Round-Up
No time for an update today, but here’s a round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours (and a special thanks to Mitesh Kariah who has been tirelessly flagging stories up for me for months):
- ‘How to Talk to People Who Won’t Wear Face Masks‘ – Unintentionally amusing piece in Teen Vogue about how to talk crazy non-mask wearers back from the precipice
- ‘Public Health England’s exaggerated death statistics are a scandal that has fed fear‘ – Strong stuff from Matthew Lesh in the Telegraph
- ‘“Game-changing” coronavirus antibody test passes first major trials‘ – New finger-prick test that is 98.6% accurate, apparently
- ‘The media’s Jihad against Sweden’s no-lockdown policy ignores key policy facts‘ – Good post by Ryan McMaken for the Mises Institute blog
- ‘Google will ban ads from running on stories spreading debunked coronavirus conspiracy theories‘ – Does this mean Google is demonetising the WHO?
- ‘Free speech and civil rights go hand in hand‘ – Timely reminder from Kevin Yuill in Spiked that free speech and minority rights are complementary and not in opposition to each other
- ‘Wales is planning for a nightmare scenario with coronavirus this winter‘ – God help the Welsh
- ‘Parents should stop worrying about making their children socially distance‘ – Good piece by Rosa Silverman in the Telegraph
- ‘Man charged with fraudulently claiming $9m in coronavirus relief and gambling with it in Las Vegas‘ – At least someone’s having fun
- ‘No wonder this committee thinks it runs the country‘ – Juliet Samuel takes aim at SAGE
- ‘Why coronavirus deaths remain low in the US despite surge in new cases‘ – Mandatory reading for bed-wetters
- ‘My husband’s drinking problem hit in lockdown‘ – No, it’s not by Mrs Young. Quiet at the back
- ‘Hatred of Donald Trump is warping news, warns BBC’s Jon Sopel‘ – He’s not wrong
- ‘IRS Announces Taxpayers Can Make Checks Directly Payable To Any Corporation Or Billionaire They Want This Year‘ – Did someone say “Bailout”? Nice piece in the Onion
- ‘English universities must prove “commitment” to free speech for bailouts’ – Excellent news in the Guardian
Theme Tune Suggestions by Readers
Only one today: “Witchfinder General” by Carl Douglas
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.
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 our new Lockdown Sceptics Forums, which webmaster Ian Rons has just created. You’ll need to verify your email address before you can start posting, but they should be relatively easy to navigate. Apologies for not creating them sooner. Any problems, email Ian here. Or just email him to thank him for creating such a great website.
Gone Fishing Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation recently to pay for the upkeep of this site. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. But I’m on holiday until Saturday, July 25th and won’t be doing much work on this site for a week. If you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here.
Salem 2.0
I thought I’d give my readers something to chew on while I’m on a break: Salem 2.0: The Return of the Religious Police to the Public Square. This is a book about cancel culture that I’ve been working on for a while now, but which took a back seat during the coronavirus crisis. Hoping to get back to it as the crisis recedes – although that’s happening more slowly than I hoped. It’s a work in progress, so don’t expect too much. The shape of it should be pretty clear, however.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Theme tune-going upmarket today:
Masques et Bergamasques Claude Debussy
Current sceptic parlance : Masks and Buggermasks.
Good news for our local Greggs: bought coffee to take home after morning walk; showed my badge; assistant smiled, thanked me, but said no questions would be asked in the shop.
Greggs is excellent; the staff are cheerful and friendly; our local outlet is always busy and the menu caters for all.
A pleasingly sane company.
Are you in the Stottie and Sly Cake catchment area though?
I live in the Dear leader’s fiefdom: favourites here-for me at least-are the vegan rolls and cheese and onion slices.
Their decaff coffee is also excellent,as is the wide range of doughnuts.
Most popular here seem to be the breakfast rolls,sausage rolls and bacon rolls.
It’s all good.
You have not lived unless you have dined out on the Geordie answer to focaccia, the Stottie, followed by the apple turnover with cream. My husband has just chirped in ‘you might not be alive after’ – but then he is from Yorkshire! My nanna was very fond of a piece of Sly Cake, cut straight from the tray. Personally, my favourite was the Custard Slice, surpassed only by the ‘proper’ version – the mille-feuille – from Maison Blanc!
I think wendyk is a vegan TT. I’m not sure she would be too keen on apple turnover with cream.
I would be, however. I must pay a visit to Geordieland some day
I do love apple turnovers and I’m not a vegan, but a vegetarian.
I also love raspberries +custard. custard slices and that Stottie sounds good!
My cousins from Essex used to clear out the local Greggs every time they visited. From car boot to freezer!
You need to be careful to stay north of the river – Mackem land is not for the faint of heart! Favourite place is further up the coast at Bamburgh Castle, although Cullercoats beach takes some beating too.
Cullercoats beach – round the corner from me.
Were you a Whitley or Toon girl? I was The Royal and Grobs era!
You need to try a Kentish Gypsy Tart , although how long that name lasts is anyone’s guess
Thanks, I will try that (there is a very old can of condensed milk in the cupboard). My sister-in-law is a gypsy. I am certain she would not be offended by the name, but no doubt there will be a nice, white, upper middle class, metropolitan media-type who will be offended on her behalf!
Thanks, I will try that (there is a very old can of condensed milk in the cupboard). My sister-in-law is a gypsy. I am certain she would not be offended by the name, but no doubt there will be a nice, white, upper middle class, metropolitan media-type who will be offended on her behalf.
CAKE! ARSE! GERLS!
THAT! WOULD BE! AN ECUMENICAL! MATTER!
Sorry, I think Graham Linehan has now been cancelled. I shall immediately take the knee
I lived there for 22 years, the stottie is the only good thing about it
That’s longer than I lived there!
Whilst I know what a Stottie is, I had to look up Sly Cake.
I never heard of either a stottie or a sly cake.
Checked out a sly cake recipe—sounds delicious, easy, and definitely worth a try.
From the description of the sweet it occurred to me that it seems to be a first cousin of the American Fig Newton. Then it turned out that the description of the origins of the cake also suggests a possible American connection.
https://dragonsandfairydust.co.uk/regional-recipes-sly-cakes/
God, I wish we didn’t have to look at that bitch Sturgeon every time we open LS for the next wee while. Toby, some of us Scots get nauseous when we see her, have some consideration!
Who’s clapping her tomorrow night? If there’s a clap round here, I will be opening my window and loudly booing.
At least Sticky Nurgeon is looking every bit the insane evil tired old hag bag that she is in that photo.
There is a distinctly worrying look in her eyes!
Maybe she’s worried there’s a record of what was discussed at the lockdown meetings where she instructed no written record.
The only clap Nicola will get is from the lesbian lover she just left her husband for.
is there still a press gag on this?
what. a. joke.
How does that work with husband mr murrell being chief in charge of power and everything CEO at the SNP, it is all a little Royston Vasey actually.
You get what you vote for, north or south of the border.
There is a hair dresser in Stockbridge iffering a sturgeon -do. Local press have reported. It is not of the same ilk as the fried mars bar. Its a genuine atempt to cash in on the sycophantic cultism. If scottish ladies start to wear a hedgehog of a “power-do” I will be leaving. Yes P-D is tge name given to it. Just writing this comment is unpleasant. So yeah, Toby, stop making us queasy!
What, no ‘Bronx Cheer’?
Is it possible for Sturgeon to wear that face-rag permanently and keep her mute? Could be a game-changer for Scotland.
AND, don’t let her take it off to eat and drink!
Why the fixation with antibody testing? For most people the antibodies are not needed as the innate and T-cell parts of the immune system are able to overcome the virus.
We must go off the “science” don’t you know!
Because Ferguson’s models can’t cope with such nuance. His SIR model defines binary states of ‘infected’ and ‘recovered’. In the model, infected people are subsequently assumed to become ‘immune’. The only way to measure ‘immunity’ is the antibody test. The model contains no notion of partial immunity or resistance to the virus. In other words, reality has been adapted to fit the model, not the other way round.
The great Dictator has announced it will all be over by Christmas
For many it will be
No job, mass unemployment, end of mortgage holiday, maxed out credit cards returning to 40% interest rates, the lease car (what an exercise in financial chicanery they were) being repossessed
Pubs going bust under the weight of regulation and Stasi raids, tax revenue plummeting, business rate income drying up, food prices rising, the lease car credit bubble bursting, the continuation of all forms of medical care being denied
The introduction of punitive taxes
The police still being required to kneel whenever they are in the presence of rioters. Mass arrests by the face nappy police. Food withdrawn from Refusniks
Mass ill health, mental breakdown and suicides
Yes for some it will truly be over by Christmas
Over by Christmas? Haven’t I heard that before somewhere?
1914, but to be fair, they didn’t say which Christmas (then again neither has the Dictator)
Yes, but the sneaky weasel didn’t way which Christmas.
2021?
Talking about pubs going bust. Have you seen the latest idiotic idea?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/18/english-councils-call-for-smoking-ban-outside-pubs-and-cafes
Councils are calling for smoking to be banned outside pubs, cafes and bars to make them more family friendly and help high streets recover from lockdown.
The local authorities really don’t help themselves, do they?!
Fortunately the government is opposed. Let’s hope they don’t cave.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We will not ban outdoor smoking. Since the existing ban was introduced, businesses have invested heavily in their outdoor areas and banning outdoor smoking would lead to significant closures and job losses. Businesses should look at ways they can accommodate both smokers and non-smokers, while smokers should exercise public responsibility and be considerate.
For the record, I don’t smoke, I do think it has a disproportionate effect on surrounding non-smokers, but I wouldn’t even think of banning it outside pubs when we’re supposed to be enticing the public back out to spend!
I used to be a keep smoker, I could literally eat tobacco for breakfast lunch and dinner, I could smoke for England. Baccy and a pint is the greatest combination ever.
Banning smoking in pubs was pretty terrible but then so is smoking. I am glad I don’t need to do it any more and yes it was really really hard to give it up and it took me 10 years to get over it properly.
Looking back smoking in pubs was a pretty insane thing to do. However what would be wrong with having a pub FOR smokers?
Let us choose to go in it and give each other cancer if we choose to, let the staff choose whether they to work in it if they WANT to if they don’t, fair enough, don’t work there.
Smoking is all but banned now anyway a few more years and it will be impossible to buy tobacco and impossible to smoke it anywhere but out in a big field or in the woods. Oh yer, it won’t be allowed in town centres, parks or on national trust land or in the grounds of anywhere soon either.
The problem with enclosed spaces for smokers is that their non-smoking friends are then forced to suffer or not hang out with them.
When I was at uni, we had to work in teams. Our team was 3 non-smokers and one smoker. Most of our teamwork was done in the refectory during breaks. Guess which part of the refectory we had to sit – we needed her input and smokers tend to be selfish.
The main problem with smoking is that, unlike chewing gum, everyone else has to share the exhaust. I used to hate it when my dessert would arrive just as the next table lit up, so all I could taste was fag smoke.
I find non-smokers tend to be far more selfish. Opinions, eh ?
tobacco is a plant, are you going to exterminate all tobacco plants? How does that work?
Grows well in my garden. It is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the vegetable kingdom – big, vigorous, kills nearby veggies and everything that tries to eat it. Even the various things that live in my shed won’t touch it when it is drying.
Big problem is that PHE have just been found out for trying to do to Covid what they have been doing for drinking and smoking.
The headline announcements are always full on panic aided by the Daily North Korea aka BBC.
The anti drinking/smoking stuff hasn’t passed the smell test for years, but the priesthood thought the public were so gullible they’d do it again with Covid.
Look at the pretzels twisted and outright lies told when they found smoking has a protective effect against Covid, now they are trying to memory hole it.
They were mostly correct, the public have swallowed it again, look at the fools preaching whatever the line is today, face masks social distancing new normal or whatever.
Frank Davis has been on about this for a while.
As I understand it the Local Authorities give permission for cafes and pubs to put tables and chairs on the public pavements so they would not need Government agreement to put ‘no smoking’ on the licence; once we’ve all got used to that they’ll go for the beer gardens proper.
There’s a saying in the stock market that bull markets rise like a staircase but crashes come like an elevator. It’s also the same for tension and riots. The boiling pressure cooker as it will.
It has something to do with how we are twice as likely to take action in response to fear (and hence survival) as we are to postive things (we coast along assuming all is well).
I’m trying to guess what will be the catalyst so let’s have a prediction:
This week I think there will be a rush on the shops. Not a large one but enough.
Next week (with masks) there will be a bit of confusion, some hassle, but a general feeling just get in get out (so no browsing lingering shopping) or outright refusal except for essentials i.e. not good.
In August however and with more data hitting the MSM expect there to a turn in the narrative and I think Brexit will be folded into it i.e. incompetence and financial ruin means we shouldn’t rock the boat. So stay as it is.
Plus I think Boris and Handjob will be out and Raab will be Prime Minister or it may even be Rishi (a la technocrat prime minister).
Raab and Rishi will be useless – but there isn’t a very inspiring selection!
I’d like to think that nobody would be stupid enough to want to take over the mess that Blojo and Wankock have created – but then I’m not a power-hungry sociopath.
Anyone who takes over from Boris Jon Un and Lieutenant Gruber is being handed a poisoned chalice. There are rumours that Rishi is being groomed to take over eventually but if I was him I would refuse the top job now.
Well someone needs to do it. My choice would be Gove.
Gove would be insane to take it but there’s not a lot of choice innit?
(lol) Exactly !
Same circus different clowns
Agree, the Dictator and handjob are toast.
I used to be convinced that if there’s a riot, it will be October. Now I’m not sure, it could be earlier as I suspect that retail and hospitality already on their knees will be hammered even further from 24 July.
The next rent cycle will be in September and from the last statistic in June, 9 out of 10 shops couldn’t pay the rent. It could be 10 out of 10 unable to pay by September.
Riots tend to need the heat. October redundancies will start to become obvious by the middle of August. Watch for an August heat wave and buy some steel shutters for your windows if you see one coming.
I have been telling some colleagues that don’t be surprised if we do get a text message from work saying we’ll be closing and that’s because there will be rioting.
Could be a Bank Holiday Bloodbath for want of a cruel way to put it
mhcp, like you and probably most here, I’ve been trying to predict how all this will end. Clearly in the US, the virus goes if Trump goes and I don’t think that is a certainty in November! The point you make about the data is right,the more people that become informed about the corrupt numbers, the more MSM will use it to batter Boris (after all they were just reporting what the government told them m’lud). Boris will bail because his heart isn’t really in the job and we’ll NEVER believe what politicians tell us in the future
“Clearly in the US, the virus goes if Trump goes”
First prize for succinctness.
Yes, it is looking that way.
Virus is real, but is ALSO a hammer to pound Trump into the ground for once and for all.
Anyone who calls for some moderation and common sense concerning mask wear and lockdown is labeled a hoaxer, Trump supporter, troll, uncaring, the works.
Wonder whether it will work—I mean, eliminating Trump in November via Corona scare tactics. The agenda is pretty clear, but since no one will cop to it, election results—and the country—will probably be held hostage for months following the election. Who will “rule” during this Interregnum?
There’s actually no real proof that Sars-cov-2 actually exists. We only have an unconvincing consensus amongst those “scientists” who have taken the Gates shilling. The Gates largesse is way more than enough to buy all the “science” you need, if you wanted to start a fake pandemic.
Some people are getting sick. I don’t want to get into denying that. There seems to be new, credible evidence that the virus was created in a lab and in fact did escape from the lab in Wuhan. But U.S. fingerprints are all over that, too. All of this research should be stopped. All of these labs should be defunded, closed, and enclosed in concrete for all time. Their employees can go on the dole, like the rest of humanity.
prior planning and preparation prevents pisspoor performance. get to it)
Yes – but which year??
And some SAGE scientists, according to headlines today, still think that’s too early!
I really wonder what planet these people are on. I can understand that scientists employed by the Government might feel obliged to follow the party line. But going against it in such an alarmist (for want of the right word) way seems just odd. Are they really continuing to go along with Ferguson’s model and ignoring all the evidence to the contrary?
I was depressed by the PM’s announcement that we would have to wait until November for the end of social distancing, though, I thought, surely long before then events (nonexistent cases/deaths and growing economic ruin) would have overtaken their plans. After hearing that SAGE members think even that’s too soon, I’ve completely lost even the tiniest fragment of hope that either the politicians or scientists in charge are capable of getting us out of the mess they largely created.
The scientists will become less important if people realise it’s all been totally overblown.
Imperial College has long since taken the Gates shilling.
You forgot that strong magic is being worked by the great depopulator, Bill Gates. Hey presto and very soon Bill’s highly experimental, hardly tested, liability free vaccines will soon be with us. Of course, they’ll certainly try to make vaccination compulsory if they can get away with it. What’s not to like?
Covid 19 – a virus so deadly you have to be tested to see whether you have it!
And with a swab so far up your nose and down your throat to get a sample!
Not from me they won’t.
And so deadly scientists are advocating deliberately infecting people with it to test a vaccine.
They tried that with the Spanish influenza in 1918 – interesting documentaries about it knockinga round – they never did manage to infect anyone with a samples from ill people and horses etc that actually made anyone ill enough to research on.
Yes, but only in Brazil, so it doesn’t really matter.
And so deadly that the problem is that we all have it asymptomatically, all of the time.
That – THAT – is what I will say to peole who ask me why I’m not wearing a mask!
We could compile a list with every sentence starting with a virus so deadly and then something which rebuts the idea coronavirus is deadly. A few of mine
A virus so deadly the majority of victims are elderly with other conditions and they died with rather than of coronavirus.
A virus so deadly there is a big body of scientific opinion which questions this.
A virus so deadly youtube censors videos by those who question how dangerous the virus is rather than address their arguments.
A virus so deadly they have to rely on unreliable tests to get positive cases.
A virus so deadly they have to inflate death statistics by adding people who didn’t have coronavirus.
A virus so deadly large numbers of people think the idea we are in the middle of a deadly pandemic bullshit.
A virus so deadly that if it wasn’t for media hysteria and government imposed lockdowns we wouldn’t notice we are in a pandemic.
A virus so deadly no one knows anyone with coronavirus.
And a slightly less polemical round up of recent information is here:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768391
And as usual not mention one of vitamin D, noit even as a factor in the BAME results. Nor vitamin C used as a treatment in China and unbelievably in the US
I’ve been looking at the Jet2 and easyJet websites for information on masks regularly as I am flying soon. Jet2 seem to have changed their advice. A few days ago I’m sure it said that everyone must wear a proper mask, and they would need a doctor’s note if you couldn’t wear one for medical reasons. That advice seems to have been dropped in favour of “if you have a medical condition which means you can’t wear a mask, you don’t have to. For further information, see government website.” So I guess they must have had a complaint or two. Or realised that nobody can actually see a GP nowadays to get a note.
They also say: “Face masks need to cover your mouth and nose and should be either a protective or medical-style mask, or a fitted face covering. Coverings such as scarves, snoods, balaclavas or any similar items aren’t acceptable for travel.”
I wonder as well if they were told that they could be sued under the Equality Act hence the U turn. Not to mention that a requirement of a doctor’s note is in breach of medical confidentiality, privacy laws and GDPR.
Equality Act only applies to the state or companies providing state functions – is my understanding
On the Law Or Fiction website, which is “a group of concerned lawyers dedicated to separating the Law from the Fiction, particularly in relation to the current Coronavirus lockdown.” it says:
Discrimination laws under the Equality Act 2010 are not overwritten by any Covid-19 regulations or guidelines.
Shops, councils and anyone providing services to the public has a legal obligation, under Part 3 of the Act, not to discriminate unlawfully in providing those services and to take all reasonable steps, making ‘reasonable adjustments’, to avoid the particular disadvantages suffered by those with disabilities.
http://www.laworfiction.com/2020/06/disability-discrimination-some-common-decency-please/
Airlines are providing a service to the public, so I would guess they come under the Act.
It also has a piece on risk assessments for businesses with Covid and the law is such that measures should be in place for “serious and imminent threats”. Covid doesn’t fall under this. Neither do other transmittable diseases that are not high risk.
easyJet however take a different view:
What if I can’t wear a mask for medical reasons?
If you are unable to wear a face mask for medical reasons you will be exempt from doing so as long as you have a medical exemption letter from a doctor stating that you cannot wear a face mask (which must be available on request for airport staff and crew to see) and also that you are fit to fly.
I’d be interested to know if that’s actually legal!
I seriously doubt it is.
So what they’re saying is that you must be sealed into a device guaranteed to cause hypoxia and hypercapnia – or you don’t have to bother.
And of course the oxygen level is already low on cruising jet airliners, which maintain pressure equivalent to about 8000 feet above sea level.
