 Epidemic From the Best Straight Line‘ – Interesting paper from Professor Michael Levitt, among others, confirming that the rise and fall of infections and deaths follows the same pattern wherever the virus breaks out
- ‘Letter to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University‘ – Read a letter the Free Speech Union has written to Professor Stephen Toope, V-C of Cambridge, asking for clarification about what speech is protected under the University’s free speech policy, given that it appears to be one rule for Dr Gopal and another for Dr Starkey
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
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 re-opened, 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 re-opened – or most of them, anyway – we’re now focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. As of July 4th, many of them have re-opened too, but not all. 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. Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Note to the Good Folk 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 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 papers 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 updates, which doesn’t leave much time for other work. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. (Please don’t email me at any other address.) I’ll try and get another update done on Thursday.
And Finally…
You can listen to James Delingpole and me putting the world to rights in the latest episode of London Calling. I spend the first few minutes enthusing about Hamilton, having seen it for the first time on Sunday night. This was the filmed version of the Broadway production on Disney+, obviously, not the actual musical.
When Hamilton made its debut in 2015, it was considered a liberal work of art and enthusiastically celebrated by President Obama. But given the escalation of hostilities in the culture war since George Floyd’s death and the leftwards shift of the Overton Window, it now plays like a pointed rebuttal of the BLM narrative.
Part of that narrative, don’t forget, is that American history began in 1619, not 1776, and the Revolution was fought not to throw off the yoke of colonial oppression but so rich Southern landowners could continue to profit from the slave trade, given its imminent abolition in the British Empire. According to this version of US history – the one institutionalised by the text books of Howard Zinn and taught in every American high school – African-Americans were never participants in America’s story, only its victims. The Founding was not a huge step forward in the recognition of the universal rights of man, but a lynchpin in the system of white supremacy. The Founding Fathers were not philosopher-kings, but evil capitalist slave-owners.
How refreshing, therefore, to watch a musical in which the Founding is portrayed as the beginning of American history and celebrated as an event in which Americans of all different races participated. In Hamilton, the African-American cast members aren’t victims; rather, they are leading participants in America’s origin story. It’s a recasting of that story to make it fully inclusive and multicultural, which is the opposite of the white supremacist script that BLM activists want everyone to stick to. And the central character is the First Secretary of the US Treasury, the engine of American capitalism.
Needless to say, Lyn-Manuel Miranda, the wunderkind impresario who wrote Hamilton, is already coming under fire from Woke activists. You can read a summary of this attempt to cancel Hamilton here. I fear it won’t be long before Disney+ withdraws the film and issues a grovelling apology. Watch it while you can.
Discussion
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Precisely zero chance of sleeping tonight, as I am so bloody angry because of the mask wearing stuff. Row with my mother about it, who is really sucking this all up. Doesn’t feel her liberty is being taken away because ‘they are doing their best to keep us safe’. FFS!!!! We were never in very much danger — just how safe does she want to be?
This whole shitshow has really pulled me down tonight. I am bloody furious that our lives are being changed irrevocably without consent, people are sucking it all up, and there is not a damn thing we can do about it.
Managed to resist the temptation to comment on the BBC news website throughout this whole covid cluster f**k, as it gets me agitated arguing with brain donors, but I am afraid I relented tonight and commented on what I think of the government considering making face nappies mandatory in shops. I am so boody angry about it.
I have ordered a plague doctor’s mask, which is what I shall be wearing if I am forced to wear a mask in my local Sainsbury’s. This arsehole government!!!
When this is all over I want a massive statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt erected in central London opposite the Palace of Westminster and on the plinth in 6 foot high letters will be his wise words, the wisest ever spoken:
THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF.
Boris got spooked, the Government got spooked, and the population at large got spooked….and so we are now suffering the appalling consequences of letting fear run rampant across the land.
Seriously…
Clap for Nicola Sturgeon planned for Scotland next week
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/nicola-sturgeon-scotland-coronavirus-clap-18571043
A Facebook event post for the clap, which already has 4,000 people listed as ‘going’ and a further 13,000 ‘interested’, notes: “Our First Minister has done an exceptional job throughout what’s been a strange year so far, to say the least.
