Could This be Boris’s Poll Tax Moment?
Good comment from Scotty below yesterday’s update. I wonder if he’s right?
I feel slightly more optimistic about the mandatory muzzle edict after having a day to digest the news. Something is telling me that as this ramshackle shitshow of a Government lurches from one idiosyncratic, trigger-happy ruling to the next, a great fire of utter resentment for them will start to burn across our land.
From bizarre quarantine orders to the locking down of Leicester, to the continued assault on the high street and small businesses by this dehumanising, rotten command to suffocate on our own exhalations as we traipse around these places. Add to that the inevitable nastiness that is already present on the likes of Twitter, but will invariably spill out into wider society as we enter a new shaming culture perpetrated by hysterical muzzealots.
Your average punter will become very pissed off with it all, very quickly I’ll bet.
I feel this will gradually precipitate a trickle of scepticism towards these oppressive measures within the general public, and the flock will start to slowly thin. People previously cowed into silence may soon find their voices. Organised “boots on the ground” protests and crowd-funding appeals for legal challenges may suddenly see their numbers and coffers swelled respectively. Those suffering from mental health and anxiety issues may find solace within boards like these, growing our community. Growing our influence.
Boris et al are continually poking the bear, stress-testing the nation to see just what else they can take from us, or force us to do in order to serve their warped New Abnormal agenda. With each new diktat, with every further assault on our civil liberties, they are collectively sticking their heads into the mouth of a crocodile.
It’s only a matter of time before we hear a satisfying “snap.”
Tesco, JD Sports and Lidl have all announced they won’t enforce the new edict. The police have basically said the same. Beginning to look like Boris has over-reached…
One reader emailed me a well-crafted expression of rage: “Do you know how to tell if a politician is lying? Answer: their lips move when they speak. That’s probably why they love masks so much.”
And if masks-in-shops doesn’t push people over the edge, this surely will:
Bonfire of Conservative Party Membership Cards
Poppy in the comments has announced that the face nappy edict has prompted her to rip up her Conservative Party membership card – and she’s not the only one, according to the Independent. I know how she feels.
I finally cancelled my Conservative party membership, along with a strongly-worded email to CCHQ. Feel sorry for the poor sod who will have to read it who likely doesn’t care but I sincerely hope that CCHQ is getting quite a few of these emails and it will create an overall mood that the party is starting to haemorrhage its support. That’s the one place we can really hurt them – at the ballot box.
It was the mandatory masks which was the final straw. I tried to hold on as long as possible because I know I’m an asset to the party (early twenties, female) but every time I opened my wallet and saw my membership card, I actually felt a sense of shame that I was supporting a government that has perpetuated such a monstrous fraud on the British people and who are Conservative in name only (CINO). They are a government which no longer align with my principles, what with enormous public spending and some of the most draconian laws ever enacted in peacetime. Enough is enough.
For some readers, it’s not just membership cards that will be torn up as a result of this policy.
The latest news regarding face masks is as you imply, arguably impossible to accept. Face nappies for all. I am now planning to sell up and move to Alderney in the coming months because I cannot believe what has happened to the spirit of this once great nation. Even quite recently we were characterised by “Keep calm and carry on”. All we stand for now is abject fear, pathetic bed-wetting anxiety and a supine willingness to accept loss after loss of personal liberty. Even as the virus disappears!
I am now ashamed of my British passport. I would swap it for a Swedish version in a heartbeat.
UK Government Guide to Arts and Crafts
There’s some helpful advice on the UK Government website about how to make a face mask. No, I’m not making this up.
Looking forward to the follow-up: How to make a tinfoil hat.
Burkhas Optional, Face Masks Mandatory
A reader has sent me a brilliant piece of satire: it’s a slight adjustment to Boris’s famous Telegraph article from two years ago on why he didn’t think the Burkha should be banned. It’s exactly the sort of piece he would have written about face muzzles if he was still a humble Telegraph columnist and not Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Here’s a taster:
If you tell me that masks are oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that they are weird and bullying to expect folk to cover their faces, then I totally agree.
So I was a bit surprised to see that on 24th July the UK Government joined no other European countries (except for Scotalnd) – in imposing a ban on not wearing masks in shops, on public transport and maybe in Offices too – those items of headgear that obscure the face. Already a fine of £100 has been made law. Arguments have broken out over mask wearing. Opinion is divided and there will be demonstrations, on both sides of the argument. What has happened, you may ask, to the UK spirit of live and let live?
If you tell me that the Mask is oppressive, then I am with you. If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect human beings to cover their faces, then I totally agree – and I would add that I can find no scriptural authority for the practice. I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like they have nappies glued to their faces; and I thoroughly dislike any attempt by any government to encourage such demonstrations of “virtue” and “fear”.
I am against a law requiring the mask to be worn because it is inevitably construed – rightly or wrongly – as being intended to make some point about fear.
I’ve given it a permanent slot on the right-hand side in the section entitled: “Masks: How Effective Are They?”
Worth reading in full.
Responses to Mad Woman on the Train
Yesterday, I announced a competition. It was in response to this email from a reader:
I’ve just received a stern telling off for not wearing a mask on the tube by a crazy masked lady with a posh voice telling me she’s lost six (I tell you six!) family members to the “virus”. I must admit I was left a bit lost for words but obviously still mask free. What should my response have been?!
The best suggestions I’ve received are:
“Would you like to join them?”
“I’m so sorry for your losses – let me give you a hug”
“Come any closer, and you’ll have lost seven!”
“Lucky them!”
“Did they die of Covid or with Covid?”
“To lose one family member to Covid may be considered unfortunate. To lose six smacks of carelessness.”
“It’s called natural selection. Deal with it.”
“Are you sure they’re not just hiding from you?”
“And the crazy coincidences don’t stop there. I’m with the Guinness Book of World Records. How can we contact you?”
“Good Lord, what’s the name of the family doctor? Shipman?”
“Don’t worry; they’re not really lost, you just don’t recognise them behind their masks.”
And the winner is:
“I am so sorry to hear that you have lost so many family members to this virus, you have been incredibly unlucky. I am a person in the vulnerable category, however, with COPD, who has just come out of a 12 week quarantine and very unlikely to have a virus to pass on. Moreover, the Government has said that people like myself are exempt from wearing masks and, as they restrict breathing and reduce the oxygen to the lungs, it would certainly not be a good idea for me to be wearing one. In any case, I have had enough of solitary confinement and want to get a life. So I choose to take the risk!”
Well done to Martin Martinez.
A Dentist’s Stepfather Writes
Interesting email from a reader about the horrendous conditions dentists are being forced to work in:
My stepdaughter is a dental nurse. In March their surgery was closed but she stayed on during lockdown to cancel all appointments and field phone calls, although the most help she could offer was to refer patients to a “Dental Hub” who could do nothing useful except extract a molar or hand out antibiotics.
A couple of weeks ago they opened with all the ridiculous requirements including wearing medical quality masks. They had training to use these which included a testing helmet that looked as if they were headed for another planet (but aren’t we all)!
Last week she had a nasty bout of bacterial tonsillitis (probably bacterial because it responded immediately to antibiotics) and was in bed for one day and off for three (for which she gets no pay – with three kids to support).
My guess, but a logical guess, is that the well fitted mask caused this bacteria to fester and make her ill. Who knows what other ill effects these things can induce. It certainly didn’t “protect” her in any way.
Postcard From Leicester
A reader from inside the plague-ridden city of Leicester has got in touch.
Greetings from Leper City – the new European pariah. Much rumour and nonsense with the police here being very sensible for the most part and not doing anything particularly intrusive. I have yet to see any checks – just a few random signs noting that it is essential travel only. I have moved daily from the city to the county without any problems.
But the lockdown has clobbered local businesses – many bought stock etc ready to re-open, many were teetering on the edge and have now fallen flat. And all because of a rise in positive tests from the city. The BMJ had an interesting piece arguing against local lockdowns.
Most in the city think the lockdown was a political gesture to show a strong decisive Government taking action. It was based on rising numbers of positive tests results (not on hospitalisations or deaths – there has been no increase in either). The reason for the rise in positive test results? Simple – lots more tests were done in the city. There is no spike – we are simply finding people with the virus who are otherwise fit and well.
More on the Academy of Medical Sciences Report
A reader has been taking a closer look at report published on Tuesday showing 119,000 people will die from COVID-19 in hospitals this winter unless we… blah, blah, blah:
Have you noticed in the AMS Report of July 14th that on p.36 it specifically recommends the provision of “alternative accommodation” (among other facilities), which it makes clear would be ideally targeted at “socio-economically disadvantaged communities, including some BAME communities who are more likely to live in multi-generational households”.
How would that work? Where does the alternative accommodation come from? What would it be? Some nice empty flats? Or maybe a disused army camp? How do you get people to move out of their homes? The implication is that multi-generation households will be split up if the AMS experts (listed on four pages!) have their way.
In the next few lines comes the recommendation that ‘supporting people to enable them to comply with Covid-19 advice and guidance’ be laid on. “Supporting” and “comply” – if ever a pair of words had an ominous tone it was them.
On the face of it the passage has a reasonable and pragmatic tone to it. But as I read them I felt a chill down my spine. Is it possible, just possible, that here we have the first traces of how a sector of our population might be selected for relocation to ‘alternative accommodation’ in the interests of the welfare of the state? Is it just me or does that have echoes of trucks at night, boots on cobblestones and knocks on the door? Would it, like face masks, be “obligatory”?
I’m not suggesting for one moment our liberal-minded government of luminaries and visionaries would ever dream of such a thing, but I really do wonder why some of our scientists don’t have the wit to listen to themselves sometimes. The path to totalitarianism isn’t one that falls over a precipice but is instead a gentle and easy slide downhill conducted obliviously by people who have convinced themselves they are the embodiment of moral rectitude.
Incidentally, the Report uses the word “surveillance” SEVENTY times.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” George Orwell, 1984
Or even better
“Sanity is not statistical.” (Also Orwell)
Better Safe Than Sorry
Amusing email from Trevor Parker, a reader in Welwyn Garden City:
Don’t forget to put your mask on though if you’re heading to the shops!
I’m taking no chances though. I’m also carrying an umbrella.
And wearing a snorkel and lifejacket (I can’t swim and we haven’t had a flood here in Welwyn Garden City since….well, ever….but you can’t be too safe, now can you?)
Also I have (in the name of safety) erected a mosquito net around my bed.
And I am carrying a maritime grade fog horn around the supermarket with me from next Friday onwards, which I will be sounding at 20 second intervals, just in case there are any ships nearby and it might possibly be foggy, here, 50 odd miles from the sea. But better to be safe than sorry, eh?
And I’m going to make sure from next Friday that my car will have it’s snow chains on. It’ll protect me from losing control in the snow and ice, and it’ll protect others from me by stopping me sliding into them.
And these are all in the name of safety of course, and I expect I will just have to carry on doing them until a vaccine is found for SARS-CoV-2, which at the soonest will probably be mid-winter some time (of course, many months after there have been any cases reported).
NHS England Reports Zero Deaths From Covid for July 13th – 14th
On Monday I predicted that the day would come this week when NHS England reported zero deaths from COVID-19 and that day has arrived. The data released yesterday for new deaths by NHS England is showing a total of 22, with the oldest death being reported from Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust on April 27th. There are zero deaths reported for the last 24 hours (or at least, specifically, for the period 4pm 13 July 2020 – 4pm 14 July 2020).
But don’t forget to mask-up.
A Paramedic Writes
Depressing email from a paramedic. I’ve verified his identity.
I work for an out-of-hours service in the south of the UK. We receive cases from 111 and then ring patients to discuss their problems and then either give advice over the phone, send them to a clinic to be seen in person or, if elderly or infirm, send a car to see them at home. One of the services we provide is recognising death, allowing bodies to be taken away to funeral homes before the GP fills in the death certificate.
I cannot give exact details to maintain the family’s privacy but I was recently called to a lady who had died of cancer at seventy-two. Her husband seemed particularly unsettled so after I had seen her and filled out the paperwork we sat down across from one another at the dining-room table. I took off my mask so we could speak freely and asked him what was nagging at him.
The husband said he wanted his wife’s death to be recorded as from cancer and not Covid as his wife had been due to receive immunotherapy when the lockdown began but she had been told, flat, that her treatment was to be postponed indefinitely. A senior medic personally rang her and told her that he had been instructed not to continue treatment of his patients and that nothing could be done, even the oncology unit waiting-room had been turned into a makeshift Covid ward: there would be phone calls every six weeks or so to see how she was. In the second of these phone calls two months later she was told that immunotherapy was available up in London “but that is was probably too late”. She was dead within weeks.
I’ve had to sit at a lot of families’ dining-room tables over the years to give bad news, previously on ambulances in London and now in a civilian car, at all times of day and night. Some have remained with me and others not but never before have I had to try and explain how an entire system has failed. Everyone understands that eventually the human being degrades and dies, that terrible accidents can happen, that there are too few ambulances for everyone but this is the first time that I’ve had a patient’s relative question the entire system.
My having to sit across from a man who simply cannot understand how in a just society treatment can just be turned off by fiat from some manager in an office somewhere isn’t the most terrible thing that has happened in the past few months. However, for the rest of this man’s life he will wonder how entire wards filled with staff, equipment and medication can just be binned at only the prospect of deaths rather than with hard evidence, that known illnesses can be superseded by the potential of others, based solely on modelling.
Dick Delingpole’s Shop
Listeners to London Calling, my weekly podcast with James Delingpole, will have heard us talking about the merch store set up by James’s brother Dick. It sells an array of sceptical products, including the above mug. You can access the shop here.
While you wait for you cup to arrive you can sign this petition.
Don’t Want to Wear a Mask? Problem solved
These handy lanyards are available from Amazon for the very reasonable price of £4.95. Purchase here.
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:
- ‘FOX 35 INVESTIGATES: Florida Department of Health says some labs have not reported negative COVID-19 results‘ – Numbers of new cases in Florida are being exaggerated by a factor of 10, according to a Fox News investigation
- ‘Mental Resilience Can Help You Through the Coronavirus Pandemic; Here’s How to Build It‘ – Useful piece in the Wall St Journal. Although it’s behind a paywall so it may not actually help
- ‘Marc Quinn’s new BLM statue in Bristol will be taken down, says mayor‘ – Rich white Londoner tries to leap on Black Lives Matter bandwagon in provincial city. What could possibly go wrong?
- ‘Boris Johnson promises independent inquiry into coronavirus response‘ – But he hasn’t named the date. Funny that. Chances of it reporting before the next General Election? Zero. Meanwhile, the All Party Parliamentary Group on coronavirus is launching its own inquiry
- ‘Forget about that overseas holiday: Qantas cancels all international flights until MARCH next year‘ – Christ on a bike. Glad I don’t live in Australia
- ‘COVID-19 intensive care mortality rates have fallen by a THIRD since the start of pandemic, study claims‘ – Doctors are getting better and better at treating critically ill patients with Covid
- ‘Chair of Met Police Federation Says It Will be “Impossible” to Enforce Mandatory Face Masks in Shops‘ – Good
- ‘A postcard from Florida: “It’s hard not to feel like we’re in a free fall”‘ – Has the Telegraph nicked an idea from Lockdown Sceptics?
- ‘COVID theater: the upcoming gauntlet of dubious air travel safety measures‘ – A disturbing glimpse into the future of air travel
- ‘About 5,000 heart attack sufferers in England missed out on lifesaving hospital treatment due to pandemic‘ – Scandalous story in Medical Express
- ‘25 times cancel culture was real‘ – For those that say cancel culture is a figment of conservatives’ imagination, check out this list in Spiked. I’m no. 24
- ‘Resignation Letter‘ – Bari Weiss has resigned from the New York Times and written a J’Accuse-style letter that hits the spot
Theme Tune Suggestions By Readers
Just one today: “Faith No More – Everything’s Ruined” by RHINO.
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 – particularly if they’re not insisting on face masks! Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Remember, there are some business that are still not allowed to re-open. Got this depressing email from a reader:
I have a family run nightclub that’s been closed now for nearly four months with no income coming in the overheads and insurance on the building and other costs that I can’t cancel are mounting up.
We must be one of the only sectors that are still ordered to remain closed but with no extra financial support. I would appreciate it if you could do a section for businesses that still remain closed to highlight my plight.
Now I read face masks could stay until next summer which is a nightmare for my business and is absolutely ridiculous. I despair.
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 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.
I know it becomes difficult to navigate the comment threads after 24 hours. One alternative to continuing to post below my updates is to move to the forum on Lockdown Truth. The creator of that site has extended a warm welcome to everyone here (and he’s launching a crowdfunder to mount a legal challenge against the face mask edict which you can read about here).
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 48 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. I’ll try and get another update done soon.
And Finally…
If you want a laugh, this YouTube video is very funny. Definitely worth clicking on.
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.
FYI, good folks, we’ve added some forums to the site, as you’ll see in the top menu. We’ll see how it goes but it’ll hopefully be a little less tangled and messy than navigating the comments here. The topic for this Latest News post is here: https://dailysceptic.org/forums/topic/16th-july-2020/
Brilliant, thanks very much for doing this Ian!
Forgive me for the dumb question, do we need an account/login of some sort to use this forum?
Yes, it looks like it
I just logged in with my LDS password
Thanks Ian, hopefully will make life easier
Cool I will be there once I get back to me desktop
In theory, it sounds like a good idea to have discrete forums but not so sure about in practice. Essentially there is one theme here: is scepticism towards the official narrative on the response to Covid justified or not? It’s a rapidly changing scene each day as new evidence comes in and as the official line changes. Everything is intimately interconnected eg how T cells work affects one’s view of the herd immunity thesis which in turn affects one’s view of the official position on second spikes and so on. This single comment thread may be somewhat anarchic at times but it meets the demand for open and honest debate that enables people to connect up the related themes.
I agree. Even though the volume of posts has been steadily increasing, I still find a single thread with a variety of connected topics much more appealing. There are often a number of wonderfully written posts on subjects that would be quite difficult to categorise and I for one would probably miss them if they were in a topic forum.
I am comfortable knowing that I am never going to read everything posted, but hey, I’m a lockdown sceptic, so am happy to live with the risk.
Exactly – we are generally risk-savvy and intelligent folk who can negotiate the rapids!
Huzzah! We’ve got a mention in the Graudian. I’m just off to dunk my head in a vat of hand sanitizer to celebrate.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/15/mask-discourse-is-the-latest-stupid-episode-in-our-endless-coronavirus-hell
The “hell” of the situation is entirely the fault of panicked over-reactions, the virus itself is scarcely noticable. If a virus like this had spread to this extent just a few decades ago we’d have not been able to see the casualty counts under all the other causes of death which were common back then. Why do we, upon having made some progress as a society on increasing life expectancy, make those extended lives worthless by wrecking their quality under the draconian weight of insane over-reactions to a cough that any prior generation would have ignored.
Absolutely correct. I had a ‘debate’ on another site with an individual who asked what the fuss was about wearing a ‘bit of cloth’ on your face for 20 minutes a week if it made others feel better (he stopped short of using the ‘if it saves just one life’ nonsense). He couldn’t see that people didn’t want to wear them because a) why now b) it defies all logic and common sense and c) IT’S BASED ON JUNK SCIENCE. His reply? I’m suffering from ‘Lockdown Derangement Syndrome’. There is just no reasoning with these people
For me, anyway, the “fuss” is mainly because of the real harm done by wearing a mask, in promoting the fearfulness that is the driving force of this ongoing disaster.
Is that the same as Future Shock Syndrome (going Futsie)? Borag Thung Earthlets. I’m heading off this mad planet…
When I made so bold (on another site) as to suggest that some of us were unhappy with the idea of being compelled to wear masks, and explained why, someone responded by telling me “go and get the disease — the world will be a better place without you.” No, there is no reasoning with ‘believers’.
What kind and caring people. These mask wearers are brimming with compassion for their fellow human beings.
As someone once said (I paraphrase) : “Think how bright the average person is. Then remember that 50% are even more stupid.”
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” George Carlin. It has never been more true.
No question of if; it has – three or four times. The country was being led by actual leaders back then…
The little runt ends up gasping for breath with his glasses steamed up so’s he can’t see, but he’s got no problem with face nappies, they’re fine!
‘I want to be arch and say something about how coronavirus will just ignore mask non-wearers for the next 10 days just to be polite, but realistically more shops will be open by the end of July, so it does make some kind of sense, even if it took us weeks to get here.‘
Is this his justification for the arbitrary 11 day gap between announcement and enforcement? Hilarious! I wouldn’t listed to a word he says.
Jeepers that some weight of thought Joel Golby lugs around with him! He would dunk all his thoughts and head into a vat of handsantiser… I wonder if someone told him to do so and keep it dunked he would. Guardian were reported to be having a bit of a trim of staff shortly. With thoughts as puny as, “This is all awkward for me, because I’ve maintained a long streak of impeccable politics simply by doing and saying the exact opposite of what Toby Young is mad about this week, and him threatening not to vote Tory if they enforce entirely sensible public health policy leaves me in a quandary. I’m not happy about it, but I think that means I’m voting blue at the next election”, it might be right to see Joel’s article as the wrintings from under one setting sun. Emotional trending twaddle is no match for scentific reasoned thought, especially in such dangerous times. Not only barking up a wrong tree, Joel appears to me to be yapping up a preformed flatpack of thought in a Swedish furniture shop.
A fair article I’d say. By using terms like “mandatory face nappies” and “bed wetters”, we make it easy for people to dismiss the arguments rather than take on board the fact that centralised dictat is an open goal for the law of unintended consequences. We won’t win by name calling.
We won’t win any discussion anyway.
I think this is a very important point. I’m uncomfortable with mocking those who have a different opinion on this.
Our side of the debate is weighted with logic, reason and fact. But the other side is swayed by something much more primal – fear. Fear of death, no less. We should not be antagonising those manipulated by the peddlers of this fear – whoever they turn out to be. We should show by example that the Fearful are misled, by struggling to live our lives in the Old Normal and showing them that we do not fear and that we are all safe.
The mutual enemy of us and the Fearful is playing the tried and tested tactics of divide and rule. Mask wearing is a way of turning society against itself, and diverting attention away from the real villains of this story. All of us, masked or unmasked, are on the same side, herded into the same pen. Only together can we eventually break out of our pen and all be free of the Fearmongers.
It is simply the natural reaction when abuse is being hurled, and no facts are getting through that you sometimes resort to name calling out of despair just to make you feel better, just as they do by preaching so aggressively.
I agree with this, reason doesn’t work against mortal fear. From quite early on I’ve thought that the lockdown will continue until either the fear or the money runs out, the trouble is that the fear is being perpetuated by the Government.
Agree. I was thinking this today, after reading that some customers complained about Tesco relaxing the one way system, instead of being delighted they wanted more restrictions. If these people had something real to worry about, this virus would be put into perspective, but with the magic money tree furloughing many people, their focus is not distracted by fear of losing their house, having no income etc. I wonder if the government had been less generous and the threat of economic meltdown had been properly felt, people would have been demanding an end to the restrictions.
But the money is running out – and people are starting to notice.
I agree Aiden.
Cowardice should be called out.
It’s not cowardice. It’s indoctrination. The fact that the left always write like immature teenagers (I had a hangover! What a lark!) doesn’t alter the fact that they are basing their decisions on the facts that they believe to be true.
The real blame lies with the media and those who manipulate them. I stopped believing the media when I saw that the goverment was lying about the death toll. I realised that everything was designed to keep us afraid. But if you only look at the BBC and your social media circles then you’re never going to know any of that.
It’s actually government propaganda. People’s autonomy, commonsense and sense of proportion have been harmed by it. They were probably at a disadvantage before all this happened due to health and safety culture, ‘if it saves one life’ arguments, consumerism, materialism and addiction to social media likes.
But – cowardice is unseemly, a moral failure. It is not possible to arrive at this position by calculating risk. It is only possible by contemplation of what is dignified behaviour in the face of danger. Doubtless, people have been tripped up by the ambience they live in and triggered by psychological manipulation, but facing life with courage and fortitude would have provided the necessary defence against this. Being called out could be just the thing that shocks people into sanity.
You may be right. Many don’t really think that there are actually people who don’t share there BBC news way of thinking. They need to be made aware that other views exist. A few polite words is unlikely to fix their myopic view of the Covid world. Better not to ask me why I am not wearing a mask.
The truly reprehensible cowardice is that shown by our political leaders – first to panic in the face of media and public pressure, rather than doing what they probably believed to be right, then to stick to their story to save their skins when it became clear they had blundered.
They faced difficult decisions at the start, but those are the decisions they sought to have the power to make when they tried for high office. But the decision to admit you were wrong should be easy, if you’ve got any morals.
“Called out”? A weak Americanism at best. How about “Cowardice should be lambasted”, or something similar?
Don’t prescribe my speech. I love America and I have no problem using its expressions, or anyone else’s.
A nappy is designed to take / absorb / hold whatever is expelled on to it, so ‘face nappy’ not a bad phrase.
Nappy comes from napkin – something one now uses to wipe ones phizz.
It perfectly apt, whichever way you use it…
You seem to be wanting us to roll over to superstitious ignorance and gross stupidity. As Mario rightly hints below, we won’t win any plaudits by talking reasonably with mask wearing zombies, so being nice is not a worthwhile option. This whole mask fiasco is about something far more sinister than just smothering ourselves with a useless bit of cloth. We are now clearly being primed up, so that we clamour for an unnecessary and likely a very dangerous vaccine. The vaccine dangers may well be intentional and of course they will push hard to make it compulsory. We are sailing in uncharted waters.
Well, having read his self congratulatory blurb, he’s obviously misnamed his ‘Brilliant, Brilliant’etc,etc,etc.
Why are Guardian writers so irritating?
The only one I can read without exploding is Larry Elliott
“Why are Guardian writers so irritating?”
It’s a prerequisite of the job
Because they smug, arrogant and think that they are the guardians of all wisdom.
Simon Jenkins is a surprisingly independent and thoughtful writer at the GroanAid – how he can bear to be in that company is beyond me!
Endorse that about Simon Jenkins, he has had some good things to say. Perhaps a little confession on my part – I was a guardian reader. Not I WAS. Now I can’t bear most of it. Once Toby said he needed a new political home and I too feel politically homeless.
Same here Wendy, the Grauniad seems now to be mainly opinion peices hastily thrown together. I can recommend the Saturday FT, it is well written contains lots of interesting foreign news that no-one else bothers to cover and the magazine is top rate. Of course it is still MSM, with its own agendas but I really dont want broadsheets to die out totally.
I want to like the FT, but dip into their comments boards and it has become another guardian-like cesspit of twits who use their choice of newspaper to signal their importance as an “intellectual”. Thoroughly depressing. I suppose they can’t choose their readers, but when their readership is that twisted, their articles will be twisted to match.
I was a Guardian reader, but we’re going back nearly twenty years. Been pretty lame for at least the last fifteen.
I subscribed to The Guardian Weekly in Montreal in the 70s and early 80s. Loved it. Used to buy The New Statesmen and New York Review of Books as well. If anyone is looking for lots of great articles and book reviews from the 60s 70s 80s and 90s, The New York Review of Books archives is the place to go. A years subscription is all it takes to access all of them.
Yes you’re quite right; I’d overlooked his contributions.
Why read the Guardian ever, or for that matter watch Big Brother Corporation tv?
I looked up where masks are being worn across Europe and Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands have not made face masks mandatory. I consider saying we shouldn’t be having a discussion about face mask wearing another call to close down a discussion. We are trying to raise an issue and a lively discussion should not be belittled and people made to feel like murderers when there are valid reasons for anger over this measure.
Well I didnt ask anyone to wear a face mask to save me, so they can do one with their martyr virtue signalling
Neither has France
If you tell me wearing a mask makes the slow reopening of the high street safer and easier for everyone involved, fine, I’ll put on a mask.
We believe you, Joel. Basically, you’ll think what you’re told to think and do what you’re told to do. Meanwhile Hancock says masks may be with us till next summer.
The alternative is not the slow re-opening of the high street. It’s the immediate re-opening of the high street, and those who are ill stay away until they’re better. In other words, normality.
hancock wont be there next summer
Let’s hope.
He should be in prison and he can take Johnson with him. They have killed thousands and have decent people’s blood on their hands.
Agreed, but never going to happen
This is the thing. Sheep like Joel think it’s either masks or nothing ever goes back,and they fail to grasp at all that we are all quite keen for everything to simply go back immediately, because it’s not necessary to run scared or try and eradicate this.
The questions of: is any of this proportionate? Do we *need* to expend trillions in money and sacrifice life as know it to eradicate this virus?
These don’t seem to be being asked, or answered honestly, if they are being asked.
As for the suggestion name calling is unhelpful, it should be pointed out Joel inaccurately claims there’s no science behind our refusal, which is provably false and either way, it should be on those championing masks to prove conclusively a very definite and justifiable reason for mandating them, which the have spectacularly failed to do.
You don’t win arguments with logic, nor with name calling, once emotion has taken over.
The thing is, these people cannot be reasoned with using normal measures. They simply are not in control of their minds – fear of death is in control. I am currently having some success with a friend using subtle coercion. You have to slowly nudge people into situations that they would have otherwise avoided, where they realise for themselves that they are actually safe. Hard work though, and manipulating people this way doesn’t feel nice. The ones that own up to being fearful for themselves are easiest to free. The ones who fool themselves into thinking they are saving others through their obedience, are more difficult.
Yeah there are a LOT of people lying about wanting to continue with these things to help others. You can pretty much guarantee the vast majority of people are looking out for numero uno, and think if they can convince enough other people to do the same, it helps numero uno again.
The difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is honesty… I’m not going to go out of my way and put my life on hold to help others beyond doing things that are reasonable and justified – ie, dont go round coughing on people, sneezing on people, coughing into the open etc – all these things I (and most people) do as a matter of basic courtesy anyway.
Like you say, those who are honest with themselves that they’re just scared for themselves, will most easily come round once they accept the risk is minuscule. The others are pretty much lost causes for ever now, for they can never logically come back down from their high horse without admitting it was nonsense.
“once they accept the risk is minuscule”
But there seem to be a lot of people who do NOT want to hear and take on board that the risk is minuscule. If it is minuscule to them, they immediately go into the “you can make a senior sick and cause her death” argument. The “you are for others” argument, where the others are the ones with greater risk.
You can say, “Then they need to be quarantined, not the healthy” until you are blue in the fact, but in the end you are left with the impression that the Panicked ones *enjoy* being panicked and trying to force others to acknowledge that it is *right* to be panicked. Objectively correct (much citing of the CDC, a billion-dollar insitution) and also ethically and morally right.