Hi Carrie. I posted about this yesterday as I’d noticed the change too. Someone else had said that they were sitting on a plane on their way to Iceland and had been allowed through the airport without question as they were wearing a lanyard with exemption card attached.
Still awaiting the risk assessment on wearing masks at altitude for long periods of time!
That was me. Now in Iceland. The flight was with BA. I’m coming back with Icelandair and I expect that will be fine too. At the airport everybody else had masks on except small children and people eating and drinking in the cafes but nobody gave me a second glance. So no stress, but disappointment on my part with the mass compliance.
Thanks for letting us know that Graham. We are due to fly next week.
I’ve just written to EasyJet on their website asking them to update their information as I believe that the Department for Health and Social Care has told doctors that they do not need to supply exemption certificates and in their turn doctors have said they will not supply them anyway.
I also asked them to refund the money for an outbound flight we were due to take in March. It had been cancelled of course and we received the money for the inbound flight but not the outbound. The refund has been pending for four months now in spite of lots of emails to them. Won’t be using them again in a hurry.
Big Pharma, Gavi and Big Finance all working together in the public interest. Be scared, be very scared!:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/testing-will-begin-africa-biometric-id-vaccine-records-payment-systems
What I don’t understand about this is why you need a vaccine to give you a unique digital identity. It would surely be cheaper and easier to link things like ID and even cashless payments to the unique identity we were born with: our DNA.
The state has been surreptitiously building the DNA database for years. You don’t need to arrest everyone to get enough markers to map pretty much all of us. Once on the police DNA database it is almost impossible to get off it. My mother and her fellow female care workers at the time (about 15 years ago) gave samples to assist in the investigation of a serious crime in the local area. She had to badger pretty hard to have it removed after the criminal was convicted. My general principle is they already know too much about us, and I am certainly not having anyone inject anything into me ‘in the public interest’
Hmm, I wonder what happens to all those Covid-19 swabs. Yet another reason to refuse a test.
Quite. As I said a few weeks ago, back in the mid 2000s, when the data collection bandwagon started to get off the ground, our sons’ school proposed a finger print access system for the school library (for the Biff and Chip books!). We were the only parents to refuse permission to have their finger prints taken.
Your DNA cannot be withdrawn on a whim.
But your DNA is dirty. The vaccine cleans it.
Yes the infectious pandemic is the pretext to mandate immunity status – regardless of any particular vaccine. All vax will be incorporated as well as all those in the pipeline – and perhaps a covid DNA game changer
The other corporate sector is Big Data
Yes, and also cancerous!
It’s the only sensible explanation for the determined foot-dragging on lockdown release – even though it sounds crazy!.
I had a look at the Teenybrain piece. It is indeed very funny. I’d love some Teenybrain to try and empathise with me over daring to show that I have a nose and mouth.
Have a good day, folks. Always remember, every happy moment you have is a poke in the eye for all TeenyTinybrainseverywhere.
And happy holidays to Toby!
Off now for a cycle ride. Will get wet. Who cares? I’m happy cycling, and being wet makes me all the more appreciative of Dry when I get home.
Hearts up!
I’ve just read it too; ‘humble inquiry’ and ‘coming from a place of compassion’ sent my cringeometer into the red zone.
No wonder these Teenies are called snowflakes.
An article in the DM about the teens thinking they know it all, lots of agreement. They had better not start patronizing me for my non mask
It is the job of teens to think they know it all, and the job of adults to disavow them of their misconceptions. When we have our ‘leaders’ fawning over a 16 year old Swedish schoolgirl with no formal education you know the world has gone truly mad!
Interesting that Greta, at 16 years, is held up as the fount of all climate wisdom, yet Shamima, at 15 years, is held to have been an innocent.
Very
havent the lefties being trying to get the voting age down to 16? Their opinion is that they are old enough to vote (as they will generally vote labour” yet not old enough to be responsible for their decisions and need their hands holding
If only the 18 – 24 had the vote at the last GE Corbyn would have had a majority of 450. Food for thought!
Greta is unable to even answer a soft rolled question without something to read from.
It isn’t the young who are responsible for this shit-show.
Quite the contrary – it’s the well-off older middle class who have been in power for a long time, and who the Daily Wail to Groaniad MSM has supported consistently with their whining sense of self-pity combined with self-entitlement.
Yes they are not responsible but a lot of them are jumping on the virtue signalling bandwagon.
You might consider it as masking in virtue as a way of ‘escaping’ fear by pointing at the ‘sins’ of others by which to seem righteous.
This runs very deep. The need to see evil, enemy or threat OUT THERE is the establishing of a private mind-bubble that thinks to mask over what lies beneath.
Gave up on the teen vogue piece after “every time we go out the door…” and then started talking about ‘germs’ ffs.
Sadly the jobs apocalypse is gathering pace. My own company sent out redundancy letters yesterday to a couple of people we have found we no longer need and friends are reporting to me that their companies are also starting the redundancy process. It seems 31 July is the cut off point as far as many businesses are concerned. Anyone who is still furloughed after then needs to get their head out of the sand.
I know a few tradesmen that have said they’re folding their companies the second the bounce back loans are recalled
I contract and have noticed there has been a ramp up for temporary staff and short term contracts to get things done. However there seems to be a real delay in onboarding but then that often happens when resources have to be approved.
I suspect short-term panic is creeping in.
I know some young Turkish peoople, she works for a large international company in town. She is some kind of Middle Eastern Sale support person and they sell medical equipment. She has been working from home everyday since the lockdown, on the zoom to people from all over the world or at least the middle east and Europe.
Now I can’t help but think the main reason her company brought her over to the UK was so she could be in the office, in the company culture, they could benefit from her language skills and perhaps improove her English for her too. They pay her ALOT.
Now she is “just” on the web at home all day.
Why does her company need her any more? She could work from home in Turkey and they could pay her two thirds less.
Her company could also just get somebody from say India and pay them one quarter or an eights of what she gets now to do the same thing.
Furthermore, isn’t the main reason a company pays somebody a big wage is because normally the employee has to get on a train at 6:30 every day or a blocked up road, then fight their way into work to spend all day with a bunch of people they hate in a environment that’s invariably horrible and toxic.
Working from home doing zoom calls in a paddling pool in your garden just isn’t going equal the total purgatory that they pay you to do normally is it????
65K a year for sitting at home in a paddling pool in your garden…I don’t think that is sustainable.
There are millions of people all over the world that could do that too for 2 bucks a day.
I know her company is working with a skeleton staff, normally it has hundreds of people in the office, now there are about 30.
It’s the same for almost every company now, why bother paying for a really expensive office that is empty. No point at all.
Yes, there goes millions of jobs for sure, never to return.
Commercial property market was already in the doggy do before the lockdown. A credit event will trigger a tsunami of defaults that will make the 2008/9 Financial Crisis look like child’s play. October is usually a tricky month for financial markets. Some well-informed names in the US have been talking this for a while (Mohammed El Erian, Scott Minnerd), and the ‘too big to fail’ banks have been upping provisions (JP Morgan). Everyone needs to make sure they do not have money in non-regulated schemes, assuming the deposit protection scheme will be honoured (a big ‘if’, possibly in the current climate)
I haven’t got any money, never have had any either. It’s been hand to mouth for me for ever.
What do you mean by “in non-regulated schemes,”??
Too true. I have worked on IT related projects and many involve indian sub contractors. Whilst many will be in the country on visas and be office based there are many more out in India, in particular the code monkeys. But given that all roles on a project have been working from home over the last few months, lets move them all back to india – much cheaper there – as it is now proved they dont need to be in the office, or in the country
Absolutely spot on…I dont think many people have cottoned on to how easy it will be for companies to outsource home workers.
The proprietor of the local green grocer’s told me yesterday that her husband’s company-builders’ merchants-have issued 2,500 redundancy notices.
Fortunately, her husband isn’t among the soon to be jobless.
This part of west Scotland has little to offer in the way of serious employment,so the Dear Leader and her cohorts should stop sniping at Westminster’s largesse and start doing some joined up thinking-which does not include indyref2!!
Toursm in the widest sense is about 20% of Scotland’s gdp and has been just about wiped out by the Scottish Government for this season, the knock-on effect for next year will also be devastating. The Scottish economy as a whole has been shredded for years to come. Sturgeon’s concentration on the now almost disappeared Covid19 to the exclusion of everything else shows a breathtaking ignorance and callous indifference to the ruin that she is perpetrating.
Added to what you quite rightly say Guirme is the lack of employment options for rural Scotland. Similar to parts of Wales and rural England except greater distances and transport options compound these issues from the killing off the Scottish tourism industry. I mean to say some old villages and communities may not survive. They staycation boom looks likely to help – air travel will be so strictly regulated from now on. It’s likely many employing buisnesses cannot survive until 2021.
The SNP finance guy is a simpleton and here is a short youtube clip of Julia Hartley Brewer interviewing him. He appears to quite literally think that money grows on trees.
https://youtu.be/xZLEHp3f-L8
Apologies for the biased presentation of the youtube channel it is the only way I can supply the clip of the Julia HB talk radio interview.
We were going to move to Scotland. We were going to go up there this year and look at properties to buy. I USED TO love Scotland, I had a big ole Scottish accent untill I was about 10. My folks and grandparents and my family in general are all Scotts. My brother has lived in Edingburugh for the last 35 years. Now I am 95% certain I will never even go to Scotland ever again.
So sad.
Get away from the central belt by about 2 hours, avoid Skye, Glen Coe and Nevis, avoid the 500 miles tourist circuit and you still can find genuine adventure mingled in with lovely folk. But it has changed under SNP recently with extraordinary levels of government intrusion into the minds of the poeople.
Agreed, unfortunately the Spiteful Nannying Party has always had a game plan of trash the economy, turn Scotland into a dung heap and blame the eeeeeevil tories.
They are not bothered about colllateral damage, old people are more likely to be unionist.
There is no point expecting these tyrants to suddenly start working in the public interest. The only way forward is their removal from power and prosecution for their crimes against humanity. We will need a new court system to achieve that.
Yep, a small padded cell with no windows for ever for the lot of them is the only solution.
I fear that we’ll never get rid of them: She Who Must Be Obeyed has assumed high priestess status and unfortunately what remains of the opposition doesn’t really seem to have the courage of its convictions.
She has as many questions to answer as NoGo BoJo, but no one is asking them.
https://www.effiedeans.com/2020/07/do-wee-three-want-to-lose-to-snp.html
This is what I fear too but that means all we have to ‘look forward too’ is life in a totalitarian state which will only become more evil and destructive as time goes on.
In some.ways she has more, the Scottish record on care homes is worse than the rest of the UK, but you’d never know it from the cheerleading BBC.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/03/care-home-coronavirus-deaths-in-scotland-overtake-hospitals
Same here. The much vaunted war chest my workplace had has been seriously depleted and they’re now looking into voluntary redundancies but we got an update yesterday the takings seem to be low so looks like compulsory redundancies will in order as well.
Definitely we’ll see more retail businesses go under after 24 July as more and more people stay away from the shops.
The tech company my son works for has told a lot that they need to start looking for new jobs. Wonder if Boris agrees with the financial crash of the west, surely they cant be that dim to not realise what would happen
I’m afraid it’s any port in a storm for Boris.
Boris and Matt are working with the great depopulator Bill Gates to solve these problems. I feel so much better already.
I had this pop up in a news feed yet after looking at at least three MSM home pages if they are reporting it, it’s way down somewhere in the page.
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-health-secretary-matt-hancock-orders-urgent-review-into-public-health-england-death-data-12030392
The initial response was that about 1000 deaths would have to be removed from the PHE figures. However the ONS stats are fine, they are the gold standard.
But the method of reporting deaths was altered in favour of covid, so even the ONS stats are flawed.
Yes indeed, they are hopelessly flawed. We are all being stitched up, like the stats.
Morning All!
I found this research paper. May well have been posted before so apologies if so. I will now pop it up on the Forum (once I’ve worked out how I get in!). It’s a randomised trial of cloth masks v medical masks in Healthcare settings, upshot is the cloth masks cause more harm than good. No surprise there.
My experience in Scotland over last couple of days is everyone is wearing one in shops. You just have to be brave. No one questioned me yesterday when I walked in without one.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/
Very courageous. I intend to avoid the shops as much as possible when this becomes law in England next Friday.
I don’t want to have my mind conditioned by the sight of people wearing these muzzles. I don’t want it to become normalised in that way.
I will avoid shops as much as possible and if I do feel I have to go it will be when they are very quiet. I plan to have my scarf ready for my face if they try to bar my way.
I intend to avoid shops pubs and town centres for ever until they go back to normal. I don’t care for myself, all the shops are crap anyway so are most of the pubs.
The way people are these days, ie totally propagandised so they they never talk to strangers anyway. Most people expect that they will have some kind of issue with anybody they talk to about something devisive. This has meant that I could go to a pub and not talk to anybody all night.
I never used to bother with them anyway. Most people are brainwashed muppets in my opinion. This virus scam is the icing on the cake AND the cherry on top of the way people have been systematically set against each other.
What kills me is the destruction foisted on everybody else. I do care about our society even although I hate almost every aspect of it. I know lots of people really were happy with the way things were. Now it’s just miserable, everything is just miserable.
Actually I had forgotten how expensive a pint is in a pub and why I never really went to them. Lets face it, shopping in the last few years has been soul destrying anyway, with all the shops being filled with over-priced junk. This will only get worse as they try to maximise their profits in the face of no customers. We will see even more over priced junk and even less choice in the shops.
Most high street chains were dead already. This Plandemic is the sword through their hearts.
That’s the intention anyway. The idea of a commercial centre in towns is NOT SUSTAINABLE. Way too much Co2. Making the last half mile of the supply of goods and services carbon free IS the goal.
Yes. First step in the right direction is to get smiles back.
Whilst I applaud your frankness, sharing your thoughts for the world to see, I think that we all are part of this society and our thoughts and actions have a greater effect than we sometimes think. Cynicism is a healthy reality check but an optimistic and positive demeanor expresses energy with more contagion than any ‘virus’ ever will. We make our own futures .
Wish I could disagree but I cant really.
Please define ‘too much Co2’ and ‘carbon free’, 2-6.
The intention is to make 95% of the human race carbon free.
That’s my plan too.
I just went into town this morning probably for the last time in a good while…thoroughly depressing with lots of masks everywhere and everyone looking miserable. Every shop either closed or diktat instructions on the door about how many allowed in ,where to stand etc. Why put your self through it…..its basically back to full lockdown for those who do not want to see the Newly masked North Korea.
Ditto for me here in France when it starts on Monday.
There is no mention of allowing scarves, bandanas etc. instead of ‘bought’ pale blue masks – I will not be buying any.
Means driving 20 km further to a hypermarket with an external click&collect facility but think of the planet – all that single-use plastic I’ll be saving!
Here is Mass. the mask debris is already noticeable on the roadsides.
What were they thinking? Did the local authorities that have mandated 24/7 mask wearing even consider this mess? People are slobs already. We finally got rid of one-use plastic bags, and now the blue masks are blowin’ in the wind.
Most big chains are indicating that they won’t police this latest bit of mask stupidity, let’s hope they mean it.
Ages ago I ended up reading a website about occult symbolism (can’t remember how or why) and part of it was the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony from London and as it was sports thought meh, can’t be bothered and never watched.
This morning my friend sent me an e-mail after watching a re-run of the ceremony on the BBC late last night – he’s not sleeping well at all at the moment – and he pointed out the coincidences in the ceremony with what is going on now so I found this clip as it is clearer than the one he recorded on his phone off teh TV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXUM-_9zZ_w
Coincidence? Prophecy? Or planned?
And why show it again now?
Planned, they have a moral duty to “tell” us what they have planned for us, its just that “WE” are way too stupid to understand what they are telling us. THEY think its funny.
At the time everybody was like “what the hell is that all about” with the olympic ceremony, well it’s obvious now isn’t it?
Yep and the future maps in the Hunger games (this one showing the US broken into 4 parts and the capital in Denver is from the 1960s if I rememebr correctly), Sandy Hook map in a Batman film, Denver Airport murals, all the “coincidences” in TV shows, other movies and so on says to me they think part of the “game” is to warn us what is going to happen so they can claim we had a warning and a way out but we were too stupid to figure it out.
Just this week, UK Column mentioned similar plans for zones in this country.
Denver airport! People should be bused arount to that place just to be shown what something on planet earth thinks is suitable for us. Denver airport yes!
Check this out…….A very very strange announcement in Denver airport.
Now this is properly creepy….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptURKNnJw3M
Audio could easily have been added later. Not saying it was, just that it is not conclusive to me that video presents a real incident. The murals are provable.
Yes sure it could well be a fake. Still pretty creepy.
Does anybody still remember the 40 foot high 3D printed replica of the GATEWAY TO HELL, or the gateway at Baal’s temple they reproduced in central London recently?
https://www.eyeopeningtruth.com/temple-of-baal-part-3-of-10/
It was on tour all round the world.
Yes they were saying to us they intend to literally OPEN THE GATES OF HELL on us. You can see Boris in the picture too.
Occult symbolism has been a big part of TPTB for countless years. Most people don’t spot it. For easy example, look at the number of times Numerology plays a part in government announcements. The numbers 11, 22, 29 frequently come up. The first two are power or Master numbers. 29 adds up to 11. Parliament goes into summer recess on the 22nd July.
Maybe it was going to happen on that date anyway, but nonetheless it’s a 22.
Once aware of the symbology you can see it all around.
For example, Spot the serpent:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcQM3IkV7mTh6JNQXMaJgVuiAPp7n_sk9AUTxA&usqp=CAU
I find this a scary building:
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vatican/esp_vatican184.htm
Swilliamism has some breath taking walks through london on his channels. My favourite is the idea that London zoo left behind it’s pelicans when it moved from Hyde(?) Park. Symbolism agogo.
I used to love Swilliamism’s stuff on you tube. He hasn’t done anything for ages now. I hope he is OK. I would really recommend people watch his videos. All of them are great.
https://www.youtube.com/user/swilliamism/videos
You’re right. That resurrection sculpture is quite horrific!
Are you describing the Vatican Pope’s throne room or whatever it is called? That fit’s the descriptiin quite horrific! Please seek it out if you haven’t seen it – it is most strange.
That sculpture in the Pope’s Audience hall is creepy big time.
It’s called Christ Rising by Pericle Fazzini.
Whole building gives me the creeps.
I always thought the almost religious fervour with which critics praised the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony was beneath contempt. However I think the ‘baddies’ depicted in the NHS section, particularly the giant figure (surely Margaret Thatcher) was about the threats our ‘great NHS’ faced from such as Thatcher etc. – no proof ever presented of course. The clip though does have echoes of what is going on at the moment I will admit, but although I like a good conspiracy as much as the next man I don’t think this is one.
i havent watched the rerun yet but i did watch the documentary that was repeated earlier yesterday about how the ceremony was conceptualised and planned .. I was thinking myself as i watched it how this was the beginning of the deification of the NHS. But then if you see who was involved it was always going to be lefty propaganda. The giant figure was supposed to be Lord Voldamort .. there was a reading from JK Rowlings as part the mis en scene. (They wouldnt dare use her today now she is cancelled!) and it did explain how they were using baddies in childrens literature.
Now who was the buffoon that was Mayor of London at the time who had huge involvement?
I wonder…he was a useless cretin then too.
It was communist drivel.
Always thought that ceremony was weird. Also one of the Illuminati signals is a Rainbow, keep seeing them in windows!
I’ve not watched it, but it is abundantly clear that contingency plans were put together for the eventuality of a “global pandemic” and that these plans have been put into action this year.
What a lot of people seem to miss is that this is not some sort of malevolent plan to kill a substantial portion of the world’s population. It was not “planned for us” to harm us. Yes it was planned, but it was planned in order to “save” us from a plague.
And before you leap on me, no, that does not make it right. It is and was always very wrong.
So how is fact that, allegedly thousands of elderly who were shielding and isolated have died of Covid, explained. And why do the sanctimonious young who say through their mask, I want to save you, explain how they all died while being forced to isolate.
Some peer-reviewed research is now indicating that the immune response of antibodies to the covid 19 virus is being enhanced by killer T cells which can protect us more generally from coronaviruses.
These killer T cells diminish with age and it is supposed that this may be why the young seem to be practically immune to sars-cov-2, but that older people are much more susceptible.
With that said, it still is not a death sentence even in the over 80 age group. Their particular vulnerability may be because they are far more likely to already be seriously ill.
The government published report into care homes out last week showed 80% of infected residents shows NO symptoms – if this is true of frail elderly people this says a great deal for the importance of the T cell response.
Yes, which mitigates the need for restrictions for those young and without health issues
and/or those without health issues
Lack of medical care for anything but covid.