Posting disabled on the FB hagiography page for Wee Krankie.. What a shame, people can’t express their adoration.
I don’t know, one of those nodding dogs you used to get on the back shelf of cars could probably have done as well. What I don’t understand is why her statements are never subjected to the same level of critical scrutiny as Boris’s on UK wide TV. We get 10 mins of various chancers slagging off “the Tories” and then Sturgeon clacks on stage in those heels she only ever wears for TV and is given a minute or two of free political advertising.
A good time to mention the pulled advert which saw pramary school aged children talking to camera to say thank you to nicola sturgeon.
It was an STV advert which ran in the first weeks of the lockdown. The children could not possibly have know what they were saying (it was scripted) or how they were being used. Its was an effort to manipulate public perception in favour of the dear leader.
Accustations of child abuse were levelled and the advert was pulled with an investigation promised.
Yes it was creepy to see children on their beds, in their bedrooms and elsewhere thanking nicola for keeping them safe.
One of the papers from the time.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1286723/nicola-sturgeon-children-praising-video-removed-stv-north-korea-Kim-jong-un
Other less tabloid comment is available.
It makes me sick to even think this happened nevermind having unwittingly witnessed the advert.
Horrendous!
Well said!
Supermarkets.
There will be other businesses that might fit, but supermarkets are the most obvious control during this absurd experiment. They are to be found all over the country and their operations have changed very, very little since February.
Since supermarket staff are, therefore, an excellent representation of the working age population, might it not make sense to examine the apparent effect of Covid-19 on these people? They have come into continual contact with each other, customers, suppliers and their own families. I have not yet seen a supermarket employee wearing gloves or a mask, or observe any kind of distance dance.
During a conversation with the extremely sanguine manager of a branch of Sainsbury’s today (conducted at a gap of about 50cm), I was told that not a single one of their 350-strong staff had been ill. This sort of anecdotal evidence is corroborated by plenty of other posts over the past few weeks.
Businesses that are feverishly setting themselves up for a fall by ‘doubling-down’ on the incoherent guidance could do worse than taking a leaf from the supermarket playbook.
Dare I suggest the Government might use the supermarkets as a very strong case study, with which… Read more »
Same at my local tesco – staff act normal with no distancing and no masks or gloves and none have had the virus. You wonder with the staff working long hours in constant interaction with the plague carrying general public that some of them would have succumbed.
Then you get some customers who are dressed up to enter a death chamber – sadly saw an elderly lady wearing marigolds gloves the other week – it’s a free world so she’s entitled to but thought it looked a bit OTT.
It’s good that staff are ok but makes you wonder just how transmittable this thing is.
Agree completely and have long wondered about this. Our Sainsbury has the minimum of regulations in place, mainly limiting the number of people in store and space at check outs but that’s it. A pleasure to shop there. The check out staff are always friendly and cheerful yet many are quite possibly in the vulnerable category either through age or weight.
Very well put
Schools have also been open the whole time, albeit for key worker’s kids.
If these kid’s parents are most at risk of catching Covid because of their work in care homes, hospitals etc. it stands to reason that their kids are likely to catch the disease at home.
if that is the case, then surely they will have spread the disease to their classmates.
Has there been a reported case of a ‘rona outbreak in a British school yet?
I can’t recall reading about one and I daresay the Graun and BBC would have been all over it.
Amen, Charles. Been saying this from the start. Ok, forget about “data”, “statistics”, “science” and “graphs”. What can you actually SEE? Real things that are in front of you, staring you in the face.
Supermarket staff are the best, real, everyday barometer. Handling goods and money from hundreds of people, everyday. And yet, they are not keeling over.
I’ve seen the same staff, day in, day out all through this “awful disease”.
They. Are. Still. There.
Absolutely wonderful. Yes. Supermarket staff as a social hub in times of pandemic. A cross roads of civilisation where all meet and queue in queues.