If you are not panicked and acting like it, you are an immoral, selfish lout. It is this mentality that makes me the most nervous about this whole situation, where it is leading. Too many people are enjoying this fake emergency, for too many neurotic reasons. They seem to enjoy the jolt that hysteria gives them. They feel more *alive*. EEK.
There will always be another virus to take its place. This puritanical fearmongering must be curtailed and reversed as soon as possible..
The better alternative would be that a bunch of you get together and ceremonially re-write the magna carta… you can even force Johnson to sign it at sword-point if you’d like.
“One month ago, going to the beach was fine, but a protest was not.”
This is not an argument I heard from anyone. What planet are these people living on? The beach alarmists were the ones saying the protests were fine. Us sceptical minded folks were criticising the hypocrisy, not the protest itself!
And now we can point to both and say ‘errr guys, wheres your infamous 2nd surge caused by either of those things?’
Yes, I thought that was backwards. The protests were fine; it was going to the beach that brought out the scolds.
It is not the police who should be defunded, it is Public Health zealots and all the Quangos that feed them.
I do hope Joel looks in here to see what the reaction is. If so, I want to put him right about this paragraph:
What are you really mad at, here: a small piece of cloth on the front of your face, or the virus that’s kept us all indoors since mid-March? I’d like to eat a flapjack in a cab some time in the next century. Please help me achieve that dream by shutting up about masks and then wearing a mask.
Joel, you’re not stupid. Why can you not see that mask wearing isn’t going to speed up the return to the old normal? It’s just the opposite: mandatory mask wearing is a permanent erosion of your liberties. Remember “three weeks to flatten the curve”? This is the same.
The people you deride who are resisting it are trying to avoid a slide into ‘the new normal’. Has this phrase passed you by? What do you think people mean by it?
You’re never going to be eating flapjack in a cab once it has been established that most cab passengers are willing and keen to wear masks FOREVER. Your only hope is that more perspicacious people than yourself take a stand against it.
Japanese people wear face masks whenever they have a cold or flu, when on the bus / train at work, shopping or in the hospital etc.
They also practice social distancing much more than westerners.
Therefore if facemasks and social distance have the effect the govt keep telling us about, the Japanese flu incidence should be a lot lower.
Wrong – facemasks in the biggest realworld trial over the past decade make the Japanese seasonal flu outbreaks worse than USA / Scandinavia, most of Europe and pretty much level pegging with UK.
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/influenza-pneumonia/by-country/
And not only that but face mask wearing in Japan has thrown in a host of psychological problems among the young especially men.
Link, please.
Articles written pre-2020:
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/mask-appeal
“Mask appeal: The addiction of surgical masks in Japan
…if you stay in Japan long enough, you would realise that the Japanese love affair with the surgical masks goes beyond health and hygiene – to the realm of psychology and even pathology.
While many wear the mask as a defence against allergens, some use it as a cover-up, a shield against social situations that trigger anxiety…..
….for some Japanese, wearing masks has become an addiction.
Mr Yuzo Kikumoto, who set up professional counselling service Kikiwell in 2006, was the first to coin the term “mask dependency” in a paper he wrote in 2009.
People were wearing surgical masks not for the purposes they were intended for, he wrote, but because they had grown used to living behind the anonymity of a mask.
The situation has got even more serious in recent years, Mr Kikumoto told The Straits Times.
The number of mask addicts seeking counselling at his practice has increased by 50 per cent since 2009, he said.
Sufferers are mostly in their 30s to 40s, with women making up slightly more than half of the number , or 60 per cent.
“While some people used to feel safe or secure when going out with a mask, it has reached a stage where they cannot go out without wearing a mask. That’s how serious it is getting,” said Mr Kikumoto, who is a frequent guest on local TV talk shows and news programmes.”
Once the habit has become ingrained, it’s going to be very difficult for some to stop wearing them.
“Japan’s (all‐purpose) ‘safety blanket’?
In the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami the world witnessed the widespread wearing of surgical face masks in Japan, associated with health protection against flu but here employed in the debris against the threat of radiation from the Fukushima reactor. These masks were central to the regional alarm about nuclear risk, as children were made to wear them elsewhere in East Asia amidst concern about nuclear fallout.”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2012.01466.x
https://www.businessinsider.com/face-masks-wont-help-avoid-illness-so-why-wear-them-mental-health?r=US&IR=T
“A psychotherapist explains why you want to wear a face mask — even though it probably won’t help you avoid illness”
Good on the psychology but, unfortunately, at the end it recommends wearing a mask if you need to ‘reduce anxiety’!
I don’t want to make a fuss about mask wearers, so long as they don’t want me to join in on their stupid fetish. Live and let live.
Another one here:
https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/more-japanese-youth-wearing-surgical-masks-to-hide-their-face
Re. No deaths for 13th and 14th, Down here in Devon were currently at 13 days and no new Covid-19 deaths and yet nearly everyone is wearing a mask and the disgust that flows forth from them towards the few people like myself who dont is unreal and just a little bit hilarious
The whole of London has been in the low single digits for weeks now. Until this fucking mask announcement things *had* been heading back towards a more relaxed experience, tesco was majority unmasked, one way systems were gone, no queues (tho I only go late evening to avoid those anyway), everything in stock at last etc The day after announcement was shopping day, and the % of mask wearers had suddenly jumped considerably, whether that’s because these people had literally been hiding until that point, or a bunch of people who had been feeling more and more safe are now suddenly scared again is unknown, but it feels like a giant step backwards to me – certainly not this claimed step back to normal.
Thanks!
A giant step backwards is what was intended.
It’s the ones who have been hiding away, thinking that will ‘save’ them, that are now emerging expecting to see streets littered with corpses wearing their masks and pointing fingers.
It’s called Dehumanization. Makes it easier to divide people into us and them.
Hardly any bother with masks in the north of England town in which I live.
Here in Suffoilk I went to a farm shop (one) and the supermarket (also one). Talked to my neighbour (over 80) and she is convinced they are a good thing, but then she believes everything she sees on the BBC. I’ve tried to convice her that she won’t instantly die if she goes out, that there have only been eight cases here, that it’s dying out all over the country and hardly anyone is dying of it (if they ever did) but it fails to sink in.
Met yet another person who had the same covid-like illness (flu-like symptoms and prolonged cough) back in December. We far far outnumber the folks that actually had diagnosed covid and I gather that is true for many other parts of the country, including Devon (see above)
The Premier of Quebec, Canada, announced two days ago that he and his team were working on changing our habits and that the exercise would continue for a long time to come.
God help you. Or, if the québecois have any backbone, God help him.
They have had their backbones removed like most westerners.
This past month I have been sitting on a wall just beside the state run liquor store, reading books on jazz, listening to DJ loops and Space music on a cellphone, watching the wheels go by (miss you John) and observing. After almost four months of lockdown some people still swerve as far away from me as possible when they pass by and most of them are wearing masks. I started wearing a mask yesterday because it takes about 35 minutes to walk to the street that I love the most, Saint Lawrence Boulevard. Now I just wait at the bus stop near my building, flag a bus, then get on at the rear door. There is no one to check your pass because the ticket validation police have been banned since April. Free transport! Otherwise I can’t stand masks. I cover my nose when the bus arrives, then lower it once I’m on the bus. After about thirty seconds the act of breathing becomes labored and uncomfortable. Recently an automated female voice has been included as part of our transport experience. The voice repeatedly tells us every few minutes to put on our masks. I mutter fuck off inside my mask, loud enough to be heard but not loud enough for anyone to identify who said it. And along some streets there are signs declaring that some makeshift passageways are active sanitation corridors, or some such baloney.
Our Premier held a news conference just three days ago and said that the government was in the process of changing our habits and that they weren’t done yet. So, that tells you what an authoritarian prick he is and how much backbone the Quebecois have. Very little. When this same idiot Premier told us last year that collective rights were more valuable than individual rights I knew we were in trouble. This government is behaving more and more like Communist East Germany. I, and thousands, perhaps millions of Quebecers, received messages from this government last month urging me/us to snitch on people. With guaranteed anonymity. I got one in English and one in French. Someone in my building who didn’t like me must have have decided that it was a good time to snitch on one of his/her neighbors. Me. Near the end of April I received an official, badly written letter in English from my HLM administration accusing me of letting strangers in my building all day and all night, thus endangering the lives of all the residents living here, including myself. The following day I heard a knock on my door. The guy who wrote the letter (wearing a mask) and a Policewoman (not wearing a mask) greeted me when I opened it and repeated the same accusation to my face. I stood my ground and asked them for concrete proofs of my wrongdoing, like time of day, date, what was I wearing, etc. They didn’t have any proof whatsoever. Tsk, tsk. But that doesn’t matter because they live in a bizarro world where everybody is guilty until they can prove their innocence: Orwell and Kafka rolled into one. Our New Normal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc17DqcA6Qc
“Sanity is not statistical.” For all his sense much of the time I have to disagree with Orwell on that. Sane behavour is that which is backed up by statistics. Right now, and ever since it started spreading actually, the statistics, the real ones not the made up numbers coming from models, show covid is not worth worrying about. The real world is a messy place, common sense sometimes fails, complex models with braindead assumptions often fail, idelogically based “it must be the case” statements are almost always wrong… but stats by the very nature that they are observed data and hence as close as feasibly possible to being always right. Sanity is very much statistical, and the stats say lockdown hurts more than covid, so the sane thing is, and always has been, defiance.
I think he had government statistics in mind.My admiration for Orwell has grown in this crisis.Not just a writer but a prophet.
I can feel it in my bones that Archpishop Jellybaby is about to pronounce that face nappies are a Christian duty.
The C of E has already become a temple of the evil Covid counter-religion.
Reminds me of The Last Battle, where the Ape tries to conflate Aslan and Tash and ends up being eaten by the latter. I hope Jellybaby disagrees with Tash.
I’m so disappointed in the CofE. As a reasonably regular worshipper I’ve not attended Zoom once since this all started. They’ve become unconscionably politicised. My faith is really being tested.
Zoom simply does not work for me, I wondered if I was alone. Church meens a communion of people.
I know the archbishops are political appointments, but I dont see why he has to tow the line and follow every bandwagon.
I have the same problem with Zoom. I stopped joining in Zoom Pilates because it felt alienating. Also, isn’t it interesting that any concern for the pupils’ safety, normally pursued obsessively in community settings, seems to have evaporated online? The tutor can only see postage-sized images of the class so people could actually be damaging themselves by doing exercises wrongly but it doesn’t seem to matter.
As for church, I (used to) play the organ at a dissenting chapel. The minister does on-line services and wanted me to record a couple of hymns for him. I have decided that I just can’t be part of it. As I keep saying, I don’t belong in the New Normal.
The churches’ pathetic attitude is just one of many disillusionments for me. Jesus apparently touched lepers but many Christians haven’t even got the courage to speak out against this. That said, ‘traditional’ congregations are mostly elderly, middle-class and terrified. Many of them really have been in self-isolation for months. Anyway, I don’t see change coming any time soon
I can offer a couple of rays of hope Two of my husband’s brothers are evengelicals. One is a lockdown zealot but the other has become full-on sceptic, he gets the politics and everything and writes sublime ripostes to his zeolot twin brother.
Yesterday, I published a link to Rob Slane’s blog. I don’t go along with his particular brand of Christianity but he’s right on the money when it comes to the politics of the current situation:
https://www.theblogmire.com/author/theblogmirecom/
I agree with every word that you’ve said. The state is effectively behaving in a Stalinistic way effectively outlawing communal forms of worship. It’s a well known fact that church goers have a higher life expectancy relative to society. And the fact that the CoE has been so spineless is yet another failed institution. I argued long before the lockdown that the CoE should disassociate from the state. I won’t be going back until that happens.
Which confirms my atheism.
It’s alright, God doesn’t believe in Rowan!
He;s a globalist infiltrator, in all walks of establishment worldwide
Not so.
The Christian leadership have been unexpressibly lacking throughout haven’t they. Entirely missing from the national discussion when solace and comfort and compsssion are in short supply. Without exaggerstion the Christain leadership have been shameful. I believe manyChristains and other religious people have been magical in their care for others. Christian leaders, no.
Love your reference to The Last Battle, Annie – I’ve often thought that the great majority of the population are like the dwarfs after they’ve been chucked into the stable. They have convinced themselves so much that they know what is real, that they can’t see the beautiful world around them. This whole mad episode is summed up for me by the words “The dwarfs are for the dwarfs“. We’ve no choice but to leave them to it.
Save lives! Stop the spread!
Nipping out for a pint of milk there Wendyk?
looks like she’s off for a haircut I’d say
I was hoping I might finally get an appointment with my dentist; thought this might do it!
Just got to find an extension for the breathing apparatus!!
…and hope no one stands on your tube! It’s a risky business a trim and a pop out to shop.
Indeed! I’m planning on doing another bare-faced-boogy later on so wish me luck!!
Had to remove the hazard protection suit:worried that it might not qualify for insurance pay out !
My option for being safe ……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe93CLbHjxQ
Seems appropriate
I touched on this in the comments earlier in the week. Silver lining being that cracks are starting to show in the party. Gove on Marr then the other MP disagreeing in parliament this week. The only thing that makes me smile on the news now are redundancies and political missteps. Chickens coming home to roost thank God for self employment – not had a penny of this funny money and do my want it either!
My local MP who I’m not going to name as correspondence between us is confidential agrees that masking in shops is wrong. Disappointing that he has not gone public but I bet he is not the only one.
Such a lot of wimps in parliament now!
Conservative?
No, you have not had a penny – but you can be certain you will be amongst those who have to pay for it going forward!
Hi Toby, re the cutting up of cards. My husband emailed his local party to cancel and got a desperate call back the same day begging him to stay part of the part and inviting him to all kinds of groups etc. Apparently the guy he spoke to (off the record) agreed that it was a step too far and said he was getting a lot of angry people calling…
Never back down.
Whilst I completely accept that a huge percentage of the population will be silently against muzzling, the fact that shops can refuse you entry sans mask is the problem.
It is the conflict on the door.
We can quote whatever human rights violations or even exemptions we like, but if the kid on the door at your local Tesco is adamant, then we don’t get entry.
That is why this is so dangerous in my opinion as it could well become normalised.
I am in the situation whereby I cannot afford £100 fines (no matter how unlikely) have no exemption other than self diagnosing extreme distress which runs contrary to all of my morals, but will not wear a mask.
If I go shopping with my young daughter, wearing a mask would either act as a constant reminder of the fragility of life and that everything she sees is a killer, or that her Dad will cave to something repellent just because everyone else does.
Neither of those are life lessons I am prepared to give.
But on the other hand, I am also not prepared to just give up and never leave the house again.
I was happy that shops reopened and determined to give them my business to help support the high street. I cannot afford and do not want to switch to online shopping as a form of protest.
I’m not sure that they can refuse you entry if you have a medical excemption.
I’m going to be using one of the “I’m exempt” cards. What are they going to do? Ask to see a doctor’s certificate? I’m pretty sure that would be illegal.
Unfortunately, any shop can refuse entry to anyone on pretty much any grounds (as long as they’re not insisting you do something illegal). You can challenge them on it, but it’s not an instant process – the security guard can quite literally just chuck you out, it is private property after all.
They could dictate that everyone must enter the building by hopping three times if they wanted, it’d be equally daft, but they could (I think)
They can’t refuse to do business with you on grounds of what might be considered a ‘protected’ characteristic, such as a disability. That would be within the realms of discrimination.
Indeed, but my point is to win that would require a post-event challenge and taking them to task. Given that the security body on the door, or the poor sap stood there trying to turn people away, will be unaware of the actual law and think their job depends on not letting unmasked people in, they will likely stand their ground and kick you out – regardless of who is correct from a legal stand point.
Stay calm, tell them you are exempt in terms of the ‘law’ on masks – can’t see how they could issue you a fine.
Read yesterday’s comments on the facts and how to.
People were asking yesterday about GPs providing mask ‘exemption certificates’. Wonder if anyone saw this yesterday:
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/gps-fielding-large-number-of-questions-about-face-masks-in-shops/20041160.article
GPs fielding large number of questions about face masks in shops
GPs have been inundated with questions from patients about the new requirement to wear a face covering in shops in England from next week.
Several GPs have said that they have been approached by patients asking for exemption letters but the Department of Health and Social Care has told Pulse people will not need GP notes.
A number of people are exempt from the requirement which comes in from 24 July due to age, health or equality reasons.
Fines of £100 can be issued to those who flout the rules but the Department of Health and Social Care told Pulse that people who are exempt will not require a GP note to prove their case.
Government guidance on the new regulations urged people to ‘please be mindful and respectful of such circumstances noting that some people are less able to wear face coverings’.
In England the public must already wear face masks on public transport and in hospitals, although it is still only advisory for patients visiting GP practices.
The Department for Transport previously told Pulse people would not need a GP note if they were exempt from wearing a face covering on public transport.
Also, I noticed this morning that there were a couple of comments under the other ‘Pulse’ article (about masks on public transport) I referred to yesterday:
by all means pop along to your local friendly gp to get a “ganfyd” note to say you don’t need to do what everyone else has to.
but be aware this is NOT nhs work. it is PRIVATE work, which must be done outside nhs time, and must be PAID FOR.
no extra monee – no extra workee !
can some one tell the general public not to ask us for exemption notes on all media and online channels – easy to do.
“! Awaiting for approval”? First time that’s popped up.
It sometimes happen especially if you’re putting several links.
Oh. I can see, now, that a couple of names are linked, and (cripes!) the links work. Completely unintentional on my part. Normally, whenever I get as far as ‘Pulse’, it only ever lets me look at the first page. Can’t normally travel any further than that. Why it would be behaving differently on this occasion I don’t know. I’ve just tried editing the comment, but it won’t let me! Trying again…
Still no joy, so here’s the bit I was keen to post, as I thought it might be helpful to some:
People were asking yesterday about GPs providing mask ‘exemption certificates’. Wonder if anyone saw this yesterday in ‘Pulse’:
GPs fielding large number of questions about face masks in shops
GPs have been inundated with questions from patients about the new requirement to wear a face covering in shops in England from next week.
Several GPs have said that they have been approached by patients asking for exemption letters but the Department of Health and Social Care has told Pulse people will not need GP notes.
A number of people are exempt from the requirement which comes in from 24 July due to age, health or equality reasons.
Fines of £100 can be issued to those who flout the rules but the Department of Health and Social Care told Pulse that people who are exempt will not require a GP note to prove their case.
Government guidance on the new regulations urged people to ‘please be mindful and respectful of such circumstances noting that some people are less able to wear face coverings’…
I hope it will be Boris’ Poll Tax moment. But have Tory MPs got any balls? Give evidently knows this is a mistake and could take over and do a better job.
Boris looks unstable and unreliable and I think his huge changes of direction will probably be repeated during Brexit and on other matters too. I don’t trust him an inch.
Johnson is standing on a cliff edge. He was still polling at 39% in favour of him on YouGov in May. I’d be surprised if it was even half that percentage now. And to think I helped to vote him into office …. mea culpa!
Sadly suspect if he is replaced it won’t be with anyone more sceptical than him, in fact probably the opposite.
If Gove has more say, and his views on masks from the Marr show, we might get more sense
Gove has gone along with all of this shit so far. I suppose he may be mildly better than the PM, but they are all damned in my eyes.
If the PM is replaced, it will be over failures in execution like not locking down early enough, or not providing enough welfare, or maybe care homes. Care homes was a scandal, but it’s all just a distraction from the Big Lie that the virus was/is a major threat. We’re a million miles away from getting that message through to anything like enough people to make it have any weight.
Talking to relatives in NZ, they are locked down as a country, can’t travel and some media are reporting that people are getting restless they want to travel but hear about Europe and muzzles and dont want any of that. So the conclusion is that the majority are against but the loud mouths are using propaganda, as they did in the war, to say they are winning
An awful lot of exceedingly rich people have moved to New Zealand lately. Any connection?
It’s all about the coming war, says my son, who lives there and builds bunkers for the incoming super rich.
Sadly, I think you’re correct.
Over the last 20 or 30 years or so (as long as I’ve been paying attention to politics) we never learn the right lessons. The first one being, the government is wrong about everything.
He needs to think carefully about why he’s on the cliff edge, if it is his poll tax moment, he should do what Thatcher did and reverse, quickly. The bubble they live in is giving him the wrong message, if he thinks that people will go out more with a mask he is very much mistaken, rather the opposite.
Moi aussi, but if you catch the wrong train it’s best to get off at the next station.
YouGov he may have been 70% then.
Doubt it will be a poll tax moment. There’s no movement with any profile around which mask opposition can coalesce.
A friend’s son is going to Uni at UCL in September – just checked and masks will be mandatory on campus when loving around, though optional at “workstations” as long as distancing is feasible. Suspect most/all Unis will be the same.
The thing to emphasise to people is that THIS WILL NOT END unless public opinion changes. They will be wearing masks everywhere, forever. A lot of people still think the “pandemic” is going to end, because, well, it must. It’s still an extended “flatten the curve” or “beat the virus” to them. Before they get used to it even more, drum it into people that there is no exit from this unless we make it.
Why do they want everyone in a mask, are they just weirdo’s running the show now
To perpetuate the fear and the coronamyth, and to be able to pretend that when no second wave comes, it was the government that protected us from it with its wise policies. If you are a politician you want power, and keeping the population in a state of fear gives you almost absolute power. Not weird at all – just human nature.
Well it is still weird, most humans in open societies wouldn’t think of covering up a face. Wonder what the men of a certain religion think of having to copy their wives into subservience
Not weird, but wicked.
Or to make us all so fearful or fed up that we’ll accept any new vaccine as the price of our freedom, regardless of side effects and nanoparticle monitoring.
You of course, have given the right answer, The UK government has been in bed with Bill Gates since day one, if not longer.
One word: ‘control’. Twas ever thus.
Two words ‘control’ and ‘vaccines’ and exceedingly dodgy vaccines at that.
Indeed. I feel for the young, and the old, who value freedom, reason, and who know what it is to be truly alive, and to face life as adults rather than overgrown children.
And in the world population its a handful of these bastards, how
On the upside I guess we wont have to see those bewildered looks soon to get annoyed about as we simply wont be able to see anyones expressions. Yay :/
YES!!!
Some of the old folks here have been out walking their dogs all througout the lockdown, but there’s a LOT of paranoia among some of the others, quite unneccesarily considering the lack of actual cases.
In a way I feel lucky, due to the incompetence of many (but not all) doctors in my past I am going to be dead soon and frankly i am looking forward to the “merciful release” from this complete and total fuck-up which I don’t see ending any time soon, or ever
Agree with you. I recently told Mr Bart that its good we don’t have children as we’ve been committing a crime against humanity by bringing a child into this crazy world with all its attendant insanity.
He he – I like the idea of ‘loving around’ at University (though the masks would be an impedance)!
‘loving around’? More than face covering needed!
Mandatory when “loving around?” I would think that would be quite difficult. Poor students.
The virus, such as it was, has actually now gone well away. We now need Boris and his set of crazies to do the same thing.
I hope it will be too, but then I never voted for the bellend in the first place. At the same time, I think you’re overestimating Gove somewhat. I’m not sure there’s a single person across any of the parties I’d want running the country right now, given that not a single politician has actually had the decency to stand up, strongly, for our freedoms and rights throughout this. That’s 650 of them, silently letting us become an authoritarian state.
Facemask flim flam to distract from the manslaughter of 20,000 in the care homes
There’s certainly a lot being hidden behind the scenes. Whenever something to stir up the masses happens, the bigger picture is in the background somewhere. They have to keep this going for longer because the World Financial Reset isn’t finished perhaps? In the U.K. they’ve poured money into the system, into peoples’ pockets via huge furlough schemes etc and now need them back out to spend it.
Yes, the UK government has much blood on its hands.
New Jargon alert: “Pause Shielding”. Not ‘stop’ or ‘end’ but “pause”.
Not accidental. Nudge psychologists have been at work.
Yes, well spotted. Drum it into the lockdown/mask zealots/lazy neutrals – this is FOREVER. Are they happy with that?
I see ‘pause’ everywhere now; whatever happened to suspend or stop?
You harsh lover of abruptness and clarity wendyk! Stop! I fancy ‘pause’ on this occaision is to give the flavour that ‘play’ will be pressed and lockup will be once again clamped down around us.
It still amazes me when I walk around that I don’t see strings attached from most other people’s hands going up into the sky. I never thought people could be this transparently manipulated.
Like “reimagining the police” coming from the Democrats in America.
Reimagining anything. Yes. Scotland home of heather, broth and haggis is full of social engineers reimagining this and that. Purile, elitest and controlling language. Elitest in the sense that the public cannot know what is meant by the ambiguous phrase without indoctrinisation into that particular meaning – which can then be easily shifted from as required.
Sturgeon, like Boris needs to be charged with murder.
Here is the creepy summary of the Great Reset, which is what this is all really about:
The contextThe Covid-19 crisis, and the political, economic and social disruptions it has caused, is fundamentally changing the traditional context for decision-making. The inconsistencies, inadequacies and contradictions of multiple systems –from health and financial to energy and education – are more exposed than ever amidst a global context of concern for lives, livelihoods and the planet. **Leaders** [??] find themselves at a historic crossroads, managing short-term pressures against medium- and long-term uncertainties.
The opportunityAs we enter a unique window of opportunity to shape the recovery, this initiative will offer insights to help inform all those determining the future state of global relations, the direction of national economies, the priorities of societies, the nature of business models and the management of a global commons. Drawing from the vision and vast expertise of **leaders** [??? ] across the Forum’s **communities** [???], the Great Reset initiative has a set of dimensions to build a new social contract that honours the dignity of every human being.
++++++++
Right. This is total boilerplate BS from self-appointed dictators such as Klaus Schwab (founder of the WEF).
No mention of . . . um, democracy here!!!
It’s almost as if they had planned it . . .
THIS IS TOTALLY CREEPY. The sheeple meekly put on their masks and don’t realize it is tantamount to the Hitlergruss. Signals their willingness to go along with anything.
The caption competition made me laugh, thanks for the replies – will keep them in mind for when I travel.
Great Sceptics page by Toby today. At some points I was almost crying with laughter; at others I was almost crying from anger.
There’s no way I had the time to read all the 1500+ comments from yesterday, so seeing some of the highlights here was great.
Goes to show that it would be possible to write a Sceptics page from readers’ comments alone. Some great wits on here. And some astute and informed commentators.
Without doubt, I’d say the Sceptics are winning the humour battle. And humour is a powerful weapon.
I saw this in a comments section on the Off Guardian site. It is a recent letter sent by a GP practice to all patients. It is reassuring to see that the reception staff will “care navigate” (WTF!) you to the appropriate service. The tenor of the document is that we are still in the middle of a public health crisis and that you will only be allowed into the surgery (“health care facility”) under sufferance and in exceptional circumstances. Good to know that the main doors will be open to patients invited to attend from 20th July. Patients will be grateful that at least they can get in to the surgery if invited!
As you may be aware, the two Ledbury Practices are merging in just a couple of weeks’ time, but have already been sharing premises for a few months now, so the following guidance is for patients of both practices.
As part of our restoration measures, St Katherine’s Surgery premises will open the main doors again with effect from Monday 20th July 2020 for patients who have been invited to attend a face to face appointment with a clinician. The waiting room has been adjusted to ensure that social distancing measures are in place. Following guidance from NHS England, all patients entering the premises are to wear a suitable face covering whilst in the practice.
Do NOT come into the surgery unless you have a confirmed appointment; please continue to leave prescriptions and specimens in the lobby and telephone the surgery for advice and guidance in the first instance.
NHS England guidance is clear that all patients must continue to be assessed by telephone or video link and only be invited to the surgery for an appointment if clinically necessary. Our Reception Team have been trained appropriately to care navigate you to the most suitable clinician or external service depending on your condition, and this may be someone other than a GP (for example a Health Care Assistant, Pharmacist etc).
Finally, we have noticed a significant increase with patients being discourteous to our reception staff, particularly if they cannot facilitate an “on the day” appointment with a GP. Rudeness, verbal aggression and name calling will not be tolerated and any patients displaying this behavior are at risk of being removed from the practice list.
Thank you all for your understanding and co-operation in these difficult times.
‘Care navigate’ is particularly ugly isn’t it. Beware the NLP in the person who writes it, is my opinion.
It’s just wank English.
It’s got a comittee behind it. Not in the GPs surgery.
George Carlin’s comments on PC language spring to mind. I’m not even sure what that is supposed to mean. I get the feeling that the automaton that wrote this particular piece may have thought it sounded overly harsh and needed a nice word in there and just randomly insertered. Obviously “navigate with care” actually has meaning but makes no sense in this context.
It’s probably easier to agree with Sam, below, and not overthink it.
The NLP bit comes in with the brain that writes the words unquestioningly. I do not mean to say the phrase itself radiates hypnosis among us.
As we all known he NHS is choc-full of like terminology. The campaign for clear English might have a heart attack should it ever look at the NHS. There are managers who make it their business to put in this tagged, framed way of thinking.
It is minor and not of significance to the grand scheme of things. Yet there we are, a puke phrase that may introduce anxiety in a care setting.
This is a public notice. ‘Navigate’ conjures up stress levels in many. “I’m not good at maps”, say a sadly large number of people. It is not appropriate for the situation.
Yes the NHS is certainly full of ridiculous terminology like this and nursing text books contain the most stupid of phrases although most nurses I’ve met are barely literate anyway and far too stupid to notice.
How about ‘show you to your place/room’?
Accurate, precise, succinct and simple. I remember when life used to be a little like that…
We had this shit imposed on our “health centre” with non-medically qualified receptionists used to triage patients and keep them away from the doctors at all costs.
Eventually they reneged and started treating patients with less contempt but then most of the doctors left en masse. Before she went mine complained bitterly about “Big Brother”, she even showed me an example – when she requested an HbA1c the computer asked “is patient diabetic?” and if she typed no it said “test denied!” So an accounting clerk trumps a doctor.
My GP Surgery sent out texts telling us that winter flu jabs (Sept + October) would take place in The (trading estate) Centre, it’s actually the cattle market, nice!
I live in London and received an email from John Lewis yesterday telling me they were opening their Oxford Street branch where I used to regularly shop, as from today. They asked for comments and I replied that I would not be shopping there until they stopped complying with the nonsensical government strictures which are unenforceable and merely guidance. I sent them the relevant guidance link. I made clear that whilst these rules for shopping with them which they are in perfectly entitled to have are place I will not be shopping with them for the forceable future particularly as one cannot try on clothes and it was not environmentally friendly to make two journeys when one would suffice. Also pointed out that since the bulk of our Christmas shopping is done there we will no longer be patronising them if this nonsense remains in place. Questioned why if other stores will not be in forcing the wearing of facemasks why they are not following suit. Said given their financial difficulties they should have a long hard think if they want to attract customers. Suggest others should write in the same vein.
http://www.laworfiction.com/2020/07/lockdown-laws-in-england-have-been-revoked/
I received the same email but deleted it. Will try to fish it out and tell them I will be boycotting them as well.