Also, many will literally have died from fear and loneliness.
I never watched the Olympic ceremony. That section is seriously creepy! I’d no idea.
I remember finding it embarrassing to watch — the whole thing was like some sort of production your parents come to watch you in at school. But I just watched the linked section again now, and it does give food for frightening thought.
I’ve just watched it. It certainly does make for creepy viewing given everything that’s happened/happening.
I wrote this in comment yesterday this morning before realising the discussion had move onto today. It’s relevant to the hypnotic 2012 Olympics.
In the beginning I used to wake up each morning with a few moments of the sense it was all a bad dream and then soon after consciously realise it wasn’t and this was my reality, our reality.
That no longer happens.
Now, at some time after I wake up, not immediately, some times hours later, I remember that we are pretending there is a real threat to everyone of us, unseen and unexperienced. It is a giant pretence I am obliged to take part in.
These two comparible psychological states are both involuntary.
Really? 5G illuminati conspiracies here? This is why people discount lockdown sceptics, whereas we should only be dealing the evidence which is still very compelling in our court!
Just asking why and what is behind all the lockdowns worldwide. As I was told years ago by a very good boss early in my career – give me a reason, not an excuse.
He would have told me “The virus” is an excuse, not a reason.
Surely to question and fight back against something you have to know the true story behind it all? If not then all we are doing on here is venting our spleens and pissing into the wind and wasting our time as we have nothing better to do during the enforced incarceration.
There is a reason behind everything that is going on, the lockdowns were not in isolation but part of something else as too many coincidences mounting up over the years and decades for it all to be lots of random happenings coming to a culmination now.
Pick your own favourite conspiracy theory, there are enough of them or just believe it is all random it’s your choice.
Follow the money and eventually the truth will come out but getting that far is going to be the problem.
You are the first person to mention 5G on this page. Trolling, or mischief-making, Rona ?
I was referencing the video where it popped up in the middle of the ceremony saying a 5G mask, I’m trying to do the opposite, not trolling or mischief making, apologies if it came across like that! I also fully support asking why, and looking for reasons, and that’s why I watched the full video. In my opinion, others may totally differ, but I think it is clutching at straws in relation to the pandemic, just my two cents.
The 2012 Olympic opening ceremony was serious stuff, AG. Not in the slightest bit surprised your friend is having trouble sleeping.
Like this year, it was a psy-op/brainwashing/traumatising, call it what you will.
Is that film for real?
That is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen!
Is that REALLY the opening ceremony of the London Olympics?
It looks like Disney on a very bad trip!
All those nurses?
What in the world?
What does this dystopian vision have to do wthe Olylmpics, for eff’s sake?
Very disturbing.
Tell me this is a joke. Glad to be gulled.
‘How to Talk to People Who Won’t Wear Face Masks‘
Frightful article. As condescending as you’d expect. Or even a bit more so.
And it doesn’t address the reason why I won’t wear a mask, which is one shared by many of us, and which is the same reason why I didn’t clap. These actions validate the lockdown, the lockdown that has destroyed, is destroying and will destroy so many people’s health, jobs and plans for the future.
If we had Ebola that would be another matter. But we don’t.
Shame on Teen Vogue for writing such an asinine piece – that is pretty much an incitement to hate and encouraging bullying
The Daily Telegraph had something similar which I wrote a letter of complaint. The MSM have behaved in an abysmal manner throughout this crisis and articles like these fan the flames of division further as well as serve to weaken the bonds in a community. It’s redolent of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.
Yes, it’s blatant propaganda.
Obviously been paid for by the Government’s massive advertising ‘investment’
If you berate someone who won’t wear a muzzle because of a disability, you are descriminating against (or bullying) someone with a protected characteristic, and that is an offence.
Another protected characteristic is ‘religion or belief’. I believe a mask will make me ill.
God told me the same thing.
Exactly. Unfortunately too many people are too dim to know that.
I cancelled my Daily Telegraph subscription yesterday after seeing the disgraceful article you mention,I told them how disgusted I was that they would allow such a divisive piece and that I thought the DT had completely lost it’s way.They weren’t really bothered and I don’t think they heard anything I said as their only response was an offer to halve the cost of my subscription in an attempt to make me reconsider,I didn’t.
Well done you. I wrote them an email whether they take notice or not I have no idea but I’ve said my piece and will have a degree of schandenfreude when their circulation takes a nosedive and they have to make staff redundant.
I did the same…they could not care less…lets hope they all collapse due to lack of advertising.
I am looking forward to someone trying to bully me lol.
Agreed… not sure it’s much more “unintentionally amusing” than statistics on unemployment or cancer deaths due to lockdown!
How about they all but KNOW, based on evidence from official sources, it isn’t greatly more serious than existing endemic diseases like influenza, which society already lives with?
Plus the usual “mask haters are Trump lovers” slur. This might arguably have an element of truth to it, from a US perspective, but only due to self-reinforcing political polarisation. (Had Trump been an enthusiastic fan of masks and/or lockdown measures, maybe things would be the other way round!?)
It’s hard to know how society can get out of this mess when, 4 months on, so many people genuinely believe the disease is an unprecedented plague and anyone who objects to measures and restrictions is an ignorant political undesirable.
I know I’m preaching to the converted here but I’m not sure how much longer I can take this sort of thing! At least so far I haven’t had to deal with this attitude in real life, as opposed to reading about it online; most family and friends are more or less of the same mind as me.
You can extend this by all the people I spoke to in real life, in town today, Drawde. Stall holders, shopkeepers, cafe staff, barber, pub, trades people – all think it’s bollocks. Roughly 10:1 I’d guess.
(Maybe they just say that to get rid of me …
).
Oh, god.
How to talk to people who insist on “educating” one to join them in their madness.
“Don’t accuse someone of being a witch. Talk to them about until the two of you can agree what you can do about your being a witch.”
““When you shame people as a way to try to get them to avoid risky health behaviors,”
So she thinks not wearing a mask is a “riskly health behavior.”
Come right back at them: Do you drink soft drinks? Do you eat trans fats? Do you eat junk food and fast food? Do you text or use your device while driving? Do you eat soy products? These are all risky health behaviors. As is overdoing the mask wearing. They risk hypoxia. They risk headaches. They risk overstressing their innate immune system. Furthermore they risk spiraling ever deeper into their hubris to dare to “educate” you..
Then end the conversation.
Does anyone have any footage of face masks being worn in a cold environment say a walk in freezer which would clearly show. as the breath condenses in the air. how ineffective face masks are
I did see a video where a man inhaled from a vaping e-cigarette, put on a mask, then exhaled – as you’d expect, the vapour went out everywhere around the mask.
Can’t remember the link, but Googling “vaping face mask” brings up this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okIEE3wifJE, not the same video but the same result! (This one is a cloth mask, the other video had a blue surgical mask)
What does everyone think of this?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8535701/DR-MAX-MIND-DOCTOR-rebels-heed-rules-masks.html
“I’m not convinced by the science supporting face masks, and I don’t see the logic in wearing them now, but I accept they can serve an important psychological function by reassuring the cautious and coaxing them out of lockdown.”
What a ridiculous statement. Why should rational people acquiesce to doing something illogical in order to placate the, how shall I put it, ‘differently cognitive’?
Psychological programming and the end result of the past few generations being mollycoddled too much.
I’m not sure what you mean by this:
“the past few generations being mollycoddled too much”
In the past 30 years (or so) we have certainly seen an increase in propaganda from the media and government.
TV has been designed not to “mollycoddle”, but to “dumb down” the populace, turning many of them into docile, pliant sheep.
Little wonder so few have put up any decent resistance to this so far.
Correct John. Had the misfortune of glimpsing day time TV during LD. Can’t believe how many grown up children and clappy, yaying twerps infect our screens. The moronification of society is now complete!
Only that part of society that watches tv, T.
Especially because it has the opposite effect anyway. If I see a town centre full of mask-wearers I think there must be a reason for it. How much more effective would it be for the government to issue reliable statistics and tell people not to worry?
Yeah, and that silky Teeny rain article specifically mentioned, though not in these precise words, that non mask wearers just want a break from all the terror oorn.
Would be hugely helpful. They should reverse the stats. 99.995% of us have not died from the virus. The current death rate is less than one per million per day. Many more people are killed or seriously injured every day on our roads. That sort of thing. A lot of people are under the serious misapprehension we are living through something akin to the medieval bubonic plague.The government has connived in this nonsense.
I haven’t seen the Mad Masked Morons being ‘cautious’ around these parts. On the contrary, the mask has become an excuse to be super pushy and really ‘in-yer-face’.
I am the cautious one – peering into places and asking politely if I’m ‘welcome’ – as I try and live a normal life without a bag on my face.
The psychology behind that statement about coaxing the cautious is very clever. It makes folk feel all warm & supportive if they too don a face wrap and again, leaves us Bare-Faced Bravados in the position of negligence.
It really won’t reassure them. I know several of the terrified, and they will barely venture outside their own front doors even now, whether or not other people are wearing masks. One still thinks going for a walk is too dangerous. They will continue to do their essential shopping and nothing else. There might be few people on the fence who are now tempted out, but I’m sure they will be more than outnumbered by the people like me and others on here who will stop going to the shops until masks are no longer compulsory (should that ever happen).
My sister in law is the biggest bedwetter I know and has not even been out in the garden since February…yes she doubled down on an early selfie lockdown! We have had a few arguments and dont speak now…she thinks I spread disease lol. There is no hope for her, she will be brought out of her house in a wooden box. Nothing Johnson could say or do would encourage her to come out to shop.
Not just illogical but very likely harmful as well.
Wearing the mask is taking the knee to the lies of the covid industry. What benefits does Toby see? I didn’t pick any up in the article.
Surely the joke is visible, Peter?
yes i get it, muzzling the mad dog sturgeon
The Prime Minister says that, if you are very, very good, he ‘might’ let you have Christmas.
Let that sink in, as they say.
From last night’s Grad live. Interesting politics being played out more openly?
Justin Madders pointed out:
Whitty and Vallance weren’t at the press conference this morning and now we are hearing their much more realistic assessment about the chances of a return to normality we know why.
(Their “more realistic assessment” is pure doom, gloom and fearmongering.)
Lewis Goodall suggests:
No doubt of a big fissure in the Johnson/Vallance/Whitty triad. Vallance and Whitty essentially sticking to line that life won’t return to normal until we have a vaccine. PM saying that isn’t the case because we have better tech/knowledge/structures in place. Important division
I’ve just posted a link above to a UK video about the new vaccine (video comes via an American news programme, probably because the BBC wouldn’t feature it!). If true it is pretty alarming. Worth watching, especially as it mentions Fauci and Bill Gates, whose credibility and motives are questionable – for different reasons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0heB3FnXyCI&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3enoPvh5mzhLaDPUW1e7S_u5t3x9HRmDKBcT9U0f6m_Ly9h2QnRUL4eJE
I’ve just watched the video. What he says is alarming but I think its credibility is dodgy. There are some astute observations in the comments, starting with this – something I also spotted straight away:
A video thats so BANNED that we are all able to watch it on YT
These comments shed more light:
The remainder of the statement matches almost verbatim part of an unrelated, 31-year-old review of anti-fertility vaccine research from the National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi, India. Other parts read from the documents also match the 1989 review paper, including: “GnRH resulted in decreased testicular size, drop of testosterone levels, and marked atrophy of the prostate” (5m51s) and “a sperm-specific mitochondrial antigen, produced an antibody response in baboons and reduced fertility in the females”. (6m37s) The speaker also says that GSK tested 63 women with a vaccine containing anti-hGC antigens that resulted in 61 becoming infertile (5m29s). Those statistics also appear in the 1989 paper and an older one, by one of the same researchers and are not related to GSK.
I checked out Govote:
Basic Philosophy
Do No Harm is our prime directive, which means conservation, and development of alternative resources is vital to a future society. We have the responsibility to pass the Earth on to our successors in a fit and healthy state.
Someone who moved to Glastonbury and changed his name to Zed Phoenix. It all sounds a bit vegan plant-based diet to me – also Uncle Bill’s project by the way.
Vallance is to be expected, but I’m disappointed in Whitty since back in March/April he appeared to be making several attempts to explain how the virus is mild for the vast majority.
That’s a good point. Remember also that both rubbished the idea of mask wearing earlier in the year. I’ve seen more reliable wind vanes.
What we can be 100% of now is that neither Whitty and Vallance are ‘scientists’ in the true meaning of the word. Who is working them is the only question – but they have no scientific credibility – and nor has SAGE as a whole. The purpose of the whole thing is patently cover, not advisory.
Then we get onto the vaccine issue. What is clear is that there has been a misfire, in that the virus has not got anywhere near showing the need – thus the absurd ramping up of fear and anxiety in the face of a non-existent terminal threat. That is the only explanation that I can see behind this pantomime of influence – and no, I’m not an ‘ant-vaxxer’ – just a sceptic with a brain.
Those backing a vaccine narrative are obviously peddling garbage – even if the basic idea was credible :
So we then, like Sherlock, turn back to the question ‘Cui Bono? (Because it certainly ain’t us) : get the nose to the ground and follow the money.
Rick, I keep posting this link by Ivor Cummins, a bit long but well worth it. Great summary of the debacle
When you have ‘professors’ coming out NOW saying that severe lockdowns should be reimposed to ‘crush the curve’, we can confirm beyond all doubt that this isn’t about combating a virus pandemic. Watch and weep, bit lengthy but worth it. Covers the excess death issue too…..figures being fiddled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9IV-y1D0&t=2s
Please stop that. You must have posted that link 10 times yesterday with almost exactly the same post. It might be interesting, but now it’s fixed in my mind as spam, so there’s not a chance I’ll click on it.
That’s your choice matt
Video not found!
Matt, no further problem then!
If it’s the podcast from July16th, it’s available on Ivor’s Fat Emperor site.
Don’t forget, SAGE is to be “sidelined” in favour of a totally opaque unit.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/08/sage-sidelined-government-takes-direct-control-coronavirus-response/
Instead, an expanded Joint Biosecurity Centre will take a more prominent role in co-ordinating the Covid-19 response.
Last month, Downing Street appointed a senior spy to lead the unit to monitor the spread of coronavirus, advise ministers on the alert level for the virus and recommend actions to suppress new outbreaks.
For non Telegraph subscribers, the FT article can be read here:
https://www.ft.com/content/5f65b65e-a7c2-4745-8ad8-fd7a3ec6e0bd
Hopefully they are sorting out PHE’s stats as we speak. A few cross words spoken, without a doubt.
Paywall!
Sorry, I’m not a subscriber but was able to access the article, don’t know how that works though!
Would you like to try reading a few scientific papers and then report back? Presumably you are posting from the USA, vaccine producers do not have indemnity in the EU, see the ECJ report on the Sanofi case. Although no doubt that will be US pharma’s condition for their Brexit trade deal.
Me too. I was often under the impression that he was desperately trying to get the truth into the daily brainwashing sessions.
Not sure of how good an egg he is, although the Graun thought he was the best thing since sliced bread!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/04/prof-chris-whitty-the-expert-we-need-in-the-coronavirus-crisis
A clue may be that he has (had) strong links to you-know-who (funded a malaria project Whitty was involved with)
MPs publicly against masks. I’m going to email them thanks but so far only Swayne and Chope. Any others that I’m missing?
Sir Edward Leigh and Sir Graham Brady.
“Game on” then. The BBC who have been the Johnson and Cummings mouthpiece for 2-3 years are now in a quandary. Johnson suggested return to ‘semi’ normal from November but BBC trot out various members of the SAGE committee to say no, likewise Witty and Valance.
Is Johnson taking a huge risk in committing to this OR are the SAGE members still thinking about their vaccine windfall?
The BBC have gone so far now on their Project Fear storyline that yesterday’s announcements has thrown them big time.
Game is truly on now, Johnson will be defined by how this now plays out.
I hope Johnson sees the walls of a prison cell and that he is joined there by Hancock, Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson, SAGE and BBC executives.
Johnson is already “defined” as the worst prime minister this country has ever had. And he has had some very stiff competition for that title in recent decades!
I can see no reason for us not to return to normal now.
So why aren’t Witty, Valence and SAGE saying that? Johnson is going out on a limb and disagreeing with them, what would be argument on doing this sooner?
I don’t think they are disagreeing on anything fundamental. They are all still maintaining this virus is extremely dangerous and that unprecedented measures are required to combat it, probably forever.
Everything else is a matter of degree.
What is required is a full admission that this has been a terrible mistake, that it was not necessary or wise, and that the Swedish approach and herd immunity is the only sustainable, moral response. We won’t get that, from anyone involved, so frankly if they want to bicker, or pretend to bicker among themselves, I don’t give a toss.
Agree with Julian 100%
How to break the pretend dichotomy between SAGE and government is the million dollar question. They are essentially still singing from the same hymn sheet
Agree too. Meanwhile there are many Tory bods on the Telegraph hailing Boris for ‘going out on a limb’ with the ‘promise’ of normality by – wait for it – Christmas. That will be after another long, and painful (once the money dries up) five months! Is that when he is planning on exiting the stage, job done, so he can avoid having to fess up to the disaster he has created?
I don’t think Johnson really knows what he is saying or doing half the time.
Agree he’s lost it big time
Because they are EVIL LYING BASTARDS
Not just here though Two-Six, bit long but worth it….
When you have ‘professors’ coming out NOW saying that severe lockdowns should be reimposed to ‘crush the curve’, we can confirm beyond all doubt that this isn’t about combating a virus pandemic. Watch and weep, bit lengthy but worth it. Covers the excess death issue too…..figures being fiddled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9IV-y1D0&t=2s
That’s a fair summary of the situation.
The more I look at the real data when in a calm and distanced state of mind (rather than fuming), the more I see the incredible hoax that has been played here.
There really is absolutely nothing that shows this virus as anything exceptional in the run of infections that periodically affect us.
I was asked whether, amongst the seven other worse seasonal mortality levels in the past quarter of a century, 1997/8 was better or worse than 2019/20 (the difference is hard to see on a graph). The actuality is that it was almost identical in terms of the percentage of the population that died.
Now – the question is : Who remembers the winter/spring of 1997/98 as a plague year? I certainly don’t. To locate it in memory – it was the first winter of the Blair government, and the death of Diana had occurred earlier. But I can’t remember any panic about an Ebola-like infection during that time that required general lock-up or the wearing of masks.
So this year is indeed very, very strange and unusual : but that strangeness has absolutely *nothing* to do with any real virus.
Untangling the motivations – the sins of commission and omission, the cynicism and the unknowing gullibility, that lie behind is going to be a fascinating historical exploration.
The problem is, the answer to that one is always “But it would have been much worse this year if we didn’t lock down, Neil Ferguson said so!”.
You’re right – but only fraudsters would hold onto that hypothesis that has absolutely no basis in evidence.
This goverment and the last believe in Big Science, as in a bunch of theorists messing around with multi-parameter unverified models to drive real life. They like the power it brings.
No mention of Huxley’s The Great Tragedy of Science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
Facts have been successfully removed.
Evidence is now modelling results.
Climate change science did a number on us all for many years now. So no reason why Covid-19 vagueness is not accepted heartily.
No one, and even here, questions the original source data. But I bet if your bank told you that you owed them £10000 you’d check your account really quickly to make sure. You’d go out of your way to track that data and make sure it was all true before you did anything.
Just just here in the UK John. I keep posting this from Ivor Cummins, bit long but well worth it
“When you have ‘professors’ coming out NOW saying that severe lockdowns should be reimposed to ‘crush the curve’, we can confirm beyond all doubt that this isn’t about combating a virus pandemic. Watch and weep, bit lengthy but worth it. Covers the excess death issue too…..figures being fiddled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9IV-y1D0&t=2s
You keep admitting that you keep posting this . I think we know it is there now.. We are not mask wearing sheeple without independent thought..
point taken
“Game is truly on now, Johnson will be defined by how this now plays out.”
He has already defined himself. His initial mistake, had it been followed by an admission of guilt, would have been grounds for resignation but no more. What has happened since can only be forgiven by his Maker.
“The BBC who have been the Johnson and Cummings mouthpiece for 2-3 years are now in a quandary.”
I presume you mean 2-3 months. Before that, it was mutual loathing. I think the BBC has enthusiastically supported those government policies of which the BBC approved. As time goes on, they will become more critical, but only to ask for more lockdown, more fear, more masks.
As for the divergence between the government and SAGE, it MAY just be theatre or it may be genuine. SAGE don’t need to get re-elected, the government do. The government wants to get the economy back into some kind of shape, in my view, as presiding over a neverending disaster is probably not in their interests or much fun. Better to have a country that still feels a little bit prosperous, with compliant citizens, by opening up enough to get back to semi-normal economic activity but perpetuate the coronamyth, to cover up the Big Lie and the Big Blunder, and to have almost unlimited control over everything.