Funny to think I was only speaking to a council bin lady today who explained the cities waste issues are currently due to the very high numbers of c19 isolations occurring in their workforce. But even council bin people need to get around a supermarket.
You make very good points.
I think we have to start to wonder if the government actually want to restore public confidence. It’s possible they are as daft as they seem, but if they really wanted to restore confidence, would they have done and be doing all the things they are doing?
The government have access to lots of data, control of the media, and at every step they have chosen to emphasise/exaggerate the danger rather than calm the situation down.
If they did this it’s likely they’d have to admit that a large proportion of infections (maybe even a majority) have been nosocomial in Hospitals and Care Homes.
The obvious implications being that lockdowns actually made the situation worse.
A very good poin
Yes, that’s an interesting point. In London a lot of supermarket staff are actually quite old…so they might have higher rates. Glove wearing is pretty pointless. They get filthy v. quickly and the staff still touch items and then rub their noses…so they are of no protective value at all for staff or customers.
Seems as though glove wearing is to co habit with paint stripper. Save your skin by wearing gloves to use the chemical sanitzer. Thats my way of looking at gloves. Otherwise they seem completely pointless.
We used to say “the mask has come off” to indicate when some nefarious person reveals their true purpose. Shouldn’t that now be “the mask has gone on” to indicate when some nefarious person e.g. Nicola Sturgeon reveals their true purpose?
My neighbour has bought two Fiat 500s, a Range Rover Evoque, three Audi Q4s, a Ford Kuga, and five Volvo V40s.
I think he must have caught carownervirus.
Fiat seems appropriate given how much we are ruled by fiat during this fake crisis. Volvo’s are known for their safety – perhaps they should be fitted with aqualung breathing equipment to ensure drivers and passengers are not exposed to any viruses drawn in through vents.
Fiat currency? ie all of them!
welcome to the worlds longest comment thread)
It’s like Hamlet. No one can sit through the whole of it!
But it’s good!
I was offered a pencil to punch numbers in on a card machine by a face-visored assistant in Waterstone’s today. She looked (as far as I could determine her facial appearance) quite put out when I politely declined with a subtle indication in my tone of voice that this madness has gone far enough. For all I know she could have been using the pencil to pick her nose or sucking on it. She was certainly handling it as presumably had many other people who had used it that day. So even by her own mad criteria she was being insufficiently cautious.
The government decided to terrify us. It had considerable success with that strategy. It is very difficult for them to now execute a 180 degree turn and tell us there’s nothing to worry about.
So, I am afraid Johnson’s government has, no doubt unintentionally, inflicted huge and lasting damage on the country which a bit of tinkering with VAT rates in restaurants is not going to undo.
A radical switch in policy is required but the Government seems unable to do what is necessary to save us from what could become a decade long depression.
I think Toby should have a section where we can put our most daftest shop, pub, restaurant or museum experience. Simon Dolan had a twitter thread where he invited people to tweet him their horror experiences and it was an eye opener reading what he was sent.
I am seriously wondering if these managers, CEOs and directors are aware that they are accelerating their own demise and do they have any plans to stem what can possibly their inevitable collapse? Because I can’t hear any noise from them despite more big companies laying off staff and closing stores.
If they do end up going bust then I’m sorry I will shed no tears for them. They were a bunch of cowards the lot of them.
No tears for them here either. Cowards they are. Thoughtless too.
Wonder how CEOs are going to answer their stakeholders.
That’s a good question because it will be interesting if any of them do a mea culpa then do the honourable thing, resign and not even take any severance package offered to them.
What will be interesting will be museum directors especially if it turns out that the museum or art gallery is technically bankrupt, what then?
OKUK thanks for your beautifully written account of the farce, the insanity and the damage we all are seeing.
It is absurd entertainment to try and logic along the path of the victims. And they are victims, no matter how frustrating they are.
They are not functioning properly to understand the implcations of their lazy group think. They haven’t the imagination to see where this leads. Masks for flu now? Masks forever? Or just until we all get a vaccine and are PERMITTED out without a mask.