Well done! Same here.
Shout out to @kh1485
Went to the Waitrose near my work for the first time in 4 months – again didn’t have any issues. Apart from the hand sanitiser on the door and the obligatory poster, it was pretty much like the last time I was there back in March.
Then I went to pay and found that every other self service till was blocked off to facilitate antisocial distancing.
It will be interesting to see how it will change again with the muzzle rule. I read somewhere that the other big supermarkets won’t be enforcing it but with Waitrose does anyone know?
If that’s the case then it will be a boycott for me. I’ll have to check with M&S as well but I read someone on Twitter that someone had contacted their head office and apparently they’re not enforcing it either.
Not surprising given their CEO has called out Hancock on his dodgy stats re shop workers and the virus.
I’ve not been confronted about not wearing a muzzle but someone butted into a remonstration I had with a Nando’s employee after I told him that I do not wish to download an app, place and order and pay via said app. The tosser told me that there’s a global pandemic.
I retorted that only 0.000000000004 per cent of the global population had it so it hardly qualified as a pandemic then added that not everyone had a smart phone and even if they did they don’t want endless apps cluttering their phone. He shut up after that.
Its tempting to keep a swathe of leaflets in my bag and start handing them out. Or I’m thinking of wearing a sandwich board during my breaks, it could be a great conversation starter with colleagues.
The response would probably be – I couldn’t accept one of your leaflets because it would probably be carrying the virus.
I could spray the leaflet with antibacterial spray in front of them.
Give them one, good fact or pithy statement, e.g. “Look at all these staff, they’ve been fine throughout”, and then do the walk/head thing.
Head butt them. (Wow, I’m getting angry.)
Carl Vernon is great on the ‘it’s only a bit of cloth’ line (oh, and his views on the demise of the high street ring true, even if they’re a bit depressing):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3dujTFv6z4
I am and will be. And if someone levels an accusation at me my retort will be ‘You’re killing your granny by getting in a car so I hope you bloody walked here.’ Though I might use riper language.
I wrote to them, enquiring on behalf of individuals with two conditions.
Asthma, and I noted the Asthma Society stating that government advise that sufferers are not required to wear a mask.
https://www.asthma.org.uk/about/media/news/face-covering-advice-for-people-with-asthma/
… and with the assumption of Section 1 Part 4 of the Public transport act, Distress caused by Mask.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/592/regulation/4/made
Nothing encouraging in the reply, but if they don’t accept this card: https://hiddendisabilitiesstore.com/hidden-disabilities-face-covering.html
… and turn away an Asthma Sufferer, I’ll certainly share the publicity with you good folk.
My reply from Waitrose read
As an Asthma sufferer myself, I can appreciate your concern. We are currently awaiting detailed guidance on this and once we have an update you will will find it here: https://bit.ly/3fCcUQo
I am sorry I am unable to provide you with any further information, however if there is anything I can do to assist you further, please do let me know.
010 I am sorry I am unable to provide you with any further information
020 however if there is anything I can do to assist you further, please do let me know.
030 Goto 010
ha! compuar sez noh
Too right Sam. It’s like after the half hour in which the call center fails to do what you request, and someone concludes with “Is there anything else I can help you with today?” which always requires questioning the word “else”, perhaps with the response, do “Did you mean, is there anything you can help me with?”
Talking of people blindly following a script (does that sound familiar), I always end my conversation with “Great, that’s everything I need, thanks.” And call centre person *still* asks “Is there anything else…”
I’ve been considering your code, Sam. If you find yourself without a job thanks the lockdown, we’ve discussed at length that Imperial College are jolly keen models. Worth asking there? Your code could be the basis of a highly predictive model of behaviour relating to Covid-19. And it is somewhat more concise than some I’ve seen
That code is way more sophisticated than the Imperial model and probably more accurately reflects the behaviour of SARS-CoV-2.
However, with news of the lay offs at the BBC and Guardian, I expect there to be a lot of new programmers out there competing for our jobs.
A whole new career beckons! Bugger this Captain of the Watch stuff!
Hopefully you get a reply and that they will be following the likes of Tesco and Morrisons. If not then they’re not getting my cash.
The speed at which muzzles have been adopted as a global symbol of Covid solidarity is quite unsettling. In Western societies in particular, there is a trendy new kind of virtue-signalling in town. The kind that confers a great deal of righteousness to the wearers of muzzles, that broadcasts to the rest of the world “I am a good person. I am compliant. I am selfless.”
Social media is no doubt a significant motor behind the sanctification of these wretched face nappies and those who obligingly adorn them. It’s no surprise to see that the bulk of those championing muzzles include the usual glut of impressionable millenials, a group more likely to conform to whatever generates likes and retweets rather than something that runs counter to Covid groupthink.
Politicians, high profile celebrities and even the social media companies themselves are busy cajoling the masses into muzzle conformity, whereas sceptics like ourselves are othered. We’re branded as arrogant, selfish granny killers, bad citizens who put our personal gripes ahead of the “greater good.”
They will churn out the same stale tropes when they encounter heretics such as ourselves, “it’s just a mask,” “I’m sure you’ll find a ventilator more comfortable,” and when their new faith is really challenged by the presentation of studies which downplay the effectiveness of muzzling the healthy population, they pull out the big guns “you’re actually killing people by not wearing a mask.”
This is usually the end of the conversation – the muzzealot has no desire to converse with a cold-blooded murderer. Then away they will go – looking for the next unmasked witch to burn, secure in the knowledge that when Covid-19 eventually does bring about the Rapture, they will be saved whilst we will be damned.
If the price for enjoying civil liberties is an eternity scorching in the hellfires, then that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
P.S. Thank you for the mention, Toby. I’m back at work tomorrow but it’s been great to spend more time within this fantastic community!
Well said Scotty!
Not helped by social media where they post selfies of themselves in their muzzles going “look at meeee!!!! I’m so virtuous, I care about people, I want you to be safe.”
From what I see in my social media accounts, its not only the millenials who are guilty of this but even older people who ought to know better but either are a) keen to get down with the yoof or b) have swallowed the propaganda whole and are not financially impacted or c) both
“Bollocks!” is what I say to all of that
If they want to muzzle themselves fine but do not expect me to conform to them. I have read the information and made my choice. I respect their choice they should respect mine. Trying to debate with these people is like trying to draw blood out of a stone, I can cite figures and stats until kingdom come but they’ll wheel out the same old tired tropes.
As I’ve said in this site before, the only thing that would wake this lot up is when they’re finally hit in the pocket and stomach via job losses, bankruptcies and tax raids on their pensions. And that day will soon come.
The thing I find sad is that some of our very long-term friends can be included in the list above. mainly group (b). They just seem to see all this virus stuff as merely another daily thing to comply with, like it’s just a temporary blip and they can’t see what’s really underneath it all. I don’t want to see them hit financially but I fear (oops, that word) that it might be essential to fire up the fighting-neurones. I’m in the pensioner bracket, almost, and I don’t want to see my savings being raided either, but I think we’re all going to get hit one way or t’other.
Exactly. Or if they see it, they’re in denial and think that they’re conforming for the greater good. Its depressing to see people especially the old having been brainwashed into submission.
We all have to pay one way or the other and I’m sorry to say this but rich pensioners should not be exempt. I used to live in Edinburgh and begrudged the fact that my season ticket kept increasing year on year due to “inflation” but in reality its for the likes of me on my not so good pay having to subsidise the rich living in places like Stockbridge, Morningside, Portobello, Dean village, etc.
Of course rich pensioners shouldn’t be exempt and if I were one I would accept such a notion. Poor pensioners trying to exist on £700 a month, not so much.
Agree. When I lived in Edinburgh, Mr Bart and I always wondered why the free bus travel was not reserved for poor pensioners.
I can understand older people wearing them if it makes them feel safer, but seeing younger people, and especially children wearing them is just lunacy.
Its the same youngsters who were on the BLM marches…they did not realise they were supporting an evil communist organisation. They really are brain dead.
That won’t wake them up. One of humanity’s biggest problems, individually or collectively, is admitting they were wrong. That’s why we give plaudits to those who do: they are such an exception.
Unfortunately you may be right. This crisis has allowed me to see the best and the worst (more of the latter) in people.
People become very attached to a particular narrative. Over time it gives them warmth and pleasure and even an identity in the eyes of others. Shifting position may lead to the opprobrium of others in their chosen circles. They may be ignored at dinner parties!
I dont even bother to engage with them now I just ignore them completely. If they get really in my face I tell them to FO and mind their own business. If they want to get physical they will regret it with me. To (mis) quote Mrs Thatcher….’you mask if you want to’.
The Masked Martyrs, they are not wearing them to save themselves but to save You. Honestly the media can virtue signal anything now
I would never go on one, being dead is far preferable to living in a world populated by people like you.
Probably, but I also use guns,knives and poison depending how the mood takes me. Talking about that I wouldn’t buy any of those eclairs if I were you.
lol
“you’re actually killing people by not wearing a mask.”
“As I haven’t worn a mask since this all began, and there were no CV19 deaths for a couple of days, I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from that anyone is being killed, least of all by me.”
You can only kill people if you have it, and most people don’t
(for very small values of “kill”)
I’m seeing this meme more and more on Facebook – I mute anyone who shares it because I don’t need that sort of virtue-signalling judgemental smugness in my life. But it struck me that if I, as an anti-masker, where to post something similar with arguments against mask-wearing, I would be lambasted and pilloried. I wonder where this shareable meme first originated – 77th Brigade perhaps?!
When I wear a mask in public and in the shops , I am saying:
This kind of attitude is why I suspect the mask regulations – however unpopular and hard to enforce they turn out to be – won’t end up being scrapped or watered down, as the equally farcical (though not as universally Orwellian) 2-week quarantine for overseas travel has been.
Lots of people WANT masks, as you say, and would be furious at the goverment for going back on their decision. (Never mind that most of these people would be unlikely to vote for them anyway). Travel quarantine, on the other hand, is just a frustrating inconvenience for people, with no opportunities to virtue-signal and much less accumulation of politicised pro- and- anti- arguments, so even the most committed pandemic-zealot isn’t going to waste much time defending it.
Agree with you, and very well put.The mask-wearing mania is reminiscent of and related to Gleichschaltung, in Hitler’s Germany. An innovation little understood by most who discuss the foundations the Third Reich’s totalitarianism that was central to introducing and maintaining total social control.
Are the police permitted, by law, to force someone to divulge a medical condition?
No. Even the shops and your employer isn’t allowed to ask that, its protected by medical confidentiality and privacy laws.
Yes I read that too today, I wasn’t aware they couldn’t or shouldn’t ask you so it’s fairly easy replying ” I can’t for health reasons” .
.
The thought of a vaccine terrifies me. I don’t want to have a vaccine so am I going to be labelled as a murder. Are we really going to force a population who are not affected by this illness to be mass vaccinated. It seems wrong to me
I also am frightened by the promotion of vaccines, but am hopeful that there will be enough of a pushback to scupper the enforcers. Meanwhile I have ordered my Delingpod lockdown sceptical mug and T shirt.
I WILL NOT HAVE THE VACCINE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. sorry about shouting!
Not only that but I suspect by now most people are already immune
‘NHS England Reports Zero Deaths From Covid for July 13th – 14th’
We have confirmation…yet it’s nowhere to be seen in MSM. Bet your arse I’ll be sharing the hell out of it though!
Can anyone help with an easily accessible + readable link that I can actually share regarding this? CEBM has changed their layout which isn’t exactly helpful. And the NHS England graph isn’t all that clear either
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
Go to the Covid19 total announced deaths
It doesn’t clearly state the dates of the 13th, 14th + 15th on the graph? I just want it to be clear so people I share it with can’t argue with me
Doesn’t seem to be user-friendly.
Why should Ihave to download this?
I want to see the figs on a webpage.
this isnt the first time, the first time was last week. follow professor Carl Heneghan on twitter, he does daily updates.
I will be sharing too. With the added note, why aren’t msm telling you the good news- they were happy to tell you the bad.
Where is this, please? NHS figs out yesterday show 9 deaths on 13th? Or am I missing something?
They may have occurred in the preceding week or more, but we’re announced on that date.
Another useful resource is on twitter, a statistician who posts under @RP131. He posts a load of graphs usually in the late afternoon after PHE , ONS ,NHS etc do their daily releases.
The one to look for is what he calls his “new style pivot” which shows the daily announced deaths by they date which they actually occurred.
So for instance yesterday NHS England announced 22 new deaths in hospitals for the 24hrs up to July 14th, but none of them actually occurred on the 14th. The others mostly occurred in the previous 5 days.
Didn’t Matt Hancock claim 88 deaths or something like it? ( I watched him but failed to concentrate)
I posted late last night on the lunacy of Blackburn with Darwen council’s announcement yesterday with regards to emergency measures because of a ‘spike’ in cases. Amongst other nonsense, one of the measures is for people to ‘bump elbows’ if they are not from the same household, followed by ‘we won’t be offended if everyone does this’.
https://theshuttle.org.uk/introducing-new-local-measures-to-control-virus-spread/
I have slept a little since but the figures quoted are still puzzling me. The briefing states “The borough is currently at a rate of 40 cases per 100,000, making us fourth highest.”
The population is just under 150,000 so this extrapolates out at a total of 60 cases or 0.04%.
What am I missing? Why is this cause for concern?
Simple answer : It isn’t.
Hello, not commented for a while. Been away for a few days now that hotels have reopened. There seems to be a bit of a regional difference to the bedwetting! Somerset seems to be functioning in a relatively normal manner but Devon seems very different!
Worried about the face mask stuff… I fear where this will end. Got a message from my friend yesterday saying he will refuse to go to work if they introduce them to our office. I will too but how many others will? Getting more and more frustrated with people just accepting all this nonsense without critical thought, they are as complicit as the government.
Pubs: I went to two last night and both were so normal I could have cried with joy. One was a Wetherspoons where we had food with friends. They have put up discrete screens but we could order at the bar ….and arrived without a booking. No forms to complete. Staff were welcoming and treated us like people and not gross vectors of disease. Next place was a free house and was like before, just a small poster about distancing and the staff doing door handle cleaning.
Unfortunately the Council has felt the need to spray the pavements and benches with keep 2 metres apart or bench for one person only which looks horrible and insulting.
I’ve been in 5, the 3 that I went in Somerset were like normal, albeit a few less tables, one in Devon we sat outside but my partner said when he went into order they were all panicked with the sign in book etc, the other one also in Devon had signs everywhere, we were briefed when entering, tables marked off, floor markings, one way system in place, it was not great.
Only the comfortable places will get business.
Maybe the pubs will be the only places happy with the new rules on masks in shops as it will be about the only place we can go to feel like normal. I will just go to the pub more and spend the money I save by not shopping.
Yes I was thinking that. No shopping for me but some pubs will be good places. We walked past many open restaurants which looked welcoming. I feel I want to go the restaurants and pubs just to feel normal. Shops will be horrible places for me. I wonder if certain shops might do okay if it is young people who are keen to wear masks and shops where an older shopper goes might do worse. Young people tend to have less money to spend though than older so if older people are avoiding the horrible shopping experience perhaps some shops will have a rethink.
The irony with that logic is that many shops spend millions trying to lure the young despite having less money to spend while at the same time alienate the older customer who has more money to spend. This is one reason why the fashion industry is in such trouble not to mention that it is such a cut throat and saturated sector.
The lockdown, antisocial distancing and now the mandatory muzzles will hasten their demise.
Pizza Express last night. Free dough balls with a ‘main’. Menu on app if you don’t remember it! Very physically spaced. Several groups people not all tables occupied. Empty by 9.15. Prices up. 3 pizzas, 2 puds bottle wine. £72. Great to see the staff again but for how long will it continue? I know the chain is already in trouble but they’ve got a mountain to climb without people spending.
Wethy’s are doing it right, meeting the implied obligations of the (non-statutory) ‘guidance’, but not pushing anything at you, other than bizarre queuing. They are also reducing beer prices, even though the vat cut doesn’t apply.
Just listening to the radio, talksport. You cannot escape the Covid Government warnings to not share misinformation, ping, don’t feed the beast etc. Laughable advertising given the unbalanced panic reporting we have had to endure month after month. Do the Government not have a responsibility to provide some encouragement, balance, positivity? Weakest most half-witted politicians in my lifetime, but imagine the next lot will be even worse.
Latest story is the England cricketer not allowed to play as he has broken Covid rules, you would think he had fallen into a vat of plutonium the way its reported.
I said months ago when I was first forced to work from home that this was the first snowflake pandemic, as I sit at home months later, with some staff now jobless and redundant, nothing has changed my mind.
Stay at home, stay alert, look forward to higher taxes and a miserable life. I voted for the Buffoon, never again.
how have they got so many people in with the power to go along with it, money?
that or secret society membership or blackmail
Quite laughable after the leaks they’ve done throughout, and even on Sunday you have Gove saying “No mask”, the on Monday Boris announcing “Mandatory Masks”. You don’t get better misinformation that this!
I don’t remember ever hearing of something so ridiculous. This is a fit 25 year old fast bowler, not an 85 year-old with clapped out lungs. Hardly a death sentence if he got CCP Virus, which is bitten by a snake territory anyway.
The tragic report of the man who lost his wife after her cancer treatment was cancelled is one of many such, sadly. I wonder if this is a phenomenon worldwide (withdrawal of healthcare except for coronavirus), or if this is exclusively a UK scandal.
I think its global as I vaguely remember an article about developing countries where their good work in bringing down cases of illnesses such as malaria is under threat because of the preoccupation with Covid 19. That article quoted a government official who said that Covid is the least of their problems.
It is extremely sad. He and many others will have to carry that sadness and anger for the rest of their lives. So many lives have been and will be turned upside down by U.K. response to Covid and it’s continued fear reporting of winter deaths people will continue to avoid hospitals and treatments cannot get back to normal because of restrictions.
If you want to investigate how covid is affecting our cousins across the pond, check out Dr Pam Popper’s website and frequent video updates. I think the same is happening in pro-lockdown States. Maybe UK column has information on what is going on on the Continent. As for elsewhere, I’m not sure.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/lockdown-deaths-not-covid-deaths
Lockdown Deaths, Not Covid Deaths
Really worth the moments to read.
Another subtlety of their strategy which may go under the radar if not pointed out. As mentioned by a commenter yesterday, dritfted out on msm this morning, there is going to be an announcement on Monday about the status of the vaccination trials. This, in my opinion, is a deliberate trailing of the announcement to give people a sense of majesty about the vaccine. The of PR for vaccination must be to lift the desire for vaccination out of the hum drum and into something special.
It’s propaganda being used this morning and on through the weekend.
Linked to this, Richard Horton (editor of The Lancet) just interviewed on CNBC this morning. He has a book out that he has been plugging, and there will be a paper in The Lancet on Monday about the vaccine trials. Shameless promotion of the ‘new normal’, Big Pharma and industry working together with government, how scientists must speak truth to power (the right sort of scientists, of course!) and how ‘selfless’ the Chinese academics have been in working to solve the CV pandemic. The interviewers are all pretty clued up from a firm/financial markets perspective, so did probe how the paper on HCQ that had to be retracted by The Lancet was chosen. As I have said before, his role needs to be investigated, by which I mean, all email traffic since the start of the year. Suspect the Americans will issue subpoenas at some point.
Searching ‘Richard Horton (editor of The Lancet) just interviewed on CNBC this morning’, on a google brings up an interesting selection of recent comment in the press by Richard Horton. Critical of Britian’s response and defending Chinese efforts. I shall seek out CNBC this morning.
I think the vaccine propaganda is to encourage the idea that face nappies won’t need to be worn for ever as long as we submit to being injected with something that, simply, cannot have been as rigorously tested as normal vaccines.
Yep. Front page in the DT this morning
Could you please update us on the ant-mask protest proposed in your reported tweet by Leah Butler-Smith #KBF ? I would definitely attend and would be wearing my long-beak plague mask and top hat.
I will be telling the masked martyrs that I didn’t ask them to save me, even though that’s not why they are wearing one
If we don’t resist the compulsory use of face masks which have no real effect or proper scientific backing, how exactly will we resist being being implanted with a microchip which is actually likely to work?
Future microchip implants will probably be effective in detecting the production of pathogens in our bodies in real time and send alerts for the infected people to isolate. The argument for them will be that they save the lives of others and not having everyone wear them will lead to many deaths. And the argument will be correct.
If we are unable to resist measures that make no sense (face masks), we will have zero chance of resisting measures that do makes sense (microchip implants).
I think you overestimate the effectiveness of such chips!
They’ll be quantum dot tattoos not chips.
https://biohackinfo.com/news-bill-gates-id2020-vaccine-implant-covid-19-digital-certificates/
Given the pace of technological advance, my guess is that it’s a matter of a few years.
I’d got further and say a few months…
The existing PCR test is a bag of crap, any microchip that claims any such thing will either be snake oil or a programmable system that allows authorities to remove people at a whim.
The Gates system is centralised – deeply sinister.
There’s an easy to solution to this nonsense. Defund Parliament, Defund Councils, Defund the media
Indeed, it’s called conservatism, but even the Conservatives seem to have abandoned the idea…
The government gambled on a untried, untested strategy, and it failed badly, all we need to know now is who approved the lockdown, the government, or the globalist’s, having seen what I’ve seen, I would guess the latter!
The lockdown wasn’t recommended by SAGE.
Please can someone point me in the direction of the graphs showing Sweden’s excess deaths are lower than Denmark and Finland. It was in the comments section a while back and, stupidly I forgot to save it. Thank you.
http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/nordic_comparison_4jul.html
I missed posting this on the masked woman competition but I would be tempted to ask her if she ever asked disabled people why they were in a wheelchair or blind people why they used a white stick.
Archers listeners might find a bit of light relief from the current BBC ghastliness by reading The True Chronicles of Ambridge, which is completely virus-free, just like the old days (only better). Full of drama and jolliness. Not a smidgeon of Covid or any masks to be seen. Read it at eglantinecornfield.blogspot.com
You can also download a face covering exemption card from the TFL website. They will also send you one for free. FYI – I wonder what the shop’s exemptions will be, but if you ‘have breathing difficulties when you wear it and that leaves you anxiously trying to breath then no one can really say anything. (can any lawyers tell me I’m right or wrong on this please)
Boris is too busy shagging to run the country
From every angle. Karma Sutra got nothing on Boz.
With all the usual caveats about surveys, here are three results from YouGov to consider:
Consider further that (according to YouGov) only in Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Australia are people less likely to be wearing masks than in the UK, but that we are the laggards of Europe; the corresponding percentages in Germany, France and Italy, for example, are 65%, 78% and 83% respectively.
With a significant minority unreasonably fearful for their own safety, a significant majority unreasonably fearful on behalf of friends and family, and mask-wearing on the up, but still significantly below par for Europe, why are we surprised that our brave government has chosen this open door to push on?
It’s the will of the people, people. Stop blaming the government and start coaxing friends and family out from under their beds.
You’ve just proved it’s NOT the will of the people, but rather that even with the desperate, ongoing mass propaganda carried out both by the government and by the media, hand in glove, they still haven’t yet persuaded more than a minority of people to wear face nappies.
There’s obviously a place for direct personal persuasion, but that in no way removes the absolute legitimacy and correctness of blaming this wholly culpable government for what it has perpetrated.
Never forget. Never forgive.
When a supermarket mask lover accuses you of granny-killing, and you point out that they weren’t used at the start, or during the peak and then you say “Look at all these staff, they’ve been maskless all along and they are all ok”… if the zombie doesn’t get it, then we really are lost.
I plan to just say that wearing masks tells young people that they should be afraid of life.
Don’t forget that in 1968-1969 we had a much worse epidemic without any thought of a lockdown.
That was before internet and smart phones, Mike… So it never happened.
People also had their feet on the ground more…they still remembered real problems like WW2. They accepted that death was part of life. It would have been unthinkable for healthy people’s lives to be wrecked in this way. Also we were much poorer then…spunking billions up the wall on furlough was simply not an option.
If someone calls you a Granny-Killer, respond back to them in a menacing tone with “How do you know what I was inside for, she deserved it?”
Then see what their response is.
Love it.
Toby,
The problem for living in Australia is not that Qantas isn’t providing international flights till March because Qatar, Etihad, Royal Brunei and Singapore Airlines at least are still providing them. Qantas can shoot itself in the head to go with its bullet riddled feet if it wants. The problem is that Australians are not permitted to leave Australia – we’re not talking about advice to avoid all unessential overseas travel, which is pretty typical globally, but an actual totalitarian ban. There are exemptions, but I’d say good luck getting one – it looks rather like having to apply for an exit visa but most applicants are just automatically assumed to be criminals and so won’t be permitted to leave anyway.
Just add another option. In my opinion the card and landyard from hidden disabilities look better than the recommendation in today’s article. This organisation aims to promote awareness of hidden disabilities (eg related to austism, adhd, mental health etc….)
Here:
https://hiddendisabilitiesstore.com/hidden-disabilities-face-covering.html
Not available on amazon.
I’m waiting for my delivery. Ordered a few so that I can carry a spare to give out to anyone that asks about it.
I wrote to my MP yesterday evening (not something I’ve ever personally been driven to do before!), not so much in hope, but just let him know how I feel about, well everything to do with the government and C-19.
I would post a copy, but it’s rather long and I can’t post it in one piece here, but I’ll let you know if I get any sort of ‘meaningful’ reply!.
Just don’t hold your breath!
I wasn’t planning to!
Gtec, post it here: https://lockdownsceptics.com/viewforum.php?f=29
I have created a section on the forum for everyone to create template letters for us to send to MP’s and Companies to complain.
Thanks, I will later – just a little busy now!
Letter posted! Thanks.
Same here! Great minds, eh?
With regard to wearing a badge to indicate your exemption from the muzzle: don’t! You’re under no legal obligation to do so, and your reasons for not been muzzled are no one’s business save your own. I very much doubt the government will make exemption badges mandatory, apart from pissing off the many disability organisations it smacks a bit too much of yellow Stars of David in 1930s Germany. And even our moronic government must know that those optics will not look good, at all.
“And even our moronic government must know that those optics will not look good, at all.”
I really wouldn’t count on that.
From my perspective, it’s more to do with dealing with bolshy shop assistants.
I’ve already had the local Little Hitler telling me that “you will have to comply or you will be fined £100!”.
Then you simply leave.My Cockney great-grandmother, when asked not to handle the produce,told a fishmonger: “You can keep your fish, it’ll stink before my money does.”
I disagree with this although I understand your reasoning. One of our best tactics at present is to increase non compliance to farcical levels by showing the sheeple an effective loophole. If they see that I can get away with it then why shouldn’t they. Of course they could do this without a badge, but the badge may make it an easier leap for them.
The problem with that approach is that unless you actually inform the sheeple it’s an effective loophole, they’ll just assume all the badges they see are genuine, and couldn’t possibly be an avenue for them to escape the muzzle. I will not be wearing a badge: several members of my wife’s family were murdered during the Holocaust (having no doubt worn their yellow stars) so this cuts rather too close to home. We need massive civil disobedience on muzzle wearing, but given that so many are gripped with fear (unfounded, but fear nonetheless), and so many more are desperate to virtue-signal, I think we may be waiting a long time. Meanwhile the best we can do is encourage all the sceptics we know to not comply. Let us not go gentle into that good night.
That message from the paramedic outlines one of the many reasons why a socialised healthcare system is not a good idea.
Its a disaster…. the NHS is next to bottom in virtually all measures of health care outcomes. The only one it is top in is complete access…the only problem is that applies to all visitors to the UK too! Laughing aside though all other health care systems in advanced countries except the USA have 100% access of the domestic population too…but funnily enough only the USA ever gets mentioned. Its what is know as setting the bar very low.
The ONS have now revised their unemployment figures estimation up to 4.5 million after more people registered as unemployed up to June. With 9 million still being Furlough 4.5 million may turn out to be a conservative figure, the true reality will start to show at the end of next month when Furlough changes so that it doesn’t pay NI or Pensions Contribution.
The OBR are estimating unemployment to go from 3.9% to 13%. Just last month their estimation was 10%.
It’s very odd that all these voices that were sh*tting themselves because of the impact Brexit would have on the economy are now so quiet about something that makes the worst case scenarios pale into insignificance.
My heart breaks for all the school-leavers and university graduates who will be looking for jobs in the coming jobs desert – not to mention the middle-aged who lose their jobs and have negligible chances of ever getting another.
And with Sunak’s job scheme for the young, it seems as though that will also cause a lot of unemployment, as we were told by an Amazon employee a fee days back who was being laid off because of it.
I’m sticking with my apocalyptic 20% peak prediction. By this time next year I wouldn’t be surprised if 1 in 4 of us is unemployed or at least severely underemployed.
I think the worst case prediction I’ve seen from ‘officialdom’ is 15%. I’m willing to go higher.
Yes, it will be austerity with a turbocharger, probably forever.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130424/
Remember the old paper of a common cold outbreak in Antartica after 17 weeks isolation? Six of 12 men had typical symptoms but virus could not be isolated (study 1973)
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3093102/57-sailors-argentina-get-coronavirus-after-weeks-sea-despite
57 sailors in Argentina get coronavirus after weeks at sea, despite quarantine
This is really, really interesting.
Blue ice incident? I hypothesised this after I got ill at Christmas, living as I do in the environs of Stansted Airport.
On July 8, 2020, the Robert Koch Institute counted just 5205 people who had tested positive for Sars-CoV-2. This corresponds to 0.0065 percent of the 80 million German inhabitants. Nevertheless, the RKI continues to rate the risk to the health of the population as “high” and that of the risk groups as “very high”. The result: the government’s corona measures remain in place: distance rules, mask requirements, quarantine for those who test positive and people who have dealt with them. Millions of people are now worried about their existence, are on short-time work or have already lost their jobs. But are these drastic measures still proportionate to the real risk situation, and if not, what is their aim? For the renowned psychotraumatologist Prof. Dr. Franz Ruppert from Munich is clear: the corona pandemic has been prepared for a long time. The master plan is to take away their old freedoms because of an allegedly highly contagious virus, and to only give back these freedoms when people are vaccinated, genetically manipulated and can be comprehensively monitored.