Johnson’s return to normal isn’t really anything like normal, it will be shit from many points of view, and he’s not doing it for our benefit – it’s for his.
“Johnson’s return to normal isn’t really anything like normal”
Precisely, and as long as he can keep this running, he can avoid the really hard questions.
MPs in general have no investment in stirring it As long as their constituents remain largely fearful and quiescent, they can take the money and sit masked and quiescent, pretending to virtue.
Starmer has no investment in stirring it (as if his instincts were ever other than the establishment back-up) – he can avoid a potentially uncomfortable Conference as long as this goes on; not that the wider Labour Party has been noted for its engagement with this particular issue, any more than any other.
As to SAGE – ? What to say? It’s hardly a model of the scientific method, is it? And, although not up for election, the members have a vested interest in confirmation bias and/or keeping schtum now that they have assented to the crocodile winding down the garden path of mythology, instead of supporting critical analysis.
ScienceJohnson
Science Johnson
Science Johnson
This is how I see what has been happening over the last few weeks. Boris wants to show that he can be a leader (far too late for that now). The latest predictions for the second wave this winter plus Vallance’s statement mean that he can say “No matter what the science says, I’m making the decision to get back to normal. Look what a great statesman I am”
Sorry. Spacing hasn’t worked. The gap between science and Johnson was supposed to get wider on each line!
Maybe option space?
When you have ‘professors’ coming out NOW saying that severe lockdowns should be reimposed to ‘crush the curve’, we can confirm beyond all doubt that this isn’t about combating a virus pandemic. Watch and weep, bit lengthy but worth it. Covers the excess death issue too…..figures being fiddled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9IV-y1D0&t=2s
Honest to god… stop it.
Point taken, got carried away a tad when the reed mist came up after watching
Might explain why SAGE will be sidelined – see my post above.
On the other hand, it would be a convenient smokescreen while we move from supposed health measures to implementing the AI part of the plan.
Contrary to some opinions I have read earlier today, it is quite obvious to me that the disgusting bbc has been at war with the Tory government ever since it was elected, the battle lines being the 4 c’s – covid crap and carbon crap. They see Johnson as the new Trump – hell, they even look a bit alike! So if the bbc is at war with the government then why do they seem to be offering nothing but support? The answer to that is blindingly simple, if you see somebody you want rid of digging their own graves, you don’t try and stop them, you throw them more shovels, and that is exactly what the bbc has been doing.
So why has Johnson now said that there might be an end to all this one day? Again simple, although there hasn’t been a murmur of dissent from the back benches, I am pretty sure that information from conservative central office on cancelled memberships has begun to filter through to him and this is his new motivation. I only wish I had been a party member as cancelling said membership would have been a more powerful tool than anything I can write here.
To go back to the original analogy, BJ has now stopped digging, and passed the shovel over to local councils who are already pretty well universally detested, so whatever they do won’t make much difference to him.
The bbc of course will now have to think again on what they say and maybe might even start visibly opposing him now in order to further their agenda.
The BBC won the election for Johnson. So quite why you think they are at war? Darling Laura and all that. The BBC are the Tory mouthpiece hence with Johnson now starting to talk about normality is challenging for the BBC because they have invested so much time in Project Fear and Johnson has signalled and end to that. Most of this nation follow the BBC and do basically what the BBC advises.
Blimey. Having watched the BBC through the leadership campaign, the election campaign and (until a few days ago), I didn’t pick up on any of that. I’ll give you that the BBC have been enthusiastic propagandists for the fear porn, but they’ve been pretty clear from the beginning that they think that, even though lockdown is a superb idea, the government have done it wrong.
Surely as long as they support and therefore prolong the lockdown, it doesn’t matter too much how they portray the government.
I’m not excusing the BBC for their role – I’m just fascinated by the characterization of them as being pro-Johnson, because I have never, never seen them be such a thing.
I think Old Bill & Matt are spot on – the Beeb is vehemently opposed to this Govt.; Johnson & Cummins in particular. They have fanned the flames of this delusional C19 disaster and in doing so, hope that the Tories will fall into the flames – however that happens.
The shifting of lockdown responsibility to Local authorities is such a smart move – very like the one where they shifted the responsibility for school closure onto the schools & LEAs.
As a parent, I can tell you that the schools have responded pretty sharpish to this Govt. abdication of responsibility and the Unions have shut up. And the MSM have lost interest, pretty much. They cannot be seen to be berating the schools – they want to berate the Gov.
The Beeb loathe this Gov. and they will bend the facts into any sort of shape to paint them black as black.
This does not mean I am in any way forgiving the Gov. for this catastrophe, it is just that I am aware that there is a war on and a phoney media war at the same time, just as in the States.
Sent an email with this link to a new YouTube video to Toby, but it may be taken down before he gets time to view it and consider adding it to the resources on a subsequent newsletter, so sharing it here in case folk want to view it and make up their own minds as to how valid it might be, or not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0heB3FnXyCI&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3enoPvh5mzhLaDPUW1e7S_u5t3x9HRmDKBcT9U0f6m_Ly9h2QnRUL4eJE
Video is actually from the UK (http://www.govote.org.uk), but was flagged up in an American news programme.
It is about the research being done by a team led by Andrew Preston at Bath University, funded by a £28 million grant from Bill Gates, working with GSK Biologicals in Belgium.
Vaccine uses a mix of antigens and chemicals, including the HCG antigen (which causes sterility in females), OLH & 37 amino acids, and GNRH which in males results in drops of testosterone levels, atrophy of the prostate, and decreased testicular size.
Vaccine tested so far on 63 female volunteers – 61 became sterile.
It bears out similar evidence given by American molecular biologist Judy Mikovits concerning the trials at her former lab, headed by Dr Fauci, also funded by Bill Gates; the YouTube interview with her was also taken off line by YouTube’s CEO as a result of Fauci’s complaint.
Perhaps worth keeping an eye on to see if the independent research verifies the GSK whistleblower’s revelations about the contents of the vaccine?
The video which follows the vaccine one – ie. by Fox News on masks and lack of evidence to support their use, and the harms they cause is also worth viewing. That one is less likely to disappear.
Have a look at this too SL….
When you have ‘professors’ coming out NOW saying that severe lockdowns should be reimposed to ‘crush the curve’, we can confirm beyond all doubt that this isn’t about combating a virus pandemic. Watch and weep, bit lengthy but worth it. Covers the excess death issue too…..figures being fiddled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9IV-y1D0&t=2s
Does the T stand for Troll?
You seem determined to fill the comments with the same copy/pasted thing.
It might be good but you’re flogging it to death.
I’ve commented at length on this elsewhere but I think this comment says it all:
A video thats so BANNED that we are all able to watch it on YT
My badges are now on Ebay if you want one.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154011405612
Sharing the link. Thumbs up.
YAY! Thank you. I haven’t got any friends so I can’t promote this sale myself.
Friends risk social interaction, which spreads the virus, so they are banned.
Yer it’s way too risky to engage with most people these days.
This is so true.
Or got furloughed, needed the bus, the shop, the pub or any of the things that were taken from us. Stayed on £83,000 plus expenses, plus fiddle, plus £10,000 ‘homeworking allowance etc., etc.
Or wears a mask in shops because they don’t shop.
Or don’t have to queue or follow stupid one way systems or be forced to use hand sanitisers because they don’t shop, hardly go to restaurants or museums!
Unless they’re mask-posturing in Pret!
A virus so deadly that not 1 politician has died from it.
Not quite, there’s the president of Burundi who recently expelled the WHO envoys from his country. He mysteriously died of a heart attack (caused by Covid, so they say) , before the election.
Yet.
*runs hands together*
Yet.
I seem to have gone slightly viral with my comment on a Facebook post…
https://www.ladbible.com/news/viral-man-23-with-covid-19-shares-tiktok-videos-from-hospital-as-warning-20200718?c=1595061989510?source=facebook
My comment: ‘Karim Salmen was born with a pulmonary condition called bronchiolitis obliterans, which causes inflammation in the lung’s smallest airways, and also has pectus excavatum, which means his breastbone is sunken into his chest.’ Yes young people aren’t invincible but scaremongering bullshit like this is not okay’
It’s received 441 reactions (mostly likes + loves) and 80+ comments (a lot of them not so positive)
Well done – it takes some courage to stand up to that sort of moral blackmail.
I’ve been told that I’m a ‘silly little girl’ and that I should just ‘sit down’.
But here’s my favourite supportive comment so far: “Give up my dear the liberals are out of the cages”
It’s now gone to over 1,000 reactions and the comments keep growing
An interesting coincidence I have seen pointed out. I am sure it is just coincidence and so please forgive me for pointing out this irrelevance. I have often thought that the cornavirus act is like our enabling act 1933.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-enabling-act
The law was passed on March 23, 1933
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_Act_2020
passed the House of Commons without a vote on 23 March
How does something pass the House of Commons without a vote anyway? Has that ever happened before? seems to defeat the entire purpose of the house of commons.
“How does something pass the House of Commons without a vote anyway?”
I don’t know, but I didn’t see much resistance to it’s passing from MPs.
My understanding is that if no one calls out an objection, then no vote takes place. Voting in the HoC is a time consuming business so I think resolutions without votes are quite common.
It’s an interesting parallel.
But in answer to the question – the original Act *was* ‘debated’ in the Commons – but the sheep were terrified into only the most superficial scrutiny. The only concession was (if I remember) clauses relating to timescales for renewal.
The fundamental problem is that enabling legislation like this hands power to the executive without real constraint, such that regulations under the Act, such as we have seen, are dreamed up on the back of an envelope without scrutiny.
Essentially, the process is undemocratic, and was meant for rel emergencies, not manufactured ones.
MP? Where??
Because some of the “Acts” are actually Statutory Instruments or S.I.s and these do not require any sort of Parliamentary Oversight. They have put “Act” in the name to make you think it is “proper” legislation.
S.I.s are supplementary to an enabling Act – a lot of the S.I.s for coronavirus fall under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, (The original (now revoked) The Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020 from 10th February is one of these.) Very, very few are UK Public General Acts which are supposed to have Parliamentary oversight and consultation but this is being pencilwhipped through and passed with almost zero debate.
Coronavirus or officially in the legislation known as :
Meaning of “coronavirus” and related terminology
(1)In this Act—
“coronavirus” means severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2);
“coronavirus disease” means COVID-19 (the official designation of the disease which can be caused by coronavirus).
Is very hard to prove that exact strain exists and then shut down and restrict premises as there is no test as yet that can isolate the “virus” and prove you are suffering from it (Koch’s postulates) or it is contaminating a premises so the Public Health legislation is useless plus it includes paying out compensation so the councils are using health and safety legislation instead to “enforce” social distancing etc when they have no powers to do so – it’s all a big bait and switch with the MSM going along with it misleading you as to what can and cannot be enforced which is why the new “powers” have been introduced today, it’s the only way councils can get places shut down without a lot of hassle and being on teh hook for lots of compensation.
And even worse, was renewed in 1937 and 1941. I believe German politicians had other things on their mind when it came due for renewal again in March 1945. :o))
I’m not so sure he’s that crazy, especially compared to our lot. Not that I would want to live there. And I am sure he’s probably not a very nice man if you get on the wrong side of him.
They seem to have had a second wave of deaths, which hasn’t stopped falling yet. They are an outlier as they did have a sort of first wave. It will indeed be interesting to see what happens.
“They seem to have had a second wave of deaths, which hasn’t stopped falling yet”
NO. Please provide concrete evidence before pandering to the “second wave” narrative.
Iran is a third world country. Can you rely on their statistics? (Hint: can we rely on ours?)
Just taking it from worldometers, presume the stats are as supplied by Iranian government. Hard to know, regarding the stats. Ours are dodgy too. It’s usually harder to fake or cover up deaths so really one would need to look at all-cause mortality and compare to previous years. I’m afraid I don’t have the time to find anything that might be more accurate.
If you look at deaths on worldometers, in general most countries follow the same curve, so I would guess they are vaguely accurate.
Problem – the Worldometer figures, as you say, are dodgy. Even a cursory glance shows the inconsistencies.
I find the FT graphs and their COVID data better in general. Death and case graphs can be found here:
https://bit.ly/2CQNQGE
Iran seems to have opened up a lot and deaths have risen but not exponentially. Case numbers seem relatively flat but case numbers aren’t that useful anyway.
ONS stats are good (and no I do not now nor have I ever worked for them , thanks for asking) ! The problem is that people can’t be bothered to read them before dissing them.
PHE are trying to do a different predictive thing as well, and have made at least one egregious error in the process.
Interesting exchange between the chairman of the Lords science select committee yesterday, Lord Patel, and Professor Whitty. Professor Whitty praised ONS stats as the best in the world, and how data was extremely valuable and extensive, etc. etc. To which the good Lord replied ‘so why do you have to rely on modelling’ – by which I assumed he was referring to the ICL model and its Chinese dataset that still seems to be directing SAGE and ‘the science’.
I am sorry to say that it was not until reading your response, TT, that I realised that the regular grilling of Vallance and others by Lord Patel’s Parliamentary Conmittee is freely available here, and for example, the transcript for 16 July makes fascinating reading:
https://committees.parliament.uk/event/1112/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/
Just the sort of questions, on economic analysis (or absence of), mask wearing evidence, when did SAGE advise politicians about care homes, etc., that so many here have asked in different ways over the past months. Haven’t read it all yet. if you have, some edited highlights might help others?
Gosh Freudian slip there, Committee!
Sorry Sylvie I only listened to bits and pieces (we always have either Sky or CNBC on in the background while ‘working’). I often watch debates/committee meetings with the sound off, to see what I can glean from body language (I know, I need to get out more!). I was taken by Patrick Vallance’s cold sore on his upper right lip – a sign of stress? – and an interesting off camera/Zoom when he looked especially p’d off when Chris Whitty cut across him with an answer to a question he fluffed. I have thought for some time that the body language between Vallance and Whitty suggests conflict, hence I suggested the other day, that in common with Therese Coffey (only Cabinet minister with a science background, and from Mrs Thatcher’s alma mater) Chris Whitty needs to come clean on ‘the science’ as a ‘doctor’. Wishful thinking, perhaps?
Dispatches from the War: Mr. Trump, the enemy is deep inside the gate
“…don’t blithely assume the economy is reopening and things will continue to improve. The nation is under the control of public health traitors. They can declare “new waves” of cases. They can invent pretexts at the drop of a hat, and governors and mayors can declare lockdowns again. This is not over. The economic war against the people is being waged to destroy America.”
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/07/17/mr-trump-the-enemy-is-deep-inside-the-gate/
The new council powers give our lot the same weapons to use against us.
And without doubt they – the local government scroungers and parasites – will be chomping at the bit to use them.
The tinpot Hitlers will love it. I forsee pub closures etc. very soon, over nothing.
I can deal with quite a few problems by video or telephone consults. I do still see a few patients face to face because this gives me more information. I had three of the 15 I saw face to face yesterday sympathising with me because I had to wear a mask all day. I have to be careful in my reply. I am aware of entrapment ! One of my patients volunteered that they wouldn’t be shopping from next Friday and had instead registered for click and collect.
In our surgery death certificate book I flicked through the stubs. Some from April had Covid19 , all from the same nursing homes . None for three months
Went to the local cafe for lunch. waiting staff tugging their dirty face rags up and down . What a waste of time . Request for my name and number . I usually follow the same policy when giving my name in Starbucks which is the first name which pops into my head. What name do other sceptics give ?
I’ve not yet had ‘pleasure’ of having to provide my details, but if/when I do, it will be a mobile number with a couple of digits different from my actual number.
Give a false name and number. Pubs and restaurants have no authority to demand verification of your real identity or make you fill in the track and track bullpoop. I have said to quite few pub people that I will not give my details and if they insist then I have made it clear that I am giving them a false name. I have got my beers in. No trouble at all.
Yes. Remember – it’s not their fault.
Not sure about that… That’s it’s not their fault.
Taking someone’s details is a very big infringement of personal privacy and these establishments are doing it without a moment’s hesitation or thought. Because they have mindlessly swallowed the bull without due process of thought or scrutiny.
My mother in law (German) said something similar about her fellow country-folk – that ‘it wasn’t their fault’ because they were being, her words, ‘good neighbours’. We were discussing the reporting of the presence of suspected Jews in communities in Berlin before & during the war. She maintained that it was the law and so the people were exempt from moral scrutiny.
This is a very dubious position to take – then as now…
that’s precisely what i did – gave a different digit in my mobile number – so could be down to a typo…
I call my self ‘Harry Hopkins’ (called after FD Roosevelt’s right hand man during the great depression and second world war) and I have a ficticious mobile ‘phone number memorised by combining dates of events in my life. The irony is that whilst my ficticious phone number is never forgotten I sometimes for the life of me cannot recall my genuine number!
Ivor Biggun
RJ Bingham, 46 Lower Belgrave Street, London SW1W 0LN
Would be interesting to ask the establishment for their privacy policy and how they comply with the EU GDPR regulations and the 8 user rights of how companies use personal data.
I can’t remember all the 8 user rights now but products needed to compliant when the edict came in a couple of years ago and a lot of fuss in companies – the ICO website has all the info for the curious.
I will be:
Carrie Symonds
10 Downing Street
London SW1A
or
Veronica Bingham,
46 Lower Belgrave Street,
London SW1W 0LN
Yesterday I became Matt Wancock of Room 101, BBC Broadcasting House, London for a few hours. It was an ok experience.
I’ve posted this before but if you are struggling to make up some details, find some at https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
If enough do it the feckers will be constantly told to self-isolate.
Would we notice any difference?
A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25903751/
Conclusion, cloth masks absolutely no protection and increase risk of infection
Going to enjoy telling the ‘designer mask’ wearers that little gem
T. Prince or somebody pretending to be T. Prince is spamming useless links over and over. Is there any way to block them?
He is a pain.
Quick thought of the day.
A sheep may in time become a sceptic, but a sceptic once exposed to the truth can never return to the flock.
Stay positive folks. More are joining our cause every day!
Hello m’dear fellow Sceptics! Just want to share an experience that moved me to tears, but not, for once, tears of rage or despair.
I was out on a cycle ride and was passing through a neighbouring village when a man, obviously an undertaker ion full regalia, waved me to a halt. Out of a side road came a hearse, the coffin inside draped in a Union Jack, followed by four or five cars (all that were allowed by our governing Fascist pigs, obviously).
They passed down the main street at a walking pace, me following at a discreet distance, pushing the bike. And the street was lined with villagers, solid, both sides, all holding union jacks and applauding. (I won’t use the horrible word ‘clapping’ for this)
I asked someone who the person had been, and she said it was an old lady who had died aged 99, having lived in the village nearly all her life, and given valiant service to Bomber Command during the war.
I’ll swear the whole village had turned out. The coward church might try to keep them out, but they came out anyway, men, women, children, dogs, everybody. And this was in a village that I’d have thought was no more or less zombified than any other.
Because the heart is still there. The CoviFascists may think that heart has been silenced, crushed, perverted, terrorised, stopped, but it’s still there, the fundamental decency. Indeed I think that most people are simply lying low and agreeing with everything in the hope that it will all go away. Not brave, but not wicked either.
So thank you, brave Peggy. We bring nothing into this world and we can take nothing out, but you gave me a last gift. You gave me hope. God bless you.
Wonderful post as always Annie, very uplifting.
The human spirit will win out – it always does
Womderful post and bet it was a privilege to witness that.
Great post Annie. God bless her!
Marvelous thoughts in your words Annie. Thank you.
Boycott Asda:
https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1284441325069361152
Pfft. I’ve been boycotting Asda for years anyway. Miserable dump.
Same here and they always seemed to be located in dodgy areas so would always avoid them anyway.
With you there – though not as bad as Aldi!
Steady on I love my local Aldi!
Keep them coming! Each and every brick in the wall raises the flag of hope in others. Within moments of sharing Dolans tweet onwards on whatsapp I got an unhappy face from a contact. A single parent who uses asda. I have shared much to raise awareness – into that silence we are all used to. This small asda matter has hit a nerve in one person, not the only one. Regular Asda customers are salt of the earth many won’t take this.
Asda 2020: We are only following orders;
War criminals 1946: We were only following orders.
Damn, we shop at Aldi and Asda. It’s not looking good.
Police not shops are supposed to enforce the mandatory masks and Law or Fiction says:
‘Shops, councils and anyone providing services to the public has a legal obligation, under Part 3 of the Act, not to discriminate unlawfully in providing those services and to take all reasonable steps, making ‘reasonable adjustments’, to avoid the particular disadvantages suffered by those with disabilities.