Your needle in your words is important. These people need to understand there are real human thinking people who do not follow their ungodly god. There is diversity, it is alive and it is very well!
Precisely. Even in a good year flu kills thousands .Don’t flu victims’ lives count? Shouldn’t we wear masks all the time to prevent even a single death since the government tells us they are so effective (although in true 1984 style they were telling us they are ineffective only a few weeks ago)?
As you say, lazy group think.
There’s a whole lot of lives that don’t count.
Presumably she sanitises the pencil between uses?
Who knows? Or perhaps I should say “whose nose?”
So much for lockdown:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/09/scientists-hail-stunning-results-show-areas-new-york-may-have/
Nearly 70% immunity from antibody tests in certain poor boroughs. Richer ‘white’ boroughs in the teens – ergo, they will be vulnerable to a second wave.
Gupta 10: Ferguson 0!
As ever, I am confused….
I thought that only approx 20% of people who have had covid19 produced covid19 specific antibodies – the other 80% had a historical immunity due to previous exposure to other Corona viruses (colds) – T-cells bla bla bla…
It says that a firm called CityMD administered about 314,000 antibody tests in NY. Across the city, 26 per cent of the tests came back positive. Not much detail, and comments switched off the article. Guess what, medics at Columbia Uni cautioning that this might not protect you from a second infection!
Presumably only a highly profitable vaccine could do that
Quite.
Kind of funny… a vaccine artificially creates a situation where your body thinks it has already been infected, no? So if previous exposure doesn’t protect you, why in the hell would anyone think a vaccine will?
I keep hearing this: “but we don’t know if you can get re-infected.” And I reply “you have no reason to believe that you can, and you have pretty much every other virus in existence to suggest that you cannot. I think your default assumption should probably be that this virus will behave like other viruses.” But no, our default assumption, in pretty much every instance, has been that this will behave as the zombie superbug from hell… Why is that?
Yes. that’s been one of the WHO scare tactics hasn’t it?
Yes if it’s true that some places are getting into the 60s and 70s then it is a concern because it implies that similar places that are only at around 20% are not herd immune yet.
We will have to wait and see what the real results behind this headline are.
In Lombardy there seemed to be a couple of places in Bergamo where the antibody levels were high but the rate of asymptomatic infections in those places was much lower than usual (hence why more antibodies). This was an older study I was looking at of health care workers. There has been a more recent one but I don’t think it’s been published yet (or I haven’t found it).
I don’t think it would be a concern so much as a cause to reevaluate a whole lot of things. For instance, it would suggest that all of our interventions are worthless. It would also suggest that – unless the death rates in these places were extremely high, the IFR is far lower than anyone ever assumed.
It depends who got tested, doesn’t it? It doesn’t say how they selected people, presumably you could turn up for a test if you wanted to. So perhaps people who have had symptoms in the last few weeks were much more likely to go and get tested, therefore a high proportion of them would test positive – and it’s not representative of the whole population. Unlike the antibody tests carried out in the UK, which I believe is mostly random population testing (other than Leicester of course!). Not sure if that would account for a 70% positive rate though.
Isn’t that the ‘got it’ rather than ‘had it’ test
Sorry, I see what you mean now. The ones most symptomatic are more likely to have antibodies
Yes. But it doesn’t really explain the discrepancy between the rich and poor boroughs, I suppose.
I don’t think this is the sort of “inequality exposed by Covid-19” (said in that griping way beloved of MSM presenters) that Amol Rajan has in mind with his propaganda exercise (“Rethink”) for the BBC. It should be the rich people suffering less from Covid-19 than the poor – not the other way round!!! On the other hand I guess he would argue this proves the case for making the rich poorer. 🙂
Is there really a neighbourhood in Queens called Corona?!
B&Q’s policy in Scotland is if your claim to have a medical reason for not wearing a mask you need to explain it to the manager.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Is that for employees? Because the manager can go away gracefully if that is for customers.