In an interview with Robert Fleischer, Prof. Ruppert explains the drastic effects of government measures on the mental health of the population. Especially with small children wearing masks can cause trauma. But that’s not all: In an internal paper from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, “experts” propose to exploit people’s “primal fears” to “achieve the desired shock effect”. For Prof. Ruppert, a red line has been crossed. Because such targeted traumatization of the masses can lead to serious psychosocial disorders.
Taken from YouTube video https://bit.ly/2Ou69UL (auto-translation into English available).
It terrifies me that people still believe all this nonsense and will happily be tracked, traced, wear a mask and no doubt submit to a potentially harmful vaccination.
This form of brainwashing is inhuman on every level.
One of the faces I would like to punch most through this whole ordeal:
https://www.traveldailymedia.com/bid-goodbye-to-the-old-normal-says-who/
Too many to choose from at the mo.
https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1283678031693914112?s=19
Interesting post on the Track and Trace.
Some nice Twitters come up for me when I looked at that one, a lot of them KBF. Liked this one as well:
Dr Ben Irvine
@BenIrvineAuthor
You’re not going to force me to wear a face mask when you can’t prove that I’m ill or that a face mask will protect you from the illness that you can’t prove I have. I live in a free country where you don’t get to force your neuroses on me. Which bit of this don’t you understand?
https://twitter.com/BenIrvineAuthor/status/1283392313285160960
Shout out to @alw
I managed to fish out that email I was sent by John Lewis and here’s my reply. Apologies if I used the spirit of your email to write mine:
Dear XXXXXX,
I received your email regarding the reopening of the John Lewis Oxford Street branch and having read your “Covid 19 Safety information”, I am writing to inform you that I will be boycotting your branch and all other John Lewis stores until you abolish all these protocols which are merely guidance and are unenforceable:
http://www.laworfiction.com/2020/07/lockdown-laws-in-england-have-been-revoked/
I understand however why you need to have these rules and while you are entitled to have them in place but I will not be coming to your shops as it will be nigh on impossible to try on clothes or test make up and skin care products.
I would also like to ask your position regarding face masks as I am unable to wear one due to physical and psychological reasons and I’m sure I’m not the only one in this situation. Given that your store was only in the news recently regarding the closure of eight of your shops and the axing of jobs, perhaps you and the rest of the upper echelons of management should consider the impact these measures will have on attracting customers to the store.
Thank you and I look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely,
etc, etc…..
Thanks for this, I have made it into a template for other to use or quickly amend, and placed here:
https://lockdownsceptics.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=58
I wrote one to the National Gallery and Waterstones as well, if you want them then I can repost them here or send you a PM via the forum.
That’d be great! Send me a PM on the Forum and I’ll get them posted.
Have just PM’d you the letters.
“In Asia during the SARS period, many people in the affected communities wore surgical masks when in public. But studies have shown that the ordinary surgical mask does little to prevent inhalation of small droplets bearing influenza virus.56 The pores in the mask become blocked by moisture from breathing, and the air stream simply diverts around the mask. There are few data available to support the efficacy of N95 or surgical masks outside a healthcare setting”
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.552.1109&rep=rep1&type=pdf
This week I’ve written to both Sir Christopher Chope and Sir Desmond Swayne to thank them both for sticking their heads above the parapet over the face masks issue.
Today I received a thank you from Sir Desmond Swayne and yesterday one from Sir Christopher Chope. He suggested that I write to my own MP, one of the new “red wall”
brigade. I replied that I had written to my MP on numerous occasions during the last few months, about 800% more than I had written to an MP in my 48 years of being able to vote.
The subjects of my emails varied from: why my grandchildren can now visit Alton Towers but not go to school, the urinary leash placed on people because public toilets have been closed and of course the imposition of face nappies (twice).
I have received two replies; one trumpeting the usual government propaganda on how well it is doing and the other regarding the opening of schools. I’m still awaiting a reply on face masks having asked for the government’s risk assessment on wearing them for long periods of time (and at altitude).
Let’s keep the pressure up on them all.
I’ve been meaning to write to both of those MPs to thank them and your post has reminded me to do so!
Hi all,
Long time reader here. Thanks to Toby and you all for the daily sanity check.
Thought I would make a contribution to the theme tune list, if it hasn’t been suggested before?
https://youtu.be/3FQktsKvXcg
“Why Don’t You” was a 1970’s kids TV show that encouraged kids… to not watch TV. So fat chance of a rerun nowadays.
Stay sceptical
Fuck the rules
Keep taking the piss
Cheers
“Your average punter will become very pissed off with it all, very quickly I’ll bet.
I note this forecast. I would, indeed hope so, but I’m not so sure that it will happen as simply as that – compliance is deeply embedded.
The hopeful signs are the relatively low general incidence of mask wearing, and certainly anyone who has worn a a mask should be well aware of the unpleasant nature of the operation – which, in my reading, coupled with the definite effects related to oxygen supply and co2 – should give automatic exemption to the whole of the population. Make your own exemption card if it makes you feel better.
However, I do still hear a lot of superficial acceptance of the Big Lies. Many people are still warily accepting the narrative that this is other than a generally mild virus that has caused increased mortality well within the normal range for such epidemics, and that it still has a resurgent community presence, with a second wave inevitably round the corner.
Perhaps people are becoming more amenable to getting the true picture, presented coolly and rationally. That is the main hope, and I suggest that having some simple, clear facts up your sleeve is a good idea to use in any situation where it might be appropriate to drop a pebble in the pond.
For those who want to keep up to date with the reality (if you haven’t already found it), I would suggest the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine :
https://www.cebm.net/oxford-covid-19-evidence-service/
and the latest estimates of actual presence of the virus in the community can be found at :
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/latest
Unfortunately, the latter isn’t regularly updated in with parallel with the evident decline in hospital admissions (from the former), but the figure of 1 in 3,900 from the back end of June is a good starting point, and you can do your own estimate of what it currently is.
It might be worth having comparative figures for the risks posed by other infections and everyday incidents.
I have been mulling this for a few days now, but the ‘sacking’ of Dr Julian Lewis from the Tory party last night made me think one or both of the following people need to take action quite soon.
Dr Therese Coffey, SoS for Work & Pensions. After this morning’s job stats, dig deep Therese, and ask yourself this: As the only member of the Cabinet with a science background, would the first female prime minister of this once great country, also with a degree in Chemistry from Somerville College, Oxford, have allowed this shit show to have even got off the ground, let alone still be in place some four months later? Resign now, and do a Robin Cook before the Parliamentary term ends.
Dr Chris Whitty, CMO. When you came back from your own experience of coronavirus, your body language at the press conference suggested you were at odds with the CSO. You are an ‘old school’ doctor who cares about your fellow citizens, concerned by the collateral damage from the lockdown. You do not owe the vaccine bandwagon and Big Pharma anything. Support your fellow doctors on the front line by over-riding the anti whistleblower stance of the NHS management and tell it as it is now, before the inquiry.
I’m wondering what Jennie Harries makes of where we are now. I don’t know if she’s said anything recently. She seemed to have her head screwed on right to me, but was maybe afraid to say what she was really thinking.
They have banished Harries. She speaks too much sense and is on record in the past as countering much of this bullshit. In the past though. Now she seems…. Like She’s constantly trying to wheel her way out of the grip of the politicians
I do have some time for her. I’d have a lot more time if she came out fully with what she thinks.
She has recently advised against the wearing of masks:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-face-masks-increase-risk-infection-doctor-jenny-harries-a9396811.html?__twitter_impression=true
Strangely, the Government doesn’t seem so keen to follow medical advice when it contradicts their own diktats.
A ‘friend’, sent the following paper to me to prove that face masks work. Can any of our more sciency contributors debunk it for me so I can reply to her?
https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13319/face-masks-considerably-reduce-covid-19-cases-in-germany-a-synthetic-control-method-approach
“Synthetic control method” sounds like BS.
Seems like they are just comparing areas with masks and without masks. So not using a control group in the proper scientific sense, but adding “synthetic” before to make it sound like it approximates to a randomized control trial. But not a randomized control trial at all.
If you go to Swiss Propaganda Research, he has a section about face masks where it says the authors of the paper conclude the opposite of what the data shows.
The report is based on Jena in Germany that has a population of 110,000, and at the time of this study had around 130-140 cases, since mask were introduced in this has flat lined around the 160 mark.
The problem is the amount of cases in 110,000 people is tiny, and lockdown is the sole cause of the flatlining, not masks. A bit of a breakdown of events:
Germany locked down on 22nd March.
On 31 March, Jena was the first major German city to announce an obligation to wear masks, or makeshift masks including scarves, in supermarkets, public transport, and buildings with public traffic.
The flatlining in this case is more likely due to the lockdown, as the cases stopped falling around the 9th April, and then flatlined as they had been in lockdown for 18 days then, and we were all told to self-isolating for 14 days safely eliminated the virus.
When you think that most people would’ve stayed home during this time, then the number of people wearing masks would have been minimal, so I don’t think this report is worth the paper it’s written on. If this report had been proven in a high density city with no lockdown in place where masks had been enforced, then yes it would definitely prove masks were a game changer if it lowered infections by 40%, but the reduction here is purely down to the lockdown being put in place.
If i recall correctly, in all other cities, they found no difference when compared with their “synthetic” model. If masks had worked in Jena, how would they not have worked in the other places then?
I’ve had a look around the internet at the expert analysis of this report, and there is no criticism of this report even though it’s blatantly obvious that lockdown would’ve reduced these cases and not masks I believe there is probably criticism somewhere as there has to be, but this is all being hidden by search engines, and not being published at all by the media. It is extremely worrying time where dodgy studies like this are being taken as gospel.
Another MP who is anti-muzzle:
https://twitter.com/EdwardLeighMP/status/1283417511292272640
Suspect after the removal of the whip from highly respected Dr Julian Lewis last night, more of the old guard will start to break ranks, and about time too!
As well as the thumbs up and thumbs down, we should have a fingers crossed symbol. In the absence of such TT – fingers crossed!
Just written to thank him too.
Good news. I know of three now – Swayne, Chope and Leigh. Perhaps Mr Toby Young could keep a list and update when he updates the page, and “reach out” to them, try to start to form a resistance with a focus?
Good idea. And it might encourage a few of the others we keep hearing about to break ranks.
I don’t know about anti-muzzle but Steve Baker spoke out early on. I’ve no ideas on his current views though
He was quickly muzzled lol.
Edward Leigh is one of those rare beasts . a back bench MP with experience and who has sat on various committees, who actually talks sense about most subjects. So as to not appear politically biased, i also have the same high opinion of Frank Field for example .
Yes FF much missed…there will be no more like him I’m afraid.
True, but it’s dispiriting to see the number of ignorant and sarcastic negative responses.
A surreal conversation with a pleasant nurse form my dental practice-in reply to my call begging for an appointment.
The gist of this was that, despite Holyrood giving the go ahead for full dental services to resume on July 13th, my practice is unable to offer normal appointments as the requisite PPE deemed essential for all aerosol generating procedures has still not been supplied.
What a farce! The nurse agreed that dentists have been left in the lurch and that Holyrood’s right hand doesn’t seem to have any idea of what its left hand is doing.
We’ve been locked up, gagged, bombarded with contradictory inconsistent Elf and Safety propaganda for 4 months, but an essential health service, run by qualified and highly trained professionals ,whose skills are facing increasing demand, is unable to fulfil its duty to its patients.
Why are these administrations so incompetent? 4 months down the line and no one seems to possess the requisite brain power to work out how to supply dentists and their colleagues with the PPE which these same administrations have declared to be mandatory.
The nurse put my name on a list and suggested a follow up call in one week’s time.
Initially she warned of a 4 month waiting list ; I told her that this would be impossible.
The Dear Leader earns something in the region of £150,000 per year and the various paper pushers who control medical and dental supplies must be fairly well paid, so why has this been left for so long?
So now , we face an epidemic of dental problems to be added to the already distressing accounts we’ve seen on this site about delayed cancer tests and treatment and cardiac services.
This bunch-Westminster and devolved -need to be held accountable for this shambles sooner rather than later: I won’t hold my breath!
Rant ends.
Suggest staying away from sturgeons twitter feed today. She is claiming the sweetest reunion of all is her with her hair dresser. No, I am not making it up. A selfie with a tartan obsessed sturgeon accompanies the tweet.
Thinking care homes, thinking grandchildren, thinking oncologists with cancer patients might acutally be more important reunions.
My blood pressure cannot cope with Sturgeon at the best of times!
Stay away I tells thee!
Sticky Nurgeon is pure POISON
Can you not get an appointment with Dr Adrian Lesnyak, who created that petition for everyone to wear full body suits? I’m sure he’d be more than protected.
O yes! And a local anaesthetic refusenik!! Pain control is for the feeble;take it as it comes!
I’m having to go to Spain to get my treatment done. Never thought I would be a health tourist!
Good for you Margaret; I hope you receive decent treatment.
Thank you, Wendy. My husband has used the dentist before and speaks highly of him.
For anyone interested in the Behavioural Insights Team work in public health.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/behavioural-insights-public-health
Just cancelled my direct debit to the Tories. Here’s my message:
Thought that real conservatives were taking over after the debacle of Cameron and May. Compulsory face masks in shops (and maybe other places) are the final straw. Clearly a political decision, not a scientific one especially given the virus is in significant retreat. Not seeing any leadership and it seems the govt is following opinion polls to drive policy. There was a bait-and-switch given we were locked-down to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed but now it seems we’re locked-down and civil liberties are being trampled to eradicate the virus completely. Apart from Brexit (which is now essentially done from a political perspective) this govt isn’t following conservative principles with their actions – though occasionally there’s some nice rhetoric. Never thought I’d be politically homeless on the right centre – shame.
The whole Joffra Archer story this morning disgusts me. Just shows how ridiculous this Covid nonsense really is. What an egregious curtailing of freedom.
And on Test Match Special, commentators saying “we’re still in the middle of the Covid crisis”. What fu**ing planet are they living on, pardon my language? Covid peaked over 3 months ago around April 6th-8th – what a ridiculous comment!
It is BBC, got to follow the narrative or you’re gone!
The batsman’s Holding, the bowler’s Willey”
never happen today
Those were the days of no money in the game, and cricketer had to go on tour to South Africa because it paid more than what the counties and England paid, didn’t make any difference if they spoke out they’d still be employed. Nowadays cricketers are all in the pockets of big sponsors so have to toe their political line, can’t be seen doing bad PR.
Due to vast sums of money now most elite level sport is soulless. Football down to first 3 tiers, Cricket being taken over by 20/20 due to advertising, Systemic Drug Cheating in Athletics and Cycling.
I only do grassroots now, far more enjoyable.
Football matches on you tube from the 70s are great….especially as I was a Leeds united fan then lol.
Funnily enough I saw Botham play for Scunthorpe against Port Vale in either 84 or 85 during one of his spats with the establishment!
good quiz question .. name the three England captains that played for Scunny
Remember the Windies at their entertaining best? Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Richie Richardson, the great Jeffrey Dujon and that incredible catch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPUKy0u6rVY
Viv Richards.
Those were the days
Me too!!
Alan Knott and Derek (Deadly) Underwood were my heroes as a young Man of Kent, well boy of Kent
Good yes, but not a patch on Wes Hall and Charlie Griffiths days. But then you need to be quite old to appreciate that era.
I saw him in Bath back in the 80s
Too much money to be lost from his central contract, IPL, and sponsors to do that.
I posted the link to the article on Masks in a Facebook discussion, and got an amazing response from a microbiologist based in Austrialia, asking me to “stop posting stupid links”, and then going on about how only someone who understands statistics, causality and correlation could possibly understand any scientific paper (making it very clear that I could not possibly have that understanding); also that Covid-19 is a horrible disease and if only I knew I would definitely put a mask on. I tried repeatedly to get her to come up with facts and/or other links; then she moved on to the old trope of “special interest groups” and “hidden agendas”. I’m pretty sure she was trying to hint all Lockdown Sceptics are rabid anti-vaxxers, however she didn’t have quite the guts to come out with that. The conversation fizzled out when I kept asking for details and also pointing out that a courteous discussion would address the content, not just lazy assumptions. Fascinating experience.
I’m an anti-vaxxer, at least for the Covid-19 variety. Bring on the ad hominem attacks. Argument these days seems to consist of categorising you so that you can be ignored or cancelled.
Can I throw a curveball? I actually think the mask enforcement is so they can experiment with facial recognition technology. Apparently it doesn’t need to use the whole face. On another note I wrote my local (Conservative) MP yesterday a strongly worded letter on thoughts of compulsory muzzles and the effect it would have on our already delicate and diminishing economy of our dying town. It will probably go straight to bin but its on record and its another push of defiant energy in their direction. Also I’ve made a beast of a tin foil muzzle, already to go, that I can produce if a bleating bedwetter calls me out. I can assure that we’ll all be protected by it!
New Jargon alert: vaccine may give “double protection”.
Human trials of a potential Covid-19 vaccine being developed by scientists in Oxford are reported to have shown promising results.
Researchers believe they have made a breakthrough after discovering the jab could provide “double protection” against the virus, the Daily Telegraph reported.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/deaths-uk-coronavirus-live-updates-18547492?utm_source=whatsapp&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
I saw a fairy at the bottom of our garden this morning.
Well, they have special protection nowadays!
Any idea what “double protection” means?
No John. Guess vaguely from the back of the pub quizz T cell funtion for the masses becomes double protection.
All I know is I am thinking about installing second seat belts in our car.
It’s going the same way as men’s razors. It is a marketing tool!
Double protection is pants triple protection is where it’s at.
Translans lates to me as belts and braces. But for the ipad using generation. Have no idea but will be linked to some vague idea about T cells massaging antibodies to out perform themselves by an ‘expert’ in the next installment of Croronafarce.
“belts and braces”
And a piece of string in your pocket. Just in case…..
Does ‘double protection’ actually mean anything? Does that mean it’s twice as effective as a normal dose? Or will it protect against two instances of exposure to the virus and then be ineffective? Again, marketing bollox. May as well be a slogan for a pack of condoms.
The best a man can get?
Sounds like they’re working on new toothpaste.
The scapegoating of Asians in Leicester and elsewhere disgusts me. They are simply a soft target. If HMG is so concerned about people working under minimum wage, why didn’t they deal with it before? Why address it now in a period of economic crisis? As for splitting up households and re-homing them, it reminds me of what the USA did to their Japanese citizens during WW2.
They ignore it as it brings huge amounts of money into the economy, makes money for donors, and more than likely provides a tremendous amount of backhanders.
Corruption in Vaztown, Who knew?
It is not that they are a soft target . It is just that the additional outbreaks are being attributed to the Asian community and are arising because of certain circumstances that apply to those communities They have the same concerns(??) about Blackburn and Pendle and again it is specifically pointing to the BAME – i.e. Asian – communities there.
And why dont HMG address this? .. It is the same reason as usual – no politician wants to accuse an Asian community of anything because they fear that any comment will be shouted down as racist . So in Leicester the local council have turned a blind eye to sweat shops – as the authorities have turned a blind eye to other activities elsewhere in the past
I don’t disagree that the law is applied selectively, and I deplore that. But in the case of Leicester, I find it remarkable that the pretext for locking down was so transparently contrived and then, lo and behold, “Sweatshops! Look everybody! Slave labour! Oh no! Overcrowding! Multi-generation households!” Everybody knows these things go on, yet HMG only drew attention to them as justification for their evidence-free lockdown. Positive tests are not ‘cases’.
People who would have been up in arms if this had been done to a predominantly white city have been quite happy to blame Asians for their way of life, hence they are a soft target.
Begum who in past times would have been hung for treason: is being returned to the UK to massacre the legal aid budget and live on benefits for the rest of her days
Pity the rest of us don’t have any rights
Boris you truly are a shithouse
The problem with this case is that she is just one of many, yet is being singled out to have her citizenship revoked.
She should be dealt with here in an appropriate manner.
Whilst we focus for a little while on ‘Johnson the Just (stupid)’ I thought I might do a little service by posting this article written before he became Prime Minister just to remind ourselves what a lying oaf he is and why he has made such a hash of this. I particularly like the observation: ‘Johnson – the very rich, very cosseted son of immense privilege – sees himself as the main character in a film in which everyone else is an extra.’
https://bylinetimes.com/2019/06/12/the-boris-johnson-show-part-1-a-role-on-which-the-curtain-never-falls/
Indeed. A mouthy narcissist whose only talent is lying (and lying on his back) becomes PM – and fulfils his destiny by lying to the whole nation. Big time.
Well. What a surptise.
Understanding the coronapanic zealots, and why they are so vicious towards dissenters.
As with so much about the coronapanic, it all begins with fear. Fear is a useful human tool when it is under conscious control, but a devastating prison for those controlled by it. It is an old truth that there is nothing cowardly about feeling fear – the coward is the man who allows that fear to control his behaviour. A man ruled by fear is a prisoner.
Coronapanic zealots do not hate you for the noble sounding reasons they give out for public consumption and to reassure their own consciences – because you are supposedly selfish, supposedly putting lives at risk, or even because you are supposedly threatening their own lives. They hate you because you are free, and they are not.
The hatred they feel is directed towards those who do not wear masks, because not wearing a mask is a public mark of that freedom from fear, just as wearing the mask advertises one’s conformity to the general fearfulness.
How you respond to them is up to you – legitimate and justifiable responses would range from pity for them, through resentment at their bitter hostility and profoundly damaging behaviour, to well-founded hatred of the bullying cowardice they represent and the political tyranny they enable. Choose the one that suits your ethics and your situation.
Pity can be justified if you accept that in many cases they are mere victims of the disgraceful propaganda to which we have all been subjected, as a society. But an adult has some responsibility for the formation of his own opinions, and many of the worst of the zealots are far from helpless illiterates. And remember, you can continue to pity them until the end, but many of them will still happily report you to the state enforcers, petition your employer to sack you, and ultimately clap the state thugs marching you off to a camp for “re-education”. Because that’s what cowards do to people who expose their own inadequacy.
Mark is absolutely right that the irrational fear whipped up by this government is something to be treated with disdain. And his analysis of the reasonable range of responses is spot on. An interesting social experiment is about to occur: the white educated middle class who decline to wear masks finding themselves treated in public with the same alarm, suspicion, and in the worst case, name calling and aggression routinely visited on BAME people.
Well I can respect the cleverness of the response, if not the cynical dishonesty. but I do recognise that you regard my opinions and therefore me as not just wrong but evil, and therefore fair game. Can’t say it troubles me greatly. You are far from the first and won’t be the last.
There’s a lot more psychology involved in this situation than many people seem to realise.
And it always seems to be the same groups of people taking sides. Right-brain dominated (creative, emotional, hard-of-thinking) against left-brain dominated (logical, fact-oriented).
Dr Edward Dutton has some fascinating theories on the subject, essentially that reduction in infant mortality and introduction of welfare have allowed the less-suited to have an increased voice in society.
“Dr Edward Dutton has some fascinating theories on the subject, essentially that reduction in infant mortality and introduction of welfare have allowed the less-suited to have an increased voice in society.”
A lot of tricky questions there to do with nature/nurture and other controversial issues, as well as culture and class, but the basic thesis that our society is far less capable of dealing with issues like this seems clearly true.
‘hard-of-thinking’ my Aunt Fanny.
Hancock to give an emergency coronavirus statement at 5pm. Is this about Leicester lockdown or something else?
I do wonder how there can be an emergency when there were zero deaths in English hospitals at the beginning of the week and none in Scotland for some days.
Same way there is still a deadly pandemic when there isn’t.
TT, I’ve seen this described elsewhere as an “important statement”.
PS: I won’t be watching.
Nor me. Can’t stand the sight of him.
Have your Leicester contacts got any insights, over and above the mayor’s latest comments?
The mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby has been very critical of the local lockdown.
My understanding is that the city is relatively relaxed at the moment. The lockdown has not been as tight as the original one. There is a fair amount of traffic on the roads, but of course, pubs and “non essential” shops are not open. There is no special muzzle restriction in place.
A recent quote from the Telegraph:
The Mayor of Leicester has revealed his frustration at the Government’s “blanket political-led lockdown” of the whole of the city.
Also, the local newspaper:
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/continuing-leicester-lockdown-cannot-justified-4325648
Thanks. So Hancock’s statement could be in response to this, although Sky seems to be suggesting it is unrelated. We will see (no doubt leaked to the Telegraph after lunch!)
Hopefully he’ll be resigning
All I can add is a simple uptick!
If only!
Ha ha!
We wish!
Perhaps he’s changing his pink tie for a different colour and wants us to clap enthusiastically. Or make more announcements on muzzles.
It’ll be something to do with a victory over Eurasia, or an increase to the chocolate ration.
Do you think they might try claiming an Ebola-like organic matter has been found blooming in lakes and ponds somewhere in the north?
This won’t be good.
Emergency?! He does love his time in the spotlight, doesn’t he. I would guess it will be something about Leicester, or the next place he’s decided to put into lockdown.
Is he Boris’s attack dog, or is he just out of control? Or has he threatened to dish the dirt if sacked?
Was a Tesco in a South Manchester suburb? I had a very similar conversation with a lady on Monday! Maybe because they’ve worked closely with the public from the start, shop workers are more pragmatic?
Once you start talking to people, it’s amazing how many of them are sceptics but are just too scared to put forward their point of view in case they are shot down by others.
I’ve just had a conversation with an 80 year old friend who I was sure would be a lockdown zealot, as he and his wife are always straight down the line with everything. To my surprise, he thought the whole thing had been an utter disaster. He and his wife were out visiting tea rooms and coffee shops and were getting together with their whole family for a holiday soon. How wrong can you be about someone?-he’s a lifelong diabetic too
Just got back a FOI request from one of the local councils.
Few interesting answers but they:
– only use central government guidance, no research themselves
– they have done no risk assessments themselves
– they never mention the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 even though all Statutory Instruments are supposed to be subsidiary to this as this legislation is the one the government says all the restrictions and S.I.s are supplementary to
– they keep mentioning health and safety legislation which the council have no real powers to use to put restrictions onto businesses, it is down to the individual business to do their own risk assessment and initiate their own restrictions as they see fit
basically they are overstepping their power under the wrong legislation or trying to impose restrictions by circumventing the correct legislation then browbeating businesses and people into believing they have this powerB
A few of the interesting answers (my comments etc in highlights/italics):
1. “Guidance” and “advice” are not legally enforceable and does not have to be followed. The
Government has reiterated this in the past week in their legal reply to the Judicial Review request by
Simon Dolan and his legal representatives Wedlake Bell as part of their defence on school
(non)closures.
In the list of further information websites listed at the bottom of the Telford and Wrekin document I
downloaded 10 of the 12 websites have the word “guidance” in the title. 1 is for posters that mislead
the reader that social distancing and other restrictions are mandatory and 1 is a list of frequently
asked questions
With this in mind please state what piece of legislation or legal basis your are using to force retailers
and other businesses to either implement the “guidance” or to stay closed if they cannot meet the
listed “guidance” as per the checklist?
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 (for business
closure) Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and Management of Health and Safety at Work
Regulations 1999 for social distancing
councils don’t have the powers under these acts to restrict businesses under these acts once the government said open again so the answer is a bit misleading
2. Was a risk assessment used to generate the guidelines you issued? Please supply the risk
assessment.
No risk assessment produced – so what are they basing it all on?
3. What “science”, Government backed or independent, was researched to generate the risk
assessment on which the checklist is based if the answer was “yes” to point 2? Please supply the
research and the evidence.
Please follow the link below:
https://www.hse.gov.uk/coronavirus/working-safely/risk-assessment.htm – business should not use someone else’s generic risk assessment and certainly not one where the science and research is not supplied to prove the mitigations are correct
4. The Government and the National College of Policing have both stated on numerous occasions that
social distancing is not law, nor is it legally enforceable in England. Social distancing also has no
basis in science, cannot be backed up by science and was plucked out of thin air using no evidence
whatsoever as stated by Professor Dingwall.
With this in mind, please state what piece of legislation or legal basis your are using to force retailers
and other businesses to abide by social distancing “guidelines” as if it has force of law?
Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 and Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations
1999.
business should not use someone else’s generic risk assessment and certainly not one where the science and research is not supplied to prove the mitigations are correct
5. The Government and the National College of Policing have both stated on numerous occasions that
social distancing is not law, nor is it legally enforceable in England. Social distancing also has no
basis in science, cannot be backed up by science and was plucked out of thin air using no evidence
whatsoever as stated by Professor Dingwall.
With this in mind, please state what piece of legislation or legal basis your are using to install street
signs, pavement markings and so on that misrepresent social distancing to be law? Were the words
“if possible”, “guidance only” or similar included in the signage?
For details, visit – https://www.gov.uk/guidance/safer-public-places-urban-centres-and-greenspaces-
covid-19.
not based on any law, just the centrally issued guidance so again a misleading answer
Mr A Git. Your findings need to be ‘amplified across the internet’ to use the phraseology of today. UK Column would be exceptionally interested in your findings and understanding.
Given the correspondence to UKColumn, Simon Dolan, Toby, laworfiction, the FSB and BBPA, clubs.magazines I subscribe to and the local press.
Simon and laworfiction answered.
FSB, BBPA, Clubs/magazines and the media no answer so I assume they are not interested in letting their members know they are being lied to.
Might try and send it to the bosses of Marstons and Wetherspoons as they seem to be the only companies fighting back.
I don’t know anything about the Pub industry but these umbrella groups might be a way of getting the information some attention. SIBA seem perhaps the best of tge three having an urgent help required statement on first glance.
https://beerandpub.com/
http://www.micropubassociation.co.uk/
https://www.siba.co.uk/
beerandpub is the British beer and Pub Association, contacted them twice, no reply.
I’ll fire off something to then others to try and spread the word.
Sherelle Jacobs hits the wicket yet again – a true national heroine!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/16/no-10s-orwellian-approach-science-has-entered-chilling-phase/
A less inspiring article from the same paper today:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/15/death-commuter-extinction-level-event-london/
Though this paragraph (hope it’s OK to post here, it’s only a fraction of the article) does appear to have a sceptical tone to it if you read carefully:
“For better or worse, neither West nor East will tolerate a resurgence in infections; they will hunker down again. There is apparently no other plan, no hope until we get a vaccine or cure. This über risk-averse approach will also apply to any major new virus: social distancing, masks and home-working are bound to be reintroduced each time a new infectious disease appears anywhere in the world, and even during significant flu seasons.” –
Are people really going to take this hyper-risk-averse attitude once the economic impact really starts to hit home?
I think this says it all:
Questioning the reasoning behind face coverings, Mr Johnson told The Telegraph: “I think it is more about trying to reassure those scared witless people that it is safe to go outside, it’s safe to go to shops.