ExamplesA citizen with a mental impairment or physical impairment who may become distressed at many things. This could waiting in a queue for a long time, or being forced to use the shop sanitizer before entering the shop, or wearing a mask. They should not unnecessarily be made to do those things. They, and their carer, could be waved through to avoid that distress. A very significant disadvantage and impediment to their lives can thereby be removed with negligible (probably immeasurably close to nil) increased risk of injury to any person.
http://www.laworfiction.com/2020/06/disability-discrimination-some-common-decency-please/‘
Also, I can’t see anyone being able to get a doctor’s note so these stores are being unreasonable. We’ve emailed Morrison’s for their policy as we (husband and I) are both exempt and have got the badges etc.
Asda will certainly find themselves in hot water when they demand this from a disabled customer who decides to promptly sue them for discrimination and harassment.
No: go there, load the biggest trolley with frozen food and abandon it in George.
Leave, get another trolley, load it and, after packing the contents and being asked to pay discover that you left your wallet at home.
Asda is definitely one of the worst supermarkets round my neck of the woods – one of the only ones which has still kept the one-way system, and has actually cordoned off the ends of certain aisles so people have to walk a certain way around them.
I have one in my area – only went once and never again – it was horrible.
And further to my reply to Matt’s post – the Asdas I’ve encountered always seem to be in crap areas. The one in Manchester near to where I lived was so bad that I had to make sure that I was out of the area before 4pm and To Be Avoided At All Costs during the weekend.
Was that Asda Hulme lol?
If that’s pre-mask, they deserve no custom!
Excellent responses!
Pity I don’t know how to edit the cartoon once I download it to change co-workers to “my SAGE experts”:
https://dilbert.com
My wife and I went to Skipton for a day out yesterday. We live around fifteen miles from the town and enjoy going over there to walk along the canal, visit the shops, get some lunch, possibly walk alongside the castle and generally mooch about. We also wanted to see how ‘Coroni’ was effecting the town and whether it was noticeable in attitudes and behaviour.
Good to see that those not wearing masks were in the large majority although it was a tad depressing to see a mother and her two small children wearing same. You do wonder what the long term effect of this is having on kids. I tried to enter Boots and was asked by a pleasant lady standing guard at the entrance if I would mind using the hand sanitiser standing on the table next to her. ‘I certainly would mind’ I replied in a polite but firm tone to which she immediately stood back and said ‘Ohh—OK then’ and in I went. In the meantime my wife had entered the shop unsanitised whilst I was occupying the ‘guard’.
Every shop along Skipton high street had a bottle or spray of chemical gunk just waiting for would be shoppers to plaster on their hands and the sad thing was that most who entered complied. I looked in the window of Market Cross jewelers and saw a nice wrist watch that took my fancy. The door was open and there was NO sanitiser on view. ‘Can I come in’ I shouted to the assistant situated who looked up, beckoned me in, and immediately donned his cheap paper mask. ‘Could I have a close look at that watch in the window?’ I asked and pointed it out. At this the assistant carried over a portable plastic screen with a slot cut out of the bottom which he placed on a table near the entrance and beckoned me to sit down. He then retrieved the watch from the window, went round to the other side of the table holding the watch and produced, yes you guessed, a spray bottle of gunk which he fed through the slot and instructed me to spray on my hands. ‘I’m sorry’ I replied ‘I’m not prepared to spray my hands with whatever you have in that bottle’. ‘If you don’t I can’t allow you to touch or handle the watch’ was his rather brusque reply spoken through the perspex barrier. ‘In that case you’ve just lost a sale’ I responded and got up and walked out of the shop. It didn’t have to be like this. My wife bought a bracelet at a small jewellry shop in Harrogate recently, no masks, no sanitiser, no plastic barriers, pretty normal in fact.
If shops are hoping to survive, in spite of ridiculous government ‘guidelines’, they really do have to find ways of not making their customers feel like lepers and treating them like it’s visiting time at a prison. I want to help small businesss, I have disposable income, I realise it’s tough for them right now but I refuse to be treated like I’m Hannibal Lector. Some are doing this, usually the smaller outfits where the owner is in the shop but others, like Market Cross jewelers, have a lot to learn.
Down at the canal basin we noted, with sadness, that the famed pie and pea shop rated number one in Skipton for quality of food, was closed. Grass and weeds growing out of the paving outside was depressingly indicative that this shop may never open again. Skipton’s department store, Rackhams, was closed and empty, never to open again. How many jobs have gone with that?
We did find a high note down by the canal. The cruisers seemed to be operating normally and people were using them and I didn’t see much use of masks and we did stumble on a small craft selling locally made ice cream which was delicious and the vendor was friendly and obviously Coroni sceptic—which was nice.
Our day out in Skipton was mixed. Not too many masks, too much emphasis on chemical hand sanitisers, the canal and its environs as nice as ever. We intend to go about our lives as normally as possible but Hell will freeze over before I wear a mask or plaster my hands with some chemical detergent just to ‘go along with it’.
And one other thing and maybe this is the true rebel in me. Whenever I come across direction arrows on the floor in shops or other places I purposely walk the wrong way—it makes me feel good and I’ve never been challenged.
The bastards took the pie shop!
Aside from the overwhelming evidence that the ‘virus’ pandemic is a scam, I would have thought that the demise of the pie shop would have been enough on its to turn the good Yorkshire folk of Skipton sceptical!
Thanks for that detailed outline of one location.
Let’s face it, the Luftwaffe did less widespread damage than Johnson and his crony Spivs and Chancers.
Thanks for this. I live not far from Skipton. I hope it gets better. I’m never gonna wear a face mask
You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. This is why I’ve been boycotting the shops, I feel sorry for the average worker but not for the owners of the business especially the major High Street chains. Cowards the lot of them, they have not fought the government over this and simply rolled over and accepted it giving many of their staff the licence to behave like little Hitlers and Stalins. They don’t deserve to survive and if they go under I won’t be shedding any tears for them.
I agree about the high street chains. The big guys were a bunch of pathetic wimps!
Apart from Aldi (I have to eat!) I’m making a point of supporting the small independents – if they are sensible.
The small independents have been better, unfortunately they are as rare as hen’s teeth in my area so when I’m out and about I try to support them as much as I can. Also takeaways too.
The sanitisers are there because of guidelines. However, it depends how nervous the shop owners are whether they insist you use it or not.
The owner of the tiny cafe I visited on Thursday was terribly on edge, asking us to sign in, gel hands, social distance etc etc. They’ve only been open about a week.
I told her I didn’t want to do anything that would get her into trouble. She replied “It’s stupid isn’t it? I’ll be glad when we can all get back to normal.”
So try to have some sympathy for the small guys. If they behave like Hitler all well and good but remember they are worried about snitchers and being closed down again.
Things should start to relax. My local Aldi has hand sanitiser and spray for your trolley handle. Last month, it was just outside the entrance and (most) people used it dutifully. Now it’s inside the shop and everyone ignores it. The other thing I’ve noticed is that this last week, they’ve started chaining the trolleys together again too.
Did anyone see this letter in the Telegraph:
SIR – Alan Billingsley (Letters, July 15) asks why we are not getting figures for hospital admissions for Covid-19. I think I know why: these figures are published by Public Health England, but seem not to be widely reported.
Every week PHE publishes updated data from Chess (the Covid-19 Hospitalisation in England Surveillance System). The most recent data show that, in the week ending July 5, the number of laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 admissions to hospital per 100,000 of new cases for England as a whole was 1.59 (down from 2.20 in the preceding week). That number has been dropping consistently from a high of about 27 in 100,000 (0.027 per cent) at the beginning of April.
Neither Mr Billingsley nor I should be complacent, though. Things are about twice as bad in the north-west of England, with about four hospitalisations for every 100,000 cases of Covid-19 (0.004 per cent).
All a big fat sham as most of us knew
And the full PHE information bulletin is available at the touch of a button here, as it has been weekly:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/901803/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_29_FINAL.pdf
On the one hand they made a daft assumption in relation to reporting deaths from CV 19, which is not replicated in the ONS stats, because the latter are taken from death certs; on the other, they collect wide info and explain what they are doing.
Sorry, wrong link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports
Here we go…shops will be next.
LNER ‘not running coronavirus safe service’
Passengers have accused LNER of putting them at risk by failing to check everyone on its trains is wearing face coverings and physically distanced.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/lner-not-running-coronavirus-safe-service-2917394
“Had to comfort visibly shaken elderly woman who was uncomfortable when no-one around us was wearing face masks and, when asked, refused to put them on.”
More fear porn from the MSN.
There will be people genuinely scared by this who should also be respected. However this could just as likely be a side effect of the constant fear mongering that has been peddled as it is genuine fear of people not wearing masks.
They could have “safe” carriages where the timid can huddle together – socially distanced – in their masks and let everyone else get on with it in the normal carriages. I’m sure more people would be willing to travel that way.
Nudge unit instructed this emotional engagement with the public in order to get compliance. The article is exactly that.
You’re right in highlighting the real perverts. Try not to blame the victims.
If she doesn’t like it she shouldn’t travel then,no-one should have to live their lives in a certain way just to make someone else feel ‘comfortable’,so sick of this endless bullshit.
I don’t know what the problem is,there is hardly anyone on the LNER trains I see everyday and those that are on board are very spaced out in the carriages.
those that are on board are very spaced out in the carriages.
Don’t blame them. I would need to smoke a whole lot of weed before I got on a train these days.
Lol,I didn’t notice that when I wrote it !
She shouldn’t be out in public
If she feels that way stay indoors…for good!
What if I get visibly shaken and uncomfortable due to my anxiety when I have to put an oppressive mask on which makes it far more difficult for me to breathe freely?
Travelled on LNER to London this week and back the next day. You can’t travel without a seat reservation so are automatically spaced a reasonable distance from others. All seat backs are high so in fact it’s hard to see anyone other your closer neighbours. Both trains were pretty quiet anyway.
I didn’t wear a mask but had a big, bright scarf which I wear anyway and which I could mummify myself in if necessary. It wasn’t. No one challenged me or even looked at me oddly.
I reckon about a third of people were wearing proper masks, a third wearing them any old how, and a third not bothering at all.
It was fine but I found myself missing the buzz of busy travel.
I can now see a scenario where this runs on until spring of next year. The Government is now talking about lifting the restrictions by Christmas “if we’re good”, but when the bug makes a reappearance in the winter months, even if it is in a much diminished capacity, you will once again have the panic and then the cave-in.
The only way I see this being avoided is if economic reality kicks in hard enough, besides, how many business can survive a masked-up and socially distanced Christmas season?
Yes, fear your first point, but pretty confident the second will win the day, starting in October – ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ will always prevail!
I wonder if they’re all banking on getting a vaccine this autumn. Expensive bet though…
It is already in production – “before being approved”.
Really dreading this winter. Furlough ends and a tsunami of job losses hits, meaning the days are cold, dark, depressing, and skint. A lot of people will be very unhappy. The NHS will undoubtedly be overwhelmed not by Covid, but by the backlog of those on the waiting list who were forgotten about in the midst of the hysteria. I worry that normal winter ailments like flu will be much worse this year as people’s immune systems have been weakened by months of uncertainty, stress, reduced contact with other people and places. I guess it gives the government a nice way to engineer a second wave. You’d think they wouldn’t be so dishonest as to pass flu off as Covid but now we know how dishonestly they’ve been recording Covid deaths, anything is possible right?!
They are playing us. Consider that the NHS and local private hospitals are not operating properly and there are millions of people with untreated medical problems by the time Christmas comes around the hospitals will be overwhelmed and perfect scenario for Mein Fuhrer to proclaim more Orwellian diktat on us.
They’ll lift the restrictions for Christmas because its the busiest shopping time of the year, then close it back down. If nothing will convince people this is bollocks I don’t know what will.
By Christmas we could well be battling an even bigger crisis with the economy. However battle lines will be drawn between public health and the economy.
Generals for public health will argue that we cannot fight on multiple fronts, i.e. COVID, flu and the economy. We must minimise death, but if there is no value given then the default minimum is zero and will morph into one death is one too many.
Public health will win out because if you capitulate to the one death is one too many argument you can never justify any action that could lead to a single death.
Hopefully people will start to realise that the ‘generals for public health’ are actually the ones doing the mass murdering.
Given the economy is tanking so badly and the compulsory masking will most likely accelerate the demise of the High Street (even Central London) it will come a point where people hopefully should realise that they’ve been had.
When they realise that and having lost everything they might realise that they have nothing to lose by rioting. And that’s what the government should take heed now if they don’t want something that will make the 2011 riots look like a picnic.
I don’t think Christmas itself will survive that. They will be walking on very thin ice after that!
Oooh, I’m excited. Just got a delivery from Ocado (I know, gold dust.) Tipped the driver (always do) and he offered me a fist bump, which I accepted. Good on you matey from Ocado. (won’t mention you by name just in case.)
A little bit of comfort this morning…went out to local farmshop, which we have used for over ten years now. Yep, they’re going down the masks route. However, they are going to allow people to place an order by phone, then collect it in their car-park; or they will also deliver (which they’ve been doing for some months anyway but we declined in order to leave the service available for the genuinely house-bound). This will leave the yellow-bellies with their masks to enter the shop without fear of encountering us germ-infested renegades.
So we’ll be ordering and collecting. I’m thankful the farm-guy has been inventive because he runs a good outlet. We encountered a number of dissenting voices en route, which was nice to hear.
A lot of purchases from farmshops tend to be spontaneous. I hope they don’t need to pander to the mask-wearers for too long because they will be losng sales.
The Dutch corona policy sceptics from http://www.viruswaanzin.nl published some news. Turns out several researchers of the Dutch version of PHE, the RIVM (www.rivm.nl), published a text on COVID-19 on 9 March 2020 in the Dutch medical magazine “Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde” (see Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd. 2020;164:D4961).
The intriguing thing is this sentence:
“De kans op overlijden na een besmetting is nog erg onzeker, in de buurt van 0,5%, dit cijfer is pas duidelijk vast te stellen na afloop van een epidemie.”
In English: “The probability of death after an infection is still very uncertain, close to 0.5%, this figure can only be clearly determined after an epidemic.”
See the screenshot for the exact location of this sentence in the text.
But if the Dutch governmental advisers (the authors are (also) civil servants) estimated that the IFR (that’s what they are talking about, not the CFR) would be a mere 0,5%, then why did the Dutch government panic just a few weeks later and went into an unprecedented lock-down…?
That footnote nr. 3 in the Dutch text is also interesting. It refers to WHO situation report nr. 30 (19 February 2020) in which this is stated:
“Using an estimated number of total infections, the Infection Fatality Ratio can be calculated. This represents the fraction of all infections (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) that result in death. Based on these available analyses, current IFR estimates range from 0.3% to 1%.”
Here too an estimated IFR which is much less than the end of times numbers people were expecting due to a bombardment of catastrophic news and numbers.
So, what is currently, 4 months or so later, the COVID-19 IFR for the Netherlands? Well, at the end of June the Dutch minister for health, Hugo de Jonge, stated that the IFR was 0.32%-1%. Pretty much exactly what was estimated in the WHO report. Also, the RIVM recently estimated we have had 1.000.000 infections in the Netherlands, of which 6100 (or perhaps 9000) died, which would be an IFR of 0.6% (or alternatively 0.9%). Again, that 0.6% is a near perfect score to that estimation of 0.5% in March!
The actual number will probably turn out to be (much) lower than that, but when even the official numbers, on which governmental decisions and actions are supposedly based, are quite good already, why then all the (continuing) fuzz? Shouldn’t the government be very relieved and very happy and state so publicly very loudly…? So why don’t they do so….?
Indeed … and the rough average of calculated IFRs is … 0.26%
great website, thank you.
Dodgy Data
As they say – just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
So … perhaps my even greater level of suspicion following the Oxford CEBM’s unveiling of dodgy data from PHE is understandable – even if it’s nigh on 4 months since it became obvious that we were being spun a load of crap.
Actually, the redoubtable CEBM group foreshadowed the story that hit the press (and Handcock) a couple of days earlier, when they published a bar chart illustrating the divergence of PHE data from what was actually happening. I passed over it, thinking ‘Well- what’s new?’ – but of course, the fuller article appeared a couple of days later.
I’ve now come across another ‘data shift’ (like red shift, it often tends to indicate a body moving away from our world of truth). This time, it’s more speculative, modelled data from the “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot” at :
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/previousReleases
The bulletin of 9th July contained the following estimate of infection within the community :
“We estimate that an average of 1 in 3,900 individuals within the community population in England had COVID-19 at any given time between 22 June and 5 July 2020.”
Fair enough – it’s an estimate based on pretty shaky swab-testing – but even then shows a low incidence of real world infection.
By the next bulletin (17th July), however, we have the following :
“To improve the stability of the estimates, we now base our headline estimates on our exploratory modelling results, resulting in slightly higher figures than in the previous bulletin. This is not a change in the rate of people testing positive.
We estimate around 1 in 2,300 individuals within the community population in England had COVID-19 within the most recent week, from 6 July to 12 July 2020.”
….. Now, as those familiar with ICL and Ferguson know, models are just … well … models and can give you any answer you want if you intentions are impure or incompetent … so results always have to be looked at critically.
Isn’t odd that, instead of the rate of infection going down, as would be expected from more reliable mortality and critical care data from hospitals, it has taken a leap in the opposite direction to fit in with the government narrative whilst actual positive testing remains stable.
Not that I’m suspicious …. and, anyway – it’s still a number that makes the current blind panic a ridiculous over-reaction …. but …..
Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage):
“Unfortunately I think it [normality] is quite a long way away,” Prof Edmunds told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning.
“If what you mean by normality is what we used to do until February and the middle of March this year – go to work normally, travel on the buses and trains, go on holiday without restrictions, meet friends, shake hands, hug each other and so on – that’s a long way off, unfortunately.
“We won’t be able to do that until we are immune to the virus, which means until we have a vaccine that is proven safe and effective.
“If we return to those sort of normal behaviours the virus will come back very fast,” he said.
Just fuck off, Edmunds. I’ve had more than enough of this doom-mongering clap-trap from people with a one-track mind. So according to him, we’ll be like this forever, if there’s no vaccine.
Edmunds is awful. He’s spouted this kind of stuff from the start. At every easing he predicts catastrophic second waves. Everything is “too soon”.
Lots of people have been meeting friends and hugging for weeks now. It makes you wonder how and where he’s living at the moment, to be so out of touch. Obviously not in the real world or he’d have noticed that quite a lot of people are now behaving relatively normally.
Ultimately, what’s the point of him saying this stuff? What does he want to achieve, other than to cause a huge rise in suicides and mental health issues? And does he really believe that we can live like this forever if there isn’t a vaccine? Why would it be necessary when every other pandemic in history has not required a complete and permanent change in human behaviour, or a vaccine, to fizzle out and disappear?
Wonder why he says this?
At the beginning he was all for herd immunity.
Because of this maybe: “Edmunds studied at Imperial College London” and is a member of the Academy of medical Sciences.
Look who the donors are:
https://acmedsci.ac.uk/about/how-we-are-funded/academy-donors
Among others:
Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry
AstraZeneca
Department of Health and Social Care
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
Public Health England
University College London
Wellcome Trust
At least it is one thing that Bill Gates hasn’t donated directly to.
“The virus will come back very fast”. Yeah, like it has in Sweden. Anyway, I don’t know what planet he’s on but people have been meeting their friends and hugging for quite a while now. Glad I’m not a friend or relative of his.
You’ve got to wonder about these people, what makes them tick. Maybe they didn’t like normality much. Maybe the prospect of this shitehouse life forever doesn’t bother him. I mean, he must know, mustn’t he, that it’s all been totally overblown? I just cannot comprehend why you’d want to try and influence events in such an obscene, ungodly direction.
I think there are many who clearly did not like the old normal.
You don’t get air time on the bbc by accident.
No immunity, but a magic vaccine will give you it!
How many times have we all read that bollocks?
Far too often.
Most (99%) are actually effectively immune but magic vaccines can soon change that.
Edmunds is a fear-mongering little shit.
His former fellow SAGE scientific expert, Professor Ferguson, doesn’t agree with him – he’s been back to normal since late March!
What an absolute bastard, and fuck the BBC too!
That’s government policy according to the ‘Nando’s’ scale which everyone seems to have forgotten about.1, normal life not possible until vaccine.
Uprising by Muse would be an appropriate theme tune.