For customers. The argument is any shop can refuse service to anyone.
And consumers can choose to take their custom somewhere more welcoming!
Cheers. As others say better plsces are available for the consumer pound. B and q managers have zero right to a persons health details. I dare say b and q staff may get a few heated exchanges trying to support this infringement of privacy. Good luck to b and q staff. Long since realised better quality is available in other similar shops.
Not on grounds of disability. If you say you have a genuine disability – a fear of mask-wearing, where does that leave us?
“Anxiety”?
“High Anxiety”.
The following was an enjoyable ice-breaker. 1) wear particularly stupidly intimidating mask (useless black dust mass good). 2) approach shop assistant and mumble incomprehensible question through mask, repeat. 3) remove mask to ask question in clear English. Result was happy smiles all round!
Fall to ground clutching throat and making sounds like you are unable to breathe. Store assistant runs over and removes your mask at which point you suddenly leap to your feet and berate them for their unbelievably irresponsible law breaking!
Naughty, this is NO laughing matter! LOL
Somebody is down-voting a lot of posts, Please could they make themselves known so we can all discuss…;-)
It will be the Antitobes Squad.
If I were a shopper my policy would be to tell the manager to fcuk off
We will not be doing any shopping in Scottish shops while this requirement is enforced. Food might eventually become a bit of a problem but we can last for several weeks, not least because we have planned a couple of visits to England I suspect that non food shops, already beleaguered by months of shutdown, are going to take a bit of a hit on this.
Research posted by some Scottish lockdownsceptics this morning suggests that many shops will turn a blind eye.
😄
Try the pliers in aisle 37.
O’Keefe’s might help keep the area soft?
A tub of Swarfega as well, just to be on the safe side.
A very good reason not to shop there.
Here is Coronavirus – the map movie – now with added frame for w/e 7th July. Open in adjacent tabs of your browser, and flip between them to see how the epidemic progressed since the beginning of May. Charts are of weekly infection rates at week intervals: the date is the end date of the week. The list is in order to end June.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/gx1II/1/
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jsIvq/2/
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/LCbA5/1/
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/iL0yx/1/
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ztVPL/1/
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/2uelL/1/
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/K94t6/1/
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/buGhn/1/
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/S5Dmw/1/
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/aTTV5/1/
Apologies if this has been posted but this shows that the government’s “Eat out to help out” won’t be of much help:
https://twitter.com/Jab03919711/status/1281193260967485440
It’ll have been posted mate, there’s nearly 2,000 comments on here now!!!!!!!!
https://www.lockdowntruth.org/forum
Do you have a mobile friendly site, I’ve just tried it on my phone but it’s dosn’t have a mobile optimised site like https://lockdownsceptics.com
I forgot to check! Looking now…
It seems to be all working OK. What was the problem?
Slow to load and clunky to use, the menus don’t respond then you click on them, not the user friendly.
The site is built with Wix, their mobile sites are notorious for being slow to load. It’s down to Java programming being clunky.
That wouldn’t surprise me – I’m having trouble loading all the comments now
Bit of an exaggeration, 10% short of 2000, at 1799, as I post this!
What can I say I learnt to exaggerate from the master Neil Ferguson!!!!!
Good retort! Lol, yes indeed, young Neil does like his speculative very big numbers, doesn’t he?
I think that was a conservative estimate though for Ferguson, I should’ve said 500,000 posts!
Fergers certainly got stuck in to it.
Pret and Boots rely on city centre daytime footfall to keep their businesses running (boots makes more money in those stores from their lunchtime sandwich trade than from the traditional business). If offices don’t start waking up, it’s no surprise that these businesses will die and offices – especially high rise ones – can’t realistically reopen until the encouragement to work from home stops (if it ever does) and social distancing goes away (if it ever does)
Not to mention as well in train stations where they rely on custom from commuters, day trippers and those going away but almost all travel has ceased. If people don’t get around moving, they will die out.