However, he immediately goes on to say:
“I think it acts as a constant reminder to everyone that this disease is taking over our lives and it continues to reinforce the obsession and hypochondria around one single illness to the detriment of every other aspect of life.”
Remarkably honest of you for a change Boris!
I think you’ll find this comment may well have come from Luke Johnson former chair of Pizza Express rather than Boris. The article has used his comments from the podcast Planet Normal.
That is so contradictory, even for a a brain damaged Boris.
The ‘scared witless’ need to be reminded at every opportunity that normal life goes on, that they are the odd people. they should not be pandered to.
My worry about people actually seeing the light is that a society dim enough to put Johnson in charge in the first place has a high proportion of evidence-immune dimwits.
Is this for real? That’s just plain screwing with all our minds. Just when one thought it couldn’t get any madder…
See above, it’s Luke Johnson, not Boris
Ah… oops.
That was said by Luke Johnson of Pizza Express not Boris Johnson
I’m tapping this out in Ireland. I learnt yesterday that pubs here aren’t to open now until August 10th – it was to be next week (Is mór an trua é sin). I checked this out this morn. There’s even worse news. Facemasks are to be made mandatory. Here’s the Taoiseach’s justification:
My Government and I have received very sobering advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team. The concern about the rise in the number of cases over recent weeks is very real.
The R number, which we have all become familiar with, has now risen above ‘1’ in this country.
And the international situation, with almost a million and a half cases reported in just the last week, represents a growing worry.
“A million and a half cases”! Sure in the Auld Sod there hasn’t been 26,000 cases in total.
The week beginning the 29th June the daily average number of cases was 13.4
The week beginning the 8th July the daily average number of cases was 20.3
Enough, I’d say, for any government to take a Corporal Jones’ response to decision making.
60% of the pubs in my town will never open again after lockdown, some of them had been open for hundreds of years
When those that are left open I will not go in as buying a pint contributes tax to the Dictatorship
Will emigrate…… Hungary looking good at the moment
It’s nuts Ned. I particularly like the perfectly logical, science based requirement of only being served alcohol if you spend 9 euro in Irish pubs. Spend 8.50 and risk dying of Covid.
Should have said spend 9 euro on food.
Yet another politician following the same script, here are some more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVCqSbIRPH8 -will try and find other videos
So who is in charge?
Some good news from America. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/07/breaking-trump-admin-wisely-strips-cdc-control-coronavirus-data-information-will-now-sent-central-dc-database/
It is NOT good news when the collection, reporting and dissemination of raw facts becomes subject to political control.
It’s good news when they put an end to it.
Could we please have a list of the major supermarkets that have decided to not implement the new gagging order before July 24th?
Thank you.
A follow on from my post last Saturday where Mr Bart and I had afternoon tea where we were treated like proper human beings, I would also like to extend a positive shout out to the staff of Jamaica Patty Co (Covent Garden) and Slim Chickens (Brunswick Square) for providing a sense of normality, courtesy and good old fashioned common sense during these insane times.
Also to my local dry cleaners – chatted to the woman who served me who is also a sceptic and has been avoiding the shops as she refuses all the hassle of queuing, compulsory sanitising and the whole lot.
Has anyone else had the experience of the first piece of the last two Lockdown Sceptics appearing on the email but being cut when viewed outside the email? The two in question being the report from an NHS whistleblower on the last posting, and the piece on obtaining an exemption lanyard on this one?
The whistleblower’s claims could not be verified, so had no journalistic integrity – I assume this is why it was pulled. You can find it on David Icke’s site – whether it’s true or not I have no idea. I can’t help with the lanyard piece, I’m afraid.
Thanks for the info – I thought that might be the reason. I see the article about lanyards does appear on today’s article after all. I have found myself becoming a bit paranoid lately.
The whistleblower article actually corresponds with a lot of anecdotal information I’ve received from the start of the Lockdown, and from a relative of mine who works in the NHS. If you haven’t read it, do so – but until an NHS whistleblower is brave enough to do a Snowden, it’s simply hearsay at the moment.
I had a dream last night. Matt Hancock was mugged and duffed up on the street in broad daylight. When the police asked him “Can you identify your attacker?” he replied: “No, sorry officer, he was wearing a mask”. Then I woke up and realised it was a nightmare – waking up, that is, not the dream.
Anyone know if updated IFRs are being published anywhere?
This was in the Daily Wail yesterday (I know, not the greatest fact source):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8524395/Significant-reduction-virus-lockdown-eased-study-finds.html
The wording in the link has nearly nothing to do with the actual story:
Coronavirus R rate in England was LOWER than officials thought in May as huge government-funded study estimates average of 0.57 for the month after SAGE claimed it was between 0.7 and 1
The thing is – there has been for some time plenty of evidence to counter the ‘panicdemic’ narrative – none of it is news Certainly, from the beginning of May (after the April spike), it was becoming clear that this was not an generally exceptional infectious event, and the early contrarians had been shown to be right in their analysis and prognosis.
Since then, the government has been busting a gut to perpetuate a myth that bears no scrutiny, aided by the mainstream media – a network in which proper investigative journalism has been replaced almost exclusively by a network of chatter between members of a chatterati that also includes the vast majority of the political class.
Nick Davies’s book ‘Flat Earth News’ is worth a read inthis context if you haven’t come across it. It predates this shambles by quite a few years, but is an admirable and prescient analysis of the emergence of what he calls ‘churnalism’.
it needs to be demanded that the government provide regular updates on the estimated IFR.
They need to be forced to answer the question.
If we are all right here, and this is all a big over-reaction, then we must force the government to admit it. And the only way I can think of is to force them to make public and own the IFR figures.
Maybe Toby Young can help somehow to create pressure.
The ONS do publish the IFR,:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/latest
Is this not what you are looking for?
Although it doesn’t cover care homes, dealt with in a separate study. Since the number of infections clocked is dependent on the number of tests done, I’m left wondering how anything but a random test of a total group is of any interest. By weird coincidence, I have today received a random invitation from DHSC to participate in a study:
reactstudy.org/antigenreg !
This is one of my favourite books ever and was a contributory factor in me leaving journalism. It’s 100% true. Every word. When I read it every breath I exhaled felt better and better – finally someone recognised the frustration I felt with my profession.
I trained as a journalist and left after six months – and that was thirty years ago.
The estimated mean/median IFR rate seems to be settling at about 0.26%. But, of course, there is a massive age/comorbidity gradient in mortality that really can’t be ignored, such that it is sensible to look at data for those <65 to get a picture for the majority of the younger healthy population (<0.05%)
Then there is the problem of establishing true infection rates (which would probably push the calculated percentage downwards). In summary – this ‘pandemic’ isn’t even a notable epidemic now.
There is a recent paper at :
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v3
I can’t vouch for its validity.
By this stage, the government should have a simple dashboard showing hospitalisations, deaths, cases, estimated total infections and estimated IFR.
If 4 months into the biggest crisis since WWII the government isn’t able to produce and share these basic metrics, then the crisis of public policy is even bigger and we are well and truly finished.
We should demand it.
I suspect they don’t really care what the real figures are. They may or may not know them. If they do know them, they would certainly not want to publish them as it will expose the Big Lie.
I don’t think they regard this as a crisis any longer, but as an opportunity.
Sadly, I think you’re probably right about it their seeing it as an opprtunity.
After this experience, I wouldn’t trust any data coming from government sources directly. I would be flying in the face of reason and swallowing propaganda.
However, there is a good independent substitute :
https://www.cebm.net/oxford-covid-19-evidence-service/
The data is consistently updated.
Been reading this article this morning:
https://www.technocracy.news/cdc-confirms-extremely-low-covid-19-death-rate/
The SCFR (systematic case fatality rate) is about 0.004 by the analysis of CDC numbers if I understand it correctly.
Rate is being driven down by more testing showing more and more asymptomatic people being counted as a confirmed positive which makes the virus even less dangerous as more people infected but not dying giving a lower ratio – I can figure that much out quite quickly (realised this back in March) so why can’t the politicians and “experts” they listen to?
This is all great. But what is really needed is for the government to own these figures. And for that to happen they need to publish them themselves.
We need to demand that they publish updated IFR estimates (by age group).
If they do, they will have much more trouble justifying their measures.
Found this while reading that article:
https://twitter.com/gummibear737/status/1263082350709178368
handy print off and keep guide.
Thx
https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2020/07/09/a-conversation-with-john-ioannidis/
Sorry if posted before but very good interview with aggressive questions handled very efficiently
Glad you are back, been missing your posts!
To understand the masking edict you have to understand the thinking that drives the vaccine ‘imperative’ – I use this term to differentiate from vaccine choice as part of health freedom.
The thinking goes like this.
Vaccination is not once applied and forever protected. But requires periodic ‘boosters’ to maintain some measure of protection excepting in those who are vaccine resistant (are not protected).
Full protection seeks to either eradicate the virus from the Earth or limit it via the notion of herd immunity as a very high percentage of the population maintaining their vaccination status.
Just as a mask believed effective should be protection against the unmasked, a fully vaccinated person should be immune to the virus and to the unvaccinated – but the vaccination is only considered a full social protection when ninety something percent are up to date with the scheduled requirements.
To choose NOT to wear a mask/or vaccinate is therefore to be socially irresponsible – or as Gates coined it – a ‘baby killer’ – and in masking – the accusation is that of killing the old and the frail – as if lockdown itself is not achieving this already.
The underlying leverage is to undermine individual consciousness of free association and informed decision – which is the bedrock of any cultural human expression – for the subordination and sacrifice of individuality to imposed groupthink of an imagined or asserted collective – represented by victims that are weaponised to leverage guilt and call for punishment, invalidation or penalty of denial and exclusion from social acceptance or indeed status and permission to basic human freedoms – which are now to be allowed by the state only on condition of compliance with systematically regulated and enforced mandates – which may be presented as if a choice – but one which must be chosen to evade heavy penalty.
The issue of freedom and responsibility is at the core of our human experience.
The attempt to gain or boost freedom or life by dumping our consequence to scapegoated others is the mind of judgement and blame that operates power struggle by stealth and deceit in us all. But the scapegoating or demonising of human beings as viruses – (infection vectors) demanding a bio-security state to micro manage not only speech and behaviour but genetic expressions and its result represents an unprecedented human self-hatred, operating in place of connected and coherent thought, feeling and response.
Fear and hatred are always found together – along with grievance and vengeance.
Blind reactive conditioning operates exactly like an A.I system running as a self-destructive loop to the ones it was originally invoked to protect.
The mask in itself is a prop for whatever play anyone assigns it, you can give and hold the meanings you choose to give, but in its imposition by a corporately captured state mandate it operates as a legal placeholder for further mandates that override and erase individual consciousness to conditioned or normalised compliance.
There is no dialogue with such a ‘mind set’ in intent to deny, but nor need we respond to the masking presentation of a human being in place of the human being.
To give authority to a masking lie in return for the power of its protection against feared and ‘contagious’ truth is to choose to die while alive as a self set in isolation from feared exposure to an intimacy of being that undoes self-illusion as the possession of control.
Who told you (that) you were naked?
I voted for the Monster Raving Loony party in the last election, and my suspicion is that they would currently be doing a better job of handling this ‘crisis’ than the Cowboys and Indians we call ‘Conservative’ who have squandered all the good will they were afforded when voted in. We were told Brexit would break Britain, but C19 has done the job quite adequately even as we hope for a clean break from the EU come next year. I can’t stand to see the country being coerced into these abnormal patterns of behaviour. As a life-long sufferer of contamination centred OCD it has been an enormous test of will for me to deal with the constant admonishments to wash hands and use anti-bac sprays. It’s such a joke that the things i used to worry about and the behaviours i engaged in previous to having gotten my thought patterns under control over the last few years are now being pushed in my face everywhere i go. Fuck you Boris and your technicoloured dream cabinet of big money funded stooges, fuck you NHS and the zomby admiration you have elicited for your negation of basic health-care principles. I’m not going to have my hard work ruined because you are incapable of proportionality in your assessments of the risk to public health posed by this low quality Chinese bio-hazard.
//venting over
I am seeing a major rise in mental ill-health associated with anxiety and loss of control.
The psycho-warriors in the SAGE sub-group have a lot to answer for.
Has anyone got an evidence relating to Hancock saying ‘deaths in retail workers are 75% higher than the rest of the country’? i.e. it being a lie?
I need to counter someone who just posted the related article from the Metro + is claiming it’s accurate
Numbers were posted yesterday by (I think) skipper, or possibly Sylvie.
It does seem to be true in terms of numbers per thousand of the working age population, but the numbers themselves are so small that it’s as likely to be a statistical anomaly as a demonstration of causation, as far as I can see.
You would have to control for known related factors – such as income level, and then state error margins for this to have any semblance of significance.
… and then you would have to do the most neglected statistical operation of all : evaluate the *real world* significance.
I think it is “statistically significant”. I’ve just posted my reply in the forums. Hopefully a really dry thread about statistics will be a good way to get the ball rolling
Can you link to the specific forum, I’d like to read a really dry thread about statistics ?
https://dailysceptic.org/forums/topic/are-shopworkers-dropping-like-flies/
Peter Hitchens posted a good analysis of this statistic on his Mail on Sunday page/blog
Hancock is technically correct. Male shopworkers’ death rate as of 26 June was 34.2 per 100K of the overall working age population rate of 19.
Female shopworker rate – 15.7 i.e. 162% of 9.7.
But total shopworker deaths in 3 month period:
M 43
F 64
So not so scary!
Sorry, too late to edit, but male rate of 34.2 is (obviously) 175% of 19.
And as someone pointed out earlier, the nascent panic in Blackburn is about 60 ‘cases’ out of 150,000 people.
If you look in detail at the figures you will see that the average for people who actually work seems higher than the average for working age, possibly because people like students haven’t died so pull the average down.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19relateddeathsbyoccupationenglandandwales/deathsregisteredbetween9marchand25may2020
There are lots of occupations above the average, and lots that are “worse” than shop workers
The numbers are all so small as to be statistically meaningless
Using those figures the way he did is utterly reprehensible
Thank you, I remembered you’d done a much better analysis but couldn’t find it!
Much will be made by the followers of the cult and the BBC of BMA support for universal mask usage.They did an on line poll of members which attracted a reponsse of 5000 ie a turnout of 7 % of which 85 % were in support of face masks in enclosed public spaces and 15 % against. Using the remainer / leaver logic of turnouts you could actually say that only 5 % of BMA members were in favour of face nappies.
The BMA committee voted 32 to 3 in favour . It is a political juju with no evidence base . This is the same committee that refused to publish any pro Brexit papers in the BMJ as it would ” lead to unnecessary deaths. “
I note that the twerp writing in the Grauniad is about to eat “1 white chocolate flapjack the size and weight of a brick,” although spikes in blood sugar are strongly correlated with poor Covid outcomes. But he’s wearing a bit of fabric over his face, so that’s OK
My husband and I were talking earlier about the whole Covid/lockdown situation over a cup of coffee (he was on his coffee-break ha ha) and we agree on why we think this is happening, not just in the UK but also in many other countries. The internet and social media. Or, rather, the way (we presume) governments undoubtedly get data and statistics from social media use.
They probably get information every day on the ‘trending’ topics and the thoughts of everyone who uses a social media platform. And they use this data to determine policy direction. But being such idiots, they don’t seem to realise that those views are of the minority of the population. I have no idea what percentage of the population uses Facebook for instance, but I’m sure I read recently that only a tiny percentage of the UK (3%??) uses Twitter. And we think this is why all the polls and pundits got it wrong about the referendum, about Brexit and about last December’s general election.
If the government did the opposite of whatever that data tells them, then they might actually do what the majority wants!
Well, we live in hope…
Social media has definitely not helped. And yes, it seems largely full of nutters, present company excepted.
I wish that were so but there are a lot of Twitter users in the UK according to this site:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-twitter-users-in-selected-countries/
Almost 18 million, but I suspect that many of them are dormant accounts or hardly used.
I have two. I’ve never touched either.
I can’t be doing with Twitter, although I do have an account. It seems nigh on impossible to stop all that jerking as you’re trying to scroll through the tweets. it’s bloody infuriating.
Both the Clinton and Blair administrations used focus groups mostly selected from swing/key constituencies to drive government policy and rhetoric. Initially, this was very successful for both governments, but then led to a serious hollowing out of their respective bases.
It could well be that we’re seeing an evolution of the same concept, and likely with a similar result.
Yep. The true virus is the media. In all senses of the word.
Interesting how the MSM and social media now seem to bolster and amplify each other. – it was supposed to be the other way around.
Definitely, it’s a social media pandemic.
Why do pandemics stop although the majority would be susceptible? Nothing new, look at Hope-Simpson’s report about Asian flu 1958
https://twitter.com/FrankfurtZack/status/1283005853872906242/photo/1
Face masks: uncomfortable, unnatural, unnecessary. But has their imposition on the sheeple of England gifted that odious woman north of the border the biggest opportunity yet in her quest to split up the United Kingdom? The disease has all but disappeared in Scotland – no deaths for a week, and new cases per day mostly now in single digits. Hopefully it won’t be too long before Krankie can follow St Jacinda onto that dance floor. And at that point she’ll announce, “we’ve won”. Ostensibly she’ll be addressing the victory over Wuhan flu, but what she’ll really be referring to is the victory over Bunter and the English. Her underlying message will be “We’ve got rid of Wuhan flu before you did. Look, we’ve had no new cases or deaths for three weeks, so social distancing and mask wearing can cease from tomorrow. You lot south of the border are still treating your fellow citizens as though they’re walking blobs of bio-hazard material. Aren’t we brilliant! Wouldn’t we be better off on our own, freed from the yoke of English imperialism?”. What might our glorious leader do to pre-empt this inevitable situation? How about abandoning antisocial distancing and muzzles forthwith?
Ok – let’s see her publish her prospectus. The financial section will be very interesting.
Do you really think that once cases have disappeared from Scotland for a period of time that mask wearing and social distancing will cease? If you’re right, I might move to Scotland instead of Sweden.
Not going to happen.
No it’s not going to happen. The only question is what the story will be to keep her cult and assorted unfortunate others in continued purgatory.
On the aesthetic of masks. People look to my eye to be walking around with a ‘face-grabber’ from the film Alien.
Seeing many families with 6-10 yr olds wearing masks on around town. This I find most disturbing.
It is, in fact, unwitting child abuse – as is the whole Scary Fairy narrative as it has impacted on children and schools.
In the days of the unknown, we operated our own caution (which should always have been the standard). It’s now some time since we actually got back to normal in the wider family (sometime in May, I think as we de-programmed others), but we were both disturbed by the way in which initially our grandchildren flinched away when they came ‘too’ close.
The good news is that we soon corrected the psychological damage that had been done to them. But I cannot forgive the perverted motives of this government in institutionalising this child abuse.
Even Chris Evans is wearing one of these
On the aesthetics of masks. To me appear as Fetish gear – inappropriate in a public space.
I hope, Toby, that you’ll be covering the disgraceful Jofra Archer affair: man gets publicly shamed and sacked from his lucrative job for briefly going home.
Yes, he’s apparently put everyone in danger, imagine that. (If it’s that bloody dangerous why are they playing cricket? I despair of the intellectual pygmies in the media.)
I think he’s only been dropped for this game. If he’s been sacked it’s outrageous considering that Stokes was only suspended.
Lockdown ‘should be lifted in 90% of Leicester’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-53422664
“The Department of Health and Social Care previously said it “makes no apology” for trying to reverse infection rates.”
Oh but you should – you should get on your knees and grovel to every man, woman and child in Leicester who you terrorised with your decisions.
Aren’t they ‘cases’ and not ‘infections’ as the people testing positive are mostly asymptomatic?
But then again, ‘infection’ sounds so much scarier than ‘case’.
They are not even ‘cases’ unless there is medical intervention, they are tests positive. Was anyone ever a ‘case’ if the took to their bed with a bad cold or flu?
They should apologise to Leicester and they should explain to the whole country what has been found out here in terms of testing showing increased numbers and they should explain that there is nothing to fear. I find it so difficult to understand what the continued fear is for? It certainly feels political. I so hope that major retailers stand up to the face mask laws. I would head to any shop which does this just to show support and strength of feeling.
Medical chief ‘not a face mask sceptic’Chief Medical Officer Dr Frank Atherton said he would not describe himself as a sceptic on the benefits of face coverings.
He told the daily coronavirus news briefing: “Everybody who’s looked at the evidence has basically concluded that there is weak evidence of a small effect” on coronavirus transmission.
Answering questions from journalists, Dr Atherton said Wales had perhaps set a “higher bar” than other countries “in terms of asking the questions about whether face coverings would be both necessary and proportionate”.
He said the virus “really is transmitting in very low amounts now in Wales” so the “necessity is questionable”.
Three-layer face coverings will be mandatory on public transport in Wales from 27 July.
Wearing a face covering in shops and supermarkets in England is to become compulsory from 24 July, bringing it into line with Scotland.
Consider that statement: “‘Weak’ evidence of a ‘small’ effect.” That’s right, it probably doesn’t have any benefit, and if it does it’s not very much. That’s enough to make laws now.
Said it before, pascal’s wager.
Three layer!!! I hope the Welsh government is prepared to pay for them then.
Is anyone actually going to check said face covering is 3 layers? I mean really?!!!
Is it just coincidence that since the statement by Hancock in the Commons regarding facemasks, The media is overflowing with the issue of trade with China? Couldn’t be a diversionary tactic could it?
I see Toby just shared this on Twitter. I downloaded it and it’s very interesting regarding herd immunity. Perhaps something to share with others?
https://twitter.com/medrxivpreprint/status/1283702201379160065
From the government website, with added highlighting. Shame they can’t read, follow or promote, their own guidance.
Need one say more?
“Guidance
Staying safe outside your home
Updated 24 June 2020
Evidence suggests that wearing a face covering does not protect you. However, if you are infected but have not yet developed symptoms, it may provide some protection for others you come into close contact with.
Working safely during coronavirus (COVID-19)
From:Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Published:11 May 2020 Updated:10 July 2020,
There are some circumstances when wearing a face covering may be marginally beneficial as a precautionary measure. The evidence suggests that wearing a face covering does not protect you, but it may protect others if you are infected but have not developed symptoms.
It is important to know that the evidence of the benefit of using a face covering to protect others is weak and the effect is likely to be small, ….”
When do you think the government will publish this new scientific research, which disproves all the previous studies?
They will have to find some first!
I can’t remember if it was Descarte who questioned the scientific method on the grounds that reproducability was presumptive as reality may be different in the past or future. Or some such philosophical, existential absurdity.
I never realised that the government had turned this into official policy.
They’ll argue that any possible positive effect is worth it, regardless of how marginal it may be
I’ve just been reading about working-from-home addicts thinking up all sorts of reasons for not going back and doing it properly. The latest is squashing the second wave by not going back at all until next year. Seriously. From government, where else? Well, working from home is like preferring porn on your iPhone to taking part in the real thing. It’s hiding. It’s hiding from the sounds, smells, and heat of the real thing. It’s hiding from the subtle changes in mood and reaction from your fellow participants that lead you to change direction a bit yourself. It’s not a JOINT endeavour in real time any more. It’s like peering in through a pub window when you were a kid and wondering why your dad was so happy and laughing in the yellow light. And it’s proof of the adage that those who can – do, and those who can’t Zoom. Perfectly suited to the aforementioned government and public ‘service’.
Cui bono? /Follow the Money:
Who benefits from the ‘Work at Home’ meme?
Who benefits from a vaccine for a generally mild infection?
Who benefits from the WHO slanting its guidance and undermining its previous assessments?
Rocket science, it ain’t.
The government has opened a real pandora’s box.
Most people don’t like to work, they’ve been handed a perfect excuse not to and won’t let it go.
In the meantime, because the government forced the lockdown in the first place, it is trapped itself into propping up the economy by any means.
The government won’t fess up to overreacting, so it’s going to be a long painful struggle to get people back to proper work.
(They think masks will help them get people out, but it just visually reinforces the idea that the virus is super dangerous – I mean it must be if everyone has to wear a mask all the time, right? – they’ve really boxed themselves in.)
Not only can they not fess up to over reacting; no matter how much more damage is caused to the economy and our health system, the government have to do everything in their power to negate any suggestion that the virus has died out because the country has developed herd immunity.
As someone who provides remote working solutions, I can tell you that we are currently snowed under with work at the moment, so much so that we’ve had to employ temporary workers for the increased demand.
All the companies and organisations I deal with that have moved to remote working are finding that their staff are getting more work done than ever and staff are happier, and most are now looking to close offices and permanently put in remote working solutions, or downsize premises for a reduce office staff.
There is actually a lot more cohesion than in the office too, I have noticed a big difference in people. I think this is down to less Micro-Management, and also the shorter days that people are having to work without having to commute so they’ve more energy.
This way of working is here to stay now, and it will only get more popular.
‘Nuff said
For me, I like being out of the road and meeting new and interesting people. At the moment with having to work from home, it’s all rather boring for me. Usually during the time I’d be in different towns and cities around the UK staying over in nice weather, playing golf at local courses, and trying local pubs and restaurants in the evening after work. Instead i’m stuck at home whilst the summer disappears!
Sounds like my kind of job, far more interesting than being stuck in an office all day.
Best career move I ever made, and no interfering micro mangers being a downer all the time.
A family member,who works for a large Swiss bank, has requested ,and been granted, permission to work from home permanently.
She has a specialised role as an analyst, is trusted by her boss, and is much happier: no commuting into central London on packed trains; savings on fares; more productive and generally much happier.
Of course bosses will benefit by reducing overheads while increasing productivity-at least in the highly paid specialised professional roles.
Unfortunately, none of this largesse will benefit those poorly paid workers who are keeping the country running like shop staff, delivery drivers, bin men, care assistants, taxi drivers and many others.
Improved productivity is probably a “Hawthorne Effect” and will decline in time.
Nevertheless I hope that home-workers are persuading their employers to pay for their telephone/broadband costs, additional heating costs, etc and adjusting their tax returns to allow for the use of their house as an office.
HMRC will be overrun with all the P87: Claim tax relief on work-related expenses claims they will be having to process at the end of the financial year!
They need to follow the Irish example – employers can pay WFH employees €3.20/day tax free for WFH in lieu of having to submit expenses claims to the Revenue Commissioners at the end of the year. Mine has taken up the payment.
It really highlights the inequality for those of us who live in rural areas where the broadband is so slow that it is an obstacle to working from home. On a good day we have a download speed of around 1.5mb, upload about 0.7. Emailing is fine as long as no large attachments but you can forget about MS Teams or Zoom meetings. Oh and we have no mobile signal either!
Depends a lot on what sort of work you’re trying to do. A lot of those engaged in analytical and scientific work have found it improved their work rate not to have to engage too much with other people’s moods, emotions, flare ups over car parking, disappearance of teaspoons, and the like.
i.e being part of the human race.
Ha ha, yes. A better mix, so meet in person say weekly, might suit many though. And has been interesting how smaller businesses, which wouldn’t have used Teams, Webex, Skype before, have taken to Zoom to share documents and work together remotely.
One problem I do forsee with people working from home, is that you have to have a mechanism of switching off from work, and as a lot of people are new to home working they end up working a lot more hours but without realising it.
I have worked half the time from home, and the other half on the road for 10 years, and even when working from home I have the same routine as I would if I was going to a work place.
Absolutely true, and definitely takes a period of adjustment, hopefully with management support. And it’s really hard for young singles, even if living in a shared flat, they do need the social mixing.
My wife hides my teaspoon …
As a public sector worker (further education) , having worked from home since end of March and with no end to this in sight, work seem to have this wonderous idea that support staff can work from home at least for the autumn term. And this was said in a meeting 4 weeks ago.
Personally whilst I like some of the advantages of working from home, no commuting be high on the list, I miss interaction with actual people face to face. Skype/teams calls are not the same at all. I can see working from home may become more normal if people want to do it but again this really should be a choice for each individual going forward.
I agree, I’m glad my current job ends next month- no enjoyment at all anymore.
There’s obviously a balance that should be employed here. Most people actually couldn’t – and wouldn’t – work from home because it’s impossible (services, leisure, retail, entertainment, care etc. Etc.)
Other sectors are a question mark (teaching). I personally am gonna LMAO when many teachers end up being fired once they start all this part-time remote learning nonsense.
Others are a given. More or less any office job can be done from home and many people would love the option. That’s awesome for them but there are many others (myself included- single people without families mainly) who enjoy the daily in person interaction with other humans.
I fear for the future of our towns and cities. It was nice to have somewhere to go to socialise, work, shop and be around fellow human beings. Sadly if everyone works at home we can kiss this goodbye.
I took back a previous job in a higher salary in February not because I like the work but to spend a year building up a dance workshop business alongside my normal job. Then crazy virus world arrived.
Dance and all the arts and entertainment industries can’t work from home, I’ve seen dance teachers lose their entire income overnight from this and even doing online classes they can’t recoup what they’ve lost in earnings. Some schools will not come back, the same with theatres.
So there should be a balance of working from home allowing the industries who can’t to carry on as normal.
I’ve done both in my time, and am quite aware of some upsides to working in a cocoon. But I wouldn’t recommend it across the board.
And, as said – what is being damaged currently are working situations that are inimical to isolation. The Arts, Sport, ‘Hospitality’ and Entertainment sectors are above all social enterprises, and can’t function in an artificial environment most suited to hermits and individuals on the spectrum.
Have no doubt – these moves are not, in any case, about doing things better (for which reasonable, selective objective I have no qualms). They are about fragmenting social contact and breaking apart normal social structures.
Being one of the Old Fart Brigade – well past retirement age – I have no a priori investment in either side of this argument. But, having used ‘Zoom’ meetings as a substitute for normality in this present farce scenario , I know that such technological fixes bear no comparison with the subtleties real life interaction.
Unfortunately I work in museums and heritage and working from home is nigh on impossible. Unless I can transport myself or be a hologram.
A friend of mine works in finance and security is a major concern hence why she doesn’t like working from home either. She’s also said more than once that on site, if she has a problem it can be solved quickly but with working from home the problems can drag on for days on end.
I know this might be controverisal but I like going to and from work – I read more when I commute, the people watching, the interaction and the sense of closure at the end of the day. I don’t think I can get that working from home.
From the discussions I’ve been having with Schools I think a lot of the teaching is going to move onto the Google Education Platform in the not too distant future, so like you said a lot of teachers are going to end up out of work, as well as a lot of teaching assistants.
Like you I am missing the interaction of meeting people as I’m normally on the road.
I think that a lot of this could be the start of a push towards Smart Cities:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/eu-regional-and-urban-development/topics/cities-and-urban-development/city-initiatives/smart-cities_en
Bluntly – anyone who things technology a substitute, rather than an aid, to the process of teaching either (a) has an investment aim in sight or (b) is a bit dim.