“Uprising”
Paranoia is in bloom,
The PR transmissions will resume
They’ll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down
And hope that we will never see the truth around
(so come on)
Another promise, another seed
Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined
(so come on)
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious
(so come on)
Interchanging mind control
Come, let the revolution take its toll
If you could flick the switch and open your third eye
You’d see that we should never be afraid to die
(so come on)
Rise up and take the power back
It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack
You know that their time’s coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend
(so come on)
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious
(so come on)
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious
(so come on)
Hey, hey, hey, hey
A person I know was recently arrested under the covid regulations.
Denounced by a curtain twitcher; his crime was to paint the walls of the beer garden of the local pub (The landlady has MS and was unable to do it herself)
No money changed hands, it was done on a volunteer basis (remember doing someone a good turn?)
They sent 6 police officers to the pub. The ‘culprit’ is 62 years of age and has no previous convictions and not in the best of health himself. He didn’t resist, was calm and polite and went passively
He spent five and a half hours in the cells. His fingerprints, photograph and DNA were taken. He was threatened on a number of occasions that he would be remanded in custody even though he had not been charged with any any offence
His prescription medication was confiscated and the police refused to return it to him even after he had been released
He was eventually released ‘under investigation’ (which is code for we know you haven’t done anything wrong)
I presume these sorts of things are normal under a Dictator
Yes – in the early months: just wait for next year!
All part of the current programme to wind up the silent majority in this country.
This is almost unbelievable. Then again, maybe not. What was he supposed to have done wrong?
He was never told, only that he had been arrested under ‘the corona regulations’
Wow, they could have just driven him round the block and pretended they were doing their duty!
What the actual fuck
There has to be more to this than meets the eye.
During lockdown, you were allowed to go to work as long as the work couldn’t be done from home – painting can’t!
So on what grounds was he taken to the police station?
It sounds like a fairly cut and dried case of wrongful arrest to me.
This gobshite has a lot to answer for (paywall article, but see the comments):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/18/revealed-little-known-data-scientist-convinced-west-wear-face/
Man says the data he’s gathered is convincing. Lots of people have seen it. Some have agreed. Trump wore a mask once which is not evidence that he was influenced by the subject in the article but it’s been written to suggest he was.
That’s all I could reasonably say about this article. There may well be more to it but the article itself is merely posturing and suggestion.
What an egregious load of bollox. Where did this “scientist” look? Presumably no further than the recently-altered WHO website.
The intent of the article is clear from the photo about Carrie Hudson’s maskless restaurant – where she’s half-wearing a mask, though it does quote her as saying “If certain people choose to wear a mask, good for them. However, don’t come at me if I’m not wearing one. Doesn’t make sense. I mean, their masks work, right? Governments and states that are mandating masks? It’s tyranny!”
Also, how about this:
masks were said to have prevented two hairdressers who had unwittingly contracted Covid-19 from passing it on to their 139 customers
Unwittingly contracted indeed!
I’m on a trial subscription with the DT. When it expires, I won’t be paying full whack for such rubbish.
Would have liked to see some kind of presentation of the data. I’ve seen nothing ‘convincing’ so far on the use of masks, but if this guy won the world round, presumably he has something? Otherwise the article is data scientists, blah, masks, blah, Trump, blah. Blah.
“Donald Trump, who had long sneered at face coverings, was finally, belatedly, sporting one, and in public. And, with that black mask, embossed with the US Presidential seal, Jeremy Howard’s extraordinary mission had helped claim the most important scalp of all.”
Yeah, that sounds very scientific.
It’s about getting people to do what you want. There doesn’t have to be any real rationale behind it.
And I assumed Trump wore a mask because he was visiting a veterans hospital where it wouldn’t make sense not wearing a mask. I can just imagine the international outcry if he’d gone there without a mask.
“Masks are going to be mandatory – we need clear messaging now to ensure it happensDaniel Howdon“
… is a Groaniad opinion piece from an alleged “ senior research fellow at the University of Leeds Institute of Health Sciences”
What the f. is someone who can’t convey Scientific or Healthy messages doing researching in ‘Health Sciences’? A walking oxymoron.
Remember the Groan’s begging tagline? :
“Our reporting can change the story”.
Indeed, Viner. Indeed
Interesting Guardian Pick comment on the article:
I want to be constructive, but reading all of this, which I think has a lot of merit, my main thought is “not going to happen”.
The government didn’t introduce this because of the public health benefits, but to nudge the population into getting back to work and into the shops. Therefore, they’re not going to be bothered about the efficacy of using them. Were it a public health move, it would and could have been done a long time ago.
I think even if this was the intent, the idea that the government would be able to role out a clear and comprehensive communication problem, and help out those less able to afford masks, seems to rest on the premise we have an entirely different government.
Unfortunately, the rest of the comments, as far as I could bear to read, all required the use of a sick bucket.
Horrendous, as always from the Graun. Classic virtue-signalling rubbish and portraying life as a binary of wear a mask or get hooked up to a ventilator.
The average Guardian reader is probably a bedwetter, Cheezilla.
Yes. The comments clearly demonstrate that!
I’d like to attempt to redress the balance a bit but I’m a wimp, so I don’t venture in very often. I fear they are beyond help.
off-guardian started up by denied commenters. Their coverage of covid is worth looking at
“The government didn’t introduce this because of the public health benefits….. Were it a public health move, it would and could have been done a long time ago”
Thanks. That will be my answer to anyone who asks why I’m not wearing a mask.
Bit how are ‘cases’ defined? Positive tests, even if asymptomatic? If so, false positives probably account for most of the hype
It isn’t just false positives that are inflating the figures, Positive tests mean very little if those being tested are asymptomatic, not infectious and are likely to stay that way. All that really matters are the deaths and these have now virtually vanished without trace. We are left with just the endless government and media hysterical hype. Clearly we are being scammed and it is becoming all about the great depopulator, Bill Gates and his exceedingly dodgy very experimental fast tracked hardly tested vaccines. We are being set up and are in very big trouble.
You are right. We are being set up and self-righteous morons are going along with it and enforcing this madness on the dissidents.
Found this while mooching just now:
https://apps.who.int/gpmb/board.html
Look who’s on the board:
https://apps.who.int/gpmb/board.html
Fauci, representatives from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust plus ex-WHO leaders.
Not exactly impartial.
This bit is priceless:
“The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) is an independent monitoring and accountability body to ensure preparedness for global health crises. Comprised of political leaders, agency principals and world-class experts, the Board provides an independent and comprehensive appraisal for policy makers and the world about progress towards increased preparedness and response capacity for disease outbreaks and other emergencies with health consequences. In short, the work of the GPMB will be to chart a roadmap for a safer world.”
See this thread on Simon Dolan’s Twitter, for a (rather scary) quote from the Global preparedness monitoring board, and more : https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1284442932318175232
Some positive news.
I’ve just been paid a visit by my brother in law who is a village butcher. He has said that the shop won’t be enforcing the mask rule. He said there are people with exemptions and they’re just not going to bother with it.
My guess is that a lot of small local shops rely on good relationships with regular customers. They’re obviously going to upset and risk losing some of their regulars if they start to “police” them.
Why would anyone want to bother, especially when this is such an obviously crude policy that is not even being implemented in some parts of the country.
Sensible.
Only can say good things about local shops here. The butcher especially included. You can tell a lot about a deadly virus by going into a sequence of local shops. The proprietors are savvy and community minded. A group of them would make a fine jury.
This is my hope for next week. Since the end of March, my shopping has been done almost exclusively in the local butcher and greengrocer with the occasional trip to M&S for store cupboard stuff. I’ll do an M&S shop for necessaries next Thursday and then hope and assume that the butcher and greengrocer won’t turn me away. We’ll see. I’ll hang before I wear a mask though.
From across the pond here the good old CDC had to loosen it’s already flimsy definition of “a case” to keep the fear going as the US is currently experiencing all-time weekly record low overall death rates. They killed all the fragile elderly so not the usual stockpile of readily available deaths at the moment. However with increased mask mandates (makes sense during a time of record low deaths eh?) I think we can harness another pool of potential “viral victims”- brain dead at least.
What’s a “Covid “Case?”
Positive cases (confirmed and probable)
API field name: positive
Total number of people with confirmed OR probable COVID-19 reported by the state or territory (per the expanded CSTE case definition of April 5th, 2020 approved by the CDC). A confirmed case is a person who has a positive test result from an FDA approved diagnostic molecular test. A probable case is a person who either has presentable symptoms WITH epidemiological evidence or has BOTH a positive presumptive[?] laboratory test AND also EITHER presentable symptoms OR epidemiological evidence. Epidemiological evidence refers either to close-proximity contact with a known case or travel history to an area with high disease incidence. According to the guidelines, FDA approved antibody and antigen tests are considered part of presumptive laboratory evidence.
https://covidtracking.com/data-definitions
Note on cases: Following guidance from the CDC, many US states and territories now report both lab-confirmed cases and probable cases of COVID-19. (To be considered a probable case, a patient must meet a specific combination of clinical, laboratory, or epidemiological criteria.) Many of the states that report probable cases do not separate probable and lab-confirmed cases in their reporting, so our case count necessarily includes both lab-confirmed and probable cases. We have changed the label we use for this information from “positives” to “cases” to make it clear that these numbers do not exclusively represent positive test results.
https://covidtracking.com/data
Covid Symptoms:
People with these symptoms may have COVID-19:
Fever or chills
Cough
Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
Fatigue
Muscle or body aches
Headache
New loss of taste or smell
Sore throat
Congestion or runny nose
Nausea or vomiting
Diarrhea
This list does not include all possible symptoms. CDC will continue to update this list as we learn more about COVID-19.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html
Looked at logically, this confirms the gut-busting effort to make almost anything ‘Covid’.
If you have a sense of the absurd – and a functioning brain – it’s quite funny, even if the consequences aren’t.
Those are symptoms of every and any flu virus doing the rounds every winter actually.
Strange coincidence, that!
Went for a run yesterday, came back with symptoms 2, 3, 4, 5 and 9. Looks like I’m a gonner.
The most stupid thing about this is that COVID-19 refers to the symptomatic respiratory disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. If you are infected by the virus SARS-CoV-2 but you have no symptoms of the disease COVID-19, you are not a “case” of COVID-19, you are someone who has become infected by the virus SARS-CoV-2
Reading the transcript of the select committee speaking to Vallance yesterday:
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/701/pdf/
Some of the bumsucking is pretty awful in places and goes on about the pick of British Science which is “one of the strongest forces in the world”.
Valance reiterates time and time again that SAGE only advises, someone else makes the decisions, their advice is not the only thing decisions are based upon and so on time and time again – setting the scene for a “not us guv” defence to me. Typical response “Science advice here is not policy advice.” and “The policy on how you do that is not my decision.” “We do not recommend policy options”. “We give the advice; the advice is laid out clearly; the advice is in the public domain and people can see the advice we have given in these matters. Then it is a matter of operationalising it. Clearly, that is not an accountability of SAGE.”
Not really challenged on anything except by Graham Stringer about care home deaths and lack of risk assessments for sending infected people to them which valance tried valiantly to sloppy shoulder by saying “We do not recommend policy options”.
Graham Stringer – We were told right at the start of the epidemic that, if the bug got into care homes, we were likely to have 30% to 40% deaths in care homes, based on evidence from Washington state in America. Did you do a risk analysis? Most of the reasons given for not providing better protection have been about testing in asymptomatic people, but was there not a risk analysis done at the start of the process?
Sir Patrick Vallance: That is really a matter for DHSC and is not a scientific question.
Q1074 Graham Stringer: Why?
Sir Patrick Vallance: We flagged up care homes. They have accountability for that sector. SAGE is not the organisation that manages these things. We can give science advice. The science advice we gave—
Q1075 Graham Stringer: I am not asking a management question, Sir Patrick; I am asking a question about understanding what the risk might be. That is a data question and a question about understanding what potential damage might be done.
Sir Patrick Vallance: I misunderstood. I thought you meant a risk assessment of care homes, literally going in to do a risk assessment, which is—
Q1076 Graham Stringer: No, not individually. Professor Ferguson told us right at the start of the process that care homes were not part of his models; they did not go down to that level of granularity. What I am asking you, given that it was known among advisers that this would be catastrophic— we have had 25,000 deaths—is why a general risk analysis was not done so that policy options could be put forward to say what would be the best way of ameliorating the risk.
Sir Patrick Vallance: On the first point about models, the reason they are not in the models is that they did not have the data. The data from care homes were not available to put into models. It comes back to my general point about data. You cannot model something if you do not have the data.
As to whether risk was identified, risk was identified and there are papers showing the sorts of risks.”
What he does say on facemasks though:
“I am not sure that the science has changed dramatically. There is accumulating evidence. It is still not overwhelming evidence.”
“Q1031 Mark Logan: How long would you suggest wearing that for? Do you wash it, or is it just single usage?
Sir Patrick Vallance: I think you should wear them for short periods. I do not think it is something you can wear all day in indoor environments. There is some evidence for that. ”
“There is a problem, and it is an important one. Clearly, it is not practical to ask small children to wear face masks, and it is not sensible to do so. The evidence on the role of children, both as to their susceptibility and potentially their lower role in transmission, suggests that that would not be a sensible route to go down.”
“Q1039Chair: I think you said that prolonged use indoors was not recommended.
Sir Patrick Vallance: Prolonged use indoors for routine workers is very difficult and comes with all sorts of problems.”
On immunity:
“Antibody responses may not be long lasting. That does not mean that some form of immunity is not long lasting. We have other parts of the immune system.”
The exchange with graham Stringer on sending infected people back to care homes is interesting, at least eh challenged a bit.
Thanks for that pile of shite.
The term ‘Time Servers’ comes to mind. Duck out of responsibility, then you don’t have to carry the can for your advice, and never have to be in the position of saying ‘That’s Crap!’ to government.
‘Weren’t me, guv. I just follows me orders’
Now where did we hear that before?
Pile of shite sums it all up.
Vague answers, even on things he should be well briefed on.
Masks: “There is accumulating evidence.” As someone pointed out earlier, this sounds like a bloke down the pub.
“Antibody responses may not be long lasting. That does not mean that some form of immunity is not long lasting. We have other parts of the immune system.” MAY not be. Other parts. OK, even I know this stuff. What the hell are we paying him for? What is the latest thinking, here and globally? We’ve spent hundreds of billions on ruining the economy, surely if this thing is so deadly you’d have at your fingertips data from studies on prevalence, immunity, mutations, how it spreads. Useless man.
Also interesting to note wearing masks all day is not recommended. So what about the shop workers, whose employers are forcing them to wear masks because of your stupid ideas?
Also if kids don’t need to wear masks because they are not at risk AND have a “potentially” lower role in transmission, why the hell were the schools closed? You can’t have it both ways.
Tosser.
If I were a parent with school age kids, this would worry me:
Q1057….. Vallance: What we have recommended, and is under way in schools, is a surveillance study to try to understand the incidence and prevalence in school…
Surely they can’t “survey” asymptomatic people? That suggests they’re going to test children. If the test involves painfully inserting a swab way back into the nasal passage, without parents consent, it will be legally assault – and I’d suggest morally an assault even with permission.
I think sticking a swab up against that very thin porous membrane and mashing it about, which is just below your brain and near some very important nerves ESPECIALLY in a child could be very very very dangerous. Especially if done by anybody who isn’t trained to almost surgical skill levels and certainly not by some idiot teacher in full PPE gear.
I think this might actually kill children.
It is very worrying if they plan to test children without consent – however I have a horrible suspicion that they have inserted a clause into the coronavirus act which allows for forced testing and treatment, with no get-outs…
A reminder that Swedish schools did not close and only *one* child under 9 has died here.. (and because they won’t release personal details, it could even have been a child below school age. There was also uncertainty as to whether it actually was Covid that was the cause of death..)
Personally Vallance is culpable because of no stage does he say the thing that you are supposed to say with science which is “This advice is based on hypothetical arguments and assumption including models. We only have cursory experimental evidence. It is not fit for public use and ethically it cannot be used as such”
But that that would make SAGE moot.
Thanks for ploughing through and pulling out these juicy bits.
The data from care homes were not available to put into models. It comes back to my general point about data. You cannot model something if you do not have the data.
So, the BIG question is, why the heck do they place so much emphasis on models that they know are based on incomplete data? They must surely realise what the’re doing?!
The bit about masks is interesting. I wished they’d pressed him on what “all sorts of problems” means.
Did a mask free Scottish shop this morning, visiting a place I suspected would be people friendly and, as I soon discovered, very anti mask. I think that part of the way ahead is to work out which shops will be hassle free and welcoming to non mask wearers and then support them as much as possible . It would be great to list them here but this might invite trouble for them.
I am a bit more hopeful today that mask wearing will gradually fall away as it is obvious that the majority of people are not comfortable wearing them. It is equally obvious when talking to people that very many are wearing masks with the greatest of reluctance and the legal requirement for children as young as five to wear them clearly horrifies a lot of parents. Social distancing is already pretty much a dead duck so here’s hoping masks go the same way
Yes, agree distancing is gradually fading, at least from normal people.
A few more masks than last week out and about shopping this morning, but very few. Mainly the old. I’m in a county town, probably fewer virtue-signalling younger people here than in a city.
Quite a lot of masks in our Tesco this morning, can never work out whether they are trying to show off or just doing it because they think they have to. Couple in front of me at checkout seemed to be having problems getting the cashier to understand when there was some issue with a voucher they had – I couldn’t hear them either… Then pleasant chat with the woman at the till, maskless, where we had a short chat about the uselessness of them. She suggested they had brought forward the date to this Wednesday, not sure where she had heard that and hope she is wrong.
It’s ok for now. But you must (got that from Boris) remember that the virus turns airborne and deadly next Friday. Only masks will save you after midnight on Thursday.
From my impressions over the past few weeks in a city in the Midlands (not Leicester!) mask wearing is fairly constant at around 1 in 20, inside or outside shops. At least 10% of the wearers have it down on their chin; probably they’ve come into the city centre by bus and lowered it the moment they got off. So there’s certainly no great enthusiasm for wearing them; next weekend should show whether this turns into acquiescence or resistance.
I suspect supermarkets and shops will catch on quickly and have outside stalls – tents that are not enclosed. So you have a market type scenario.
Not a chance they don’t give a fuck they know we have to buy food
Some supermarket self service tills are now so enclosed and blind to outside eyes that they are like voting booths. The CCTV camera can’t see them fully now, in the supermarket I visited today- I was looking at the monitor while waiting to get served at a manned till. Factor in masks, and it’s like a shoplifters paradise. No doubt the price of goods will increase to reflect increased losses due to theft.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/17/coronavirus-deaths-stubbornly-low-us-new-cases-soar/
This article (linked in today’s update) is quite interesting, more positive news from a perspective I haven’t heard before. It seems like with the right treatment – including basic things like Vitamin C and zinc, as well as dexamethasone etc.- genuinely serious Covid cases have a much better rate of survival, hence death rates in the US haven’t been rising at anything like the rate hospital cases have (obviously the latter haven’t been, proportionally, rising anything like the media want to you think – especially in relation to the number of positive tests – but I think everyone here already knows that!)
I somehow doubt it will make much difference to the public’s perception of the virus’s lethality, though!
Some good comments in the comments section.
Can’t read the article as its behind the paywall but interesting to note the word “stubbornly low” in the URL. As if people wanted it to be higher? Are we suddenly on a planet of people who prefer bad news to good? I would have said “reassuringly low” or “thankfully low” or “predictably low”.
Oddly the headline in the article text doesn’t include “stubbornly”.
It didn’t occur to me, but thinking about it the choice of word is kind of amusing. It’s as if people want the death rate to rise faster, but it just isn’t playing along!
I wondered if the person who wrote it was a cynic and maybe it got subedited out.
I think people do prefer bad news stories – the media certainly do. ‘If it bleeds, it leads’, as they say. If good news stories had any traction with the public they’d be telling us that it’s all over, and was no worse than a seasonal ‘flu. Instead, everyone is gagging (literally, ha ha) for the long-awaited ‘second wave’!
Case, wave, emergency, apocalypse all mean the same thing these days.
Just spotted this in the Grad:
A message on the government’s website on Saturday said: “Currently the daily deaths measure counts all people who have tested positive for coronavirus and since died, with no cut-off between time of testing and date of death.
“There have been claims that the lack of cut-off may distort the current daily deaths number. We are therefore pausing the publication of the daily figure while this is resolved.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/18/daily-updates-on-english-covid-19-deaths-paused-amid-accuracy-concerns
The UK has the highest official coronavirus death toll in Europe, at more 45,000. But the government has said international comparisons are misleading because countries record coronavirus deaths differently.
You don’t say!
I used to think, at the “height” of this, that the daily death toll reporting ought to stop, in order to remove the mistaken impression that we were dealing with something catastrophic.