There are a few restaurants near me that have successfully refocused their businesses to the takeaway/delivery trade, which seems to be doing ok. Such places dont really need the government discount for eating-in customers. The social distancing stuff restricts their capacity anyway!! As you say it’s the town and city centre lunch trade that has just vanished.
I would take advantage of the £10 off a meal out or whatever it is, but I dont think it will make me eat out any more than I would have done anyway. I cant see how it’s going to help hugely.
Unfortunately I don’t have any decent restaurants in my area but thankfully takeaways and restaurants a bit further afield also deliver so its not all bad. I won’t be surprised if the takeaways have actually done better than actual restaurants, I read somewhere that of all the fast food chains, its Pizza Hut and Domino’s that have over all done better.
Another great article on Conservative Woman:
https://conservativewoman.co.uk/an-ordinary-voters-plea-to-the-prime-minister/
I think the author deserves the “sceptic of the the week” title.
Brilliant Alice – Ducan White speaks for me.
Brilliant. If only they would listen.
Does anyone know what is going on with the hospital outpatient appointments at the moment? I was having regular ENT treatments up until March. I was told that appointments would start again in July, with appointments sent out at the end of June. My mother calling on my behalf because of my hearing difficulties, having been led round the houses trying to get some information, got put on to an HCA in the department who said that they were starting to send out appointments but have been told by the government to stop and to cancel any that have been sent out already. None of the nurses in the department know why, they are ready and the department is empty. What the hell is going on?
Does anyone know?
I’ve had two follow-up outpatient appointments by telephone regarding an op I had in my mouth last year. You couldn’t make this stuff up!
I have been looking at the Scottish Coronavirus regulations; I cannot see any amendment requiring us to wear masks in shops from tomorrow. Does anyone have any info on whether any amendment had been included somewhere or other; if not then this will simply be guidance and the police will have no jurisdiction.
From the Scottish government website:
When will shops reopen?All street-access retail and outdoor markets can reopen with physical distancing, and subject to relevant guidance. The wearing of face coverings for customers in shops will become mandatory from 10 July. For staff, many will also have to wear masks when customers are in the shop unless there are other protective measures in place such as Perspex screens.
Here’s the link:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-what-you-can-and-cannot-do/pages/shopping-eating-and-drinking-out/
Thanks, but something can only be mandatory and the police can only fine you if this is incorporated into law; I cannot find any evidence that there has been a change to the relevant law. Sturgeon had a bit of a habit of confusing guidelines, rules and law.
It was found that the giving of details in England is voluntary despite the careful insinuation it is mandatory. The uk gov website clearly states voluntary.
I understand exactly what you mean guirme. I think you are onto something. Does the Scottish emergency corona paper give powers to declare public health initiatives without debate or rigorous precaution? Is the lawfulness decreed by being hidden in the emergency bill under a broader title?
Basics, I cannot see such a power in the Regs. The recent requirement to wear a face covering on public transport was introduced by adding specific wording to part 3 of the Regs so presumably this wouldn’t have happened had some sort of executive order been sufficient.
I follow your logic. I agree it seems likely a properly worded amendment or addition should be present. I am not competent to say much beyond that.
Its been on my mind to check the personal data aspect in Scotland following sturgeon saying in holyrood people “must” register.
I will take a search when I can. For what it’s worth I do think you are right to look for the explicit baseline on this. Good thinking.
As printed on the Scottish legislation websitr tonight, there is no change. The change comes into law as soon as the Statutory Instrument made by the Scottish Ministers has been signed (probably at 6pm tonight) AND a copy is deposited in the official library of the Scottish Parliament. This will happen around 10pm tonight, so that anyone going into a shop after that time is subject to the legal requirement. The fact that you probably won’t be able to read the wording until tomorrow morning is unlucky! Welcome to Soviet Scotland!
Thanks Gillian, great explanation scratching away as I was at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2020/10/contents/enacted
is clearly a doomed enterprise, you’ve saved my evening!
I don’t expect any court will ever be asked to apply its mind to interpreting the statutory provision and applying it to a given set of facts. A few police “fines” may be issued which will either be paid without challenge or (more likely) not paid and the time allowed to challenge will expire, in which event the fine just becomes another fine to add to the backlog which will never be collected. That’s the shambles of the Scottish justice system!