Helps to push an ideology more easily. Have you ever seen BBC BItesize that kids are told to use to learn, extremely worrying!
It was GCSE Bitesize in my day and all the teachers used to call it GCSE Bullshit because it was terrible
Imagine the data harvesting.
Completed my first bare faced boogy with my euan’sguide mask: made welcome, as usual, at greengrocer’s and zero waste shop.
Town very busy; people everywhere and lots of traffic.
Visited Morrison’s purely to gauge reaction to my badge: no one took any notice. 2 security blokes at door ignored my showing it to them and no one else reacted,apart from one woman who gave me a dirty look.
However, the atmosphere has changed since yesterday: notice at door-‘please wear face masks’; queue forming; absolutely no eye contact or acknowledgement of any kind; people i passed looked down or looked away.
I was the sole bare faced person in the entire busy shop.
This is definitely having a deleterious effect on behaviour: as I walked home along my road, young bloke who passed me looked down and then stepped off the pavement.
Very depressing and unfortunately I cannot see any improvement in the near future.
From now on, I shall stick to early morning shopping and walks-when the general ambience is almost normal.
Alternative suggestion: get one of the plastic visor masks, smear with snot-like substance, grin madly at everyone. A visible reminder to these in nappies what they are breathing into.
These people are brain dead: mask-zombies.
I’ve noticed that many keep fiddling with the gags; pulling them down, adjusting them, and generally rendering the entire process utterly pointless: a bit like our lords, masters and mistresses.
The Great British IQ is alive and well!
Saw that today too – lots of touching, pulling, tugging, adjusting. One man even used his muzzle to wipe something off his nose! He would have been better off using a tissue and binning it.
I’ve seen a constructive comment of mine not being approved for publishing here yesterday. I was only trying to say we should care more about each others problems.
Like you all started seeing masks as a problem when they have been made mandatory in England, but didnt care much about them in Scotland.
Anyone following Dr Vernon Coleman?
https://youtu.be/Wf0LSdpEy9w
‘
So I was a bit surprised to see that on 24th July the UK Government joined no other European countries (except for Scotalnd) – in imposing a ban on not wearing masks ‘
Compulsory in France from 01 August.
On a différent matter… how much of this is going on elsewhere?
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/fox-35-investigates-florida-department-of-health-says-some-labs-have-not-reported-negative-covid-19-results
Ditto, the Germans have had to ware masks in shops for a while now.
Excellent to have list of small businesses that have reopened. Suggest that you also have a list of shops and other places that won’t require face masks so we can support the brave.
Recently I’ve started to listen again to talks by Derek Prince. He is (was as he is no longer with us) a man of God and very humble, wise, calm and careful in his teaching. This in itself is a real tonic against the hysterical, shouty, arrogant and unbalanced approach which passes for much of what is given to us as news falsely presented as fact these days.
As a Christian I’ve long been too complacent about my faith and have excused myself of this since I’m very introverted and not good at asserting even loving words to anyone I don’t know but the current warning bells have started to wake me up.
So this is where I’m starting my search.
He / Derek Prince Ministries can be found on YouTube and Spotify and many other places on the web.
I’ve revised my theory on face nappies.
They aren’t religion, they are superstition ( though the two often go together). They are, in fact, amulets or talismans. That explains why zombies wear them even in their own cars, and on bikes in open country, and presumably in bed. While you’re wearing your magic amulet, you won’t get Covid.
As for protecting other people, fuck that, it’s ME that counts, and you have to wear the filthy rag to protect ME ME ME ME.
If the govt had imposed rabbit’s-foot brooches instead, the effect would have been the same. Except that it would be a lot better for us and a lot worse for the rabbits.
The basic problem is that a new religion has been created.
There are a group of supreme beings – Public Health England, Department of Health, WHO etc. who have the authority to declare the true faith. We have the priests and acolytes who will disseminate and interpret the pronouncements from on high. We have the Prophets of Doom who will tell us of the disasters that will arrive if we do not follow the approved teachings of the priests. To advertise our faith we have had clapping and rainbow drawing. To take it further we now have the symbols (masks) that we can wear which demonstrate who are adherents of the new faith and who are clearly heretics unbelievers and witches who must be ostracised or removed from society.
But, as we know, religions are an issue of personal belief and not susceptible to reasoned rational argument.
However much we might talk about the stupidity of lockdown, the incompetence of leaders, the irrelevance of masks , the only effect of our discourse will be to allow us to let off steam.
I fear none of this will go away – and the crusade may yet even intensify as the state uses the police to enforce the true faith. Have the gods of any faith ever declared that their followers can now return to the life they used to lead?
In previous times rulers relied on religion and the High Priests to back them up when they wanted to inflict things on the people. Any dissent was dismissed with the warning that to defy the edict was to go against God and his priests.
These days all intrusive Government policy, food, drink, climate, Covid, etc is ‘the science’. Modern day High Priests, the Experts, pronounce ex-cathedra from the sacred scrolls, computer models. All must obey
Those who challenge, disobey are against God-science.
On the subject of rising cases in places like Florida and Texas (as discussed in the “postcard from Florida” Telegraph article linked to in today’s LS update), I was wondering how long it will be until cases start to drop again, and if so this would remove one of the major fuels of “second wave” panic. Then I realised that this will inevitably be attributed to the reintroduced restrictions/closures, and people will be a lot less eager to open up again, after what happened the first time. So (conveniently for the pro-lockdown, alarmist mentality) it doesn’t look like there’s much chance of these second spikes being given the chance to die off naturally.
From looking at the statistics it seems obvious that some US states (and other places like Australia) locked down, and then opened up, long before reaching herd immunity, so it’s inevitable that cases are going to rise again. From the “postcard” article, it sounds like there actually has been an increase in deaths and hospital cases, but surely not as catastrophic as it’s made out to be? Are there any articles with up-to-date figures on the situation in the US?
Not ‘cases’ ie people with disease requiring medical intervention, but positive tests. Many of these are in asymptomatic people. The tests pick up antibodies or viral RNA fragments. These tests only indicate that the subject has had the disease and recovered, or had the infection (no disease) or has previously been exposed to other coronavirus.
The infection mortality rate is <0,2% so very few of these positive tests will result in deaths.
As for Florida the surge in ‘cases’ is attributed to high false positive reporting. Reference to the Fox News report in Round up above.
Florida has not had the typical death curve, quick exponential growth, peak, decline. It has been almost flat-line. Recent increase in daily deaths is catch-up. Mortality is among elderly with underlying conditions who are moribund anyway.
Is there any “target” at which we can stop wearing masks when it is reached? Or will the government just decide when they think it’s safe enough?
Deliberately not. Not target, date or scientific. For the foreseeable future is the spoken language by leaders of various nations.
Nope. Next step wearing masks in the street too until a vaccine is found and everyone submitted to being vaccinated.
There are no temporary Government measures which do not become permanent unless and until the peasantry pick up their pitch forks.
Look out for the coming mask shuffle to pass masks across from covid to say influenza. They are here to stay unless people reject them.
I have no intention to start wearing face masks. Of course I have no idea how that’s going to work out for me in practice but I am pretty sure the consequences will be minor compared to whats in store if we continue to meekly obey our fascist tyrant overlords.
Non-compliance, no date required.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Muppets-Different-Masks-Statler-Waldorf/dp/B07SVYZVKG
Since we’re all being treated like Muppets, how about one of these?
Animal was my favourite character- barking mad!
https://youtu.be/aeKdh4gt00A
In case anyone hasn’t seen this. Brilliant! Andrew Lawrence is keeping my precarious sanity from disintegrating.
He does a good job of coming up with brutally apt names and titles: “Benjamin Snivelling-Turd, Junior Government Minister of Obsequious Arse-licking”.
O Yes!!
I can’t read this as I’m not a subscriber but the title in itself is plenty
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/16/coronavirus-tests-halted-safety-fears-matt-hancock-make-statement/
Oh and this
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/coronavirus-englands-face-mask-law-could-backfire-says-eu-expert
It doesn’t really say what’s dangerous about them, very mysterious!
I found the full article on the Guardian. Basically the private firm that supplies test kits to care homes + the public have ‘unsafe swabs’
Swabs contaminated with covid-19 by any chance?
Now that would be an interesting development!
It’s not the first time it’s happened during this charade…
The danger is that profit from the £133M will diminish the more tests they do. Stopping now means more money in the pocket.
Can’t read the article as I’m not a subscriber, but when I searched for something similar from other sources there was absolutely nothing to be found. Really strange, as surely this a quite a big story?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/uk-government-orders-halt-randox-covid-19-tests-over-safety-issues
33
Apparently Hancock is wetting his pants over all the “false negatives”. No mention, apparently, of false positives.
False negatives is a good thing, as long as none of those people were ill (and we keep being told that everyone is asymptomatic). Wider spread and better immunity surely?
I might explain his tearful face on tv lately
I couldn’t watch him. I had a similar aversion to May.
I predicted this months ago, I was told it was because I wanted old people to die: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2020/05/22/600-physicians-say-lockdowns-are-a-mass-casualty-incident/#3df782cb50fa
As Toby says, the no-death days will soon be upon us and may already he here:
A further 19 people who tested positive for the coronavirus have died in England, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals to 29,144.
Patients were aged between 52 and 91 years old and all had known underlying health conditions.
So, once again, no normal healthy person of any age has died from this virus.
I’m not sure what’s going on today, but for some reason I’m seeing lots of people who walk past on the path that runs outside my house wearing masks, even though they don’t have to outdoors. Since the lockdown I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone go past in a mask, it looks like the brainwashing had certainly set in now.
Thats your washed brain types cleverly realising ttat they can be proactive ahead of the date of must wear. This is the skillfully judged bit of the plan the fore delay to creep the behaviour in – ever hesrd of esrly adopeters and how they function in marketing terms. Those are the people out side your window. Self aware alert and conscientious members of society, citizens.
It seem to be all people I’d say were under 25 too, those the least likely to have any problems from it.
Yep. Lob bricks at them.
https://www.abc.es/espana/aragon/abci-sanidad-ordena-exterminar-granja-92700-visones-contagiados-covid-aragon-202007161147_noticia.html#vca=rrss&vmc=abc-es&vso=tw&vli=cm-general&_tcode=czRyMmIy
92700 minks to be culled in Aragon, Spain because of suspicion of human transmission. Remember the tigers with Covid-19 in New York and the zoo keeper with Covid-19? Perhaps it was the other way round and let’s start culling the tigers?
Mulled mink hmm, sounds delicious
Spain is batshit crazy
Good job I don’t like it there
(Too many tourists)
So that’s fine, mass extermination of animals, based on a hunch!
Speed cameras ARE being used to fleece drivers: Watchdog reveals how locations are chosen in ‘good hunting grounds’ for making money rather than preventing accidents – so is YOUR yellow box among those raking in the most cash?
Not a covid issue, obviously, but hopefully it’s one Toby would accept here. If I were to try to twist and turn to get a justificatory pretext:
It a story that…illustrates the cynical dishonesty of government and police and…… their willingness to abuse pretexts based on safety….erm, to…. pursue ulterior goals.
Just like the coronapanic!
Anyway there’s a whole chapter on this phenomenon in the new book I’m currently reading as a result of an interview link first seen here on LS:
Matthew Crawford: the dangers of Safetyism
For anyone that has not watched it, the interview linked to above is well worth your time and is very relevant to the current situation with the virus
I agree, and I’m actually enjoying the book so far as well. I do think it’s very much in line with Toby’s past comments (remember the “Dangerous Party”?)
Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road
Kind of reminds me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but it’s decades since I read that and I think it’s probably mostly due to cultural and recreational similarities between the authors.
I’ve written so many emails to MPs, ministers and supermarket customer services depts over the past couple of days. I don’t know what else to do. This morning I got a mealy mouthed response to one I’d written to my own MP.
Having just finished and sent a further reponse to him I am enraged and have nowhere to go with it. Putting some of it here as a release. Hope that’s ok.
To Duncan Baker, MP:
A final word on the enforcement of wearing masks.
To insist on such an invasion, such an intimate assault on a private person, especially on the basis of such weak evidence as is available, is an outrage against that person and their human rights. I, and many others, will not comply. I most strongly assert that you and your dreadful ministers do not have the right to force me to do things to my own body against my will.
Note I do not say government. As far as I am aware we are no longer living in a parliamentary democracy but in a police state, where officers of the law are instructed to enforce the rule of individual minister’s whims and diktats, a place where neighbours are encouraged to inform on one another, where members of the public are invited to shame and harass their fellow men and women, a place where people are forced to chose between upholding their principles, maintaining their personal boundaries and physical integrity and obtaining food, the means to live.
We have moved a long, long way from making sure the NHS had enough capacity to cope with a sudden influx of the sick, a long way from ‘flattening the curve,’ haven’t we?
I invite you to take stock. You and your government’s ministers have, among other things, so far:
trashed our economy,
deprived us of our right to assembly,
cancelled our democratic right to vote, May 2020,
put us under house arrest,
kept us from accessing necessary medical and dental care,
deprived our children of an adequate education,
kept us from comforting our sick and dying,
prevented us from burying our dead and greeting our newborn,
demanded first we abandon members of our families and our friends, and then demand we choose favourites from among them,
attempted to dictate who we can be physically affectionate with and when,
attempted to dictate whether we could have sex and with whom,
and now you have decreed what we must place upon our person in public places.
That’s quite a tally. Is this what you entered politics to do?
I am not at all reassured by your email.
I am certainly never, ever, going to allow wearing a face cloth to become ‘second nature.’ If nature had intended a flap over our nose and mouth as part of our respiratory system I am sure we would have been born with one in place.
Avoid Spain on your jollies this year. These are the face masks rules. I particularly like the beach one. Walking to and from the sea – no mask. Walking parallel to the sea – mask required. People are actually paid to make up these rules…
FACEMASKS
The rules are;
In your own car: The driver and passengers need not wear facemasks if registered as living within the same household. If anyone else is in the car, then facemasks MUST be worn at all times.
Your own home or your own private pool:: That is your own decision, but if you have guests, visitor’s etc – then it is advised you do wear facemasks, but otherwise facemasks need not be worn.
Children UNDER SIX (6) are excused wearing facemasks, but if you can make them understand, then perhaps it would be beneficial for them to do so
Communal or public pools: Facemasks are excused while swimming or sitting in your own group, but at all other times, the facemask must be worn
The Beach: When your sitting in your own space with family unit, you do not need to wear a mask. Neither if your walking towards the sea (to swim) …… but otherwise, walking along the beach for whatever reason means the facemask needs to be worn at all times.
Public Transport: Facemasks are MANDATORY at all times. This includes taxi
s buses, trains, aeroplanes.s: When actually using the equipment within the gym, a facemask need not be worn. But, when walking around in the common areas within the gym, a facemask must be worn (again, just sensible behaviour towards other people will be appreciated).<span style="color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Walking the dog, ferret, cat, horse goat or rabbit</span>: Facemasks is MANDATORY at all times.
<span style="color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Restaurants, Bars, Cafes</span>: When your sat at the table with friends/family, you do not have to wear a facemask, but if seated talking, perhaps consider putting it back on. (as a responsible adult! ). Walking around or visiting the toilets, means the facemask must be worn.
<span style="color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Shops, streets, cinema, shopping malls, airports, train/bus stations</span>: Facemasks are MANDATORY at all times.
<span style="color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Sports & exercising</span>: You do not have to wear a facemask if exercising or playing sports …. This includes jogging, running, cycling …. But walking is NOT included (again, as a sensible adult, please wear a facemask if at all possible before & after).
<span style="color: rgb(29, 33, 41);">Gym
At Work: Facemasks while at work is MANDATORY at all times.
…………………………..
Plus, please remember > EVERYONE needs to carry PHOTO-ID at all times (this has been a law for decades) and this includes Spaniards, Residents & TOURISTS. It must be acceptable photo ID, so the green residencia is not acceptable > so Passports, Driving Licence or TIE card.
…………………………………
As far as I can see, everything is covered above > if I’ve missed something let me know, then I’ll add it accordingly.
Basically, we all need to be SENSIBLE about this. It is for the combined good of everyone. The rules exist and if ignored you will likely receive a fine, STARTING AT €100 per person and rising steadily as you disagree with the police officer. Those willing to pay these charges will of course be much appreciated by all for paying extra towards Spain’s public services, but may well be shunned by most others who are willing to obey.
Is this everywhere in Spain, or does it vary by region?
Not sure. This is from a forum for the Malaga area
Thanks!
Looks like Franco lives!
I enjoyed seeing the staked out isolation squares around the sun loungers. Done by pegging rope into the beach marking borders between isolation areas. If ever anything was a health and safety trip hazard it is a pair of flip flops and a trip wire running in the sand.
And I thought we were ahead in the madness stakes; unbelievable.
Using a mask in a swimming pool is waterboarding surely?
So in Spain you have to carry photo identification with you AT ALL TIMES! Presumably even if you’re walking along a beach. And we think things are bad in this country!
It’s the same laws in a lot of countries – I’ve spent 30+ years overseas and it is always a good idea to carry a photocopy of your passport at all times regardless.
You’d be surprised who easy going the UK is compared to most places and police forces, especially the federal ones.
It’s pretty common France and Germany certainly have the same requirement
But but … the eu !
I can only think of one place (maybe 2!) to hold it whilst in my swimwear. I would gladly hand it over for inspection!
Nudists?
Generally speaking you ride a horse not walk it. I won’t be wearing a mask when riding my ponies if the idiots in power decide to make them mandatory outside too. It would scare the ponies.
Franco would have been shocked at such illiberality.
Use masks as a mocking counter punch weapon. Dripping with satire, sarcasm, great quotes, aphorisms, lines from poems, pamphlets, etc. Mobile graffiti that people will see wherever you go.
Another thing we could all do is gam up the system. So say….. I want to go get my eyes tested in next few weeks. Sadly I tried to sneak in before the maskacre begins, and I failed.
So the plan is to book an appointment with ALL my local opticians, high street chain and/or independent in a short time frame. I will go the appointments unmasked and take no notice of antisocial distancing.
If I am ordered to put on a mask I will do so. But I will put on a balaclava, hence making me completely incomprehensible when I speak. An eye test cannot possibly be performed if the patient can’t communicate what they’re seeing.
They’ll have to order me to take it off. Process will be repeated with whatever shitty ‘surgical’ number they hand me to replace it with. Hopefully they will order me to take it off again. The appointment can continue unhindered.
Basically the first place to get my point and allow an unmasked appointment gets my custom. Anyone who asks me to leave doesn’t. And I just wasted an hour of their time with my performance.
Gaffa tape over the mouth before putting the mask on would work equally well.
This is from the Spectator;
Masks, it seems, are not being made mandatory for public health reasons but to inspire confidence to get people out and about. But there is a risk that this will backfire: that masks will reinforce the idea that the virus is still very much at large. Covid-19 has now receded in the vast majority of the country. The official estimate is that 0.03 per cent of the population of England have the virus. This means you would have to meet almost 4,000 people in a shop to stand a reasonable chance of coming into contact with someone with Covid-19, let alone catching it. Such facts can help put things into perspective.
But rather than publicise such numbers, ministers introduce edicts and restrictions that were deemed excessive at the height of the pandemic. This risks sending another message: that the threat is perhaps larger than is being let on. Surely it would be better, as Mr Gove originally suggested, to have an honest conversation over the data, the risks and the extent to which masks are likely to help. Reluctance to do so would suggest a lack of respect for the electorate, or people’s ability to draw their own conclusions
“Reluctance to do so would suggest a lack of respect for the electorate, or people’s ability to draw their own conclusions“….
… or a justified fear that people might draw politically and personally inconvenient (for the government) but correct conclusions about the disastrous incompetence that gave rise to the lockdown policy.
That’s the real evil – not the initial blunder, which was unforgivable but to err is human, but the cover-up that has been ongoing since they realised there was nothing much to worry about
How does that explain a lot of other countries and their politicians following exactly the same playbook?
Broadly and to varying extents, same panic, same opportunities seized, similar lies to cover up.
Occam’s razor is beginning to suggest a deliberate plan.
Maybe so, though I’ve had a long experience of following governmental incompetence and corruption and I’m heavily disposed to the incompetence over conspiracy side, so I would take a lot of convincing. Other folks’ mileage clearly varies.
(I mean over-arching conspiracy, obviously. There are numerous petty political conspiracies going on all the time).
Because it’s a global agreement that’s why!
The sheer shameless dishonesty of continuing to pretend there’s some kind of plague about is rather mind-boggling. But again, that’s not confined to “Conservatives”, nor even to politicians, when you consider the enthusiastic complicity and mendacity of the (very much anti both “Conservative” and conservative) media and scientific establishments.
I think it’s a bit late to recognise that the Spiv and Chancer government, led by the physical embodiment of A Walking Talking Porky-Pie has “a lack of respect for the electorate”!
It’s a fair criticism, but it’s equally true that all the available alternatives would most likely have been worse. We do not have a corrupt and incompetent party, we have a corrupt and incompetent elite.
This man made crisis proves how much the elites really despises the common man.
“But there is a risk that this will backfire: that masks will reinforce the idea that the virus is still very much at large”: “risks sending another message: that the threat is perhaps larger than is being let on”
Not a risk at all – a certainty.
I couldn’t have put it better myself
This reasoning is spot on, unlike the government’s, which is perverse. IF this ruling isn’t reversed (fat chance!) I really hope it has a rapid and severe adverse effect on the High Street.
Do you have a link to the article?
Here you are:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-confusion-in-government-goes-beyond-face-masks
Thank-you
Actually the having to meet 4000 people is incorrect, the chances of making it more likely than not to meet someone with it would be significantly less. Just like you only needing 23 people in a room for there to be a 50% chance you share a birthday. However it is still a ridiculously small number to be forced to wear masks and antisocial distance and altogether ruin the quality of life for such a pithy disease.
The chance that each person you meet isn’t infected is 1 – 1/4000 = 0.99975. Thus you need to meet about 2770 people to still have a 50% chance of not meeting an infected person (prob = 0.99975 ^ 2770 ). Meet a few more and your chance of meeting an infected person will be above 50%: not that much short of 4000 in an order of magnitude sort of way!
[ The birthday analogy is not really comparable because the 23-people applies for any two to share a birthday and NOT for YOU to share a birthday with any of the others ]
Thank you for correcting me!
I’ll be shopping less from now on.
Never going to wear one
Do I have this right?
– A judge of the land said in court just the other day that it was not only legal but right and proper to force people to stay in their homes for ‘advisory’ (potentially indefinite) periods because they had access to the internet.
– Another judge of the land has just stated that a terrorist must re-enter the country in order to undertake trial because there is no other way this can be achieved.
(An army base in Raqqa and a satellite phone. Job done.)
?????
An innocent counter of severed heads.
Allegedly. One was hoping trust in our governments was on the wane …
Maybe she’ll be heading a new Mask Enforcement task force.
Truth and meaning are subordinate to convenience and ideology, in a corrupt society.
Glad to see confirmation. As someone with history of Asthma, gives me a genuine excuse to roll out, and I can then just pull out my asthma pump if some twat gets arsey.
Also, the language used by Whitty again: “Wearing a face covering is an added precaution that may have some benefit in reducing the likelihood that a person with the infection passes it on.”
It couldn’t be more clear that making these mandatory is totally unjustified on any scientific level, and yet they persist and the hysterical morons lap it up.
Me too – I had asthma in my childhood, so will just carry round my becotide and ventolin inhalers. Part of me wouldn’t mind seeing some intolerant lefty admonishing me for not wearing a mask, and then I’ll give them what forth!
Scottish Childrens Commissioner says that every child in Scotland will need mental health support.
“Even the most resilient children are going to need additional support as they navigate this transition back into whatever is the new normal. Take as a starting point that every child is going to need something extra and many will need a lot extra.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/16/scotlands-children-need-post-covid-19-mental-health-care-says-report
If anyone knows of the recent attemped Scottish Government Named Person scheme and the successful campaign No To Named Person this article may be of interest.
I should think the majority of adults will need something to, mental health is shot!
What children need, and everybody else, is Sturgeon’s head on a platter.
A Kickstarter project worth supporting? Some of his pieces are very powerful messages:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/laborcamp/piotr-szyhalskis-covid-19-labor-camp-reports?ref=discovery_newest
My opening gambit when engaging strangers in cv19 conversation is about mask in shops.
So far it has not failed to be a good conversation opener, ordinary people are realising, that the mask decree is nonsense and they are will to have a conversation about it.
As Toby said in todays blog “Could This be Boris’s Poll Tax Moment?”
Hopefully it is, Talk Radio & LBC both have had discussions about why from the 24th July, and the feeling I got was that sensible people are now asking why.
So – yesterday (I think?) the head of the CDC made the claim that if everyone wore face masks the coronavirus would be “under control” in 8 weeks. Nevermind that any idiot can look at the charts all across the US and see that it will be gone in 8 weeks, regardless. Let’s get that virgin thrown into the lava pit, post haste!
It is, of course, just providing an excuse for every governor in the country to mandate masks. This guy didn’t cite to any new study or any groundbreaking revelation. Nothing has changed in “the science” over the past several months, but the dominoes are falling, just as they did with lockdowns, and everyone is too stupid to see the parallel. It is mass hysteria, just like any other mass hysteria, which is, of course, the very basis for our system of government with its limitations of power, checks and balances, etc… but, considering the fact that we stopped actually teaching history, I guess people have forgotten all about that.
I expect some kid who gets stuck in his grandfather’s library to accidentally sit down with a book about the French revolution and think to himself: “oh, damn…. daaaaaaamn”
What does “under control” mean? Half empty hospitals? If so, it’s been under control in the UK for quite some time, but without face masks.
The nice thing about vague language is that it can mean whatever you want it to mean. Apparently, if you want to have near-dictatorial powers, all you have to do is declare an “emergency.” Even though the statute (in my state) contemplates that an emergency only lasts until “order is restored,” apparently that is subjective, so my governor can declare that there is still “disorder” for months at a time, maintaining an ongoing state of emergency. Obviously, the statute was not intended to be so vague, but that is where we currently are. Politicians have really perfected the art of speaking in such a manner that they can always claim to have been right… so, “under control” means whatever they want it to mean when they have some other arbitrary requirement to force on us in the next year or so. Once it is undeniably under control, it will shift to being necessary as a proactive measure against the “next wave.” In short, this power lasts forever.
News just reaching me of the chaos in Inverness where the covid pavement widening schemes are going all out. Funny how a virus makes a city council turn roads into a one way system from hell. Pictures of long queues as the council has put in barriers to close half the width of roads.
More deliberate choking of transport infrastructure on the back of a plandemic. Coming to an urban centre near you soon.
That’s where my ex and sons were shouted and “coughed at” the other day.
I still don’t understand.
They’ve narrowed the roads to widen the pavements?
Every day is like something from the Onion come to life.
Yes. Your car is undesirable to them. Personal transport is to be restricted or choked. Electric scooters and bikes – tagged active travel – are the future. This covid has provided the moment to leap forward with those plans alreay in action. Verify by looking at your councils 5 10 20 year plans.
Habitat Conference.
2030.
Must be done in Summer because come winter the fun aspect will have worn off.
Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, new green deal, carbon neutral, zero emissions, all been planned for a long time.
Yes. And it is available to look into online with UN source documents and so on.
Car undesirable, but you are discouraged from using public transport … better get your shoes re-heeled, but sanitise them first.
This is the desperate conflict they have yet to get out of. I cannot work out how the two will reconcile.
Not quite COVID related but our council has removed one lane of a road to make it a cycle lane. It is alongside an existing cycle lane.
If you see that covid is being used as an opportunity to bring in substantial changes to our way of life then this is highly relevant to covid.
I’ve been saying this from the very beginning the virus is all about the Green Agenda it was never about our health.
They can fuck off can’t they.
Or in more polite terms it is really sad to see our living environments, our living heritage being tweaked by technocrats. These road ways are thousands of years old in our towns and villages. It is obscene their current keepers have worked to use them against us the people. The covid farce a mere excuse for this plan ocurring up and down the land – no conspiracy.
Looking at these myopic town council planners from the point of view of a legionaire or a sack clothed Anglo Saxon makes me realise how futile city council busybodies are.
Peasantry are the continuity of national life. It is the game of the establishment to obscure sight of that fact.
It’s happening. Trust Stamp is being rolled out in Africa. Google it.
Ok now I’m scared.
They always test his nefarious shit on those poor Africans/Indians. I hope they kick off. Come on Africa, kick off!!! What’s betting the President of Tanzania won’t be letting this shit in lol
What’s the betting the President of Tanzania has a sudden heart attack, just like the President of Burundi did?
Foot already in the door in the UK:
https://atdc.org/blog/u-k-s-national-cyber-security-centre-selects-trust-stamp-for-participation-in-the-ncsc-cyber-accelerator/
Yep, next stage of the vaccine passports – covipass, ID2020, EU vaccine paperwork and so on:
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/bill-gates-gavi-vaccine-alliance-mastercard-truststamp-biometric-digital-identification-combined-with-vaccine-west-africa/
Reported lots of places.
I also saw this warning on a blog from Mexico I read:
Insider info: Pandemic mayhem in OctoberI just finished talking to a high ranking member of a major conservative organization that has already locked down millions of people in quarantine due to the organization having knowledge of a new virus that will be released within a time frame that slates October as a month of major mayhem. This organization has many elite within it’s ranks yet is conservative. They have already provided comfortable quarantine to millions of people. Some of their people are still out and about in public, but they have protected their most valuable people with forced quarantine because they don’t know when the new virus will be released and there will be two groups, those that are already quarantined and those that are not quarantined but provide support. It is a very interesting arrangement, they are obviously taking this seriously.
Many readers of this site have probably seen the recent video clip of Bill Gates stating “This virus did not get taken seriously, but the next one will”. It came off as a threat. I believe that was a real threat, and now that this organization has taken this action, it really appears we indeed have something to worry about. It was the conservatives that first saw through the B.S. and if this organization is not subverted it has to mean that the elite within it’s ranks got real insider info and there really is something new on the way to worry about. I’d say there is a 30 percent chance of subversion and a 70 percent chance this is all legit.
Anyone with a lick of sense knows the doctors are murdering people and false registering deaths, as well as faking test results to get the stats up to actionable levels, but too many people are aware of this now and it is highly probable that the elite have therefore decided to do it for real this time. So it only makes sense to:
1. If you own a business, be prepared to shut it down, now is not the time to expand and put it at risk with additional debt. If it is going under already, don’t wipe yourself out trying to keep it afloat.