Now that the publication has been suspended, it occurs to me that the real reason for this is nothing to do with the “distortion” of the figures and is really because if they keep reporting zero or close to zero deaths, people will start to think it’s all over. If instead they report “cases”, which can be much more easily fabricated/manipulated, they can keep it going forever.
Or have I been out in the sun too long?
Spot on
Or they will come out with a severely reduced total death count, claim it’s all been an over-reaction, throw PHE under the bus and at the same time give the bedwetters a reason to venture out and save the economy.
No, not out in the sun too long. You’re probably right.
No there’s definitely a very stinky rat in there somewhere.
From the article (my emphasis):
Dr Susan Hopkins [salary – -anyone?] , Public Health England’s incident director, said on Friday: “Although it may seem straightforward, there is no WHO-agreed method of counting deaths from Covid-19. In England, we count all those that have died who had a positive Covid-19 test at any point, to ensure our data is as complete as possible.
A totally outrageous and reprehensible comment. It translates to “… to ensure our data is as misleading as possible”.
Just a thought, when the virus turns instantly deadly, but only in shops in England next Friday, is that just after midnight on Thursday, or will it be from 6 am, like the pubs opening?
I think we need clear guidance.
Get that question out there. People might like to ask themselves.
Where will it be between midnight and 6am – we need to know!
It’s abundantly clear that people wearing masks think they will protect them from ‘breathing in’ the virus (e.g. walking down an empty street wearing it) . They think it’s a gas mask! They have absolute shit for brains, and yet they are going to lecture us sensible folk… Yeesh.
Yeah and then because no-one is going to catch anything (at least not until they release a second strain, the so-called second wave) they’re all going to claim that masks work. Pro hoc ergo propter hoc
The virus is clearly wafting about in the air, just waiting to pounce upon the unmasked….
And is the virus using BST, GMT or CET?
OMG we could die and not know for eight hours!!!
It would appear resistance took place in Hackney last night.
The police press release is highly amusing. “The crowd was dispersed by 4am” which could give the impression that the crowd was dispersed by the police
I suppose “We stood on the sidelines shitting ourselves and did nothing. People went home when they felt like it, they had all gone by 4am” Doesn’t have quite the same ring
‘
Finsbury Park.
The article suggests that if the government allowed the kids to do their thing legally, these ginormous events wouldn’t happen. Problem solved then!
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/18/riot-police-clash-with-ravers-at-illegal-event-in-north-london
The police turning up must make things turn ugly. The police know that but have no option. No-one wins – especially the residents.
Friday 24th.
The government: wear a mask and follow our agenda
The people: get stuffed!
Let this be Mr Bumble’s poll tax moment.
That moment will be sometime between then and when he cancels Christmas.
Will he last till Christmas?
You’d think not, but as you have seen, TT, any horror is possible with these [word you don’t say to ladies]….
Is anyone stupid enough to volunteer to replace him?
It would be positive if he didn’t, but I really can’t see where the threat is coming from. There’s no impending election. His party have acquiesced in this nonsense.
Even worse, so has Parliament. The only viable alternative wanted a harder lockdown, earlier. Wish it was different, I really do.
Brilliant!
Only, repeat only Alan Rickman is allowed to cancel Christmas.
Been out all day at Donington Park today to watch some real F1 cars, not these V6 hybrid things they use these day!
Great to see that not one spectator, old or young was wearing a mask, and no one seemed to be fussed about social distancing. The only people with face masks were employees of the track and catering staff.
And that is why mass events must not be allowed. As soon as people see themselves not playing the game the established scum lose.
Good news.
“Been out all day at Donington Park today to watch some real F1 cars, not these V6 hybrid things they use these day!”
The Antiques Roadshow?
Do you ever get any requests from F1 fans to trace back the genealogy of the different teams.
Wikipedia on a page updated 3 hours ago states:
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Taxonomically, SARS-CoV-2 is a strain of severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV).[2] It is believed to have zoonotic origins and has close genetic similarity to bat coronaviruses, suggesting it emerged from a bat-borne virus.[18][19][20][9] There is no evidence yet to link an intermediate animal reservoir, such as a pangolin, to its introduction to humans.[21][22] The virus shows little genetic diversity, indicating that the spillover event introducing SARS-CoV-2 to humans is likely to have occurred in late 2019.[23] On 3 July 2020, scientists reported finding that a major genetic risk factor for human infection with SARS-CoV-2 was inherited from archaic Neanderthals 60,000 years ago.
Beautifully vague notice – “BELIEVED to have zoonotic origins” – then straight away – “there is no evidence about a pandolin middle guy”. Wikipedia gives no evidence it comes from bats, it ‘believes’ it does. Disgusting, but this is wikipedia so nothing less expected.
The page does not say anything about Sars cov 2 being found in Barecelona over a year ago.
https://www.catalannews.com/society-science/item/sars-cov-2-detected-in-barcelona-water-study-from-march-2019
And as many other references as you care to search for.
Wikipedia is part of the censorship of human knowledge and deserves a place in the great reckoning.
I know it is a false story but we were left thinking scientists are breaking their souls to become the name that proves the bat cave of doom. What is the latest official development in the bat soup story?
All of your hand gelling customers are humanitarian saints. If you ask them to do so out side and give your reason, you give them chance to further signal virtuously to their great god boris. I would suggest your shop has a new USP, on street hand gelling ritual, awesome.
Your shop, your rules. Think Biker!
One wonderful shop here has the worlds smallest bottle of hand sanitizer there on the counter. Think nail vanish sized. It is a fine statement.
Better to provide one that doesn’t irritate you! They’ll use what’s in front of them.
They’d never notice the difference – or you could decant it into the official bottle.
Chuck them out. Thankfully, it sounds like you’re getting good custom – it’s your shop, your property. If you ask someone politely to do something and they vindictively don’t the opposite, they don’t get served and you’re well within your rights.
Trouble is that vindictive people turn into snitches. This is why shop owners are so on edge.
While doing takeaway only, the tiny cafe lady was reported for not having a red chopping board in her little kitchen. Goodness knows how anyone could see that. She doesn’t even prep raw meat in there anyway! Fortunately she’s on good terms with the EHO.
When I went for the x-ray a couple of weeks back, the hospital handgel was a completely odourless foam in a big pump bottle. It would be better if you could get hold of some of that.
Any medics here who can help source the stuff?
I make my own, from alcohol and glycerol. Nothing else in it. Doesn’t smell, no nasties, and much cheaper. Don’t use it much, but I like to have my own to avoid confrontation with the sanitiser brigade. Especially after using some at the opticians a couple of weeks ago – it stank to high heaven and the smell lingered even after a shower!
Singapore got their Nosocomial infection rate in hospitals down to statistical zero by being rabid about proper handwashing.
Apparently alcohol gels only work if skin is wetted by them for 20 seconds, so 99% of public using for 3 seconds is kabuki
What’s in it ?
Got bored watching the rain so put the following FOI request into the DHSC:
“You are using a PCR type test to determine if a person is “positive” for covid-19 or coronavirus. You then assume a “positive” test means the person is suffering from the said virus.
A “positive” test only means that pieces of viral material has been found in the sample.
This is not how the PCR test is supposed to be used used and as per in inventor’s many quotes it cannot be used in this scenario nor for this urge during a pandemic.
One quote ” quantitive PCR is an oxymoron”.
Please supply under a FOI the following information:
– do the tests you are using detect only “covid-19” as stated in the Coronavirus legislation:
“coronavirus” means severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2);
or does it show positive to all the coronavirus family of viruses?
– supply the justification that a “positive” test means the person is suffering from the virus as is a danger to the public and must be isolated
– the official policy/guidance from DHSC to the various bodies who are following the above policy”
I like this, very much.
Excellent.
Of course, you won’t get a coherent answer, because all this lies without the bounds of rational answers – in the Land of Fantasy.
We know that the Covid narrative is a mythical construction, even if there is a single, identifiable and distinctive virus knocking around this year.
But the problem is the one of fooling enough of the People enough of the time.
The good news is that there seems to be a general shrugging of shoulders and quiet back-turning on the tatty jackboot brigade. The issue is whether this can be turned into a more positive two-fingered salute at the arseholes who devised this fairy story.
Not sure I like that last sentence. At least wash your hands afterwards
Very good.
The rule of law no longer applies to such places as Brixton, Tottenham, Hackney etc
The police and politicians will lie and tell you that it does but it doesn’t
The police will not enter these areas unless they go in mob handed, even then they get their arse kicked and thrown out
No face nappys etc. for them
It is only the passive, compliant people who have these impositions imposed on them
Why? because they are compliant and the Stasi find them easy to pick off one by one
Go figure
Thanks for the recommendation and from July 24th I will be doing my shopping in Brixton Market
Bullies are all the same!
“The police will not enter these areas unless they go in mob handed, even then they get their arse kicked and thrown out” I imagine that’s the intention, conscious or not.
Anyone on here planning to brazenly refuse to wear a mask in shops? I have ordered a lanyard but it feels like a copout. I’d really prefer to go in all guns blazing – which may not be necessary if the police and the shop staff aren’t going to enforce it anyway.
Direct flights started from the U.K. to Greece on Wednesday. Greece have tested over 2800 British passengers on arrival at their Greek islands airports. Not one British passenger on any direct flight has tested positive for Covid. Which considering Greeks had been led to believe by our media that letting in British people was going to be a death sentence, is rather welcome to say the least!
Sounds like the UK should be using the Greek tests!
Their testing is not random. Passengers have to fill in a Passenger Locator Form before flying, and the information they give on that form is used to decide whether or not they are high risk and should be tested on arrival. So basically they are testing what they consider to be the high risk tourists. Yet still zero cases so far.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1284380186771947521
Anyone seen this?!
The man is an epic tosser. There are some brilliant replies.
I think Khan will be up against the wall even before Hancock when I lead the revolution
I can’t decide which one I hate the most.
Still nothing about knife crime eh? Why is he advocating something which will make fighting and solving crime even harder?
Toe-curling video. Some cracking comments though!
Grrr! And he’s not even wearing a mask himself in some of it!
My day at the coast has been a pleasant one. Cafe’s open and buzzing, bars open and buzzing and not a mask in sight. No social distancing or silly looks if people were near. I hope the mask brigade keep their unhygenic masks in the shops, where I wont go and will continue click and collect.
That sparks an idea.
Whiy not look at masks and say something like ‘Yuk! Do you know how many infectious germs that thing traps around your mouth?” (Yes – I know the term ‘germs’ isn’t scientific, but it has emotional pull).
Did you give her the death stare?
That’s it, they’re out.
The nerve!!! I hate people who do that.
Good for you. It’s time they started actually thinking about what they’re strapping on their faces!
Don’t be adfraid. And a look is not enough. They are effectively putting used toilet paper on the table. Explain that to them as you boot their arse right out.
Maybe you should have a ‘hazardous waste – for masks’ bin in your cafe, labelled as such!!
Hazardous Medical Waste for Incineration Only, need to be written on the bin.
Thanks for the heads up kh1485! Will still keep an eye as anyone who forces me to do so will feel the sharp end of my tongue.
Apologies if someone has already posted this – I haven’t scrolled through all the comments, I’m afraid.
It’s an interview by the always excellent Freddie Sayers with two scientists from the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, Prof Carl Heneghan & Tom Jefferson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3plSbCbkSA
Incredibly, Prof Heneghan says there have been NO randomised clinical trials to prove the efficacy (or danger!) of masks one way or the other! It’s an untrialled intervention! Which means that all the people wearing masks would presumably just obey the government or their friends on Facebook if they were told to take an untested drug, or vaccine!
They will indeed, if/when the vaccine comes along…
Heneghan’s CEBM Group did a review a while back – and, yes, it’s true that there is no relevant RCT evidence.
Meanwhile, Lock-Up is causing actual deaths (not to say illness), and the Stasi restrictions are depriving all of us of proper life.
“SAVE LIVES. IGNORE THE GOVERNMENT”
Put it on your mask – if you choose to wear one.
Very long but informative post…the incredibly detailed plans to fundamentally re-engineer society (and human beings) seem to have been prepared well in advance and put on the website of the ‘prestigious’ WEF for the world to see…you can lead a horse to water but…
https://www.gracevanberkum.com/post/we-are-being-played-please-read
To go directly to the WEF website, this is the link:
https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G0X000006O6EHUA0?tab=publications
Exactly, it can be seen on WHO’s website as well!
The shopkeeper who doesn’t wear a mask becomes a customer whereby he has to wear a mask when he buys a sandwich at another shop. He takes his sandwich back to his shop and takes off his mask to eat it.
I’m beginning to feel sorry for poor old Coroni—-he mustn’t know whether he’s coming or going!
A week or so in here into the shop only while masking rule. There are some truly gruesome looking snotty, soggy masks going about.
and a lot of people wearing them with their nose exposed!
That’s it yes. And as chin hammocks too.
About the PHE death count errors. I believe that PHE only count deaths in the community. But could this issue not also apply to the counts coming from hospitals? So, if you tested positive back in March, and then died in hospital with something completely unrelated in July (rather than dying at home or in the community), will they do the same thing and search the database for a positive test? You would then be recorded as a covid death, but this would be a death in hospital, which would instead be reported (incorrectly) in the NHS figures?
Quite possibly. There is so much variation in the figures here and elsewhere that any comparison will be very approximate.
Our figures are undoubtedly exaggerated, but I always assumed that they only counted those positive at the time of death.
I read somewhere that Sweden was quite generous in its counting and other Scandinavian countries were less so, meaning that comparisons, which the lockdown supporters liked to make, were dubious.
I think you really need to look at overall mortality. Everything else is too easy to manipulate.
It’s an interesting question. I’ve said this before, but there are 3 parts to the death certificate: part 1, what killed you; part 2, other factors that contributed to your death; part 3, other illnesses known to be present. The numbers currently include anyone who has Covid mentioned in 1, 2 or 3 and as a notifiable disease, it must be included if know to be present.
The question would be – at what point would a hospital consider you to be free of it, if you’ve previously tested positive and then been admitted for something else later and died.
Don’t know the answer.
Surely they should automatically exclude any with covid mentioned in part 3, since if it’s not in parts 1 or 2 it’s not even considered to be something that contributed to your death, let alone the thing that killed you?
They should, but they don’t.
I would ban it,it’s your shop and they are making you and your staff feel ill,what is the regime always telling us ?, ‘think of others’,the zealots need to know it works both ways.
There is no telling what is in the cheap crap some of them are using,some of it is probably homemade.
I went through a faze of being super-allergic to everything to do with the soap and detergent isle in supermarkets. It used to instantly bring on the most horrible itching and extremely uncomfortable sort of hives all my body. Even if I only got just a bit near it or got a whiff of it. I also had very very bad skin, especially where my socks were round my ankles and shins.
Very very nasty. Any stress brought it on too!
Thankfully it has gone now and I think it was due to laundry detergent and the additives that were in it. It took almost a year to go away but it started to get better once I stopped using laundry detergent with any additives.
The chemicals in these products can be extremely harmful. I wouldn’t be surprised at a massive rise in dermatitis and other skins allergies due to the obsessive use of hand sanitezers.
I watched a woman out for a walk in the country side and she had a bottle of it in her hand…ready to go at a moments notice.
INSANE!
I can confortably say that the only time I have every used hand sanitizer was once at a festival after i had a plop in one of those plastic bogs and the sink was full of the worst horrors ever….
I won’t be using it any time soon. My hands are perfectly safe. Have been for 50 years.
I think thats the reason non bio is still sold. Human skin isnt able to withstand bio. Imo
only time i’ve used hand sanitizer is when in nepal last year! Nothing wrong with nepal a beautiful country but maybe hygiene isn’t what the western constitution is used to – but i was absolutely fine!
Haven’t used any hand santiser in this so called pandemic – I bought a bottle in supermarket a couple of months ago and still haven’t opened it. The only thing i do is wash my paws when i come home but do this anyway as most people are dirty buggers out there!
Interesting article from David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/stockman-clown-cars-are-fully-loaded-and-dr-faucis-leading-parade
I especially liked this: ‘It’s just a hair-brained experiment in social control that happened because the Donald was too weak, ill-informed, distracted, and innumerate to send Fauci and his camarilla of doctors and vaccine-peddlers packing when the mid-March guidelines were first issued by the CDC’
Rinse and repeat for Boris/Cummings et al!
Go Stockman!
He never pulls his punches. If only we had a few more like that!
A cracking read.
Yes, Trump fluffed his lines almost as badly as our PM.
This bit also caught my eye:
“Here’s the thing. The Virus Patrol has switched from the death count to the “case” count because the latter is not at the 3,000 per day predicted by the CDC in early May, and ballyhooed by the NYT and MSM as the leading edge of a horrid “second wave” coming down the pike.”
Happening here too. Evil.
Is that the Sturgeon tartan on her mug?
Its the cheap krankie asda shopper trolley tartan
Did any of you miss this last week? (I did.)
https://olivefarmercrete.blogspot.com/2020/07/bill-melinda-gates-giggle-smirk-over.html
They do look disproportionately pleased with themselves!
Following on from that, here’s an update from yesterday:
https://olivefarmercrete.blogspot.com/2020/07/tragedy-and-hope.html
A call to arms!
Demonic
I don’t want to believe it as it is all too scary, but it does all make sense, given the completely illogical behaviour of the government, and the fact that all countries are speaking the same language and things seem just too coordinated.. It explains why masks are coming in now, despite this pandemic being over, for example. Also that pledging event where all political leaders were giving massive sums of money, because that is also mentioned in the document…
What I would like to know is *who* from the UK signed off on all this? The documents say all 190-odd countries signed up to this in 2005… Blair? Wouldn’t surprise me…
Up until the Leicester lockdown I was unsure whether it was a conspiracy or cock up.but that and the masks coming in have made up my mind.The only thing up for debate is why?
See the post on Simon Dolan’s Twitter and the links Cheezilla posted.Also this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7I5LzLgNSI&feature=youtu.be
Yes, I watched a video about it, that I saw a link to on Simon Dolan’s Twitter – posted it here a day or so ago. Looks like Simon has only just got round to watching it himself though, since he posted this today, showing a quote from the WHO document on Global Preparedness: https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1284442932318175232?cxt=HHwWgICwsdWCodMjAAAA
Horrifying, but the little clip of Bill Gates saying people would take it seriously ‘next time’, and laughing (!), now makes sense…unfortunately
WOW, so bad. This shouldn’t be able to stand. They are encouraging trouble between people on a big scale. How stupid of them, this was put out by just another PR idiot.
Ah well, if the worst comes to the worst its a stupid fixed penalty notice, no arrest.
No worst than a parking ticket or a fine for driving in a bus lane.
Embarrassment by not wearing one, pah!, respect of friends and family, long gone now anyway, so sod them.
On the subject of masks…Just back from a few days at Mont St Michel. Masks on all the trains and in the stations. Reprimanded by a policeman at Montparnasse for not wearing one. Meekly put on the mask the Mairie had sent. In the first town there weren’t many masks in the street. The hotel receptionist wasn’t wearing one either. Refreshing. But on Mont St Michel it was mandatory. You could tell the ones who took the mask business seriously because their children were wearing masks too. Entire masked families wandering about the ramparts. Some people’s masks had slipped. Probably those ones didn’t take it too seriously, but felt it was a small price to pay to get back to some semblance of normality. I suppose I would have to put myself in that group. You go out with a mask on or you stay at home. Either way you’re beaten. In the second town a few miles down the road from the first one the atmosphere was different. Masks everywhere. Masks in the hotel. Masks in the restaurants. Masks in the museum. The medieval manuscripts from Mont St Michel weren’t on show. These have to be kept in air-conditioned rooms and the air-conditioning is off because it might transmit covid19. We sat down to watch a video about how to illuminate a manuscript. Employee walked past and told us to put our masks on. In a museum that attracts about ten visitors a day since there is hardly anything to see. Yet this is in the Manche department – 47 deaths as of July 17th. Masks on the train back to Paris. Out for a late night drink. The waiters did have masks, but round their necks, not on their faces. After a twelve-hour shift you would probably be prepared to take the risk. Masks on the train back south again. In the week we were gone masks have become mandatory at the supermarket Leclerc. You couldn’t get into the shop without one. There was a man selling masks for twenty centimes each at the door. Took my crumpled mask from the Mairie out of my pocket, shook it and put it on. Shudder to think what sort of germs are clinging to the Mairie’s mask after a week, but refuse on principle either to wash it or buy another. A paltry protest, but I’m not brave enough to take on the whole French state single-handed.
I used to love France. Been all over it. I can speak French quite well. Won’t be going there any time soon.
That’s some bad news Jane!
John Ward wrote this from France last weekend:
I saw parents with three kids under seven all wearing carefully sized and colour coordinated masks. I saw the staff (all masked) putting high-alcohol cleaner on the caisse after every customer.