Thanks Gillian and guirme, i appreciate your thought comments about this.
Thanks Gillian; I will check again tomorrow.
The Maskist-Lockdownist movement is carrying all before it. All power to the Silly-gits! Workers of the world unite! – the only thing you have to lose is your chainstores.
The government have truly been hoisted by their own petard; Project Fear worked so unbelievably well that they now have to tempt the sheep out of the pen with tacky soundbites and gimmicky discounts.
Of course, there’s the rest of us who realise that the whole Covid crisis is a scam and refuse to participate in the Great New Abnormal Charade.
I do feel for the small businesses who have to play along with this utter shambles, treating loyal customers like germ factories and invariably putting off many from ever returning.
The longer these clowns demand that businesses stick to these increasingly bizarre and punitive regulations, the more gasoline is pumped into the economic inferno that they themselves have created.
Yes. It’s almost ironic that the one thing they’ve been truly effective at – project fear – has screwed them up completely.
Screwed us you mean. Loads of the BTLers on the Torygraph still think the sun shines out of Boris’ arse.
Well said. They’ve been victims of their own success in scaring off people from living their lives.
I’d argue that Project Fear is still being perpetrated through the new push towards mask wearing.
Hi all,
I’ve just set up a forum on Lockdown Truth.
Feel free to join in. My plan would be to keep the spirit of this forum but not to take anything away from Toby.
It could help us organize a bit better.
Thanks!
P.S. It’s really easy to log in using Google or Facebook!
Google ? Facebook ? Get outta here …
Can guests post ?
No, but you can register without google or Facebook, just like here.
I’ve just joined https://lockdownsceptics.com it’s independent so at least the Facebook, Google & Twitter censors won;t kick us off.
Thanks both.
https://lockdownsceptics.com allows guests to post.
I’ll join that too. Would urge everyone to think about it – WordPress just isn’t designed to keep up with the level of traffic here.
Thanks. Hopefully it will help everyone. Please make suggestions for categories.
Just to get you all going:
Current stats – mortality, hospitalisation etc
Ineffectiveness of masks.
Damage done by lockdown.
Uselessness of testing procedures.
Vaccine problems.
Political fudging that needs to have a close eye kept on it.
Suggestions for non-compliance with lockdown rules.
Fun but apt videos – eg PC Pisspot and Carl Vernon.
List of relevant Vernon Coleman videos.
Requests that any links posted have an eplanatory paragraph.
Anything behind a pay wall has a warning to that effect and hopefully some relevant content quoted.
Masks – news as to where compulsory/not, including other countries (as opposed to evidence against masks, as in the above list of suggestions)
Court case updates, UK and worldwide
Lists of local businesses to support and those to avoid.
Thanks! I’ve just joined. It will be so much easier to have indexed topics and threads, so we can quickly find useful links etc.
Facemasks mandatory in all public places in Balearics as of Monday:
https://www.majorcadailybulletin.com/news/local/2020/07/09/69487/face-masks-compulsory-from-monday-the-balearics.html
Fortunately I haven’t sold any holidays there for the foreseeable future but I would want a refund and certainly not want to go. A legal minefield.
According to the Spanish Health Ministry’s figures published yesterday, the Balearic Islands – which encompasses Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera – has seen a total of 2,240 confirmed cases of Coronavirus (of which 1,986 have made a recovery) since the pandemic started, with 224 deaths. The most recent data shows there are 113 active cases on the islands – 90 in Mallorca, 20 in Ibiza, 2 in Menorca and 1 on the island of Formentera
Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa has preciously said that wearing face masks must ‘remain in place until we permanently defeat the virus, which is when we have an effective treatment or vaccine against it’.
That is their tourism screwed then!
Exactly – who’s going to go on holiday to wear as mask all day?
Suntans will be interesting – instead of white bits from swimming costumes, the lower half of everyone’s face will be white..