2. If you consumed your Corona supplies and can build them back up, you had better get that done SOON because the clock is ticking, this time we have a solid warning.
There is obviously a chance this is all a hoax and nothing real ever will be released, but Bill Gates actually did threaten this and this particular organization would be the last one I’d ever expect to fall for a hoax. Subversion of this organization is possible, but not likely.
One final note: I actually went to one of the locations this organization was supposed to be using for quarantine, and YEP, they are there, and quarantined. It looks like they are being stupid for now. This is supposed to be happening in every country, with this organization.
October cropping up far too often now – there was something mentioned on here a few weeks ago by a high-profile journalist who heard off the record that October lockdowns were being planned for the UK. Would look through all the old comments but having a beer after dinner so can’t be bothered.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8530449/Wales-BANS-public-transport-users-talking-mobile-phones-new-coronavirus-rules.html . Just when you thought the madness couldn’t get worse . What on earth could be the reason for not reading a paper?
What the fuuuuuck?
This isn’t true. The only guidelines I can find, on the Welsh Govt website are these:
And I cannot find anything on the BBC Wales website or Wales Online about not reading newspapers etc.
Why would the Daily Mail lie about these measures?
I sent an email to my MP, a junior minister, yesterday after the announcement of mandatory face masks. I said I thought the Gov’s handling of the Covid-19 outbreak had been an omnishambles and that the final straw was the masks. I told her I was resigning from the Conservative Party and had a reply today which must be a record for a short turnaround!
Here is her reply:
“Thank you for your email.
I regret the decision you have reached, though would respectfully disagree with your characterisation of the Government’s management of this unprecedented crisis.
Similarly, I am not sure I would agree that the mandatory wearing of face coverings, due to take effect from 24 July, is somehow redolent of a dystopian, or authoritarian, narrative. We know that as more and more of us return to our nation’s high streets and city centres after months of necessary idleness, the more difficult it will be to maintain a safe social distance from others, especially those with whom we do not ordinarily come into physical contact. That is why face coverings serve as a proportionate precaution; but also, as we have seen from the same policy being introduced on public transport, mandatory face coverings will restore confidence to shoppers and give our high streets and city centres the boost they desperately need at this time.
However, there is of course a more cogent rationale: sales assistance, cashiers and security guards have suffered disproportionately in this crisis. As we restore shopping, we must too take the necessary action to keep our shopkeepers safe.
Thank you for contacting me on this issue and I hope you will reconsider your decision.”
As you can see she seems to be saying that sales assistance (sic), cashiers and security guards have suffered more from Covid but I don’t think there is any evidence for that (just as there is none that NHS staff have been).
The only thing that’s bloody unprecendented is the government’s response.
And the China-lying.
China – or rather the CCP lying is nothing new. I don’t understand why anyone would expect anything else. If your approach to anything depends on honesty from a bunch of psychopathic communist dictators then it is doomed from the start. Still it appears now our government intends to emulate the CCP in every way.
“omnishambles“
Honest, accurate assessment
“this unprecedented crisis“
Dishonest, self serving and grossly misleading mis-characterisation. Since when was a new cold/flu epidemic causing a barely detectable bump (if any at all) in the annual all cause mortality numbers, “unprecedented”?
Job well done, anyway. She will pass the message up the chain and if enough similar messages get passed up some at least in the hierarchy will start to get sweaty and shifty.
How do these people reconcile supposedly conservative politics with imposing unprecedented, experimental on a massive scale, authoritarian measures, in a huge gamble with the entire nation’s economic and social well-being, for so little?
Sheer panic and/or not being remotely conservative are the only plausible explanations, surely?
I wrote to Chope, Swayne and Leigh, thanking them for taking a stand on masks. Got a “thanks” from Swayne (not an assistant), nothing from the others yet.
Ditto on the writing and the replies
Agreed. I said in my email to the MP that I felt like I’d woken up in a dystopian novel and was dismayed to find that all these authoritarian measures had been enacted not by a socialist government but a supposedly conservative one!
They are CINOs…the Tory Party is a Centre Left party…has been for 3 decades…never more so than now. Anyone who thinks of themselves as on the Right but is still a member of this party deserves all they get.
A glaring reply reply to that would be tgank you junior minister every word of your email displays the whipped hive mind of a failing political entity. A party without rigours discourse is dangerous to the people it serves. Ba~bye. Maybe leave out the antagonistic Ba~bye.
Have we seen anything from mandatory masking on public transport? I thought passenger numbers were still right down.
Just back from a walking trip in West London – train and tube. Tube seems 100% masks apart from one chap with it dangling on his ear lobe. Tube trains fairly busy but enough space to distance. Trains still very quiet, six per carriage at best. Outside London itself, west of Staines, mask wearing was way way down. I confess I wore one, very uncomfortable on the hot tube.
Around Richmond town centre there were unfortunately loads of mask wearers but further out none. Stopped at a nice cafe in Syon Park, nice friendly staff, not a mask to be seen. Then lunch at a Harvester – they had a bit of the usual palaver at the door (I had prebooked so they already knew my details) but inside it was virtually normal, not a mask in sight. Food and beer all table service, and the usual help yourself salad bar was done with the waitress choosing what you wanted with you stood behind the line telling her. But atmosphere most definitely normal, And those lovely smiles from everybody which you don’t get from the maskies.
They are still down. Went to the City of London today – at one point on the way there, I was the only person in the carriage, buses still dead.
On the way back a bit busy as it was after 5pm but its not like how it was back in February.
That’s sounds very much like something my MP would write! Spooky!
Briefing from CCHQ probably. Yet another sick-bag moment.
Obviously needs to go out more and talk to people. And when I mean people, the real ones not the ones wheeled out for “inspection tours”
Hi DocRC
Your MP is giving the same line as mine did to me.
I debunked the “high risk to sales assistants” line in my reply.
It’s under my name in yesterday’s posts if you have a search function – I don’t on my phone so can never find anything on this site!
About an hour ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/hsb485/coronavirus_tests_halted_over_safety_fears_as/
That’s one way to bring case numbers down – stop testing.
HA HA FUCKING HA.
The muppets could do a better job, at least they were entertaining.
*** AIR PUNCH ***
No more local lockdowns!!
FUCK YOU HANDCOCK
Absolutely, so long as I don’t have to do the f…. yuck yuck yuck.
From the report:
“However the Government was criticised at the time after it emerged that the Tory MP Owen Paterson receives £100,000 a year from Randox to act as a consultant.”
His wife was found dead a few weeks ago after going for a horse ride and not coming home for 24 hours if I remember correctly then it’s not been mentioned in the MSM nor our local press (I live at the edge of his constituency) since then..
It’s always sad to lose someone in any circumstances but the very first thing I could think of seeing the above statement was is this a Dr Kelly moment and did she know too much?
Now that’s the kind of petty (relatively), venal conspiracy I could certainly be persuaded of, with sufficient evidence.
I don’t know why but it was the very first thing I thought of. Maybe I’m too suspicious.
No you’re not too suspicious no one can blame anyone for being so, not with a government like ours. We all need eyes in the back of our heads too! We cannot relax our guard!
“The Government had two systems to choose from: one with a near 100 per cent accuracy and one that was less accurate – for reasons best known to them, they chose the non-clinically validated, less accurate, system.”
I like understated sarcasm. If anyone hadn’t guessed.
Lots of stuff about Russia on the BBC news website today. Distraction from the other bad/controversial news?
Getting excuses in early for the vaccination failure I suspect.
Yes, yes, and YES!
My thoughts exactly! Oh look there’s a unicorn over there!
And it’s made of marshmallows and star dust..!
Hilarious nonsense. I wonder what the expected response is to hearing the word Russia. My response has been the same for decades. I roll eyes and laugh – not sure my response is what tgey are looking for.
The usual evidence free anti-Russian propaganda.
https://mind-charity.org.uk/CZC-6Y5MY-2F4TDN-44H7AY-1/c.aspx
MIND report
This testing cockup will really be a test of the beeb. (Not that they haven’t already been weighed, measured and found wanting).
How will they report it I wonder?
Will they report it at all?
I’m actually looking forward to the news for the first time since the election result.
Also could this be a way of rolling back testing (to quietly ensure LESS cases) without them actually having to admit they’re rolling back testing?
#wishfulthinking
Lol. Not one mention.
Not one. Despite showing clips of Hancock’s ’emergency’ brief where he rowed back (a little) on Leicester.
Got you watching though, didn’t they ?
Some telling graphs from RCGP and Oxford University:
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZTU5ZDE5MGYtMzUzMy00ZjRmLTg4MGEtMTM3ZGJiZDNhODFkIiwidCI6IjZiOTAyNjkzLTEwNzQtNDBhYS05ZTIxLWQ4OTQ0NmEyZWJiNSIsImMiOjh9
This graph lover doesn’t want this shit to end though:
https://www.betootaadvocate.com/headlines/graph-lover-doesnt-want-this-shit-to-end/
Phwoar! Look at the curves on that!
Seems humans are more of a threat to humanity than COVID. This article is dated yesterday but only just got round to reading it:
Fertility rate: ‘Jaw-dropping’ global crash in children being born
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53409521?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
The fertility rate – the average number of children a woman gives birth to – is falling.
If the number falls below approximately 2.1, then the size of the population starts to fall.
Got to keep an eye on the reproduction rate. Maybe SAGE could reconvene to discuss ways to keep it up (ahem).
On a serious note, there really needs to be a serious discussion on population control including death in general otherwise the way we’ve reacted to this pandemic will likely repeat and get more extreme over time.
If the birth rates are dropping in areas where there is high GMO corn crops then that will tally up with reports on lab tests from a few years ago I read that stated that the 3rd generation of every rat population that was fed GMO corn diets ended up sterile along with high cancer rates and lung illnesses.
Will have to look for it again.
Typical project scare stuff. The real problem with GMO crops is that plant genes are moved around between species surprisingly easily and some new genes in the wrong species could lead to highly undesirable weeds.
Didn’t they stick a fish gene in a tomato plant ?
I thought we wanted a lower population. “Don’t procreate, save pandas.” Or some other asinine four word slogan.
I’m getting some really mixed messages from our technocratic overlords.
Global economies are run on debt, or leveraging as some might call it. Borrowing is maintained by GDP which in turn is determined by either population growth or higher productivity if the population is not growing.
At some point the whole system will collapse because perpetual growth is unsustainable.
The western world – especially the US and the UK – has been just awful at improving productivity for decades now. GDP growth is effectively a function of population growth.
Mostly thanks to the exponential growth of the parasitical part of the economy. I’m thinking empire builders here, or people who add no value to their organisations. Those of us who actually produce are continually improving productivity!
You are right in that the powers that be are relying on unlimited immigration to drive GDP “growth”. Just another Ponzi!!
If I were a young woman there is no way I’d want to bring a child into this world!
Really? Which age would you prefer? During the blitz? Before penicillin? Before the vote? During the plague, or maybe in communist China in the 50s? How bout segregated S Africa in the 70s? Or maybe during a small pox epidemic in frontier America…. I could go on. This is a bloody brilliant age to be born in, especially here. This shit is eternal, this is just our shit. Don’t be silly.
I told Mr Bart the same thing. Having a baby during these insane times is tantamount to child abuse.
The good people don’t reproduce, the bad people win without even trying.
This could be part of the natural cycle. As people globally become better off and are lifted out from absolute poverty, they rely more on savings for their old age, rather than having lots of children to look after them in old age.
This was always predicted to happen.
See this how BBC reporter asked a pro-face mask supporter if he could quote her in an article. Over half of the responses are against masks….
Original Tweet by Sir Edward Leigh MP
Forcing people to wear face masks isn’t the business of Conservatives: We are not an authoritarian party.
And don’t we want to get people back into the shops? These proposals just don’t make sense for Lincolnshire.
Carla replying to @EdwardLeighMP
I for one will be much more likely to visit a shop when people are wearing masks.
They make perfect sense, I’m only confused as to why they were not made compulsory earlier.
Oliver Wright – BBC News online Reporter
Hi Carla, I work for BBC Online and wondered if we might include your response to Sir Edward’s comments in an article about what he has had to say?
Carla
Not a problem
https://twitter.com/EdwardLeighMP/status/1283417511292272640
Oliver Wright … <<updates list>>.
From one of the comments:
I’ve never posted on Twitter and have no intention of starting, but if I did I’d be tempted to say: no, it’s people with an attitude like yours who are responsible for the current mess, in terms of how things have been progressing (or not) since the peak in April. Not the pandemic itself or the original lockdown measures, but the unquestioning acceptance of constant fear, alarmism and catastrophism (is that a word?) and shaming of those who don’t follow suit. The “As far as I can tell covid is a disease that can affect anyone” suggests the poster has taken on board the original “stay at home” propaganda and hasn’t bothered looking any further.
If the government REALLY wants to reduce people’s fear and get them out shopping, why not tell them the straightforward facts about hospital admissions and death rates based on age and health!
BBC being as impartial as ever ….
Just flicked on to a BBC programme “lifting the lockdown” – more BBC sh*te. Just saw a kid from Salford – looked about 12 – saying how wonderful it was to work from home as it is easier … poor kid couldn’t actually put a grammatical sentence together .
The BBC just loves the virtual signalling lockdown rituals like face masks and seems to love the fact that many people aren’t working. They don’t understand why some people would like to return to a time when the authorities didn’t interfere with every aspect of life. Maybe this is a socialist paradise.
What I am struggling with is the reference point now for “public health”. The justification for all of this is that public health requires communal enforcement e.g. to prevent the spread of cholera, tuberculosis, typhoid, MRSA, AIDS. But this all depends on how serious and how contagious they are.
Let’s assume that Covid-19 is a little more lethal than flu. We are locking down Leicester because it has a higher than average incidence. But is that higher than the localised incidence of flu in some other place? Or are we now saying that we will lock down anywhere with any incidence of anything that is higher than a benchmark level of acceptable lethality?
And if that is the case, then obviously we should unlock all the places that have a _lower_ than average incidence.
I can’t help but think that we are focusing on one particular illness just because we can, but if we applied the same reasoning to all public health our whole society would cease to function.
I think this pretty much sums up the entire situation!
Our whole society _has_ ceased to function
.
“We are locking down Leicester because it has a higher than average incidence.”
NO, IT DOES NOT.
Leicester is a big city. The “problem” – such as it is – is localised in one part of the city. It is not widespread throughout the city.
And it is not just the city. It also (still) includes the borough of Oadby and Wigston, which is not a part of the city of Leicester.
But that’s what I mean. Any illness or disease is bound to be clustered somewhere. If the response is to lock down any localised cluster of anything, you will always find something to lock down.
You may as well ban driving for two weeks in Clacton because it has a higher than average incidence of accidents. It is complete madness.
It is actually the journalistic trick of “postcode lottery”. Obviously some places will have a higher incidence of something. You just have to look hard enough.
Well quite. But public health isn’t just about infectious diseases. It’s about head injuries to children , malnutrition in children, mental health, access to dental care and accurate health information. All these areas are being ignored or neglected.
So, who fancies pooling our money and buying an island together, and declaring independence from the U.K. government?
“”For those who want something a little closer to the British mainland, Vladi Private Islands is marketing a 64-acre island off the coast of Shetland for £250,000.
It comes with planning consent to build cottages, agricultural buildings, and a pier, plus a watermill, wind turbines and solar panels.””
But it’s in Spiteful Nannying Party Land.
If you could declare independence that would be different.
Absolutely declare independence. Or simply not let anyone else land on the shores, especially busybody authoritarian types.
Be a bit like that year 200 experiment that Ben Fogle was part of!
Sorry meant year 2000, not 200. (edit button disappeared..). Was it called Castaway or similar?
Buy it and hold a tea party on the beach.
But to complete the analogy and perhaps hope to achieve similar success you’d have to get active Chinese/Russian support and ensure the British government is distracted by much more pressing ongoing war with one of them. Tricky, in the age of the Nuclear Peace.
Or you could try the Sealand route and just try not to annoy the British government too much, so it doesn’t pay serious attention to you.
There are few trees on Shetland for a reason. But the idea of what you are saying is desirable.
I do.
Looked good – until the last two items (though, tbf, off the Shetlands any power is probably a bonus).
First Law: All face coverings are illegal – even in a Force 10 gale.
Not sure if they’d let you build high rises though… How many of us could you fit onto 64 acres? Tempting…
Apparently we need to have a high public exposure to the virus before we’re allowed out but putting people at risk of being exposed to the virus could kill people so we’re not allowed to be exposed to the virus.
A bit like getting experience without having a job because it needs experience.
Hancock said something similar in one of his early proclamations. It’s clearly clearly circular logic and an excuse to kick the can down the road.
Yesterday the Irish government decided face masks should be mandatory. Here is the Taoiseach’s justification:
My Government and I have received very sobering advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team. The concern about the rise in the number of cases over recent weeks is very real.
The R number, which we have all become familiar with, has now risen above ‘1’ in this country.
And the international situation, with almost a million and a half cases reported in just the last week, represents a growing worry.
Ireland has not had 26,000 reported cases in total. In the week beginning the 29th June the daily average number of cases was 13.4. In the week beginning the 8th July the daily average number of cases was 20.3
Is it the the 142 reported cases last week that is causing concern or the “almost a million and a half cases” internationally (worldwide perhaps?) ?
What is the Taoiseach’s measure for deciding when the Irish people can walk in to a shop without wearing a mask? Will it be what is happening in Ireland? or what is happening world wide?
Was the rise due to more tests? We’ve been led up the garden path re Covid numbers, those dying with it from underlying health problems and those that died from it! The government doesn’t distinguish between the two which is positively deceitful.
I do not know. I suspect there’s more than a bit of politics at play. Michael Martin has only just become the country”s Taoiseach. And perhaps he’s just covering himself in case there is a rise in Covid deaths. Yesterday’s number of cases was 13 – but you can’t go on one day. Nor one week I would have thought.
Above is from Wikipedia, so yes, increased testing from mid-June it would appear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Which country are you posting from? The UK ONS keeps careful tally of deaths purely from CV 19 distinct from those where it is one of a number of co morbidities on the death cert?
It’s very interesting how everyone copies each other all around the world. Was just the same with lockdowns, and now with masks.
Safety in numbers as they say. As long as they all stick together it’s hard to hold any individual government to account.
I live in Weymouth and 4 weeks ago the country was aghast at the Covidiots who flocked to the Dorset beaches ignoring antisocial distancing. It was “warned” that these people would start a second wave of infections, and they were told to STAY AWAY, especially in Cornwall. According to the Covid 19 App I contribute to, there are estimated to be 665 active cases per million in Dorset. Where is the second wave? Its in Leicester (purportedly) which is actually just about as far as you can get from the coast in England.
There are less than 3/4 of a million people in Dorset,so the infection rate is probably about 498.75 cases per million. Why did we not get the mythical spike in cases? I have to admit most of them behaved like morons, but they didn’t re-spread Covid19.
Partly because it doesn’t really spread outdoors.
I live near Poole and after the people all came to Bournemouth the amount of people on Facebook starting petitions to stop people travelling again and shouting about second waves and we’re all going to die.
And look miraculously no second wave and no real spike either, at least not locally.
Another unexpected visit to see a GP today, nothing cv19 related, if It was I would probably just done for myself rather than risk my life with people who are petrified of breathing.
After standing outside the front door waiting to be admitted I was forced to use alcohol gel on my hands, previous visit I said no thanks and that was accepted, not this time.
Saw the doc and needed to use a bit of sign language as both wearing masks & my ears being blocked made communication interesting.
Off I ventured, no way out, as the door was locked (I did wonder if they have done a risk assessment in case they have an emergency and people need to leave the building promptly?) The door is clearly marked “Fire Exit”. Maybe I should have used the nearby fire extinguisher to break the door glass.
They would not let me out until I used the alcohol gel again, the nurse who eventually unlocked the door put disposable gloves on to pick up the hand gel, she could have just opened the door, but no I had to do that once it was unlocked. Apparently I could spread “the disease” out into the community. If they are harbouring the disease, they should not be open.
Farcical, Brian Rix could not have made it any more of a comedy.
As for a face covering, I wore a scarf belonging to my wife, no-one commented that I smelt of whatever perfume my wife wears, I thought it was a good talking point, but talking is forbidden in these new times.
But I refuse to be beaten down, I stood and had a nice chat to the next people waiting to be admitted. Always good to turn a negative into a positive, beats talking about the weather, and leaves a little warm glow in my heart when I have tried to gently educate people, especially if you can see they are thinking what I am saying makes sense.
Heads up folks, masks could be the thing which makes more people think about what is happening to them.
Exactly it could be the thing that now makes their life a misery that they were lacking before.
And, with the furlough starting to unwind next month, there will shortly be the first of several massive waves of redundancies to really stir up the hornet’s nest – with the government about to be targeted by said hornets!
The fire door – report it to the Fire Brigade.
For sure – highly illegal to have locked doors.
How very sad, to lock the doors from the people who paid for the door so it would always be open to them at the point of need. Disgraceful.
Exactly. The public sector has forgotten it exists to serve the public.
Brave man to face those horrible zombies!
Masks could indeed be the key as you say. The pretence cannot be kept up forever.
They must be praying for a second wave. They can’t keep it up for much longer, the cracks are starting to show.
Nope – they are (deliberately!).
The stories about the elderly and seriously ill are heart breaking. Hope someone pays big time
I am sure the fear instilled in many old people by the authorities of not being able to see their families indefinitely sadly shortened the lives of many.
I think you’re right. A very strange philosophy isn’t it? You must live, but how is not important.
The mask wearers, they’re not really wearing them to protect anyone other than themselves are they. Been to the garden centre today, not a mask in sight, apparently they have no intention of enforcing it next week, its not a chain, just a start
Anyone with a valved mask is definitely only wearing it to protect themselves, since valved masks allow for uninterrupted and unfiltered expiration. In which case why haven’t they been banned, if we’re only wearing masks to protect each other?
Something that has confused me today is the suggestion from “scientists” that people should be deliberately exposed to this flu to test the efficacy of a vaccine. How can they possibly recommend such a thing for this most deadly plague?
How can they? Because life is cheap to these physcopaths who see others as numerals spewed out of models and trials. Just a means to an end.
Previous endeavours to find a SARS Covid type vaccine resulted in the death of many that had the vaccine and showed anti-bodies and was then exposed to the ‘wild’ virus.
Note to any one participating in these vaccine trails. Make sure that you note your exact state of health and if anything changes even after weeks/months to notify these people but also to make sure to report to the Yellow card Scheme https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk
In addition if you suffer serious debilitating health effects or death to claim compensation. http://vaccineinjury.uk
Did any get as far as human trials? I thought because they all caused this enhancement issue in monkeys they didn’t get that far.
You’re right that this is likely to be the biggest risk with the Covid vaccines.
Unfortunately I know someone who has been part of the Oxford trials. I was quite shocked the person would put themselves in that position especially with a young family, but their viewpoint is it’s for the good of mankind. But who knows perhaps a lot of people that agreed were given a placebo.
Claim compensation if you suffer death?
Anyone as long as it’s not them, I assume. Anyway, I thought no one had actually managed to isolate the virus yet?
I’ve actually got a family member participating in the trials. And she’s elderly too. Crazy!
All volunteers should insist that all involved scientists try it on themselves first – and then ‘chicken’ out!
Often surprised people take part in drug trails for very little money after the Northwick Park ‘Elephant Man’ trial a few years ago. The participants got next to nothing for taking part.
Hmm, so far at least, assisted dying, even of the desperately suffering and terminally ill, seems to be much too compassionate for any of our MPs to allow.
In my experience, doctors as a generalisation are the most anti-euthenasia group you will meet outside the Catholic Church.
No it isn’t.
It really isn’t.
I think the medical profession have behaved like cowards in the past four months, but no, I don’t think they are murderers.
Has the advent of the Forums led to posts here being flagged ‘Awaiting Approval’ ?
Not as far as I am aware.
On some forums these things are generated automatically.
I wouldn’t take it too personally if your comment is flagged in this way.
usually happens if you put 3 links in….
Offlands posted a link to these graphs earlier.
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZTU5ZDE5MGYtMzUzMy00ZjRmLTg4MGEtMTM3ZGJiZDNhODFkIiwidCI6IjZiOTAyNjkzLTEwNzQtNDBhYS05ZTIxLWQ4OTQ0NmEyZWJiNSIsImMiOjh9
Look at the third graph, rate per 10,000 respiratory conditions. Pretty much everything was on the decline even before the 16th March social distancing guidelines, as we’ve seen before. Certainly nothing looked exponential. After 16th March there is a sharp drop in all conditions. By the time we get to lockdown on the 23rd, the decline is already slowing. Evidence that can’t be ignored, surely? Unless your name is Johnson or Hancock.
Death graph in Sweden is almost identical. It’s possible that within the next few weeks Sweden may show Zero new cases of the virus as it’s at a very low level atm.
You’d think that would be evidence that all these interventions are unecessary but somehow I doubt it will get much of a mention.
I’ll post tomorrow’s hospitalisation stats from here in Sweden as soon as they are released! They are a good indication of how things are progressing; better than number of cases since it is fairly easy to get a test now..
The problem is that zero covid is being pushed now and it’s about the only way out unless a vaccine comes along or they admit we can control things without the need for such harsh measures.
Moderna and media manipulate meaning (of first vax trial results)
The airwaves are buzzing over the news of ‘promising’ results from Moderna’s first trial of its mRNA bioengineered vaccine. Moderna stockprices have responded accordingly.
Looking, as we have in our lead story, at the results as published in the New England Journal of Medicine, we see a different story; one showing that the vaccine/media publicity machine has yet to change its spots. How they managed to suggest the trial vaccine has shown itself to be safe when 80% or more of the miniscule group of 45 subjects suffered moderate or severe side effects in two of three doses tested is anyone’s guess. Check out Rob Verkerk’s analysis for yourself. And please help share this breaking story.
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/promising-and-safe-moderna-vaccine-trial-causes-severe-adverse-events
A crash course in resilience: the video
This is the antithesis of a vaccine approach. Our team has worked very hard to create a video that brings home the elephant in the governments’ room. It’s deeply unethical in our book to try to excite the public over a vaccine that might never be found to be safe or effective – and ignore the one thing we know works – and that’s our resilience. You might remember we created an infographic on resilience a few weeks back. Well now, as a true audiovisual experience (yes, headphones help!), you can find out how a relatively innocuous virus has brought our world to a standstill. Our degree of immune resilience has become a marker for how severely we can be affected. And there’s a lot we can do about it – you just won’t hear your government talking about it any time soon, such is the politics and economics of the present day.
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/a-crash-course-in-resilience-the-video/
The grassroots are getting restless
But people are waking up. For an increasing number, none of this makes sense. Protests are inevitable and they’re picking up – they’re just not widely reported by the mainstream media. That’s the subject of our third piece. On top of all of that, there’s our weekly news and Covid Zone information tracker update.
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/the-grassroots-are-getting-restless/
Some are waking up, but judging by my foray to the common & tennis club tonight, lots are still somewhat asleep but from a personal point of view unworried by the virus – relaxed, no distancing, talking loudly in groups, mixing. I think they are the people that need convincing – if there are some important voices shouting loudly enough then I think there are plenty of people who don’t really believe in the seriousness of this pandemic but just haven’t really connected the dots and worked out they’ve been had. I suspect a lot of the type of people I am talking about don’t go on social media as much as the lockdown and mask fanatics.
You’re quite right Julian, but once things such as furlough end, people’s eyes start to open. Then they begin asking questions. And then they catch on. If nothing else, people are very quick to catch on.
People also hate being “had”. Awareness can turn to anger in the blink of an eye. The signs are all there now, and our rulers keep on digging.
I took a train today while my car was having its brakes replaced. In Wales, muzzles on trains are still optional and I went without, but could see the look of surprise in the eyes of muzzled people who had clearly joined the train before the border.
Nobody said anything though, which is perhaps wise of them.
An update on the Covid religion.
A state religion indeed. What’s the point in even bloody living when we’re stuck with this shit forever?
It won’t be forever. Honestly.
Thou shalt be mightily praised for thy wit!!
Spooky but so true. This is an offshoot of the Church of the NHS.
I’ve not watched this yet, will watch later, but this is Lord Sumption in an extended interview/webinar that was streamed live last night by the Royal Society of Medicine. I’ve watched another in this series (with Luke Johnson) and they let him speak, and also relayed questions from the live audience (via Zoom).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-syjnHYST-4
I think he’s about as powerful an advocate as one could wish for.
I’m not sure if anyone has posted regarding the situation in Leicester. Prince Matthew has made a token gesture to his subjects in Leicestershire. Condescending to allow some of the inmates a little freedom, apparently from 24th. Presumably the king approves.
They have redrawn the boundaries. Now it is precisely Leicester city and the borough of Oadby and Wigston that are in the lockdown zone. That takes one of my sisters out of it. My niece now has a chance of receiving some schooling come September, or at least as much as the rest of the country is getting.
My mother has just told me that Oadby and Wigston have been included as 30 people living in one house were tested and found to be infected.
All of them??
I find it hard enough to believe that 30 people would be living under one roof, let alone every single one of them testing positive for the virus. (Sounds a bit fishy to me.) Maybe they were illegals all employed in the city
sweatshopsgarment factories.The mayor Sir Peter Soulsby has commented that the problem is in one small part of the city. Yes, as I have said before, it is the Asian quarter to the north east of the city centre where most of the testing centres are located.
John – has the number of total tests v positive tests been published anywhere? Plus number of tests per head of population. Seems plausible that there is simply a lot more testing of asymptomatic people going on in Leicester than the rest of the country
I’m not aware that they have, but in fairness I may not be fully up to date.
I think it is very very likely that it is the increased testing of asymptomatic people that is driving the numbers up.
But it also has to be said that this is really an issue in a particular locality in the city, and everyone in Leicester knows this.
Leicester is known to be a city with a large Asian population. Off the top of my head it’s about a third of the city. There are some areas, however, where the density of the Asian minority population is very high and other areas where it is very low.
The centres (having mapped them) are all in the high density Asian parts of the city. There are rumours that there are garment sweatshops in that area and they are what a lot of local people are blaming this on.
But are any of them actually ill?
Almost certainly not.
The hospitals are not seeing an increase in covid patients. My brother in law’s sister worked on a covid ward in the city until about six weeks ago, when she was transferred back to her old job as a cardiologist (specialist nurse).
The bitter irony is that when she worked on the ward, Leicester’s covid19 hospital admission rate was so low that they would transfer patients from other parts of the Midlands.
As I suspected.
Interesting article: https://www.aier.org/article/when-will-the-madness-end
I’m worried it’s not when but if…
Absolutely terrific post.