…. The general impression one got from this tableau was that people think coffee and alcohol will keep C19 at bay, otherwise (in other shops) you need social distancing…..even though you’ve spent the morning milling around in a football crowd.
Worth a read:
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2020/07/12/coronavirus-a-classic-case-of-confusing-cure-with-diagnosis/
Thanks for feedback. Glad we decided not to to France on holiday
The police will be very busy breaking up scuffles. I hope they’ll enjoy all the paperwork their shit-stirring creates.
That’s sinister because that can be construed as incitement to hate or even harassment.
I think you should send it to Simon Dolan.
Hardly anyone’s going to have the bottle to do that fortunately. We aren’t great at making a fuss and I think people might be scared of the consequences. If anyone did this to me I’d be right down their throat.
Excellent!
Makes me think if the police have a death wish – they’ve not exactly covered themselves in glory over antisoscial distancing then there’s the BLM protests. This will be another nail in their coffin.
yay!
That is evidence of collusion running from SAGE SPI-B to the police. An important document in the changing of our society.
Police putting coercive control into practice for political/un proven public health reasons. The plod want to be respected, failed.
Print the following and show when admonished/questioned:
Stop discriminating, as I am exempt from wearing a mask.
Your mask won’t protect you, rather improve your immunity
Shouldn’t that be “impair your immunity” ?
Has the actual LAW been published yet? So we know what the exemptions are?
Will the police be examining your shopping trolley if you aren’t wearing a mask? Or perhaps telling you you aren’t allowed in you own garden?
No, surely they will be busy fighting real crime…
Well, if we don’t challenge so-called ‘Coffee shop owners’, we could end up with ‘Coffee shops’ all over the country. Before you know it there would be a service industry or – gasp – a hospitality sector. Thankfully, we don’t do that anymore in this country. Going for a lie down now, with my light weight muslin mask on.
London demo 1pm Speakers Corner tomorrow!
Itinerary:
https://www.keepbritainfree.com/post/keep-britain-free-demo
I wonder if the BBC will be reporting it?
They’ve never reported anything remotely critical of the narrative that this is a planet-altering pandemic – nothing from Heneghan and Gupta, nothing about Dolan’s legal case, nothing about Sweden.
Evil.
Ironically the BBC did mention Heneghan yesterday and linked to his latest work “Why nobody can ever recover from COVID 19”.
That plays into the hands of the government- excuse to stop reporting deaths
Like PPE and care homes, a distraction from the Big Lie
I emailed them to alert them to Gupta’s herd immunity paper
No answer
Heneghan was on the beeb several weeks ago – maybe on Andrew Marr. I was impressed by him.
He’s great. So no-nonsense.
Wish I could be there and meet people of the same mind. I hope this movement thrives and grows.
What is wrong with the Daily Telegraph? I would have expected a Tory paper to be backing a Tory PM but no, yet again they print scare stories. I am struggling to keep up now. So we didn’t see any spikes post these events but that isn’t good enough for some. What on earth is going on and why do the DT keep printing this stuff?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/analysis-blm-protests-crowded-beaches-eased-lockdown-have-not/
I think the word Tory has lost its meaning, if it ever had any. None of them are conservatives.
So what paper do ‘Conservatives’ now read?
We don’t.
Well I’m a small-c conservative. The Economist, though it infuriates me. Nothing else. News from BBC and Reuters, though both those infuriate me too. Would love to find a more neutral source.
Headlines from the Grad cos it’s free.
Actual news from here, Hector Drummond, UK Column, OffGuardian etc.
Spikes are everywhere, they are in fashion. Scotland had a hearty spike yesterday, I forget, 13-19? new cases via the sars 2 test. Not covidding or anything but glad at least we are putting a spike together. 5.5 million people so rustling up a spike of 19 people is the very least we can do. Stops us feeling embarrased.
110 odd in intesive care
No deaths
From memory of scot gov web page.
Dreadful article!
Can anyone explain the practice of breathing from balloons, as depicted in the photo? (sorry can’t post it.)
Its a way of getting high if you have the right gas from say a bicycle repair kit. Edinburgh parks are littered with the canisters.
Remember those graphs they used to use in the daily covid briefings, the ones where they proudly showed us how much they were wrecking economy by restricting use of transport?
After we’ve had a week or two of masks, I wonder if we will see similar graphs showing how much more people are shopping in person, now they feel/are safe…?
From Conservative Woman:
“The virus has dissipated but the government and media are still keen to continue their fearmongering, making mask wearing in shops (apart from sandwich shops) mandatory from July 24, a week today. If that wasn’t enough the government is once again keen for the public to help police by informing the authorities about rule breakers, as so succinctly put by Matt Hancock in Parliament recently:
At one minute into this clip you see Hancock informing the House that ‘the enforcement will be largely undertaken by the great British public.’ It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Britian’s homegrown ‘gauleiter’ meant. He would like the informer culture, rallied when the lockdown came into place, to step up once again to ensure that anyone not adhering to this ridiculous policy be shamed or reported. For a man who recently talked about the ‘community spirit’ of the British people in light of all these restrictions, he has little idea of what community means or what a new age of the informer will mean to community cohesion.”
This social shaming propaganda has come directly from Matt Hancock.
It has come to Hancock from the behavioural scientists of the SAGE comittee – SPI-B. In order for more compliance social shaming and increased personal threat levels should be caused. This was advice given to the gov in a written document.
I keep mentioning this, I appreciate most already know. Perhaps others reading don’t.
Hancock is a psychopath. Most in government are.
P.S.:
“they may be jeopordising values that are important to them e.g. public embarrassment by their behaviour, loss of respect by friends or family ”
And absolutely nothing about the efficacy of a mask against contracting CV19, just personal shaming if you don’t wear one. That’s not exactly a good argument in favour of masks, is it? That just confirms to me that the police think it’s all bllx too.
..and no mention of the fact that it is not a criminal offence to not wear a mask..
ENGLISH LAKES HOTELS
Just received an E-mail tonight from English Lakes hotels, owners of the Midland Hotel Morecambe. The steps they are taking to ‘covid proof’ their hotels are breathtaking.
Here’s a copy of my reply sent by E-mail. I do think more of us should be proactive when we get this Sh*te
Thank you for your E-mails concerning your plans to make your hotel Covid Safe. As a past customer who has enjoyed numerous stays at the Midland in the past I just want to say the following.
I know that your efforts are in line with government guidelines but the prospect of staying at your hotel with social distancing, face masks, hand sanitising and the rest fills me with horror.
I’m afraid, under these conditions, I wouldn’t stay at your hotel if you paid me never mind expecting me to pay you.
If you come to your senses and, along with other big businesss, tell the government enough is enough they may realise that every effort they make to subjugate and control the population and indeed take away our freedoms is destined to make this country an even bigger basket case than it already is.
My wife and I love staying at the Midland. It has been a real treat for us. We will not however be returning until and unless all the ridiculous Covid precautions are consigned to the dust bin of history where they truly belong.
Please do not send me any further E-mails until you can send me one that says everything is back to normal and then we will book with yourselves like a shot.
Please show this message to your head office. Others may not tell you how they feel but believe me there are millions of us in the UK who think that things have gone far enough.
Regards
Harry Hopkins
They seem to be under the delusion that the more of this rubbish they do, the more people will feel safe and use the facilities, the opposite is true
Agree. And its not just the hotels but even shops and museums are labouring under the same delusion as I’ve learned from writing letters to them
Its driving people away
It’s a really effective way to protest telling a business you are a customer witholding your custom. Can be done politely in person at any shop, let them know why and just walk away
Perhaps I should have mentioned in my post the sentence that really makes you feel welcome. It comes at the end of reams of garbage concerning social distancing:
‘Guests breaching our policies will be reminded of their responsibilities and any individuals persistently disregarding social distancing may be required to leave the property with immediate effect.’
Nice!
Well written and spot on. Please let us know when they reply.
Had an ‘automatic response’ telling me they will get back to me as soon as possible—-we’ll see.
Covid Safe YUK! CCP Virus it is and these diktats would make the experience more like a stay in China.
Although I have never stayed at the Midland Hotel, it does look lovely since it was renovated.
Good on you as a past customer telling them not to expect you back under current conditions.
Social Experiment
Untermensch
Kritik der reinen Vernunft
(Am I playing the game right?)
Matt, you’ll appreciate this. O Level German paper in the year above me. Translate ‘it is raining heavily’. Girl from my school couldn’t remember es regnet stark, and wrote ‘es ist peltin doon’!
Brilliant!
Apologies, was trying to say is this a social experiment and all the services are in on it, but it wouldn’t accept the comment
That’ll teach you for the comment on my stottie piece earlier!
Oh dear…..
https://twitter.com/EssexPoliceUK/status/1284471002202877952
I won’t be surprised if this will be an even bigger problem come 24 July.
I saw that in some places teenagers were using latex masks and wigs to disguise themselves as older adults and thus be able to buy alcohol!
I came across something similar on Twitter. If anything will make mandatory muzzle wearing backfire these incidents will be it.
Indeed. Someone should send this to Sadiq Khan
For years places have had “signs no helmets or face covering to be worn in this building”.
Course chancers are going have a go, even more so once the economy melts down and people get desperate.
Exactly. Its not only robbery that will be an issue, what about assault? It would be hard to identify the attacker.
There is a real possibly, that even the police might be taking the piss out of the guidelines now.
That also crossed my mind as several police chiefs have gone on record that they will not be enforcing this.
I got back from the N French Alps on Thursday, having been there for 10 days. To be honest, it wasn’t that bad on the mask front. Down the valley in Thonon only about 40% of shoppers were wearing muzzles in the supermarket. Up in the more touristy ski resort of Morzine, it was a lot higher approx 60%+. Further up the hill in the refuges, apart from the odd bottle on sanitiser, you wouldn’t have noticed any difference from normal.
I didn’t wear a mask at all. Everywhere I went, the shop assistants and alike appeared more friendly than usual and gave me the impression that they maybe quite liked the fact that I wasn’t wearing a mask. A friend who lives locally told me that the Gendarmes had told someone else she knows that they wouldn’t be enforcing mask wearing.
That said, I’m back out there in August with my better half. As I understand it, mask wearing will be mandatory in France also by then. Therefore, the atmosphere may be a little different but I still won’t be wearing one.
I’ve decided that I’m happy to take a fine if needs be. Wearing a mask just isn’t justified on so many levels. The more people rebel, the harder it will be to enforce and also hopefully give others confidence to also rebel. If anyone says that I should wear one to ‘protect others’, I will ask them if they are prepared to stop driving their car for exactly the same reason. Its all complete nonsense.
I’m trying to give my 86 year old mum the confidence to go to the supermarket without a mask. Whilst I suspect a middle age bloke like me will get challenged, I would hope that she wouldn’t and that seeing her not wearing one may nudge others to their senses. She really enjoyed being ‘allowed’ to go supermarket shopping again but hates the idea of wearing a mask. The majority of 70 and 80 year olds that we know do not want to be infantilised. They just want to get on with their lives and make the most of every opportunity that comes along.
sorry – meant to post under Jane’s comment below
Seems Toby often cites articles from the Mises Institute. Austrian economics has changed my life and taught me how crucial freedom and markets are.
You can find articles from Mises Institute and other free market think tanks on ZeroHedge.
Don’t get teary-eyed about ‘free’ markets.
They never are – and also have created :
Big pharma
Big finance
Big data
It ain’t that simple.
Strong argument all 3 you cite have been created where free markets have been severely restricted by a combination of “license raj” and govt licensed oligopoly.
Tim Worstall has posted extensively on this.
All three, to a greater or lesser extent, reflect the (over) dominance of Chicago School antitrust law and economics, with its blind spot for vertical and portfolio effects. Excellent read – Lina Khan’s Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox:
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox
Yes, as worstall has posted at length in a more pithy manner, it’s often an absence of free in the market.
Yes, the market becomes considerably less free when there is regulatory capture, lobbying and special interest pleading, all of which are rife in those three industries. The seeds of the Financial Crisis were sown in the repeal of Glass Steagall and the emergence of the full service giant banking groups (the ‘Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Bail’).
Big Media as well: Google, Facebook, Twitter,You Tube, CNN, ABC,MSNBC, CBS, New York Times, Washjngton Post, FT, Guardian…All supposedly in a free market but all working to actively suppress opinion outside a narrow range. In many ways the US media bar Fox is worse even than the BBC.
Today I asked the manager of our Sainsbury’s today what there policy is on masks. He said they will not stop people entering the shop as it is not for them to police it or ask intrusive questions about people’s reasons for not complying. I intimidated that I have a health condition and was concerned I would attract hostility from other shoppers and he told me to go to customer services and ask for a ‘mask exempt’ lanyard which is recognised by all supermarket staff and not just Sainsbury’s. I did that and i would suggest anyone who doesn’t wasn’t a mask, but isn’t as bold as Jonathan Castro of this parish, does the same.
Sorry about typos! Two birthdays in the family and now mish moshed! Cheers peeps!
What gibberish I write when sizzled! Toby needs to give us more time to edit!
That’s good news. Will try to check out what M&S policy is and let you all know tomorrow.
Good news indeed.
Been to Morrisons today, asked one customer services about masks and medical conditions, they said we will need a medical note from your doctor. Calmly I asked to see the store manager and he said whilst they had not had the full instructions from head office yet, he would be taking a common sense approach as they are doing with their staff. He said (as we all know) they cannot enforce mask wearing, and why should they after being open 7 days a week throughout this situation.
Sounds promising, as does Sainsburys.
Thanks
I’ll probably test it out on Sunday next as I’m staying with my folks next Fri and Sat.
Incredible. Vigilantism is being actively encouraged by the police over something that shouldn’t even be a crime. Somehow I doubt they would encourage us to take the law into our own hands in any other instance.
Oh feck em.
I must admit it have been worried about this for the last few days but having walked about my town centre today and been into Robert Dyas , waterston s, boots , Morrison’s, WH Smith’s and decathlon I have seen maybe 20 per cent mask usage and the people wearing the are pathetic sheep I would snap over my knee.
They can’t win this .
Not chance
The fact that you can in effect self exempt by saying it causes distress is enough to make it easy to get round.
My other half is always very dismissive of my contrary attitude but she is so pissed off by this that she is actually coming to the demo with me tomorrow.
Hopefully get a few beers in before and afters.
Other halves are always dismissive of contrary attitudes!
How many of you are going to the anti-mask protest tomorrow? I want to go but it’s f**king rail replacement bus to London. Urrrghh.
I would go but its 500 miles away.
400 miles here, but willing to get to a march in future if enough notice. Car sharing.
I’m gonna go. Feel I’ve gotta show my support. Will try and get some videos and pics.
What time and where?
I’m going. Assemble at Hyde Park (Speakers Corner) at 1pm, then on to Marble Arch. Link below
https://www.keepbritainfree.com/post/keep-britain-free-demo
A pithy rebuttal in an article from the US
“The coronavirus is a natural disaster,”
No, it isn’t.
The coronavirus is just another flu. The real disaster has been the work of human beings.
Resisting it must be, too.
Natural event. Unnatural disaster.
Reading posts below about police and Hancock urging the public to enforce mask wearing by shaming, harassing and reporting non conformists I am reminded of the Chinese social credit system and would suggest we are on a slippery slope to something similar.
At the height of lockdown we had numerous incidents of people being filmed or photographed doing something the camera person disapproved of and the footage then shared on community social media. In my village a very elderly man stepped off the end of his drive to collect a shovelful of horse poop to put on his roses. Apart from the happy snapper a good 50ft away he was in a deserted lane but this delightful person shamed him on social media for leaving home for a non essential reason! I think we can expect to see a return of this sort of behaviour come Friday.
However I don’t think people will take the muzzle shaming lying down. Mr Bart has predicted that many of these snitchers will find a fist being slammed against their face if they ever have the temerity to approach someone not wearing a muzzle.
If it was me, I would give them the Fascist salute and greet them with “Viva Il Duce” or “Viva Franco”
I’m quite concerned about the few people I’ve seen driving with a mask on.
AFAIK that is driving whilst impaired.
It only takes one person with low SpO2 to pass out at the wrong moment and you have potential multiple fatalities.
The police should treat driving with a mask on the same as driving while using a mobile.
Any person doing so is actively endangering others.
Agree. That’s a very important point. Husband says he has driven tractors while wearing a mask (he grew up on a farm) and says it restricts breathing and vision, and is dangerous because you end up fiddling with it all the time.
Yes, maybe a judicious campaign is called for to redress the balance.
public adverts:
Masks – they’re dangerous if operating machinery – don’t do it”
The sheep will get really confused then.
I did a cursory look into driving with masks AA and RAC .. no advice. I began to make a call to IAM roadsmart but failed the its covid so you will be on hold forever test.
Genuinely surprising these motoring organisations haven’t communicated about the danger.
If anyone has the time.
HSE may be a better bet on safe operation of amachinery, risk of hypoxia and allowable limits of oxygen for working etc.
If the driving instructor is working and wearing a mask, he should have a risk assessment that says what the oxygen levels inside mask are or an SpO2 meter permanently affixed to his finger whilst operating machinery etc etc
Rules for radicals -punish them by holding them to their own standards.
Driving lessons have resumed in my area and I’m appalled at the number of students and instructors I see wearing the muzzles during the sessions.
I don’t think they’ve twigged what would happen if heaven forbid one or both of them pass out due to hypoxia or hypercapnia.
I’m beginning to think this obsession with masks and making them mandatory now is part of a march to create that ‘mysterious ‘second wave.’ Masks prevent normal respiratory function which in turn will adversely affect the immune system. So, along with the stress of losing your job, increased poverty, and restrictions applied to associating with friends and family and the overall fear (all compromising immunity) if the second wave comes about (with a little help from their friends) that’ll be why. In short: wearing a mask damages the immune system. Someone put that on a badge.
I agree, years ago fresh air was advocated for all respiratory problems even on cold days. The 2nd wave will be from the people who have been denied treatment or had treatment discontinued for other ailments. Its a massive tragedy which should result in prosecutions for those who instructed doctors not attend patients in care homes, to cancel treatments etc.
Given people can self certify and anxiety is a jutificstion for exemption, we are likely to see a growing mass exemption movement. I know I experienced high levels of anxiety when trying to wear one.
In Hunstanton today. Lots of people out enjoying themselves, relaxed atmosphere, people not hedge jumping at all. Then I encountered the only mask zealot nutters today. They had also muzzled their toddler. Where are the NSPCC?
Same place as Banardos and Save the Children
Re Jon Sopels attempted virtue signalling on TDS.
Nightly on 10.00 news, we are treated to a 5 minute monologue from Mr Sopel on everything Trump is doing wrong, orange man bad, USA is being ruined by Trump etc.
It beggars belief that this is taxpayer funded and we put up with his nonsense.
Put it this way – if he was to try this in Moscow about Vlad, he’d be heading home within 24 hrs
They cant dismiss Trump, so they ridicule and denigrate, the lefties make me sick in that respect.
You’d think the conspiracy to stop Trump winning or holding the Presidency, led by the CIA and using a dossier prepared by a Brit, an ex M15 operative (Christopher Steele) might be of some little interest to Sopel and the rest of the UK media…think again. Virtually no coverage. Plenty of coverage of what was in the dossier but almost none about Steele, his motives, his background and whether he was acting with the knowledge of MI5 (or is it 6?). Sopel, Bryant and Zurcher aren’t real journalists reporting what is happening. They are Democrat propagandists, working to DNC talking points, just like CNN.
Seem to recollect Steele is MI6.
Earlier on, somebody mentioned Essex police’s shaming policy. Have a look at their Twatter and see how many ‘masked’ crims they are looking for…
https://twitter.com/essexpoliceuk?lang=en
Please don’t put that face on The lead photo unless it’s completely covered with a paper bag.
Mask Friday approaches, the day the Conservative and Unionist Party officially puts a gun to its head and pulls the trigger, the day war is declared by the British Government on the UK High Street and the day we move from recession to a deep 30s style depression. Insanity and anarchy let loose.
Wondering how many people enjoyed having an outdoors drink or meal at a Welsh pub or restaurant today? It’s pissed it down most of the day in north wales today. Whoever decided the latest rules regarding welsh pubs and restaurants clearly wants those businesses to fail, for local tourism to fail, and for the local population to sink into a deeper depression. Well done Drakeford.
11:11
A simple idea.
A species together fighting the forces of Evil.
A species taking control of its destiny.
And making OUR world good.
Please, share this today, everywhere.
We human hearted WILL WIN this war.
But it will take all of us.
Nothing else will do.
https://olivefarmercrete.blogspot.com/
Amazing, this is great as you want to learn more