Define a public place. Is a mountain a public place? Is a field?
Just mentioning that I’ve registered at lockdownsceptics.com – would be great if others could too. I’m finding this page unusable at the moment – I haven’t been able to see new posts since yesterday afternoon, without refreshing the whole page and trying to work out what’s going on.
I’ve just set up a forum on Lockdown Truth.
Feel free to join in. My plan would be to keep the spirit of this forum but not to take anything away from Toby.
It could help us organize a bit better.
I just want to say that some of your comments have made me laugh out loud today.
So thanks everyone for being the inspiration that you all are!
Parents would put one on their baby? If not warned against it?
Jeeeeesus Christ.
NHS dentists cannot use drills because of ‘air produced’. Private dentists can use drills.
BBC Scotland showing a dentist actually dissenting and saying calmly and professionally, “It does seem bizarre that most of Europes dentists are back to nearly normal and we are not”.
A friend needs his ears syringing, a simple process usually done by a practice nurse. Unfortunately his GP surgery is advising that this will have to be an hospital procedure due to the risk of wayward warm water splashing the person doing the procedure.
you really cannot make this up.
He was annoyed this evening when he told me has he did not hear the timer on his oven and as result was not enjoying his burnt dinner.
Voice of reason in the Torygraph this morning:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/09/everything-hinges-restoring-confidence/
[Sunak] wants bars, restaurants and other hospitality venues to be “bustling” once again, even while other parts of the Government continue to preach caution and an entire city remains in lockdown. ….
…. However, for as long as demand remains depressed by concern about the prospect of catching the virus, this seems unlikely to create enough custom. It makes little sense for the Government to insist that pubs, restaurants and hotels are safe while keeping beauty parlours or theatres closed. The conclusion that people will draw is that they are still risking Covid by going out. ….
…. [The economy] needs to be operating at full tilt and that will not happen while all the rules and regulations introduced to combat the pandemic, many of them arbitrary and inconsistent, stay in place. We will not get out of this mess until they are removed and consumer confidence is restored.
So true, why spend all the money to help businesses but keep the restrictions? If everywhere was without these idiotic measures business would be making enough money without any handouts.
Now it’s a “storm”. I wonder if it will be a storm surge?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/09/south-africa-warns-of-coronavirus-storm-as-outbreak-accelerates-across-continent
Incidentally, Wuhan flu must have mutated into the Black Death is South Africa, for they are digging 1 million (yes, 1 million!) graves in one province.
Airborne spread, evidently.
Glimmer of hope?
Guardian article than mentions “during the lockdown” several times but never once mentions covid crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/09/boots-to-cut-4000-jobs-and-close-stores-after-dramatic-fall-in-shopper-numbers
Only one of a slew of massive high street job cuts according to the DT. Well well, what a surprise. Well well, what a surprise.
That’s because they’re talking about unemployment and that’s something they can blame Boris for,so they won’t mention the virus.
This and other viruses may come and go but we can have lockdowns for any reason “going forward”…
Hancock has declined to set a target for lifting Leicester’s lockdown. In Germany, the chancellor, Angela Merkel, has ordered local restrictions to be reimposed if Covid-19 cases exceeded 50 per 100,000 people. Hancock told MPs this week that he would not set such a target, because a low rate of infection that was rising could be worse than a higher rate that was falling.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/09/left-in-limbo-leicester-businesses-fear-local-lockdown-until-mid-august
Well that’s very helpful!
The man’s a genius, not!
Obscene.
People from Leicester are nipping outside the zone to shop and socialise while businesses stuck inside are suffering. That’s obscene!
How can he be allowed to do this to people?!
He’s become more powerful than Boris…
I really want the gvt. or Imperial or whoever to send me one of those randomised Covid tests.
Because I want to go Tanzania on their arse and send them a sample of artichoke juice.
Just looking at the latest ONS data for Week 26 and the cumulative numbers for flu vs covid are interesting:
So, on average over the last 5 years, more people have died from flu than covid, and this year is not far behind.