You should email this to Toby to make sure he sees it. This needs highlighting in a major way.
I’d like to think it will end… that enough people will wake up to what is going on!
I found this today, I don’t know if you have all seen it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7I5LzLgNSI&feature=youtu.be
It was new to me anyway, even though I knew about event 201.
Description of the video (from underneath it): Major documentary confirmation of something many of us have come to know for certain in recent times: the entire COVID-19 world-shutdown is part of a live training and simulation exercise run by the unscrupulous WHO and United Nations, as documented in their Global Preparedness Monitoring Board’s annual 2019 report and their International Health Regulations treaty of 2005—which 194/or 196 countries signed off on—which pretty much establishes a Global Government (of the WHO & United Nations, & the high-level international GMPB) along with their sponsors, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, & other unnamed donors.
I had seen the little extract with Mike Pompeo that appears approx 6 mins 50 secs into this, where they let slip that this is a ‘live exercise’, but did not realise that all the information we need is actually on the WHO’s website!
If it is all true, that this is a ‘live simulation exercise’, then it would explain the chaotic handling of it and why at times the government (and others) seem to be saying stuff that it looks like they do not really believe, and why UK column talk of a ‘coup’ having taken place…
Thanks for the link. Very good article. I have the Madness of Crowds book – bought by my husband during the DotCom bubble!
I downloaded the full report and it is available for you all here:
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:1027eb4d-273b-4773-ab12-2cc853c5e2ef
By the time the UK locked down the virus was everywhere. It had reached every nook and cranny from Lands End to John O’Groats.
It may not be scientific but there is no way it spread everywhere with only 5% exposure.
I’ve never believed in conspiracy theories, but the continual screwing down of everyday life, especially with face masks now and for no good reason, by governments seemingly everywhere, really begins to make me wonder just what is going on.
There is never an end date, never any definite criteria about when any of these restrictions will end or be lifted; there is never any actual, definite evidence presented about why we should do this or that.
The ‘science’ often seems more like conjecture, based on very flimsy or inaccurate and exaggerated projections.
Yet more and more of our daily lives become constricted, more abnormal than ever, yet, apparently things have ‘eased’ and things are returning to ‘normal’.
But it is a very strange kind of normal – more Alice in Wonderland than a Wonderful Life!
Either its an authoritarian grab for power by politicians everywhere (have they formed a secret cabal?), they all know something about this that we don’t (it’s really an alien pathogen and we’re doomed, all doomed!), or they’ve all just cocked it up – but can’t all be that thick, surely?
Perhaps I’ll just go with incompetence; let’s face it, the quality of politicians everywhere is pretty poor when you look back and compare them with the past, and not just here either.
In which case, we only have ourselves to blame – what a thought!
I’ve always taken the view that most politicians are people of limited ability who would just love to boss everyone around if only they could, and that the “checks and balances” in our former democracy were designed to limit these ambitions.
In March the media began a terror campaign which also affected these politicians and this led to the people themselves voluntarily giving up their rights, more or less begging the government to assume direct control over our lives.
Hence the Coronavirus Act, which was (no surprise) opposed by no politician of any political persuasion.
I agree, we only have ourselves to blame!
This is one of the things that particularly gets my goat. The press (the media) are supposed to be one of the checks on the actions of the state in a democratic society. Along with the judiciary and the opposition, ther job is to hold the government to account, to question them, to investigate them, to point out when they’re making the wrong decisions or taking a direction that isn’t in the interests of the country.
They’ve done a good job of this to the casual observer (“why weren’t you faster with PPE or testing”) but you barely need to pay any attention to realise that it’s revolting how little they’ve questioned the whole policy.
I think this is one of the worst things about the whole procedure. The press has a responsibility and they’ve failed.
The media often acts as the mouthpiece of government propaganda, matt.
There are principled journalists such as Peter Hitchens and our own Toby Young, but many of them are servile hacks.
“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (Lord Acton)
This is an interesting thread on Francis Hoar’s Twitter, about countries being bribed by the International Monetary Fund to introduce quarantine and other measures : https://twitter.com/NikolovScience/status/1283529642943451136
https://eng.belta.by/president/view/belarus-president-unwilling-to-accept-additional-terms-to-get-foreign-loans-131164-2020/
Remarkable.They will give money on condition that Belarus copy the Italian Covid-19 model but Lukashenko says no.Look att covibes org site to see how good the figures are in Belarus.Much better than UK but you will never see this in MSM/BBC
I prefer not to think of conspiracy theories as I find those rather scary to think about.
And also not all countries have followed the same path, Sweden, Tanzania, Belarus why is that?
Politicians and top civil servants don’t live in the real world so they have no idea what they see as good interventions on the people who put them in power.
Yes, there are a few exceptions. However, is not remarkable just how many nations are implementing almost identical measures despite having wildly varying numbers of cases/deaths? Even countries with almost no cases of Covid at all are falling into line.
Surprised not one journalist is prepared to take it on, get their teeth into the reason. In the past we have always had 1 or 2 prepared to do it.
This is completely the wrong way round. The reason we have a lockdown is because of the power of the broadcast media (the BBC). No politician could withstand the accusation of failing to prevent death or, even worse, actively killing people. The politicians are simply terrified of the media. As ye shall sow, so shall ye reap. We are reaping the whirlwind of our guardians in the BBC.
The BBC have certainly been a force for darkness in this whole business, but they are either despised or mistrusted by many, especially those on the political right and Brexit supporters
The government had a fair bit of political capital at its disposal that would have enabled it to lead rather than follow
The government chose to disseminate fear propaganda through TV and newspapers and social media, which helped bring all of those forces to supporting the government line
I am not saying it would have been easy, but it wasn’t attempted and it has been shown how easily led we are
The Swedish authorities have managed it – I’m sure they have faced much criticism from within Sweden, but there has not been rioting as far as I know. Are Swedes so much more freedom loving and sceptical than we are, or were they just fortunate?
Ultimately the government had a choice and have had many opportunities since to steer back to sanity but have done the exact opposite- Leicester and face masks being the most egregious examples
They are guilty
Good visit to the pub, no details taken but I suppose paying by card could potentially be a tracking system.
The landlord seemed very sceptical, plenty of people in the garden and a few inside. I still don’t fully understand how a one way system really makes any difference with passing tables with people and using the toilets. Of course it’s BS it’s just why does no one see this?
Made up for talking to a couple of colleagues via web conference, still worried about going out or into the office etc.
But even if not engaging in open conversation about it, the kids have been out to other family homes or had people back here or visits to the park. It feels like a lot of people can’t be bothered anymore with all the “rules” sort of a silent protest, it remains to be seen if it will be enough.
With noting that some of these families have included people who are NHS staff (GPs and a consultant) they are not bothered at all with social distancing when I have gone round.
If the virus is soooooo infectious how come only 5% of the population has had it? Surely something as infectious as covid that requires face masks and lockdowns must have spread further than that….. or is it not actually very infectious at all, whereby lockdowns and face masks are not necessary. They can’t have it both ways…
I believe it is highly infectious and just about everyone who’s been in a shop in the last six months will have been exposed to it to some degree. But thankfully it seems no or only a little more lethal than most coronaviruses.
i commented a few minutes ago but this needs a posting .
BBC Panorama – Lifting the Lockdown. 7.30.. Accidentally flicked onto this ..
What a load of sh*te and shows BBC at its worst…. Panorama with background music?
You should watch it just to see how bad it is …
I’ll take your word for it.
I could always break the law and watch it, but I won’t bother!
I’ve been a silent reader for many weeks but have never posted before.
Just wanted to flag something on Antibody testing through the NHS.
Today my sister saw her GP who has arranged for some blood work to be done. Her GP told her she’ll also be asked if she’d like to get antibody testing done at the same time. As my sister was really ill with all the classic COVID symptoms back in early March, before lockdown, but obviously wasn’t allowed to be tested, her doctor said she’d be very intersted to see if she does indeed have antibodies as she’s convinced my sister had the virus.
However, she told my sister that as a doctor she has opted herself to NOT have antibody testing done, as most don’t realise that if your antibody test comes back negative this could have lasting effects in the future for health insurance, life insurance, travel insurance, even mortgages! Sadly my sister didn’t question her GP futher as she was very taken a back.
This has been really startling. WHY would testing positive or negative for a virus be so important for insurance etc? It makes you question what is really going on in all this.
I’m thankful my sister has an honest GP as some GPs might not be as forthright with their patients!
Needless to say my sister has opted to not get the testing done (at least through the NHS) even though she’s curious to know whether she did have the virus.
Interesting…think there was a typo with your first “negative” – should read “positive”?
I can’t get the comments button to refresh, to show the newest input.
close the page and open again
Done that and doesn’t work.
“Tesco, JD Sports and Lidl have all announced they won’t enforce the new edict.”
Where are you getting this from Toby? The Mirror yesterday reported Tesco saying “customers in England will need to wear a face covering when visiting our stores”.
The madness never ends,a small plane has just flown over our house towing a banner saying ’72 Love NHS’.
I am going to hire a plane with a banner that says “I used to love The NHS, prior to cv19”
Careful. You’ll lose your job.
This is both shocking and fascinating.
“Why no-one can ever recover from COVID-19 in England – a statistical anomaly” July 16, 2020 (Yoon K Loke, Carl Heneghan)
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-one-can-ever-recover-from-covid-19-in-england-a-statistical-anomaly/
Prof Karol Sikora has commented:
“I read this and was appalled. It’s from Oxford’s CEBM & two very talented Professors. I just can’t believe PHE could be so incompetent – it’s scandalous. Read for yourselves. Judgement reserved until PHE comment.”
Amazing. Almost as if they were deliberately trying to inflate the figures.
Better a few thousand more deaths than having to admit that they backed the wrong horse, Sweden got it right and we have atomised our economy and health system unnecessarily.
Wonder the reaction I’d get if I posted this to my social media, even though it’s clearly accurate. So many keyboard warriors on my Facebook + I’ve already had to remove some since this all kicked off
I note that the CEBM site is currently stalling/offline.
They previously have highlighted the discrepancy between PHE and ONS figures.
Those of us who have dug into all-cause mortality have known for three months that the Covid-19 story was vastly exaggerated.
We currently have a measure being put in place that is totally unjustified by any coherent research or infection/mortality figures.
Join up the dots and smell the cof…. sorry …. sewage!
It seems to be now loading, but slowly. I wonder if this is getting the attention it deserves? CEBM have been a shining light throughout.
Prof Heneghan suggest a time limit of 21 days from lab detection and death as a reasonable to be included as a Covid-19 death. Sweden has a time limit of 30 days from lab detection to death as Covid-19 case. PHE open ended is remarkable, considering that many elderly in March and April, being successfully treated in hospital and discharged, could have died of the underlying disease 2-3 months later in large numbers.
Hypothetical: If government actions caused people to die, how convenient it would be if those deaths were marked down as COVID deaths.
I’ve just been having a closer look through the Law or Fiction site and thought people might be interested in this little nugget: http://www.laworfiction.com/2020/06/fast-passes-and-discounts-for-the-brave/. What was Peter Hitchens saying at the weekend?
The parallel between the Mask Idiocy and the Poll Tax debacle occurred to me as well when trying to think of an equalling appalling own goal, an equally bad political decision.
There’s similar pathos as well. Margaret Thatcher clearly thought the poll tax fair and essential to good local governance; she also believed it would be a popular measure. Johnson seems similarly deluded. Unless he’s just lying it appears he genuinely thinks it will reduce anxiety and increase footfall on the High Street.
I was in a large supermarket today outside London. Probably 80-90% of shoppers had no face mask on and we’re nearly back to normal in termof social distancing. They will not welcome being made to wear stifling masks in the middle of summer. Once it becomes apparent that mandatory masks are causing a reduction in footfall, Johnson will have nowhere to hide.
“Unless he’s just lying”
Weeell ….it is his only skill.
In our part of Northwest Scotland, we are convinced it was here in December – lots of people falling ill and well into January. We are in an area which gets lots of Chinese tourists and they were here right to the end of January. Of course, it is too much like common sense to do T-cell tests or whatever they are in our community to establish if that is the case. Much easier to pretend it arrived in the UK at the end of January, because otherwise it upsets the narrative.
The tests are unreliable, Ruth.
I was staying in Fort William over Christmas week and there were plenty of Chinese about. They are endlessly interested in and curious of the UK, and like most first-time visitors, deeply impressed by the Highlands.
Whether unknowing Chinese tourists brought it here at the back end of 2019 or not, I share your view that this has been with us a bit longer than our officials are prepared to admit.
The Government, like others made mistakes. I think most people know that but when it became clear that the virus was not as bad as they believed or were led to believe they should have had the moral courage to stand up and admit they were wrong and call a halt to the absurd lockdown that is destroying the country. They are now perpetuating their mistakes and consequently perpetuating fear. This mask fiasco is the final straw – I, as others have said, am ashamed of our government, one, I sadly voted for. They remove our civil liberties on a whim or to bow to the latest media pressure — It is truly sad to see our once proud brave nation who stood up for freedom when they fought ww1 and ww1 bow down to this removal of our freedoms without so much as a wimpier – let alone a roar of defiance is a tragedy indeed. A lifelong Tory — I will not be voting for Conservative again –
Unless we get our act together, we won’t be voting for anyone again –
I’ll vote for you, JohnB.
I certainly won’t be voting Conservative ever again and I’ve written to the Party to tell them so.
Todays Vernon Coleman
Mask wearers are collaborators
https://youtu.be/pYk6nfnx_84
Very good to share.
Superb.
Anyone here listen to the No Agenda Podcast?
It is a bit alternative, it is funded by its listeners, US based, but they do cover UK one of the presenters lived here in the UK.
Worth a listen if you can spare the time.
Now that I get all my news from Twitter (haha – I also get it from Lockdown Sceptics!), here’s an excellent report on hydroxychloroquine from the estimable Gummi Bear. Conclusion: it looks like it’s an effective treatment of the dread COVID, especially as seen in the results of countries that use it to treat early: https://twitter.com/gummibear737/status/1283840177497088001
Also, Alex Berenson’s reporting has been on fire today. He is a hero! Just like Toby! https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson
Urrrrghhh! Those virtue-signalling TV ads from Amazon. “I’m Helen and I used to be in the military.”
“I’m Kevin. I wear a mask, gloves. Protect the NHS and key workers.”
Vomit inducing. I hate them sooooo much!!!!
It won’t dent Bezos much but I will never use them ever again. Anyone but Amazon
Me too, and I’m a Kevin! Why do they use Kevin so much?!!
Kevins have it easy !
In the US, a toilet is a John.
As is a prostitute’s client.
Get dumped, you get a Dear John letter.
A condom is a rubber Johnny
An anonymous corpse is John Doe.
I’ve probably internalised the others, so can’t remember them.
Whatever happened to Donna’s Cakes?
Sounds awful! I don’t watch any commercial tv and miss all this stuff. Bliss!
The one on the radio with the female bus driver instructing everyone to wear their mask is cringe inducing tripe
Has anybody sussed out who today’s visitor from 77th Brigade is?
Don’t know if this has been posted earlier
https://twitter.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/1283823864750002176?s=19
Guardian (free) report about the Randox covid testing kits
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/uk-government-orders-halt-randox-covid-19-tests-over-safety-issues
Just to point out 33 in the article. Because that is is a recurring number as already pointed out.
I believe the tests might give people at large (!) cause to think on about vaccine safety. Its a good oppotunity to raise safety aspects of badly tested medical measures.
The essential question about any supposed vaccine for Covid is why anyone in their right mind and in reasonable health would even consider an under-tested concoction of dubious provenance for a mild infection.
The answer will come back: “but it will help the elderly”…Time to get real! Vaccines don’t make old people’s lungs young again. We really are playing with fire here.
Leaving aside the issue of how many old people suffer serious illness after receiving the vaccine (answer: a lot), if we succeed in eliminating “traditional” pathogens such as flu viruses and coronaviruses from old people’s lungs we are then leaving that inviting environmental niche (warm, watery and defenceless) open to novel pathogens which could have really horrendous effects on society (far far worse than this rather ineffective pathogen). A novel virus might emerge that is able to attack the young and healthy as did the Spanish Flu virus of 1918-19.
I live in Herefordshire, where there has been an ‘outbreak’ on a fruit and veg farm amongst the seasonal workforce.Now apparently we have the 4th highest rate of infections in the country, and the local paper is wetting itself with an abundance of Covid-fear updates. 93 ‘cases’ were recorded on the farm. But talking to the physiotherapist at my GP surgery, (who is not allowed to see me face to face, and my frozen shoulder gets worse and worse) I was told that the hospital now has no Covid patients at all, none. The Wye Valley health authority however still prevents him carrying out his job and seeing patients, because of the risk.
Farm workers aged under 50 very unlikely to suffer more than cold symptoms. The media are hysterical. They react to everything like female characters in an old 50s movie: SCREAM!!!!!
This hysteria has led to a cancelling of a series of drive concerts here. Big firgetable names were due to appear in a month of concerts at the local show ground. But ‘fears’ of a Leicester lockdown have caused tge organisers to cancel. Sitting in your car in a car park with 100s of others looking at a brightly lit stage in the far distance is now too much. I wonder what the bookings actually were…
Emma, forget the GP & standard physio if you have a frozen shoulder. I had two, both sides, one after the other in 2003/2004 and the only treatment that really worked was that developed by Simeon Neil Asher. People used to fly in from all over the world to his clinic in Highgate, London. It was a mixture of pressure points and manipulation techniques, and it worked! He cured both my frozen shoulders in a very short space of time. They were SO painful! He was training new practitioners at the time all over the U.K. so you may find one near you. GPs don’t have a clue.
I can’t log on at all, want to, but not possible – help! Kath
I struggled for a while. Looks like its been abandoned for now.
Mason Mills on twitter says vaccine will not be mandatory. Hope he’s right. I have objections to being injected with stuff developed from foetal cell line and tested on humanised mice (poor bastards). I also object to certification. Bill Barr in US has already said certification would be a civil rights issue. But then Americans still have civil rights! I suspect our government is proceeding with stealth on this because they know many people won’t like it. You know – baby steps…
Err, I’m not sure that Mason Mills’ comment on twitter is definitive …
Since the only sources of real information are outside MSM, it’s a little bit counter productive to keep putting sources ‘beyond the pale’. Many people think it is definitive, others probably don’t. Read it, compare with other sources, make up your own mind.
I have no opinion on the matter as yet.
Whatever the government decides I intend to say “no” to any coronavirus vaccine.
“Vaccine will not be mandatory.” Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Wait a minute…….
THEN they drop the other shoe:
“However you will need to have a valid Certificate of Vaccination to get a bank account, a credit card, a driving licence, a passport, a mortgage, insurance, a job…..but you are free to refuse the vaccine if you wish.”
I doubt such a scenario would come to pass – but the world has gone mad, so who knows? Why would you possibly need such a certificate to get a driving licence, for example?
You would need the certificate so you can sit next to the examiner whilst taking the test, or take your theory test at the test center where there are other people you could spread it to.
This worth a read
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-one-can-ever-recover-from-covid-19-in-england-a-statistical-anomaly/
I came across this earlier. From what I understand the tests for Covid generally do not distinguish between types of Corona virus. So many are returning false positives. Added to the fact that post-mortems on patients that tested positive weren’t being carried out to establish the true cause of death and now the revelation that a death at any time is counted as a Covid fatality regardless of whether the patient had previously recovered or even been symptomatic, means the statistics are completely unreliable. Yet lockdown policy is being driven by this garbage. It’s either gross incompetence by this Government or deliberate.
Leaning towards deliberate!
definitely
Doesn’t even need to that high a false +ve rate. It you are testing 100k people a day. 1% is a 1000 false positives. As testing Ramps up more false readings
It will be interesting to see what PHE have to say about this, seems ludicrous. Thanks John P!
But on the other points, it would be cruel to the relatives to postpone the death cert by requiring a post mortem on an elderly person, likely with dementia, when it’s obvious they died of one or more long standing complaints, and CV19 or flu or pneumonia or something was the ultimate last straw. (Not that a post mortem would ascertain CV19, any more than it would a cold, presumably you mean in order to establish some physical co morbidity?)
Death certs in UK scrupulously record all the contributory causes of death and ONS stats count and distinguish between deaths with and of (solely) CV19.
Re false positives, see earlier contributions from guy153, I think he’s given up putting people straight about this because it got so repetitive. Why do you think tests don’t distinguish between types of Corona virus?
This is the killer point:
In summary, PHE’s definition of the daily death figures means that everyone who has ever had COVID at any time must die with COVID too. So, the COVID death toll in Britain up to July 2020 will eventually exceed 290k, if the follow-up of every test-positive patient is of long enough duration.
So, the more testing (think Leicester, Malvern vegetable farm etc) the more potential to keep this whole shit show going into the autumn with the ‘scare’ of new deaths until we get to the next lockdown. ICL Model QED!
We’ve always known about the essential inaccuracy of the data – because of the corruption of the death certification process. But this is another layer of potential falsification that underlines the fictional nature of the panicdemic.
I tend not to watch/listen to any MSM sources for news, since the narrative is so entirely compromised.
But – has anyone picked up whether what should be in bold headlines – namely the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine’s revelation about PHE essentially making up Covid-19 mortality figures [https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-one-can-ever-recover-from-covid-19-in-england-a-statistical-anomaly/] has been reported?
Clearly, it’s an accusation that raises massive issues for any real journalist/news outlet. It’s treatment will be a defining moment for any residual credibility for the main news outlets.
I posted it here earlier.
I know. However my question is about MSM coverage of a major potential falsification of key data by a public body.
The majority of the msm are so tied to coronavirus is the new black death and lockdown is the only choice narrative, they will not publish anything which goes against it.
Just read that. If it wasn’t so stupid it would be hilarious. A £squillion A months over dodgy data. Ffs
Today was my first outing for anything but food shopping and bottle bank (blush) since March.
My friend and I visited our favourite little village cafe. We were greeted with “Please will you wait there (people paying cause a bottle neck and prevent antisocial distancing). Please sign in, please gel your hands, there’s a table free in the corner.”
I asked the owner if we could sit near the door as it gets a bit steamy. She explained that the table near the door was too near an occupied table, so we wouldn’t be doing social distancing. I assured her that I didn’t want to do anything that would get her into trouble.
“It’s ridiculous isn’t it?” she said. “I’ll be glad when it’s all back to normal!”
It’s normally a very relaxed, happy sort of place but she was clearly on edge. I read on the cafe facebook page a couple of weeks ago, when they were still only allowed to do takeaways, that someone had shopped her for not having a red chopping board in her kitchen. Poor love – I doubt she preps any raw meat in there!
She’s had to take out some tables, so they are now only for two people – good job our friend hadn’t come with us! There was plastic film hanging between each table and I reckon she’ll be lucky to get eight customers in at once. It was a real squeeze before but we used to get nearly twice as many in there. I really hope she can stay in business!
All otherwise pretty normal – except for one woman who put on a mask to go to the toilet!
Food great, coffee excellent, catchup with friend felt almost like old times.
“By this PHE definition, no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness. A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.
This why the PHE figures vary substantially from day to day. For example, 16 new deaths were announced on 6th July, but the following day, 152 were reported – today’s figure is 66.”
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-one-can-ever-recover-from-covid-19-in-england-a-statistical-anomaly/
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/invisible-disability-cards-soar-price-18609555
It’s not going to end well. A law so easily dodged.
https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1283863658389479427/photo/1
Guess how many have died in the US of Covid-19 Feb- 11 July in the age below 15?
31 in a population of 61 million.(CDC statistics). I think they have double that for flu this year!
And many want to delay opening schools. Insanity but most likely this is now pure politics.
The term ‘politics’ might be expanded – for surely you mean a power grab or act of force majeure – albeit by trojan pretext. As distinct from fundraising for the Labour Party.
I have ordered an ‘Exempt’ badge, just in case I can’t be bothered to argue on the day. Unlikely, I admit.
The charriddee that sends them out sent me a letter today saying they’re a bit overwhelmed. 10,000 people have ordered them already from this one source, and there are many. Yet the fucking focus groups that lead the government by the nose reckon only 30% will want to go back to normal procedures. A lot of people beg to differ.
See the edinburgh live link below. Hoardes are buying up these badges. Lots of money to be made is the edinburgh live story. Same deal. People are getting around. Its un policeable. But is this going to used later for the reasoning for verified ID system? Or is it a complete oversight by the overlords?
Shaping ‘information’ is leading a false witness.
Any emotional reaction will effect invested identity and that identity can be fed, nudged, shaped and directed.
The public-private ‘partnership’ (sic) can be sketched as a Gated government – though Gates is a poster-boy for a much larger movement of invested self-interest set in terms of maintaining and consolidating possession and control. Monopolism masked as global concerns that uses doublespeak as its default.
Fragmentation is the means by which to compartmentalise into a mess of obfuscation through which to effect control under plausible deniability or maximal cloaking.
It’s all very well to be exasperated with our world but do we judge it from the same ‘self-exceptionalism’ that we cry ‘Foul!’ in others? I don’t say that to deflect or deny accountability and responsibility – but to note that the collective is represented in its structures of social organisation – not as personal opinions or views but as the structure of consciousness currently operating.
For the most part persons in their world are not aware of the internalised structure of thought and belief, or socially required ‘agreements or definitions’ FROM which our human or social and political world operates.
The idea of the ‘Reset’ is of a private group manipulating this ‘template’ to remake the ‘world’ in their own image or to serve their own purposes.
I suggest that we all seek to manipulate or control our consciousness, and our experience as a result of losing coherency of being to conflict and fear of pain and loss. It only feeds the fear by masking over it as the defence set against an externally projected ‘threat, enemy or scapegoat’.
The capacity to split our mind and persist under masking narrative is the mind of grievance and attack or a mythic and dramatic representation of Life’s Wholeness, cast in fragments and indeed figments of an enraged or terrified imagination – given power.
That last bit is the key. What we give energy, attention and therefore value to is given power.
The idea of a Reset as a spontaneity of aligning in truth by recognising and releasing false or outworn and useless identities is allowing wholeness of being or Life – to restore a true foundation that we have masked over – and as a masked mind CANNOT OF OURSELVES RESTORE – but can only persist in under increasing burden of conflicted limitation to be ‘normalised’ until of course the capacity of such structures to serve ANY kind of Life gives way to a true Rest, Refreshment, Regeneration and Renewal – that rises as a living and shared gift – instead of a technocratic mimicry of life as ‘controlled sharing’ (sic).
Good Tweet on why schools should open.
dr mark mcdonald who convinced the orange county school board to re-open schools without masks or social distancing
https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1283858607889620994
Image attached for those not on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/mattmargolis/status/1283784304926089216/photo/1
This is a very interesting graph CFR in the ongoing C-19 pandemic. Compare UK and Sweden.
What happened in the end of May in Sweden? They started massive testing of mostly mild cases and many asymptomatic persons in screening .And the CFR drops close to Ireland crossing Netherlands and Spain and leaving UK, France, Belgium at the top.
But according to CBS US very bad in Sweden according to their report 16th July.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/sweden-sees-high-virus-mortality-rate-after-resisting-lockdown/
And most people follow MSM
https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1283729860154851329
Interesting story from another paramedic – empty hospitals, no covid patients, staff with nothing to do.
Interesting read, I was out and about, key worker, throughout lockdown and used the hospital toilets (public ones all closed), never any ambulances at the main entrance, A&E or maternity even though they were always on the road with sirens wailing despite there being no other traffic ie solely to induce fear in the lockdown population.
All NHS staff have been threatened with the sack if they talk to the press or on social media about what has, not, been going on in the hospitals.
My Mum was admitted to hospital yesterday due to heart problems. Overnight she was the ONLY patient on the ward – and despite this, they made her wear a face mask. Which seemed stupid, especially seeing as her main symptom (from heart issues) is breathlessness…
Breaking News (or is it?): Deaths Through Fear Exceed Deaths From Covid. Of the half-million fewer NHS emergency admissions in Lockdown, c27K would have died anyway. Leaving >450K untreated due to fear. How many of these died through lack of treatment? Do check my figures & shout if they’re wrong.
Total emergency admissions, England, Mar-Jun 2019: 2,166,866
Total emergency admissions, England, Mar-Jun 2020: 1,590,444
576,422 fewer total emergency admissions in Mar-Jun 2020 than Mar-Jun 2019. On average 4.7% of emergency admissions (27,092) result in death within 30 days (weekdays; more at weekends – see Lancet, 1/7/17) and so presumably 95.3% of admissions (549,300) are successfully treated. Of those who could have been successfully treated, I wonder how many died, as a result of not going to hospital from fear of Covid? Could this go some way to explaining excess deaths Mar-Jun ’20??
Refs: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2020-21/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5494289/
well, the next domino has toppled over here—total madness.
https://www.mvtimes.com/
All covid all the time; no other news! West Tisbury is a rural town with practically no town center. So . . . masks while driving? Hiking? They want us to wear a mask at the beach! The town is to be defaced with “mask signage.” Where will it end? Meanwhile no one has even heard of The Great Reset, they are so obsessed with their mask wearing.
Is ‘Trust Stamp’ the reason for this hoax
£3bn more for NHS England to get them through the winter. Setting the scene for yet more to be given to devolved NHSs.
“The funds will be available to NHS England immediately, and are expected to be used to keep the emergency Nightingale hospitals open until March, and increase testing capacity to the 500,000 a day he had previously promised.” The guardian
There are signs the Great British Public has the gov on the ropes because use of transport is not picking up as the political ‘people and our civil ‘servns’ expected.
“Ministers are concerned that public fear about a renewed rise in coronavirus cases is deterring them from venturing out. Use of public transport has been less than expected since services were increased.” The guardian
My MP asked me why I was bothered about a temporary measure, but when asked the question how temporary, no reply. Only saw 1 mask at the large local garden centre yesterday and they’ve opened up a cafe, hope it doesn’t return to the dark ages next week due to pressure, lots of large outlets are saying they will not enforce it
My best response:
This was my second response – after realising that my first had suffered the fate of being FRAMED in reaction. For the full picture see:
https://willingness-to-listen.blogspot.com/2020/07/response-to-emotional-blackmailing-by.html
https://twitter.com/BenMarten/status/1283974620589076480/photo/1https://twitter.com/BenMarten/status/1283974620589076480/photo/1
This is interesting US figures from CDC. You can see that for below 25 years almost zero risk of dying in this pandemic. But even more interesting is the declining death rate even amongst elderly during the last weeks. Either better treatment or perhaps more likely,infection is getting less deadly in line with reports from Italy.
In the last three weeks risk of dying below 45 almost zero 45-54 same risk as flu and only for >55 more deadly than flu but not that much